Dm Pearson

Attention to four key principles can promote health outcomes from desert Aboriginal land management

We identify four principles that can promote the prospects of health outcomes for desert Aboriginal people from livelihoods engaged with land management. The principles were derived inductively using a grounded theory approach, drawing on primary research that used qualitative and participatory methods, and from relevant literature and theoretical frameworks. International and Australian literature offers evidence that supports desert Aboriginal people’s view that their health depends on their relationship with their land. Engagement with land management can lead desert Aboriginal people to feel that their own actions are consistent with their own sense of the right and proper way for them to behave towards land, family and community. This increased ‘sense of control’ impacts positively on health by moderating the impact of sustained stress from health risk factors in the environment and lifestyle. The four principles focus on underlying characteristics of Aboriginal land management that are important to promoting this increased ‘sense of control’: (1) Aboriginal land management governance recognises and respects Aboriginal custom and tradition, and is adaptive; (2) learning is embraced as a life-long process; (3) relationships are recognised as very important; and (4) partnerships give priority to doing things that all parties agree are important. These principles are presented as hypotheses that warrant further development and testing. While they do not account specifically for the impact of lifestyle and environmental factors on health, we expect that the increased sense of control that desert Aboriginal people are likely to develop when involved in Aboriginal land management that applies these principles will moderate the impact of such factors on their health. The principles offer a starting point for further development of criteria and standards for good practice in Aboriginal land management, potentially including an environmental certification scheme that integrates social and environmental outcomes.

Landscape ecology: an integrated science for sustainability in a changing world

Human pressures on the world’s landscapes are accelerating at unprecedented rates. Global climate change is compounding these pressures, making the need for sustainable landscape management and planning even more urgent. Landscape ecology is uniquely placed to address this challenge—its charter is to provide the science underpinning sustainable landscape management (Wu 2006; Musacchio 2009). The aim of this special issue is to advance landscape ecology as a science able to rise to the challenges of environmental sustainability we face this century. The special issue originated from a symposium titled ‘Landscape ecology: An integrated science for sustainability in a changing world’ at the 10th International Congress of Ecology (INTECOL) August 16th–21st 2009 in Brisbane, Australia. The theme of the Congress was ‘‘Ecology in a Changing Climate, Two Hemispheres, One Globe’’. Ecologists from both hemispheres explored how global change has impacted, and will further impact, ecosystems and their vital services to human communities. The Congress explored unique features of ecosystems in the southern and northern hemispheres, with discussions on: long term monitoring, incorporating ecological knowledge into policy, integrating indigenous knowledge into conventional science, and on communicating ecological information to a broader community. These issues arising out of the Congress are highly relevant to landscape ecology and represent a timely opportunity for this special issue of Landscape Ecology.

Exploring the relevance of a landscape ecological paradigm for sustainable landscapes and livelihoods: A case-application from the Northern Territory Australia

Global change is exacerbating the need for more effective mechanisms and approaches for working towards economic, social/cultural and environmental sustainability. It is now well recognised that science for sustainability will require integrated problem-focussed research that is by nature trans-disciplinary. Resolutions to both global and regional scale issues must involve participation of a diverse number of stakeholders. One region that would benefit greatly from such an integrated approach is the Northern Territory of Australia. This area is home to some of the most pristine savanna landscapes in the world and it is also occupied by one of the oldest living human cultures which are still in existence today. However, in recent years there has been increasing pressure to develop this region. The Northern Territory is also facing problems associated with having a growing Aboriginal population with deepening health and social problems. So as well as needing to facilitate adaptation in response to global change and development for economic prosperity of the region, there is an obligation to alter management practices to reduce social disadvantage. In light of this, it will be important that future landscapes are multifunctional and designed to ensure the preservation of biological and cultural diversity, as well as having provision for the livelihoods of the people that live within them. This article recommends the adoption of a landscape ecological approach for strategic development and sustainable planning, which captures and incorporates the values and identities of the different stakeholders, as well as engaging them in a continuous, adaptive process of planning and management, and in doing so discusses the importance of human ecological holism as part of the conceptual framework for landscape ecology.

Destination Planning and the Sustainability of Wildlife Tourism Resources: Ongoing Challenges for Knowledge Integration

Despite the fact that the interface between wildlife and tourism has attracted increasing academic scrutiny, it has also been recognized that destination-level strategic marketing and planning constitute the least developed aspect of wildlife tourism management. The paper argues that this is partly due to ongoing challenges linked with integrating the needs of a tourism industry management perspective with those of wildlife resources planning, in particular when the diversity and distinctiveness of wildlife tourism destination types is acknowledged. The paper uses the findings emanating from the recent wildlife tourism literature (in particular on the nature of motivations of tourists participating in wildlife viewing experiences) to examine the basis for destination competitiveness in that area, and to investigate ensuing planning challenges. Subsequently, the paper examines a simple case study (wildlife-viewing in the Top End of the Northern Territory of Australia) where knowledge integration issues for wildlife tourism planning have been explicitly tackled with a Geographic Information System (GIS) approach.

Mapping and spatial analysis for savanna wildfire history in northern Australia by remotely sensed data and GIS

This paper presents the results of a study that investigates the implications of bushfires for the pattern of vegetation in the tropical savannas of northern Australia. Fire history maps for a dry season were produced using Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) data for an area containing typical savanna landscape characteristics, and analysis of pattern was conducted using GIS and landscape ecological measures. Three images captured in the early, middle and late dry season in 1997 were used to produce an unsupervised classification which delineated the extent of burnt patches. These patches were labelled by using a mixture of ground truthing and on-screen assessment of the raw data and signature files for previously confirmed fire scars. Spectral overlap between fire scars, water bodies, shadows and miscellaneous geological features were observed and eliminated by using of a binary spatial mask and the Digital Elevation Model (DEM) for the area. To provide preliminarily an analysis of the spatial changes to pattern in this landscape during the fire season, binary grid fire maps were generated in a GIS and these were used to compute the following spatial pattern indices: number of patches, mean patch size, mean shape index, and mean patch fractal dimension. The fluctuations of these indices illustrate the changes in spatial patterning of vegetation in a savanna landscape that is significantly affected by dry season burning.

The effects of a moratorium on land-clearing in the Douglas-Daly region, Northern Territory, Australia

Land-clearing represents the first step in agricultural development and signals a shift in landscape function towards provisioning ecosystem services, in particular food production. In the process, other types of ecosystem services are often unintentionally lost as illustrated by the associated decline in biodiversity, increased soil erosion and emission of greenhouse gases. In 2003, the Northern Territory state government in Australia promulgated a moratorium on the clearing of native vegetation on freehold land in the Douglas-Daly river catchment, an area experiencing increasing pressure from agricultural development. The moratorium was intended to limit the rate and extent of land-clearing for a period of time so that informed policy could be concurrently developed to guide future land-clearing and minimise negative impacts. Under the moratorium, land-clearing required a permit and had to conform to broad guidelines; clearing was confined to freehold land, was prohibited in close proximity to wetlands, rivers and rainforest to safeguard water quality, and there were prescribed limits on percentages cleared by property, vegetation type, sub-catchment, and the whole catchment. Remotely sensed data (1977–2011) were used to explore the effectiveness of the moratorium. The analysis shows that, during moratorium years (2002–2009), clearing rates accelerated rather than slowed in the moratorium area and was mostly (81%) conducted without the required permits. The extent of land cleared after the moratorium was declared, and the fallow nature of some of this land a decade later, suggests that much of the land-clearing may have been completed in anticipation of stricter future controls. The moratorium failed because it was not formally legislated and was too broadly defined. Consequently, the non-binding nature of the land-clearing guidelines, and the absence of systematic monitoring of land cover change or penalties for clearing land without a permit, led to uninformed and uncontrolled clearing. This paper demonstrates that effective policy is only as good as its level of implementation.

Landscape ecology: its role as a trans-disciplinary science for rangeland sustainability

The aim is to review landscape ecology and the contribution it can make to sustainable rangeland management, using Australia as an example. An examination is made of how much traditional ecology, as a discipline, influences landscape ecology in Australia. Also evaluated is whether, under this influence, landscape ecology is emerging as effectively as it could be as a trans-disciplinary science that can contribute significantly to rangeland sustainability. Surveys of landscape ecologists in Australia make it possible to classify Australian landscape ecology as being ‘unidirectional interdisciplinary’ in approach, with ecology being the coordinating discipline. The important contribution that research under this classification provides in terms of understanding structure, process, and change in rangelands is recognised and acknowledged. However, the question is raised as to whether following an ecological construct is constraining the application of landscape ecology more widely to address the complex environmental problems facing Australia’s (and the world’s) rangelands that also require consideration of the social and geographical aspects of landscapes. Recent shifts in the landscape ecological paradigm towards a science for sustainability that links science and practice, with particular focus on landscape design, social and cultural aspects of landscapes, and the value associated with landscape services, make landscape ecology increasingly more useful as a ‘goal-oriented’ approach for addressing rangeland sustainability. This paper suggests that those involved in rangeland management need to consider landscape ecology within its wider context. In doing so, it is argued that they should explore the possibilities it has to offer in dealing with development and management of rangelands, including interrelationships between people and landscapes, and to ensure ecosystem goods and services valued by people are preserved.