Changing Environments: New Challenges for the Living Country
Four days of entertainment, information and energy.
Tuesday 27 - Friday 30 October, Geraldton, WA
Day 3 - THURSDAY OCTOBER 29
9am – 5pm
BIO diverse: NACC Photographic Exhibition
Upper Foyer, Queens Park Theatre
Free, open entry
The 230 entries that were entered in this year’s NACC photographic competition will be on display. See the three winning images and the pictures that will feature in the NACC 2010 calendar.
The images celebrate “Our Beautiful Region” and show the richness and diversity of the Northern Agricultural Region.
Last year there were 130 entries in the inaugural year and the exhibition travelled to several towns in the region. See the 2008 entries here.
8am – 5pm
Changing Environments Exhibitors
Lower Foyer, Queens Park Theatre
Free, open entry
Exhibitors from around WA put up their displays yesterday and there’s lots to be seen, read and talked about including the four CDI (Catchment Demonstration Initiatives) from around WA.
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8.30am – 5pm
Changing Environments Conference Day One
Auditorium, Queens Park Theatre
7.30am REGISTRATIONS Open
MC Gerry Gannon
8.30 Welcome to Country (10 mins)
8.40 NACC Chair/ State Chair Chris King (10 mins)
8.50 City of Geraldton Greenough CEO, Tony Brun
9am Stuart Hill,Foundation Chair of Social Ecology, University of Western Sydney
Social ecology: The living soil and human health
Stuart Hill, Professor and Foundation Chair of Social Ecology at the Hawkesbury Campus of the University of Western Sydney, describes himself as a social ecologist.
Stuart has worked in agricultural and development projects in the West Indies, French West Africa, Indonesia, The Philippines, China, and the Seychelles, as well as in the UK, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia.
His background in chemical engineering, ecology, soil biology, entomology, agriculture, psychotherapy, education, policy development and international development, and his experience of working with transformative change, have enabled him to be an effective facilitator in complex situations that demand both collaboration across difference and a long-term co-evolutionary approach to situation improvement.
9.50 David Pollock, Wooleen Station
Passion in action: The importance of a Catchment Approach to environmental stewardship
10.20 Robin Sanders, Genero
A place for everything and everything in its Place: Creating Resilient Catchments
The concept of large scale catchment management has been around for a number of years however rarely fully implemented in a complete fashion due to the myriad of accompanying social issues. This presentation also briefly explores the fundamental social drivers impacting the implementation of broader scale approaches to landscape reintegration to develop a common understanding of the role of people and agriculture within the Western Australian landscape. Arguably the future of the food bowl of Western Australia, the wheatbelt resides in the long term resilience of the landscape to sustain our agriculture industries, our communities and the environment. Agriculture is a true ‘renewable’ industry with long term benefits to the State. Indeed one could argue that the nation’s deepest psyche is linked to our romance with ‘the bush’.
Robin Sanders has worked in the construction industry initially all over Australia designing and constructing food factories, materials handling plants, power stations and refineries. Mid career he moved into a business development role which evolved to a national strategic development role for one of Australia’s largest construction companies. In recent years he was the design manager for the nominal $600m Perth Underground Railway project and Project Director: Development on the $1.5bn plus Southdown Magnetite and Kemaman Pellet plant project.
In 2006 Robin was appointed by the Commonwealth to investigate engineering and environmental methods to mitigate salinity in the wheatbelt. He is currently a member of the Engineering Evaluation Initiative committee overseeing a number of trial engineering projects to develop alternative approaches to mitigate salinity. He has worked with the Avon Catchment Council as Project Advisor on implementing trial salinity engineering project and is currently employed by the Department of Water in a similar role.
During this period he became increasingly concerned about the splintered approach to landscape management. He has independently researched the issues facing the Western Australian landscape utilising risk based principles and speaking with many interested parties with a view to piecing together an approach which will allow the wheatbelt to continue to prosper over the longer term.
10.45 MORNING TEA
11.05 DrMark Howden, Chief Research Scientist, CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems
Climate change: Loving an even more sunburnt country?
A vibrant and passionate speaker, Dr Mark Howden is the leader of the ‘Adaptive primary industries and enterprises’ theme in the new CSIRO Climate Adaptation Flagship. Mark’s work has focussed on the impacts of climate variability and climate change on Australian agriculture. He has also developed the national and international agricultural greenhouse gas emission inventories and assessed sustainable methods of reducing these emissions. He has been a major contributor to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) sharing the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with other IPCC participants and Al Gore.
Dr Howden uses his considerable presentation skills and mastery of his subject to bring a difficult subject to life making it easier to understand.
11.45 FORUM Hosted by Ian Linley, National Landcare Facilitator Team
The framework for the future of landcare – An opportunity to have input into the development of the framework for the future of landcare which will be presented at the National Landcare Forum in March 2010. More
12.45 LUNCH
1.30 PANEL SESSION: Speed Dating! Matching you with information to make life easier
- Saltland Genie. Using the web to make productive use of saline and land (Nick Edwards)
- Oil mallees: imaging products; seedling accreditation (Simon Dawkins)
- The Catchment Demonstration Initiatives – participants tell their stories (Mark etc)
- SLIP update – what’s happening in GIS and land information systems?(Gregory Walker)
- FOTE – Friends of the Environment (Steve Gibbelini & Richard Joyce)
- Project Dieback. Dieback is everyone’s issue. (Annabelle Bushell)
- Holistic production systems decision making tools for land managers (Monica Durkin)
- Natural Environment Law – What you should know (Ross Rowe)
- Integrating NRM into Local Government ( Bruce Hamilton & ?)
- Enviroplanning Project (Brianna Sharp, DPI)
- Getting You Message to the Wider community - The Greener Life (Jackie Gill, NACC)
3.05pm Question time
3.25pm Afternoon tea
3.45 Ian Stanley and Dr Syd Shea, Project Rainbow Bee Eater.
The Potential of Biochar
Ian Stanley
Ian is a third generation farmer who operates a 23,000ha grain and sheep property with his wife Robyn, and sons Travis and Clinton in Kalannie in the Central Wheatbelt of Western Australia.
Ian is heavily involved in his local community and is currently the Chairman of the Central Wheatbelt Football League. He was awarded the Individual National Landcarer Award in 2006 in recognition of his contributions to the environment including the planting of over 1 million mallee trees on the property and the promotion of landcare.
Ian is President of the Central Oil Mallee Region, Director of Kalannie Distillers (a local eucalyptus oil production company), immediate past President of the Oil Mallee Association of WA and a Director of Rainbow Bee Eater Pty Ltd.
Ian was recently one of only 80 Australians to carry the Olympic Torch in Canberra. As a Director of Rainbow Bee Eater Pty Ltd Ian is currently involved in developing processes aimed at the production of biochar and energy in regional WA.
Syd Shea
Syd is the Professor of Environmental Management at the University of Notre Dame Australia, Consultant to the Oil Mallee Association of Australia and he is also Managing Director of his own consulting company. He is Director of Research Rainbow Bee Eater Pty. Ltd.
He graduated from the Australian University with a Bachelor of Science in Forestry in 1965 and undertook post graduate studies in forest ecology, soil science and plant pathology at the University of Toronto where he graduated with a Master of Science (For.) and a PhD. He undertook research over a fifteen year period in the jarrah Forest on forest pathology, bauxite mine rehabilitation, hydrology, wood utilisation, sylivicuture and fire ecology.
In 1985 he was appointed the inaugural Executive Director of the Department of Conservation and Land Management which was responsible for managing 23 million hectares of public land in Western Australia including all forests..
Syd initiated the first carbon sequestration project in Australia with British Petroleum in 1988. He subsequently negotiated pilot sequestration projects with Chevron and Rio Tinto. He also provided support for the development of the Oil Mallee Industry because of its potential to generate extensive tree planting in the wheat belt where it is required to ameliorate land degradation.
Syd first commenced work on biochar in 2000 when he was successful in negotiating the establishment of a 1000 hectare pilot Mallee Eucalypt carbon offset project with the Kansai Power Corporation of Japan.
The chief scientist for Kansai and Dr Shea have been undertaking biochar research in Western Australia for eight years. Syd has demonstrated that biochar derived from harvested mallee eucalypts can significantly increase wheat productivity and he developed a model which integrates eucalyptus oil production, biochar manufacture and soil amendment with biochar while at the same time creating a low cost carbon sink.
4.05 Blair Nancarrow, Consultant, Syme and Nancarrow Water
The triggers of change: What is the environment without people?
Blair Nancarrow spent 21 years as a social scientist in CSIRO Land & Water. She recently retired from CSIRO to take up work in her own consultancy and to work as a Visiting Fellow at the Fenner School of Environment and Society at the Australian National University in Canberra.
Blair’s particular area of expertise has been in the design and implementation of large, community-based research programs and experiments in the people/environment interface. Blair has a special interest in the development of methods and processes to ensure the meaningful incorporation of social science in triple-bottom-line analysis of environmental policy and developments. As such, she is on a number of policy and research advisory committees nationally. In her quest to integrate social science with the more technical sciences, she was recently awarded a Biennial Medal for services to the Modelling and Simulation Society in Australia and New Zealand.
4.35 Ray Tauss, Environmental and community volunteer
Heritage values of living landscapes
Everyone needs clean air, with plants holding a rather important place in providing it, whether or not carbon credits are involved. Our societies have evolved with landscape as the ever-present backdrop to human activities, but the cultures we have inherited need to maintain landscape as part of their human context. Parallels can be drawn between the issues facing any modern society, and the issues facing landscapes; the presentation attempts to explore those parallels, and ways to increasingly 'lock in' landscape values as ethics for building community.
5pm Finish
6pm – late
Gala Landcare Awards Dinner
Queen Elizabeth II Centre (next to Queens Park Theatre)
Don your glad rags, grab a cold champagne and nibble some delectable starters while you take in the strains of the jazz band “Jus’ Winging It” and catch up with some friends. If you’ve got a few minutes, check out the posters which will feature in Friday’s Poster Avenue.
Then be ushered into the grand dining room to a dining room for a sensational dinner featuring the best of local produce from one of WA’s most awarded chefs. Enjoy a drink and freedom to move and network while waiting for the big event of the evening – the announcement of the 2009 Landcare Award winners. (See nominees here)
MC Gerry Gannon will make the night a celebration to remember, and keep an eye out for something special (we’ll say no more now…)
Newsletter Archive
4/05/2012 -
NACC Notes Thursday 22nd December 2012 4/05/2012 -
NACC Notes Thursday 5th January 2012 30/06/2011 -
June 30, 2011 28/06/2011 -
NACC Notes Tuesday June 28, 2011 5/04/2011 -
Quick NACC Notes April 5 2011 25/03/2011 -
NACC Notes Friday March 25, 2011 4/03/2011 -
...a little NACC Note: another Clean Up site & calling EOI for Indigenous engagement 4/03/2011 -
Welcome to Autumn. NACC Notes Mar 4, 2011. 15/02/2011 -
NACC Notes Feb 9 2010 11/02/2011 -
"Quick" notes from NACC 24/12/2010 -
Ding Dong Dell! It's NACC Notes for Christmas. 10/12/2010 -
NACC Notes Tuesday December 7 2010 16/11/2010 -
NACC Notes - Nov 16, 2010 21/10/2010 -
NACC Notes Thursday October 21 14/10/2010 -
NACC Notes Thurs October 14 6/10/2010 -
NACC Notes September 6 2010 9/09/2010 -
BIG IDEAS FESTIVAL and BANJAR... Sept 16 &17th Geraldton 25/08/2010 -
NACC Notes August 28 2010 23/07/2010 -
NACC Notes July 23 2/06/2010 -
NACC Notes June 1 2010 Congratulations Sue and vote for MIG.... 9/03/2010 -
NACC Notes March 9 2010 8/03/2010 -
NACC Small Grants - Coastal and Wind Erosion. Out now. 14/01/2010 -
NACC Notes: 2010 Calendar available now & WA NRM Community Grants close end Jan. 7/01/2010 -
NACC Notes - CFOC 2010 Business Plan Released today 4/01/2010 -
Happy New year and News from NACC