Index
04 April 2006
Conference Travels
Featuring the world travels of three of our researchers
London, Canada, Mexico, Malaysia, Indonesia, Brisbane. A selection of the locations of conferences that our Re-imagining team members have visited during the second semester period. Themes included biodiversity, natural disaster minimisation, culturally sensitive development in the Asia Pacific region and ecology and the law.
Ascelin Gordon, post doctoral fellow in the biodiversity cluster, attended the Diversitas Open Science Conference in Oaxaca, Mexico. Over 700 biodiversity experts from 60 countries attended to present a snapshot of the state of biodiversity globally and the work being done to preserve it. The overarching theme was the necessity of dealing with social issues when attempting to preserve biodiversity in developing countries.
Oaxaca, located in the south east of Mexico is the most culturally diverse area in Mexico, with 16 indigenous groups in the area. Ascelin spent some time in the area around Oaxaca and is pictured here with a giant cactus.
He noted that even though everyone strongly identified the need to address this issue, there was a lack of solid frameworks and ideas on how to tackle it. Ascelin gave an oral presentation and presented a poster entitled “Biodiversity viability assessment in the urban fringe of Melbourne”. His research looked at trying to make optimal use of a new series of threatened species habitat maps developed by industry partner institution, the Arthur Rylah Institute (DSE) using modelling and optimisation approaches. Ascelin received a good series of questions on his work and spoke to some expert environmental modellers about incorporating uncertainty into his modelling.
Anthony Kent, PhD researcher in the local governance cluster, traveled to two exotic locations, Penang, Malaysia and Yogyakarta, Indonesia as an observer at two conferences with very different themes. Anthony traveled first to Penang for the 8th Asian Planning Schools Association Conference, attended mostly by academics from the Asia/India region. There was a strong focus on issues concerning the interface between modern and traditional architecture and planning practices and the issue of displacement from rural to urban migration. Two interesting speakers were the president of the Malaysia Institute of Planners, Mrs Noriza BT Hashier, who was concerned with how to preserve the multicultural Malaysian architecture in the face of rapid modern development and a young Bosnian-Muslim refugee who spoke about the principles of sustainability laid out by a Muslim 7th century philosopher.
Anthony’s second conference, held in Yogyakarta, the old capital of Indonesia and home to the Royal Family, was entitled ‘Risk Management in Human Settlements’. This conference attracted a diverse audience of government officials, professional planners and NGO’s and focused on how planning and housing has a role in risk management in the face of natural and man made disasters. Anthony spoke at length with a government official from Banda Aceh about some planning issues facing the area in the wake of the Boxing Day Tsunami, which includes the call by landholders to reclaim the land taken by the sea so they can rebuild their homes in their original locations.
Following this conference, Anthony presented at the State of Australian Cities conference, hosted by Griffith University in Brisbane. Presenting under the theme of ‘the urban economy’, he noted that there was a lack of understanding on how our cities work economically and that one issue is that local councils are responsible in part, for the economic management of cities, but lack the resources in order to effectively manage them.
Georgia Garrard, PhD researcher in the Biodiversity cluster attended conferences in Canada and London. Held in French speaking Montreal, the annual Ecological Society of America and International Congress of Ecology’s conference, was attended by 5000 delegates from across the world. The main focus of the conference centered around preserving freshwater ecology. Georgia’s poster on her research around incorporating uncertainty into plant detectability received favourable comments on its new approach. The British Ecological Society’s Conference, held in Hertfordshire, just outside of London featured a more academic edge and featured interesting sessions on modelling and conservation ecology. Georgia, Ascelin and Bill Langford then traveled to Brisbane, to attend the annual Ecological Society of Australia Conference 2005.
Copies of their presentations are available in pdf format on our publications page.