tag:theconversation.com,2011:/africa/topics/australia-64/articlesAustralia – The Conversation2024-03-24T23:52:18Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2257922024-03-24T23:52:18Z2024-03-24T23:52:18ZWe have revealed a unique time capsule of Australia’s first coastal people from 50,000 years ago<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582751/original/file-20240319-18-jmngyk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=17%2C20%2C1649%2C1256&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">West coast of Barrow Island, overlooking the submerged northwestern shelf.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Kane Ditchfield</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Barrow Island, located 60 kilometres off the Pilbara in Western Australia, was once a hill overlooking an expansive coast. This was the northwestern shelf of the Australian continent, now permanently submerged by the ocean.</p>
<p>Our new research, <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277379124000489">published in Quaternary Science Reviews</a>, shows that Aboriginal people repeatedly lived on portions of this coastal plateau. We have worked closely with coastal Thalanyji Traditional Owners on this island work and also on their sites from the mainland.</p>
<p>This use of the plain likely began 50,000 years ago, and the place remained habitable until rising sea levels cut the island off from the mainland 6,500 years ago. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/people-once-lived-in-a-vast-region-in-north-western-australia-and-it-had-an-inland-sea-219505">People once lived in a vast region in north-western Australia – and it had an inland sea</a>
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<h2>A unique time capsule</h2>
<p>The northwestern shelf and the submerged coastlines of Australia are immensely significant for understanding how and where <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277379122003377">First Nations people</a> lived before and during the last ice age.</p>
<p>When the last ice age was at its coldest (24,000 to 19,000 years ago), sea levels worldwide were about 130 metres below current levels. As the ice melted, the sea rose rapidly, eventually flooding the connection between Barrow Island and the mainland.</p>
<p>Since Aboriginal people did not occupy the island after this time, the human archaeological record of Barrow Island is a time capsule, unique in Australia. Most other coastal occupation areas from this period are now beneath the sea, but these drowned landscapes were once vast and habitable.</p>
<p>The largest rock shelter on the island is <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277379117302640">Boodie Cave</a>, one of Western Australia’s oldest archaeological sites. Excavations here revealed evidence of Aboriginal occupation dating back at least 50,000 years.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/cave-dig-shows-the-earliest-australians-enjoyed-a-coastal-lifestyle-77326">Cave dig shows the earliest Australians enjoyed a coastal lifestyle</a>
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<p>As sea levels fluctuated through time, the distance from Boodie Cave to the seashore varied significantly. Aboriginal people brought shellfish back to Boodie Cave even when it was many kilometres from the coast.</p>
<p>As the sea rose, people’s diets changed. The quantity of shellfish, crabs, turtles and fish consumed in the cave increased through time.</p>
<p>Aboriginal people here mainly used local, silica-rich limestone for crafting their stone tools. While this material was readily accessible, it blunted easily. Instead, people used thick and hard shells from large Baler sea snails to make knives for butchering turtles and dugong.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581911/original/file-20240314-30-7m01mt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man wearing a high vis jacket stands in a red rocky cave with archaeology tools in the background." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581911/original/file-20240314-30-7m01mt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581911/original/file-20240314-30-7m01mt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581911/original/file-20240314-30-7m01mt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581911/original/file-20240314-30-7m01mt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581911/original/file-20240314-30-7m01mt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581911/original/file-20240314-30-7m01mt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581911/original/file-20240314-30-7m01mt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">One of the authors, Peter Veth, excavating a 7,000-year-old rich layer with shell knives, turtle, fish and wallaby remains.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Kane Ditchfield</span></span>
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<h2>43,000 years of exchange</h2>
<p>In contrast to the cave deposits, the open-air archaeological sites present a different picture. Three years of systematic field surveys recorded over 4,400 flaked and ground stone artefacts from nearly 50 locations.</p>
<p>Excluding one limestone source, most of these stone tools represent geological sources not found on the island. This means they were made out of rocks more typical of the west Pilbara and Ashburton regions.</p>
<p>The artefacts we’ve found on Barrow Island show that Aboriginal people transported and exchanged stone materials from inland or places now under the sea for over 43,000 years.</p>
<p>We don’t yet know why the artefacts in the cave are so different to the ones found in the open air.</p>
<p>The numerous open sites leave a record of how Aboriginal people adapted to sea-level changes. Both the surface and cave records suggest that Aboriginal people used more local limestone and shell tools as rising sea levels cut off access to the mainland or drowned sources.</p>
<p>Imported stone tools were precious and therefore conserved and heavily used for grinding seeds, working harder materials such as wood, and likely for cutting softer materials such as skins and plant fibre.</p>
<p>While early Aboriginal people continued to use coastal resources, they maintained social networks and exchanges with the mainland. The open sites from Barrow Island provide one line of evidence connecting contemporary Aboriginal people to the now-drowned coastal plains, coastlines and continental islands.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/583633/original/file-20240322-26-4nwr5g.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A dark cavern with a single light source illuminating a rectangular excavation." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/583633/original/file-20240322-26-4nwr5g.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/583633/original/file-20240322-26-4nwr5g.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583633/original/file-20240322-26-4nwr5g.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583633/original/file-20240322-26-4nwr5g.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583633/original/file-20240322-26-4nwr5g.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583633/original/file-20240322-26-4nwr5g.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583633/original/file-20240322-26-4nwr5g.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Researchers working at Boodie Cave.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Kane Ditchfield</span></span>
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<h2>An ancestral connection for Thalanyji peoples</h2>
<p>Despite the distance of Barrow Island from the mainland for most of the last 6,500 years, Thalanyji knowledge holders refer to the use of the island from both historic-era fishing activities and as forced labourers in the early pearling industry.</p>
<p>They know the Sea Country between the islands, and the songline connections linking the mainland to the islands. Traditional Owners involved in our project see the artefacts as evidence of their ancestral connection to the island, old coastlines and now drowned coastal plain.</p>
<p>The Barrow Island open-air sites are a significant time capsule, offering unique insights into coastal Aboriginal lifeways over tens of thousands of years.</p>
<p>These sites, combined with the cave records, provide scientists and Traditional Owners with invaluable opportunities to understand and preserve Australia’s rich and deep history.</p>
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<p><em>The authors would like to acknowledge the Buurabalayji Thalanyji Aboriginal Corporation, recognised communally according to their cultural preference, as co-authors of this study.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/225792/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Veth receives funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kane Ditchfield receives funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Kendrick was previously employed by the government of Western Australia, and assisted in implementation of the Barrow Island Archaeology Project throughout its field work period. He consults part time as a zoologist and ecologist to Biota Environmental Sciences.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>David W. Zeanah and Fiona Hook do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Barrow Island off the coast of Western Australia holds a unique record of First Nations people. For millennia, they lived on vast plains that are now drowned by the sea.Peter Veth, Laureate Professor in Archaeology, The University of Western AustraliaDavid W. Zeanah, Professor, California State University, SacramentoFiona Hook, Adjunct associate, The University of Western AustraliaKane Ditchfield, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, The University of Western AustraliaPeter Kendrick, Adjunct Research Fellow, School of Biological Sciences, The University of Western AustraliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2263192024-03-22T04:41:46Z2024-03-22T04:41:46ZGrey-headed flying-fox population is stable – 10 years of monitoring reveals this threatened species is doing well<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/583611/original/file-20240322-18-n9e3rx.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=41%2C20%2C4559%2C3428&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Adam McKeown, CSIRO</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Flying foxes, or fruit bats, are familiar to many Australians. So it may come as a surprise to learn two of the four mainland species, both grey-headed and spectacled flying foxes, are threatened with extinction.</p>
<p>But <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0298530">our decade-long survey</a> of one of these species – the grey-headed flying fox – brings some encouraging news. Our data show the population has been relatively stable since 2012, when surveys first began under the <a href="https://www.dcceew.gov.au/environment/biodiversity/threatened/species/flying-fox-monitoring">National Flying-fox Monitoring Program</a>.</p>
<p>Incredibly, the species emerged from the <a href="https://recovery.preventionweb.net/collections/recovery-collection-australia-black-summer-bushfires-2019-2020">Black Summer of 2019–20</a> relatively unscathed. Flying foxes also suffer in heatwaves and many die, but overall numbers have remained stable. </p>
<p>While this study is good news for the species, we must not become complacent. Heatwaves are expected to become more frequent and intense as the climate changes. Only further monitoring can determine its effects. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/flying-foxes-pollinate-forests-and-spread-seeds-heres-how-we-can-make-peace-with-our-noisy-neighbours-215811">Flying foxes pollinate forests and spread seeds. Here's how we can make peace with our noisy neighbours</a>
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<h2>Hanging out with flying foxes</h2>
<p>The <a href="http://www.environment.gov.au/cgi-bin/sprat/public/publicspecies.pl?taxon_id=186">grey-headed flying fox</a> (<em>Pteropus poliocephalus</em>) is common in most cities and towns across south-eastern Australia. More recently, colonies have become <a href="https://www.environment.sa.gov.au/goodliving/posts/2016/03/flying-foxes">established in South Australia</a>.</p>
<p>The species can be found anywhere from Maryborough, on Queensland’s Fraser Coast, to Adelaide, with some outlying populations as far north as Ingham in north Queensland. There’s also a breakaway group in Port Augusta, 300km north of Adelaide.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/583630/original/file-20240322-16-j46w0d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Coloured map of grey-headed flying fox counts across eastern Australia and across to South Australia" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/583630/original/file-20240322-16-j46w0d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/583630/original/file-20240322-16-j46w0d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=789&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583630/original/file-20240322-16-j46w0d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=789&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583630/original/file-20240322-16-j46w0d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=789&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583630/original/file-20240322-16-j46w0d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=991&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583630/original/file-20240322-16-j46w0d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=991&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583630/original/file-20240322-16-j46w0d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=991&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Map of grey-headed flying fox counts. Minor roosts had fewer than 100 in total over the ten-year period while major roosts had more than 100,000.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Eric Vanderduys</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
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<p>The “vulnerable” listing means the species is at risk of extinction. But it’s not as dire as if it were “endangered”. </p>
<p>The original <a href="https://www.dcceew.gov.au/environment/biodiversity/threatened/conservation-advices/pteropus-poliocephalus">vulnerable assessment</a>, endorsed in 2001, was based on a population decline of about 30% over ten years and the potential for ongoing land clearing in the grey-headed flying fox’s core range.</p>
<p>But this is the flying fox you’re most likely to see and hear in south-east Australia, from Sydney to Adelaide. </p>
<p>During the day, flying foxes like to hang out together. They rest and socialise in large roosts, sometimes numbering more than 100,000 animals. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/583352/original/file-20240321-28-joql1y.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A large group of grey-headed flying foxes roosting in a tree" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/583352/original/file-20240321-28-joql1y.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/583352/original/file-20240321-28-joql1y.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583352/original/file-20240321-28-joql1y.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583352/original/file-20240321-28-joql1y.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583352/original/file-20240321-28-joql1y.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583352/original/file-20240321-28-joql1y.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583352/original/file-20240321-28-joql1y.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">More than 150,000 grey-headed flying foxes roosted in Gympie, Queensland, after much of their habitat burned during the Black Summer of 2019-20.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Eric Vanderduys, CSIRO</span></span>
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<p>As the sun sets, they take to the sky, departing in large streams to forage during the night in the surrounding landscape. They can travel long distances to find food, sometimes venturing more than 40km from home, and flying more than 300km in a single night. </p>
<p>Their food of choice is nectar from a wide variety of eucalypt, bloodwood and melaleuca species. In return, they play an important pollination role, as if they were nocturnal bees with a one-metre wingspan. </p>
<p>They also feed extensively on native figs. In urban areas, they feast on the nectar and fruit of introduced species found in <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0259395">gardens and street trees</a>. </p>
<p>Individuals regularly change roosts. They move throughout the <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s12915-020-00829-w">species’ range</a>, following food resources. </p>
<p>That means the number of bats in roosts is constantly changing, depending on the availability of the surrounding resources, which makes accurate counting particularly challenging.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/583617/original/file-20240322-24-tqaufc.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A grey-headed flying-fox hanging from a tree, wrapped in its wings, with its eyes wide open" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/583617/original/file-20240322-24-tqaufc.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/583617/original/file-20240322-24-tqaufc.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583617/original/file-20240322-24-tqaufc.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583617/original/file-20240322-24-tqaufc.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583617/original/file-20240322-24-tqaufc.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1006&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583617/original/file-20240322-24-tqaufc.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1006&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583617/original/file-20240322-24-tqaufc.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1006&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Grey-headed flying foxes sleep and socialise during the day but are often well aware of approaching humans.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Adam McKeown, CSIRO</span></span>
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<h2>Monitoring a threatened species</h2>
<p>Australia’s national science agency, CSIRO, co-ordinated the National Flying-fox Monitoring Program in partnership with federal and state environmental agencies from 2012 to 2022. </p>
<p>The intention was to monitor the populations of the two nationally listed flying fox species on the mainland. It was specifically designed to understand their population trends. Here we focus on the grey-headed flying foxes. </p>
<p>The program involved quarterly visits by federal, state and local government staff and volunteers to as many flying fox roosts as possible. Over the entire program almost 12,000 counts were conducted at 912 potential roosts. Grey-headed flying foxes were found at 469 of those roosts.</p>
<p>This program would not have been possible without hundreds of hours of work around the clock by staff and volunteers, often in challenging conditions. Their work highlights the importance of long-term monitoring programs. </p>
<p>From 2012 to 2022 we counted an average of 580,000 grey-headed flying foxes in each survey. But total numbers ranged between 330,000 and 990,000, with strong seasonal variation. This variation relates to their reproductive cycle and the availability of food within their range. </p>
<p>Flying foxes pup late in the year. When those pups become independent, they can be counted. This results in a sudden increase in the numbers, typically around February. So while our data show peaks and troughs throughout each year, overall the population remained stable.</p>
<p>We developed a model to allow for this seasonality and examine overall population trends. The model strongly suggests the population hovered around 600,000 adults for the ten years of the survey. We found a 70% chance of a slightly increasing population, versus a 30% chance the population has declined slightly.</p>
<p>The population appeared to be stable despite exceptional events such as the <a href="https://theconversation.com/australias-black-summer-of-fire-was-not-normal-and-we-can-prove-it-172506">2019–20 megafires</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/killer-climate-tens-of-thousands-of-flying-foxes-dead-in-a-day-23227">severe heatwaves known to have killed thousands of flying foxes</a>.</p>
<p>The flying foxes seem resilient to these threats for two main reasons. </p>
<p>First, they are nomadic and well adapted to travelling long distances. This allows them to evade threats such as fires and droughts. </p>
<p>Second, grey-headed flying-foxes are likely to benefit from a “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0259395">human-modified landscape</a>”. In other words, they may well be urban “winners”, as the urban areas we’ve created provide diverse foraging opportunities. </p>
<p>Grey-headed flying foxes <a href="https://www.environment.gov.au/webgis-framework/apps/ffc-wide/ffc-wide.jsf">continually occupied</a> all major cities within their range throughout our monitoring program. </p>
<p>These urban environments offer a smorgasbord of flowering and fruiting species, especially palms and figs. Many of these species are exotics, with flowering and fruiting patterns that flying foxes can readily exploit. </p>
<p>We found continuous occupation of individual roosts was unusual. The few that were continuously occupied were all in urban areas, supporting the view that <a href="https://www.publish.csiro.au/ZO/pdf/ZO20086">urban areas are increasingly important</a> for this species.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/583391/original/file-20240321-18-96pnpi.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Closeup of a young grey-headed flying fox looking at the camera, with a dark green leafy background" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/583391/original/file-20240321-18-96pnpi.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/583391/original/file-20240321-18-96pnpi.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583391/original/file-20240321-18-96pnpi.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583391/original/file-20240321-18-96pnpi.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583391/original/file-20240321-18-96pnpi.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583391/original/file-20240321-18-96pnpi.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583391/original/file-20240321-18-96pnpi.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">This young grey-headed flying fox is big enough to count.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Eric Vanderduys, CSIRO</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Good news, but we need to be cautious</h2>
<p>After ten years of monitoring we can safely say the grey-headed flying fox is doing ok, for the time being. </p>
<p>But threats to its survival remain. Climate change is expected to cause more <a href="https://www.acs.gov.au/pages/heatwaves">heatwaves</a>, bushfires and droughts within their range. This could turn their fate around. </p>
<p>It’s also worth noting that while our monitoring continued for two years after the 2019–20 bushfires, the longer-term impacts are still unknown. </p>
<p>Given this uncertainty, continuing monitoring using similar methods and incorporating updated technology would increase certainty about the population trajectory. Unfortunately, monitoring has paused since 2022, pending further funding discussions. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/to-stop-new-viruses-jumping-across-to-humans-we-must-protect-and-restore-bat-habitat-heres-why-194634">To stop new viruses jumping across to humans, we must protect and restore bat habitat. Here's why</a>
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</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/226319/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Eric Vanderduys works for CSIRO. He receives funding from a range of federal and state government agencies.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adam McKeown receives funding from a variety of federal and state government agencies.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chris R. Pavey works for CSIRO. He receives funding from a variety of federal and state government agencies. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Martin works for Ecosure ecological consultancy. He receives funding from a variety of federal and state government agencies.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Caley works for the CSIRO. He receives funding from a range of federal and state government agencies.</span></em></p>Ten years of data from Australia’s comprehensive national flying-fox monitoring program reveals the grey-headed flying fox (fruit bat) population is stable. It’s good news for this threatened species.Eric Vanderduys, Research Scientist, Field Ecology, CSIROAdam McKeown, Experimental Scientist in Ecology, CSIROChris R. Pavey, Principal Scientist in Ecology, CSIROJohn Martin, Adjunct associate and ecological research scientist, University of SydneyPeter Caley, Senior Research Scientist in quantitative ecology, CSIROLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2255732024-03-19T19:45:05Z2024-03-19T19:45:05ZBy the time they are 20, more than 4 in 5 men and 2 in 3 women have been exposed to pornography: new research<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582667/original/file-20240318-18-n6pp1v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Four in five young men and two in three young women have been exposed to pornography by the time they turn 20, according to the <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38508985/">first nationally representative survey</a> on this issue in Australia.</p>
<p>Boys and young men are exposed earlier to pornography than girls and young women, and far more likely to be frequent users.</p>
<p>Among young people who had seen pornography, the average age of first exposure was 13.2 years for males and 14.1 years for females.</p>
<p>Exposure to pornography is likely to shape children’s and young people’s developing sexual and relationship attitudes and behaviours, with potentially significant health consequences.</p>
<p>We summarise the findings here, drawing on the survey among 1,985 young people aged 15-20 conducted by leading violence prevention organisation Our Watch, as well as Maree Crabbe’s interviews with young Australians.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/pornography-has-deeply-troubling-effects-on-young-people-but-there-are-ways-we-can-minimise-the-harm-127319">Pornography has deeply troubling effects on young people, but there are ways we can minimise the harm</a>
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</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Exposure is common</h2>
<p>Most young people aged 15-20 have seen pornography, whether intentionally or accidentally. Over four-fifths (86%) of young men, and over two-thirds (69%) of young women, have encountered pornography.</p>
<p>While the average age of first exposure to pornography among those who have seen it is 13 for boys and 14 for girls, some children’s first exposure is considerably earlier. As Lizzie commented, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I was maybe 8 or 9 years old when I first saw porn. I had an older brother and I think one day he left a porn site open, and it just sparked my curiosity after that.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><iframe id="noyei" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/noyei/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>Young people see pornography two to three years before their first sexual experience with a partner. As Nathan commented, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>there was a group of boys who would spend the entire time at the back of the classroom just having fun, laughing and watching pornography together. And this was well and truly before any of us were sexually active.</p>
</blockquote>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/help-ive-just-discovered-my-teen-has-watched-porn-what-should-i-do-215892">Help, I've just discovered my teen has watched porn! What should I do?</a>
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</p>
<hr>
<h2>Deliberate and accidental exposure</h2>
<p>First exposure is about equally likely to be deliberate or accidental. Among young people who had seen pornography, 50.1% of young men and 40.3% of young women reported deliberately seeking pornography the first time they viewed it, while 46.2% of young men and 55.7% of young women reported that their first exposure was unintentional.</p>
<p>Among the children and young people who had deliberately sought out pornography the first time they saw it, the most common motivation was curiosity. Other motivations included looking for sexual stimulation, because friends were watching it, and wanting to learn more about sex.</p>
<p>For young people whose first exposure was unintentional, most had accidentally encountered pornography via an internet pop-up or web search. Other common means included being shown by someone else and coming across it on social media.</p>
<p>Emma’s story is typical: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I accidentally clicked on just one of the many pop-ups that are around and it took me to a porn site.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>As Mohammad explained: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Even when you’re not looking for it you find it on the internet.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><iframe id="92PYc" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/92PYc/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<h2>Young men are frequent users</h2>
<p>There is a strong gender contrast in the frequency of pornography use among young people. Many young men are frequent users, with over half (54.4%) using pornography at least weekly and one in six (16%) doing so daily. On the other hand, only about one in seven young women (14.3%) use pornography weekly and only one in 70 (1.4%) do so daily.</p>
<p>Pornography use is both widespread and normalised among young men, as Crabbe’s interviews corroborate. “It was just assumed that boys our age were watching it,” reports Tash. “Every guy I know uses it, girls not so much”, said Hannah.</p>
<p>One-fifth of young people have not seen pornography, including one-tenth (10.5%) of young men and over one-quarter (28.7%) of young women. Compared to boys and young men, girls and young women are less interested in and more critical of pornography.</p>
<p>Lack of interest was the most common reason for not having seen pornography, reported by 59% of men and 87% of women. Other common reasons included concerns that it is disgusting or gross (20% men, 40% women) and that they would not like its depictions of relationships (10% men, 39% women).</p>
<p><iframe id="I7s2V" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/I7s2V/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<h2>Why does it matter if young people are exposed to porn?</h2>
<p>Other studies document that pornography <a href="https://theconversation.com/pornography-has-deeply-troubling-effects-on-young-people-but-there-are-ways-we-can-minimise-the-harm-127319">shapes young people’s sexual understandings, expectations, and experiences</a>, just as it shapes these <a href="https://xyonline.net/sites/xyonline.net/files/2020-07/Hald%2C%20Sexuality%20and%20Pornography%20Ch%202014.pdf">among adults</a>.</p>
<p>Pornography consumption is associated with a range of harms, including <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1054139X08006587">risky</a> <a href="https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/4/8/e004996">sexual behaviours</a> such as <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10410236.2021.1991641">choking</a>, more <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1460-2466.2009.01422.x">sexually objectifying and gender-stereotypical</a> views of women, <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/ab.20328">rape myth acceptance</a>, <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2013-27678-001">sexual coercion</a> and <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/ab.20367">aggression</a>, and <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/2076-328X/6/1/1">sexual and dating violence victimisation</a>.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/hold-pornography-to-account-not-education-programs-for-childrens-harmful-sexual-behaviour-68473">Hold pornography to account – not education programs – for children's harmful sexual behaviour</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Lessening the harms</h2>
<p>Four strategies are necessary to mitigate the potential harms of pornography exposure.</p>
<p>First, children and young people across Australia should have access to <a href="https://education.ourwatch.org.au/">respectful relationships education</a> and <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1054139X20304560">comprehensive sexuality education</a> in schools. This should provide alternative and age-appropriate content on sexuality, including critical <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15546128.2020.1856744">content on pornography</a>.</p>
<p>Second, <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781003189787-10/talking-children-pornography-jessica-zurcher">parents</a> should be equipped with <a href="https://itstimewetalked.com/parents/">the tools</a> to talk to their children <a href="https://www.theline.org.au/educators-and-practitioners/pornography/">about pornography</a>, helping them to avoid or reject content that is sexist or celebrates violence that can be found in much pornography.</p>
<p>Third, we need social marketing and communication campaigns intended to undermine the influence of sexist and harmful content in pornography, and instead foster more gender-equitable and inclusive social norms.</p>
<p>Fourth, the federal government should support regulatory strategies to reduce minors’ exposure to pornography, such as <a href="https://www.esafety.gov.au/about-us/consultation-cooperation/age-verification">age verification for adult websites</a>, labelling and warning systems, mandated filtering by internet service providers with options for adult opt-in, and other measures.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/225573/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Maree Crabbe has worked as a consultant on this issue and has developed a range of resources including school curricula, professional learning, two documentary films, and the "It's Time We Talked” website.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kelsey Adams and Michael Flood do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Whether deliberately seeking it out or finding it accidentally, most young Australians have seen pornography by the time they are 20, with potentially damaging consequences.Michael Flood, Professor of Sociology, Queensland University of TechnologyKelsey Adams, PhD candidate, Queensland University of TechnologyMaree Crabbe, PhD candidate, Queensland University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2257892024-03-18T00:27:02Z2024-03-18T00:27:02ZHow safe are Australia’s mines? New analysis shows reform has been stalled for a decade<p>On Sunday August 7 1994, an <a href="https://www.publications.qld.gov.au/dataset/moura-mining-disaster-inquiry-reports/resource/a8e96409-52a3-4075-b4a6-b1224ecc8e63">explosion at the Moura No 2 underground coal mine</a> in Queensland led to the deaths of 11 miners. This tragedy was the catalyst for a major shakeup in the approach to safety in all kinds of mines around Australia over the late 1990s and early 2000s.</p>
<p>Since that time, we have seen <a href="https://data.safeworkaustralia.gov.au/interactive-data/industry/mining">major improvements in safety performance</a>. In 2003, there were 12.4 fatalities per 100,000 workers; a decade later the figure was down to 3.4.</p>
<p><iframe id="A44hw" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/A44hw/3/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>However, since then progress has slowed if not stalled. Despite the industry’s adoption of risk management systems, competency training, and a shift away from prescriptive regulation in the years following Moura, the rate of deaths and serious injuries has barely changed over the past decade.</p>
<p>Given the huge size and variety of Australia’s mining industry, and the inherent dangers of the work, we may never reach a time when there are no deaths. But zero fatalities must still be the goal.</p>
<p><iframe id="QlKQp" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/QlKQp/3/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<h2>A rise in ‘one-off’ incidents</h2>
<p>In the past, most deaths were due to what are called “principal hazards”. These are major incidents such as fires, explosions and mine flooding that can kill or injure many people. </p>
<p>Most safety work has, for good reason, focused on these hazards, and by my count they are today involved in fewer than 20% of deaths. What this means is that today’s tragedy landscape is more diffuse, with fatalities scattered across a range of different scenarios.</p>
<p><iframe id="f2JHI" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/f2JHI/3/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>Now, most deaths are the result of “one-off” events such as being struck by objects, caught in machinery, falling from heights, or vehicle collisions. Addressing all these possibilities is more complex.</p>
<h2>Mental health, fatigue, staff turnover</h2>
<p>Human factors also loom large. Despite a huge increase in mine automation and remote operation technologies that reduce workers’ exposure to hazards, there are indications of <a href="https://www.ecu.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0015/1060080/Michael-Quinlan-Presentation.pdf">worsening mental health</a>, rising fatigue and <a href="https://www.aigroup.com.au/news/reports/2023-economics/factsheet-labour-turnover-in-2023/">high staff turnover</a>, which can erode corporate knowledge.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/mine-workers-and-their-families-suffer-the-toll-of-shift-work-10897">Mine workers and their families suffer the toll of shift work</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Psychological and social problems such as these affect an <a href="https://minerals.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/MCA_Mental_Health_Blueprint.pdf">estimated 20%</a> of the modern mining workforce. Although there are fewer workers on site, they are often under huge production pressures and the rosters can be very tough on family life. </p>
<p>Poor mental health can compromise decision-making and reduce vigilance, leading to safety problems.</p>
<h2>Slow, steady improvement</h2>
<p>There are some promising developments. The “<a href="https://www.icmm.com/en-gb/guidance/health-safety/2015/ccm-good-practice-guide">critical control management</a>” approach already adopted by <a href="https://www.riotinto.com/en/invest/reports/sustainability-report">Rio Tinto</a> and <a href="https://s24.q4cdn.com/382246808/files/doc_financials/2022/ar/%E2%80%8CNewmont-2022-Annual-Report.pdf">Newmont</a>, among others, has been highly effective. This is a method that identifies a relatively small number of vital controls that can prevent serious incidents, and directs resources towards rigorously designing, implementing and maintaining them.</p>
<p>We are also likely to see future safety gains from <a href="https://www.acarp.com.au/abstracts.aspx?repId=C29001">better equipment design</a>, further advances in automation and remote operation, and mental health initiatives, such as Western Australia’s <a href="https://www.wa.gov.au/organisation/department-of-energy-mines-industry-regulation-and-safety/mental-awareness-respect-and-safety-mars-program">Mental Awareness, Respect and Safety</a> program.</p>
<p>But in an industry that has still averaged <a href="https://data.safeworkaustralia.gov.au/interactive-data/industry/mining">eight fatalities per year</a> over the past decade, more safety reform is overdue. While new technologies and initiatives may be helpful, none will be a “silver bullet”.</p>
<p>Queensland alone has staged three “<a href="https://www.rshq.qld.gov.au/about-us/resources/safety-reset">safety resets</a>” in the past five years, with little result. Real safety improvement will be slow and steady, and will come from diligently and consistently applying proven safety management techniques.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/225789/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Cliff has received funding from many different sources including various major mining companies and government regulatory agencies such as Resources Safety And Health Queensland, research funding from various independent and industry funded agencies such as the Australian Coal Association Research Program. He is a member of the Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy, the Mine Managers Association of Australia and various professional bodies such as the Australian Institute of Occupational Health and Safety, and the Royal Australian Chemical Institute.</span></em></p>Mining’s high-tech transformation has dramatically increased safety – but there is plenty more work to be done.David Cliff, Professor of Occupational Health and Safety in Mining, The University of QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2195982024-03-14T19:25:08Z2024-03-14T19:25:08ZMeet the kowari: a pint-sized predator on the fast track to extinction<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581179/original/file-20240312-24-tb4sa3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ariana Ananda</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Australia is home to <a href="https://www.publish.csiro.au/book/7010/">more than 350 species</a> of native mammals, <a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1417301112">87% of which are found nowhere else on Earth</a>. But with 39 of these species <a href="https://www.environment.gov.au/cgi-bin/sprat/public/publicthreatenedlist.pl">already extinct</a> and a further <a href="https://www.environment.gov.au/cgi-bin/sprat/public/publicthreatenedlist.pl">110 listed as threatened</a>, there’s every chance many will vanish before you even knew they existed. So here’s one we think you simply must know (and save), before it’s too late. </p>
<p>The charismatic <a href="https://teamkowari.com.au/kowari/">kowari</a> is a small carnivorous marsupial. It was once common inland but is now found only in the remote deserts of southwest Queensland and northeastern South Australia, in less than 20% of its former range. </p>
<p>This pint-sized predator fits in the palm of your hand. Its bright eyes, bushy tail and big personality make it the perfect poster child for the Australian outback. But with just 1,200 kowari left in the wild, the federal government upgraded its conservation status in November from <a href="http://www.environment.gov.au/cgi-bin/sprat/public/publicspecies.pl?taxon_id=329">vulnerable to endangered</a>. </p>
<p>Reversing the decline of the kowari is within our grasp. But we need public support and political will to achieve this. It requires limiting grazing of cattle and sheep, while keeping feral cat numbers under control. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/WVAmYlHoqs4?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Introducing the kowari (Arid Recovery)</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/threatened-species-recover-in-fenced-safe-havens-but-their-safety-is-only-temporary-200548">Threatened species recover in fenced safe havens. But their safety is only temporary</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Meet the kowari</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://teamkowari.com.au/kowari/">kowari</a> (<em>Dasyuroides byrnei</em>) is a skilled hunter that stalks mice, tarantulas, moths, scorpions and even birds. Alert and efficient, they attack their prey voraciously.</p>
<p>Formerly known as the brushy-tailed marsupial rat, or Byrne’s crest-tailed marsupial rat, the kowari is more closely related to Tasmanian Devil and quolls. </p>
<p>The Wangkangurru Yarluyandi People use the name kowari, while the Dieri and Ngameni peoples use the similar-sounding name kariri.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581171/original/file-20240312-18-mlrrfx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Closeup of the gibber plain showing areas of flat interlocking red pebbles" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581171/original/file-20240312-18-mlrrfx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581171/original/file-20240312-18-mlrrfx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581171/original/file-20240312-18-mlrrfx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581171/original/file-20240312-18-mlrrfx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581171/original/file-20240312-18-mlrrfx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581171/original/file-20240312-18-mlrrfx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581171/original/file-20240312-18-mlrrfx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The red stony gibber plains could be mistaken for the surface of Mars.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Katherine Moseby</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Kowaris live in stony deserts. They mainly inhabit remote treeless “gibber” plains. These areas of flat, interlocking red pebbles form vast pavements that could be mistaken for the surface of Mars. </p>
<p>In the outback, where temperatures can exceed 50°C, kowaris beat the heat by sheltering in burrows dug into sand mounds. At night they emerge to race across the plains, their head and distinctive brushy tail held high, pausing regularly to scan for predators and prey. </p>
<p>During chilly winter days, kowaris slow their metabolism to conserve energy. They go into a state of <a href="https://theconversation.com/torpor-a-neat-survival-trick-once-thought-rare-in-australian-animals-is-actually-widespread-146409">torpor</a>, which is a daily version of hibernation. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/torpor-a-neat-survival-trick-once-thought-rare-in-australian-animals-is-actually-widespread-146409">Torpor: a neat survival trick once thought rare in Australian animals is actually widespread</a>
</strong>
</em>
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<p>At the two main South Australian sites, the number of animals captured in trapping surveys declined by <a href="https://zslpublications.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jzo.12605">85% between 2000 and 2015</a>. At this rate, the species could disappear from the area within two decades.</p>
<p>The entire population is estimated to number as few as 1,200 individuals scattered over just 350 square kilometres. That’s a combined area of less than 20km x 20km. </p>
<p>Based on this evidence, the conservation status of kowaris was upgraded from <a href="http://www.environment.gov.au/cgi-bin/sprat/public/publicspecies.pl?taxon_id=329">vulnerable to endangered</a> in November last year.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581170/original/file-20240312-18-r54i0o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A kowari standing in the desert facing the camera with its long bushy tail stretched out to the right" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581170/original/file-20240312-18-r54i0o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581170/original/file-20240312-18-r54i0o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581170/original/file-20240312-18-r54i0o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581170/original/file-20240312-18-r54i0o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581170/original/file-20240312-18-r54i0o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581170/original/file-20240312-18-r54i0o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581170/original/file-20240312-18-r54i0o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Kowari are now restricted to refuge populations in northeast South Australia and southwest Queensland.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Andrea Tschirner</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Shrinking populations in the stony desert</h2>
<p>Kowaris have been declining for a while but are suddenly on the fast track to extinction. How can that be, when they live in one of the most vast and remote parts of Australia? </p>
<p>Threats include land degradation from pastoralism, and predation from introduced feral cats and foxes. </p>
<p>But it’s complicated. Threats can combine, having a synergistic effect (greater than the sum of their parts). And then there are climate influences. </p>
<p>Heavy rain in the desert triggers a cascade of events that culminates in an <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-10-10/feral-cats-tear-through-last-wild-bilby-population/5803252">explosion of feral cat numbers</a>. </p>
<p>When conditions dry out again, the cats switch to eating larger or more difficult prey such as bilbies and kowaris, often causing local extinctions. In southwest Queensland, feral cats most likely wiped out one population of kowaris and decimated another. </p>
<p>Huge efforts to control cat plagues have saved the kowari and bilby populations in <a href="https://bioone.org/journals/australian-journal-of-zoology/volume-70/issue-2/ZO22027/Does-reducing-grazing-pressure-or-predation-conserve-kowaris-A-case/10.1071/ZO22027.full">Astrebla Downs National Park</a> from local extinction so far, but other areas have succumbed.</p>
<p>In SA, all the remaining kowari populations are on <a href="https://www.nespthreatenedspecies.edu.au/publications-and-tools/the-kowari-saving-a-central-australian-micro-predator">pastoral stations used for grazing cattle</a>. </p>
<p>Cattle can trample kowari burrows. They can also compact the sand mounds, making it difficult for kowaris to build burrows in the first place. And they eat the plants on the mounds, reducing the availability of both food and shelter. This makes kowaris easy prey. </p>
<p>Over the past few decades, pastoralism has intensified. <a href="https://www.pc.gov.au/research/completed/pastoral-leases#:%7E:text=Pastoral%20leases%20exist%20on%20around,to%20facilitate%20and%20support%20pastoralism.">Nearly half of Australia (44%)</a> is covered in pastoral leases where many threatened species occur. </p>
<p>Domestic stock usually graze close to watering points such as bores and troughs. More and more watering points are being established, to make more of the pastoral lease accessible to stock. So the area protected from grazing is shrinking as cattle encroach further into kowari territory. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581168/original/file-20240312-16-mabhg4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A sand mound surrounded by the stony desert gibber plain" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581168/original/file-20240312-16-mabhg4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581168/original/file-20240312-16-mabhg4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581168/original/file-20240312-16-mabhg4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581168/original/file-20240312-16-mabhg4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581168/original/file-20240312-16-mabhg4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=592&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581168/original/file-20240312-16-mabhg4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=592&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581168/original/file-20240312-16-mabhg4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=592&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Kowari burrow in sand mounds that can be trampled and compacted by cattle.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Katherine Moseby</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>How can we save the kowari?</h2>
<p>We have the knowledge and tools required to save this species from extinction. We just need decisive leadership and sufficient funding to put these plans into action. </p>
<p>State governments should provide more resources for desert parks so rangers can monitor feral cat numbers and respond rapidly to plagues. We can make use of new technology such as remote camera traps checked via satellite. These measures would also protect the last remaining stronghold of the bilby in Queensland, another nationally threatened mammal. </p>
<p>The pastoral industry and governments must work together to review watering-point placement and reduce grazing pressure in known kowari habitat. </p>
<p>By closing some pastoral watering points and ensuring a portion of each lease (possibly 20%) is away from waters, we can reduce the harm of stock and provide refuges for threatened species. Pastoral companies could show leadership and implement these actions themselves rather than waiting for governments to act.</p>
<p>In the meantime, reintroductions into safe havens is one stopgap measure helping to prevent imminent kowari extinction. In 2022, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/watch/?ref=search&v=409398861174893&external_log_id=2222a528-17bb-4f25-b0d5-d45d296c0c73&q=ecological%20horizons">12 kowaris were successfully reintroduced</a> to the 123 square km <a href="https://aridrecovery.org.au/kowari/">fenced Arid Recovery Reserve</a> in northern SA. The population has <a href="https://www.facebook.com/AridRecovery/videos/1165149370645281">expanded since release</a>. Removing cats, foxes and domestic stock from the reserve has given kowaris a chance to reclaim a small portion of their former range. </p>
<p>But safe havens are small and we need to act on a larger scale. If we don’t, the kowari may become yet another Australian species lost before you’ve even seen it.</p>
<p><em>Thanks to Genevieve Hayes, former ecologist at Arid Recovery, for coordinating the reintroduction of the kowari at Arid Recovery and commenting on the draft of this article.</em></p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/so-you-want-to-cat-proof-a-bettong-how-living-with-predators-could-help-native-species-survive-170450">So you want to cat-proof a bettong: how living with predators could help native species survive</a>
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</em>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/219598/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Katherine Moseby is co-founder and chief scientist at Arid Recovery. She receives contract work from Arid Recovery to assist with conservation and restoration works. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Katherine Tuft is Chief Executive at Arid Recovery which has received grant funding from the federal government and other sources to support research and conservation for the kowari.</span></em></p>Blink and you’ll miss it. The kowari is a charismatic marsupial carnivore that needs our help.Katherine Moseby, Associate Professor, UNSW SydneyKatherine Tuft, Visiting Research Fellow, University of AdelaideLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2252632024-03-11T19:12:49Z2024-03-11T19:12:49ZIndigenous fire management began more than 11,000 years ago: new research<p>Wildfire burns between <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2019.111493">3.94 million and 5.19 million square kilometres</a> of land every year worldwide. If that area were a single country, it would be the seventh largest in the world. </p>
<p>In Australia, most fire occurs in the vast tropical savannas of the country’s north. In <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-024-01388-3">new research</a> published in Nature Geoscience, we show Indigenous management of fire in these regions began at least 11,000 years ago – and possibly as long as 40,000 years ago.</p>
<h2>Fire and humans</h2>
<p>In most parts of the planet, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-earth-060614-105038">fire has always affected</a> the <a href="https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/carbon-cycle/">carbon cycle</a>, the distribution of plants, how ecosystems function, and <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-biodiversity-and-why-does-it-matter-9798">biodiversity</a> patterns more generally.</p>
<p>But climate change and other effects of human activity are making wildfires more common and more severe in many regions, often with catastrophic results. In Australia, fires have caused major economic, environmental and personal losses, most recently <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-020-0716-1">in the south of the country</a>.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/in-a-bad-fire-year-australia-records-over-450-000-hotspots-these-maps-show-where-the-risks-have-increased-over-20-years-204679">In a bad fire year, Australia records over 450,000 hotspots. These maps show where the risks have increased over 20 years</a>
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</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>One likely reason for the increase of catastrophic fires in Australia is the <a href="https://theconversation.com/our-land-is-burning-and-western-science-does-not-have-all-the-answers-100331">end of Indigenous fire management</a> after Europeans arrived. This change has caused a <a href="https://theconversation.com/research-reveals-fire-is-pushing-88-of-australias-threatened-land-mammals-closer-to-extinction-185965">decline in biodiversity</a> and the buildup of burnable material, or “<a href="https://theconversation.com/theres-only-one-way-to-make-bushfires-less-powerful-take-out-the-stuff-that-burns-129323">fuel load</a>”. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580362/original/file-20240307-22-4djhm5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Infographic showing the process of extracting and analysing a sediment core." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580362/original/file-20240307-22-4djhm5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580362/original/file-20240307-22-4djhm5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1350&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580362/original/file-20240307-22-4djhm5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1350&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580362/original/file-20240307-22-4djhm5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1350&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580362/original/file-20240307-22-4djhm5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1697&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580362/original/file-20240307-22-4djhm5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1697&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580362/original/file-20240307-22-4djhm5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1697&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">How sediment coring works.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://EpicAustralia.org.au">Emma Rehn, Haidee Cadd, Kelsey Boyd / Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>While southern fires have been particularly damaging in recent years, more than two-thirds of all Australia’s wildfires happen during the dry season in the tropical savannas of the north. These grasslands cover about 2 million square kilometres, or around a quarter of the country. </p>
<p>When Europeans first saw these tropical savannas, they believed they were seeing a <a href="https://theconversation.com/world-first-research-confirms-australias-forests-became-catastrophic-fire-risk-after-british-invasion-176563">“natural” environment</a>. However, we now think these landscapes were maintained by Indigenous fire management (dubbed “<a href="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5cf30ff26df8f90001ae648d/t/5fde80827f4e6a336722c664/1608417413847/Rhys+jones+Fire-stick+farming.pdf">firestick farming</a>” in the 1960s). </p>
<p>Indigenous fire management is a complex process that involves strategically burning small areas throughout the dry season. In its absence, savannas have seen the kind of larger, higher-intensity fires occurring late in the dry season that likely existed before people, when lightning was the sole source of ignition. </p>
<p>We know fire was one of the main tools Indigenous people used to manipulate fuel loads, maintain vegetation and enhance biodiversity. We do not know the time frames over which the “natural” fire regime was transformed into one managed by humans.</p>
<h2>A 150,000-year record of fire and climate</h2>
<p>To understand this transformation better, we took an 18-metre core sample from sediment at Girraween Lagoon on the outskirts of Darwin. Using this sample, we developed detailed pollen records of vegetation and charcoal, and paired them with geochemical records of climate and fire to reveal how fire patterns have changed over the past 150,000 years.</p>
<p>Now surrounded by suburbs, Girraween Lagoon (the “Place of Flowers”) is a significant site to the <a href="https://larrakia.com/about/the-larrakia-people/">Larrakia</a> and <a href="https://collection.aiatsis.gov.au/austlang/language/n29">Wulna</a> peoples. It is also where the <a href="https://youtu.be/MH_MObR3G54?si=KyYkZuyewCrHvtmj">crocodile-attack scene</a> in the movie <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090555/">Crocodile Dundee</a> was filmed.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/MH_MObR3G54?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>The lagoon was created after a sinkhole formed, and has contained permanent water ever since. The sediment core we took contains a unique 150,000-year record of environmental change in Australia’s northern savannas. </p>
<p>The core records revealed a dynamic, changing environment. The vegetation around Girraween Lagoon today has a tall and relatively dense tree canopy with a thick grass understory in the wet season. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/people-once-lived-in-a-vast-region-in-north-western-australia-and-it-had-an-inland-sea-219505">People once lived in a vast region in north-western Australia – and it had an inland sea</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>However, during the last ice age 20,000–30,000 years ago, the site where Darwin sits now was more than 300 km from the coast due to the sea level dropping as the polar ice caps expanded. At that time, the lagoon shrank into its sinkhole and it was surrounded by open, grassy savanna with fewer, shorter trees. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580318/original/file-20240307-30-rr2em0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Photo of a collection of clear tubes filled with dark sediment." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580318/original/file-20240307-30-rr2em0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580318/original/file-20240307-30-rr2em0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580318/original/file-20240307-30-rr2em0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580318/original/file-20240307-30-rr2em0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580318/original/file-20240307-30-rr2em0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580318/original/file-20240307-30-rr2em0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580318/original/file-20240307-30-rr2em0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sediment cores retrieved from Girraween Lagoon.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Michael Bird / James Cook University</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Around 115,000 years ago, and again around 90,000 years ago, Australia was dotted with gigantic inland “<a href="https://theconversation.com/drying-inland-seas-probably-helped-kill-australias-megafauna-37527">megalakes</a>”. At those times, the lagoon expanded into a large, shallow depression surrounded by lush monsoon forest, with almost no grass. </p>
<h2>When human fire management began</h2>
<p>The Girraween record is one of the few long-term climate records that covers the period before people arrived in Australia some <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/nature22968">65,000 years ago</a>, as well as after. This unique coverage provides us with the hard data indicating when the natural fire regime (infrequent, high-intensity fires) switched to a human-managed one (frequent, low-intensity fires).</p>
<p>The data show that by at least 11,000 years ago, as the climate began to resemble the modern climate that established itself after the last ice age, fires became more frequent but less intense.</p>
<p>Frequent, low-intensity fire is the hallmark of Indigenous fire regimes that were observed across northern Australia at European arrival. Our data also showed tantalising indications that this change from a natural to human-dominated fire regime occurred progressively from as early as 40,000 years ago, but it certainly did not occur instantaneously. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580320/original/file-20240307-28-bu5jp9.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Photo showing green shoots of plant life springing up in a burnt landscape." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580320/original/file-20240307-28-bu5jp9.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580320/original/file-20240307-28-bu5jp9.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580320/original/file-20240307-28-bu5jp9.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580320/original/file-20240307-28-bu5jp9.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580320/original/file-20240307-28-bu5jp9.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580320/original/file-20240307-28-bu5jp9.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580320/original/file-20240307-28-bu5jp9.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Vegetation recovering after a human-ignited ‘cool’ fire.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Cassandra Rowe / James Cook University</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Unlocking Girraween’s secrets with modern scientific techniques has provided unprecedented insights into how the tropical savannas of Australia, and their attendant biodiversity, coevolved over millennia under this new Indigenous fire regime that reduced risk and increased resources.</p>
<p>The rapid change to a European fire regime – with large, intense fires occurring late in the dry season – abruptly regressed patterns to the pre-human norm. This ecosystem-scale shock altered a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.1494">carefully nurtured</a> biodiversity established over tens of thousands of years and simultaneously <a href="https://i.unu.edu/media/tfm.unu.edu/page/384/fire-regimes-in-north-Australian-savannas.pdf">increased greenhouse gas emissions</a>.</p>
<p>Reversing these dangerous trends in Australia’s tropical savanna requires <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1046/j.1365-2699.2001.00555.x">re-establishing an Indigenous fire regime</a> through projects such as the <a href="https://carbonmarketinstitute.org/projects/west-arnhem-land-fire-abatement-walfa-project/">West Arnhem Land Fire Abatement</a> managed by Indigenous land managers. By implication, the reintroduction of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2022218118">Indigenous land management</a> in other parts of the world could help reduce the impacts of catastrophic fires and increase carbon sequestration in the future.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/225263/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Cassandra Rowe receives funding from the Australian Research Council</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Corey J. A. Bradshaw receives funding from the Australian Research Council. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Bird receives funding from the Australian Research Council. </span></em></p>Indigenous fire management shaped Australian tropical savannas over millennia, until the arrival of Europeans pushed the landscape back into a dangerous, unmanaged state.Cassandra Rowe, Research Fellow, James Cook UniversityCorey J. A. Bradshaw, Matthew Flinders Professor of Global Ecology and Models Theme Leader for the ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage, Flinders UniversityMichael Bird, JCU Distinguished Professor, ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage, James Cook UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2251682024-03-06T06:18:49Z2024-03-06T06:18:49ZNBN upgrade: what a free speed increase for fast broadband plans would mean for consumers and retailers<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580058/original/file-20240306-26-onsg4t.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C10%2C2396%2C1688&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">NBN Co</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The National Broadband Network may offer a significant speed boost to many users, if a <a href="https://minister.infrastructure.gov.au/rowland/media-release/fibre-investment-unlocks-proposal-turbo-charge-speeds-nbn">plan from NBN Co</a>, the operator of the network, is implemented. NBN Co’s proposed upgrade would provide download speeds up to five times faster for users on its three fastest home services (Home Fast, Home Superfast and Home Ultrafast).</p>
<p>The speed boost would come at no extra wholesale cost to retailers. On its face, this is an exciting announcement that aims to meet consumer demand for higher speed broadband connections to the internet. </p>
<p>NBN Co has <a href="https://www.nbnco.com.au/corporate-information/media-centre/media-statements/nbn-plans-to-accelerate-highest-speed-tiers">highlighted</a> the rationale for this move. The average Australian household now has around 22 internet-connected devices, and this is expected to grow to 33 by 2026. Data usage per household has doubled in the past five years, and now averages 443 gigabytes per month.</p>
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<h2>Why do people want more data?</h2>
<p>Higher data usage is being driven by new applications, entertainment and online gaming. For example, game updates can be as large as 30 or more gigabytes today. If games update regularly, the amount of data used each month increases quickly.</p>
<p>Entertainment too is using more data. Most streaming video today is provided in a 720p format, but newer televisions can display content at the higher-resolution 4K format. With faster broadband speeds becoming more common, consumers should anticipate more 4K content becoming available.</p>
<p>Likewise, virtual reality and augmented reality are relatively new technologies that are slowly becoming integrated with gaming and business systems. These high data usage technologies are likely to become more present in our daily lives over the next decade.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580077/original/file-20240306-22-g3idi5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580077/original/file-20240306-22-g3idi5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580077/original/file-20240306-22-g3idi5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580077/original/file-20240306-22-g3idi5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580077/original/file-20240306-22-g3idi5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580077/original/file-20240306-22-g3idi5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580077/original/file-20240306-22-g3idi5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580077/original/file-20240306-22-g3idi5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.nbnco.com.au/corporate-information/media-centre/media-statements/nbn-plans-to-accelerate-highest-speed-tiers">NBN Co</a></span>
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<h2>When would the upgrades happen?</h2>
<p>NBN Co has indicated it would like to start providing the new higher speed products later this year, or early next year. The upgrade would be achieved by increasing the overall capacity of the NBN, which could then be “shared out” to consumers. </p>
<p>The NBN Co announcement is something the service providers should have expected at some point soon.</p>
<p>NBN Co’s announcement, coming only months after the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) approved a proposal for <a href="https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/new-nbn-regulation-will-promote-competition-and-long-term-interests-of-australians">major annual price increases</a>, may not be welcomed by all broadband retailers. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/nbn-upgrades-explained-how-will-they-make-internet-speeds-faster-and-will-the-regions-miss-out-146749">NBN upgrades explained: how will they make internet speeds faster? And will the regions miss out?</a>
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<p>A spokesperson for the second largest broadband retailer, TPG Telecom, told <a href="https://www.commsday.com/">CommsDay</a> yesterday:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It took more than two years to finalise [the new pricing approved by the ACCC] and only three months for NBN Co to undermine the certainty it was supposed to create. We will always welcome opportunities to deliver greater service and speed to our customers, but NBN’s monopolistic whims make genuine collaboration with them very difficult.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Retailers understandably want certainty in wholesale pricing. One difficulty in achieving this is the high cost of “backhaul” in Australia: this is an intermediate connection between service providers and the NBN itself. Larger retailers have their own backhaul infrastructure, but smaller retailers must pay a third party.</p>
<p>If the NBN offers higher speed broadband connections, smaller retailers may end up paying more for backhaul – and will be faced with a dilemma over whether to pass these extra costs to consumers. </p>
<p>Telstra and Optus have broadly supported the plan by NBN Co to move to new technologies that offer the higher speed capabilities.</p>
<h2>A faster network may entice consumers</h2>
<p>Aussie Broadband Group managing director Phillip Britt told <a href="https://gizmodo.com.au/2024/03/nbn-500-telstra-optus-tpg-aussie/">Gizmodo Australia</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Aussie Broadband is still understanding the detail of NBN Co’s speed proposal, but on the face of it, it could represent one of the most exciting steps in technology adoption for Australian households and businesses.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>For NBN Co, the boost for the higher-speed plans may entice consumers to move from basic 50 Mbps plans to the upgraded Home Fast plan (which will offer download speeds of 500 Mbps, up from the current 100 Mbps).</p>
<p>NBN Co may also hope this encourages the remaining consumers with copper “fibre to the node” connections to move to “fibre to the premises” by taking advantage of one of the low or no cost upgrade offers available through retailers.</p>
<p>NBN Co has issued a consultation paper to retailers, asking for their feedback on the proposed changes to the high speed products by April 19 2024.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/225168/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mark A Gregory does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Australia’s NBN Co wants to offer services up to five times as fast at no extra cost. What’s the catch?Mark A Gregory, Associate Professor, School of Engineering, RMIT UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2245022024-03-05T19:12:15Z2024-03-05T19:12:15ZIs Australia’s golden age of third-party fact checking over?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579706/original/file-20240304-30-6eo258.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>With the rise of disinformation, third-party fact checking has grown into a billion-dollar global industry. But debunking false claims is time-consuming and costly, and recent developments suggest it may have hit its peak and is slowing down.</p>
<p>The ABC’s recent <a href="https://www.crikey.com.au/2024/02/21/abc-rmit-fact-check-partnership-abc-news-verify/">announcement</a> that it will dissolve its third-party fact-checker partnership with RMIT University, known as ABC RMIT Fact Check, and replace it with an in-house unit called “ABC News Verify”, suggests Australia is not immune to global trends.</p>
<p>Duke Reporters’ Lab’s most recent <a href="https://reporterslab.org/misinformation-spreads-but-fact-checking-has-leveled-off/">census</a> of third-party fact-checking units across the world found the number of active units fell from 424 in 2022 to 417 in 2023. While this is a small drop, it signals the first contraction in the sector since its initial census in 2014, which recorded a mere 59 units. </p>
<p>Is this cause for concern?</p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/misinformation-how-fact-checking-journalism-is-evolving-and-having-a-real-impact-on-the-world-218379">Many studies</a> have shown that third-party fact checking works to disabuse people of false claims in the media and online. </p>
<p>“Third party” refers to the external verification of controversial claims by an organisation independent of the initial publishing outlet. </p>
<p>But a growing number of studies also show the limitations of fact checking in countering the spread of mis- and disinformation.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/misinformation-how-fact-checking-journalism-is-evolving-and-having-a-real-impact-on-the-world-218379">Misinformation: how fact-checking journalism is evolving – and having a real impact on the world</a>
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<p>Our recently published <a href="https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/21078">study</a> found that Australian third-party fact checkers were highly trusted. However, even after receiving and trusting a fact check – in this case about a false social media post involving former prime minister Scott Morrison during the 2022 floods – a third of respondents said they would engage with the false information anyway. </p>
<p>They did so mostly for political reasons, known as <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2703011">motivated reasoning</a>. It tells us that presenting facts alone is not enough to stop people sharing falsehoods, and it may be one reason why global momentum behind third-party fact checking is slowing.</p>
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<p>The Australian fact checking industry has a short and rocky history, beginning in 2013 – a decade after the United States. Early adopters like PolitiFact Australia, ABC Fact Check and The Conversation’s FactCheck have come and gone, in part because the work is both time- and resource-intensive. </p>
<p>In the case of the ABC, its original in-house unit was <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-05-18/abc-fact-check-unit-to-close-14-jobs-to-go/7425638">axed</a> following 2016 Coalition budget cuts. It then got a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/feb/14/abcs-fact-check-unit-relaunched-in-partnership-with-rmit">new lease</a> of life in partnership with RMIT University in 2017. </p>
<p>Our study tested public trust in four current Australian fact checkers: RMIT ABC Fact Check, RMIT Factlab, AAP and Reuters Fact Check – an international fact checker operating in Australia.</p>
<p>Overall, trust was highest in the soon to be disbanded RMIT ABC Fact Check. But there was one important exception: respondents who strongly identified as right-wing on the political spectrum.</p>
<p>These voters regarded ABC RMIT Fact Check as the least trusted. This finding mirrors studies about media trust in Australia, which also finds the ABC is ranked highest overall, but <a href="https://www.canberra.edu.au/research/faculty-research-centres/nmrc/digital-news-report-australia">lower</a> for right-wing partisans. </p>
<p>Our study’s findings suggest that accusations of left-wing bias levelled at the ABC, particularly by right-wing partisans, may intersect with its fact-checking role with RMIT, and foreshadows criticisms that its new unit might encounter. </p>
<p>This is because the politicisation of fact checking – a longstanding feature of the sector in the US – has reached Australia. </p>
<p>To counter concerns of fact-checking bias, the International Fact-Checking Network (<a href="https://www.poynter.org/ifcn/">IFCN</a>) was established in 2015 to try to ensure standards of impartiality and rigour. Meta has since made IFCN accreditation a requirement of partnership when it signs up third-party fact-checkers to test doubtful claims on its social media sites.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/facebook-wont-keep-paying-australian-media-outlets-for-their-content-are-we-about-to-get-another-news-ban-224857">Facebook won't keep paying Australian media outlets for their content. Are we about to get another news ban?</a>
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<p>During the referendum campaign, the impartiality of third-party Australian fact checkers drew headlines. </p>
<p>In its report titled the “<a href="https://www.skynews.com.au/business/media/the-fact-check-files-inside-the-secretive-and-lucrative-fact-checking-industry-behind-a-foreignfunded-bid-to-censor-voice-debate/news-story/31915e1eb03b029b86a2f03aac19338b">Fact Check Files</a>”, Sky News Australia accused RMIT FactLab (a separate entity from RMIT ABC Fact Check) of working with Meta to “censor Voice debate”. As reported by The Conversation at that time, the story was the <a href="https://theconversation.com/voice-referendum-is-the-yes-or-no-camp-winning-on-social-media-advertising-spend-and-in-the-polls-208956">second</a> most-shared article on social media involving the referendum according to Meltwater data, reaching millions of users.</p>
<p>The story focused particularly on RMIT FactLab’s fact-checking of Sky’s own reports, which is found to contain falsehoods. The Sky report also revealed the factchecker’s IFCN accreditation had expired – a breach of Meta’s own terms and conditions. This led the social media giant to temporarily suspend RMIT FactLab from its paid role fact checking Meta’s social media content.</p>
<p>The conservative Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) later added to the controversy, releasing a <a href="https://ipa.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/IPA-Research-The-Arbiters-of-Truth-Analysis-of-biased-fact-checking-organisations-during-the-2023-Voice-Referendum-FINAL.pdf">report</a> in November 2023 arguing that RMIT ABC Fact Check, RMIT FactLab and AAP FactCheck had all unduly focused their efforts on the “no” campaign’s claims, resulting in a form of censorship.</p>
<p>In a soon to be published survey of 3,825 Australians after the referendum in late November, we found trust in RMIT FactLab had suffered as a result?. The survey also showed about a quarter of respondents reported using third-party fact checkers during the Voice campaign, and overall public trust in fact checkers was high. </p>
<p>However, among self-identified right-wing supporters, we see a different story with increased levels of distrust, particularly in response to RMIT FactLab – the central target of the Sky News reports.</p>
<p>RMIT FactLab recorded the highest levels of distrust among conservatives, followed by RMIT ABC Fact Check.</p>
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<p>The claims of bias against RMIT FactLab follow the path of politicisation and polarisation seen in the well-established US fact-checking sector. This trend further underscores the role of motivated reasoning in opinion formation and the insufficiency of relying solely on fact-checkers – whether external or internal – to combat fake news. </p>
<p>Effective <a href="https://opal.latrobe.edu.au/articles/report/Fighting_Fake_News_A_Study_of_Online_Misinformation_Regulation_in_the_Asia_Pacific/14038340">mitigation</a> of misinformation and disinformation requires a multifaceted approach. This includes fact checkers, but also measures such as bolstering public media literacy, regulating platforms, supporting quality journalism, and fostering collaboration among policymakers, politicians, academics, technology platforms, and civil society to promote responsible discourse.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/224502/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrea Carson receives funding from the Australian Research Council to research media and political trust DP230101777 and has had research grants with Meta examining fact checking, fake news, future newsrooms and the Voice to Parliament. She serves as an academic expert on Meta's global misinformation advisory group, and is also on the research advisory body for Australia's Public Interest Journalism Initiative.</span></em></p>Third-party fact checking appears to be in decline around the world - and Australia is not immune.Andrea Carson, Professor of Political Communication, Department of Politics, Media and Philosophy, La Trobe UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2247312024-02-29T05:42:43Z2024-02-29T05:42:43ZExplainer: what is sabotage and why is the ASIO chief worried about it?<p>Last night, ASIO boss Mike Burgess made another powerful public statement in delivering the <a href="https://www.asio.gov.au/director-generals-annual-threat-assessment-2024">Annual Threat Assessment for 2024</a>. Burgess stated that ASIO has seen “terrorists and spies […] talking about sabotage, researching sabotage, sometimes conducting reconnaissance for sabotage”.</p>
<p>He also highlighted the increasing focus on cyber (online methods) as a way that sabotage might be conducted. <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-02-28/asio-reveals-plot-by-retired-politician/103513926">He said</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>ASIO is aware of one nation state conducting multiple attempts to scan critical infrastructure in Australia and other countries, targeting water, transport and energy networks.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This would seem to align with recent reports of <a href="https://www.itnews.com.au/news/chinese-attackers-camped-on-us-networks-for-five-years-604887">Chinese hackers spending up to five years in US computer networks</a> before being detected.</p>
<p>But what exactly is sabotage, and should we be worried?</p>
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<h2>The legal definition</h2>
<p>“Sabotage” is a French term originally used to refer to <a href="https://www.etymonline.com/word/sabotage">deliberate acts by workmen to destroy machinery</a> during the Industrial Revolution. Since then, “sabotage” has been used to describe acts that undermine military power without a battle – <a href="https://www.pbs.org/opb/historydetectives/feature/wartime-acts-of-sabotage/">such as</a> destroying train lines, cutting telephone wires, or setting fuel dumps on fire.</p>
<p>However, the legal definition is a bit bigger than that.</p>
<p>In Australia, sabotage is both a <a href="https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/legis/cth/consol_act/cca1995115/sch1.html">federal crime</a> under the Criminal Code and also a crime under state and territory laws. At the federal level, sabotage has three key elements:</p>
<ol>
<li> engaging in conduct that results in “damage to public infrastructure”</li>
<li>intending to or risking the act will “prejudice Australia’s national security” or “advantage the national security of a foreign country”</li>
<li> an act on behalf of, in collaboration with, or with funding from a “foreign principal” (that is, a foreign government or one of its authorities, such as their intelligence service).</li>
</ol>
<p>“Public infrastructure” is a broad concept, and includes anything belonging to the Commonwealth, defence and military bases and equipment, and telecommunications. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/research-espionage-is-a-real-threat-but-a-drastic-crackdown-could-stifle-vital-international-collaboration-223555">Research espionage is a real threat – but a drastic crackdown could stifle vital international collaboration</a>
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<p>In some circumstances, it could also include banks, supermarkets, food, farms and other services provided to the public. Essentially, pretty much anything needed to run the country could be “public infrastructure”. </p>
<p>These are already <a href="https://www.herbertsmithfreehills.com/insights/2023-03/demystifying-australias-recent-security-of-critical-infrastructure-act-reforms">considered “critical infrastructure”</a>, and must meet strict physical security and cybersecurity guidelines.</p>
<p>New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, the ACT and the Northern Territory also have specific sabotage offences. Those offences capture deliberate acts to damage or destroy public facilities, where the person intends to cause <a href="https://www.sydneycriminallawyers.com.au/criminal/legislation/crimes-act/sabotage/">major disruption</a> to “government functions”, major disruption to the “use of services by the public” or major “economic loss”. </p>
<h2>So what is ASIO doing?</h2>
<p>ASIO’s annual threat assessment mentioned that sabotage has increasingly been discussed between <a href="https://www.itnews.com.au/news/asio-boss-warns-of-crack-cyber-teams-scanning-critical-networks-605594">agents of foreign countries, spies and would-be terrorists</a>. While Burgess did not name which countries have been involved, ASIO has been watching China, perhaps because a <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-disabled-chinese-hacking-network-targeting-critical-infrastructure-sources-2024-01-29/">hacking group called “Volt Typhoon”</a> has been named as allegedly working on behalf of the Chinese government. </p>
<p>It also appears ASIO is watching “nationalist and racist violent extremists advocating sabotage”. This would also fit with recent increases in <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/australian-far-right-terrorism-investigations-have-increased-by-750-per-cent-in-18-months/rsowz6fnt">counter-extremist investigations by the AFP</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/nov/01/australian-defence-force-strengthens-vetting-procedures-to-prevent-extremists-from-joining">changes to Defence vetting procedures</a>. </p>
<p>Yet, there have been very few cases of sabotage pursued in the courts. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, <a href="https://theconversation.com/amid-warnings-of-spy-hives-why-isnt-australia-using-its-tough-counter-espionage-laws-more-200440">there can be several barriers to prosecuting foreign agents</a> who engage in espionage, foreign interference and/or sabotage. These include gathering the necessary evidence that might reveal how the spies were detected, in turn potentially compromising ASIO’s ability to operate in the future. </p>
<p>However, foreign agents can still be deterred from engaging in this kind of activity. Just last year, Burgess <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/fake-russian-diplomats-revealed-as-heart-of-hive-spy-ring-in-australia-20230223-p5cmxz.html">detailed how a Russian spy ring was expelled rather than prosecuted</a>. In this year’s threat assessment, Burgess also said ASIO often puts foreign agents on notice – that ASIO knows what they’re up to – or it shines a “disinfecting light” on Australia’s adversaries so the public is aware of what they’re up to.</p>
<p>However, one of the cases mentioned by Burgess in the assessment – <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-68420795">a politician alleged to have “sold out Australia” for a foreign nation</a> – probably won’t be identified. That’s strange on its own, as Burgess’ usual approach in these cases seems to be to “name names” – in going public, ASIO removes the one thing foreign agents need to operate: anonymity.</p>
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<h2>What more is needed?</h2>
<p>ASIO will need to continue (and possibly even ramp up) its surveillance operations in Australia. That in turn will require the attorney-general <a href="https://www.ag.gov.au/crime/telecommunications-interception-and-surveillance/reform-australias-electronic-surveillance-framework">to step up the review of Australia’s surveillance laws</a>, which is yet to get started. </p>
<p>That said, the Albanese government has started consultation on its <a href="https://www.homeaffairs.gov.au/about-us/our-portfolios/cyber-security/strategy/2023-2030-australian-cyber-security-strategy">2023-2030 Australian Cyber Security Strategy</a>, which will make sure our cybersecurity laws are up to scratch. The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) has also already put boards and chief executives on notice that they will <a href="https://www.afr.com/technology/asic-to-target-boards-execs-for-cyber-failures-20230913-p5e4bf">prosecute companies for cybersecurity failures</a>. </p>
<p>There are some niche areas in the law that might need some tweaking. Last year, we <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4257292">published research</a> that demonstrated Australia’s laws might not protect an act of sabotage that was aimed at our natural environmental assets such as the Great Barrier Reef. </p>
<p>However, we may not need more laws – we just need to better use the ones we have. As <a href="https://theconversation.com/does-australia-need-new-laws-to-combat-right-wing-extremism-196219">Keiran Hardy argues</a> in the context of counter-terrorism laws: </p>
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<p>Australia’s counter-terrorism laws are already extensive […] If a criminal offence or power is needed to combat terrorism, Australia already has it and more. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/does-australia-need-new-laws-to-combat-right-wing-extremism-196219">Does Australia need new laws to combat right-wing extremism?</a>
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<p>More broadly, Australia needs to confront its “this won’t happen to us” attitude to national security. Chris Taylor, head of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s Statecraft and Intelligence Program, <a href="https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/the-evolution-of-australian-intelligence-revisiting-harvey-barnetts-tale-of-the-scorpion/">recently revived the words of Harvey Barnett</a> (a former boss of ASIO) when he said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>With the simple self-confidence which living in an island state breeds, Australians are sometimes doubtful that their country might be of interest to foreign intelligence services. “It can’t really happen here” is a stock attitude. It has, it does, it will.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Those words should resonate with us all.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/224731/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The views contained in this article are those of the individual author, and it does not necessarily reflect the views of any organisation, department or agency with which the author may be affiliated.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>This article was written in Sarah Kendall's personal capacity as a PhD candidate at the University of Queensland School of Law. It does not reflect the views of any organisation with which the author is affiliated.</span></em></p>In its annual threat assessment, the spy agency has named sabotage by foreign actors as an increasing concern - and we too, should take it seriously.Brendan Walker-Munro, Senior Lecturer (Law), Southern Cross UniversitySarah Kendall, PhD Candidate in Law, The University of QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2232092024-02-21T13:13:10Z2024-02-21T13:13:10ZEarth’s early evolution: fresh insights from rocks formed 3.5 billion years ago<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/576464/original/file-20240219-24-5de047.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Barberton Makhonjwa Mountains look peaceful today - but 3.5 billion years ago the earth there was roiled by volcanoes. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Instinctively RDH/Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Our Earth is <a href="https://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/darwin/the-world-before-darwin/how-old-is-earth#:%7E:text=Today%2C%20we%20know%20from%20radiometric,have%20been%20taken%20more%20seriously.">around 4.5 billion years old</a>. Way back in its earliest years, vast oceans dominated. There were frequent volcanic eruptions and, because there was no free oxygen in the atmosphere, there was no ozone layer. It was a dynamic and evolving planet.</p>
<p>Scientists know all of this – but, of course, there are still gaps in our knowledge. For instance, while we know what kind of rocks were being formed on different parts of the planet 3.5 billion years ago, we are still understanding which geological processes drove these formations. </p>
<p>Luckily the answers to such questions are available. Evidence is preserved in ancient volcanic and sedimentary rocks dating back to the <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/earth-and-planetary-sciences/archean-eon#:%7E:text=Thus%2C%20the%20Archean%20Eon%20is,continental%20plates%20began%20to%20form.">Archaean age</a>, between 4 billion and 2.5 billion years ago.</p>
<p>These rocks are found in the oldest parts of what are today the continents, called cratons. Cratons are pieces of ancient continents that formed billions of years ago. Studying them offers a window into how processes within and on the surface of Earth operated in the past. They host a variety of different groups of rocks, including greenstones and granites.</p>
<p>One example is the <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0012825222000782">Singhbhum Craton</a>, in the Daitari Greenstone Belt in the state of Odisha in eastern India. This ancient part of the Earth’s crust has been found in previous research to date back to 3.5 billion years ago. The craton’s oldest rock assemblages are largely volcanic and sedimentary rocks also known as greenstone successions. Greenstones are rock assemblages made up mostly of sub-marine volcanic rocks with minor sedimentary rocks. </p>
<p>My research team and I recently published <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301926823000372">a study</a> in which we compared the Singhbhum Craton to cratons in South Africa and Australia. We chose these sites because they preserve the same kinds of rocks, in the same condition (not intensely deformed or metamorphosed), from the same time period – about 3.5 billion years ago. They are the best archives to study early Earth surface processes.</p>
<p>Our key findings were that explosive-style volcanic eruptions were common in what are today India, South Africa and Australia around 3.5 billion years ago. These eruptions mostly occurred under oceans, though sometimes above them.</p>
<p>Understanding these early Earth processes is vital for piecing together the planet’s evolutionary history and the conditions that may have sustained life during different geological epochs. This kind of research is also a reminder of the ancient geological wonders that surround us – and that there is much more to discover to understand the story of our planet.</p>
<h2>The research</h2>
<p>We sampled some rocks from the Singhbhum Craton so we could study them in our laboratory. Existing data from the same site, as well as sites in South Africa and India, were used for comparison purposes.</p>
<p>Our detailed field-based studies were complemented by <a href="https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-94-007-6326-5_193-1">uranium-lead (U-Pb) radiometric-age dating</a>. This common and well-established method provides information as to when a magma crystallised; in other words, it tells us when a rock formed. In this way we were able to establish key geological timelines to illustrate what processes were underway and when.</p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-the-discovery-of-a-small-continental-fragment-in-the-indian-ocean-matters-72314">Why the discovery of a small continental fragment in the Indian Ocean matters</a>
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<p>We also found that the geology of this area shares stark similarities with the greenstone belts documented in South Africa’s <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0301926816300663">Barberton</a> and <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1342937X11002504?via%3Dihub">Nondweni</a> areas and the <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/375574a0">Pilbara Craton</a> in western Australia. </p>
<p>Most particularly, all these areas experienced widespread submarine mafic – meaning high in magnesium oxide – volcanic eruptions between 3.5 and 3.3 billion years ago, preserved as pillowed lava and komatiites.</p>
<p>This differs from silicic (elevated concentration of silicon dioxide) volcanism, which research <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0040195100000585">has shown</a> was prevalent around 3.5 billion years ago.</p>
<p>These findings enrich our understanding of ancient volcanic and sedimentary processes and their significance in the broader context of Earth’s geological as well as biological evolution.</p>
<h2>Our planet’s formative years</h2>
<p>Our discoveries are pivotal for several reasons. First, they offer a clearer picture of Earth’s early tectonic activities during the Archaean times, contributing to our understanding of the planet’s formative years. </p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/four-ways-that-fossils-are-part-of-everyday-life-199193">Four ways that fossils are part of everyday life</a>
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<p>Second, the Singhbhum Craton’s unique geological features, including its greenstone belts, provide invaluable information about Earth’s surface and atmospheric processes. This is crucial for hypothesising early habitable conditions and the emergence of life on Earth. </p>
<p>Additionally, comparing the Singhbhum Craton with similar cratons in South Africa and Australia allows us to construct a more comprehensive model related to geological processes that operated during the Archaean. This can help to shed light on ancient geodynamic processes that were prevalent across different parts of the young Earth.</p>
<p>This research emphasises the need for further exploration into the geological history of ancient cratons worldwide. Understanding these early Earth processes is vital for piecing together the planet’s evolutionary history and the conditions that may have sustained life.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/223209/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jaganmoy Jodder received funding from the DSI-NRF Centre of Excellence (CoE) for Integrated Mineral and Energy Resource Analysis (CIMERA) and Genus DSI-NRF Centre of Excellence in Palaeosciences.</span></em></p>Cratons are pieces of ancient continents that formed billions of years ago.Jaganmoy Jodder, Post-doctoral researcher, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2226102024-02-14T23:50:02Z2024-02-14T23:50:02ZAustralia’s shot-hole borer beetle invasion has begun, but we don’t need to chop down every tree under attack<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574604/original/file-20240209-18-7stpt1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=46%2C0%2C6183%2C4147&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/shotgunlike-lesions-on-tree-bark-trunk-1754480912">jgeyser, Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>A <a href="https://www.agric.wa.gov.au/borer">new pest attacking Perth’s trees</a> threatens to <a href="https://www.outbreak.gov.au/current-outbreaks/polyphagous-shot-hole-borer">spread across Australia</a>, damaging crops and native forests as well as our urban forest. To control its spread, the Western Australian government is <a href="https://www.watoday.com.au/national/western-australia/absolutely-devastating-a-tiny-exotic-beetle-will-see-180-of-hyde-park-s-trees-cut-down-20240130-p5f16n.html">chopping down hundreds of established trees</a>. But these losses may be in vain. </p>
<p>Originally from southeast Asia, the polyphagous (meaning “many-eating”) shot-hole borer has <a href="https://doi.org/10.1079/cabicompendium.18360453">invaded several countries</a>. It attacks <a href="https://www.agric.wa.gov.au/sites/gateway/files/PSHB-WA-Host-List.pdf">more than 400 tree species</a>, including <a href="https://www.agric.wa.gov.au/sites/gateway/files/PSHB-Global-Host-List.pdf">crops</a> such as apple, avocado, macadamia and mango. <a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/ffgc.2021.654702">Trees grown for timber</a>, such as ash, elms and oaks are not safe either. And with every new country it invades, it threatens an increasingly large number of native trees.</p>
<p>Australia plans to <a href="https://www.watoday.com.au/national/western-australia/absolutely-devastating-a-tiny-exotic-beetle-will-see-180-of-hyde-park-s-trees-cut-down-20240130-p5f16n.html">eradicate this pest using one method: felling established trees</a>. But the borer has been eradicated only once – in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10530-022-02929-w">isolated tropical glasshouses in frosty Europe</a> – demonstrating the difficulty of eradication from larger agricultural and natural ecosystems.</p>
<p>To achieve this worthy but difficult goal, everyone will need to work together. We need a wide range of experts to fully evaluate all available control methods, and consider the most appropriate time frame for eradication. Understanding the impacts of both the pest and its management will ensure we get the best possible outcomes in both the short and long term.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1744269134043464069"}"></div></p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/trees-in-south-africa-are-under-attack-why-its-proving-hard-to-manage-130804">Trees in South Africa are under attack. Why it's proving hard to manage</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>The nature of the beast(s)</h2>
<p>The borer probably arrived in Australia as a stowaway with <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-01-30/shot-hole-borer-attacks-hyde-park-trees/103406280">untreated wood</a> and remained undetected until August 2021, when a <a href="https://www.wa.gov.au/government/announcements/fremantle-residents-asked-look-exotic-insect-borer">concerned resident of East Fremantle</a> noticed unusual holes in her backyard maple trees. Now <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-01-30/shot-hole-borer-attacks-hyde-park-trees/103406280">more than 80 suburbs</a> in 25 councils are affected. Fortunately, the pest has not yet been detected outside the Perth metropolitan area.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/575134/original/file-20240212-24-1b1k45.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A map of Perth and the Polyphagous shot-hole borer quarantine area" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/575134/original/file-20240212-24-1b1k45.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/575134/original/file-20240212-24-1b1k45.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=848&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/575134/original/file-20240212-24-1b1k45.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=848&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/575134/original/file-20240212-24-1b1k45.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=848&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/575134/original/file-20240212-24-1b1k45.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1066&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/575134/original/file-20240212-24-1b1k45.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1066&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/575134/original/file-20240212-24-1b1k45.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1066&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The pest borer quarantine area covers 25 local government areas in Perth.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.agric.wa.gov.au/borer">Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The borer attacks so many tree species because it has an accomplice, in the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fgb.2013.04.004">form of a fungus</a>. The two live in a mutually dependent “symbiotic” relationship. </p>
<p>The borer creates a Swiss cheese-like matrix of tunnels through the wood. The fungus feeds on the wood lining the tunnels as it grows, and the borer eats the fungus. </p>
<p>The tunnels weaken the structure of the wood, but tree death occurs when the fungus invades and blocks the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-48809-8">flow of water and sap between roots and leaves</a>.</p>
<p>The borer’s small size likely limits its natural rate of spread, however we <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/afe.12321">don’t know how far it can fly</a>. There is a risk of human-assisted spread over long distances as the borer can survive in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/ee/nvaa103">small pieces of wood for weeks</a>. To make matters worse, a single female borer can <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/afe.12155">produce offspring without a mate</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574813/original/file-20240211-22-c36zto.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Six development stages of the shot hole borer, arranged in a circle to show the life cycle, on a white background" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574813/original/file-20240211-22-c36zto.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574813/original/file-20240211-22-c36zto.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=560&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574813/original/file-20240211-22-c36zto.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=560&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574813/original/file-20240211-22-c36zto.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=560&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574813/original/file-20240211-22-c36zto.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=704&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574813/original/file-20240211-22-c36zto.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=704&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574813/original/file-20240211-22-c36zto.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=704&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The life cycle of the polyphagous shot-hole borer, also known as the Asian ambrosia beetle (<em>Euwallacea fornicatus</em>)</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/development-stages-asian-ambrosia-beetle-euwallacea-513402742">Protasov AN, Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Responding to the threat in Australia</h2>
<p>The threat to Australia can be estimated from the experience in other invaded locations. As in Perth, the invasion usually begins in cities, then spreads into the surrounding countryside, attacking horticulture and forests, including <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s12600-012-0223-7">avocado production in Israel</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1094/PDIS-03-12-0276-PDN">California</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s13314-023-00524-z">stone fruit in South Africa</a>. This overseas experience has informed models of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/afe.12566">potential impacts for WA</a>.</p>
<p>But local effects are hard to predict. Figs and eucalypts not susceptible in <a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/ffgc.2021.654702">California and Israel</a>, yet <a href="https://www.agric.wa.gov.au/sites/gateway/files/PSHB-WA-Host-List.pdf">figs are preferred and some eucalypts are susceptible in WA</a>.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.outbreak.gov.au/current-outbreaks/polyphagous-shot-hole-borer">national biosecurity response led by WA</a> has allocated A$41 million to eradicate the borer. This funding was based on an assessment of what it should cost. But there is only a short window of opportunity to effectively deploy these resources to achieve eradication.</p>
<p>The response includes trapping and surveillance to determine the spread of the pest. More than <a href="https://www.wa.gov.au/government/media-statements/Cook-Labor-Government/Vital-biosecurity-response-to-stop-invasive-beetle-pest-20240130">1.5 million trees on more than 50,000 properties</a> have been inspected and some 3,000 traps laid. </p>
<p>These traps catch flying beetles, which fly just once in their lives, so there’s a low catch probability. This makes it hard to detect false negatives, when no beetles are trapped but there are beetles in the area. This can be improved with alternative <a href="https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.3656">trap designs</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0179416">chemical lures</a>.</p>
<p>When infested trees are found in WA, the response is “<a href="https://www.agric.wa.gov.au/borer">removing infested trees to save healthy trees</a>”. This could mean hundreds of trees at popular public locations such as <a href="https://www.wa.gov.au/government/media-statements/Cook-Labor-Government/Vital-biosecurity-response-to-stop-invasive-beetle-pest-20240130">Perth Zoo, Lake Claremont, Kings Park and Hyde Park</a> will be felled and chipped.</p>
<p>Continuing with the one control method, felling trees, will leave us with fewer trees, particularly if the eradication campaign runs for many years. Reduction of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/does-higher-density-city-development-leave-urban-forests-out-on-a-limb-57106">urban tree canopy</a> <a href="https://theconversation.com/fewer-trees-leave-the-outer-suburbs-out-in-the-heat-33299">could be profound</a>, and <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-02-18/perth-tree-canopy-conference/101980438">Perth already has the sparsest urban tree canopy in the nation</a>. </p>
<p>The flow-on consequences could mean even <a href="https://theconversation.com/trees-are-a-citys-air-conditioners-so-why-are-we-pulling-them-out-21890">higher urban temperatures</a> and poorer <a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/fevo.2021.603757">human</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amepre.2012.09.066">health</a>. </p>
<p>Urban trees are also valued for their beauty, shade and habitat for animals. All these benefits can be assigned a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ufug.2017.11.017">significant monetary value, which would be even higher</a> if intrinsic or cultural value could be included.</p>
<h2>Waging war on the shot-hole borer</h2>
<p>Although felling and chipping entire trees is necessary, there are <a href="https://ipm.ucanr.edu/PMG/PESTNOTES/pn74179.html">other effective control methods</a>. Alternatives may include removing and chipping <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s12600-017-0598-6">infested branches only</a>, which may be more <a href="http://doi.org/10.3389/finsc.2023.1279547">cost-effective than felling entire trees</a>, to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cropro.2020.105136">injecting at-risk but uninfested trees</a>, and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1094/PDIS-10-17-1569-RE">slowing</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/jee/toy423">infestations in trees</a> or spraying <a href="https://doi.org/10.3390/biom13040656">repellents onto uninfested trees</a>. In California, traps were developed into an <a href="https://www.californiaavocadogrowers.com/sites/default/files/Trapping-Optimization-and-Development-of-attract-and-kill-strategy-for-the-Polyphagous-Shot-Hole-Borer-in-avocado.pdf">attract-and-kill strategy</a> to tackle the borer in avocado orchards.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574807/original/file-20240211-29-aulz4s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Polyphagous shot-hole borer trap set by the OC Parks Department and the University of California, in Irvine Regional Park. The large, multi-tiered black trap with a white collection vessel at the bottom is hanging from a metal pole." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574807/original/file-20240211-29-aulz4s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574807/original/file-20240211-29-aulz4s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=898&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574807/original/file-20240211-29-aulz4s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=898&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574807/original/file-20240211-29-aulz4s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=898&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574807/original/file-20240211-29-aulz4s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1129&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574807/original/file-20240211-29-aulz4s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1129&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574807/original/file-20240211-29-aulz4s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1129&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">The best trap for the borer, developed in California, is not being used in Perth.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/orange-california-24-feb-2017-polyphagous-1938882280">Steve Cukrov, Shutterstock</a></span>
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<p>While a rapid response is crucial for eradication, we need to keep improving on this, using the most effective methods available. Relevant solutions from around the world suggest <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10340-024-01744-7">broader community engagement</a>, beyond Perth, would be beneficial.</p>
<p>It is unclear what has been learned so far from efforts in WA. Is it still <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10530-013-0529-5">feasible to eradicate the pest completely</a>? We need more experts to evaluate and advise on the response as it continues.</p>
<p>Making the right response choices will be crucial. Just consider other threatening invaders such as the <a href="https://www.outbreak.gov.au/current-outbreaks/red-imported-fire-ant">red imported</a> <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-to-know-if-were-winning-the-war-on-australias-fire-ant-invasion-and-what-to-do-if-we-arent-121367">fire ant</a>, the honey bee <a href="https://www.outbreak.gov.au/current-outbreaks/varroa-mite">varroa</a> <a href="https://theconversation.com/australia-has-officially-given-up-on-eradicating-the-varroa-mite-now-what-214002">mite</a>, and <a href="https://www.dcceew.gov.au/environment/invasive-species/diseases-fungi-and-parasites/myrtle-rust">myrtle</a> <a href="https://theconversation.com/myrtle-rust-is-devastating-australian-forests-a-new-high-tech-spray-holds-out-hope-for-native-trees-219411">rust</a>.</p>
<p>As the borer has only been detected in Perth, the window of opportunity is open now. Let’s make sure we have the best plan of attack so we can achieve eradication. </p>
<p>Australians pride themselves on working together to get things done. If we can bring everyone together to rapidly tackle this insect invasion, the whole nation will benefit.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/citizen-scientists-collect-more-nature-data-than-ever-showing-us-where-common-and-threatened-species-live-212372">Citizen scientists collect more nature data than ever, showing us where common and threatened species live</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/222610/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>It’s a horror story unfolding in the west that could sweep across the country. Beware the shot-hole borer, an exotic pest that threatens our tree crops, plantations, urban forests and wild places.Theo Evans, Associate Professor, The University of Western AustraliaBruce Webber, Principal Research Scientist, CSIROLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2234612024-02-14T01:12:59Z2024-02-14T01:12:59ZA secret war between cane toads and parasitic lungworms is raging across Australia<p>When the first cane toads were brought from South America to Queensland in 1935, many of the parasites that troubled them were left behind. But deep inside the lungs of at least one of those pioneer toads lurked small nematode lungworms.</p>
<p>Almost a century later, the toads are evolving and spreading across the Australian continent. In <a href="https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2023.2403">new research</a> published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, we show that the lungworms too are evolving: for reasons we do not yet understand, worms taken from the toad invasion front in Western Australia are better at infecting toads than their Queensland cousins.</p>
<h2>An eternal arms race</h2>
<p>Nematode lungworms are tiny threadlike creatures that live in the lining of a toad’s lung, suck its blood, and release their eggs through the host’s digestive tract. The larva that hatch in the toad’s droppings lie in wait for a new host to pass by, then penetrate through its skin and migrate through the amphibian’s body to find the lungs and settle into a comfortable life, and begin the cycle anew.</p>
<p>Parasites and their hosts are locked into an eternal arms race. Any characteristic that makes a parasite better at finding a new host, setting up an infection, and defeating the host’s attempts to destroy it, will be favoured by natural selection. </p>
<p>Over generations, parasites get better and better at infecting their hosts. But at the same time, any new trick that enables a host to detect, avoid or repel the parasites is favoured as well. </p>
<p>So it’s a case of parasites evolving to infect, and hosts evolving to defeat that new tactic. Mostly, parasites win because they have so many offspring and each generation is very short. As a result, they can evolve new tricks faster than the host can evolve to fight them. </p>
<h2>The march of the toads</h2>
<p>The co-evolution between hosts and parasites is most in sync among the ones in the same location, because they encounter each other most regularly. A parasite is usually better able to <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1461-0248.2007.01028.x">infect hosts from the local population</a> it encounters regularly than those from a distant population.</p>
<p>But when hosts invade new territory, it can play havoc with the evolutionary matching between local hosts and parasites. </p>
<p>Since cane toads were released into the fields around Cairns in 1935, the toxic amphibians have hopped some 2,500 kilometres westwards and are currently on the doorstep of Broome. And they have <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/439803a">changed dramatically</a> along the way. </p>
<p>The Queensland toads are homebodies and spend their lives in a small area, often reusing the same shelter night after night. As a result, their populations can build up to high densities. </p>
<p>For a lungworm larva, having lots of toads in a small area, reusing and sharing shelter sites, makes it simple to find a new host. But at the invasion front (currently in Western Australia), <a href="https://www.publish.csiro.au/wr/WR08021">toads are highly mobile</a>, moving over a kilometre per night when conditions permit, and rarely spending two nights in the same place. </p>
<p>At the forefront of the invasion, toads are few and far between. A lungworm larva at the invasion front, waiting in the soil for a toad to pass by, will have <a href="https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1890/09-0530.1">few opportunities</a> to encounter and infect a new host. </p>
<h2>Lungworms from the invasion front</h2>
<p>When hosts are rare, we expect the parasite will evolve to get better at infecting the ones it does encounter, because it is unlikely to get a second chance.</p>
<p>To understand how this co-evolution is playing out between cane toads and their lungworms, we did some experiments pairing hosts and parasites from different locations in Australia. What would happen when toad and lungworm strains that had been separated by 90 years of invasion were reintroduced to each other?</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/is-toadzilla-a-sign-of-enormous-cane-toads-to-come-its-possible-toads-grow-as-large-as-their-environment-allows-195929">Is 'Toadzilla' a sign of enormous cane toads to come? It's possible – toads grow as large as their environment allows</a>
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<p>To study this we collected toads from different locations, bred them in captivity and reared the offspring in the lab under common conditions. We then exposed them to 50 lungworm larvae from a different area of the range, waited four months for infections to develop, then killed the toads and counted how many adult worms had successfully established in their lungs.</p>
<p>As expected, worms from the invasion front were best at infecting toads, not just their local ones. Behind the invasion front, in intermediate and old populations we found that hosts were able to fight their local parasites better than those from distant populations. </p>
<p>While we saw dramatic differences in infection outcomes, we have yet to determine what biochemical mechanisms caused the differences and how changes in genetic variation of host and parasite populations might have shaped them. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/in-the-evolutionary-arms-race-between-cane-toads-and-lungworms-skin-secretions-play-a-surprising-role-163821">In the evolutionary arms race between cane toads and lungworms, skin secretions play a surprising role</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/223461/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lee A Rollins receives funding from the Australian Research Council. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rick Shine receives funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Greg Brown does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Cane toads are evolving as they spread across Australia. Parasitic lungworms are becoming more infectious to keep up.Greg Brown, Postdoctoral researcher, Macquarie UniversityLee A Rollins, Scientia Associate Professor, UNSW SydneyRick Shine, Professor in Evolutionary Biology, Macquarie UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2226162024-02-08T03:13:07Z2024-02-08T03:13:07ZFirst Nations people must be at the forefront of Australia’s renewable energy revolution<p>Australia’s <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781003242499-10/getting-right-katie-quail-donna-green-ciaran-faircheallaigh">plentiful</a> solar and wind resources and proximity to Asia means it can become a renewable energy superpower. But as the renewable energy rollout continues, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people must benefit. </p>
<p>Renewables projects can provide income and jobs to Aboriginal land owners. Access to clean energy can also help First Nations people protect their culture and heritage, and <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2667095X23000296#bbib0060">remain on Country</a>. </p>
<p>This is not a new idea. Policies in the United States and Canada, for example, actively seek to ensure the energy transition delivers opportunities to Indigenous people.</p>
<p>The Australian government is developing a <a href="https://www.energy.gov.au/energy-and-climate-change-ministerial-council/working-groups/first-nations-engagement-working-group/first-nations-clean-energy-strategy">First Nations Clean Energy Strategy</a> and is seeking comment on a <a href="https://consult.dcceew.gov.au/first-nations-clean-energy-strategy-consultation-paper">consultation paper</a>. Submissions close tomorrow, February 9. If you feel strongly about the issue, we urge you to have your say.</p>
<p>We must get this policy right. Investing meaningfully in First Nations-led clean energy projects makes the transition more likely to succeed. What’s more, recognising the rights and interests of First Nations people is vital to ensuring injustices of the past are not repeated.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/beyond-juukan-gorge-how-first-nations-people-are-taking-charge-of-clean-energy-projects-on-their-land-213864">Beyond Juukan Gorge: how First Nations people are taking charge of clean energy projects on their land</a>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">A video by author Adam Fish exploring the Eastern Kuku Yalanji community of Wujal Wujal in Queensland and their struggle for renewable energy..</span></figcaption>
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<h2>Good for business, and people</h2>
<p>Indigenous peoples have recognised land interests covering around <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/ng-interactive/2021/may/17/who-owns-australia">26% of Australia’s landmass</a>. <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-can-aboriginal-communities-be-part-of-the-nsw-renewable-energy-transition-181171">Research</a> shows Aboriginal land holders want to be part of the energy transition. But they need support and resources. </p>
<p>This could take the form of federal grants to make communities more energy-efficient or less reliant on expensive, polluting diesel generators. Funding could also be spent on workforce training to ensure First Nations people have the skills to take part in the transition. Federal agencies could be funded to support grants for First Nations feasibility studies of renewable energy industry on their land.</p>
<p>As well as proper investment, governments must also ensure First Nations people are engaged early in the planning of renewable projects and that the practice of free prior and informed consent is followed. And renewable energy operators will also need to ensure they have capability to work with First peoples. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.firstnationscleanenergy.org.au/first_nations_can_help_australia_respond_to_the_united_states_inflation_reduction_act">First Nations Clean Energy Network</a> – of which one author, Heidi Norman, is part – is a network of First Nations people, community organisations, land councils, unions, academics, industry groups and others. It is working to ensure First Nations communities share the benefits of the clean energy boom.</p>
<p>The network is among a group of organisations calling on the federal government to invest an additional A$100 billion into the Australian renewables industry. The investment should be designed to benefit all Australians, including First Nations people.</p>
<p>In Australia, the Albanese government has set an emissions-reduction goal of a 43% by 2030, based on 2005 levels. But Australia’s renewable energy rollout is not happening fast enough to meet this goal. Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen has <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/get-to-yes-or-no-as-quickly-as-possible-bowen-wants-fast-decisions-on-renewables-20240111-p5ewmj.html">called for</a> faster planning decisions on renewable energy projects.</p>
<p>To achieve the targets, however, the federal government must bring communities along with them – including First Nations people.</p>
<p>As demonstrated by the US and Canada, investing <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781003242499-10/getting-right-katie-quail-donna-green-ciaran-faircheallaigh">meaningfully and at scale</a> in First Nations-led clean energy projects is not just equitable, it makes good business sense.</p>
<h2>Follow the leaders</h2>
<p>The US Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 made A$520 billion in investments to accelerate the transition to net zero. <a href="https://www.scirp.org/journal/paperinformation?paperid=123806">Native Americans</a> <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214629623003845">stand</a> to <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Inflation-Reduction-Act-Tribal-Guidebook.pdf">receive</a> hundreds of billions of dollars from the laws. This includes funding set aside for Tribal-specific programs.</p>
<p>Canada is even further ahead in this policy space. In fact, analysis <a href="https://climateinstitute.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/ICE-report-ENGLISH-FINAL.pdf">shows</a> First Nations, Métis and Inuit entities are partners or beneficiaries of almost 20% of Canada’s electricity-generating infrastructure, almost all of which is producing renewable energy. In one of the most recent investments, the Canadian government in 2022 invested <a href="https://www.rcaanc-cirnac.gc.ca/eng/1481305379258/1594737453888">C$300 million</a> to help <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544222031735?casa_token=SXoJWgJwAikAAAAA:aQrTM16T_OPLQEgVk31foMzZt79T5YxOz9k3v2CEsWe8fIPPneIBw6Q0DRWIHQPzqzHNbZ0">First Nations, Inuit and Métis Peoples</a> launch clean energy projects.</p>
<p>Policymakers in <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214629623003031?casa_token=oA-q7QLSoi0AAAAA:ERC46yk_BCTFm5BnyPv9Nn2jFiFrc7XjRw_H0GKPRI_HsBq_0l8mZqxlYbim7l1zcQPAskA">both</a> <a href="https://cdnsciencepub.com/doi/full/10.1139/er-2018-0024?casa_token=H26U1EGKnakAAAAA%3ALnTYxXudwDujnWnyWqUbK9Mo4R9ekhETvW7g8dthacWDox3TFSi-Jm4B4A5qpIIo1KaWEpaCU2k">countries</a> increasingly realise that a just transition from fossil fuels requires addressing the priorities of First Nations communities. These investments are a starting point for building sustainable, globally competitive economies that work for everyone.</p>
<p>As the US and Canada examples <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0308597X22004316">demonstrate</a>, the right scale of investment in First Nations-led projects can mean fewer legal delays and a much-needed social licence to operate.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/renewable-projects-are-getting-built-faster-but-theres-even-more-need-for-speed-221874">Renewable projects are getting built faster – but there's even more need for speed </a>
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<h2>Dealing with the climate risk</h2>
<p>First Nations people around the world are on the <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959652620306429?casa_token=AAadBFs9XWUAAAAA:eFX4w39-yt7SjqNVXgIbHF-bCGiHu-v4UyyEF6k7Fsl_wt85KdjFXkTYBGhvA6prSPD3DnU">frontline of climate change</a>. It threatens their homelands, food sources, cultural resources and ways of life.</p>
<p>First Nations have also experienced chronic under-investment in their energy infrastructure by governments over generations, both in <a href="https://theconversation.com/many-first-nations-communities-swelter-without-power-why-isnt-there-solar-on-every-rooftop-204032">Australia</a> and <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214629621002280">abroad</a>.</p>
<p>Investing in First Nations-led clean energy projects <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/22/9569">builds climate resilience</a>. This was demonstrated by the federal government’s Bushlight program, which ran from 2002 to 2013. It involved renewable energy systems installed in remote communities in the Northern Territory, Western Australia and Queensland.</p>
<p>Bushlight’s solar power meant that communities were not dependent on the delivery of diesel. So they still had power if roads were closed by flooding or other climate disasters.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-can-aboriginal-communities-be-part-of-the-nsw-renewable-energy-transition-181171">How can Aboriginal communities be part of the NSW renewable energy transition?</a>
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<h2>Australia must get moving</h2>
<p>The Biden government’s Inflation Reduction Act prompted a <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/japan-eyes-over-14-bln-green-transformation-spending-govt-2023-08-23/">swift</a> <a href="https://www.esade.edu/faculty-research/sites/default/files/publicacion/pdf/2023-05/The%20EU%20Response%20to%20the%20U.S.%20Inflation%20Reduction%20Act.pdf">reaction</a> from governments around the world. But after 15 months, Australia is yet to respond or develop equivalent legislation. </p>
<p>We must urgently <a href="https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/labor-pushed-to-create-100b-australian-inflation-reduction-act-20230907-p5e2y7">develop our response</a> and seize this unique opportunity to become world leaders in the global renewables race. That includes ensuring First Nations participate in and benefit from these developments.</p>
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<p><em>The First Nations Clean Energy Strategy consultation paper can be found <a href="https://www.energy.gov.au/energy-and-climate-change-ministerial-council/working-groups/first-nations-engagement-working-group/first-nations-clean-energy-strategy">here</a>. Feedback can be provided <a href="https://consult.dcceew.gov.au/first-nations-clean-energy-strategy-consultation-paper">here</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/222616/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adam Fish volunteers research for the First Nations Clean Energy Network.
He received funding from the Digital Grid Future Institute at the University of New South Wales.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Heidi Norman receives funding from Australian Research Council and James Martin Institute. </span></em></p>Australia lags the US and Canada when it comes to involving Indigenous people in projects on their land. With the growth of renewable energy we have an opportunity to make a fresh start.Adam Fish, Associate Professor, School of Arts and Media, UNSW SydneyHeidi Norman, Professor, Faculty of Arts, Design and Architecture, UNSW SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2179072024-02-07T05:31:54Z2024-02-07T05:31:54ZWhat is ‘whole of nation’ foreign policy and what does it mean for Australians?<p>A key phrase in foreign affairs at the moment is taking a “whole of nation” approach. It has been cropping up in government documents such as the <a href="https://www.defence.gov.au/about/reviews-inquiries/defence-strategic-review">Defence Strategic Review</a> and <a href="https://www.dfat.gov.au/sites/default/files/international-development-policy.pdf">International Development Policy</a>.</p>
<p>But what exactly does it mean? </p>
<p><a href="https://asiapacific4d.com/idea/whole-of-nation/">A new report</a> to be launched at Parliament House by <a href="https://www.asiapacific4d.com">the Asia-Pacific Development, Diplomacy and Defence Dialogue</a> provides an explanation.</p>
<p>“Whole of nation” moves beyond the more familiar “whole of government” approach by recognising that foreign affairs should involve, as the name suggests, all facets of Australian life: business and investment, science and technology, education, sports, culture, media and civil society.</p>
<p>At a minimum, a whole-of-nation approach sees global engagement as not just the job of core international policy actors such as the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, but as the role of a far wider constituency.</p>
<p>That means all of us.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/foreign-policy-and-the-albanese-governments-first-100-days-189460">Foreign policy and the Albanese government’s first 100 days</a>
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<p>If you’re in business, you’re potentially a global actor: trade and investment are vital to building Australia’s international relationships. Science and technology co-operation is likewise an intrinsically international pursuit, and where and who you engage with makes a difference to Australia’s international links. </p>
<p>If you’re involved in education, the impact you have on international students informs international perceptions of Australia, while school-and-university-level educational partnerships create important links.</p>
<p>You might be involved in community-to-community links through a faith group, charity or non-government organisation. You might be a farmer or trade unionist interacting with seasonal workers. If you’re a First Nations Australian, you might draw on cultural knowledge and sometimes shared heritage to build links with other peoples. If you’re in the half of the population with recent experience of family migration, you’re part of important diaspora links across the world.</p>
<p>And if you travel, study or work abroad, you’re part of the impressions that other countries’ citizens form of Australia.</p>
<p>So when politicians talk about the “whole of nation” being part of our international engagement, they are talking about all of us. They want to get us thinking about how, as an individual or through a group, we can contribute to Australia’s international goals.</p>
<h2>Why is this happening?</h2>
<p>There is growing recognition that, given the scale of global problems, governments can’t do it alone.</p>
<p>“Whole of nation” carries a sense of urgency that Australia’s people, economy, society and public institutions must become more alert to their role in the international sphere and better organise themselves to meet these challenging times.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.pm.gov.au/media/iiss-shangri-la-dialogue">This push</a> for a more purposefully co-ordinated Australian statecraft has been <a href="https://www.foreignminister.gov.au/minister/penny-wong/speech/national-press-club-address-australian-interests-regional-balance-power">driven by</a> an increasingly challenging and complex external and security environment. </p>
<p>To those focused on the climate emergency, it is self-evident that dealing with a problem of this magnitude will require all Australia’s capabilities to be brought to bear.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/australias-new-development-aid-policy-provides-clear-vision-and-strategic-sense-210976">Australia's new development aid policy provides clear vision and strategic sense</a>
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<p>For those concerned about a worsening geopolitical environment, again it is vital that we take a co-ordinated approach.</p>
<p>There is also a sense of having to do more with what we have. While Australia will continue to grow in most important respects in absolute terms, its relative weight in the Indo-Pacific is likely to diminish as its neighbours continue to grow. A similar shift is happening with relative power moving away from Western countries, including Australia’s traditional allies.</p>
<p>The Indo-Pacific is the epicentre of this century’s great power competition, so it is no small matter for Australia to try to contribute to the region’s stability, prosperity and security.</p>
<p>It means Australia needs to avoid “foreign policy autopilot”. Instead, we need a wider range of participants and resources in Australia’s international policy.</p>
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<p>The good news is that Australians see themselves as active in the world, both as individuals and as associations and industries. They are often interested and energetic. The question is how to harness this effectively. A whole-of-nation approach can co-ordinate activity to drive clear and tangible results, tied to foreign policy strategy and goals.</p>
<p>The depth and diversity of Australia’s resources, assets and capabilities need to be identified and harnessed to secure our future. And we will need shared vision and objectives for what Australia’s international engagement is trying to achieve. From there, we will gain a better understanding of the skill sets that each part of our society and economy can contribute.</p>
<p>In short, “whole of nation” means foreign policy isn’t the preserve of a few. In a world of many problems, expect to see more calls for a whole-of-nation approach to international policy.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/217907/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Melissa Conley Tyler is Executive Director of the Asia-Pacific Development, Diplomacy & Defence Dialogue (AP4D), a platform for collaboration between the development, diplomacy and defence communities. It receives funding from the Australian Civil-Military Centre and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and is hosted by the Australian Council for International Development (ACFID). </span></em></p>A new emphasis on involving a wider range of society and the economy in foreign affairs is taking hold.Melissa Conley Tyler, Honorary Fellow, Asia Institute, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2214052024-01-25T01:29:23Z2024-01-25T01:29:23Z2024 is a huge year for the Olympics – and it’s not just about the Paris games<p>2024 is a leap year, and in the world of international sport it means something very exciting: it’s an Olympic year. For Australians, there is growing excitement about the 2032 games to be held in Brisbane. And between those four-yearly stints, there is also the winter Olympics to keep us entertained.</p>
<p>So let’s take a look at what’s coming up, and what it might mean for Australian athletes and audiences. </p>
<h2>The 2024 Paris Olympics</h2>
<p>A good example of the growing excitement around this year’s games is the new Australian Olympic television broadcaster, Channel 9, bombarding us with promotional commercials. </p>
<p>With Australia finishing sixth overall at the 2020/21 Tokyo Olympics with 46 medals, there is optimism for another top 10 finish in Paris this year.</p>
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<h2>2032 Brisbane summer Olympics</h2>
<p>Organising a global sporting event such as the Olympics is a massive logistical exercise, so it’s no surprise the <a href="https://www.qld.gov.au/about/brisbane2032/brisbane-2032-organising-committee">organising committee</a> for the Brisbane games has already been set up, despite the games being more than eight years away.</p>
<p>There is growing reluctance for countries to take on the huge financial burden of hosting events like the Olympics. As a result, the planning for 2032 is in full swing with a goal that these games not “break the bank” with expensive facilities, staying within budget and also delivering key <a href="https://q2032.au/plans/games-legacy">legacy goals</a> well after the games finish.</p>
<p>However, some recent disagreement within the infrastructure planning process has led the Queensland state government to <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-01-18/graham-quirk-to-lead-qld-olympics-review/103349700">instigate a review</a> of the master plan and what it says are the “over the top costs”. These are estimated at $2.7 billion to refurbish the ‘Gabba as the main Olympic stadium, and a new $2.5 billion Brisbane Arena.</p>
<p>With plenty of time to sort out this and other issues, there is confidence that Brisbane will continue the Australian tradition of being a great Olympic host. </p>
<h2>2024 Youth Winter Olympics</h2>
<p>Starting in 2010, the Youth Olympic Games (summer and winter) for athletes aged from 15 to 18 were added to the Olympic schedule. The fourth <a href="https://www.olympics.com.au/news/australias-largest-winter-youth-olympic-games-team-set-for-gangwon-2024">Youth Winter Olympics</a> are being held in Gangwon, South Korea, from January 19 to February 1 2024. With over 70 nations, 81 events and 1,900 athletes participating, this youth-based event is growing in stature and popularity.</p>
<p>Australia has its largest representation ever, with a record 47 athletes competing in eight disciplines, including the first all-Australian ice hockey team. In the previous three youth games, Australia has won seven medals. We can expect more in Korea. </p>
<p>Interestingly, there will be significant media coverage on 9Now, Stan Sport and the AOC website as well as Australian Olympic team social channels, highlighting how this multi-sport event has grown in popularity.</p>
<h2>100th anniversary of the first Winter Olympics</h2>
<p>Of special Olympic significance is that January 25 marks the 100th anniversary of the Winter Olympics. The first Winter Olympics were held in Chamonix, France, in 1924. This rather modest event, held over 11 days, had 258 athletes from six participating nations competing in 16 different events in five sports. </p>
<p>While initially a poor cousin of the summer games, the winter edition gradually expanded and improved its profile. At the 2022 Beijing games, the numbers expanded to 2,092 athletes, seven sports, 15 disciplines, 109 events and 91 nations, including those with little or no history in winter sports.</p>
<p>This growth resulted for several reasons: adding in lots of new sports and events, pressure from the <a href="https://www.xgames.com/">X Games</a> and its appeal to a youth audience, adding sports that are television-friendly, promoting gender balance, increased corporate and sponsorship funding and, starting in 1994, putting the winter games on a new cycle of even years between the summer games.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/everyones-a-winner-with-new-events-at-the-winter-games-22820">Everyone's a winner with new events at the Winter Games</a>
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<h2>Australia’s Winter Olympics journey</h2>
<p>Australia is not the first nation that springs to mind when considering the Winter Olympics due to its warm climate. We always perform extremely well at the summer games, ranking 14th with 566 medals in 2021. While we will likely never replicate this placing in the winter games, there has been significant improvement.</p>
<p>Australia was not represented at the 1924 Winter Olympics 100 years ago. In 1936, it participated in its first Winter Olympics in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, with just one competitor, speed skater Kenneth Kennedy. </p>
<p>However, after a sluggish and inconsistent history in the winter games, we won our first medal in 1994. Since then, we have won medals at every games and our world rank has risen to 25th with 19 medals.</p>
<p>Our winter Olympians have produced a number of exciting performances, with several athletes winning two medals. These include Alisa Camplin and Lydia Lassila in aerial skiing, Dale Begg-Smith in mogul skiing, Torah Bright in the half-pipe and Scotty James in snowboarding.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/better-late-than-never-australias-winter-olympic-medallists-22884">Better late than never: Australia's Winter Olympic medallists</a>
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<p>By far our most famous medallist is Steven Bradbury, who won a bronze medal in team speed skating in 1994 and then our first ever gold medal in the same sport at the 2002 Salt Lake City games. He won in unconventional fashion, shooting forward from the back of the pack to win after all the leaders collided and fell. </p>
<p>His triumph, dubbed the “accidental gold”, became legendary and part of Olympic lore. It also entered the vernacular: “to do a Bradbury” means to win in an unusual and unexpected circumstance. Bradbury’s achievements have been recognised with an ice rink named after him at the O’Brien Icehouse in Melbourne.</p>
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<p>To support its athletes, Australia has made investments in winter sports infrastructure and athlete development. </p>
<p>The Olympic Winter Institute of Australia was set up in 1998, funded by the Australian Olympic Committee and the Australian Sports Commission. It has been a major reason for our increased Olympic success. The purpose of this investment is to develop talent and increase the nation’s ability to compete in the Winter Olympics. </p>
<p>In addition, the media, the corporate sector and the public are now also on board the winter Olympic bandwagon.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/advance-australia-five-steps-to-winter-games-success-22885">Advance Australia: five steps to Winter Games success</a>
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<p>The next winter games in Milan and Cortina d'Ampezzo in 2026 represent a good chance for our best-ever medal haul.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/221405/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Richard Baka does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>All the attention is on the Paris summer games starting in July, but there’s plenty else to get excited about this year.Richard Baka, Honorary Professor, School of Kinesiology, Western University, London, Canada; Adjunct Fellow, Olympic Scholar and Co-Director of the Olympic and Paralympic Research Centre, Institute for Health and Sport, Victoria UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2192002024-01-24T20:33:54Z2024-01-24T20:33:54ZThe Australia-Tuvalu deal shows why we need a global framework for climate relocations<iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/the-australia-tuvalu-deal-shows-why-we-need-a-global-framework-for-climate-relocations" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>The recent climate migration deal signed by Australia and Tuvalu in November 2023 has been touted as providing a “<a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/tuvalu-climate-change-migration-1.7024777">lifeline</a>” to the people of the South Pacific nation who face existential threats from rising sea levels and climate change.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.dfat.gov.au/geo/tuvalu/australia-tuvalu-falepili-union-treaty">Australia-Tuvalu Falepili Union treaty</a> is the world’s first bilateral agreement on climate mobility. Under the treaty, Australia will grant permanent residence to up to 280 Tuvaluans facing dangers posed by climate change each year. </p>
<p>In exchange, Tuvalu will not enter into any security or defence agreements with other countries without Australian approval. In addition, Australia will defend Tuvalu from foreign threats and provide assistance following disasters.</p>
<p>Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese called the deal groundbreaking and a “<a href="https://twitter.com/AlboMP/status/1722846875655794728">comprehensive partnership</a>” that respected sovereignty. </p>
<p>However, others have criticized it as <a href="https://indepthnews.net/concerns-in-the-pacific-over-neo-colonial-australia-tuvalu-agreement/">neo-colonial</a>, especially for the control it grants Australia over Tuvalu’s security, maritime zones and resources. </p>
<h2>Groundbreaking or neo-colonial?</h2>
<p>There have long been <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/nov/10/tuvalu-residency-and-security-treaty-what-is-it-and-why-is-australia-doing-it">heated debates</a> about the idea of such an arrangement, and some see the treaty as an <a href="https://theconversation.com/australias-offer-of-climate-migration-to-tuvalu-residents-is-groundbreaking-and-could-be-a-lifeline-across-the-pacific-217514">important step</a>. </p>
<p>As the consequences of climate change become more severe, the international community needs to protect populations who face becoming stateless as their countries literally sink into the ocean. </p>
<p>However, some see this deal as yet another example of western countries exerting colonial influence over others. Former Tuvalu Prime Minister, Enele Sopoaga, turned down a 2019 proposal to offer Australian citizenship to climate refugees from island states in the South Pacific in exchange for granting Australia control of their exclusive economic zones and territorial seas. He called the proposal neo-colonial and an example of “<a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-02-18/tuvalu-pm-slams-kevin-rudd-suggestion-as-neo-colonialism/10820176">imperial thinking</a>.” </p>
<p>Sopoaga has reiterated those concerns regarding the Falepili Union and accused the current Prime Minister of <a href="https://www.pacificislandtimes.com/post/where-would-tuvalu-stop-auctioning-its-sovereignty-for-money">auctioning Tuvalu’s sovereignty for money</a>.</p>
<p>There were also concerns about the <a href="https://www.rnz.co.nz/international/pacific-news/503354/australia-tuvalu-falepili-union-shameful-former-tuvalu-pm">lack of consultation</a> with Tuvaluans, the use of this treaty to <a href="https://devpolicy.org/the-australia-tuvalu-falepili-union-tuvaluan-values-or-australian-interests-20231115/">counter China’s growing influence</a> in the Pacific and how it is a <a href="https://toda.org/global-outlook/2023/this-is-not-climate-justice-the-australia-tuvalu-falepili-union.html">poor example of climate justice</a>.</p>
<h2>Relocation is understudied</h2>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.crsust.2022.100177">Not enough focus</a> has been given to relocation and the topic has been <a href="https://researchinginternaldisplacement.org/short_pieces/planned-relocations-what-we-know-dont-know-and-need-to-learn/">understudied</a>. </p>
<p>The existential dangers posed by climate change are all too real for small island nations like Tuvalu. Many face a real risk of becoming uninhabitable due to climate change. For example, Tuvalu and Vanuatu could be <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-09-10/sinking-islands-turn-to-court-as-they-fight-for-climate-survival?leadSource=uverify%20wall">completely submerged</a> by the end of this century. </p>
<p>Research shows that more than <a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1pDR-t1hVApqJiVk6E5DJ7TN0cOtXJiKvS1w8QIP149o/edit#gid=1611800107">400 climate and weather related relocations</a> have taken place globally since 1970 and <a href="https://researchinginternaldisplacement.org/short_pieces/planned-relocations-what-we-know-dont-know-and-need-to-learn/">more will happen in the future</a>. Fiji has <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/nov/08/how-to-move-a-country-fiji-radical-plan-escape-rising-seas-climate-crisis">one of the most thorough plans ever devised to tackle planned relocation</a> and identifies the many logistical, financial, social and cultural challenges involved.</p>
<p>Among the complex plans are deeply personal and moral decisions, like what to do with burial sites. These nations are often faced with two traumatic options: let them sink or exhume the remains.</p>
<p>Fiji’s relocation, as well as most others, will be internal. However, the question of international relocation is even more challenging with much higher-level geopolitical challenges and social and economic consequences. </p>
<h2>Sovereignty and disappearing land</h2>
<p>One of the hardest questions is that of sovereignty. Will there be a time when most Tuvaluans live outside Tuvalu? How would those in the diaspora be able to exercise their national rights, if they have them? How can they maintain their distinct nationhood without land? These questions are important, but also hard to answer.</p>
<p>Is a country that no longer has land still sovereign? <a href="https://www.ilsa.org/Jessup/Jessup15/Montevideo%20Convention.pdf">International law defines a sovereign state</a> as having 1) a permanent population, 2) a defined territory, 3) a government, and 4) the capacity to enter relations with other states. </p>
<p>Aware of this, Tuvalu has already amended its constitution to assert that its <a href="https://devpolicy.org/the-australia-tuvalu-falepili-union-tuvaluan-values-or-australian-interests-20231115/">statehood is permanent</a>, so its sovereignty persists despite losing its land to sea-level rise.</p>
<p>They are also developing <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/27/tuvalu-climate-crisis-rising-sea-levels-pacific-island-nation-country-digital-clone">a digital nation</a> by recreating its land in the metaverse, archiving its culture and digitalizing its government. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570998/original/file-20240123-19-ukq6i8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A hilly tropical island surrounded by the ocean" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570998/original/file-20240123-19-ukq6i8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570998/original/file-20240123-19-ukq6i8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570998/original/file-20240123-19-ukq6i8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570998/original/file-20240123-19-ukq6i8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570998/original/file-20240123-19-ukq6i8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570998/original/file-20240123-19-ukq6i8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570998/original/file-20240123-19-ukq6i8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Island nations like Fiji have developed plans to relocate people due to the impacts of climate change and rising sea levels.</span>
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<h2>Maritime boundaries</h2>
<p>Maritime boundaries are divisions of Earth’s water surface areas in the context of territorial waters, contiguous zones and exclusive economic zones. The maritime boundaries of small island nations are vast. For example, Tuvalu’s <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-02-13/what-happens-to-maritime-boundaries-after-sea-level-rise/10804478">ocean territories cover more than 900,000 square kilometres</a>, which is about the size of Nigeria. </p>
<p>Rising oceans could shrink the maritime zones as an island sinks. There are <a href="https://www.sydney.edu.au/news-opinion/news/2022/09/12/-is-climate-change-disrupting-maritime-boundaries-.html">serious implications</a> of this as maritime boundaries determine who has the right to <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-02-13/what-happens-to-maritime-boundaries-after-sea-level-rise/10804478">Pacific fisheries worth billions of dollars</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/21550085.2014.926086">Sovereignty and maritime boundaries</a> can be the main challenges that a global governance framework for international relocation can help to address first as those have implications on how planned relocation can unfold. In terms of how the planned relocation itself can take place, there are several ideas:</p>
<p>1) Special visas and treaties that facilitate climate mobility such as the Falepili Union.</p>
<p>2) Leasing territories has been a common solution that small island states have explored, like <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jul/01/kiribati-climate-change-fiji-vanua-levu">Kiribati’s purchase of land in Fiji</a>.</p>
<p>3) Merging of several states, like how <a href="https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/6ae3f9d7-4d5f-55ce-bfee-1b124561e486/content">Zanzibar and Tanganyika unified in 1964 to form Tanzania</a>, so people on islands that will be submerged can move to other areas of country.</p>
<p>4) <a href="http://www.qil-qdi.org/sinking-states-the-statehood-dilemma-in-the-face-of-sea-level-rise/">Artificial and floating islands</a> to replace submerged land territory have been contemplated, but the legal status of such islands is highly uncertain and could set dangerous precedents, such as new islands being used to claim territories within the maritime boundaries of others. </p>
<p>All these potential ways to allow for planned relocation come with significant challenges, which is why a global governance framework is required.</p>
<p>Planned relocation and, specifically, international relocation, is one of the biggest challenges of our time as the sovereignty, maritime boundaries and rights of affected nations are all at risk, let alone the lives and futures of millions around the world. Most importantly, significant action to combat the climate crisis is required from all nations so the need for mass plan relocation can be mitigated.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/219200/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Yvonne Su does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The climate migration deal has been dubbed as offering Tuvaluans a lifeline, but others say it is a neocolonial arrangement that does not tackle rising ocean levels.Yvonne Su, Assistant Professor in the Department of Equity Studies, York University, CanadaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2182982024-01-18T22:00:22Z2024-01-18T22:00:22ZFlipping Indigenous regional development in Newfoundland upside-down: lessons from Australia<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570173/original/file-20240118-27-4y6ku6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4031%2C1816&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Newfoundland and Tasmania, Australia, have been described as 'mirror islands' with striking linkages. Site of one of the field excursions during the authors' 12-day exchange to Tasmania, Australia.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Author Provided, Brady Reid)</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/flipping-indigenous-regional-development-in-newfoundland-upside-down-lessons-from-australia" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>In an era of <a href="https://www.activesustainability.com/climate-change/global-boiling/?_adin=02021864894">“global boiling”</a> the Canadian government has set ambitious targets to transition towards a <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/services/environment/weather/climatechange/climate-plan/net-zero-emissions-2050.html">net-zero future</a> with important caveats that this transition must be <a href="https://climateinstitute.ca/reports/canadas-net-zero-future/recommendations/">fair and inclusive</a>. </p>
<p>However, does this future include vibrant, self-determined Indigenous communities? Research shows that inadequate engagement between settler governments, corporations and Indigenous communities leads to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2020.101897">poor indications of reconciliation</a>. </p>
<p>This is a troubling reality given the <a href="https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/aboriginal-people-economic-conditions">ongoing socio-economic challenges</a> imposed on Indigenous communities across the land now called Canada.</p>
<h2>Risk and uncertainty</h2>
<p>Everywhere in Canada has unique, and equally important, developmental considerations and climate risks.</p>
<p>For regional Ktaqmkuk (Newfoundland) Mi’kmaw communities in Nujio’qonik, (the St. George’s Bay region), the uncertainty of the future is complicated by large-scale, natural resource developments. </p>
<p>A clear example of one such development is Project Nujio’qonik, billed as the <a href="https://worldenergygh2.com/about/">world’s first large-scale green hydrogen project in western Newfoundland and Labrador</a>. </p>
<p>Mi’kmaw communities and leaders, such as <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/calvin-white-powwow-qa-1.6907384">Elder Calvin White</a>, led the movement for recognition of the Mi’kmaq in Ktaqmkuk post-Confederation, and continue to do so today. </p>
<p>However, the <a href="https://www.sac-isc.gc.ca/eng/1319805325971/1572459825339">controversial</a> establishment of the Qalipu Mi’kmaq First Nation has hampered efforts by Mi’kmaw across the west coast of Ktaqmkuk to fully realize effective stewardship and control over decisions impacting communities and surrounding territories. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas are an important example of self-governance for Indigenous Peoples. Overview of IPCAs produced by the Conservation Through Reconciliation Partnership.</span></figcaption>
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<p>The complexities behind the establishment of the Qalipu Mi'kmaq First Nation continue to be <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/qalipu-enrolment-court-decision-1.6882390">challenged in court</a> and <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/radio/outintheopen/stranger-in-your-own-land-1.4407020/mi-kmaq-communities-divided-over-federal-government-s-qalipu-band-membership-decisions-1.4407060">families remain divided to this day</a>. </p>
<p>While the situation may seem intractable there are surprising insights to be gained from the experiences of Indigenous groups halfway around the world. </p>
<h2>18,000 km away</h2>
<p>Despite being geographically poles apart, both Newfoundland and Tasmania have been described by locals and scholars as <a href="https://figshare.utas.edu.au/articles/thesis/Artists_and_the_articulation_of_islandness_sense_of_place_and_story_in_Newfoundland_and_Tasmania/23240777">“mirror islands” with striking linkages and similarities throughout history</a>. </p>
<p>Indigenous groups in both regions have fought for decades to assert their rights and agency on traditional territory and continue to push back against a shared <a href="https://www.gov.nl.ca/publicat/royalcomm/research/Hanrahan.pdf">history of erasure</a> and <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-06-13/winning-indigenous-aboriginal-rights-in-tasmania/11202128">extinction myths</a>. </p>
<p>Inequalities continue to facilitate patterns of uneven growth and opportunity with real impacts upon local communities.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/closing-the-first-nations-employment-gap-will-take-100-years-205290">Closing the First Nations employment gap will take 100 years</a>
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</em>
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<p>In response to growing concerns for the future of their communities Mi’kmaw leaders Chief Joanne Miles of the Flat Bay Band and Chief Peggy White of the Three Rivers Mi’kmaq Band travelled to Tasmania with PhD candidate Brady Reid. </p>
<p>The goal of the trip was to share knowledge and learn about advances in <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/connections-to-sea-country-cultural-fisheries-program-launched-for-tasmanias-aboriginal-people/ka7rfqm5f">sustainable and culturally-grounded economic development projects within Australia</a>. </p>
<p>The exchange took place between Nov. 4-16, 2023 in Hobart, the capital city of Tasmania, with some excursions to various locations around the southern part of the island. </p>
<p>At the invite of local Indigenous leaders, Professor Emma Lee of the National Centre for Reconciliation, Truth, and Justice at Federation University and Uncle Rodney Dillon of the <a href="https://www.ilsc.gov.au/">Land and Sea Aboriginal Corporation</a> — among others — shared Indigenous regional development and recognition initiatives. </p>
<h2>Shared lessons</h2>
<p>Recognizing, renewing and supporting Indigenous management and stewardship over traditional territories and resources is a key step in re-shaping settler-Indigenous relationships. This is especially true for Indigenous communities denied access to treaty resources and rights.</p>
<p>Though not without challenges, the Tasmanian and Australian governments have <a href="https://www.frdc.com.au/supporting-cultural-fisheries-research-aboriginal-tasmanians">supported Indigenous-led research and partnership development</a>. These efforts have helped to realize an economically viable and culturally significant fisheries industry. </p>
<p>Through Tasmanian Aboriginal efforts to align supportive federal policy with state regulations, top-down strategies have transformed local reluctance into regional development opportunities. </p>
<p>Lessons gleaned from discussions with federal and state representatives in Tasmania have helped shape future strategies to realize self-determined resource governance in Ktaqmkuk.</p>
<p>The shared experiences in colonial history — and the mutual legacy of marine industries — between the islands of Tasmania and Ktaqmkuk have led to similarities in actions Indigenous Peoples can take. </p>
<p>Actions which can serve to share knowledge, collectively strengthen self-determination rights, and develop social licence strategies that favour Indigenous-led regional development while re-shaping relationships across all levels of government.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/canadas-nature-agreement-underscores-the-need-for-true-reconciliation-with-indigenous-nations-217427">Canada’s Nature Agreement underscores the need for true reconciliation with Indigenous nations</a>
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<p>While change takes time, it is incredibly important that settler government, agencies and representatives support initiatives led by Indigenous communities and do not create barriers in bureaucratic policy or procedure, especially when strong business cases are evident. </p>
<h2>Moving forward</h2>
<p>Recommendations from the <a href="https://climateinstitute.ca/">Canadian Climate Institute</a> support green policy action that improve social and economic indicators, including <a href="https://theconversation.com/canada-needs-to-set-its-businesses-up-for-success-in-the-clean-energy-transition-206276">business interests and opportunities</a>. </p>
<p>After learning more about the <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/connections-to-sea-country-cultural-fisheries-program-launched-for-tasmanias-aboriginal-people/ka7rfqm5f">Tasmanian cultural fisheries pilot</a> we kept asking ourselves, why not assert Mi’kmaw communities as leaders in regional development over our own traditional territories? </p>
<p>In making clear statements that align traditional knowledge with renewable energy policies, Indigenous Peoples are <a href="https://www.saltwire.com/atlantic-canada/news/were-facing-extinction-as-a-people-in-our-territory-indigenous-leaders-from-bay-st-george-south-and-port-au-port-peninsula-say-wind-energy-project-is-needed-100914527/">creating the terms</a> for effective and fair transitions to a better future. </p>
<p>We saw this in Tasmania, where a groundswell of support for cultural fisheries operating within commercial quota led to a fascinating and consequential shift in relationship-building. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">A report on the solar initiatives of the Métis Nation of Alberta produced by the CBC. Indigenous People have huge potential to create the terms of Canada’s renewable energy future.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Traditional institutions, such as universities and <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/services/environment/fisheries.html">fishery statutory authorities</a>, remain the obvious places of collaboration. However, it was the non-traditional avenues, such as Indigenous procurement initiatives at <a href="https://www.govhouse.tas.gov.au/vice-regal-news/professor-emma-lee-national-centre-reconciliation-truth-and-justice-federation">Government House</a>, that were most surprising and fruitful. </p>
<p>Indigenous-led regional development, as a fair and equitable process, is about recognizing that Indigenous Peoples want Indigenous cultural innovation to advance all sectors of society. </p>
<p>In re-shaping settler-Indigenous relationships, the emphasis here is on how self-assertion of rights has mutual gains at its heart. If renewable energy can come together to support cultural fisheries for healthier relationships, then our unique island character is retained as a strength rather than a deficit.</p>
<p>We learned and shared invaluable knowledge from a variety of stakeholders in Tasmania that have sparked ideas and creative strategies for improved relations at home in Ktaqmkuk. </p>
<p>Importantly, we know that for effective transitions to a better future and more sustainable society, the only way forward is to respect the terms of Indigenous Peoples’ regional development goals.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/218298/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>This article follows a two-week Indigenous exchange from Newfoundland, Canada to Tasmania, Australia that received funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the University of Waterloo, and the Marine Biomass Innovation Project (<a href="http://www.mbiproject.ca">www.mbiproject.ca</a>). </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chief Joanne Miles is the Chief of the Flat Bay Band.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chief Peggy (Margaret) White (BA, JD, LLM) is the Chief of the Three Rivers Mi'kmaq Band. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Emma Lee is a board director of the Land and Sea Aboriginal Corporation Tasmania and is a current recipient of the Pew Fellows Program in Marine Conservation.</span></em></p>The lessons from Tasmania are clear. Asserting Indigenous rights in Canada can be mutually beneficial for all.Brady Reid, PhD Student, Sustainabilty Management, University of WaterlooChief Joanne Miles, Chief of the Flat Bay BandChief Peggy (Margaret) White, Chief of the Three Rivers Mi'kmaq BandEmma Lee, Professor, National Centre for Reconciliation, Truth, and Justice, Federation University AustraliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2181282024-01-15T19:04:45Z2024-01-15T19:04:45Z565-million-years-old, some of the oldest UK fossils are eerily similar to famous Australian ones<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/562350/original/file-20231129-28-ulz8qc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=2%2C4%2C1531%2C1016&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Ediacaran life as imagined by scientists in the 1980s.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Life_in_the_Ediacaran_sea.jpg">Ryan Somma/Wikimedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Some half a billion years ago, life on Earth went through a huge transformation. In what is called <a href="https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/10.1146/annurev.earth.33.092203.122519">the Ediacaran period</a>, after billions of years of single-celled organisms, large multicellular organisms emerged in the fossil record.</p>
<p>These traces of the oldest complex ecosystems have been found in only a handful of locations around the world. The fossils were made by soft-bodied creatures covered by sand, creating impressions of their squashed remains imprinted into rock.</p>
<p>Evidence of these creatures was first found in the <a href="https://ediacarafoundation.org/visit/">Ediacara Hills</a>, in South Australia’s Flinders Ranges. The discovery was pivotal in defining the <a href="https://www.idunn.no/doi/10.1080/00241160500409223">Ediacaran period</a>: a time in Earth’s past characterised by a specific layer of rock which symbolises a significant change in history.</p>
<p>What was happening elsewhere at this time? <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/268624a0">Similar-looking fossils</a> have been found in a disused quarry in a farmer’s field at Llangynog in Wales, but until now their precise age was unknown. </p>
<p>In a <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.1144/jgs2023-081">new study published in Journal of the Geological Society</a>, we have dated these Welsh remnants of ancient marine life. Now, we can confirm they were near contemporaries of the famous South Australian fossils. </p>
<h2>A bookmark for rocks</h2>
<p>How do geologists figure out the age of fossils? Understanding the age of fossils is extremely useful for correlation and understanding how biological communities evolved.</p>
<p>Luckily, at least for us today, an environmental catastrophe loomed in the shallow sea where these Welsh organisms lived. </p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/volcano-eruptions-are-notoriously-hard-to-forecast-a-new-method-using-lasers-could-be-the-key-207031">Volcanic explosions</a> threw mineral particles over the surrounding landscape and polluted the atmosphere with toxic gases.</p>
<p>The billowing red hot clouds created ash layers. These ash layers contain mineral grains that are <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/isotope">isotopically</a> datable, acting like miniature stopwatches that record the time elapsed since they crystallised in a volcano. Hence, volcanic ash acts much like a bookmark in a sequence of rocks, tracking the moment of eruption.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/568992/original/file-20240112-19-9fua7r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Illustration of a conic volcano in the distance spewing out an ash cloud" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/568992/original/file-20240112-19-9fua7r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/568992/original/file-20240112-19-9fua7r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568992/original/file-20240112-19-9fua7r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568992/original/file-20240112-19-9fua7r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568992/original/file-20240112-19-9fua7r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568992/original/file-20240112-19-9fua7r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568992/original/file-20240112-19-9fua7r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Volcanic eruptions produce layers of ash that can be used as ‘bookmarks’ in the geological record.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/volcano-errupting-volcanic-erruption-3d-illustration-2213727917">CGS Graphics</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A clock for rocks</h2>
<p>A clock tick-tocks every second, but how do we measure time when each tick takes a million years? We use a <a href="https://www.gsoc.org/news/2020/12/07/zircon">mineral called zircon</a>. </p>
<p>Trapped within zircon is some uranium that undergoes nuclear decay to lead over millions of years. Scientists know the rate at which this change occurs, so by analysing the composition of the crystal we can use the zircon as a geological clock.</p>
<p>The more precisely we measure the amount of uranium and lead, the more precise the clock. By carefully <a href="https://www.boisestate.edu/earth-isotope/labshare/id-tims-instructional-videos/">dissolving, heating and analysing zircon</a>, we have dated the rocks in Wales to 565 million years (plus or minus 0.1%). That is a precise death certificate for the fossils.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/scientists-cant-agree-on-when-the-first-animals-evolved-our-research-hopes-to-end-the-debate-212076">Scientists can't agree on when the first animals evolved – our research hopes to end the debate</a>
</strong>
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</p>
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<h2>It’s life, but not as we know it</h2>
<p>Evidence from Ediacaran fossils implies that after four billion years of oceans containing single-celled microbes, suddenly – in geological terms at least – the seas teemed with new complex life. <a href="https://eos.org/features/hunting-rare-fossils-of-the-ediacaran">Ediacaran life is odd</a>, with strange soft-bodied forms whose interaction with the environment is unclear. </p>
<p>Were the creatures stationary, or did they move around and eat each other? In some ways these creatures would be strangely familiar, yet in another way, bizarre. </p>
<p>Some appeared fern-like, others like cabbages, and yet others were similar to modern <a href="https://www.britannica.com/animal/sea-pen">sea pens</a>, resembling fat, old-fashioned writing quills.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, fossils from this time preserve the earliest evidence for large-scale multicellular organisms, <a href="https://www.australianenvironmentaleducation.com.au/education-resources/life-in-the-ediacaran/">including the first animals</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/568974/original/file-20240111-17-he84nu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Green hills stretching to the horizon with clouds above and a few sheep in the foreground" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/568974/original/file-20240111-17-he84nu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/568974/original/file-20240111-17-he84nu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568974/original/file-20240111-17-he84nu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568974/original/file-20240111-17-he84nu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568974/original/file-20240111-17-he84nu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568974/original/file-20240111-17-he84nu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568974/original/file-20240111-17-he84nu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The rolling countryside of mid-south Wales – hidden away in these hills is evidence of ancient life.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/rolling-agricultural-hills-mid-wales-landscape-2095266949">Parkerspics</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A tropical paradise?</h2>
<p>Half a billion years ago, Wales was not green and sheep covered and looked much more like a barren volcanic island. The Llangynog fossils are fascinating because they record a shallow marine ecosystem. </p>
<p>In contrast, other famous fossil sites like <a href="https://www.bgs.ac.uk/news/560-million-year-old-fossil-is-first-animal-predator/">Charnwood Forest in the United Kingdom</a> and <a href="https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1497/">Mistaken Point, Canada</a> record deep-marine conditions.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/565985/original/file-20231215-15-xkahqn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A circular impression on a grey rock with a 20mm scale in the corner" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/565985/original/file-20231215-15-xkahqn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/565985/original/file-20231215-15-xkahqn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565985/original/file-20231215-15-xkahqn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565985/original/file-20231215-15-xkahqn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565985/original/file-20231215-15-xkahqn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=632&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565985/original/file-20231215-15-xkahqn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=632&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565985/original/file-20231215-15-xkahqn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=632&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"><em>Aspidella</em>, one of the weird and wonderful fossils of Llangynog, Wales.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Anthony Clarke</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the shallow waters of the chain of tropical volcanic islands that’s now Wales, a creature called <em>Aspidella terranovica</em> felt the warmth of sunlight and the sway of the tides 565 million years ago. This fossil is rare and valuable because it shows evidence of movement.</p>
<p>Alongside <em>Aspidella</em>, other disc-like organisms are preserved; these could represent the anchor for fern-shaped filter feeders.</p>
<p>Hidden away in an unassuming quarry in Wales are the remnants of a diverse shallow marine ecosystem containing some of Britain’s oldest fossils, which we have proved have cousins of a similar age in Australia. This time in Earth’s history was just after a <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-snowball-earth-volcanoes-altered-oceans-to-help-kickstart-animal-life-53280">global glaciation</a> so severe and widespread that some researchers consider the entire planet froze into a “snowball”. </p>
<p>The Ediacaran fossils show this thaw-out heralded evolutionary change, demonstrating a profound link between our planet’s geological processes and its biological cargo.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-the-silence-of-ediacara-the-shadow-of-uranium-72058">Friday essay: the silence of Ediacara, the shadow of uranium</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/218128/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chris Kirkland receives funding from the Australian Research Council and various state government organisations within Australia.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anthony Clarke receives funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p>Fossil traces of the oldest complex ecosystems are found in precious few locations worldwide, including Australia. Newly dated fossils from Wales now join the ranks.Chris Kirkland, Professor of Geochronology, Curtin UniversityAnthony Clarke, PhD Student in Applied Geology, Curtin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2173782024-01-04T20:03:04Z2024-01-04T20:03:04ZAustralia is still reckoning with a shameful legacy: the resettlement of suspected war criminals after WWII<p>In the Canadian parliament last year, an outcry erupted after 98-year-old Ukrainian-Canadian Yaroslav Hunka was presented to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as a hero of the second world war. </p>
<p>It turned out Hunka had fought against the Allies as a voluntary member of the Nazi German Waffen-SS Galizien division. The incident was deeply embarrassing for Canada; Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was forced to <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2023/09/27/americas/trudeau-apology-nazi-unit-intl/index.html">publicly apologise</a>. </p>
<p>The incident also highlighted the ignorance of many Canadians when it comes to world history, as well as the makeup of their own post-war immigration schemes. </p>
<p>As I discuss in my new book, <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Fascists-in-Exile-Post-War-Displaced-Persons-in-Australia/Persian/p/book/9780367696962#:%7E:text=Description,Organisation%20between%201947%20and%201952.">Fascists in Exile</a>, Canada isn’t the only country where former Nazis fled after the second world war. And in many of these countries, families continue to grapple with the legacies of this turbulent time in history.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/561743/original/file-20231127-17-ym0xyg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/561743/original/file-20231127-17-ym0xyg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561743/original/file-20231127-17-ym0xyg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561743/original/file-20231127-17-ym0xyg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561743/original/file-20231127-17-ym0xyg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561743/original/file-20231127-17-ym0xyg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561743/original/file-20231127-17-ym0xyg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The author’s new book, published in December.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Routledge</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In Australia, for instance, when a Lithuanian immigrant named Bronius “Bob” Šredersas died in 1982, he bequeathed a significant art collection to the city of Wollongong. Last year, however, his secret history was <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-06-20/bob-sredersas-a-nazi-report-concludes/101166634">revealed</a>: he was found to be a member of Nazi intelligence in occupied Lithuania during the second world war. He was almost certainly <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/mar/21/i-am-bob-just-bob-could-a-wollongong-folk-hero-have-had-a-nazi-past">involved</a> in the persecution and murders of Jews. </p>
<p>In response to a report by Professor Konrad Kwiet of the Sydney Jewish Museum, the Wollongong City Council <a href="https://wollongong.nsw.gov.au/my-community/news-and-alerts/news/news/2022/june-2022/wollongong-art-gallery-removes-sredersas-plaque#:%7E:text=Wollongong%20City%20Council%20has%20removed,artworks%2C%20is%20a%20Nazi%20collaborator.">removed a plaque</a> acknowledging the donation and updated its website with the new information about Šredersas’ past. </p>
<p>These may seem to be isolated, rare cases. They are not. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/564128/original/file-20231207-23-qvfuqb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man on a bench" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/564128/original/file-20231207-23-qvfuqb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/564128/original/file-20231207-23-qvfuqb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564128/original/file-20231207-23-qvfuqb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564128/original/file-20231207-23-qvfuqb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564128/original/file-20231207-23-qvfuqb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564128/original/file-20231207-23-qvfuqb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564128/original/file-20231207-23-qvfuqb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Bronius ‘Bob’ Šredersas photographed in 1950.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://wollongong.spydus.com/cgi-bin/spydus.exe/FULL/WPAC/BIBENQ/36933577/27943663,1?FMT=IMG&IMGNUM=3">Wollongong City Libraries</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Denial, then investigations</h2>
<p>Around one million Central and Eastern European “displaced persons” were resettled by the United Nations after the second world war in countries such as Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States. This group included soldiers who had fought in German military units, as well as civilian collaborators. The Nazi-led Holocaust had relied on their firepower and administrative skills. </p>
<p>Many of these people should have been charged with war crimes. But their resettlement in any country that would take them was a matter of political expediency in the fraught post-war and early Cold War period.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/564134/original/file-20231207-23-abbr9o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/564134/original/file-20231207-23-abbr9o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/564134/original/file-20231207-23-abbr9o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=461&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564134/original/file-20231207-23-abbr9o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=461&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564134/original/file-20231207-23-abbr9o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=461&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564134/original/file-20231207-23-abbr9o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=579&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564134/original/file-20231207-23-abbr9o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=579&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564134/original/file-20231207-23-abbr9o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=579&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Arthur Calwell and Ben Chifley welcoming new migrants to Australia in 1947.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Chifley Research Centre/flickr</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Some 170,000 displaced persons were resettled in Australia between 1947 and 1952. Jewish groups immediately protested that this group included Nazi collaborators. The then immigration minister, Arthur Calwell, dismissed their claims as a “farrago of nonsense”. </p>
<p>The migrants were used as labourers under a two-year indentured labour scheme and transformed into what the government called “New Australians”. </p>
<p>Australia received at least eight extradition requests between 1950 and the mid-1960s for individuals suspected of WWII-era crimes from Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union. These were all refused with the justification that the judicial systems could not be trusted. </p>
<p>In 1961, the then attorney-general, Garfield Barwick, publicly stated he was “closing the chapter” on allegations of war crimes stemming from the second world war. As a result, there would be no further official discussions about any alleged perpetrators residing in Australia. </p>
<p>Decades later, though, all four of these main resettlement countries begin judicial proceedings against the same alleged war criminals they had ignored for so long. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-long-dark-history-of-antisemitism-in-australia-217908">The long, dark history of antisemitism in Australia</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Scholars have attributed this change to numerous factors, including the trial of former Nazi leader <a href="https://www.theholocaustexplained.org/survival-and-legacy/postwar-trials-and-denazification/the-trial-of-adolf-eichmann/">Adolf Eichmann</a> in 1961 and the publication of <a href="https://www.ushmm.org/information/press/in-memoriam/raul-hilberg-1926-2007">Raul Hilberg</a>’s comprehensive history of the Holocaust, as well as more generally to the cultural shift of the 1960s and generational change. </p>
<p>A <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/cabinet-papers-199293-hunting-war-criminals-hits-a-snag-20161216-gtd1fn.html">wide-ranging Australian investigation</a>, established by the Hawke government, was later carried out between 1987 and 1992. Among the immigrants who were investigated were 238 Lithuanians, 111 Latvians, 84 Ukrainians, 45 Hungarians and 44 Croatians. </p>
<p>Allegations against 27 men were found to be substantiated, but only three were formally charged: Ukrainians <a href="https://www.upi.com/Archives/1992/07/30/Second-Australian-war-crimes-prosecution-fails/5160754928180/">Mikolay Berezowsky</a>, <a href="https://search.library.uq.edu.au/primo-explore/fulldisplay?vid=61UQ&search_scope=61UQ_All&tab=61uq_all&docid=61UQ_ALMA2182744060003131&lang=en_US&context=L">Heinrich Wagner</a> and <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-05-20/nazi-war-criminals-in-australia-and-the-case-of-polyukhovich/9756454">Ivan Polyukhovich</a>. None was convicted.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1707332604129894704"}"></div></p>
<h2>Family histories unearthed</h2>
<p>This was not the end of the story, though. </p>
<p>Many alleged perpetrators of crimes never appeared on any official, or unofficial, list, either before or after the Australian investigation. But stories about individuals have come out in other ways.</p>
<p>My own research, for example, has resulted in the compiling of hundreds of such names by painstakingly piecing together various archival fragments.</p>
<p>For example, a colleague and I were alerted to some suspicious phrasing when the family of Hungarian migrant Ferenc Molnar, now deceased, placed a <a href="https://immigrationplace.com.au/story/ferenc-kalman-frank-molnar-2/">commemorative biography</a> on the website Immigration Place Australia. This biography noted Molnar’s authorship of “a small book about the Holocaust”. It turned out the “small book” was a strident denial of the Holocaust, titled <a href="https://catalogue.nla.gov.au/catalog/1294393">The Big Lie: Six Million Murdered Jews</a>. Molnar himself had claimed to have visited the Dachau concentration camp during the war. </p>
<p>The SBS television show <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/tv-series/every-family-has-a-secret">Every Family Has a Secret</a> has been approached by at least four people who have suspected a deceased family member was a Holocaust perpetrator or collaborator. The show investigated these allegations, using overseas archival researchers. All four suspects were shown to have been allegedly complicit in crimes. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/no-woman-in-the-usual-sense-ilse-koch-the-bitch-of-buchenwald-was-a-holocaust-war-criminal-but-was-she-also-an-easy-target-203960">'No woman in the usual sense': Ilse Koch, the 'Bitch of Buchenwald', was a Holocaust war criminal – but was she also an easy target?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Angela Hamilton, for example, suspected her deceased Romanian father, Pál Roszy, had been “helping the Nazis” because he was a violent man and rabid anti-Semite. In fact, he had been <a href="https://www.mamamia.com.au/angela-hamilton-no-filter/">convicted</a> in absentia in post-war Romania of killing 31 elderly Jews.</p>
<p>While some families have always either known or suspected the truth, others have been shocked to find a loved one’s name in the files of the 1987-1992 Special Investigations Unit. </p>
<p>My husband’s now-deceased grandfather’s name appears in the files due to an anonymous allegation submitted after a public appeal for information. While the allegation was vague and unlikely, it was not impossible a 19-year-old Ukrainian nationalist could have participated in the wave of anti-Jewish violence that <a href="https://www.routledge.com/European-Fascist-Movements-A-Sourcebook/Clark-Grady/p/book/9780367262860">claimed the lives</a> of some 10,000 Jews in western Ukraine in 1941. </p>
<p>Australian families will continue to reckon with stories like these, perhaps for many years to come. And more than 70 years after the first displaced persons arrived from Europe and 30 years after the Australian war crimes investigations, the Australian public is perhaps finally willing to accept that, just as Holocaust survivors resettled in Australia, so did the alleged perpetrators of atrocities.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/217378/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dr Jayne Persian receives funding from the Australian Research Council. </span></em></p>Official investigations of suspected Nazi collaborators have long closed. But families are still grappling with the hidden secrets of loved ones, a new book details.Jayne Persian, Associate Professor in History, University of Southern QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2168252024-01-03T20:27:05Z2024-01-03T20:27:05ZStorm clouds ahead: scandals that have rocked Australian politics<p>Australians could be forgiven for feeling weary of political scandals. The litany of them at the federal level in recent years has been fatiguing: Robodebt, allegations of rape and sexual harassment in Parliament House, former prime minister Scott Morrison’s secret ministries, sports rorts, ministerial affairs and bonk bans, and plenty more.</p>
<p>For reporters and pundits, scandals generate excitement and drama, something more novel than the tedium of day-to-day political processes. But even the most cursory glance at recent scandals – for example, the brouhaha over Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles’ <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-09-01/marles-defends-raaf-flights-taxpayer-spend/102316042">expensive taste for RAAF VIP flights</a> – reminds us that very few are unprecedented.</p>
<h2>Flying high</h2>
<p>Australians live on a big continent, and are acutely sensitive to the price of petrol and airfares. Consequently, the public and press have been quick to anger when politicians are caught misusing or abusing their taxpayer-funded travel entitlements.</p>
<p>Harold Holt learned this the hard way. In 1967, journalists and backbench senators began asking awkward questions about ministers’ use of VIP aircraft for personal purposes at the expense of the taxpayer. The prime minister – who was among the guilty – dodged questions and denied that any evidence existed, misleading parliament (and the public) along the way.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1694474224868733406"}"></div></p>
<p>But his new Senate leader, John Gorton, took a different approach, tabling all the hidden documents in the Senate. According to a <a href="https://www.blackincbooks.com.au/books/harold-holt">recent biography</a> of Holt, Gorton told him “public disquiet over any alleged secrecy would be much greater” than the anger at the actual offence itself. </p>
<p>In the end, no ministerial jobs were lost, but the upshot was that when Holt took his fateful swim at Cheviot beach, the popular (but, as it turned out, scandal-prone) Gorton would replace him.</p>
<p>Travel entitlements were a sensitive topic for later Liberal prime ministers, too. In his first term, John Howard faced <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/scandals-claim-seven-howard-ministers/iapshxlxk">many ministerial resignations</a>, two of them — Peter McGauran and John Sharp — for false travel entitlement claims, and a third, Administrative Services Minister David Jull, for not following “due process” when his office processed those entitlement claims.</p>
<p>Many will remember the furore about Speaker Bronwyn Bishop, who in 2015 chartered a helicopter from Melbourne to Geelong for a partisan fundraiser and charged taxpayers for the privilege. Faced with calls to apologise and repay the expense, she remained defiant until it was too late, her position no longer tenable. Prime Minister Tony Abbott, who had originally appointed his “political mother” Bishop to the role, found his position weakened too.</p>
<h2>Mining for misdemeanours</h2>
<p>It is one thing to abuse the “perks of the job”. It is another thing to be avowedly corrupt. But in truth, the history of corruption in Australia is extensive. In the colonial era, wealthy landholders and squatters sought to influence parliamentarians with monetary bribes. </p>
<p>In 1869, a Victorian parliamentary select committee found that pastoralists and investors, led by the highly influential squatter and speculator Hugh Glass, had engaged in “<a href="https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/glass-hugh-3620">corrupt practices</a>”. Glass and his peers had kept a fund of money for bribing MPs during debates about land reform.</p>
<p>Corrupt colonial politicians used public funds on projects from which they would personally benefit. In the 1880s, Victoria’s railway minister Tommy Bent established a new line that would run through his own electorate, enhancing the value of his own land. “Everyone knew Bent was a crook,” historian Frank Bongiorno has <a href="https://www.google.com.au/books/edition/Dreamers_and_Schemers/wph8EAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=frank+bongiorno+dreamers+and+schemers&printsec=frontcover">recently suggested</a>, “and the newspapers called him one”.</p>
<p>There was nothing special about Victoria in terms of corruption. Queensland historians such as Lyndon Megarrity <a href="https://scholarly.info/book/robert-philp-and-the-politics-of-development/">have shown</a> that railway financiers used cash bribes to buy influence over railway legislation in the 19th century. That tradition of political impropriety was faithfully upheld in the 1970s and ‘80s by Joh Bjelke-Petersen, his Police Commissioner Terry Lewis, and a sprawling network of businessmen and developers.</p>
<p>At times, Queensland’s corruption scandals have had national consequences. In 1930, federal treasurer and former Queensland premier Ted Theodore was forced to resign, pending an inquiry into his financial affairs. Notably wealthy and often controversial, Theodore was accused of benefiting from the sale of Mungana Mines (in which he was a “silent partner”) to the Queensland government (of which he was then premier) for an artificially inflated price.</p>
<p>The timing of the scandal was critical. The state government launched its Royal Commission against Theodore just weeks before Labor won office in 1929. The report was handed down shortly before the new government’s first budget. At the height of the Great Depression, the federal treasurer had to stand aside in what the historian Joan Beaumont has recently called a “body blow” for the Scullin government. By the time he had cleared his name and returned to his post, Theodore has lost the chance to shape Australia’s response to the depression.</p>
<h2>Pork-barrelling</h2>
<p>Corruption is clearly unacceptable, but notoriously difficult to define. Is pork-barrelling – the art of directing public funds and grants to marginal electorates – a form of corruption? Much of it goes unpunished, but occasionally an egregious case arouses the public ire.</p>
<p>There have been, for instance, two “sports rorts” affairs in living memory. Ahead of the 1993 federal election, Sports Minister Ros Kelly oversaw $30 million of funding for sports, recreational and community facilities.</p>
<p>Questions were later asked about the skewed distribution of the funding toward Labor marginal seats. When the auditor-general and a parliamentary committee investigated, the results spelled the end of Kelly’s tenure. Memorably, Kelly was accused of making decisions not through the usual mechanisms, but on a whiteboard in her office.</p>
<p>More recently, sports rorts 2.0 – in which Bridget McKenzie, a senior minister in the Morrison government, resigned over a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2023/may/19/the-sports-rorts-saga-sport-rort-grants-stench-that-clung-to-the-coalition">large grant to a shooting club</a> of which she was an undisclosed member – seemed like history re-enacted on a larger scale. Timed for the 2019 election campaign, the Coalition’s sports and recreation grants were entirely contradictory to the merit-based advice the minister had received.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/view-from-the-hill-bridget-mckenzie-falls-but-for-the-lesser-of-her-political-sins-131011">View from The Hill: Bridget McKenzie falls – but for the lesser of her political sins</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Grey areas</h2>
<p>Pork-barrelling and other misdemeanours are even more complicated when public questions are overlaid with private conduct.</p>
<p>In 2016, NSW Member for Wagga Wagga Daryl Maguire convinced the then treasurer Gladys Berejiklian to grant $5.5 million to a clay target shooting range in his electorate. The grant took place outside the usual channels, and the revelation that Maguire and Berejiklian had been intimately involved provided the final ingredient for a pork-barrelling and <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-10-03/how-obscure-shooting-association-grant-brought-down-berejiklian/100507388">conflict of interest</a> scandal.</p>
<p>But sometimes, sex scandals are newsworthy for their own sake, public administration aside. In 1975, Deputy Prime Minister Jim Cairns and one of his staff, Junie Morosi, found themselves at the centre of a media scandal.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"963001143902130176"}"></div></p>
<p>When rumours emerged of an extramarital affair between the two, the media exposed the story in terms that highlighted Morosi’s physical appeal even as it censured the pair.</p>
<p>Cairns was damaged by the publicity around their affair. His friend and colleague Tom Uren later noted in <a href="https://www.google.com.au/books/edition/Straight_Left/WJmvGAAACAAJ?hl=en">his autobiography</a> that there were many “irregular relationships” among the conservatives that “were not exposed in the press”.</p>
<p>Historically, though, conservatives had been fair game for sexual exposé. Accusations of marital infidelity and nepotism coloured many a conservative politician’s career in colonial times. Graham Berry, a colonial liberal in Victoria, resigned as treasurer in the face of a select committee inquiry into an earlier extramarital affair and possible bribery ensuring from it. As his <a href="https://publishing.monash.edu/product/democratic-adventurer/">recent biographer</a> Sean Scalmer put it, the inquiry was “a hammer blow” to this “would-be gentleman”.</p>
<p>Journalists have chosen when to conceal and when to reveal. When Barnaby Joyce’s extramarital affair with staffer Vikki Campion and their pregnancy were revealed in 2018, the media showed that they retain this power. Many waited until they had unimpeachable evidence, and could use Joyce’s rhetoric during the marriage equality plebiscite – in which Joyce had defended “traditional marriage” – as justification.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/welcome-to-the-new-old-moralism-how-the-medias-coverage-of-the-joyce-affair-harks-back-to-the-1950s-91919">Welcome to the new (old) moralism: how the media's coverage of the Joyce affair harks back to the 1950s</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Why scandals matter</h2>
<p>Scandals matter because they illuminate the tensions that shape our political processes. The physical and social distance between electors and their MPs, the entitlements afforded to ministers to do their jobs, and the media’s discretion in deciding who and what becomes scandalous – are core features of our democratic system. They also involve blurred patterns of power and privilege.</p>
<p>A core pillar of responsible government is that ministers are accountable to parliament. When ministers mislead parliament – or in the case of Scott Morrison, do not even reveal to parliament their ministerial appointments – the most important constraint on executive power in Australia is undermined.</p>
<p>There have been many innovations in Australian politics in the hope of minimising corruption and avoiding scandal. In late 2023, for example, Independent MP Monique Ryan introduced a Private Members’ Bill to crack down on lobbying and making ministerial diaries publicly accessible. If passed, it will lift the lid on another grey area in Australian political misadventure.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/216825/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joshua Black is affiliated with the Australian Historical Association, and the Whitlam Institute at WSU. </span></em></p>While we seem to have a steady stream of political scandals in Australia, many of them have been seen before, albeit in a different guise.Joshua Black, Political Historian and Administrator Officer, Australian Historical Association, Australian National UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2109412023-12-27T09:10:11Z2023-12-27T09:10:11ZHorse skulls and harmony singing – two winter customs which bring people in Wales together<p>Imagine you’re having a quiet evening at home when suddenly there’s a knock on the door. You open it to find a boisterous crowd carrying a horse’s skull mounted on a pole and draped in ribbons – the <em><a href="https://museum.wales/articles/1187/Christmas-Traditions-The-Mari-Lwyd">Mari Lwyd</a></em> has arrived. </p>
<p>The <em>Mari Lwyd</em>, meaning “grey (or pale) mare”, is a Christmas and new year custom in areas of south Wales dating back to the 18th century. A horse’s skull is placed on a pole and covered in a white sheet, decorated with ribbons. A person, concealed under the sheet, carries the pole and operates the horse’s jaw, making it snap. A group of stock characters accompany them including Sergeant, Merryman, Punch and Judy. </p>
<p>The procession goes from house to house and the group sing verses asking for admittance. The household is expected to respond, also in verse. And so begins a (sometimes very long) improvised poetic contest or rhyming ritual known as <em>pwnco</em> before the group is finally invited into the house and offered food and drink.</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/AcvvWcDLagY?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The Mari Lwyd goes from door to door but would you let her in?</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Several explanations have been proposed as to the origin of the custom. Some argue that its roots lie in a pre-Christian fertility <a href="http://www.folkwales.org.uk/mari.html">ritual</a>. Others have argued that the <em>Mari Lwyd</em> has associations with the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2791759">Virgin Mary</a>. </p>
<p>The custom is clearly connected to the practice of <a href="https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/discover/history/art-collections/wassailing-ritual-and-revelry#">wassailing</a>, where groups of merrymakers go from one house to another asking for food and drink. It may be linked to other folk performances found elsewhere in Britain and Ireland, including the <a href="https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100300697">hobby-horse</a> tradition. </p>
<h2>Plygain</h2>
<p>Further north, a tradition celebrated in Montgomeryshire, where I was brought up, is much less colourful and firmly located within a religious context. Deriving from the Latin “pullicantio” (cock crow), the <em><a href="https://museum.wales/articles/1185/Christmas-Traditions-Plygain-Singing/">plygain</a></em> (pronounced “plug-ine”), was an early-morning service originally held on Christmas Day in parish churches and then also in nonconformist chapels, beginning in candlelight and continuing into daylight. </p>
<p>It is now mainly an evening service, although some stalwarts still adhere to the early morning tradition. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">A trio singing plygain.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>After a congregational hymn, a reading and a prayer, the vicar or minister will announce, “<em>Mae’r blygien yn awr yn agored</em>” (the plygain is now open). There is no programme; rather, a party of singers will get up and make their way to the chancel or the <em>sêt fawr</em> (the elder’s pew in a chapel), and sing a carol, unaccompanied and with no conductor. </p>
<p>These are often from the same family and with an ancient pedigree, their frayed carol books (usually old notebooks) having been passed down through the generations. A tuning fork is often used to pitch the tune – I’ve even seen it struck against a singer’s tooth. </p>
<p>The carols would often have been composed by local poets and sung to popular tunes of the time. They do not describe solely the birth of Christ and frequently focus on the crucifixion. Often very long, they are usually sung in three-part harmonies. </p>
<p>The <em>plygain</em> ends with the spine-chilling sound of <em><a href="http://daibach-welldigger.blogspot.com/2020/12/welsh-carols-15-carol-y-swper.html">Carol y Swper</a></em> (the Supper Carol), when all the men in the congregation come forward to sing. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Carol y Swper performed at a church in Montgomeryshire.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Revival and reinvention</h2>
<p>In the 1960s, the <a href="https://museum.wales/stfagans/">St Fagans National Museum of History</a>, or the Welsh Folk Museum as it was then known, began <a href="https://museum.wales/collections/folksongs/?action=background">collecting</a> different genres of Welsh folk songs. These included <em>plygain</em> carols and <em>Mari Lwyd</em> verses. This has helped to renew interest in both traditions. </p>
<p>The museum hosts annual <em>Mari Lwyd</em> <a href="https://museum.wales/stfagans/whatson/12104/Christmas-Traditions-The-Mari-Lwyd-Performances">performances</a>, while many a Cardiff pub-goer will likely be startled by the sudden appearance of a snapping horse’s skull. The practice has evolved over time – visits can be pre-arranged, participants will sing from song sheets, the <em>Mari</em> may even be made of cardboard. In fact, anything goes.</p>
<p>Today, the <em>Mari</em> (in various guises) is thriving, and can be found as far afield as the USA and <a href="https://www.facebook.com/welshzombiechristmashorse/">Australia</a>. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1477386261761564672"}"></div></p>
<p>The <em>plygain</em> is still going strong in Montgomeryshire and, indeed, all over Wales and beyond. Around 50 <a href="https://plygain.org/dyddiadur.htm">services</a> are held during December and January. </p>
<p>And this tradition, too, has undergone many changes. Several collections of <em>plygain</em> songs have by now been published enabling new carollers to participate. </p>
<p>In 2020 and 2021, a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yifxPBea1f0">virtual</a> <em>plygain</em> took place during the pandemic. A bilingual <em>plygain</em> <a href="https://www.plygain.org/home.htm">website</a> has also been set up and a new carol composed specifically for women’s voices, so that women, too, have their <em>Carol y Swper</em>. </p>
<p>Purists would argue that traditions should not be revived and re-invented. But it is in the nature of traditions to change and constantly evolve – they must do so in order to survive. </p>
<p>We should continue to celebrate the modern-day versions of the <em>Mari Lwyd</em> tradition and the <em>plygain</em> because they contribute to a shared sense of identity and instil in participants a sense of belonging.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/210941/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sioned Davies does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Mari Lwyd and the plygain are two prominent Welsh traditions celebrated over Christmas and the new year.Sioned Davies, Emeritus Professor of Welsh, Cardiff UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2200442023-12-18T16:17:12Z2023-12-18T16:17:12ZA new supercomputer aims to closely mimic the human brain — it could help unlock the secrets of the mind and advance AI<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/566252/original/file-20231218-15-hajmbj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=19%2C9%2C6470%2C3940&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/businessman-touching-digital-human-brain-cell-582507070">Sdecoret / Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>A supercomputer scheduled to go online in April 2024 will rival the estimated rate of operations in the human brain, <a href="https://www.westernsydney.edu.au/newscentre/news_centre/more_news_stories/world_first_supercomputer_capable_of_brain-scale_simulation_being_built_at_western_sydney_university">according to researchers in Australia</a>. The machine, called DeepSouth, is capable of performing 228 trillion operations per second. </p>
<p>It’s the world’s first supercomputer capable of simulating networks of neurons and synapses (key biological structures that make up our nervous system) at the scale of the human brain.</p>
<p>DeepSouth belongs to an approach <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s43588-021-00184-y">known as neuromorphic computing</a>, which aims to mimic the biological processes of the human brain. It will be run from the International Centre for Neuromorphic Systems at Western Sydney University.</p>
<p>Our brain is the most amazing computing machine we know. By distributing its
computing power to billions of small units (neurons) that interact through trillions of connections (synapses), the brain can rival the most powerful supercomputers in the world, while requiring only the same power used by a fridge lamp bulb.</p>
<p>Supercomputers, meanwhile, generally take up lots of space and need large amounts of electrical power to run. The world’s most powerful supercomputer, the <a href="https://www.hpe.com/uk/en/compute/hpc/cray/oak-ridge-national-laboratory.html">Hewlett Packard Enterprise Frontier</a>, can perform just over one quintillion operations per second. It covers 680 square metres (7,300 sq ft) and requires 22.7 megawatts (MW) to run. </p>
<p>Our brains can perform the same number of operations per second with just 20 watts of power, while weighing just 1.3kg-1.4kg. Among other things, neuromorphic computing aims to unlock the secrets of this amazing efficiency.</p>
<h2>Transistors at the limits</h2>
<p>On June 30 1945, the mathematician and physicist <a href="https://www.ias.edu/von-neumann">John von Neumann</a> described the design of a new machine, the <a href="https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/194089">Electronic Discrete Variable Automatic Computer (Edvac)</a>. This effectively defined the modern electronic computer as we know it. </p>
<p>My smartphone, the laptop I am using to write this article and the most powerful supercomputer in the world all share the same fundamental structure introduced by von Neumann almost 80 years ago. <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/computer-science/von-neumann-architecture">These all have distinct processing and memory units</a>, where data and instructions are stored in the memory and computed by a processor.</p>
<p>For decades, the number of transistors on a microchip doubled approximately every two years, <a href="https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/591665">an observation known as Moore’s Law</a>. This allowed us to have smaller and cheaper computers. </p>
<p>However, transistor sizes are now approaching the atomic scale. At these tiny sizes, excessive heat generation is a problem, as is a phenomenon called quantum tunnelling, which interferes with the functioning of the transistors. <a href="https://qz.com/852770/theres-a-limit-to-how-small-we-can-make-transistors-but-the-solution-is-photonic-chips#:%7E:text=They're%20made%20of%20silicon,we%20can%20make%20a%20transistor.">This is slowing down</a> and will eventually halt transistor miniaturisation.</p>
<p>To overcome this issue, scientists are exploring new approaches to
computing, starting from the powerful computer we all have hidden in our heads, the human brain. Our brains do not work according to John von Neumann’s model of the computer. They don’t have separate computing and memory areas. </p>
<p>They instead work by connecting billions of nerve cells that communicate information in the form of electrical impulses. Information can be passed from <a href="https://qbi.uq.edu.au/brain-basics/brain/brain-physiology/action-potentials-and-synapses">one neuron to the next through a junction called a synapse</a>. The organisation of neurons and synapses in the brain is flexible, scalable and efficient. </p>
<p>So in the brain – and unlike in a computer – memory and computation are governed by the same neurons and synapses. Since the late 1980s, scientists have been studying this model with the intention of importing it to computing.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Microchip." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/566265/original/file-20231218-25-yjbwxy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/566265/original/file-20231218-25-yjbwxy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566265/original/file-20231218-25-yjbwxy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566265/original/file-20231218-25-yjbwxy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566265/original/file-20231218-25-yjbwxy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566265/original/file-20231218-25-yjbwxy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566265/original/file-20231218-25-yjbwxy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The continuing miniaturisation of transistors on microchips is limited by the laws of physics.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/close-presentation-new-generation-microchip-gloved-691548583">Gorodenkoff / Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Imitation of life</h2>
<p>Neuromorphic computers are based on intricate networks of simple, elementary processors (which act like the brain’s neurons and synapses). The main advantage of this is that these machines <a href="https://www.electronicsworld.co.uk/advances-in-parallel-processing-with-neuromorphic-analogue-chip-implementations/34337/">are inherently “parallel”</a>. </p>
<p>This means that, <a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.95.3.933">as with neurons and synapses</a>, virtually all the processors in a computer can potentially be operating simultaneously, communicating in tandem.</p>
<p>In addition, because the computations performed by individual neurons and synapses are very simple compared with traditional computers, the energy consumption is orders of magnitude smaller. Although neurons are sometimes thought of as processing units, and synapses as memory units, they contribute to both processing and storage. In other words, data is already located where the computation requires it.</p>
<p>This speeds up the brain’s computing in general because there is no separation between memory and processor, which in classical (von Neumann) machines causes a slowdown. But it also avoids the need to perform a specific task of accessing data from a main memory component, as happens in conventional computing systems and consumes a considerable amount of energy. </p>
<p>The principles we have just described are the main inspiration for DeepSouth. This is not the only neuromorphic system currently active. It is worth mentioning the <a href="https://www.humanbrainproject.eu">Human Brain Project (HBP)</a>, funded under an <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/futurium/en/content/fet-flagships.html">EU initiative</a>. The HBP was operational from 2013 to 2023, and led to BrainScaleS, a machine located in Heidelberg, in Germany, that emulates the way that neurons and synapses work. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.humanbrainproject.eu/en/science-development/focus-areas/neuromorphic-computing/hardware/">BrainScaleS</a> can simulate the way that neurons “spike”, the way that an electrical impulse travels along a neuron in our brains. This would make BrainScaleS an ideal candidate to investigate the mechanics of cognitive processes and, in future, mechanisms underlying serious neurological and neurodegenerative diseases.</p>
<p>Because they are engineered to mimic actual brains, neuromorphic computers could be the beginning of a turning point. Offering sustainable and affordable computing power and allowing researchers to evaluate models of neurological systems, they are an ideal platform for a range of applications. They have the potential to both advance our understanding of the brain and offer new approaches to artificial intelligence.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/220044/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Domenico Vicinanza does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Neuromorphic computers aim to one day replicate the amazing efficiency of the brain.Domenico Vicinanza, Associate Professor of Intelligent Systems and Data Science, Anglia Ruskin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2197932023-12-12T22:28:20Z2023-12-12T22:28:20ZAnthony Albanese joins Canadian and NZ prime ministers in calling for ceasefire in Israel-Hamas war<p>Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has joined New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in calling for a sustainable ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas conflict. </p>
<p>In a joint statement, the three leaders said they wanted to resume a “pause” in the fighting and supported “urgent international efforts towards a sustainable ceasefire”. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, at the United Nations, Australia has <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/dec/12/united-nations-general-assembly-vote-ceasefire-israel-gaza-war">voted</a> with an overwhelming majority of countries for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire. The United States was among a small minority of nations voting against. Israel’s ambassador to Australia condemned the Australian vote.</p>
<p>In their statement, the three leaders stressed a sustainable ceasefire could not be one-sided. “Hamas must release all hostages, stop using Palestinian civilians as human shields, and lay down its arms”. </p>
<p>While recognising Israel’s right to defend itself, the leaders said that in doing so, “Israel must respect international humanitarian law”. </p>
<p>Australia, Canada and New Zealand mourned every innocent life that had been lost, the prime statement said. </p>
<p>“We unequivocally condemn Hamas’ terror attacks on Israel on October 7, the appalling loss of life, and the heinous acts of violence perpetrated in those attacks, including sexual violence. We condemn Hamas’ unacceptable treatment of hostages and call for the immediate and unconditional release of all remaining hostages.”</p>
<p>Declaring civilians and civilian infrastructure must be protected, the statement said: “We are alarmed at the diminishing safe space for civilians in Gaza. The price of defeating Hamas cannot be the continuous suffering of all Palestinian civilians.”</p>
<p>“We remain deeply concerned by the scale of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and ongoing risks to all Palestinian civilians. Safe and unimpeded humanitarian access must be increased and sustained.”</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1734688421304541214"}"></div></p>
<p>The prime ministers said there was no role for Hamas in the future governance of Gaza.</p>
<p>“We support Palestinians’ right to self-determination. We oppose the forcible displacement of Palestinians from Gaza, the re-occupation of Gaza, any reduction in territory, and any use of siege or blockade. We emphasise that Gaza must no longer be used as a platform for terrorism. We reaffirm that [Israeli] settlements are illegal under international law. Settlements and settler violence are serious obstacles to a negotiated two-state solution.</p>
<p>"We recommit ourselves to working with partners toward a just and enduring peace in the form of a two-state solution, where Israelis and Palestinians can live securely within internationally recognised borders.” </p>
<p>The leaders expressed concern about the conflict’s impact “spilling across the region” and urged governments in the Middle East to work towards containing the conflict. They also called on the Houthi rebels in Yemen to immediately stop their attacks on ships in the Red Sea.</p>
<p>The statement also condemned “rising antisemitism, Islamophobia and anti-Arab sentiment in our countries and around the world”. The leaders reaffirmed their commitment to “combatting prejudice, hatred, and violent extremism”.</p>
<p>Foreign Minister Penny Wong is due to visit the Middle East soon. Shadow Foreign Minister Simon Birmingham is part of a cross-party group of federal MPs <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-12-07/simon-birmingham-leads-cross-party-delegation-to-israel/103199726">visiting Israel</a> this week. It includes Labor members Josh Burns and Michelle Ananda-Rajah, and Coalition MPs Andrew Wallace and Zoe McKenzie.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/219793/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The leaders called on Israel to ‘respect international humanitarian law’, and said Hamas has no place in the future governance of Gaza.Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2129402023-12-11T10:16:12Z2023-12-11T10:16:12ZHow 1930s American scientists came to think about the impact of climate on wine<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/553527/original/file-20231012-21-jbnzzm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C29%2C4912%2C3228&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Depending on the region, rising temperatures can have negative or positive effects on wine quality. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">David Kohler/Unsplash</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In Europe and beyond, the notion of <a href="https://www.brgm.fr/en/news/article/good-land-wine-how-geology-can-influence-quality-wine"><em>terroir</em></a> dominates ideas about the origins of the taste and quality of wine. While there’s intense debate over the term, generally it refers to the specific place where grapes are grown. The concept is largely focused on soil, but also includes the layout of the land and the elements to which it is regularly exposed – sun, rain, wind, seasons, and more. And although climate is seen as being part of the equation, the land upon which grapes are grown is its foundation. As such thinking took root over centuries, it was eventually codified into Europe’s <a href="https://www.inao.gouv.fr/Les-signes-officiels-de-la-qualite-et-de-l-origine-SIQO/Appellation-d-origine-protegee-controlee-AOP-AOC"><em>appellation d’origine contrôlée</em></a> (AOC) system, meaning “registered designation of origin”.</p>
<p>While European immigrants have long grown grapes and made wine around the world, the traditional regions were an ocean away, literally. So what could be done to improve wine quality in these new vineyards and wineries? The situation was particularly dire in the United States after the Prohibition forced many of its winemakers out of business.</p>
<h2>A world away</h2>
<p>After the Prohibition repealed in 1933, two scientists, Albert “Wink” Winkler and Maynard Amerine, launched an effort to revitalise California’s wine industry. Winkler was more of the viticulturalist and Amerine the oenologist, but both shared a passion for grapes, wine, and believed that the state could produce wines that rivalled the best of Europe. Their journey led them to collect vine samples from Fresno in the south to Ukiah in the north and westward to the coast. They planted many of these vines in test vineyards to see how they fared in different climatic regions, in order to advise growers on the best grapes for their plot of land. But vines were not the only bounty they sought.</p>
<p>Winkler and Amerine also collected grapes from willing viticulturalists turning them into a library of more than 500 site-specific wines over a decade. By 1943, they had observed enough seasonal variation in the hundreds of small batches of wines that Winkler and Amerine made and tasted every year to recommend specific grape varieties for specific regions. By expanding the vineyards where they collected grapes, they could both measure and taste the difference between vineyards in regions across California.</p>
<p>Winkler came to an epiphany from their sojourns in California’s vineyards and by analysing the wines these fields produce. The research let him to conclude that climate and regional differences were the most important factors in selecting varietals to produce high-quality wines. He came to this conclusion counter-intuitively.</p>
<p>By thinking about Europe and the idea of a “vintage” versus a “non-vintage” year, he realised the only thing that changed in the vineyard (not the vines, not soil type, not soil quality, not soil drainage) was the weather and, in particular, a vintage year was warmer in places like Bordeaux and Burgundy. He applied this same logic to California as he tasted the same grape in different regions and found some varieties like Zinfandel produced better wines in cooler climates in northern and coastal California while others like Alicante bouchés, which produced sweet wines, fared better in warmer, arguably hot, climates inland and in southern California. This observation had global impact.</p>
<h2>Knowing what to grow</h2>
<p>With Winkler’s development of a heat-based index, he and Amerine advised would-be California wine makers – from Gallo to Mondavi – not just on the varieties they should plant (or pull out) but also which ones would produce the best wines in their particular locations. The <a href="https://winedataresearcher.com/why-the-winkler-index-matters-to-the-wine-world/">Winker Index</a> rapidly transformed not just California vineyards but vineyards across the world as viticulturalists and oenologists paid more attention to the climate. In New World regions, it allowed them to choose varieties that produced wines best suited to the climate, thus improving the overall quality of wine.</p>
<p>But their research had an even deeper impact on varietal selection. Although the Winkler Index measured the temperature across the growing season, it was the taste and aroma of the wines in their wine library that was at the heart of their conclusions. In measuring the <a href="https://oeno-one.eu/article/view/7399">acid/sugar ratio</a> among other compounds in their wines, Amerine and Winkler judged how climate was reflected in the wines they swirled and sipped and how their wines changed over time, especially in years when the weather deviated from the norm.</p>
<p>These early observations on heat and its influence on wine quality allow historians, wine makers, and climate researchers to conclude that not only is the climate warming, but how a warming climate is changing the taste of wine based not just on acid/sugar ratios – though they are – but how hotter, sunnier growing season are increasing sugar in grapes, the alcohol in wine and reducing acidity, throwing wines out of balance. A vineyard that may have consistently produced high-quality wines from the 1930s through the 1990s now produced inconsistent wine.</p>
<p>The opposite can also be true: A region like Bordeaux, which was historically plagued by erratic weather, sometimes losing entire vintages to hail, frost or cold summers, <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/climate-change-french-wine-taste-better">now had more consistent yields</a>, smoothing the difference between a vintage and a non-vintage year. Even inexpensive wines in Bordeaux benefited from warmer growing seasons because more grapes fully ripened.</p>
<p>Of course, as the climate warms, that impact has other negative consequences. Hotter weather reduces the acidity of wines making them flat, flabby, or turgid. An example of mitigating low acidity is Bordeaux’s experiment allowing new varieties to be blended into their iconic – and legislated – varieties of reds and whites to increase acidity and rebalance overripe wines.</p>
<h2>Where there’s fire there’s smoke</h2>
<p>An even more difficult and frightening consequence of a warming climate are wildfires. While fires do not always destroy vineyards (grapes are just spheres of water, after all), the smoke can contaminate wine made near wildfires, resulting in <a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2113327118">smoke-tainted wine</a> – it tastes something like burnt rubber, cigarette ash or other unpleasant flavours. Once smoke has wafted into the vineyard and engulfed ripening grapes, it is impossible to remove. Worse, winemakers cannot tell if the wine will be smoke tainted by tasting the grapes themselves, as fermentation also affects how foul a wine will taste.</p>
<p>Though scientists around the world are trying to find a solution, they still do not understand exactly what makes a wine taste smoke tainted or how to mitigate it. It’s become a growing concern given the rising number of fires in wine-growing regions, including <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2020/10/11/us/california-wildfires-wineries/index.html">California</a> in 2020, <a href="https://www.rfi.fr/en/france/20210824-provence-wine-producers-weigh-up-losses-after-deadly-wildfires-in-france-ros%C3%A9-french-riviera">France</a> in 2021, and <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/wildfire-leaves-sense-total-destruction-spanish-winemaker-says-2022-07-21/">Spain</a> in 2022. The same year two wildfires burned more than <a href="https://www.icare.univ-lille.fr/wildfires-in-southwest-france-july-2022/">20,000 hectares of forest</a> in France’s Bordeaux region. Tests indicated that that year’s harvest <a href="https://www.rfi.fr/en/france/20220831-bordeaux-wine-harvest-will-not-have-a-smoky-taste-after-summer-wildfires-winemakers-say">shouldn’t be affected</a>, but the coming years promise to be difficult for winemakers.</p>
<h2>Adapting to a changing world</h2>
<p>It is only because Winkler severed the link between wine and terroir that wine growers had the vision to plant and produce world-renowned wine made in places like <a href="https://visitcanberra.com.au/things-to-do/canberras-wine-region">Canberra</a>, Australia; <a href="https://www.winetourism.com/wine-region/mendoza/">Mendoza</a>, Argentina; <a href="https://www.wine-searcher.com/regions-sussex">Sussex</a>, England; and <a href="https://www.wineningxia.com/">Ningxia</a>, China.</p>
<p>Given that climate change is already changing the weather in Europe’s wine-growing regions – the ones whose methods and very identity are most closely linked to traditional notions of <em>terroir</em> – research is also seeking to help wine makers adapt to a changing world. It’s a process that’s already taking place, not only in the <a href="https://www.terraview.co/gdd-and-winkler-index-update/">Winkler Index itself</a>, but even in the <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/france-changes-aoc-rules-allow-153919195.html">venerable AOC system</a>. <em>Plus ça change</em>…</p>
<hr>
<p><em>This article is the result of The Conversation’s collaboration with <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/research-and-innovation/en/horizon-magazine">Horizon</a>, the EU research and innovation magazine. In February, the authors published an <a href="https://projects.research-and-innovation.ec.europa.eu/en/horizon-magazine/wine-connoisseurs-face-testing-times-climate-change-alters-flavours">interview with the magazine</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/212940/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gabriella Maria Petrick a reçu des financements de EU Horizon 2020 MSCA project number 896298. </span></em></p>While the notion of terroir has long been the foundation of European wine, research in the 1930s in the US began to reveal the link between climate and wine.Gabriella Maria Petrick, Research Fellow Ruhr University Bochum, University of StavangerLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2183262023-12-08T17:30:32Z2023-12-08T17:30:32ZHow the Christmas pudding, with ingredients taken from the colonies, became an iconic British food<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/564310/original/file-20231207-21-4fg7ek.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C6048%2C4019&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Christmas pudding, a legacy of the British Empire, is enjoyed around the world -- including in former British colonies.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/christmas-pudding-royalty-free-image/155147293?phrase=christmas+pudding&adppopup=true">esp_imaging/iStock via Getty Images Plus</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As an American living in Britain in the 1990s, my first exposure to Christmas pudding was something of a shock. I had expected figs or plums, as in the “<a href="https://www.classicfm.com/discover-music/occasions/christmas/we-wish-you-a-merry-christmas-lyrics-history-carol/">We Wish You a Merry Christmas” carol</a>, but there were none. Neither did it resemble the cold custard-style dessert that Americans typically call pudding.</p>
<p>Instead, I was greeted with a boiled mass of suet – a raw, hard animal fat this is often replaced with a vegetarian alternative – as well as flour and dried fruits that is often soaked in alcohol and set alight. </p>
<p>It’s in no danger of breaking into my top ten favorite Christmas foods. But as a <a href="https://liberalarts.tamu.edu/history/profile/troy-bickham/">historian of Great Britain and its empire</a>, I can appreciate the Christmas pudding for its rich global history. After all, it is a legacy of the British Empire with ingredients from around the globe it once dominated and continues to be enjoyed in places it once ruled.</p>
<h2>Christmas pudding takes its shape</h2>
<p>Christmas pudding is a relatively recent concoction of two older, at least medieval, dishes. The first was a runny porridge known as “plum pottage” in which any mixture of meats, dried fruits and spices might appear – edibles that could be preserved until the winter celebration.</p>
<p>Until the 18th century, “<a href="https://www.historytoday.com/archive/englishmans-plum-pudding">plum” was synonymous with raisins, currants and other dried fruits</a>. “Figgy pudding,” immortalized in the “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” carol, appeared in the written record by the 14th century. A mixture of sweet and savory ingredients, and not necessarily containing figs, it was bagged with flour and suet and cooked by steaming. The result was a firmer, rounded hot mass.</p>
<p>During the 18th century, the two crossed to become the more familiar plum pudding – a steamed pudding packed with the ingredients of the rapidly growing British Empire of rule and trade. The key was less a new form of cookery than the availability of once-luxury ingredients, including French brandy, raisins from the Mediterranean, and citrus from the Caribbean. </p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/rheumatology/kes297">Few things had become more affordable than cane sugar</a> which, owing to the labors of millions of enslaved Africans, could be found in the poorest and remotest of British households by mid-century. Cheap sugar, combined with wider availability of other sweet ingredients like citrus and dried fruits, made plum pudding an iconically British celebratory treat, albeit not yet exclusively associated with Christmas. </p>
<p>Such was its popularity that English satirist <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/James-Gillray">James Gillray</a> made it the centerpiece of one of his famous cartoons, depicting Napoleon Bonaparte and the British prime minister carving the world in pudding form. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/564495/original/file-20231208-21-s0fyat.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two men in military uniforms with large hats cutting a large, round, brown pudding, placed on a table between them." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/564495/original/file-20231208-21-s0fyat.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/564495/original/file-20231208-21-s0fyat.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564495/original/file-20231208-21-s0fyat.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564495/original/file-20231208-21-s0fyat.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564495/original/file-20231208-21-s0fyat.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564495/original/file-20231208-21-s0fyat.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564495/original/file-20231208-21-s0fyat.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A satirical cartoon by James Gillray, showing British Prime Minister William Pitt and the French leader Napoleon Bonaparte carving up the world between them. Called ‘The Plumb Pudding in Danger,’ it was published on Feb. 26, 1805.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/satrirical-cartoon-by-james-gillray-showing-british-prime-news-photo/2667909?adppopup=true">Rischgitz/Hulton Archive via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Linked with Christmas</h2>
<p>In line with other modern Christmas celebrations, the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-christmas-tree-is-a-tradition-older-than-christmas-195636">Victorians took the plum pudding and redefined it for the holiday season</a>, making it the “Christmas pudding.”</p>
<p>In his 1843 internationally celebrated “<a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/46/46-h/46-h.htm">A Christmas Carol</a>,” <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-charles-dickens-redeemed-the-spirit-of-christmas-52335">Charles Dickens</a> venerated the dish as the idealized center of any family’s Christmas feast: “Mrs Cratchit entered – flushed, but smiling proudly – with the pudding, like a speckled cannon-ball, so hard and firm, blazing in half of half-a-quarter of ignited brandy, and bedight with Christmas holly stuck into the top.” </p>
<p>Three years later, <a href="https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/inspire-me/history-of-the-christmas-pudding/#:%7E:text=The%20pudding%20we%20know%20today,or%20at%20least%20meat%20stock.">Queen Victoria’s chef published her favored recipe</a>, making Christmas pudding, <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-christmas-tree-is-a-tradition-older-than-christmas-195636">like the Christmas tree</a>, the aspiration of families across Britain. </p>
<p>Christmas pudding owed much of its lasting appeal to its socioeconomic accessibility. <a href="https://nottinghamindustrialmuseum.org.uk/christmas_pudding/">Victoria’s recipe, which became a classic</a>, included candied citrus peel, nutmeg, cinnamon, lemons, cloves, brandy and a small mountain of raisins and currants – all affordable treats for the middle class. Those with less means could either opt for lesser amounts or substitutions, such as brandy for ale. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.tastesofhistory.co.uk/post/eliza-acton-cookery-writing-pioneer">Eliza Acton</a>, a leading cookbook author of the day who helped to rebrand plum pudding as Christmas pudding, offered a particularly <a href="https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/inspire-me/history-of-the-christmas-pudding/#:%7E:text=The%20pudding%20we%20know%20today,or%20at%20least%20meat%20stock.">frugal recipe</a> that relied on potatoes and carrots. </p>
<p>White colonists’ desires to replicate British culture meant that versions of Christmas pudding soon appeared across the empire. Even European <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-christmas-pudding-evolved-with-australia-35027">diggers in Austrialia’s goldfields</a> included it in their celebrations by mid-century.</p>
<p>The high alcohol content gave the puddings a shelf life of a year or more, allowing them to be sent even to the empire’s frontiers during Victoria’s reign, <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-brief-history-of-christmas-pudding-and-why-it-can-actually-be-quite-good-for-you-151160">including to British soldiers serving in Afghanistan</a>. Christmas celebrations for <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2012/dec/24/christmas-crimean-war-1855-archive">British soldiers fighting in the Crimea</a> in 1855 included the Christmas pudding – a welcome respite from the cold winter.</p>
<h2>Empire pudding</h2>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/564313/original/file-20231207-17-tzvzwq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A recipe card labelled 'The Empire Christmas Pudding,' with a list of ingredients under it." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/564313/original/file-20231207-17-tzvzwq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/564313/original/file-20231207-17-tzvzwq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=976&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564313/original/file-20231207-17-tzvzwq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=976&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564313/original/file-20231207-17-tzvzwq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=976&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564313/original/file-20231207-17-tzvzwq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1227&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564313/original/file-20231207-17-tzvzwq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1227&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564313/original/file-20231207-17-tzvzwq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1227&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The royal recipe for the Christmas pudding.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/lac-bac/29445648651/in/album-72157669921465116/">BiblioArchives / LibraryArchives via Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the 1920s, the British Women’s Patriotic League heavily promoted it – calling it “Empire Pudding” in a <a href="http://foodhistorjottings.blogspot.com/2012/08/one-family-and-empire-christmas-pudding.html">global marketing campaign</a>. They praised it as emblem of the empire that should be made from the ingredients of Britain’s colonies and possessions: dried fruits from Australia and South Africa, cinnamon from Ceylon, spices from India and Jamaican rum in place of French brandy. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.cntraveller.in/story/christmas-pudding-how-india-grew-to-love-a-symbol-of-the-british-empire/">Press coverage of London’s 1926 Empire Day celebrations</a> featured the empire’s representatives pouring the ingredients into a ceremonial mixing bowl and collectively stirring it. </p>
<p>The following year, the Empire Marketing Board received <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/article/deconstructing-christmas-pudding-secrets-seasonal-staple">King George V’s permission to promote the royal recipe</a>, which had all the appropriate <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S1740022809002988">empire-sourced ingredients</a>.</p>
<p>Such promotional recipes and the mass production of puddings from iconic grocery stores <a href="https://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/discover/sainsburys-history-christmas-pudding">like Sainsbury’s</a> in the 1920s combined to place Christmas puddings on the tables of a myriad of peoples who resided across an empire on which the sun never set. </p>
<h2>After the empire</h2>
<p>Decolonization did not diminish the appeal of the Christmas pudding. Passengers transiting through London’s airports can find them in abundance this time of year. Their shape and density have <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/42377.stm">baffled airport security scanners</a> for some time, leading to requests to carry them as hand luggage. </p>
<p>In former white settler colonies, like Canada, the tradition endured, although in Australia, where Christmas falls in summer, trifle and pavlova are at least equally common. In parts of India, where it is sometimes known as “<a href="https://www.ruchikrandhap.com/pudim-east-indian-christmas-pudding-for/">pudim</a>,” it remains a traditional favorite, “steeped in tradition,” according to the leading English national daily newspaper, the “<a href="https://www.hindustantimes.com/lifestyle/festivals/christmas-pudding-a-dessert-steeped-in-tradition-and-emotions-101672144359741.html">Hindustan Times</a>.” </p>
<p>Reflecting modern palates and trends, <a href="https://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/fruit-recipes/christmas-pudding/">Jamie Oliver</a>, the celebrated British chef and author, has gluten-free and more modern options this year. His “classic” recipe, however, would not have been out of place on Queen Victoria’s table. </p>
<p>Like so many adaptations around the former empire, it includes some American ingredients: pecans and cranberries as well as bourbon substituted for brandy – an Anglo-American concoction – much like my own family. And I will embrace this one.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/218326/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Troy Bickham does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Christmas pudding, once known as the ‘Empire Pudding,’ reflects the lasting legacy of the British Empire.Troy Bickham, Professor of History, Texas A&M UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.