Archive for September, 2010

Stranded Boat. Image: Tom Griffiths.

Libby Robin, Chris Dickman, Mandy Martin

CSIRO PUBLISHING, 352 pages, Hardback, Colour illustrations, ISBN:9780643097490, $59.95.

Desert Channels is a book that combines art, science and history to explore the ‘impulse to conserve’ in the distinctive Desert Channels country of south-western Queensland. The region is the source of Australia’s major inland-flowing desert rivers. Some of Australia’s most interesting new conservation initiatives are in this region, including partnerships between private landholders, non-government conservation organisations that buy and manage land (including Bush Heritage Australia and the Australian Wildlife Conservancy) and community-based natural resource management groups such as Desert Channels Queensland.

Conservation biology in this place has a distinguished scientific history, and includes two decades of ecological work by scientific editor Chris Dickman. Chris is one of Australia’s leading terrestrial ecologists and mammalogists. He is an outstanding writer and is passionate about communicating the scientific basis for concern about biodiversity in this region to the broadest possible audience.

Libby Robin, historian and award-winning writer, has co-ordinated the writings of the 46 contributors whose voices collectively portray the Desert Channels in all its facets. The emphasis of the book is on partnerships that conserve landscapes and communities together. Short textboxes add local and technical commentary where relevant. Art and science combine with history and local knowledge to richly inform the writing and visual understanding of the country.

Conservation here is portrayed in four dimensions: place, landscape, biodiversity and livelihood. These four parts each carry four chapters. The ‘4×4’ structure was conceived by acclaimed artist, Mandy Martin, who has produced suites of artworks over three seasons in this format with commentaries, which make the interludes between parts. Martin’s work offers an aesthetic framework of place, which shapes how we see the region.

Desert Channels explores the impulse to protect the varied biodiversity of the region, and its Aboriginal, pastoral and prehistoric heritage, including some of Australia’s most important dinosaur sites. The work of Alice Duncan-Kemp, the region’s most significant literary figure, is highlighted. Even the sounds of the landscape are not forgotten: the book includes a CD by Alaskan radio journalist Richard Nelson talking to ecologist Steve Morton at Ocean Bore in the Simpson Desert country. The twitter of zebra finches accompanies the interview.

Conservation can be accomplished in various ways and Desert Channels combines many distinguished voices. The impulse to conserve is shared by local landholders, conservation enthusiasts (from the community and from national and international organisations), Indigenous owners, professional biologists, artists and historians.

Further information: CSIRO Publishing

by Glenda Cloughley

A mythic story-song about relations between people and Earth
Musical Director – Johanna McBride

Inspired by The Oresteia by Aeschylus and Tom Bass’s sculpture Ethos, the spirit of Canberra

Presented by A Chorus of Women as a citizens’ response to climate change with a cast of 80 Canberra men and women including accomplished soloists and instrumentalists and the ABC 666 Community Choir

King’s Hall and the House of Representatives Chamber
Museum of Australian Democracy at Old Parliament House
Saturdays 11, 18 and 25 September 2010
7.00pm
Admission free – bookings essential

Forum
Members of the audience are invited to a conversation about the work with the composer, cast and others Museum of Australian Democracy at Old Parliament House
Sunday 26 September, 2.00pm – 3.00pm
Free after entry

Bookings for performances and forum
furies@moadoph.gov.au
02 6270 8102
www.moadoph.gov.au

Supported by the ACT Government

Dates:
Workshop: Friday 22 October 2010
Conference: Friday 25 and Saturday 26 October 2011

These academic and community events examine the ways in which the people of Gippsland respond to and interact with the Gippsland environment.

The Gippsland Environments workshop uncovers stories of our Gippsland landscape through an examination of written records and non-textual sources.

The Gippsland Environments conference will consider how the region has shaped the Gippsland people and how they in turn have shaped their surroundings. Conference themes include Aborigines and early Gippsland; the use of natural resources; management of the environment; the landscape, flora and fauna of Gippsland; and conservation and representations of the environment.

For further details and registration contact Dr Julie Fenley on (03) 5122 6320 or Email: Julie.Fenley@monash.edu

Green Harvest: a history of organic farming and gardening in Australia by Rebecca Jones

Published by CSIRO PUBLISHING in September.

Green Harvest explores the fertile and healthy history of organic farming and gardening in Australia.  It tells the story of the founding of the first Australian organic societies in the 1940s (which were amongst the first in the world) and explores the principles that have shaped organic growing from the early twentieth century to the present day.  Green Harvest is an environmental history ‘from the ground up’ – the beliefs and practices of organic growers themselves across eight decades.  It examines what it means to grow food organically in Australia and how this has changed over time.  This is an interdisciplinary study combining historical methods with ecological theories of health and includes in-depth interviews, analysis of historical documents and case studies of organic growers.

Rebecca Jones is a lecturer at Monash University Department of Rural and Indigenous Health in Victoria with research interests in environmental history, health history and environmental health.

Further details: http://www.publish.csiro.au/nid/21/pid/6416.htm

Watermark Literary Society in association with The National Library of Australia presents the first

Eric Rolls Memorial Lecture

Fire in 1788: the closest ally

to be delivered by Bill Gammage

National Library of Australia Theatre
Canberra
Wednesday 20 October 2010

Please be seated by 6 pm
No charge for admission
Refreshments served 7.15 pm to 8.15pm

Bookings essential for catering
fellow@watermarkliterarysociety.asn.au

Eric Rolls had a country mind and a country eye. He knew the bush as a great teacher, and he was forever alert to its sights, its sounds, its colour, its small clues and mighty themes. He had the rare gift of being able to inspire others with what he learnt, putting them on the way to understanding our country. He was an Australian.

Bill Gammage has written about Australian soldiers in the Great War, Narrandera Shire, the year 1938 for the Bicentennial history, and the Hagen-Sepik patrol in New Guinea. He is now working on how Aborigines made Australia until 1788. It is work Eric would have loved.