Resource Management and Geography - Theses
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ItemTools for the conservation management of wildlife under uncertainty( 2001)This thesis explores the kinds of models that may be built to support environmental decisions when direct data are scarce and understanding of the ecology of a problem is incomplete. It explores empirically the effects of structural, parameter, shape and dependency uncertainty using explicit population models of a threatened Victorian species, the eastern barred bandicoot (Perameles gunnii) and the nationally endangered species trout cod (Maccullochella macquariensis). In particular, the thesis examines the sensitivity of management decision for these species to assumptions about dependencies, their implementation in standard computer programs, decisions about structural alternatives, assumptions about shapes of statistical distributions used to reflect uncertainties, and the choices of parameters values. The empirical exploration of these features in two different ecological, management, and data contexts sheds light on the ways in which models may be used effectively to support pragmatic management decisions for threatened species. One of the uses of population models is to assess the relative risks of extinction faced by a suite of species. The assessments are used to classify species into various categories of threat, and to create lists for management action. Such lists are used for state of the environment reporting, and to set priorities for protection and recovery actions. In many circumstances, there is insufficient time to develop explicit models. In their place, various expert or rule-based systems have been developed to assess conservation status. They use a suite of population attributes including population size, geographic extent, population subdivision, and rates of change in these attributes as surrogates for extinction risk. However, these systems have, until recently, ignored uncertainties inherent in the data used to make the classifications. This thesis also explores the theoretical underpinning of dealing with uncertainty in rule-based systems, so that they may better reflect the reliability with which assessments are made.
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ItemThe impact of kangaroo grazing on sediment and nutrient mobilisation( 2000-05)The adverse impacts on vegetation and soils due to livestock grazing have been extensively studied for many years. The extent to which native wildlife may also be causing change to their environment, as a result of local increases in population density, has been the subject of debate in a number of countries. In Australia there has been a growing awareness in recent years that native herbivores, particularly kangaroos and wallabies, may also be causing changes to ecosystem dynamics. Environmmental changes, produced firstly by the aboriginal people and then by Europeans, have favoured the larger macropods, resulting in increased population levels. These impacts can also be seen in areas around cities, where pressure from urbanisation has restricted populations to smaller and smaller patches of remnant vegetation and reserves, increasing the pressure on diminishing food resources within these patches. This study focuses on one of the areas that supplies drinking water to Melbourne, the Yan Yean Reservoir catchment, which is situated 37 km north east of Melbourne. This study adds to our understanding of the impacts of native wildlife populations by investigating the extent of some of these possible changes to ecosystem dynamics.
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ItemLost waters of West Moorabool: a history of a community and its catchment( 2004)Conflict around the allocation of the water resource cannot satisfactorily be reduced to a gradual decline of resource availability. This research explores the sources and mechanics of water conflict in a case study of the West Moorabool catchment, one recently designated as 'stressed'. Although situated in the temperate southeast zone of Australia, the loss of water from a predominantly rural catchment across a catchment divide to the urban centre of Ballarat has been a n1atter of continuing tension since the gold discoveries gave geographical definition to this part of European Victoria. As the demands for water increase, the political imperative to reappraise current water portioning gives full exposure to a conflict that, without historical investigation, could be oversimplified as a resource battle between urban recipients and rural donors. This history encapsulates the perspective of a changing rural community in a water supply catchment, by tracing the transition from a landscape of unallocated waters to one of overallocated water. The process whereby Ballarat water interests incrementally extended across the catchment had social consequences that polarised and entrenched the water conf1ict in this region. Although a homogeneous entity cannot be assumed, the rural community experienced a graduated decline in self-determination that has been more central to its water history than the loss of a physical resource. With water allocation being raised in many policy forums, there exists the potential to address a social agenda alongside assessments of resource capacity in a way that challenges the perpetuation of a traditional hierarchy of interests between rural communities and the inevitably more dominant and thirsty urban ones. A second but related dimension of 'loss' experienced by this catchment community concerns its increasing disconnection with the local waterways. Rivers, creeks, springs and reservoirs became less visible and accessible, flowing unseen behind reserve fences and closed roads. Relative to its more urban neighbour, the catchment community has, ironically, become physically dislocated from the water that has been of such defining significance from the first intrusion of Ballarat's powerful mining and municipal interests at Beales Swamp. An understanding of past linkages between a community and its waterways highlights the contemporary loss of connection and suggests a means of valuing 'water assets' for social and cultural meaning. Emphasis on water as a resource with volumetric attributes currently generates a negative culture around water, one that is not tempered by the creation and active management of a negotiated, watered landscape. For West Moorabool, the largely unquestioned expropriation of water from one catchment to supply another, the severance of waterways from many in the community, and the ongoing scientific investigations to reallocate a capped resource, combine to filter water of its social properties. This historical research infuses the politics of water with the memory and experience of one catchment community. It demonstrates a complexity that challenges the representation of water allocation as a problem of natural resource management with solutions more in hydrological modelling than agreed social outcomes.
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ItemAs if the landscape matters: the social space of 'farming styles' in the Loddon catchment of Victoria( 2001)Farming practice is spatially and culturally constructed. Fanners define ‘good’ farming through the social relations of everyday life, and through observation of landscape change. ‘Farming Styles’ is a sociological concept that aims to understand apparent homogeneity within diverse agricultural regions. Existing theoretical and methodological approaches to ‘farming styles’ have been unable to decide whether styles are ‘real’, and have struggled to provide an understanding of why and how styles emerge. This thesis re-conceptualises 'farming styles' as emerging from common patterns of responses by farmers to structural, cultural and physical influences. I agree that styles of farmer exist, but I reject the notion that farmers choose a particular style of farming (and the strategies and repertoire of practices that are associated with that style) because individual perceptions differ with respect to aspects of each style. Data were collected in a mail-out survey of farmers in the Loddon catchment with farms with a capital improved value over $50 000 and from all industries (n==366). To test the hypothesis that styles emerge from patterns of beliefs and behaviours, farmers were assigned to 10 groups by K-Means clustering. The clustering process was based on respondents’ answers to 31 belief/attitude statements about farming. Data on reported behaviours were also collected with respect to: participation in industry training; involvement in strategic natural resource management planning (Regional Conservation Strategy and Salinity Management Plans); Landcare membership; and adoption of conservation works, farm planning and quality assurance. Different groups (fanning styles) are found to have different average behaviours, and these are consistent with their beliefs about farming. To test the hypothesis that there is a relationship between the distribution of fanning styles and landscape type, five focus groups involving 32 farmers (9 women, 23 men) were convened to explore the importance of the landscape to farmers in 'reading' clues to farming practice. The focus groups revealed that clues to 'good' and 'bad' fanning are important in fanners' understandings of the landscapes around them and that landscapes themselves are mythologised. The focus groups also explored the way in which fanners differentiate and distinguish landscapes, aiming to produce an ethno-taxonomy of landscape types within the Loddon catchment. While mapping landscape types from the perspective of farmers was difficult due to the variability in individual perceptions of landscape difference, there was relative consensus at the larger' land system' scale. The relationship between the distribution of fanning style (10 styles) and landscape type (6 land systems) is found to be significant (x2 = 75.87, 45df, p=0.003). The relationship between the distribution of fanning styles and shopping towns (groceries) is also significant (x2 = 317.30, 252df, p=0.003), as it is for farm supplies shopping towns (x2 = 301.52, 243df, p=O.006). The results suggest that both the observation of farming practices within the landscape and the social interaction of farmers at locales such as shopping towns reinforce patterns of behaviour and belief about fanning. Thus, the continual exposure to sets of particular ways of thinking and doing farming within the local setting provides the context within which farmers perceive and adjust their own farming practice. However, the range and extent of each farmer's social networks and behavioural space will vary, and thus different farmers will be exposed to a different range of options and influences. Despite the diversity in approaches to farming, and the variability of individual's social networks and spatial behaviours, the landscape is important because it provides an underlying, recognisable and meaningful set of symbolic and material evidences of farming practice. The landscape enables a farmer to compare and contrast a range of farm practice options against a benchmark that each farmer knows intimately - his or her own land.