Iconic Landscape -- how and why do people care about them?

With an interdisciplinary team of scholars from the sciences and the humanities at The University of Sydney, I'm involved in the early phases of a project examining ecological resilience, the development of meaning and feelings of affiliation in three 'Iconic Landscapes'. Here's the blurb.

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ECOLOGICAL RESILIENCE OF PEOPLE AND PLACE: THE KEY TO SUSTAINING AUSTRALIA’S ICONIC LANDSCAPES

WHAT?
A group of researchers representing the Sciences and Arts at the University of Sydney have been funded by the University’s institute for Sustainability to conduct a study which will involve:
- Investigating three different landscapes – seawalls (Sydney Harbour), rangelands (Fowlers Gap) and arid dry-zones (Simpson Desert)
- Going beyond the dissemination of scientific data and combining these findings with how society values and perceives its rural and built environments and how changes in these environments are understood in a social context.
- Attaining a better understanding of the relationship between biological events and ecological and social values.
- Finding connective narratives between different stakeholders
- Understanding how scientific research meets the real needs of the community
- Presenting the findings in an innovative, non-traditional way: film, photography, oral storytelling or an art installation, for example.
WHEN?
- September 2009 to August 2010

HOW?
If you, or anyone you know (even if they don’t live in the immediate area), would like to be involved in the study the please contact the Project Officer:
Gemma Deavin at gemma.deavin@bio.usyd.edu.au or 02 9351 4870

Particpation is completely voluntary and will involve a focus group meeting (after work hours) from which we will offer the option of taking part in a more detailed individual interview.

We will also be recruiting through community groups and newspaper advertisements. We look forward to hearing from you.
WHY?
- Australian envrionments are under increasing stress from droughts, feral animals and urban development.
- In addition to the traditional scientific findings linking distress with ecological resilience, we envisage identification of key societal values in the general public and the decision-making process involved in envrionmental change.
- Given Australia has the longest history, globally, of human manipulation of the envrionment, it is extremely important that we look at it societal values

Seawalls
- Only 10% of Sydney Harbour’s original shoreline remains.
- Urban coastal waters are amongst the most stressed of all Australian envrionments.
- New developments must have minimal impact on biodiversity and deliver societal needs.
- Seawalls and urban developments abbuting the marine envrionments provide a test-bed for developing new was of enhancing biodiversity and minimising fragmentation, thus delivering new information on the ecological resilience of coastal envrionments to urban development.

Rangelands
- The sustainable management of Australia’s rangelands is crucial for rural and regional communities, particularly in the face of the low and erratic rainfalls expected with climate-change.
- Overgrazing by native, domestic and feral herbivores has created profound problems and remains the major cause of land degradation.
- This problem persists because there is often limited understanding of the plant-herbivore dynamic leading to poor soil health, loss of seed banks, salinity, erosion, poor productivity and reduced biodiversity.

Arid dry-zones
- Few of us directly experience the Simpson Desert but the benefits of managing this icnonic area for sustained prodcution and conservation flow to all.
- Desertification currently threatens nearly half of the area of the dry-lands, both worldwide and in Australia, causes huge economic loss (US$42 million in argicultural losses worldwide), and affects human welfare and security.

Our research aims to cut across traditional divides between arts and sciences and provide an integrated understanding of sustainable development in the landscapes that define modern Australia.

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