climateXchange

What is Happening:

Australia’s national strategy for biodiversity conservation is mostly concerned with the protection of ‘wild’ biodiversity from unsympathetic land use. This strategy both ignores the provision by biodiversity of ecosystem services that underwrite the sustainability of land-based industries and subtly shifts public understandings of the rights and responsibilities towards resource condition that inhere in private property rights.

Biodiversity has no respect for demarcations between agencies and portfolios, the lines on maps of land tenure, specialisation of research disciplines, or the short times frames of forward estimates. Conserving biodiversity across landscapes and time severely challenges our current policy thinking and capacities, but recent research and practice are indicating some positive and practical ways forward.

Panelists:
Professor Stephen Dovers- Director, Fenner School of Environment and Society, ANU College of Medicine Biology and Environment

Ms Deb Kerr- Manager of Natural Resource Management, National Farmers Federation

Professor Stewart Lockie- Head, School of Sociology, ANU College of Arts and Social Sciences