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Green streets: why protecting urban parks and bush is vital as our cities grow and become denser

More than half of the world’s population lives in cities. In Aotearoa New Zealand, the proportion of people who live in towns or cities exceeds 86%. With our lives increasingly lived in urban environments, it’s vital for our personal wellbeing – and the planet’s – that city planners find ways to foster a connection with nature.

The evidence is clear – people need direct, personal experiences with nature to care enough to protect it. As evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould argued,

we cannot win this battle to save species and environments without forging an emotional bond between ourselves and nature as well – for we will not fight to save what we do not love.

In our recently published study, we explored the perceptions and experiences of nature that Hamilton residents had in their city.

Hamilton City Council is responsible for 1,142 hectares of open space, including more than 200 parks and reserves. In 2019, the council outlined its goal to have 80% of households with access to a park or open space within 500 metres of home.

Green spaces are any areas of unsealed urban land with some form of vegetation cover. We focused on three types – private gardens, parks dominated by native vegetation (“bush parks”), and parks dominated by introduced vegetation (“lawn parks”, large expanses of mown lawn scattered with individual trees).

Residents took us on tours of different green spaces around the city. During these visits, we asked them about the importance of these places, how they engaged with them and about their plant and animal encounters. We interviewed 21 residents – seven restoration volunteers, seven people who frequently visited bush parks, and seven who visited lawn parks.

We were particularly interested in how people perceived urban green spaces and the benefits they got from them. We also looked at the experiences and connection gained from different natural environments.

Ringing With Birdsong

Kaelin was one of the Hamilton residents who took us on a tour of her garden and local park, one of Hamilton’s many branching gullies.

The gully was cool and quiet, the only sounds the murmurs of the tiny stream at its centre and the occasional indignant cheeps of our fellow fantail. As bell-like flutes punctuated by rude coughs and gurgles announced the presence of a tui, Kaelin turned to me with a delighted smile and said:

You can be down here in the right time of the year and you think, where am I? It’s not the city, it’s just ringing with birdsong.

Our interviewees described native bush parks as special places that provided a relaxing and restorative escape from city life. These green spaces, dominated by native vegetation, were the ones respondents commonly identified as places to sit peacefully and observe nature.

Lawn parks, on the other hand, acted more as “backdrops” for other activities – picnics, sports or farmers’ markets. Residential gardens, like bush parks, allowed for deeper observation and engagement with nature, but as private spaces, they didn’t provide the social benefits that parks do.

The Value Of Diversity

Lawn parks are the most common type of green space in cities. Yet our study highlights that participants valued a diversity of green spaces that would meet a range of needs – their own, those of their community and those of other creatures such as birds, bats and weta.

Interviewees voiced a desire to have spaces in cities where unique New Zealand plants and animals could thrive. Respondents enjoyed sharing their parks and gardens with birds, bats and insects, recognising these animals contributed to the meaning of the place.

Creating habitat in cities for wildlife, however, was only one of the multiple purposes of green spaces that respondents believed were important. They wanted to see a variety of parks that meet a range of community needs.

Just as respondents held multiple priorities for their own gardens, not always just as habitats for native flora and fauna, interviewees also wanted urban green spaces to support multiple uses and not serve exclusively as wildlife habitat.

The Threat Of Densification

But the benefits of green spaces are threatened by the loss of parks and gardens to redevelopment and densification.

New Zealand’s ongoing housing crisis has intensified political debates about urban green spaces, and Hamilton is no different.

The council recently completed consultation on significant changes to density rules in Hamilton’s central city and surrounding areas. The plan will allow three homes of up to three storeys to be developed on most properties, though the council says it is committed to maintaining its public green spaces.

As urban populations continue to rise, our research supports a renewed call for the importance of reserving space for parks and nature in cities. Instead of being a dispensable luxury, green space is crucial for the health and wellbeing of both people and native species.

Finding ways to foster personal experiences of green spaces, and the plants, animals, people and stories that provide meaning, is one way to increase city dwellers’ emotional involvement with local nature. Such subjective bonds can spur the motivation required for people’s everyday actions to nurture and protect what they love.

Elizabeth Elliot Noe, Postdoctoral Fellow, Lincoln University, New Zealand and Ottilie Stolte, Senior Lecturer, University of Waikato

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Five ways you can help stop biodiversity loss in your area – and around the world

Biodiversity refers to the variety of life found on Earth and underpins the natural systems which grow our food, cleanse our air and water and regulate our climate. Human life cannot exist without it. But around one million animal and plant species are now threatened by extinction.

At the recent UN biodiversity conference (COP15) in Montreal, parties agreed on a set of targets for reversing global biodiversity loss by 2030. This includes protecting 30% of the Earth’s surface and reforming subsidies for farming and fishing. Meeting these targets will require coordination between governments and businesses.

Yet the pace at which legislation and policies take effect is exceeded by the global rate of biodiversity loss. Here are some of the most effective actions you can take to help reverse biodiversity loss and restore nature now.

1. Donate

The total area of protected land and sea in the UK increased from 27.6 million hectares in 2017 to 40.6 million hectares in 2022. Much of this area is managed by charities, legal bodies and local authorities.

These organisations, such as the RSPB and the Wildlife Trust, restore biodiversity by creating new habitats, improving existing ones and ensuring that wild areas are connected with forested corridors and reserves to allow species to roam. For example, the Wildlife Trust has reintroduced beavers to fenland in Kent, where wet grassland habitats are now thriving as a result.

But the funds available for nature conservation in the UK are often insufficient. Individuals and businesses can donate money to support the work of these organisations.

2. Volunteer

Many charitable organisations are dependent on volunteers to undertake administration and marketing, site management or to spread the message about the biodiversity crisis. With new digital ways of working, people could volunteer from their own home at suitable times. Experience is not necessary in most cases and volunteers often benefit from on the job training.

Volunteering can also have other benefits. Research has revealed spending just two hours in nature each week can benefit health and well-being.

3. Change What You Eat

No one likes being lectured about their diet. But unsustainable farming methods, the expansion of agricultural land and our meat-based western diets all threaten biodiversity.

Converting natural habitats to agricultural land has resulted in one-quarter of all remaining mammal species being threatened with extinction. Research has also shown that agricultural intensification now means that more than half of European bird species are threatened or in decline.

To reverse biodiversity loss, we must change both what we eat and how much we consume.

The UK’s National Food Strategy and the Food and Land Use Coalition’s “Better Futures Report” recommend a diet that is less reliant on meat. The Food and Land Use Commission, for example, suggest that, from 2030, a sustainable adult male diet should consist of 14g of red meat per day, 29g of chicken and other poultry, 250g of dairy products, 500g of fruits and vegetables, 50g of nuts and 75g of soya bean and other legumes.

4. Nature-Friendly Gardens

Urbanisation is increasingly fragmenting natural habitats and, as such, species decline is highest in cities. As cities continue to grow it will become more important to have multiple approaches for biodiversity conservation.

Our gardens, although typically not spacious enough to maintain species diversity, can be important habitats in urban environments. Working with our neighbours, we can scale up our gardens by growing networks of flowers to help insects feed and planting trees for birds to nest in. This will increase biodiversity by creating a patchwork of habitats across a whole neighbourhood. Wildlife-friendly gardens can create corridors for a wide range of species and improve connectivity, provide shelter or nesting sites, maintain genetic diversity and increase the abundance of native plants even in the smallest spaces.

A study in 2009 found that there were up to 28.7 million trees, 3.5 million ponds and at least 4.7 million bird nesting boxes in UK gardens. Nesting bird numbers can be increased if we know where trees can be planted for maximum effect. Networks of pollinating flowers across gardens could also help insects and butterflies feed.

5. Indoor Cats And Responsible Dog Owners

Cats are natural predators and allowing your pet to roam freely around the neighbourhood means it – and all the other free-roaming pet cats out there – could be responsible for the deaths of millions of animals each year. Research in Australia revealed that by allowing cats to freely roam, predation on local prey per square kilometre in residential areas is 28–52 times larger than predation rates by feral cats in natural environments. Cats have caused such devastating impacts to Australian wildlife that cat predation is listed as a key threat to native wildlife within national legislation.

In the UK, cat ownership in the UK has increased by 13% on average each year over the past 40 years so that roughly 90% of the UK’s cats are now pets. This has correspondingly increased the threat to our native wildlife.

There are several ways we can reduce the impact of pet cats on biodiversity. Keeping a cat well fed reduces their need to hunt. Another option is to keep them indoors for parts of the day, during the night or entirely. The impact of pet cats on Australian wildlife has grown so severe that local authorities have introduced bylaws and curfews to contain cat predation.

Cats predominantly threaten biodiversity in urban areas. Yet the interaction between dogs and wildlife occurs more frequently in rural situations.

The issue here arises primarily as a result of predation and disease transmission. But dog faeces and urine fertilise soils with nutrients and can change the type of plants that grow in an area. This carries knock-on effects on a habitat’s structure. By picking up dog faeces and correctly disposing of it, dog owners can reduce the input of nitrogen to the soil by 57% and phosphorus by 97%.

The best antidote to despair about the state of the natural world is to immerse yourself in it. Give these steps a try and you should hopefully discover more ways to not only lessen your footprint, but enjoy a more vibrant local environment.

Don’t have time to read about climate change as much as you’d like?
Get a weekly roundup in your inbox instead. Every Wednesday, The Conversation’s environment editor writes Imagine, a short email that goes a little deeper into just one climate issue. Join the 10,000+ readers who’ve subscribed so far.

Kate Hiseman, Senior Lecturer Practitioner in Environment and Sustainability, Anglia Ruskin University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Meet the eastern bristlebird: tragically under-appreciated, and one fire away from local extinction

Am I not pretty enough? This article is part of The Conversation’s series introducing you to unloved Australian animals that need our help.

In 1962, renowned American conservationist Rachel Carson wrote a book entitled “Silent Spring” after she noticed the birdsong she used to wake up to as a child had been thinning. Its eventual absence had become almost deafening.

This deep dive into one of the tragedies of biodiversity loss eventually became one of the most influential works contributing to changes in legislation and practices surrounding the use of pesticides in the United States, and worldwide.

Its title, however, continues to resonate with many of us: birds (and frogs, insects, and many other animals) seem to announce their arrivals with songs and calls. Their absence becomes notable when the singing stops, and silence takes over.

Such has been the case in Australia for the under-appreciated, endangered eastern bristlebird (Dasyornis brachypterus).

Once common, its numbers have declined so dramatically in the past 40 years that only three populations remain in the central east coast of Australia. The northernmost population, found in southeast Queensland, has as few as 70 birds.

So why should we care about one more, seemingly unremarkable little brown bird in the forest?

Australia’s Canary In A Coal Mine

At first glance, the eastern bristlebird doesn’t seem like a vulnerable bird. There is nothing too unique about its propensity to nest in clumped grasses or its territorial behaviours. Its song, while beautiful, doesn’t stand out in a typical Australian forest or heathland soundscape.

But this small, unassuming bird may be Australia’s canary in the coal mine when it comes to fire.

Since the 1980s, researchers have been trying to understand why the eastern bristlebird has seen such rapid decline. Time and again, fire regimes come up as the main factor predicting whether an eastern bristlebird population is stable or under threat. Fire regimes refer to the periods between fires, and their relative intensity and coverage.

While Australian landscapes are generally well adapted to fire, not all fires are created equal. Burn offs often take place without adequate research or knowledge, and at the wrong times. This – along with the increase in fire frequency, climate change and habitat loss – has contributed to dramatic losses of this species.

Fire can be devastating for many wild animals, but there is something special about the bristlebird that makes it particularly vulnerable to large, frequent fires.

Its Greatest Threats

Eastern bristlebirds, despite being able to fly, appear not to appreciate the view of a top story dwelling. They don’t choose to live in the canopy, or even on lower branches of trees. Over millennia, the bristlebird has evolved a strong, almost exclusive preference for low, dense vegetation.

This habitat structure is important for many invertebrates and other small animals even less noticeable than the bristlebird, such as spiders, beetles and worms. This means the bristlebird can act like an indicator for how the entire understory ecosystem is doing.

Unfortunately, low, dense vegetation is often the first thing to burn and disappear during a fire. It also appears to take quite some time for bristlebirds to establish themselves again in an area, once a fire has come and gone.

While we often see fire recovery as being green and lush, it can take years for an understory to recover fully and thus support its full community, including bristlebirds.

If fire was the only issue, it might be easy (or, at least, straightforward) to help this species recover. However, because of the distances between populations, the eastern bristlebird also suffers from genetic isolation. This means small populations can be more susceptible to inbreeding, and thus disease or general ill health.

We then compound the inbreeding effects with introduced predators such as cats and foxes, invasive weeds, habitat loss due to agriculture, and general roadkill, and we have a perfect storm of threats.

Isolated, vulnerable populations may only be one fire away from local extinction, signalling a potential collapse of their ground-level ecosystem.

This knowledge prompted emergency helicopter rescues of bristlebirds in Victoria to captivity at the height of the horror 2019-2020 bushfire season. This likely saved the species in the state.

In Queensland and New South Wales, the release of captive birds from breeding programs to recovering areas helped bring the species back from the brink.

But We Have Reason To Hope

All is not lost, however. Captive breeding and translocation (moving individual animals from one population to another, to help boost genetic diversity) programs are in place for this little unassuming bird.

It’s important these programs are put in place alongside habitat-based strategies to ensure their success. This includes keeping feral animals away from where birds are released back into the wild, removing weeds and, perhaps most important, slowing fire regimes in certain areas.

Removing invasive species and recovering habitat are important strategies for saving just about every vulnerable native Australian species, from plants, to invertebrates, to charismatic larger animals such as koalas.

The eastern bristlebird may therefore be the little brown bird that could save entire ecosystems. Move over, canaries.

Dominique Potvin, Senior Lecturer in Animal Ecology, University of the Sunshine Coast

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Chubb review of Australia’s carbon credit scheme falls short – and problems will continue to fester

An independent review of Australia’s controversial carbon credit system released today concluded the scheme is essentially sound. But key questions remain unaddressed – a fact that will continue to undermine confidence in Australia’s central climate policy.

The review, led by former chief scientist Ian Chubb, followed concerns raised by our research team that the scheme lacked integrity and was not delivering genuine reductions in greenhouses gas emissions. The review panel, however, says it does “not share this view”.

Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen on Monday said the government accepted all 16 of the review panel’s recommendations.

But more must be done to ensure the Albanese government truly delivers the emissions reductions it has promised.

Carbon Credits Underpin Our Climate Policy

Australia’s carbon credit system is central to reaching the federal government goal of 43% emissions reduction by 2030 and net-zero by 2050.

The scheme provides carbon credits to projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions using a number of approved methods, such as avoiding deforestation. These credits can be sold on the carbon market to entities that want to offset their emissions.

In March last year, our research team raised serious concerns about the scheme. In a series of papers, we outlined systemic flaws in the way carbon credits were issued.

We concluded Australia’s Emissions Reduction Fund – under which the scheme operates – has serious governance flaws, has issued a large number of low integrity credits and is wasting billions of dollars in taxpayers’ money.

Our analysis focused on three of the fund’s most popular methods – avoiding deforestation, human-induced regeneration of native forests and combusting methane from landfills. These account for 75% of the credits issued under the scheme.

We found that more than 70% of the credits issued under these methods do not represent genuine emissions abatement.

Following that criticism, in July last year, the Albanese government commissioned an independent review of the scheme. Those findings were released today.

A ‘Bewildering’ Assessment

The panel concluded the carbon credit arrangements are largely sound. How the panel reached this conclusion is hard to fathom.

Discussion of the rules governing human-induced regeneration, landfill gas and avoided deforestation projects spans less than six pages.

The report does not contain references to the evidence relied upon to reach its conclusions, and includes very little analysis to support its findings. And importantly, the panel does not address key questions around the integrity of the scheme’s rules.

Bewilderingly, in its assessment of the methods, the panel does not refer to the findings of a review it commissioned from the Australian Academy of Science to inform its considerations.

The academy reviewed the three main methods my research team analysed and a fourth, concerning carbon capture and storage.

It found numerous flaws in the methods and the associated governance processes. For example, consistent with our analysis, it found a risk the human-induced regeneration method is crediting vegetation change brought on by rainfall, rather than project activities.

The academy also found problems with the landfill gas method – namely, that so-called “baselines” used to calculate carbon abatement don’t adequately account for other financial and regulatory incentives offered to operators for capturing and combusting methane.

This means credits are sometimes issued for actions the industry would take anyway. As I wrote in The Conversation in September last year, so great are the problems with the landfill gas method that several large companies profiting from it have called for changes to the system.

The academy is not alone in recognising these problems. The CSIRO and Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists also found problems with the rules governing the issuance of credits.

The review panel acknowledged the scientific evidence criticising the carbon credit scheme, but says “it was also provided with evidence to the contrary”. Yet it did not disclose what that evidence was or what it relates to. The public is simply expected to trust that the evidence exists.

Integrity Is Essential

The panel recommended significant changes to governance arrangements under the carbon credits scheme. It’s hard to understand the need for such changes if there are no material problems with the credits.

Nonetheless, most recommended governance changes are welcome, including:

• reducing the roles performed by the Clean Energy Regulator, to “enhance confidence and transparency” and reduce potential conflicts of interest

• amend the scheme’s legislation to improve transparency to support greater public trust and confidence in the scheme.

But these governance changes are not enough. Measures should be taken to prevent low-integrity credits being issued to existing projects. And polluting facilities should not be allowed to use low-integrity credits to meet their emission reduction obligations.

Without these changes, problems with the scheme will continue to fester, jeopardising the operation of the government’s climate policy.

Andrew Macintosh, Professor and Director of Research, ANU Law School, Australian National University and Don Butler, Professor, Australian National University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

6 reasons 2023 could be a very good year for climate action

Many people think of the annual UN climate talks as talkfests which achieve only incremental change, at best. Activist Greta Thunberg has described them as “blah blah blah” moments – grossly inadequate and too often hijacked by fossil fuel producers who would like the world to keep buying their main exports.

Look more closely. The world is slowly but surely shifting away from fossil fuels. When historians look back, they will likely see the 2015 Paris agreement as the key pivot point. It achieved a global consensus on climate action and set the goal for nations to decarbonise by mid-century.

In recent years, the enormous task of switching from fossil fuels to clean energy has been given a boost by tailwinds from the need to get off Russian gas, to the plummeting cost of clean energy.

Focusing on the success of global talks is no longer the only game in town. To see real progress, look to countries like China, Germany and the United States, who are moving faster to invest in clean energy technologies – not just for the world’s sake, but because it’s in their own interests to move first.

From Paris With Love: Why The Paris Agreement Is So Vital

After decades of torturous negotiations and bitter disappointment at the UN COP climate talks, the hard-won 2015 Paris agreement was a major diplomatic breakthrough. Achieved with rare consensus, it has huge legitimacy. That’s what makes it powerful. It sets the standard for all nations to follow.

So what did it do? It introduced a new global norm: achieving net-zero. Countries agreed to keep the world’s heating “well below 2℃ […] and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5℃”.

To get there, the globe must achieve net zero emissions by around mid-century. All countries need to set national targets to cut emissions and strengthen them every five years. Since 2015, well over 100 countries have pledged to achieve net zero. These countries represent more than 90% of the global economy.

The pledges made in Paris and afterwards are beginning to drive faster change. In the five years to 2020, global clean energy investment grew by 2%. Since 2020, the pace of growth has accelerated significantly to 12% a year. The International Energy Agency (IEA) now expects global fossil fuel use to peak this decade, before the world economy switches irreversibly to clean energy.

At present, the transition is not happening fast enough. But it is happening. And there’s no turning back. Here are six encouraging trends to watch in 2023.

1. G7 Economies Will Form A ‘Climate Club’

In December, the G7 grouping of the world’s richest democracies agreed to form a “climate club”. Conceived by Nobel Prize-winning economist William Nordhaus, the club is an arrangement where countries develop common standards for climate ambition and share benefits among club members. The club will focus first on decarbonisation of industries such as steelmaking.

2. New Carbon Tariffs Will Be Introduced In The EU

To avoid the problem of European companies becoming less competitive with companies from nations without a carbon price, EU nations agreed in December to bring in carbon tariffs.

That means imports from countries without an adequate carbon price will be taxed. It also means European companies can’t offshore production to avoid the carbon price.

This is just the tip of the spear, with other rich nations like Canada looking to follow suit. Over time, these tariffs will have a ripple effect, forcing countries reliant on exporting to these markets to move faster toward decarbonisation.

3. The Ukraine War Boosted Renewables, As Nations Focus On Energy Security

When Russia invaded Ukraine, Western nations slapped sanctions on Moscow and cut imports of Russian gas. Fossil fuel prices spiked. Bad news, right? Not so fast. The IEA says the war has actually supercharged clean energy investment by making clean energy a matter of security.

In response to Putin’s invasion, major European economies increased renewable energy targets as they moved to end reliance on Russian gas. With renewables ramping up, the EU now intends to set a stronger 2030 emissions target before the COP28 climate summit later this year.

4. The United States And China Are Competing To Lead The Shift To Clean Energy

Climate action doesn’t have to rely on cooperation. Competition is an excellent driver as well. Last year, the United States passed legislation investing over A$530 billion in clean energy.

The largest climate spend in US history was also intended to compete with China, which dominates global production of solar panels, batteries, wind turbines and electric vehicles.

5. Rich Nations Are Paying Developing Economies To Quit Coal

In 2021, a grouping of rich nations offered South Africa $A12 billion to shift away from its reliance on coal power. At the Bali G20 summit last year, rich nations offered Indonesia almost A$30 billion to get off coal, while a similar offer was made to Vietnam in December. This year all eyes will be on India, with hopes a similar package will be offered.

6. Coalitions Of The Willing

In September, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres will host a “no nonsense” climate ambition summit, ahead of the formal COP talks in November. Why? He wants big economies to bring new commitments to cut emissions earlier – as in this decade. There will be “no room for back-sliders, greenwashers, blame-shifters or repackaging of announcements”, he declared.

It’s not the only parallel push. Alongside the formal UN talks, we’re seeing a flowering of groupings dubbed coalitions of the willing. These range from the Powering Past Coal Alliance diplomatic alliance to the Global Methane Pledge to more ambitious proposals like the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty, put forward by Vanuatu and Tuvalu last year.

So while the UN climate talks are the bedrock of global cooperation, we’re also seeing a patchwork quilt forming of extra measures. These under the radar efforts will be vital to driving ever-faster climate action.

Wesley Morgan, Research Fellow, Griffith Asia Institute, Griffith University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Antarctica’s emperor penguins could be extinct by 2100 – and other species may follow if we don’t act

Greater conservation efforts are needed to protect Antarctic ecosystems, and the populations of up to 97% of land-based Antarctic species could decline by 2100 if we don’t change tack, our new research has found.

The study, published today, also found just US$23 million per year would be enough to implement ten key strategies to reduce threats to Antarctica’s biodiversity.

This relatively small sum would benefit up to 84% of terrestrial bird, mammal, and plant groups.

We identified climate change as the biggest threat to Antarctica’s unique plant and animal species. Limiting global warming is the most effective way to secure their future.

Threats To Antarctic Biodiversity

Antarctica’s land-based species have adapted to survive the coldest, windiest, highest, driest continent on Earth.

The species includes two flowering plants, hardy moss and lichens, numerous microbes, tough invertebrates and hundreds of thousands of breeding seabirds, including the emperor and Adélie penguins.

Antarctica also provides priceless services to the planet and humankind. It helps regulate the global climate by driving atmospheric circulation and ocean currents, and absorbing heat and carbon dioxide. Antarctica even drives weather patterns in Australia.

Some people think of Antarctica as a safe, protected wilderness. But the continent’s plants and animals still face numerous threats.

Chief among them is climate change. As global warming worsens, Antarctica’s ice-free areas are predicted to expand, rapidly changing the habitat available for wildlife. And as extreme weather events such as heatwaves become more frequent, Antarctica’s plants and animals are expected to suffer.

What’s more, scientists and tourists visiting the icy continent each year can harm the environment through, for example, pollution and disturbing the ground or plants. And the combination of more human visitors and milder temperatures in Antarctica also creates the conditions for invasive species to thrive.

So how will these threats affect Antarctic species? And what conservation strategies can be used to mitigate them? Our research set out to find the answers.

What We Found

Our study involved working with 29 experts in Antarctic biodiversity, conservation, logistics, tourism and policy. The experts assessed how Antarctica’s species will respond to future threats.

Under a worst-case scenario, the populations of 97% of Antarctic terrestrial species and breeding seabirds could decline between now and 2100, if current conservation efforts stay on the same trajectory.

At best, the populations of 37% of species would decline. The most likely scenario is a decline in 65% of the continent’s plants and wildlife by the year 2100.

The emperor penguin relies on ice for breeding, and is the most vulnerable of Antarctica’s species. In the worst-case scenario, the emperor penguin is at risk of extinction by 2100 – the only species in our study facing this fate.

Climate change will also likely wreak havoc on other Antarctic specialists, such as the nematode worm Scottnema lindsayae. The species lives in extremely dry soils, and is at risk as warming and ice-melt increases soil moisture.

Climate change won’t lead to a decline in all Antarctic species – in fact, some may benefit initially. These include the two Antarctic plants, some mosses and the gentoo penguin.

These species may increase their populations and become more widely distributed in the event of more liquid water (as opposed to ice), more ice-free land and warmer temperatures.

So, What To Do?

Clearly, current conservation efforts are insufficient to conserve Antarctic species in a changing world.

The experts we worked with identified ten management strategies to mitigate threats to the continent’s land-based species.

Unsurprisingly, mitigating climate change (listed as the “influence external policy” strategy) would provide the greatest benefit. Reducing climate change to no more than 2℃ of warming would benefit up to 68% of terrestrial species and breeding seabirds.

The next two most beneficial strategies were “managing non-native species and disease” and “managing and protecting species”. These strategies include measures such as granting special protections to species, and increasing biosecurity to prevent introductions of non-native species.

How Much Would It All Cost?

The United Nations’ COP15 nature summit concluded in Canada this week. Funding for conservation projects was a core agenda item.

In Antarctica, at least, such conservation is surprisingly cheap. Our research found implementing all strategies together could cost as little as US$23 million per year until 2100 (or about US$2 billion in total).

By comparison, the cost to recover Australia’s threatened species is estimated at more than US$1.2 billion per year (although this is far more than is actually spent).

However, for the “influence external policy” strategy (relating to climate change mitigation) we included only the cost of advocating for policy change. We did not include the global cost of reducing carbon emissions, nor did we balance these against the much greater economic costs of not acting.

As Antarctica faces increasing pressure from climate change and human activities, a combination of regional and global conservation efforts is needed. Spending just US$23 million a year to preserve Antarctica’s biodiversity and ecosystems is an absolute bargain.

Jasmine Lee, Conservation biologist, Queensland University of Technology; Iadine Chadès, Principal research scientist, CSIRO, and Justine Shaw, Conservation Biologist, The University of Queensland

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

More than 100,000 tourists will head to Antarctica this summer. Should we worry about damage to the ice and its ecosystems?

As the summer sun finally arrives for people in the Southern Hemisphere, more than 100,000 tourists will head for the ice. Travelling on one of more than 50 cruise ships, they will brave the two-day trip across the notoriously rough Drake Passage below Patagonia, destined for the polar continent of Antarctica.

During the COVID summer of 2020-21, just 15 tourists on two yachts visited Antarctica. But now, tourism is back – and bigger than ever. This season’s visitor numbers are up more than 40% over the largest pre-pandemic year.

So are all those tourists going to damage what is often considered the last untouched wilderness on the planet? Yes and no. The industry is well run. Tourists often return with a new appreciation for wild places. They spend a surprisingly short amount of time actually on the continent or its islands.

But as tourism grows, so will environmental impacts such as black carbon from cruise ship funnels. Tourists can carry in microbes, seed and other invasive species on their boots and clothes – a problem that will only worsen as ice melt creates new patches of bare earth. And cruise ships are hardly emissions misers.

How Did Antarctic Tourism Go Mainstream?

In the 1950s, the first tourists hitched rides on Chilean and Argentinian naval vessels heading south to resupply research bases on the South Shetland Islands. From the late 1960s, dedicated icebreaker expedition ships were venturing even further south. In the early 1990s, as ex-Soviet icebreakers became available, the industry began to expand – about a dozen companies offered trips at that time. By the turn of this century, the ice continent was receiving more than 10,000 annual visitors: Antarctic tourism had gone mainstream.

What does it look like today?

Most Antarctic tourists travel on small “expedition-style” vessels, usually heading for the relatively accessible Antarctic Peninsula. Once there, they can take a zodiac boat ride for a closer look at wildlife and icebergs or shore excursions to visit penguin or seal colonies. Visitors can kayak, paddle-board and take the polar plunge – a necessarily brief dip into subzero waters.

For most tourists, accommodation, food and other services are provided aboard ship. Over a third of all visitors never stand on the continent.

Those who do set foot on Antarctica normally make brief visits, rather than taking overnight stays.

For more intrepid tourists, a few operators offer overland journeys into the continent’s interior, making use of temporary seasonal camp sites. There are no permanent hotels, and Antarctic Treaty nations recently adopted a resolution against permanent tourist facilities.

As tourists come in increasing numbers, some operators have moved to offer ever more adventurous options such as mountaineering, heli-skiing, underwater trips in submersibles and scuba diving.

Is Antarctic Tourism Sustainable?

As Antarctic tourism booms, some advocacy organisations have warned the impact may be unsustainable. For instance, the Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition argues cruise tourism could put increased pressure on an environment already under significant strain from climate change.

In areas visited most by tourists, the snow has a higher concentration of black carbon from ship exhaust, which soaks up more heat and leads to snow melt. Ship traffic also risks carrying hitchhiking invasive species into the Southern Ocean’s vulnerable marine ecosystems.

That’s to say nothing of greenhouse gas emissions. Because of the continent’s remoteness, tourists visiting Antarctica have a higher per capita carbon footprint than other cruise-ship travellers.

Of course, these impacts aren’t limited to tourism. Scientific expeditions come with similar environmental costs – and while there are far fewer of them, scientists and support personnel spend far more time on the continent.

Antarctic Tourism Isn’t Going Away – So We Have To Plan For The Future

Are sustainable cruises an oxymoron? Many believe so.

Through its sheer size, the cruise industry has created mass tourism in new places and overtourism in others, generating unacceptable levels of crowding, disrupting the lives of residents, repurposing local cultures for “exotic” performances, damaging the environment and adding to emissions from fossil fuels.

In Antarctica, crowding, environmental impact and emissions are the most pressing issues. While 100,000 tourists a year is tiny by global tourism standards – Paris had almost 20 million in 2019 – visits are concentrated in highly sensitive ecological areas for only a few months per year. There are no residents to disturb (other than local wildlife), but by the same token, there’s no host community to protest if visitor numbers get too high.

Even so, strong protections are in place. In accordance with the Antarctic Treaty System – the set of international agreements signed by countries with an Antarctic presence or an interest – tourism operators based in those nations have to apply for permits and follow stringent environmental regulations.

To avoid introducing new species, tourists have to follow rules such as disinfecting their boots and vacuuming their pockets before setting foot on the ice, and keeping a set distance from wildlife.

Almost all Antarctic cruise owners belong to the International Association of Antarctica Tour Operators, the peak body that manages Antarctic tourism.

For the first time this year, operators have to report their overall fuel consumption as part of IAATO’s efforts to make the industry more climate-friendly. Some operators are now using hybrid vessels that can run partly on electric propulsion for short periods, reducing carbon dioxide emissions.

Returning From The Ice: The Ambassador Effect

Famed travel writer Pico Iyer recently wrote of his experience in the deep south of the world. The visit, he said, “awakens you to the environmental concerns of the world … you go home with important questions for your conscience as well as radiant memories”.

Iyer isn’t alone. This response is widespread, known in the industry as Antarctic ambassadorship. As you’d expect, this is strongly promoted by tourism operators as a positive.

Is it real? That’s contentious. Studies on links between polar travel and pro-environmental behaviour have yielded mixed results. We are working with two operators to examine the Antarctic tourist experience and consider what factors might feed into a long-lasting ambassador effect.

If you’re one of the tourists going to Antarctica this summer, enjoy the experience – but go with care. Be aware that no trip south comes without environmental cost and use this knowledge to make clear-eyed decisions about your activities both in Antarctica and once you’re safely back home. 

Elizabeth Leane, Professor of English and Associate Dean, Research Performance, University of Tasmania; Anne Hardy, Associate Professor, Tourism and Society, University of Tasmania; Can Seng Ooi, Professor, University of Tasmania; Carolyn Philpott, Senior Lecturer in Musicology, Conservatorium of Music, School of Creative Arts and Media; Adjunct Senior Researcher, Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies, University of Tasmania, University of Tasmania; Hanne E.F. Nielsen, Lecturer, University of Tasmania, and Katie Marx, PhD Candidate, Centre for Marine Socioecology, University of Tasmania

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The lie of aqua nullius, ‘nobody’s water’, prevails in Australia. Indigenous water reserves are not enough to deliver justice

When the British colonised Australia they assumed terra nullius, “nobody’s land”, and aqua nullius, “nobody’s water”. In 1992, terra nullius was overturned – but aqua nullius remains.

Aqua nullius denies the existence of Indigenous peoples’ own water governance principles, laid down through ancestral “first laws”. These customary laws are carried through songlines, trade routes and ceremony, embedded in a deep reciprocal economy of sharing. First laws guide the custodianship of living waters, with attention to intergenerational equity.

Living waters – from rivers, to ancient aquifers to wetlands – are sacred and alive. As the source of energy to animate Country, living waters are critical to Indigenous Peoples’ collective survival. The responsibility of caring for waters (and land) are a central concern of Indigenous Peoples – but this responsibility is thwarted by aqua nullius.

Queensland, Northern Territory and Western Australia have sought to distribute water rights to Indigenous people by establishing “Indigenous (or Aboriginal) water reserves”, setting aside a portion of water from the consumptive pool for Indigenous people’s future use.

In our new policy brief, we unpack the benefits and limitations of these reserves. As it stands, the policy measure alone does not deliver justice for Indigenous peoples. A broader approach is needed.

The Right To Water

Indigenous people must be able to access water in their territories if they so choose.

A United Nations declaration recognises the right to water for Indigenous people. Yet First Nations water holdings in Australia and elsewhere are abysmally low. For example, Indigenous people or organisations hold less than 0.2% of surface water entitlements in the Murray Darling Basin.

In the struggle against aqua nullius, Indigenous people’s right to make decisions about water on Country is a priority. But importantly, when we talk about “water rights” for Indigenous people, the rights to access and use water is only one aspect.

The bigger picture problem is that the decision-making power over water remains with governments, and this power is not shared with Indigenous people.

We agree aqua nullius is unacceptable and must change. Establishing Indigenous water reserves is one option, but it’s far from clear it will deliver what Indigenous communities need.

Indigenous Water Reserves

The Northern Territory, Queensland and Western Australia have each introduced Indigenous water reserves into water allocation plans.

Water allocation plans define the consumptive pool – that is, how much water can be taken each year for consumptive purposes, such as for drinking supplies or irrigation.

There are at least 19 Indigenous water reserves across Northern Australia. This approach has not yet been adopted by other Australian states and territories.

A major limitation of Indigenous water reserves is their narrow scope. In the NT and WA, their overall purpose is to provide economic opportunities for Indigenous people. Queensland reserves generally provide water to help Indigenous people achieve both economic and social aspirations.

A focus on using water for commercial purposes risks other crucial items – such as ensuring sufficient water for Country and to maintain ecosystem health – falling off the agenda, upholding the unacceptable status quo.

This is what Indigenous organisations have said repeatedly, and what our new policy brief reflects: that water for economic development is just one of many aspects to overcoming water injustice.

A Market-Based Lens

There are two main reasons Indigenous water reserves should not be viewed solely through a market-based lens.

First, water in Indigenous reserves in the Northern Territory are only distributed when there is surplus water. The Central Land Council has stated:

in the majority of cases where the SAWRs [Strategic Aboriginal Water Reserves] should be available, the water resources have been fully or over-allocated and there is no water available for SAWR.

In other words, if there is no water surplus left, as determined by Australian governments, then the reserve is considered “notional”: in reality, non-existent.

Second, land tenure rules and regulations are being used to determine the allocation to Indigenous water reserves.

For example, in the Northern Territory, Indigenous holders of non-exclusive possession native title (that is, native title that co-exists with other forms of land tenure, such as a pastoral lease) are ineligible for water reserves.

This splits native title holders into those with water and those without, based on native title rules, creating an unfair division.

Arbitrary rules about who is eligible for Indigenous water reserves does not respond to the injustice of land and water stolen or forcibly acquired from Indigenous nations. In response to this failing, the Northern Land Council noted it:

has been disappointed that one of its key recommendations throughout the development of the [Aboriginal Water Reserve] was not adopted through the legislative amendment – that is, that eligibility should be broadened to encompass Aboriginal people and communities who have neither land rights nor exclusive native title.

Are There Any Benefits?

In contrast with top-down and arbitrary water allocation planning policies, water reserves can also be established through Indigenous land use agreements. A negotiated agreement between Indigenous groups and Australian governments, potentially has more scope to respond to past injustice and deliver meaningful benefits.

This is because it’s a negotiated settlement intended to be between partners, rather than a top-down “one size fits all” process for an entire state or territory.

One possible example is the Yamatji Southern Regional Corporation (YSRC) lease of water to sand mining company Perpetual Resources in 2020. It is the first agreement between the WA government and an Indigenous nation to establish a negotiated access to water with an Indigenous Water Reserve.

Chief executive of YSRC, Jamie Strickland, has stated:

This agreement is the first of its kind and demonstrates how our Strategic Aboriginal Water Reserve can generate opportunities and economic benefits for the Yamatji Nation.

Missing Details

An holistic approach is needed to ensure water rights support living waters, the environment, and spiritual and cultural connections. If Indigenous water reserves are to benefit Indigenous people, then governments must listen and negotiate in good faith with Indigenous nations.

When applied in water allocation plans, Indigenous water reserves must be part of a cohesive and comprehensive approach – one that delivers sovereignty for water to Indigenous nations and responds to the gross injustice and lie of aqua nullius.

Importantly, Indigenous water reserves need to be one part of a bigger-picture approach to water justice if aqua nullius is to be overturned.

Kat Taylor, Water Justice Hub Research Fellow, Australian National University; Anne Poelina, Adjunct Professor and Senior Research Fellow, University of Notre Dame Australia, and Quentin Grafton, Australian Laureate Professor, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

4 creepy crawlies you’ll see more of this wet summer – and one iconic beetle you’ll probably miss

For Australians, memories of childhood Christmas often include gifts, prawns and shooing uninvited buzzing guests away from the pavlova.

But have you ever wondered why the air is full of bugs some years and almost empty in others? Insect populations boom and bust frequently.

This year is our third successive La Niña, and a wet summer is forecast yet again for Australia’s east.

Wet, warm weather is ideal for many of the insects, spiders and slugs that share our homes and gardens. That means we’re likely to have a very buggy Christmas.

Aren’t All The Insects Dying?

As we heat up the planet and take over natural areas, invertebrate species are responding in unpredictable ways. Many species are in trouble: researchers have warned of an insect apocalypse facing flying bugs like wasps, butterflies, and beetles in densely populated Europe.

Subsequent research has drawn less drastic conclusions, and some American researchers claim that population sizes haven’t significantly changed overall, with some species booming and others dying off.

Longer term, climate change and human takeover pose real challenges for many bugs – but not all.

When ecosystems tip out of balance, the most adaptable species find opportunities despite – or because of – unpredictable and changing conditions. Consider the locust swarms vast enough to blot out the sun and threaten crops in many East African nations.

So what should you look for? Here are four creepy crawlies that might arrive at your place more often this summer.

Huntsman Spiders

Although spiders have shared our houses for thousands of years, huntsmans have rarely been popular roommates. That’s probably because of their heart-stopping habit of skittering across the wall when you least expect them.

Despite this, most of Australia’s 155 huntsman species are shy and rarely aggressive. They generally live solitary lives, although female huntsman spiders will actively guard their egg sacs after mating – and protect the up to 200 spiderlings which hatch from them.

Like many introverts, huntsman spiders prefer the indoors – especially in bad weather, when they like to enter houses and cars to get out of the rain. This is actually good news, believe it or not. Having huntsman spiders in residence means you’ll have less cockroaches and mosquitoes.

So be ready not to freak out. With recent heavy rains and the predicted influx of roaches and mozzies this summer, you can expect to see a few more eight-legged off-lease roommates than usual.

Mole Crickets

Nicknamed the platypus of insects, mole crickets look like several different creatures jammed together. Seeing one aboveground is always a shock. The shovel-like forelegs. The yabby-like carapace. The surprising size of it.

Don’t panic. These minibeasts are meant to be here. They live happily across Australia, preferring life beneath well-watered vegetation. They use their leg-shovels to dig tunnel networks where they can lay their eggs. After young adults dig their tunnels, they come to the surface in spring to find a mate.

So why are you likely to see them in summer? Rain. When heavy rain hits, underground creatures have to activate contingency plans. Tunnels and rain don’t mix. For mole crickets, that means digging upwards through sodden ground and clambering across the surface looking for higher ground.

You’ve probably heard the male mole cricket’s persistent chirping on rainy evenings as he looks for a mate. Their characteristic call is so loud it’s sometimes confused with a frog. The powerful sound is due to clever engineering. Mole crickets sculpt a horn-shaped burrow to maximise their noise. Think of it as building an underground bugle.

European Earwigs

European earwigs are everywhere in Australia’s temperate south – even though they’re not from here. These invasive pinchy bugs from Europe are unmistakable, with elongated abdomens topped with forcep-like pincers. Most of our 85 earwig species are natives, but you’re likely to see the European variety.

Their name may come from the Old English phrase “ear wiggler”, which in turn comes from an enduring belief that earwigs invade people’s ears when you sleep. Thankfully, this is false. When researchers tested this story, they found earwigs weren’t interested. It’s actually cockroaches that can sometimes get stuck inside our ears.

While earwig pincers can hold onto human skin, they don’t usually hurt. The pincers are used for courting, defence, and catching prey. Earwigs are omnivores, eating plants and critters.

Rainy winters boost earwig numbers, as the increased rainfall keeps burrows moist. This helps their eggs and nymphs to survive and ensures plenty of plants for them to eat.

This winter was our wettest nationwide since 2016. This means conditions are perfect for an earwig bonanza. Researchers say grain-growing areas outside Melbourne and Adelaide are prime real estate for earwig expansion.

Red Triangle Slugs

These gaudy gastropods live happily in urban vegetation along the Queensland and New South Wales coastline. Australia’s largest native land slug can be cream, greyish-green, yellow or orange-red, but you’ll know them from the distinctive red triangle shield on their back. While it might not look it, this is actually camouflage. It helps these nocturnal slugs blend in with leaf litter.

After rain, these slugs come out of hiding and slurp up moisture through their skin, leaving a slimy mucus trail. It’s not just for gliding along – it’s defence. Their mucus acts like a slug superglue, with scientists finding it’s strong enough to stick predators like green tree frogs firmly in place.

They’re already popping up in Brisbane backyards, but there are more to come, given ideal conditions for the growth of the algae these slugs eat.

These four species are set to boom. But what about the iconic Christmas beetle?

Christmas Beetles

If you can remember the 1980s and 1990s, chances are you have fond childhood memories of these metallic beauties clinging to your screen door, or buzzing indignantly as they try to turn themselves right side up on your driveway.

These days, Christmas beetles don’t seem to arrive in large numbers. There are 36 species of these shiny scarab beetles nationwide, but sightings are falling.

We don’t know the full story, but we have clues. Almost one in four of Australia’s native eucalyptus species are now threatened with extinction, with some populations dropping by half due to land clearing and urbanisation.

That’s a major problem for Christmas beetles. Their larvae depend on plant roots and the adults emerge after thunderstorms to snack on eucalyptus leaves. Two key species they like to eat – yellow box and fuzzy box – have just been listed as threatened.

Without intervention, such sightings will become increasingly rare.

If you do see Christmas beetles this summer, you can help by logging your sighting on the iNaturalist beetle count to help scientists understand where these Christmas favourites are still visiting. 

Erin Siostrom, Associate Lecturer in Science Education, University of the Sunshine Coast

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

When we swim in the ocean, we enter another animal’s home. Here’s how to keep us all safe

Every summer, many Australians head to the ocean to swim, surf, sail, kayak, and walk along the beach.

But humans are not alone when we use the ocean. Fish, seals, dolphins, sharks, jellyfish, turtles, stingrays, cuttlefish, and birds often swim alongside us. When we enter the ocean we become part of an entangled web of animal relationships.

Encountering animals when we swim and surf in the ocean is fun and exciting. But sharing the water with animals also comes with the risk of stings, bites, frights, and injury to us. It can also bring harm to ocean wildlife.

By educating ourselves about marine life, humans can minimise risks to ourselves and the animals who call the ocean home.

We Can Frighten Animals – And They Can Scare Us

Despite how vulnerable we feel when swimming, our presence in the ocean can frighten or harm an animal. Animals may see us as a predator and alter their behaviour accordingly.

Fish, birds and small stingrays might swim off, and turtles might delay rising to the ocean’s surface to breathe.

Not all animals are frightened of humans. It’s a highlight when curious dolphins swim and play around us. But dolphins can attack humans or other animals if they feel threatened - for example when feeding or protecting their young.

Humans can also be scared of animals in the water. This fear drives the use of shark nets off beaches or, less commonly, shark culls.

Shark nets are controversial – not least because they can entangle and kill animals including turtles, non-target sharks, stingrays, and whales.

Even more controversial are shark culls, such as those planned for Western Australia in 2013 after a spate of fatal shark attacks. The plan was later abandoned, after it was criticised as cruel and lacking scientific basis.

Killing or harming ocean animals so humans can have fun in the water raises all sorts of questions and moral dilemmas. So how else might we keep ourselves safe in the ocean?

Learn About Ocean Animals

Learning about what ocean animals you might encounter – and when – can help keep both people and animals safe.

Some animals are present year-round. But, as whale watchers and fisherman are well aware, many animals are more active in a particular seasons or only appear at certain times of the year.

For example, in cooler months in the waters off northern Australia, manta rays are most active. Leopard sharks, meanwhile, appear during warmer months in southeast Queensland and northeast New South Wales.

And from November until May or June, a variety of marine stingers can be found in the coastal waters of Far North Queensland. These include the potentially lethal box jellyfish.

Informing ourselves means we can take measures to keep safe. For example, people swimming in North Queensland in the warmer months are advised to swim at netted beaches, and wear wetsuits or stinger suits. Entering the water slowly also gives some marine stingers time to move away.

When it comes to sharks, there are growing calls to adopt non-violent approaches to minimise risks to humans. This could include public education on, for example, links between fish seasons and shark activity.

Educating ourselves about ocean animals also helps us protect them.

Shorebirds, for instance, nest in spring and summer. This is prime beach time for people, too. Shorebird nests are shallow and vulnerable, and birds will often abandon their eggs when humans are around. Dogs and 4WDs pose an even bigger threat.

If we know we’re sharing a beach with nesting shorebirds, we can take steps to ensure their safety, such as keeping our dogs on a leash and avoiding using dunes and other common nesting areas.

The annual migration of whales and their calves up and down our coasts is an exciting time to visit the beach and, if you’re lucky, to view a splashy show of breaching or water slapping.

But if you plan to go sailing or kayaking, be aware of rules around interacting with whales. They law states they can approach us, but we must not get too close to them.

If you’re not an experienced ocean user, or don’t know about the animals living in a particular place, talk to someone who is informed.

If you use beaches patrolled by surf lifesavers they can give you information about animals that might be present that day, such as sharks or jellyfish. They can also tell you about ocean conditions such as rips, currents and water quality.

If you do suffer a painful bluebottle or jellyfish sting, surf lifesavers may also provide basic treatments such as dousing the sting with hot water or vinegar.

If you’re planning to swim or surf at unpatrolled beaches – especially if they’re remote – pack a basic first aid kit including sunscreen, vinegar and instant ice packs.

And remember, enjoying time in the ocean with other poeple is safer than swimming alone.

Ensuring Everyone Enjoys The Encounter

Despite the risks, most human encounters with animals in the ocean are exciting and positive.

Learning about the kinds of animals you might come across, as well as the best ways to interact with them, will help keep you safe – and make sure its a good experience for the animals too.

Rebecca Olive, Vice Chancellor's Senior Research Fellow, RMIT University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

How to feed your garden birds if you want to attract and support native species

As vegetation is removed to make way for urban development, wild species experience a dramatic loss of habitat, making it more difficult for city dwellers to interact with wildlife.

Studies show a lack of connection to nature might lead to anxiety and depression for people in cities. Birds are among the most accessible and aesthetically attractive connection points. Hence, thriving bird communities in cities can have a positive effect on people’s health and wellbeing.

Feeding birds is popular in Aotearoa. About half of New Zealand households feed birds in their gardens, predominately with bread and seed. Unfortunately, this mainly attracts introduced grain-eating species such as house sparrows, starlings, blackbirds and spotted doves. They are likely to compete for space and habitat with native birds, which feed on invertebrates, flower nectar, fruits or leaves.

Attracting Nectar-Feeding Birds

Sugar water serves as an alternative supplementary food for nectar-sipping birds such as tūī, korimako/bellbirds and tauhou/silvereye. It likely benefits native birds over winter when nectar is scarce and it improves their chances of a successful breeding season come spring.

But there are concerns that sugar feeding may lead to an accumulation of pathogens, create health problems and make birds dependent on supplementary feeding. It may also reduce pollination and seed dispersal by reducing bird visits to native plants, and put birds at greater risk of predation.

Our study is the first in New Zealand to determine how sugar water feeding affects backyard bird communities. We explored which birds are visiting and how they interact with each other as well as their overall physical health.

Using The Right Feeders

We analysed 990 responses from an online New Zealand-wide survey to explore current sugar-water feeding practices. We found a large variety of feeding approaches, but the crucial aspect that affected which bird species visited backyards was the feeder type.

Feeders specifically designed for nectar-eating species were successful in attracting natives, while non-specific feeders (open dishes or simple containers) also attracted introduced birds.

In feeders designed for nectar feeders, the bird must push aside the guard with its narrow bill and protrude its tongue under the feeder’s cover to drink the sugar water. Introduced birds (not nectar-feeding specialists) do not have the right-shaped tongues and bills or behaviour to do this and are excluded from using these feeders.

Winter Frenzy

Next, we explored how seasons affected bird foraging behaviour and aggressiveness. In winter, birds visited feeders more often, spent a longer time foraging and were more aggressive to other birds using the feeder. This suggests winter feeding helps survival when natural foods are scarce.

We also observed Auckland tūī in winter in backyards where we experimentally added feeders with either low (half a cup of sugar per litre of water) or high (one cup/litre) sugar concentrations. Tūī spent longer foraging at low-concentration feeders but were more aggressive at high-concentration ones.

This suggests birds must forage on low-calorie solutions for longer to gain energy, while high-calorie sugar water is a fiercely defended valuable source. However, feeder presence did not change the overall number of backyard birds.

Bird Health

Finally, we evaluated how the presence of sugar-water feeders, seasons and climate affected the birds’ body condition and disease prevalence. Similarly to findings from previous overseas studies, individuals had better body conditions in non-feeding gardens than in those that provided a feeder.

But in gardens with feeders, body condition of birds was better in Auckland (milder climate), in summer (warmer temperatures) and at high-sugar concentration feeders (more calories).

Sugar-water feeding was also associated with a higher risk of coccidia infection which can lead to loss of pigmentation, diarrhoea and even kill birds in severe cases. Fortunately, our screening did not detect salmonella in any individuals or feeding stations.

However, in a similar study on backyard feeding in Auckland using bread and seeds, 7% of birds at feeders tested positive for salmonella. This suggests that birds such as house sparrows, which visit feeders with simple designs that can be accessed by most birds, contribute to pathogen transmission risks for nectar-eating birds and, possibly, people.

Recommended Bird-Feeding Guidelines

Based on our study, we make several recommendations:

• do not feed bread and seeds to birds, as this only encourages highly abundant introduced species

• rather than using open dishes, choose commercially available sugar-water feeders designed for native birds (Tui Nectar Feeder™, Topflite Nectar Nutra feeder™, PekaPeka™) to exclude introduced bird species

• provide sugar water only in winter and stop feeding in spring and summer to let birds use natural foods, pollinate plants and minimise the risk of bacterial growth in hot weather

• in winter, use about one cup of sugar per litre of water, as we linked this sugar concentration to better bird body condition than lower-sugar solutions

• clean all structures used in feeding thoroughly at least two times a week by scrubbing with hot water to minimise the risk of bird disease outbreaks

• attach the feeder to a tall post away from trees and fences to minimise chances of predation by cats.

Providing birds with supplementary food is an affordable and appealing way to interact with wildlife. However, it is important to state that supplemental feeding alone is not the solution for urban bird populations.

The long-term answer is to transform our backyards and urban parks into bird-friendly habitats. Nectar-feeding birds need protein from insects found on plants and native vegetation provides essential food, shelter and nesting sites.

Clean water baths can help during prolonged summer droughts. But perhaps most importantly, backyard pest control of rodents, possums and hedgehogs is essential if we want to increase native bird numbers and diversity in a way that will benefit both birds and people.

Daria Erastova, Doctoral researcher, University of Auckland; Ellen Hume, Doctoral researcher of social ecological systems, University of Auckland, and Margaret Stanley, Associate professor, University of Auckland

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Climate change is leaving African elephants desperate for water

African elephant numbers have dropped from about 26 million in the 1800s to 415,000 today. While this is largely due to European colonisation, poaching and habitat loss, these majestic animals now face another grave challenge.

Climate change is causing droughts in much of Africa to become longer and more severe. This damages elephant habitats and denies them the water they need. Due to their unique physiology, African elephants need hundreds of litres of water each day to survive.

The African savanna elephant is listed as endangered. If the situation doesn’t change, Africa – indeed, the world – may lose one of its most iconic animal species.

A Tragic Plight

Elephants are not just important for their ecological, cultural and economic value. They are also a keystone species – that is, they help hold ecosystems together. This means their decline has far-reaching consequences.

Many African ecosystems pivot around the lives of elephants. Elephant feeding habits, such as pushing over trees and peeling off bark, can turn woody vegetation into grasslands. This makes room for smaller species to move in. Their digging for water in dry riverbeds creates water holes other animals can use. And as they migrate, elephants help spread seeds in their dung.

Under climate change, long, intense droughts across southern and eastern Africa are escalating. Some have lasted more than 20 years.

The conditions have left many elephants desperate for water. Research as far back as 2003 shows elephants in Zimbabwe were dying during drought. And in 2016, when a drying El Nino weather pattern hit southern Africa, there were reports of more elephant deaths, prompting a local conservation group to drill bore holes to provide relief.

Drought can also reduce the availability of food, causing elephants to starve. It can also mean young elephants die or don’t develop properly, because their parched mothers produce less milk.

A Unique Physiology

So, why do elephants struggle in drought and heat?

When elephants experience high internal temperatures, it can disrupt the function of cells, tissues and organs such as the liver and cause them to become sick and die.

Humans and other animals also suffer heat stress. But elephants are particularly vulnerable because they can’t sweat it off.

The graphic below shows how heat accumulates and dissipates in elephants.

Heat accumulates through an elephants’ natural metabolism and physical activity, as well as being absorbed from the environment.

But it does not always effectively dissipate. Elephants’ thick skin slows heat loss – and their lack of sweat glands exacerbates this.

What’s more, elephants are the largest of all land mammals, weighing up to eight tonnes. They also have a large body volume – which generates heat – but a relatively small surface area (their skin) from which to lose this heat.

Water is essential for elephants to cope with heat. They swim and spray their skin with mud and water; the subsequent evaporation mimicks sweating and cools them down.

And elephants cool themselves internally by drinking several hundred litres of water a day.

Let Elephants Roam Free

Creating artificial water sources is a common management intervention when elephants need water. This includes the use of pipes, bores and pumps.

But this measure can be problematic. Sometimes, the water is sourced from supplies needed by local people. And large numbers of elephants congregating around water can permanently damage the local environment and reduce food availability for other animals.

Historically, elephants migrated to water during drought. But the introduction of fenced areas in the landscape has disrupted this movement.

Fences were constructed to mark out colonial land ownership, separate people from large animals and deter poachers.

But as climate change worsens in Africa, elephants and other wildlife must be able to move freely between connected habitats.

Wildlife corridors may provide an answer. These are protected channels of vegetation that enable animals to move between fragmented patches of habitat. Wildlife corridors work well for megafauna in India and the United States and would likely increase mobility for much of Africa’s wildlife.

Introducing more wildlife corridors, especially in southern and eastern Africa, would require removing fences. This change would have repercussions.

Nearby communities – which have not coexisted with elephants since colonisation – would have to adjust to the change. The removal of fences may also lead to an increase in poaching. And letting elephants roam the landscape may make them less accessible to tourists, which could reduce tourism revenue.

But communities have coexisted with elephants in the past. And community-based projects have been shown to reduce conflict between humans and wildlife. In some cases, they’ve also led to lower poaching rates and increased quality of life for communities.

Community management projects, such as in Northern Kgalagadi in Botswana, show how local expertise – drawn from millennia of experience and knowledge – can guide wildlife management. Research has shown successful outcomes – both socially and ecologically – in places where elephants share landscapes with people.

Protecting A Keystone Species

Ensuring African elephants survive drought will increasingly require new conservation strategies, including community-based management. Without this, already dwindling elephant populations will continue to decline.

This would be bad news for the health and stability of natural ecosystems in Africa – and a blow to Africa’s people.

Rachael Gross, PhD Scholar in Applied Conservation Ecology, Australian National University and Rob Heinsohn, Professor of Evolutionary and Conservation Biology, Australian National University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Want to pre-drink before going out? It probably won’t save you money, and can be risky to boot

You’re catching up with a few friends before you go out. Everyone’s having a drink, listening to some tunes, and the mood is good. A ride share is pulling up in the driveway – everyone quickly finishes their drinks and piles into the car, headed to a gig where more alcohol will be consumed.

This is the typical pre-drinking scenario – drinking alcohol in one place, typically someone’s home, before drinking more somewhere else, such as a pub, club or event.

You might be familiar with pre-drinking (colloquially known as pre-loading) and think nothing much of doing it.

In reality, it’s a complex behaviour that has been of great interest to health psychologists and public health strategists for the past 15 years.

And as popular as it is, pre-drinking isn’t without risk.

Why Do People Pre-Drink?

The considerable public health effort to reduce excessive drinking in licensed venues has meant some drinkers appear to have abandoned the traditional “pub to club” model in favour of a “home to pub to club” version.

You can understand the appeal – compared to a busy venue, someone’s house is likely to be less noisy, less cramped, and probably doesn’t include a cover charge.

In Australia, a common reason people cite for pre-drinking is the relatively cheaper cost of pre-purchased alcohol compared with prices at a licensed venue.

Indeed, behavioural economists have observed we tend to be quite discerning when figuring out the most cost-effective way to drink.

Add our complex taxation system and public health initiatives such as minimum unit pricing to the mix, and it’s no surprise we are looking for ways to get a buzz on the cheap.

More Than Money?

Outside Australia, evidence shows alcohol price is less of a driver for pre-drinking. Other motivational themes have emerged – mainly from psychological research in North America and Europe.

These include the “enhancement” aspect of pre-drinking itself (as the opening scenario illustrates), controlling alcohol consumption in situ (such as only drinking your preferred brand), or in anticipation of less access to alcohol later on (think long lines for beer at the footy).

Generally, the aim of pre-drinking appears to be getting “sufficiently intoxicated” before going out.

But one motive, commonly mentioned by men, has been labelled as “intimate pursuit”. This is where hanging out during pre-drinks is used to built rapport with someone you might be romantically interested in.

Although these themes are generally endorsed by Australian pre-drinkers, cost is still an important driver of our pre-drinking, especially among young Australians.

In our research, we asked participants about the cheaper cost of pre-drinking, alongside these other motives. It was the strongest predictor of pre-drinking, and also predicted participants’ experience of alcohol-related harm over the previous 12-month period.

Surprisingly, some people report that pre-drinking doesn’t save them that much money.

From a psychological perspective, this may be because alcohol affects our “inhibitory control”. Although our goal with having pre-drinks is to keep total alcohol expenditure down, the drunker we get, the harder it is to resist buying another round.

The Unique Harm Of Pre-Drinking

Unfortunately, research consistently shows pre-drinking is uniquely linked to excessive alcohol consumption, and alcohol-related harm.

One reason may be that we drink faster while pre-drinking, relative to sitting on a pint at the pub. This means pre-drinkers may reach higher levels of intoxication, more quickly.

This can be highly dependent on a range of factors – for instance, who we are pre-drinking with, and whether or not people are playing drinking games.

Adding to the risk, people tend to be pretty bad at estimating how much they are drinking.

Sadly, the “sweet spot” of a buzz can quickly give way to increasing levels of alcohol intoxication – and increased risk of alcohol-related harm.

How Can Pre-Drinking Risks Be Minimised?

Research shows pre-drinking serves important practical and social functions – catching up with friends in a more relaxed environment, and warming up for a night out.

As such, it is unlikely we will eliminate pre-drinking entirely, but we can try to make it a bit less risky.

One challenge for pre-drinking is that people may drink out of whatever vessel is around – say, a mug – and will find it difficult to keep track of their consumption.

Licensed premises serve alcohol in standardised containers such as pints and schooners, or use measured pours. So, having schooners or jiggers on hand when pre-drinking would be a good place to start.

Health psychologists often promote “protective behavioural strategies” – things that help keep our alcohol consumption under control. For example, we can set ourselves a drink limit, or set a timer between drinks to slow our intake. Work is ongoing to investigate how these strategies might be better tailored to the pre-drinking context.

Ultimately, if you’re planning a pre-drinking session before an event, it’s a good idea to make sure there are plenty of non-alcoholic or low-alcohol options, and food – as you would with any party.

The most important thing pre-drinkers can do is keep an eye on each other, making sure everyone makes it to the event, has a good time, and gets home safely.

Kim M Caudwell, Lecturer - Psychology | Chair, Researchers in Behavioural Addictions, Alcohol and Drugs (BAAD), Charles Darwin University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Long before Silicon Valley, scholars in ancient Iraq created an intellectual hub that revolutionised science

Time and again, collaboration has proven to be a key driver of scientific and technological innovation. So it follows that some of the greatest advances have come from intellectual hubs set up for this very purpose.

Today Silicon Valley is synonymous with this idea – but it’s just one in a long line of institutions that paved the way before it. One such example came from Baghdad, Iraq, during the Islamic Golden Age in the fourth Islamic century (tenth century AD).

It was around this time, when Europe was living through its so-called “Dark Ages”, the House of Wisdom (Bayt-al Hikmah) was born. It was here that many great works from Persia, China, India and Greece were collected and translated into Arabic, including works by Aristotle and Euclid.

This culturally and linguistically diverse environment gave rise to innovations that would have lasting legacies in fields including algebra, geography, astronomy, medicine and engineering.

Automata With Talent

During its tenure of some three-and-a-half centuries, the House of Wisdom was populated by a number of multitalented thinkers.

Among these were the Banu Musa brothers – three ninth-century Persian scholars who lived in Baghdad. The brothers formed a multidisciplinary team: one was a mathematician, one an astronomer and one an engineer.

They translated works from other languages into Arabic, sponsored other translators and invested money in buying rare manuscripts. They were also involved in politics and the development of urban infrastructure, and were even musically talented.

But arguably their most tangible contribution was to automated machines, or automata. One of their works published in 850 AD, The Book of Ingenious Devices, translated as The Book of Tricks, describes machines that served as precursors to modern robots.

These automata included mechanical musical instruments and a self-playing steam-powered robotic flute player. Vrije University of Amsterdam’s Teun Koetsier considers this mechanical musician to be the world’s first programmable machine.

Brilliant Polymaths

Another scholar of the House of Wisdom at the time was Mohammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi, whose name inspired a term we use regularly: “algorithm”.

In fact, his is a two-fold legacy, as the term “algebra” also derives from the title of one of his books, Kitab al-Jebr, or The Book of Completion.

This was one of the (if not the) world’s first publications of algebraic rules. He also made important contributions to geography and astronomy.

Al-Khwarizmi worked closely with al-Kindi, also known by his Latinised name Alkindus.

Al-Kindi was an Abbasid polymath. He was a citizen of the Abbasid Empire, which spanned the Arabic-speaking world from what’s now Pakistan to Tunisia, and from the Black Sea to the Indian Ocean. He was a mathematician, student of cryptanalysis, and pioneer in music theory who combined Aristotelian philosophy with Islamic theology.

Al-Kindi is credited with introducing Indian numbers to his colleagues and peers in the Arab-speaking world. Together with al-Khwarizmi, he developed the Arabic numerals that we all use today (i.e. numbers 0-9).

He also authored the oldest known book on cryptanalysis, and is known to have used statistical inference (a type of data analysis). Statistician Lyle Broemeling describes this as one of the earliest known examples of both these methods.

Al-Kindi’s personal library was so magnificent the Banu Musa brothers apparently conspired, in their jealousy, to have him beaten, evicted from the House of Wisdom, and his library confiscated and given to them.

Gone Without A Trace

After centuries of fostering intellectual thought and technical development, The House of Wisdom was destroyed by the Mongols during the Siege of Baghdad in 1258 – leaving next to no traces.

This absence of archaeological evidence has even led some scholars to doubt its very existence, or to suggest it existed not so much as a place, but as a state of mind.

In his book Greek Thought, Arabic Culture, Dimitri Gutas suggests the House of Wisdom could, at best, be romanticised as an “idealised national archive”. But this view is challenged by Islamic Studies expert Hossain Kamaly in the review of the volume.

However, even Gutas agrees that between 800 AD and 1000 AD there was a large-scale translation movement in the Middle East that led to a comprehensive and systematic translation of Greek non-literary works into Arabic. Translators were held in high esteem, and social prestige was awarded not only to them, but also to the elite who helped fund their activities.

As renowned science communicator and theoretical physicist Jim al-Khalili summarises in his book Pathfinders:

[T]here was indeed an establishment known as the House of Wisdom […] expanded dramatically in scope from a mere palace library […] that became a centre for original scientific scholarship.

In other words, the House of Wisdom could have been a small space, but one that enabled a culture of interdisciplinary knowledge acquisition in a rich and dynamic environment. Its legacy and contribution to modern research are clear.

Lessons For Today

While there’s much we don’t know about the House of Wisdom, one thing seems clear: it was driven by an appreciation of the rich ideas that can emerge in a dynamic, multidisciplinary environment.

In this regard, it begins to sound less like Silicon Valley, which has shown itself to be focused squarely on commercial gain and is known for attracting unscrupulous behaviour.

On closer inspection, The House of Wisdom sounds more like a collaborative environment that could be achieved in higher education.

One key to its success was consistent financial backing from various caliphs, who were the political and religious leaders of Islamic states, known as caliphates. In other words, the scholars were focused on just that – scholarship – rather than applying for funding.

Also, all manners of gathering knowledge were equally respected, rewarded and encouraged, which led to social stability and prosperity.

What would it take to create a space like this today? A complete re-evaluation of the way higher education is managed, funded, judged and taught?

Or maybe we should simply ask: are our disciplinary divides, which position the sciences and humanities as antithetical, holding back innovation?

For the scholars in Baghdad in the fourth Islamic century, these pursuits were opposite but equal sides of the same coin. Perhaps we’d benefit by taking a page from their book.

Terhi Nurmikko-Fuller, Senior Lecturer in Digital Humanities, Australian National University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

5 tips to take the best care of your voice for everyone who sings, from a speech pathologist

The care of your singing voice is crucial to maintain a healthy and long-life voice.

Professional singers often have teams of people keeping their voices healthy, and they have received lots of training in how to take care of their voice.

But everyone who sings – from young students to passionate amateurs – should be taking care of their voice.

If you are a singer, here are five crucial tips to prevent vocal problems.

1. Keep Hydrated

Hydration is the most important fact to be considered when singing.

When we are dehydrated, the biomechanical properties of our vocal folds are impacted, decreasing our vocal range and increasing the stress on these folds.

Singers who do not hydrate well are at risk of developing voice disorders such as nodules and polyps.

An easy way to stay hydrated is to keep up your water consumption. Singers can complement this by using nebulisers and humidifiers.

Humidifiers balance out dry air caused by heating or air conditioning.

Nebulisers assist with hydration directly. By breathing in a saline water solution or purified water, we can see an immediate influence on our vocal folds.

You don’t need fancy equipment. You can also breathe in steam from boiled water. Make sure to be careful with the temperature, as steam can burn our airway when it is too hot. Pour boiled water into a bowl, wait 5-7 minutes, place a towel over your head and then breathe in as many times as you like.

2. Warm-Up And Cool-Down Your Voice

Vocal warm-up and cool-down exercises are crucial: these will have a positive benefit on your voice in the moment and prevent future injuries.

An easy warm-up you can try only requires a straw. With a straw between your lips into the air or a cup of water, make a “u” sound. Working for five minutes, change the pitch and frequency of making this sound. The added resistance of singing through a straw will give your vocal folds a good work out.

You can also add resistance by speaking or singing into a CPR mask.

Other exercises don’t require these materials. You can try lips or tongue trills, humming and blowing raspberries.

While there are many internet tutorials on how to do these exercises, I suggest you practise under professional supervision to avoid damaging your voice by going beyond your vocal limits.

3. Watch Your Lifestyle Factors

Lifestyle is fundamental when taking care of our voices.

In order to avoid injuries or develop any voice disorders, we should monitor external factors such as maintaining a balanced diet, having periods of rest and reducing the consumption of cigarettes, alcohol, drugs, caffeine and soft drinks.

By changing these habits, you can preserve good vocal health and keep your body running properly. You can also guard against developing reflux.

Reflux occurs when acids from your stomach travel back up your throat. Symptoms include a burning sensation in your chest (heartburn), backwash (regurgitation) of food or sour liquid, upper abdominal or chest pain, trouble swallowing (dysphagia) or a sensation of a lump in your throat.

This stomach acid can dry and irritate your vocal folds.

If you do experience any of these symptoms, keep up your water intake, try to avoid lying down for at least two to three hours after a meal and keep your head elevated using an extra pillow or two while you sleep.

If these symptoms persist, visit your doctor for further examination.

4. Listen To Your Body

Sometimes our body sends signals when struggling. We should pay close attention to what our bodies are telling us.

Negative warning signs can include a reduced tonal range, constant throat clearing, vocal fatigue, pain during or after singing or talking, mild or moderate abdominal tension, unstable voice, pitch breaks, difficulty singing or speaking softly.

Speaking or singing should not present with any negative symptoms or conditions.

It’s important to note home remedies like tea with honey, lemon and ginger, and gargles with salty water – or even alcohol – do not fix your voice. These will go directly to the oesophagus and will not have any effect on your vocal folds.

If you are experiencing symptoms like these, pay more attention to things like your warm up, your cool down, periods of rest and your levels of hydration. If they persist, visit a doctor or a speech pathologist.

5. See A Professional

Don’t try and push through any pain or difficulties you are facing.

When facing any vocal difficulty, you should visit an ear, nose and throat doctor (ENT) or a speech pathologist.

An ENT can check your larynx and other structures to make sure you do not have any organic or functional disorders impacting your voice.

If you would like to practise new techniques – like belting or voice distortions – consult with voice specialists like speech pathologists, vocal coaches or music teachers who are experts on these areas.

Last but not least, check your voice with professionals once a year. This will help with the prevention of future injuries and help you maintain a healthy voice. 

Sandra Rojas, Speech pathologist, Voice specialist, Researcher, Federation University Australia

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

5 Australian women choreographers you should know (and where to see them in 2023)

“Ballet is woman” claimed the legendary New York choreographer George Balanchine. But “where are all the women ballet choreographers?” asked researchers Oellen A. Meglin and Lynn Matluck Brooks in 2012. They found only 23 articles on women ballet choreographers in the New York Times’ 171-year history.

In Australia, even the keenest ballet fan will struggle to recall a dozen ballets by women in The Australian Ballet company’s 60-year history.

While men make up a very small proportion of those dancing in this country, the 2018 Turning Pointe report found that in Australia’s major dance companies from 2011 to 2017 only 25% of choreographic commissions were women.

Choreographers are dance’s cultural leaders and storytellers. They are dance’s voice.

Supporting and celebrating today’s women choreographers is vital to encouraging a new generation of women to follow, giving women in dance a voice into the future.

So where are the Australian women choreographers of today? Here are five to get you started.

1. Frances Rings

In 2023, Frances Rings will step into the role of artistic director of Bangarra Dance Theatre.

A descendant of the Wirangu and Mirning peoples from the west coast of South Australia, Rings made her choreographic debut with Bangarra in 2002 with the work Rations.

She has since created and co-created another seven works for the company.

Rings fuses contemporary movement with ancient Indigenous heritage to produce organic works deeply rooted in the natural world. Her works reflect critically on the past, celebrate survival in the present and offer hope for the future.

Her works share with the audience the feeling of connecting with the sacred on Country and are a First Nation’s ode to the power, beauty and spirit of the earth.

In 2023, Yuldea opens in Sydney before touring; and Terrain will be in Adelaide.

2. Alice Topp

A former dancer with the Australian Ballet, Alice Topp’s works are known for their humanity.

She creates contemporary ballets that evoke both vulnerability and strength. Topp is celebrated for her fluid, acrobatic duets, and she often takes on themes about damage and repair, durability and fragility, falling and recovering.

But she is anything but predictable. Her recent work Annealing saw a mass of noisy bright metallic gold bodies contrasted with a quiet, dimly-lit duet. She is also passionate about homegrown and inter-generational collaborations promoting local dancers, composers and designers.

Her first mainstage work, Aurum, won her the Helpmann Award for best ballet in 2019 and she has since created four other major works. She is currently resident choreographer with The Australian Ballet and creative director of independent collective Project Animo.

In 2023, you can see the work of Alice Topp at the Australian Ballet, the West Australian Ballet, Singapore Ballet and the Royal New Zealand Ballet.

3. Stephanie Lake

Stephanie Lake describes her work as “obsessed with groups and communal action […] that sense of shared experience”.

This obsession results in large celebratory works, like the 60-dancer Colossus and 200-plus cast Multiply. These works see masses of individual moving bodies imperfectly colliding and uniting, forming patterns reminiscent of flocks of birds or opening flowers.

Lake is not afraid to take on darker themes. Her work has looked at death, personal demons, underground monsters and pandemic lockdowns.

Performed on bare stages in simple attire with minimal lighting, Lake’s works draw us into the intimacy and vulnerability of the interacting bodies.

Her breakthrough work was Mix Tape in 2010. Since then, she has had works commissioned by Sydney Dance Company, Dancenorth and Tasdance, among many others, and she is currently artistic director of her own company, The Stephanie Lake Company.

In 2023, you can see the work of Stephanie Lake at Perth Festival, Sydney Festival and touring internationally.

4. Claire Marshall

Claire Marshall began her professional career in Brisbane as a contemporary dance choreographer. In 2013, she shifted to dance film and choreographing with the camera with her work Pulse, followed by the award-winning Ward of State in 2014.

Since then, she has created seven other film works, won multiple awards and has been part of film festivals across the world.

In her choreographic process, Marshall allows objects and surfaces in the location to dictate movement choice. Using different lenses and angles, she creates often surreal worlds for her dancers to occupy.

Many of her works are psychological thrillers and have a distinctive 20th century flavour with vibrant vintage costumes and mid-century interiors.

Marshall leaves the meaning of her works open to interpretation. They are often interactive in a choose-your-own-adventure style, using split or multiple screens, giving each viewer a different experience.

In 2023, you can see Claire Marshall’s adapted version of Permutations online in April.

5. Annette Carmichael

Annette Carmichael is an award-winning contemporary choreographer based in Denmark, Western Australia, who creates works with professional dancers, artists and community members.

Most recently, Carmichael has been creating large-scale regional pieces co-created with community dancers. The works combine natural movement with a gestural language developed by the performers. They are multi-art productions exploring themes such as war, domestic violence and global terror.

Whether in theatres, huge outdoor arenas or on Zoom, Carmichael’s works take us on both personal and collective journeys sharing honest and often raw emotion.

In 2023, The Stars Descend will be the culmination of a three-year program which explored ways of connecting people with the natural world. It will unfold in five chapters along an area of rich biodiversity currently undergoing restoration. You can watch single performances or join the 15-day odyssey along the trail and see them unfold one by one.

See Annette Carmichael’s work in 2023 across Western Australia.

Yvette Grant, PhD (Dance) Candidate and dance history tutor, The University of Melbourne

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The rich history of our love affair with luxury

In today’s world it could be said, to a certain degree, that even a relatively impoverished person engages with luxury, in some way.

If you enjoy regulated heating or cooling at home, regular lighting, chicken meat, or eat chocolates, you are engaging with formats that once indicated luxury.

But what is, and is not, considered to be a luxury, changes with the times.

Decadence And Luxury

When we describe a dessert as “decadent” today, we must remember it really means decaying, a concept related to the “Romans of the decadence” whose lavish lifestyles are held up as proof of why the Empire had to fail.

The Romans saw luxury as quintessentially foreign and therefore alien to the true and olden spirit of the Roman polis. This is why luxury was often represented as coming from “the Orient”, the source of rare scents, spices, gems, ivories and enslaved peoples.

As a result, the Romans introduced sumptuary laws, which were prescriptions to manage conspicuous consumption of things like expensive clothing and jewellery worn by social groups, but also the amount spent on banquets and even funerals.

This was necessary, because the ancient Romans enjoyed conspicuous luxury. They liked to eat food whose ingredients resembled another. They enjoyed delicacies such as fattened fowls, peacock, oysters, ham, wild boar and fig-peckers, the latter eaten whole, sometimes all combined together in a crusted paté, even though this was forbidden by the new laws. There were even luxuries in enslaved peoples. The poet Juvenal commented satirically that clearly it was better to have a bevy of pretty pageboys (exoleti) arranged according to their nationality, size and hair colour serving the drinks rather than coarse household help.

There is a long continuity in this type of consumption. In the 19th century, for example, there was a premium on tall footmen matching in size and the Victorians loved elaborate feasts with multiple courses.

Follow The Money

By the mid 19th century, wealth from new industries created enormous fortunes at a time when taxation and labour costs were low.

North Americans became the richest people in the world. Clare Booth Luce, formerly married to the chairman of Time- Life, said:

In America money is a thing less valued in the spending than in the earning. It is less a symbol of luxury than of ‘success’, less of corruption than of virtue.

While Americans were good at making money, they seemed to need Europeans to spend it. The raft of rich American women who began to marry into the European aristocracy in the late 19th century were known as the “dollar princesses”, the term coming from a popular song. The British aristocracy were, of course, in turn marrying into this American wealth.

Between 1890 and 1914, half the world’s capital flowed through London. The Dollar Princesses paid for enormous renovations and modernisation of stately homes, were photographed with dozens of trunks as they moved across the Atlantic, and patronised the luxury establishments of jewellers, couturiers, florists and caterers.

The arrival of the wealthy Americans heiresses coincided with a series of challenges to the British aristocracy including the introduction of death duties, the rise in income tax and The Great Unrest of 1912.

Living In Style

Between the end of the 19th century and the start of the first world war, luxury was widely reported and commented upon in diaries and memoirs. The house parties about which so much was written were characterised by excessive meals of great refinement, elaborate flowers and large numbers of visible servants.

Much luxury was French. Edward VII was a famed Francophile. The Entente Cordiale of 1904 benefited British French trade and travel.

Louis Vuitton opened in Bond St in 1900. His new flat trunks for cars were stackable, replacing older domed tops designed to repel water.

Cartier opened in London in 1902. Faberge also had a new London store. The Paris Ritz opened in 1898 and the London Ritz Hotel in 1905, decorated in a newly fashionable white and gilt Louis XVI style.

Service Stripes

This was a period when wealthy women were laden with jewels: Kenneth Clark, the art historian, noted of a New York party in 1930 that the women “even brought pieces of jewellery in their hands and laid them down on the dinner table. This could have happened in the Middle Ages.”

Mrs Greville, one of the wealthiest women in England (daughter of a Scottish brewer), loved her jewels, owning pieces that could be traced back to Marie Antoinette and the Empress Josephine.

The late Queen Mother, a great lover of luxury and thoroughly Edwardian figure, inherited key pieces of jewellery from Mrs Greville in 1942, a friend from the time she was still Duchess of York.

But, as Elizabeth wrote in her diaries, she did not wear the lavish Cartier and Boucheron pieces until 1947, so as to not appear “out of sync” with the austerity movement immediately after the war. Profligate luxury risks looking out of step with public morals.

The Queen Mother wore all Mrs Greville’s jewels at her 80th Birthday party – and the owner of them now is Camilla, the Queen Consort. As Camilla is the grand-daughter of Edward VII’s mistress Mrs Keppel, the story comes full circle.

Mrs Greville left an estate in the 1940s worth approximately £39 million or 67 million AUD.

This is not much money if we compare it to the fortunes held by global billionaires today.

Gina Reinhart has between A$28.8 and A$31.4 billion. She lives discreetly part of the year in Dalkeith Perth in her late father’s home, in Singapore at a gated community, and on an ocean liner.

Luxury Today

Today, luxury is seen as the embodiment of growing income inequality within states and communities, and also between different nations in the world. This is not new, although in the past luxury and inequality were seen as part of how a hierarchical society was structured: acknowledged, rather than seen as a problem.

Luxury is not the cause of inequality, though it might be one of its effects. When societies aims towards income and social equality (as some postwar societies did), luxury – or at least the public discussion of luxury – seems to disappear. By contrast, societies like the present, in which 1% of the population owns 49% of the world’s wealth, lead luxury to the fore.

Peter McNeil, Distinguished Professor of Design History, UTS, University of Technology Sydney

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Putting the bones of giant, extinct ‘thunderbirds’ under the microscope reveals how they grew

The largest flightless bird found anywhere in the world today is the ostrich. It stands about 2.7 metres tall and can weigh up to 150kg. But millions of years ago ostriches would have been dwarfed by several other flightless bird species.

One was Dromornis stirtoni, nicknamed the thunderbird. It lived in the late Miocene period of Australia, about 8 million years ago. Another, Vorombe titan, lived far more recently in Madagascar, off the coast of southern Africa. It is thought to have gone extinct in the 17th century after encountering humans. Fossil finds suggest that both species stood about 3 metres tall and were more than double the mass of ostriches.

Today all that remains of these birds are their fossilised bones and, in the case of Vorombe titan, a handful of eggs. This means that scientists know very little about the birds’ biology; for instance, the physical differences between male and female Dromornis stirtoni were unclear – until now.

Recently, my colleagues Trevor Worthy and Warren Handley from Australia’s Flinders University and I investigated the microscopic structure of Dromornis stirtoni’s bones. This allowed us first to pinpoint the size differences between males and females. Then we assessed how quickly the giant birds grew and how this compared to other, later members of its lineage.

We found that Dromornis stirtoni grew far more slowly than the most recent “thunderbird” species, Genyornis newtoni, which in turn grew far more slowly than the emus it lived alongside about 40,000 years ago and which still exist today. Its slow growth made Dromornis stirtoni vulnerable to climatic shifts.

This is an important finding amid the current environmental degradation driven by climate change: it is clear that slow-growing animals will be the most vulnerable to extinction.

Bones Are Key

My involvement in this research stems from the work I have done on the bone histology and growth patterns of a number of extinct species. These include the aepyornithids, including Vorombe titan from Madagascar – the “elephant bird” – and several Mesozoic birds, as well as their dinosaurian relatives.

Despite being fossilised for millions of years, the microscopic structure of bone (histology) is preserved intact and gives us a unique glimpse at how the animal grew when it was alive. In some animals, growth rings (like tree rings) occur and, just like tree rings, they can give us an idea of the age of the animal, and also information about its health.

By applying geometric morphology to Dromornis stirtoni’s bones, we were able to ascertain that females had an average body mass of about 441kg while males clocked in at on average 528kg.

Next, we wanted to understand the species’ growth rates. For this, we studied the microscopic structure of Dromornis long bones belonging to small hatchlings, subadults and adults.

We found that the young individuals experienced rapid growth but that this was followed by a period of arrested growth. In the largest individual at least 15 growth marks were present, suggesting that they needed at least 15 growth cycles (years) to reach adult body size.

We proposed that, as in modern kangaroos, the periods of arrested growth most likely corresponded to the hot, dry summer months when they were likely experiencing thermal stress and needed to put their energy into dealing with that rather than into growth.

Growth Patterns

This was an interesting finding, but we knew that it would have greater value if we could compare it to growth patterns in similar species, and in extant species.

So we looked at the bone microstructure of the most recent member of the “thunderbird” lineage – another giant flightless bird called Genyornis newtoni. It went extinct only about 40,000 years ago.

Our results showed that Genyornis, which was about 2.5 metres tall and probably weighed about 240kg, grew much more quickly than Dromornis. It reached adult body size on average in about one to two years, although it occasionally needed as many as four years.

We propose that this overall fast growth trajectory is likely to have helped Genyornis adapt to the unstable, turbulent times in the Pleistocene (from around 2.5 million years ago to about 12,000 years ago), when the aridification of Australia intensified. Instead of taking so long to grow up they would have been able to reach adult size more quickly and reproduce sooner.

But this relatively rapid growth trajectory was not enough to protect Genyornis from another threat: humans. Humans arrived on the Australian continent about 55,000 years ago. By 49,000 years ago, they had reached the Flinders Ranges, well within view of Lake Callabonna, where they would have encountered both Genyornis and emus.

Emus are about six times smaller than Genyornis, and have faster growth rates without any interruptions in their growth. In addition, they lay many more eggs during each breeding season. There is strong evidence that Genyornis eggs were collected and eaten by Indigenous people. Genyornis simply couldn’t lay enough eggs and its offspring simply didn’t grow fast enough to keep up with this pressure on their species; they were eventually driven to extinction by about 40,000 years ago.

Recouping Numbers

Emus, of course, still exist. We propose that the rapid growth and reproductive strategy of emus allowed them to recoup their numbers at a faster rate after hard times, which allowed them to survive until today.

Anusuya Chinsamy-Turan, Professor, Biological Sciences Department, University of Cape Town

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The sky isn’t just blue – airglow makes it green, yellow and red too

Look up on a clear sunny day and you will see a blue sky. But is this the true colour of the sky? Or is it the only colour of the sky?

The answers are a little complicated, but they involve the nature of light, atoms and molecules and some quirky parts of Earth’s atmosphere. And big lasers too – for science!

Blue Skies?

So first things first: when we see a blue sky on a sunny day, what are we seeing? Are we seeing blue nitrogen or blue oxygen? The simple answer is no. Instead the blue light we see is scattered sunlight.

The Sun produces a broad spectrum of visible light, which we see as white but it includes all the colours of the rainbow. When sunlight passes through the air, atoms and molecules in the atmosphere scatter blue light in all directions, far more than red light. This is called Rayleigh scattering, and results in a white Sun and blue skies on clear days.

At sunset we can see this effect dialled up, because sunlight has to pass through more air to reach us. When the Sun is close to the horizon, almost all the blue light is scattered (or absorbed by dust), so we end up with a red Sun with bluer colours surrounding it.

But if all we are seeing is scattered sunlight, what is the true colour of the sky? Perhaps we can get an answer at night.

The Colour Of Dark Skies

If you look at the night sky, it is obviously dark, but it isn’t perfectly black. Yes, there are the stars, but the night sky itself glows. This isn’t light pollution, but the atmosphere glowing naturally.

On a dark moonless night in the countryside, away from city lights, you can see the trees and hills silhouetted against the sky.

This glow, called airglow, is produced by atoms and molecules in the atmosphere. In visible light, oxygen produces green and red light, hydroxyl (OH) molecules produce red light, and sodium produces a sickly yellow. Nitrogen, while far more abundant in the air than sodium, does not contribute much to airglow.

The distinct colours of airglow are the result of atoms and molecules releasing particular amounts of energy (quanta) in the form of light. For example, at high altitudes ultraviolet light can split oxygen molecules (O₂) into pairs of oxygen atoms, and when these atoms later recombine into oxygen molecules they produce a distinct green light.

Yellow Light, Shooting Stars And Sharp Images

Sodium atoms make up a minuscule fraction of our atmosphere, but they make up a big part of airglow, and have a very unusual origin – shooting stars.

You can see shooting stars on any clear dark night, if you’re willing to wait. They are teensy tiny meteors, produced by grains of dust heating up and vaporising in the upper atmosphere as they travel at over 11 kilometres per second.

As shooting stars blaze across the sky, at roughly 100 kilometres altitude, they leave behind a trail of atoms and molecules. Sometimes you can see shooting stars with distinct colours, resulting from the atoms and molecules they contain. Very bright shooting stars can even leave visible smoke trails. And among those atoms and molecules is a smattering of sodium.

This high layer of sodium atoms is actually useful to astronomers. Our atmosphere is perpetually in motion, it’s turbulent, and it blurs images of planets, stars and galaxies. Think of the shimmering you see when you look along a long road on a summer’s afternoon.

To compensate for the turbulence, astronomers take quick images of bright stars and measure how the stars’ images are distorted. A special deformable mirror can be adjusted to remove the distortion, producing images that can be sharper than the ones from space telescopes. (Although space telescopes still have the advantage of not peering through airglow.)

This technique – called “adaptive optics” – is powerful, but there’s a big problem. There are not enough natural bright stars for adaptive optics to work over the whole sky. So astronomers make their own artificial stars in the night sky, called “laser guide stars”.

Those sodium atoms are high above the turbulent atmosphere, and we can make them glow brightly by firing a power laser at them tuned to the distinct yellow of sodium. The resulting artificial star can then be used for adaptive optics. The shooting star you see at night helps us see the Universe with sharper vision.

So the sky isn’t blue, at least not always. It is a glow-in-the-dark night sky too, coloured a mix of green, yellow and red. Its colours result from scattered sunlight, oxygen, and sodium from shooting stars. And with a little bit of physics, and some big lasers, we can make artificial yellow stars to get sharp images of our cosmos. 

Michael J. I. Brown, Associate Professor in Astronomy, Monash University and Matthew Kenworthy, Associate professor in Astronomy, Leiden University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Radicalism, feminism and family puzzles: why Wilkie Collins is so much more than a mystery writer

Wilkie Collins had the longest writing career of any major mid-19th-century English novelist, writing short stories and novels from 1844 to 1889. Literary criticism, however, has traditionally seen him as only notable for his two mystery novels, The Woman in White (1860) and The Moonstone (1868).

While these are some of the century’s earliest, and best mysteries, praising only them ignores the social and political themes common in Collins’s work, especially his later novels.

The favouring of the mysteries even started with Charles Dickens, who employed Collins at his magazine Household Words. Dickens often published Collins there and in its successor All The Year Round. Though he did enjoy going out at night, in London or Paris, with the somewhat dashing Collins, Dickens only copied his literary approach once, in The Mystery of Edwin Drood, unfinished at his death.

Collins was born in 1824; his father was an established painter, of the old landscape-oriented, careful style, an approach Joseph Turner was to overturn. Collins could himself paint quite well, but his busy mother was more of an influence on him. A very keen reader, she seems to have inspired him as a writer and he was close to her throughout her life.

Collins’ first two novels were unlike the rest of his work. He began with themes that were overseas and historical, following Walter Scott and Edward Bulwer-Lytton, but his topics were distinctly lively.

Ioláni, written in 1844-5, was about love and tragedy in the Pacific, but it remained unpublished until 1999. Antonina (1850) depicted the Gothic attack on Rome in 408 BCE, with a woman among their leaders.

But then Collins shook off the weight of the past, starting on the main theme of his life’s work, modern troubled families. In Hide and Seek (1851), Mat Marksman, who has returned from America, having been scalped by native Americans, detects his strange family past.

A very different novel, but another with a modern-day colloquial title and again dealing with complex family matters, was The Dead Secret (1857): this time a woman traces her own baffling origins and their impact on the present.

Family puzzles and intrusive criminality flourish in The Woman in White (1860), a highly popular and admired novel. An unemployed art-teacher meets a white-clad beauty late at night in London: she has escaped from an asylum, and says she comes from Cumberland. Then he is found a job at a country house: Laura Fairlie, who looks very like the girl in the street lives there. Mysteries, crimes, and acts of unselfish courage follow: finally the intrusive evil forces – Sir Percival Glyde and Count Fosco – are defeated and the art-teacher and the beauty can be happy together.

Now enjoying a large reputation, Collins produced some more excellent big, thoughtful novels after this one, which seem almost forgotten as they are not mysteries. No Name (1862) is about a woman who struggles bravely and cleverly after her parents die.

Then there is the even more elaborate Armadale (1866). This offers two men both named Alan Armadale and a major female villain, Lydia Gwilt, who interact melodramatically. Throughout, Collins debates – as a serious novelist – the interface of Chance and Fate.

After that Collins produced The Moonstone (1868). It offers a mystery: what happened to the great diamond on the heroine’s birthday night? But it provides much more than an unguessable solution – that should not be revealed here. In addition to that, the police detective fails, an amateur does much better, there is a bossy over-religious woman, a radical young girl servant and overall praise for three heroic Indians. Collins, dissents from conservative English hostility towards Indians at that time, stemming from the 1857 native resistance to colonialism they called the “Indian Mutiny”.

Christian Socialism, Vivisection, Nationalism

In the 1870s Collins, taking a lot of laudanum for what the doctors called gout, wrote fine short stories, often about troubled but finally successful romances, perhaps reflecting his own two affairs – for some years conducted at the same time.

In this later period he produced a range of usually short but often very interesting novels. They are ignored by most commentators, no doubt at least in part because they are often challengingly socially aware. In The Law and the Lady (1875), a wife determinedly investigates and saves her husband from the charge of murdering his previous wife.

There is early feminism here: Dorothy Sayers, in her introduction to The Moonstone, said Collins creates women who are `“strong, resolute, and intellectual”. Radicalism can also be a central element. The Fallen Leaves (1879) has the young British hero lecturing on the Christian Socialism he learnt abroad in an American radical community.

Then Heart and Science (1883) attacks modern vivisectionists: central to the story is a scientist who has been killing dogs in his research.

In this last period, Collins ranges widely: Jezebel’s Daughter (1879) is set in the complexities of the German business world, and his very last book, Blind Love (1890), completed by Walter Besant after Collins died in September 1889, has a central figure seriously involved with the Irish independence conflict of the time.

Strong, Intriguing Women

Remarkably, Collins always had a whole novel planned out in notes before he started writing – Blind Love was not hard for another writer to finish. That potent planning and attention to detail guides his highly intricate plots, whether he is writing mysteries or not, and the richness of his fiction is recurrently focused on the social, political and gender strains that he saw in the world around him. He represented these themes with a detail and power rarely recognised.

Unlike Dickens, Collins created strong, intriguing women like the brave, clever Marian Halcombe in The Woman in White or the boldly, even rashly, self-assertive Magdalen Vanstone in No Name. His novels, after those very first two, always deal with issues and problems of the present day in a very identifiable England.

There is much more to read, and to think about, in Collins’s work than has traditionally been noticed. In recent years his reputation has been rising: American critics have seen his richness and strength more than most.

But there is still a way to go to recognise him as a full member of that remarkable group of mid-19th century major British writers, along with Benjamin Disraeli, Elizabeth Gaskell, Charles Dickens, Mary Elizabeth Braddon and George Eliot.

Stephen Knight is the author of The Complete Fiction of Wilkie Collins (Routledge 2022).

Stephen Knight, Honorary Research Professor, The University of Melbourne

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

It’s OK to aim lower with your new year’s exercise resolutions – a few minutes a day can improve your muscle strength

One of the most popular new year’s resolutions is to exercise more. Many of us set ambitious goals requiring a big, regular commitment, but then abandon them because they’re too much to fit in. Plans to exercise more in the new year are often broken within a month.

So how can we exercise more regularly in the new year?

If the aim is to build long-term fitness and health, the exercise must be sustainable. It may be achievable to resolve to do an extra few minutes of muscle-strengthening exercises every day.

Our research suggests even one muscle contraction a day, for five days a week, can improve muscle strength if you keep it up for a month.

Why Do We Need To Exercise?

Physical activity guidelines recommended we perform 150 minutes of moderately intense exercise a week, as well as at least two muscle strengthening exercise sessions per week.

Skeletal muscle tissue declines with age, causing a loss of function and independence in older adults. So it’s important to include muscle strengthening exercises regularly to stimulate skeletal muscles of the legs, arms and trunk.

However, 85% of Australians don’t meet the physical activity recommendations to do both aerobic and muscle-strengthening exercises every week. The reasons include a lack of time, a lack of motivation, and no access to a workout facility.

It’s important to address these barriers, as physical inactivity increases the risk of many chronic diseases such as heart disease, diabetes, cancer, osteoporosis (weakened bones), dementia, depression and anxiety.

Short Bouts Of Exercise Can Boost Your Muscle Strength

My research team’s recent study found a small amount of regular resistance training can be better than doing one massive session, even if the amount of exercise overall was the same.

We asked participants to do an arm curl exercise consisting of 30 maximal contractions (so, contracting the muscle as hard as they could) each week for four weeks. One group did six contractions a day for five days a week; the other did 30 repetitions once a week.

The group that did them all in one go had no gains in muscle strength, whereas the group that spread the 30 repetitions over five days increased their muscle strength by more than 10%.

In a separate study, we showed that doing one three-second bicep muscle contraction a day, five days a week, increased muscle strength by 12%.

Participants contracted their muscles from a flexed to an extended position, like slowly lowering a heavy weight.

In both studies, participants used special equipment in our lab, and used as much strength as they could, but lowering a heavy dumbbell slowly several times could deliver similar results.

Incorporate Exercise Into Your Daily Activities

We are investigating the effects of five-minutes daily “eccentric” exercises on health and fitness of sedentary people. Eccentric exercises activate and lengthen muscles.

We have already investigated the effects of sitting to a chair slowly and found it is effective for improving leg muscle strength, chair sit-stand ability, walking ability, and balance in older adults.

Many of us sit down on a chair or a sofa more than ten times a day. So, if we sit down slowly every time we sit, we perform at least ten eccentric contractions of the muscles that work to extend the knee joints, a day. This is a good opportunity for us to perform eccentric exercise daily to simulate our leg muscles.

Eccentric contractions not only affect muscle, they can also improve health indicators such as blood pressure and cholesterol levels.

Start Small, Then Build Momentum

Our studies have focused on resistance exercise, but it also applies for aerobic exercise. Five minutes of walking every day can still be beneficial for your health.

However, if you’re already doing regular gym workouts every week, adding a little exercise each day may not produce much of an added effect, so it is not necessary to replace a consistent regular exercise routine with smaller micro-sessions.

But for those starting out, who might find taking on a big exercise commitment daunting, doing a little bit of exercise, often, is a good start. Once your fitness has improved, you can add more exercise.

So what about setting a resolution to spend five minutes exercising every day in 2023?

Ken Nosaka, Professor of Exercise and Sports Science, Edith Cowan University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Are Aussie pubs really filled with tiles because it’s easier to wash off the pee? History has a slightly different story

The “six o’clock swill” is one of the best known terms in Australian history. It captures the unedifying drinking habits of a 50-year period from the first world war until the 1960s, when hotel bars closed at 6pm in the south-eastern states of Australia.

Six o’clock closing legislation was impelled by wartime patriotism and austerity, and a temperance mood which aimed for the prohibition of alcohol.

You may have heard the myth that the six o'clock swill – and the excessive drinking it supported – led to the tiles which are so common in Australian pubs.

According to architectural historian J.M. Freeland in his 1966 book, after this early closing time was introduced, pubs became “no more than high-pressure drinking-houses”.

Freeland wrote about how these pubs became “disembowelled” and refurbished with tiles and linoleum to accommodate the “herds pressing for a place at the bar”.

That same year, journalist Craig McGregor evocatively described:

long, slops-wet bars which men could rest an elbow on as they drank standing up, lavatory-style floors and walls so they could be hosed down when the pub closed for the night.

These men linked the tiles which had become a mainstay in Australian pubs directly to this six o'clock closing, and the need to hose them down after the swill.

But would it lessen the “Australianness” of the 20th century pub if we understood the “lavatory” tiles a little differently?

The Moderne Brewery Hotel

In fact, little renovation of pubs was done in the first decade of six o’clock closing. Publicans of the time faced considerable uncertainty surrounding licensing laws, and so were reluctant to spend money on expensive structural changes.

They didn’t know if the influence of the temperance movement would increase, or if Australia would go down the path of the United States and introduce Prohibition. Local option polls in which people voted to decide if their suburb would be “wet” or “dry” also hung as a threat over publicans’ heads.

Much of the remodelling and rebuilding of pubs happened in the second half of the 1930s, as Australia came out of the Depression and cheaper materials and lower property prices encouraged investment in pubs.

Pubs which underwent major structural changes or were demolished and rebuilt were usually owned by breweries.

In New South Wales, where Tooheys and Tooth & Co vied for market dominance, the modernisation of their pubs was a conscious effort to woo patrons. Architectural journals like Building, Decoration and Glass and Architecture regularly featured moderne-style brewery hotels.

Pubs had always tried to keep up with modern building techniques. As the earliest wattle and daub or wooden pubs were demolished to make way for sturdier structures, many included modern features like electricity. But for every handsome hotel with lacework, pressed metal ceilings and dado tiles, there were dozens of small pubs, especially in country areas, that lacked basic amenities like running hot and cold water.

At the same time, pubs were closely controlled through liquor licensing laws. The state-based Licensing Boards could compel a pub to renovate or, worse, force it to close.

‘The Acme Of Cleanliness’

In the 1920s and 1930s, the boards adopted a modernising policy based on progressive reform. They targeted kitchens, bathrooms/toilets and bars, making publicans replace grimy, dusty surfaces with materials like rubber, linoleum and tiles.

Tiles were part of a broader hygiene discourse. They were not unique to pubs in the south-eastern 6pm closing states. Public buildings like swimming pools, hospitals and cafeterias used tiles. When Myer’s Emporium opened its caféteria in Adelaide in 1928, it was remarked the “spotless white-tiled walls and the electric refrigerators ensured the acme of cleanliness”.

Mrs F.K. Thomas, the licensee of the Newtown Hotel, Brisbane, was commended for her judicious renovation with cream, blue and orange tiles on the exterior walls and green and deep cream tiles on the interior walls. This made for “cleanliness and hygiene”.

The Charing Cross, Sydney (1936), designed by Tooth’s architect Sidney Warden, featured cream wall tiles and tiled recesses in the public bar to replace the “old wooden mug shelf of earlier days”.

Cinemas and office buildings, like Melbourne’s landmark Nicholas Building (1926), used tiles. Sydney’s underground train stations used wall tiles throughout (like London’s Underground, New York’s subway and the Paris Metro). External tiles were also a feature of brewery pubs built around the turn of the century in Britain.

As tile historian Hans van Lemmen comments, tiles are not a modern architectural feature. The Ancients used terracotta, marble and ceramic tiles, while Dutch Delftware tiles were popular in Europe and the north American colonies from the 17th century onwards.

In the 19th century, industrial mass production made glazed wall tiles cheaper for both utilitarian and decorative uses. At the same time, the emerging awareness of sanitation and hygiene prompted the wider use of tiles as a way to manage germs and dirt. Tiles were easier to clean than plaster and wood. They were also more durable and colourful than traditional materials.

These days, the popular imagination might associate pub tiles with piss and vomit, even if the architectural move was more about general hygiene than the dangers of the six o'clock swill. Certainly, a pub with wall tiles was easy to clean, and breweries were keen to play-up the sparkling modernity of tiled bars.

After all, what would the swill pub have been like without tiles? 

Tanja Luckins, Historian, Department of Archeology and History, La Trobe University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

4 facts about seagulls that will make you love these relentless chip thieves

Whether they’re stealing your chips or screeching at your picnic table, seagulls are a hallmark of Australian summers. But how much do you really know about them?

In Australia, the most common species of seagull is the silver gull (Larus novaehollandiae), which is found throughout the continent. People in southern Australia may have also seen its larger, dark-winged cousin, the Pacific gull (Larus pacificus).

And in fierce competition with the Pacific gull is the kelp gull (Larus dominicanus), which established itself in Australia in the 1940s and is found in all states.

Here are four fascinating facts about seagulls that might make you see them a little differently.

1. Seagulls Thrive In Cities

Gulls are part of “Laridae” family of seabirds and are found worldwide. While they’re synonymous with the sea, they can also thrive inland, particularly in urban areas.

Life in urban areas can be hard for birds. Without natural habitat, birds must learn to live among human-made infrastructure. However, gulls have adapted well to our highly modified landscape.

For example, research has found gulls are highly tolerant to urban disturbances, such as loud traffic and industrial noise as well as pedestrian and vehicle traffic. They have even adapted their nesting behaviour to use, for instance, ovals and flat roofs on buildings.

Gulls have a large brain relative to their body. Research suggests birds with larger brains can more successfully adapt to changing habitats and colonise new environments.

An interesting study last year tested the intelligence of ring-billed gulls, which are predominately found in Canada and northern United States.

Researchers attached a piece of sausage to a string, and placed it inside a clear box. Some 75% of the 138 gulls tested attempted to solve the task by pulling the string to bring the food closer, and 25% were successful.

This study shows gulls are curious and try to solve problems - both skills that serve them well in the urban jungle.

2. They Are Expert Food Thieves

Gulls are opportunistic feeders, meaning they will try almost any food they encounter. They’re renowned for stealing food from other gulls and even from us, a behaviour called “kleptoparasitism”.

A 2019 study showed herring gulls, found along the shores of western Europe and the UK, are aware of the direction of the human gaze. The herring gulls in the study more quickly snatched up food placed near a person, when the person was looking away from the gull.

Other research looked at how herring gulls interacted with food after they watched a person handle it. It found the gulls were much more likely to peck at food a human had handled, rather than food that hadn’t been touched.

Silver gulls in Australia have a diverse range of natural prey. This includes cnidarians (such as jellyfish), squids, insects, fish, frogs, small birds such as sparrows and wrens, plants and, when possible, small rodents.

Gulls, especially silver gulls, are also expert scavengers, and often exploit landfills. A study from 1993 recorded 6,000 silver gulls per hour leaving a single urban landfill site in Wollongong in Australia.

A more recent study in 2012 found a kelp gull breeding colony in the De La Guardia Islands of Patagonia, Chile, is sustained by food from an inland rubbish tip.

3. They Can Nest Almost Anywhere, Anytime

When conditions are right and food is plentiful, gulls can breed all year around. Peak breeding season for silver gulls is roughly between August and November and they lay one to four eggs.

Seagulls are traditionally found sleeping and nesting on flat beaches. Some gull species, including Australia’s silver gull, may create “nest scrapes” – shallow depressions in the the ground lined with, for instance, leaves and other vegetation.

Silver gulls prefer to nest in islands. But as urban development encroaches into their habitat, seagulls have adapted to roost and nest in a range of places. Their simple nest design means they can nest in grass cricket pitches, ovals, car parks, low shrubs between rocks and even flat roofs.

The downside for ground-nesting birds such as gulls is that they’re especially vulnerable to human disturbances, such as lawnmowers, pedestrians and their dogs, and even footy games.

Still, gulls seem to make it work. The abundance of human food seems to benefit breeding birds – a Tasmanian study on silver gulls in 2008 found urban males were heavier and had greater body condition then non-urban male gulls. Interestingly no difference were detected between females.

Further research is need to see how successful urban silver gulls are at breeding and raising young on human food.

4. They Use Teamwork To Harass Enemies

Cats (both pet and feral) are a downside to urban life for gulls. Foxes and wild dogs can also pose a significant threat.

This is where team works come in. When silver gulls detect a predator, they work together using aerial group defence tactics to drive away the threat.

One anti-predator strategy is called social mobbing. This is where a group of gulls unite to harass a potential enemy – such as a cat or fox – by flying towards it and making alarm calls, until it goes away.

Some gulls might even vomit or defecate on the predator, with startling accuracy.

Grainne Cleary, Researcher, School of Life and Environmental Sciences, Deakin University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The Morrison government spent a record amount on taxpayer-funded advertising, new data reveal

The federal government is a big spender in the advertising world, regularly spending more than major companies such as McDonald’s, Telstra and Coles. New data released on Friday by the Department of Finance shows that in the lead-up to the May 2022 election, the Coalition government’s advertising spend skyrocketed yet again.

The past financial year was the biggest year on record for taxpayer-funded advertising. The previous federal government spent A$339 million on taxpayer-funded advertising campaigns in 2021-22, well above the 25-year average of about $200 million a year.

In the first six months of 2022, the previous government was the biggest advertising spender in the country.

The Morrison government ran 28 separate advertising campaigns last financial year – the most on record. Many were for legitimate purposes, such as an $89 million campaign encouraging take-up of the COVID-19 vaccine, and a $25 million campaign urging people to fill out the Census.

But sometimes, taxpayer-funded advertising campaigns seek to confer a political advantage. This is often achieved by including party slogans or colours, and/or spruiking government achievements – often in the lead-up to elections.

Why Does Government Advertising Spike Before Elections?

Taxpayer-funded advertising typically spikes in election years, and 2022 was no exception.

In the six months leading up to the 2022 election, the Coalition government spent about $180 million, compared with about $120 million in the six months leading up to the 2019 election.

An otherwise legitimate campaign might be strategically run pre-election to encourage a positive impression of the government. For example, an $18 million federal government campaign on recycling was called out by the then-Labor opposition as “ridiculous and self-serving greenwash”.

But usually, pre-election advertising also contains messages that look politically motivated – promoting the government’s policy platform on key election issues.

For example, the $28.5 million Emissions Reduction campaign – the third most expensive campaign of the year – ran from September 2021 to April 2022, and sought to promote the government’s “good progress” on reducing greenhouse emissions and switching to renewable energy. The campaign clearly used messaging that created a positive image of the government’s performance, and lacked a call to action that might justify it on public interest grounds.

Grattan Institute analysis shows that typically, about a quarter of government spending on advertising is politicised in some way, by both sides of politics. Historically, about $50 million on average each year has been spent on campaigns that are politicised.

The former government’s “COVID-19 Economic Recovery Plan” fell into this category, because it blatantly spruiked the government of the day, without requiring any action or behaviour change from citizens.

Officially, the campaign sought “to inform Australians about the government response to the recurring challenges being faced and reassure [us] there was an adaptable and future-focused plan in place for the economy”.

This was criticised by Labor Senator Tim Ayres in early 2022, who asked:

What possible public purpose is there in ‘Australia’s Economic Plan – we’re taking the next step’? […] What is it asking people to do apart from vote Liberal?

Why Is Politicisation Of Taxpayer-Funded Advertising Harmful?

Politicisation of taxpayer-funded advertising is wasteful and creates an uneven playing field in elections.

Government advertising budgets are well above the expenditure of individual political parties, even in election years.

We won’t know until February 2023 how much political parties spent in the 2022 federal election. But in the lead-up to the 2019 election, the Coalition spent $178 million, Labor $122 million, and Clive Palmer $89 million, with advertising only a portion of their expenses.

How Things Should Change

The new federal government has announced it will cut taxpayer-funded advertising, although by how much is not yet clear. Labor has promised to tackle advertising as part of its broader “rorts and waste” audit.

That promise to cut wasteful spending will be best tested by whether Labor tightens the rules and oversight for government advertising.

Public money should not be used to spruik government policies. It should be used only on public-interest advertising campaigns that have a clear “need to know” message and a call to action.

An independent panel should be established to check compliance. The panel should have the power to knock back campaigns that aren’t compliant – whether they are politicised, or more generally don’t offer value for money.

And if the rules are broken, then the political party – not the taxpayer – should foot the bill for the entire advertising campaign.

Establishing a proper process is the only way to truly reduce waste and restore public confidence in genuinely important government messages.

Kate Griffiths and Anika Stobart are coauthors of New politics: Depoliticising taxpayer-funded advertising, Grattan Institute, 2022.

Kate Griffiths, Deputy Program Director, Grattan Institute and Anika Stobart, Senior Associate, Grattan Institute

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Brekkies, barbies, mozzies: why do Aussies shorten so many words?

Australians sure do like those brekkies, barbies and mozzies.

We’re not talking about “actual” mozzies here. We’re defo (definitely) talking about words — and Aussies can’t seem to get enough of these shortened words.

Some say we’re lazy for clipping them. Others claim it’s just Aussies knocking words down to size — ta, we’ll have a glass of cab sav or savvy b instead of whatever that is in French.

Our most beloved shortenings end in -ie/y and -o. Journos often ask us why Aussies use them, and whether they’ll last. Well, not only are we still using them, seppos (Americans) and pommies (Brits) are joining the action, too.

Here’s an uplifting story for your hollies (holidays) about Australia’s “incredible shrinking words”.

Endings That Bond And Bind Us

These alternative forms of words are often described as “diminutives” (or hypocoristics).

Pet names with such endings can show we have a warm or simply friendly attitude toward something or someone (think of the -s on Cuddles). Certainly, on names, -ie/y and -o are often affectionate (think Susy and Robbo).

But the vast majority of Aussie diminutives are doing something different.

Indeed, saying journo or pollie doesn’t usually indicate we’re thinking of journalists and politicians as small and endearing things. These “diminutives” are also a world away from the birdies and doggies of the nursery. Adult Australians might cheerfully talk about blowies and trackies, but not birdies and doggies — well, unless it’s on the golf course or perhaps in reference to the Western Bulldogs getting a specky (spectacular mark).

For Australian National University linguist Anna Wierzbicka, these expressions are among the most culturally salient features of Australian English — expressions of informality and solidarity that are “uniquely suited to the Anglo-Australian ethos […] and style of interaction”.

Experiments by Australian linguists have empirically confirmed the social effects of these embellished words. Colloquialisms such as barbie and smoko are like accents – part of the glue that sticks Australian English speakers together.

Are -Ie/Y Endings Darlings Or Weaklings?

Diminutives can die out when they take on the burden of new social meanings. One of the oldest endings (found as far back as Anglo-Saxon times) is -ling. We see it still on words like twinkling and darling. However, by modern times it had flipped and become contemptuous, especially when used of humans (think of weakling and underling).

In contrast to -ling, our -ie/-y endings carry important, positive meanings, and there’s no sign yet that we’re giving up on them. Those sunnies, scungies, boardies, cozzies, stubbies and trackies are still the stuff of our sartorial summer fashion.

Slang might come and go, but the process that transforms sunglasses into sunnies and tracksuit pants into trackies continues to thrive.

So thriving in fact are these expressions that some are among Australia’s successful exports. International celebrities include greenie, pollie, surfie, mozzie, budgie (and its offshoot budgie smugglers).

And let’s not forget the linguistic rockstar that is selfie – its meteoric rise to stardom in 2013 saw it crowned Word of the Year by Oxford Dictionaries, and also by the Van Dale dictionary in the Netherlands.

We are, however, constantly refreshing our stock of -ie/y words. Many of the gems in Wendy Allen’s 1980s collection of youth slang in Melbourne (Teenage speech) have bitten the dust (for example, scottie from “he’s got no friends” -> “s’got no friends” -> “s’got + ie”).

But the second edition of the Australian National Dictionary shows us how many -ie/y words have proliferated since the 1980s/1990s (firie, tradie, trackie daks).

Bottle-O, Milko And Smoko: Still Alive-O?

That other long-time favourite ending -o occurs all round the English-speaking world. However, as the Oxford English Dictionary describes, its use “is especially associated with Australia”.

The earliest Australian examples (like milko, rabbito, bottle-o) date from the 19th century and are abbreviated nouns referring to a person’s trade (“milkman”, “rabbit-seller” “bottle-collector”). Sometimes they appear with -oh because of their association with street calls, and this use is old – think of those cockles and mussels of 18th century London, all very much “alive, alive-oh”.

Our love of this -o suffix may also owe something to Irish English. However, Australian linguist Jane Simpson points out it has much wider applications in Australia (and New Zealand), as shown by place names such as Rotto (Rottnest Island), Freo (Fremantle), Paddo (Paddington) and common nouns such as compo (compensation), ambo (ambulance driver) and bowlo (bowling club). And we’re exporting these too – demo, preggo and muso have made it into the wider world.

As with -ie/y endings, our -o endings don’t seem to be going anywhere in a hurry. However, their long-term survival seems slightly less assured than -ie/y. We’re still seeing newer coinages (such as housos), but a 2011 study suggests young people might be using this one less than previous generations.

Rellies Or Rellos, Garbies Or Garbos: Is There A Pattern?

There are wharfies and truckies but not wharfos and truckos; garbos and musos but not garbies and musies. People who ride motorcycles are generally bikers; those who belong to motorcycle gangs tend to be bikies.

So what’s wrong with bikos? And why are there gaps? Those who build houses are neither buildos nor buildies.

Undoubtedly there are nuanced differences of meaning involved here. Does weirdie describe unconventional people more affectionately than weirdo, or even weird person? Certainly there’s a world of difference between the sicko (psychologically sick person) and the sickie (leave you take when you’re sick – or is that when you’re not sick?).

You tell us: do you prefer a lammo or a lammie for the small chocolate and coconut–covered cake? And are members of your family rellos or rellies? There’s a lot of lexicographers, linguists and other word nerds who haven’t figured this out.

Kate Burridge, Professor of Linguistics, Monash University and Howard Manns, Senior Lecturer in Linguistics, Monash University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Following Alfred Russel Wallace’s footsteps to Borneo, where he penned his pioneering evolution paper

The chirping of cicadas is deafening, my clothes are sticky and heavy with heat and sweat, my right hand is swollen from ant bites, I am panting, almost passing out from exhaustion – and I have a big grin on my face. At last I’ve reached my goal, Rajah Brooke’s cottage, at the top of Bukit Peninjau, a hill in the middle of Borneo’s jungle.

This is where, in February 1855, naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace wrote his hugely influential “Sarawak Law” paper. It’s as crucial to Wallace’s own thinking in disentangling the mechanisms of evolution as the Galàpagos Islands famously were to his contemporary, Charles Darwin.

Three years later, in 1858, two papers that would change people’s understanding of humanity’s place in the natural world were read before the Linnean Society of London. Their authors: Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace. In another year, Charles Darwin would publish “The Origin of Species,” squarely positioning him as the father of evolution. Whether Darwin or Wallace should justly be credited for the discovery of the mechanisms of evolution has stirred controversy pretty much ever since.

Comparatively little has been written about Wallace’s seminal work, published four years earlier. In what’s commonly known as his “Sarawak Law” paper, Wallace pondered the unique distribution of related species, which he could explain only by means of gradual changes. This insight would ultimately mature into a fully formed theory of evolution by natural selection – the same theory Charles Darwin had arrived at independently years before, but had not yet published.

I am an evolutionary biologist who has always been fascinated by the mechanisms of evolution as well as the history of my own field, and it’s like visiting hallowed ground for me to trace Wallace’s footsteps through the jungle where he puzzled through the mechanics of how evolution works.

Forgotten Founder Of Evolutionary Theory

Born on Jan. 8, 1823, Alfred Russel Wallace, originally a land surveyor from a modest background, was a naturalist at heart and an adventurer. He left England to collect biological specimens in South America to finance his quest: to understand the great laws that shape life. But on his trip back home, the ship caught fire and sank, leading to the loss of all the collected specimens and a near-death experience for Wallace himself.

To make back the money he’d lost in the shipwreck, he headed to the Malay Archipelago, a region to which few Europeans had ever ventured. Wallace spent time in Singapore, Indonesia, Borneo and the Moluccas.

There he wrote a succinct yet brilliant paper, which he sent to Charles Darwin. In it, he described how organisms produce more offspring than necessary, and natural selection favors the most fit. The ideas he’d arrived at on his own were revolutionary – and closely mirrored what Darwin had been mulling over himself.

Receiving Wallace’s paper – and realizing that he might be scientifically “scooped” by this unknown naturalist – prompted Darwin to rush his own writings, resulting in the presentation to the Linnean Society in 1858. Wallace’s paper, now known as the “Ternate paper,” was an elaboration of his thinking, based on an earlier first foray into the realm of evolutionary biology.

A few years earlier, when in Singapore, Wallace had met James Brooke, a British adventurer who, through incredible circumstances, had become the rajah of Sarawak, a large state on the island of Borneo. James Brooke would create a dynasty of Sarawak rulers, known as the white rajahs.

Upon their encounter, Brooke and Wallace became friends. Wallace fell in love with Sarawak and realized that it was a perfect collecting ground, mostly for insects, but also for the much sought-after orangutans. He stayed in the area a total of 14 months, his longest stay anywhere in the archipelago. Toward the end of his sojourn, Wallace was invited by Brooke to visit his cottage, a place up on the Bukit Peninjau that was pleasantly cool, surrounded by a lush and promising forest.

Wallace described it in his own words:

“This is a very steep pyramidal mountain of crystalline basaltic rock, about a thousand feet high, and covered with luxuriant forest. There are three Dyak villages upon it, and on a little platform near the summit is the rude wooden lodge where the English Rajah was accustomed to go for relaxation and cool fresh air. … The road up the mountain is a succession of ladders on the face of precipices, bamboo bridges over gullies and chasms, and slippery paths over rocks and tree-trunks and huge boulders as big as houses.”

The jungle surrounding the cottage was full of collecting possibilities – it was particularly good for moths. Wallace would sit in the cottage’s main room with the lights on at night, working, sometimes furiously fast, at pinning hundreds of specimens. In just three evening sessions, Wallace would write his “Sarawak Law” paper in this remote setting.

Whether consciously or not, Wallace was laying the foundation for understanding the processes of evolution. Working things through in this out-of-the-way cottage, he started to synthesize a new evolutionary theory that he’d fully develop in his Ternate paper.

Following In Wallace’s Sarawak Footsteps

I’ve been teaching evolution to college students for over two decades and have always been fascinated by the story of the “Sarawak Law” paper. On a recent trip to Borneo, I decided to try to retrace Wallace’s steps up to the cottage to see for myself where this pioneering paper was written.

Tracking down information about the exact location of Bukit Peninjau turned out to be a challenge in itself, but after a few mistakes and contradictory directions obtained from local villagers, my 16-year-old son Alessio and I found the trailhead.

The moment we started, it was obvious we had ventured off the beaten path. The trail is narrow, steep, slippery and at times barely recognizable as a path. The very steep incline, combined with the heat and humidity, make it difficult to negotiate.

While much has disappeared since Wallace’s time, a huge diversity of life forms is still visible. In the thick of the jungle along the lower part of the trail, we spotted several stands of the tallest flower in the world, the aptly named Amorphophallus. Hundreds of butterflies were everywhere, along with other peculiar arthropods, including giant ants and giant pill millipedes.

In some stretches, the trail is so steep that we had to rely on the knotted ropes that have been installed to help with the climb. Apparently red ants love those ropes as well – and our grasping hands just as much.

Eventually, after about an hour and a half of climbing and struggling, we reached a somewhat flat portion of the trail, not more than 30 feet (9 meters) long. On the right, a small path led up to a clearing, the former site of the cottage. It’s hard not to imagine Alfred Russel Wallace, thousands of miles from home, in complete scientific isolation, pondering the meaning of biological diversity. I was at a loss for words, though my teenage son was puzzled by the emotional meaning of the moment for me.

I walked around the cleared space where the cottage used to be, imagining the rooms, the jars, the nets, the moths and the notebooks. It’s an incredible feeling to share that space.

We walked down a slope to the huge overhanging rock where Brooke and Wallace found “refreshing baths and delicious drinking water.” The pools are gone now, filled in with natural debris, but the cave is still a welcome shelter from the sun.

We decided to climb to the top of the hill. Thirty minutes and buckets of sweat later, we arrived at a viewpoint where we could take in a view of the entire valley, unobstructed by the jungle. We saw oil palm farms, houses and roads. But my focus was on the river in the distance, used by Wallace to reach this place. I imagined what the primary forest, full of orangutans, birdwing butterflies and hornbills, must have looked like 160 years ago.

In the midst of this gorgeous but very harsh environment, Wallace was able to keep a clear head, think deeply about what it all meant, put it down on paper and send it to the most prominent biologist of the time, Charles Darwin.

Like many other evolution aficionados, I’ve visited the Galàpagos Islands and retraced Darwin’s footsteps. But it’s in this remote jungle, far from anyone and anything – perhaps because of the physical difficulties of reaching Rajah Brooke’s cottage combined with the raw beauty of the surroundings – that I felt a deeper connection with that long-ago time, when evolution was discovered.

Giacomo Bernardi, Professor of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, University of California, Santa Cruz

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

High, Supreme, Federal, Family, County – what do all our different courts actually do?

One way to understand how the courts in Australia are ranked is to imagine a pyramid and an umbrella.

Let’s start with the pyramid. Imagine three lines horizontally across the pyramid dividing it into four sections. Each section represents a court of each state or territory.

So what’s on the base of the pyramid, and what are the upper layers?

The Local Or Magistrates Courts

The bottom section represents the local or magistrates courts. It is biggest because it deals with the vast majority of court cases in Australia.

There is a single judicial officer presiding, and no jury. The bread and butter of these courts are minor crimes such as traffic offences, lesser assaults, shoplifting and possession of prohibited drugs.

These courts also have other roles including being children’s and coroners’ courts. They also deal with less serious civil disputes, where one person or company is suing another (under certain limits; in New South Wales, for example, that limit is A$100,000).

Local courts also deal with apprehended violence and restraining orders. The maximum sentence that can be handed out by a judge in a local court is generally two years imprisonment.

The other reason the bottom section of the pyramid is biggest is because all criminal matters start in the local court. The more serious ones work their way up to the higher courts for sentence or trial.

The District Court

The next section up the pyramid represents the District Court.

They deal with more serious crime such as sexual assault, major drug supply and high-level violence.

If the person on trial doesn’t plead guilty, there is a jury to determine guilt or innocence.

The district court also deals with serious civil disputes, generally where the amount is up to $750,000.

The Supreme Court

The Supreme Court is the next layer of the pyramid. It deals with the most serious civil and criminal cases, such as murder. They mostly have a jury in criminal cases.

They also deal with some specialty areas such as defamation.

The Courts Of Appeal

Finally, there is the Courts of Appeal, which are part of the Supreme Court, but sit above it.

They hear appeals from lower courts, and there are usually three judges sitting on each matter.

The really interesting aspect of the pyramid is that it represents not just more seriousness and less volume as you go up, but also the appeal process.

So, if you want to appeal from the Local Court, then you go the District Court, then from the District to the Supreme Court and so on.

The “doctrine of precedent” means rulings from higher courts are binding on lower ones.

The High Court And The Umbrella Model

But what if you want to appeal from the Court of Appeal? That’s where the umbrella comes in.

That appeal is to the High Court, which you can imagine as an umbrella that sits over each of the state or territory pyramids.

There is one High Court, based in Canberra, and its decisions are final, and binding throughout all parts of Australia.

Fun fact: up until the 1980s the highest court for Australia was in England! Called the Privy Council, it was possible to appeal from state and federal courts and let English law lords be the final decider. But Australia got rid of that system and now the highest court in the land is the High Court.

Some State-Based Variations

Is it all that simple? Not really.

First, in Tasmania the Australian Capital Territory and the Northern Territory there is no District Court level at all. These are small states and territories, with not enough people to necessitate this level of the pyramid.

Second, sometimes appeals jump a level. For example, they may go straight from the Local Court to the Supreme Court. And in some states, there are different names for each level. In Victoria the District Court is called the County Court, and in some places like the Northern Territory, magistrates are called judges.

Finally, there are some specialty courts like the NSW Land and Environment Court that sit at Supreme Court level.

Hang On, What About Federal Courts?

Just when you thought you had your pyramids in a row, along comes another complication: the federal system.

The Constitution divides up powers between the states and the Commonwealth.

The best example is family law, which is allocated to the Commonwealth and so the Federal Court system deals with divorce and related matters.

And so there is another pyramid which works across the whole country only this time it has two levels.

The lowest and biggest level is the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia, dealing mostly with family law (but also other federal matters such as immigration and welfare law).

The next level up is the Federal Court, which deals mainly with corporations law, bankruptcy and trade practices as well as hearing appeals from the lower court.

Don’t forget the umbrella, the High Court, which also hears appeals from the Federal Court.

A Whole Myriad Of Tribunals

I’m sorry to have to tell you it gets even more complex from there. There are also tribunals.

Sitting beneath the state, territory and federal court systems is a whole myriad of tribunals which deal with non-criminal matters.

New South Wales, for example, has the New South Wales Civil and Administrative Tribunal (NCAT), which deals with tenancy, consumer, guardianship, strata and licensing matters. It even has its own appeal panel as well (and if people still aren’t happy, they can then appeal to the courts).

The members of the tribunal are not judicial officers and are appointed for fixed periods.

Of course, if you were to strike out centuries of history and start afresh, you would likely just have one multilayered pyramid across the country with a single tribunal at the foot, and the High Court at the top.

We can live in hope. 

David Heilpern, Associate Professor and Chair of Discipline (Law), Southern Cross University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Uber plans a kids service to replace mum and dad’s taxi. What’s wrong with that? Plenty

Ride-share company Uber has just rolled out an option to book vehicles equipped with a children’s car seat across Melbourne. Uber is also considering allowing unaccompanied children to use its service.

In Australia, a recent study found most parents remain unwilling to let their children use a ride-share service unaccompanied. (Uber policy, like most ride-sharing companies, currently requires a solo passenger to be over 18.) There appears to be more acceptance in countries such as the United States where child-specific ride-shares are more widespread.

Many time-poor families are desperate for better alternatives to having to drive their children everywhere they need to go. There are indeed high social, economic and environmental costs associated with parental taxis.

But outsourcing this role to ride-share services is not the best solution. It will reinforce an over-reliance on cars, which is demonstrably harmful for children’s health and wellbeing.

What Are Parents’ Main Concerns?

The Australian study identified several factors that mattered to parents. These included:

• being able to decide the route of the vehicle

• who is able to drive and ride in the vehicle

• the presence of a designated adult waiting at the child’s destination

• technological features such as GPS tracking and two-way cameras to communicate with the child during the trip.

Clearly, a few roadblocks need to be overcome before these services gain broader appeal for families with children in Australia. But what would be the impact if they did go ahead? We should consider both the problems these services could solve and the problems they might create.

“Busy parents” is a phrase that comes up often when talking about children’s transport challenges and solutions. Child-specific ride-sharing seems to be a logical response to that problem. And Uber is not the the first car service for kids in Australia.

However, the benefits gained from these “care-drivers” (driver/babysitter) are likely to be offset by new anxieties for parents.

In particular, parents worry about their children’s safety in the company of an unknown adult. When it comes to trusting a service to transport unaccompanied children, Australian research found parents were more likely to voice concerns about ride-share services than autonomous vehicles.

This is likely to remain the case despite technologies enabling real-time monitoring of the child and other desired features of the ride-share vehicle. And these surveillance technologies raise additional ethical questions.

There’s Also Health And Wellbeing To Consider

Children’s dependence on cars to get around also affects their health. The risks range from road safety issues, noise and air pollution to being less active physically. A ride-share service for children would reinforce their families’ car dependence and the associated health issues.

Any child-specific ride-share service is also likely to magnify existing social and economic issues. To name a few:

1. the services would tend to be exclusive in nature, being more accessible for those who are well-off and able-bodied

2. passive commuting in cars would become even more passive in the absence of adults known to the children, further reducing their opportunities to construct their social identities and develop independence and self-reliance – parents, too, could have fewer opportunities to interact with each other and the broader community at school or sport events

3. both parents and children place a high value on the togetherness aspect of family trips to schools and extra-curricular activities, even when travelling by car. Child-only ride-share services would reduce the time spent together.

It All Comes Down To Car Dependence

The heavy reliance on private cars by families with children is one of the key challenges facing most WEIRD (Western, educated, industrialised, rich and democratic) countries. The emergence of ride-share services for children highlights the difficulties with children’s lifestyles dominated by the need to get to extra-curricular activities, often at non-local places.

Like any profit-driven approach, this kind of service raises concerns about exploitation of system-wide weaknesses. In this case, it’s the transport challenges faced by families with children.

These “solutions” also undermine various policies and programs that aim to create more socially and environmentally just communities. These include, for example, local living policies – such as so-called 20-minute neighbourhoods – which are central to most planning strategies across Australia.

Allowing unaccompanied kids to travel in high-tech, ride-share vehicles might help some parents in the short term. In the long term, though, it will create more complex problems. These parallel many of the well-reported issues associated with lives and societies shaped by the car – known as automobility.

Happier and healthier children should be the lens to look through at any new approaches to how children get around. Plenty of equitable and cost-effective solutions exist. The most obvious involve creating the social and environmental conditions for safe and convenient walking, cycling and public transport.

Having these solutions available instead of having to drive children would help time-poor families. And children can use all these transport options in groups, which eases safety concerns. There are, for example, walking school buses and bike trains.

People and cities have much to gain from a move away from a narrow view of technology – such as retrofitting cars for monitoring and controlling children. Instead, we can use technology to promote healthier, greener and more equitable ways of getting around.

Hulya Gilbert, Lecturer in Planning and Human Geography, La Trobe University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Is there a ‘right to disobey’? From the Vietnam War to today’s climate protests

One of the first moves of the newly elected Whitlam Labour government in December 1972 was to free seven men imprisoned for their beliefs. Their crime had been refusal to comply with the National Service Act, a so-called “lottery of death” that sent some 15,300 young Australians to fight in Vietnam. Two hundred of them never came home.

The issue of national service – often dubbed “the draft” following American vernacular – was perhaps the most powerful in the anti-war movement’s arsenal. “Draft resisters” mobilised public sentiment with their heroic stands, respectable mothers campaigned to “Save our Sons” and, as I explore in a newly published book chapter, the Australian wing of Amnesty International classed these men as “prisoners of conscience”.

Today, Australia grapples again with the question of criminalising conscience. Laws in several Australian states impose harsh penalties on the use of “direct action” by climate change activists. Fifty years ago, similar questions of a right to disobey sparked fierce debates: where should the legal limits of conscience lie?

In Australia, It Is A Crime Not To Kill

National service was re-introduced in Australia in 1964, with a previous scheme having quietly ended in 1959. The first “nashos” were committed to Vietnam in 1966. The scheme was highly selective – by its end some 800,000 20-year-olds had registered and less than 10% had been “called up”.

Opposition to national service emerged almost immediately, through such groups as the Youth Campaign Against Conscription. In November 1966, Sydney schoolteacher Bill White became the first person imprisoned for failure to comply with the act. He had applied for conscientious objector status almost a year earlier, but been denied because he did not fit the strict criteria.

Public outrage played a part in White’s early release in December 1966, but over time penalties became more harsh. John Zarb, a part-time postman, received a two-year sentence in October 1968 for refusing to comply with his call-up notice. His opposition to the Vietnam war only, rather than war in general, made him ineligible for objector status.

These moral-political stances encouraged further opposition. As well as releasing jailed objectors, Whitlam’s incoming government threw out cases against 350 individuals. For the anti-war movement, these cases demonstrated the conflict’s contradictions. As one activist leaflet put it: “In Australia, it is a crime not to kill.”

The Politics Of Conscience

To a nascent human rights movement, however, the issue was not as clear-cut. Amnesty International, founded by the British lawyer Peter Benenson in 1961, established an early foothold in Australia. A Victorian section was founded in March 1962, and groups in other states soon followed.

One of the group’s appeals was its rejection of “Cold War” politics. By adopting “prisoners of consciences” from the first, second and third worlds, they could claim impartiality, while the use of letter writing as a tactic invoked the power of global opinion.

Yet the definition of a prisoner of conscience in the group’s early years proved controversial. To meet Amnesty’s definition, a prisoner needed to have been jailed for crimes of opinion and have not advocated violence. Infamously, this definition excluded Nelson Mandela. For Amnesty, the question of whether objectors like White or Zarb should be considered prisoners of conscience divided the Victorian and New South Wales sections.

The Victorians believed those who “register for national service and apply for exemption”, but whose “applications fail either through some apparent miscarriage of justice or because the law does not presently encompass their objections […] are prima facie eligible for adoption”. However, those who “basically refuse to co-operate with the National Service Act” merely “maintain a right to disobey a law which they believe to be immoral” – and adopting them would “seriously damage […] our high repute”.

The New South Wales section condemned this “legalistic interpretation”. Instead, it insisted “the Non-Complier in gaol for conscientiously held […] views suffers no less than one who has tried in vain to act ‘according to the law’ ”. The Victorians’ belief that Amnesty should accept some degree of compulsion in democratic societies was also challenged: conscription was in fact a universal problem that occurred on both sides of the “Iron Curtain”.

Is It Right To Resist?

In the end, the views of the New South Wales section won out. Amnesty sections around the world adopted Australian non-compliers.

This clash of principles reminds us that human rights have never been straightforward. Rather, these ideas have long been open to contest and reinterpretation. From today’s vantage point, it also seems the Victorian section’s belief that the right to disobey could be limited was wildly optimistic.

Indeed, the sentencing of climate protester Deanna “Violet” Coco to 15 months in jail for the crime of disrupting traffic in New South Wales shows that the questions posed by Amnesty in the 1960s are very much still with us. The climate emergency is in many ways the Vietnam of today’s young people. The 50th anniversary of the release of resisters to that conflict should give today’s decision-makers pause for thought.

Jon Piccini, Lecturer in History, Australian Catholic University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

William Wordsworth and the Romantics anticipated today’s idea of a nature-positive life

Musical performances usually happen in concert halls or clubs, but famed cellist Yo-Yo Ma is exploring a new venue: U.S. national parks. In a project called Our Common Nature, Ma is performing in settings such as the Great Smoky Mountains and the Grand Canyon. By making music and bringing people together in scenic places, Ma aims to help humans understand where they fit in the natural world.

“What if there’s a way that we can end up thinking and feeling and knowing that we are coming from nature, that we’re a part of nature, instead of just thinking: What can we use it for?” Ma mused in a recent New York Times article.

There’s a buzzword for this outlook: nature-positive. And it’s cropping up at high-level meetings, including the 2021 G-7 summit in Cornwall, England and the COP15 biodiversity conference in Montreal that adopted an ambitious framework for protecting nature in December 2022.

As a group of environmental leaders wrote in 2021: “A nature positive approach enriches biodiversity, stores carbon, purifies water and reduces pandemic risk. In short, a nature positive approach enhances the resilience of our planet and our societies.”

This is a dramatic shift from the mentality that has driven industrialization and global economic growth over the past 250 years. But it’s not new. As a researcher in the humanities and author of “Radical Wordsworth: The Poet Who Changed the World,” I see nature positivity as a welcome revival of an outlook that English poet William Wordsworth and other Romantics proposed in the late 1700s.

The Birth Of The Sublime

In the preindustrial era, when life was dominated by hard manual labor, wild nature wasn’t viewed as a terribly attractive place. In the 1720s, writer Daniel Defoe, touring across the island of Great Britain, denounced the mountains and lakes of northwest England as “the wildest, most barren and frightful of any that I have passed over.”

The mountains were horrible to look at, impossible to pass over and, worst of all, had “no lead mines and veins of rich ore, no Coal Pits,” Defoe wrote. They were “all barren and wild, of no use or advantage either to Man or Beast.”

Attitudes began to change a generation later, with the expansion of a middle class that had the leisure and resources to enjoy a spot of tourism. Early guidebooks gave directions to viewpoints, or “stations,” that opened onto spectacularly beautiful vistas.

Philosophers and poets began to view natural phenomena such as ocean waves, lightning flashes over a mountain or the darkness of old-growth forests with awestruck pleasure rather than fear. They called these sights the “sublime,” a word that we still reach for when contemplating, say, the vastness of the Arctic or the Amazon. As Barry Lopez, author of “Arctic Dreams,” once wrote, the “sublime encounter” with such places offers us a profound “resonance with a system of unmanaged, nonhuman-centered relationships”.

Romanticism emerged as the steam engine and the spinning jenny were driving mass urbanization. As workers flocked from farms to grimy cities in search of manufacturing jobs, a reaction set in: yearning for a return to nature. This became the hallmark of the Romantic movement that flourished across Europe through the mid-1800s.

‘A Sort Of National Property’

Many writers, thinkers and artists contributed to this outpouring of nature-positivity. Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony and the paintings of J. M. W. Turner are examples. But in the English-speaking world, none were more influential than Wordsworth (1770-1850).

Born and raised in England’s Lake District, Wordsworth felt alienated from fellow students at Cambridge. As an aspiring journalist in London, he was stunned to discover that many people did not know their next door neighbor’s name. Only when Wordsworth returned to nature – first in the English west country and then when he went home to the Lakes – did he become his true self and write his greatest poetry.

In verse and prose, Wordsworth made a series of revolutionary claims. In the preface to his 1800 collection of poems, “Lyrical Ballads,” he argued that men and women who live indigenously within a natural environment are uniquely in tune with “the essential passions of the heart” because their very humanity is “incorporated with the beautiful and permanent forms of nature.”

In his “Guide to the Lakes,” Wordsworth warned against such innovations as planting non-native conifers that spoiled the beauty and eroded the soil of his native region. Instead, he proposed preserving places of outstanding natural beauty like the Lake District as “a sort of national property.”

This idea later would help to inspire the U.S. national park system and England’s National Trust. Today the concepts of conservation zones and protected areas are central to the goal of a nature-positive world.

Inspired by Wordsworth’s idea that the health of human society depends on a healthy relationship with the environment, the great Victorian social thinker John Ruskin turned economic theory on its head. In polemical pamphlets and public lectures, Ruskin argued that the basis of what was then known as “political economy” should be not labor and capital, production and consumption, but “Pure Air, Water, and Earth.”

Almost exactly 150 years later, on July 28, 2022, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution recognizing a universal human right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment.

Colonial Conservation?

Wordsworth’s influence on the conservation movement wasn’t entirely benign. Late in life, he lamented that his very advocacy of the beauty of the Lake District had brought in a mass tourist industry that had the potential to destroy the very beauty he sought to preserve.

Furthermore, protecting wild places risks displacing indigenous peoples who have lived in harmony with the land for centuries. Creating conservation zones and protected areas in the rain forests of Central America and the Amazon basin has sometimes shut out local tribes.

Organizations such as the Sierra Club and the U.S. National Park Service are now striving to transcend this long history of “colonial conservation.” The importance of working together with indigenous peoples and learning from their time-honored values and conservation practices received new attention at major conferences on climate change and biodiversity in 2022, although some observers argued that the resulting commitments fell short of what was needed.

In my view, Wordsworth knew that the truly nature-positive are those whose livelihoods and senses of self and community are wholly bound to their native places. As he wrote in “Michael,” the great pastoral poem at the climax of “Lyrical Ballads”:

  And grossly that man errs, who should suppose
  That the green valleys, and the streams and rocks,
  Were things indifferent to the Shepherd’s thoughts.
  ... these fields, these hills
  Which were his living Being even more
  Than his own blood—what could they less? had laid
  Strong hold on his affections, were to him
  A pleasurable feeling of blind love,
  The pleasure which there is in life itself.

Jonathan Bate, Foundation Professor of Environmental Humanities, Arizona State University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Over the holidays, try talking to your relatives like an anthropologist

How is it possible to spend so much time with your parents and grandparents and not really know them?

This question has puzzled me as an anthropologist. It’s especially relevant for the holiday season, when millions of people travel to spend time with their families.

When my parents were alive, I traveled long distances to be with them. We had the usual conversations: what the kids were doing, how the job was going, aches and pains. It wasn’t until after my parents died, though, that I wondered whether I really knew them in a deep, rich and nuanced way. And I realized that I’d never asked them about the formative periods of their lives, their childhoods and teenage years.

What had I missed? How had this happened?

In fact, I had interviewed my mother a few years before her death. But I only asked her about other relatives – people I was curious about because my father’s job had taken us to places away from the rest of the family. I based my questions for my mother on the bit of information I already had, to build a family tree. You might say I didn’t know what I didn’t know.

I decided to research the kinds of questions that would have elicited from my mother things about her life that I had no clue about and that now remain hidden and lost forever. I interviewed older people to develop questions that would paint a vivid picture of a person’s life as a child and teenager. I wanted details that would help me see the world that had influenced the person they became.

So I used my training as an anthropologist to ask the type of questions an anthropologist would ask when trying to understand a way of life or culture they know little about. Anthropologists want to see the world from another person’s point of view, through a new lens. The answers I got from older people opened whole new worlds for me.

Probing The Mundane

One secret to having a deep conversation with your elders when you’re together over the holidays is to set aside your customary role. Forget, for the space of the interview, about your role as their grandchild or child, niece or nephew, and think like an anthropologist.

Most genealogical inquiries concentrate on the big life events like births, deaths and marriages, or building a family tree.

But anthropologists want to know about ordinary life: interactions with neighbors, how the passage of time was experienced, objects that were important to them, what children were afraid of, what courtship practices were like, parenting styles and more.

When you ask about social life, you’ll get descriptions that paint a picture of what it was like to be a child figuring things out back then – when, for instance, as one relative explained, “Unless you were told to go and say hello to Grandma, you never just, as a child, spoke to adults.”

On the other hand, when you ask about important objects, you’ll hear about those tangible things that pass from generation to generation in your family that are vessels of value. These ordinary things can convey stories about family life, just as this person who grew up in the U.K. describes:

“Mum used to say to me that the best part of the day was me coming home from school, coming in the back door and sitting on the stool in the kitchen and just talking, a mother-daughter thing. I’ve still got that stool from the kitchen. My father built it in evening classes. My children remember sitting on the stool in the kitchen, too, while Grandma was baking, passing time, drinking cups of tea and eating shortbread.”

My interview subject, now a grandparent herself, had a hard time understanding the fascination young people have with the social worlds contained in their phones.

But on the topic of phones, I found there can also be unexpected points of connection across generations. When I asked one grandparent about the home she grew up in, as she was visualizing her home in rural South Dakota, she suddenly remembered the telephone they had, a “party line” phone, which was common in the U.S. back then.

All the families in the area shared one phone line, and you were supposed to only pick up the phone when you heard your family’s special ring – a certain number of rings. But as she told it, her mother’s connection to the community was greatly expanded even then by telephone technology:

“We had a phone, and it was on a party line. And you know, we would have our ring, and of course, you’d hear the other rings too. And then sometimes, my mom would sneak it and lift up the receiver to see what was going on.”

‘All You Have To Do Is Ask’

I enjoyed the interviews with older people so much that I gave my students at the University of Texas at Austin the assignment to interview their grandparents. They ended up having exhilarating, interesting and generation-bridging conversations.

Their experiences, along with mine, led me to write a guide for people wanting to learn more about their parents’ and grandparents’ early lives, to protect a part of family history that is precious and easily lost.

Grandparents are often lonely and feel no one listens or takes what they have to say seriously. I found out that this can be because many of us don’t know how to start a conversation that gives them a chance to talk about the vast knowledge and experience they have.

By taking the position of an anthropologist, my students were able to step out of their familiar frame of reference and see the world as older generations did. One student even told the class that after interviewing her grandmother, she wished she could have been a young person in her grandmother’s time.

Often, the tales of “ordinary” life relayed to my students by their older relatives seemed anything but ordinary. They included going to schools segregated by race, women needing a man to accompany them in order to be allowed into a pub or restaurant, and leaving school in the sixth grade to work on the family farm.

Time and again, grandparents said some version of “no one’s asked me these questions before.”

When I was first developing the right questions to ask older family members, I asked one of my research participants to interview her elderly mother about daily life when she was a child. Toward the end of that interview, she said to her mother, “I never knew this stuff before.”

In response, her 92-year-old mother said, “All you have to do is just ask.”

Elizabeth Keating, Professor of Anthropology, The University of Texas at Austin College of Liberal Arts

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Can we ethically justify harming animals for research?

Neuralink, the biotechnology company co-founded by Elon Musk, has been accused of animal cruelty and is under federal investigation in the United States for potential animal welfare violations.

The company has tested its brain-implant technology in animals including monkeys, sheep and pigs. Whistleblowers allege it has killed about 1,500 animals since 2018.

They claim testing was rushed, which caused significant animal suffering and required botched experiments to be repeated – harming more animals than necessary.

This scandal highlights an old but important question: when is it acceptable to harm non-human animals for human ends?

Moral Confusion

The condemnation of Neuralink suggests many people view animal suffering as a serious moral problem. We find similar attitudes when people are outraged by pet owners neglecting or abusing their pets.

But our responses to animal suffering are complicated. Surveys show many people think at least some forms of animal research are ethically acceptable, such as medical research where alternatives aren’t available. Most people also think it is not morally evil to buy a hamburger, animal welfare concerns aside.

Our attitudes towards animals are confusing – and arguably self-serving. We need to think more carefully about how animals ought to be treated.

Do Animals Matter?

In the 17th century, philosopher René Descartes famously described animals as mere “automata”. He believed they lack a soul and a mind, and are therefore incapable of suffering.

But progress in fields such as ethology and the cognitive sciences has improved our understanding of animal behaviour, and we have come to appreciate animals have rich mental lives. There is now scientific consensus that mammals, birds and many others are capable of feeling pain and pleasure.

One might argue that, even if animals can suffer, ethics should only concern how we treat fellow humans since animals are not “one of us”. But this view is unsatisfying.

If somebody were to say it doesn’t matter how we treat people with a different skin colour, because they are not “one of us”, we would (rightly) call them racist. Those who claim the same about animals can be accused of making a similar mistake.

Our treatment of animals has come under increasing philosophical scrutiny since the time of Descartes. Some of the most powerful challenges have come from utilitarian philosophers such as Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) and Peter Singer, whose 1975 book Animal Liberation was a rallying point for critics of livestock farming and animal research.

But the case for animal welfare isn’t just utilitarian. Thinkers from diverse philosophical traditions share this position.

Philosophical Views On Animal Welfare

Philosophers usually think about animal suffering in accordance with one of three moral theories: utilitarianism, deontology and virtue ethics.

Utilitarians believe we should do what best promotes the overall wellbeing of everybody affected by a choice. They typically hold that all suffering matters equally, regardless of who experiences it, or even what species they belong to.

In 1789, Bentham argued that when it comes to animal welfare:

[…] the question is not, can they reason? Nor, can they talk? But can they suffer?

Deontologists emphasise duties and rights over welfare. They maintain we are not morally permitted to violate rights, even when doing so would promote overall wellbeing.

The great deontologist philosopher Immanuel Kant held that humans have rights because of our rationality (which more or less refers to our abilities to reason and make moral decisions). Kant believed animals aren’t rational and therefore don’t have rights (although he claimed we should still refrain from mistreating them since, according to him, that might make us more likely to mistreat humans).

Kant’s rejection of animal rights faces two challenges. First, some argue certain intelligent species, such as elephants and chimpanzees, are also rational and hence deserve rights.

Second, many contemporary deontologists argue we should set a less demanding threshold for moral rights. Rather than requiring rationality, they suggest it might be enough for an animal to have desires and interests.

Virtue ethicists take yet another approach. They think morality is a matter of developing and practising good character traits, such as honesty and compassion, while avoiding traits like dishonesty and cowardice. Virtue ethicists who deal with animal ethics have argued animal experimentation displays and reinforces vices like callousness and cruelty, particularly when research is unlikely to achieve morally important goals.

Neuralink Revisited

In Australia and the United States, animal research is governed largely by the “three Rs”: directives to replace animal research with other strategies when feasible, reduce the number of animals used as much as possible, and refine experimental techniques to minimise animal pain.

If the reports about Neuralink are correct, the company failed to adhere to these. But what if Neuralink had conducted experiments in line with the three Rs – would this have resolved all ethical concerns?

Probably not. The three Rs are silent on one crucial question: whether the scientific gains from a particular study are great enough to justify the harms that research may inflict.

So long as an experiment is scientifically sound, one could, in principle, follow the three Rs to the letter while still inflicting severe suffering on a great many animals, and with little prospect of benefiting humans. If animals have moral worth, as the utilitarian, deontological and virtue ethical views state, then at least some scientifically sound animal research should not be conducted.

Neuralink has admirable goals, which include curing paralysis, blindness and depression.

But utilitarians might question whether the expected benefits are great enough (or likely enough) to outweigh the significant harms to animals. Deontologists might question whether any of the species used have moral rights against being experimented on, particularly intelligent ones such as monkeys and pigs. And virtue ethicists might worry the testing performed involves vices such as callousness.

Where Are We Headed?

Animal research is widely practised in Australia, with more than 6 million animals reportedly used per year. Some (but not all) of this research involves significant pain and suffering. Mice are the most common animal used, though species such as dogs, cats and non-human primates are also used.

The vast number of lives at stake mean it is imperative to get the ethics right.

This means developing a more comprehensive set of principles for animal research than the three Rs: one that will help us more effectively balance scientific benefit against harms to research animals. At least among philosophers, this work is already under way.

It might also involve revisiting the question of when (if ever) certain species should be used in research. Australia imposes special restrictions on the use of non-human primates. Other jurisdictions have banned or considered banning ape research. What other intelligent species ought to receive additional protections?

We need to look beyond the three Rs for a full assessment of the ethics of animal research – both for Neuralink and beyond.

Julian Koplin, Lecturer in Bioethics, Monash University & Honorary fellow, Melbourne Law School, Monash University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.