Land In Australia Research Articles

Australian indigenous public spheres: from the ground up

This article analyses the 1998/99 ‘Don’t cut off our tongues’ campaign by the Yolngu people from North-East Arnhem Land in Australia’s Northern Territory. This public sphere activity involved a sophisticated media strategy to defend the right to educate their children in Yolngu languages, as well as English. It shows that through a range of media-related practices based in their land, the Yolngu were integral in preventing the Northern Territory government from axing the bilingual education programmes that operated in their schools. This article argues that engaging with a specific indigenous knowledge system offers fresh insights into Australian indigenous public spheres and how they operate.

Conveying Sacred Knowledge through Contemporary Architectural Design: The Garma Cultural Knowledge Centre

The Indigenous peoples of north east Arnhem Land in Australia (Yolngu) overlay their culture with the customs and social behaviour of other societies to achieve positive outcomes and autonomy. Passing down cultural knowledge is intrinsic to the cultural identity of Yolngu. The paper discusses the recently completed Garma Cultural Knowledge Centre and examines the cultural knowledge conveyed through the medium of contemporary architecture design. The paper finds that the Garma Cultural Knowledge Centre combined aspects of non-Aboriginal and Aboriginal cultures to form a coherent whole with multi-facetted meanings.

Terra Nullius: Colonial Violence in Prynne’s <i>Acrylic Tips</i>

Examining J.H. Prynne’s Acrylic Tips through a series of analogous readings, this paper identifies the location, characters, and themes of the poem. By examining the poem and the contiguities with Her Weasel’s Wild Returning, Acrylic Tips is positioned against the historical decree of terra nullius over the sovereign land of Australia. The poem is read against and situated in the colonial and linguistic history of Australia. Read as a pastoral elegy, the poem depicts a hierarchy of human dominance over nature, which finds its ends in the colonial shearing shed, as well as the genetic laboratory. These positions are ultimately argued to be socio-political by-products of the colonial dominance of Indigenous culture and nature.

Concept development of family farms in Ukraine, from the experience of foreign countries

It studies the preconditions of creation, functioning of farms in Ukraine and foreign countries. In the course of the study revealed that over the years 1990-2015, the number of farms increased from 332 to 54 302 is 915, 40 thousand hectares of land. For a specified period on one farm had between 12.0 to 78.8 ha of agricultural land (the most notable growth occurred in the period from 1990-1995, he was almost 100 times). Despite this, farming did not become efficient producers of agricultural products. In contrast, in the world more than 500 million farms (87,7%) of the total number belong to families that produce 56% of such production. In the US, family farms handle 78% of the agricultural land of the country, producing 84% of all agricultural products worth 230 billion dollars. In foreign countries is significantly different size of farms. In North America for a farmer falls from 190,0 to 600,0 ha, in most of the countries of Asia and Africa – 2,0 - 100,0 ha of land in Australia and New Zealand from 2 to 20 thousand hectares, and the like. In the EU land farms range from 2,0 – 500,0 ha. These countries are moving towards support of small, home gardens and farms. The results of the research showed that farmers that are the main producers of agricultural products in the developed world are high-performance enterprises despite the size of the economy, because in these countries there is a deliberate policy to support agricultural producers to improve production efficiency, ensuring sustainable land management. The competitiveness of these farms is justified by the presence of the developed forecasting and planning their development strategies. Besides, in world practice there are three main types of enterprise development strategies, each of which is fully justified by the specificity of production: growth strategy (development), a strategy of constancy and survival strategy.From the experience of foreign countries, to achieve efficient, ecological and safe agricultural land use in the article the concept of development of family farming, key aspects of which are: 1) rehabilitation Institute of farming; 2) to regulate the size of the land to create farms from 2.0 500.0 ha, taking into account prospects of development of these farms and their specialization; 3) development of land management projects concerning ecological-economic substantiation of crop rotation and streamline land – the basis of compliance with environmentally sound land management; 4) creation of an agrarian Bank, the special purpose of which would be the service of production and not the circulation of land sub-divisions at the regional level with the aim of establishing cooperation with producers of agricultural products; 5) extension of long-term loans commodity, interest rate subsidies, to establish tax incentives which would foster the development of farms and agricultural businesses in General; 6) development of consumer cooperation, which is an efficient mechanism of delivering products to consumers; 7) ensuring the stability of the purchase prices for agricultural products; 8) improving the mechanism of state regulation of agricultural imports in favor of domestic producers; 9) the implementation of farms of family type with a clear definition of its participants and addressing the possibility of involvement of hired labor for these farms; 10) the organization of training of farmers in the developed world, with the aim of acquiring skills in management and economic activities. Keywords: farm, family farm, college, concept development, foreign experience.

Can recreational hunting contribute to pest mammal control on public land in Australia?

Abstract Natural resource management agencies in many countries take advantage of recreational hunting to manage the impacts or abundance of mammal populations that damage biodiversity or environmental, economic, or social values. In Australia, public lands are increasingly being made available for recreational hunters to pursue introduced mammals that can cause substantial damage to important resources. There is fervent debate over the role that recreational hunting might play in controlling introduced mammals in Australia, and scant evidence to build management strategies upon. In this review, we combine information from Australia and elsewhere in a systematic examination of the potential for recreational hunting to contribute to the control of introduced mammals on public lands in Australia. We examine the traits of introduced mammal species and populations, geographical settings, hunters, and management agencies to propose situations where hunting might be most useful, and suggest how current practice could be improved. We find there is insufficient evidence to support or disprove arguments that contemporary recreational hunting programs are effective at controlling introduced mammal populations on public lands. Moreover, current hunting management programs offer little potential for clarifying the situation or optimizing the value of recreational hunting as a pest animal control tool. To resolve this problem, we outline a framework of competing models and diagnostic criteria for assessing the effects of recreational hunting on introduced mammal populations. We contend that hunting will continue to be an under‐utilized and over‐politicized resource until management strategy is informed by transparent monitoring based on rational strategic objectives that provide mutual benefits to hunters and public resource managers.

Talking camels: a consultation strategy for consent to conduct feral camel management on Aboriginal-owned land in Australia

Thorough consultation and informed consent are required for any work on Aboriginal-owned land in Australia. Consultations for feral camel (Camelus dromedarius) management under the Australian Feral Camel Management Project across the Northern Territory, Western Australia and South Australia were conducted across a vast area, spanning a diversity of cultures and landscape types. Aboriginal organisations from these jurisdictions developed consultative processes that supported Aboriginal communities in making informed decisions on any removal of camels from their country. This article describes the communication techniques used to depict the feral camel issues and opportunities to Aboriginal communities at the local and landscape scale. The decisions that communities arrived at were varied, but consistently focussed on feral camel removal. Their decisions have led to broad-scale feral camel removal under the Australian Feral Camel Management Project, and beyond.

The Politics of Possession in Paddy O’Reilly’s <em>The Factory</em>

In first chapter of The Factory (2005) protagonist Hilda, writing from a Japanese prison, says,I remember someone saying to me when I first came to this country, may speak perfect Japanese. You may live like Japanese, sound like Japanese, believe what Japanese believe. But you will never be Japanese: (2).This statement provides spur for novel's sustained engagement with nature of national, cultural, and racial identity. This essay highlights way novel both problematizes and reproduces borders that govern who is Japanese and who is and, by extension, who is not Japanese and who is not Australian. The above extract presents Japanese identity as incommensurable with identity, and sees as distinct from Asia:The label Australian [. . .] separates from its place AsiaPacific region and from plethora of its connections with and interests other parts of world; one of effects of this is to assimilate it to a model of white and settled Australianness that does little justice to its internal heterogeneity. (Frow 60)Suvendrini Perera characterizes imaginary borders between and as not simply territorial or national but defined by racial identities as well: the geographical of island-body, Australia, from islands of is paralleled by a process of racial differentiation (3).However The Factory also problematizes this border thinking with its genuine desire to integrate with Asia, despite nationalising forces showcased above (Iwabuchi 17). The increase rhetoric around issue of entering so called Asian Century and various anxieties surrounding Rising Asia (Walker and Sobocinska 1), highlight topical nature of novel's attempts to become part of Asia (O'Carroll and Hodge 157). O'Reilly wrote novel with help of an Asialink writing-in-residence scholarship. Asialink, an affiliate of University of Melbourne, focuses on public understanding of countries of and of Australia's role region, something echoed its tagline Building an Asia-capable Australia (Asialink). In addition, novel clearly represents what is being termed turn literature (Ommundsen 2), typifying urge to Australia's gaze to areas beyond nation (Dixon 20).This transnational gaze reflects Benedict Anderson's metaphor of inverted telescope The Spectre of Comparisons. For Anderson, while telescopic gaze of Europe on highlights a traditional authoritative gaze, reciprocal gaze that looks back through telescope, now an inverted telescope, sees Europe as not enlarged but a miniaturized object. For Anderson this makes it forever impossible to take Europe for granted (20), and he therefore questions West's assumed centrality cross-cultural comparison. The Factory does indeed stage this questioning of authoritative gaze of Westerner or Australian, especially as it seriously calls into question legitimacy of Hilda's authorial voice and way that voice represents Japan from an authoritative perspective. However, this destabilization of authoritative Western gaze takes place displaced transnational space of Japan, significantly not space of Australia. The inflection of Anderson's telescope ventures into space of Japan, and yet reciprocal gaze does not extend back into land of Australia. Thus, to follow Harry Harootunian's critique that in Anderson's gaze Europe still appears dangerously magnified (141), novel risks guarding from outside transnational, as well as internal, scrutiny.The novel's interplay between national and transnational thinking culminates, at end of novel, Hilda's retreat from Japan and tacit acknowledgement that she will never, indeed, be Japanese. …

Bioeconomic modelling of woody regrowth carbon offset options in productive grazing systems

Agricultural land has been identified as a potential source of greenhouse gas emissions offsets through biosequestration in vegetation and soil. In the extensive grazing land of Australia, landholders may participate in the Australian Government’s Emissions Reduction Fund and create offsets by reducing woody vegetation clearing and allowing native woody plant regrowth to grow. This study used bioeconomic modelling to evaluate the trade-offs between an existing central Queensland grazing operation, which has been using repeated tree clearing to maintain pasture growth, and an alternative carbon and grazing enterprise in which tree clearing is reduced and the additional carbon sequestered in trees is sold. The results showed that ceasing clearing in favour of producing offsets produces a higher net present value over 20 years than the existing cattle enterprise at carbon prices, which are close to current (2015) market levels (~$13 t–1 CO2-e). However, by modifying key variables, relative profitability did change. Sensitivity analysis evaluated key variables, which determine the relative profitability of carbon and cattle. In order of importance these were: the carbon price, the gross margin of cattle production, the severity of the tree–grass relationship, the area of regrowth retained, the age of regrowth at the start of the project, and to a lesser extent the cost of carbon project administration, compliance and monitoring. Based on the analysis, retaining regrowth to generate carbon income may be worthwhile for cattle producers in Australia, but careful consideration needs to be given to the opportunity cost of reduced cattle income.

Callitris intratropica R.T. Baker & H.G. Smith as a Novel Rich Source of Deoxypodophyllotoxin

Callitris intratropica is one of the 25 species [15] of the genus Callitris most of which are native to Australia. This cypress tree grows mainly on aboriginal land in Australia's Northern Territory and the wood and especially the bark has been used by the aborigines as a traditional herbal remedy [16]. The tree was also used as a timber since it is a rather hard wood, resistant to termites and weatherproof. Plantations were created but since the tree grows only very slowly that business was abandoned. The dense wood has a pleasant aromatic woody smell reminiscent to some sort of incense and burns very well even when wet. The smoke repels mosquitoes thus surmising insecticidal properties. Not surprisingly it was found that the wood contains essential oil that could be recovered by hydrodistillation. It is produced commercially but up to now finds only limited use as a fragrance material for the cosmetic and perfume industry [17] and is sold in small quantities for aroma therapeutic and phytomedical purposes. The raw viscous blue oil obtained by hydrodistillation of the wood and bark is high in guaiol and bulnesol, and by cooling a substantial part of these sesquiterpene alcohols is removed through crystallisation. The remaining blue oil is the marketable product sold under the name Australian blue cypress oil. The blue color is the result of the formation of azulenes during distillation. Essential oil obtained from the heartwood alone has just an orange yellow color and no azulenes but aside from that a very similar composition as the blue cypress oil.

Late Cenozoic paleovalley fill sequence from the Southern Liverpool Plains, New South Wales—implications for groundwater resource evaluation

The Liverpool Plains in northern New South Wales contain some of the best agricultural land in Australia and are underlain by extensive smectite clay-dominated soils sourced from weathering the alkali basalts of the Liverpool Ranges. It had been thought that a relatively simple geological model explained the underlying Cenozoic sequence with salt-rich clays of the Narrabri Formation overlying sands and gravel aquifers comprising the Gunnedah Formation. Extensive groundwater modelling based upon this simple conceptualisation has been used in management plans proposed by the mining and agricultural industries. A 31.5 m core has been recovered using minimally disturbed triple-tube coring methods at Cattle Lane (Latitude –31.52° S, Longitude 150.47° E) to resolve uncertainty concerning the aquitard status of the upper layer. Recovered core has been examined and tested to determine grainsize, cation-exchange capacity, X-ray diffraction, X-ray fluorescence and microscopic examination of granular components. These measurements complement surface and borehole geophysical techniques, hydrogeological data and hydrochemical analysis of water samples recovered from a series of specially constructed piezometers adjacent to the cored hole. The sequence overlies a Late Cretaceous channel cut into Permian bedrock at 91 m depth with sands and clays below 31.5 m considered to represent various alluvial fill events mostly occurring since the Early Pliocene. Erosion of Late Eocene alkali basalts on the Liverpool Ranges, with the formation of smectite clays, pedogenic carbonates and with the addition of quartz from both eolian sources and locally derived from adjacent Triassic sandstone hills, provides the great majority of the sediment recovered from the cores. Late Pleistocene (114 ka) to Holocene ages were determined for the core from three optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) measurements on fine sands (13, 23 and 29 m BG). Detailed examination has failed to detect any evidence of a boundary between Narrabri and Gunnedah formations revealing rather a gradual change in dominance of clays and silts over sands and gravels embedded in a clay-rich matrix. This result challenges the conceptualisation used to conduct groundwater modelling on the Liverpool Plains.

Entangled invasive lives: indigenous invasive plant management in northern australia

This article explores the entanglement of two kinds of invasive lives in northern Australia: invasive plants, and the enduring life of the unfinished colonial project, which continues to have implications for indigenous peoples. In the extensive indigenous lands of Australia's tropical north, communities have increasing responsibility for invasive plant management among other pressing land management tasks. In a context of climate change and novel ecosystems, these entanglements exacerbate environmental management challenges in the tropical savanna and affect indigenous livelihoods. Drawing on arguments that it is necessary to literally speak novel ecologies, we here enunciate and describe a novel ecological assemblage we call Indigenous Invasive Plant Management (IIPM). Historical accounts and contemporary ethnography (semi‐structured interviews and participant observation undertaken in 2010–2013) show a lingering colonial heritage in the ways that IIPM is entwined with tenure and governance issues, and in its everyday practice. These findings illustrate how IIPM can risk being a form of continuing dispossession as well as having good potential outcomes.

Food security or commercial business? Gulf State investments in Australian agriculture

Worldwide investments in agricultural land have gained much attention in recent years, resulting in renewed awareness of land as being a scarce and finite resource. This paper investigates a case of South-to-North land deals, namely investments from the Arab Gulf targeting agricultural land in Australia. For the Arab Gulf States that highly depend on external food supplies, investment abroad is one strategy to guarantee future food security. At the same time, leading Australian political and economic representatives have been eager to attract investments from the Gulf. Increasing foreign investment in Australian land has, however, provoked a vivid public debate in Australia. Concepts of foreign direct investment and its role are currently renegotiated on the federal level with regard to Australia's own food security, the ‘national interest’ and the redefinition of ‘Australian agricultural land’. While these concerns also play out on the local level, investments have to be seen within the wider context of Australian ruralities. The paper reveals how food security and commercial and financial interests intersect and become blurred within current transformations of the global agri-food system.

Introduction: Special Issue on Fire Ecology and Ethnobiology

Anthropologists have been studying fire’s evolutionary and cultural significance for over a century (e.g., Burton 2009; Pausas and Keeley 2009; Wrangham 2009). For several decades ethnobiologists (e.g., Anderson 2005) have addressed why and how people use fire to manage resources and studied the effects of anthropogenic burning. Attention to fire ecology has blossomed during the last decade within anthropology and ecology, as well as in other academic disciplines such as history (e.g., Pyne 1998) and applied fields such as conservation science (Driscoll et al. 2010). This burgeoning interest in fire ecology coincides with explosive growth in climate change science (Oreskes 2004) and therefore presents a strategic opportunity for contributions by ethnobiologists. In May 2013, we launched a conversation about fire ecology and global change at the 36th Annual Conference of the Society of Ethnobiology, and now amplify this debate about the biological and cultural impacts of fires in this special issue on fire ecology and ethnobiology. Authors of the papers in this collection present recent research addressing ecological, social, and political processes in settings where anthropogenic fire is or was central to cultural landscape dynamics. The papers that comprise this issue are ethnographically thick and scientifically rigorous, exemplifying the strengths of applying transdisciplinary scholarship to complex problems. The methodological tools they draw on—such as archaeobotany, geospatial analysis, and ethnography— are diverse. Nevertheless, they speak similarly to crucial issues about how anthropogenic fires link to multi-scale, multi-species processes. Theoretically, they seek to explore the relationships between fire ecology and human ecology in ways that are relevant for biological conservation and cultural diversity. The issue is organized in three sections. The first includes three contributions on prehistoric burning and vegetation change in North America that apply ethnographic and archaeological evidence to reevaluate widely accepted models of human influences on past vegetative landscapes. The second section includes two articles drawing on geospatial analysis, census data, and ethnographic observation to address the ecological dynamics of anthropogenic fire regimes. The final section is comprised of three papers on the use of fire by Indigenous peoples within conservation lands in Australia and Brazil. In the first section, Anderson and Rosenthal draw on extensive demographic, historical, and ethnographic evidence to argue that prehistoric Indigenous

Improving Mine Rehabilitation Success Through Microbial Management

INTRODUCTION At present there are 441 operating mines in Australia mining commodities such as coal, mineral sands, iron ore, base, light and precious metals, uranium, and diamonds (Geoscience Australia, 2013). A significant number of these have an open cut or surface component to them. Open cut mines are usually easier, cheaper, and quicker to bring into production than underground mines, but often have a relatively short life-span, after which it may become necessary to move to underground mining to access deeper commodities. Government authorization must be obtained to mine Crown or private land in Australia and land disturbed by mining activities must be returned to a sustainable post-mining land use. In more recent times, miners usually undertake progressive rehabilitation programs where mine closure planning is developed within the initial stages of mine operations rather than only being considered after mining ceases; however, Australia also has a legacy of unplanned mine closures, unsafe workings, ...

Quantifying carbon sequestration on sheep grazing land in Australia for life cycle assessment studies

The sheep industry has played an important role in Australia’s development and economy over the 220 years since European settlement and remains an important land use in Australia, occupying an estimated 85 million ha of continental land mass. Historically, deforestation was carried out in many sheep-rearing regions to promote pasture growth but this has not occurred within recent decades and many wool producers have invested in planting trees as well as preserving patches of remnant vegetation. Although the limitations of single environmental impact studies are recognised, this paper focuses on the contribution of carbon sequestration in trees and shrubs on sheep farms to the global warming potential impact category in life cycle assessment of wool. The analysis represents three major wool-producing zones of Australia. Based on default regional yields as applied in Australia’s National Inventory model, FullCAM, CO2 removals in planted exotic pines and mixed native species were estimated to be 5.0 and 3.0 t CO2 ha–1 year–1, respectively, for the Northern Tablelands of New South Wales in the ‘high-rainfall zone’ and 1.4 t CO2 ha–1 year–1 for mixed native species in the ‘sheep-wheat zone’ of Western Australia. Applying modified factors allowing for the higher measured growth rates in regions with rainfall >300 mm, gave values for native species reforestation of 4.4 and 2.0 t CO2 ha–1 year–1 for New South Wales and Western Australia, respectively. Sequestration was estimated to be 0.07 t CO2 ha–1 year–1 over 100 years for chenopod shrublands of the ‘pastoral zone’ of South Australia but this low rate is significant because of the extent of regeneration. Sequestration of soil organic carbon in improved permanent pastures in the New South Wales Northern Tablelands was evaluated to be highly uncertain but potentially significant over large areas of management. Improved data and consistent methodologies are needed for quantification of these benefits in life cycle assessment studies for wool and sheep meat, and additional impact categories, such as biodiversity, need to be included if the public and private benefits provided by good management of vegetation resources on farms are to be more fully recognised.

Emerging Geographies of Conservation and Indigenous Land in Australia

ABSTRACTInternational examples of interactions between Indigenous peoples and the new conservation paradigm come mainly from developing countries and suggest divisions over priorities. As a Western settler society, Australia is at a critical time in conservation and Indigenous peoples' rights. Innovative approaches to conservation are promoted. The role and influence of non-governmental organisations is increasing. Indigenous peoples' rights to land are recognised and Indigenous involvement in conservation is growing. Yet, despite Australia being considered a leader in these arenas, particularly the latter, there has been little analysis of the relationship between innovative approaches to conservation and Indigenous Australians under the new paradigm. This paper describes how the spatial manifestations of approaches under the new conservation paradigm and Indigenous land in Australia are creating new geographies. We identify geographies of overlap, dichotomy and absence. The paper identifies research needs into these geographies, including: examining the influence of ‘recognition’ in engagements between conservation and Indigenous Australians; investigating the impacts of approaches under the new paradigm such as scaling-up, territorialism and differing governance structures on Indigenous Australians; and questioning the social responsibilities of the non-governmental organisations towards Indigenous Australians.

Towards a Politics and Art of the Land: Gothic Cinema of the Australian New Wave and Its Reception by American Film Critics

This article will drill down to the level of the reception of two examples of Australian gothic film-making by two well-known American critics. Rayner’s comparison of Australian gothic with American film noir is useful; however, it begs the question of how American critics such as Pauline Kael and Andrew Sarris influentially shaped the reception of Australian gothic in America and in other locations (such as Australia itself) where their reviews found an audience either at the time or afterwards. The significance of the present article rests on the fact that, as William McClain observes, following in Rick Altman’s footsteps, “critics form one of the key material institutions that support generic formations” (54). This article nurtures the suggestion that knowing how Australian gothic cinema was shaped, in its infancy, in the increasingly important American market (a market of both commerce and ideas) might usefully inform revisionist studies of Australian cinema as a national mode.

Influence of management and environment on Australian wheat: information for sustainable intensification and closing yield gaps

In the future, agriculture will need to produce more, from less land, more sustainably. But currently, in many places, actual crop yields are below those attainable. We quantified the ability for agricultural management to increase wheat yields across 179 Mha of potentially arable land in Australia. Using the Agricultural Production Systems Simulator (APSIM), we simulated the impact on wheat yield of 225 fertilization and residue management scenarios at a high spatial, temporal, and agronomic resolution from 1900 to 2010. The influence of management and environmental variables on wheat yield was then assessed using Spearman’s non-parametric correlation test with bootstrapping. While residue management showed little correlation, fertilization strongly increased wheat yield up to around 100 kg N ha−1 yr−1. However, this effect was highly dependent on the key environment variables of rainfall, temperature, and soil water holding capacity. The influence of fertilization on yield was stronger in cooler, wetter climates, and in soils with greater water holding capacity. We conclude that the effectiveness of management intensification to increase wheat yield is highly dependent upon local climate and soil conditions. We provide context-specific information on the yield benefits of fertilization to support adaptive agronomic decision-making and contribute to the closure of yield gaps. We also suggest that future assessments consider the economic and environmental sustainability of management intensification for closing yield gaps.

Phosphorus content of the soil influences the growth and productivity of Themeda triandra Forssk. and Microlaena stipoides (Labill.) R.Br.

Despite native grasses occupying a large area of land in Australia, there has been limited work on the responses of these species to the addition of phosphorus (P). The main objective of this study was to investigate the effect of the addition of P to create a range of P contents in the soil on the productivity and morphology of two native grasses at two times of harvests. Two contrasting perennial native grasses, namely kangaroo grass (Themeda triandra Forssk. syn. T. australis R. Br. Stapf) and weeping grass [Microlaena stipoides var. stipoides (Labill.) R. Br.] were grown in a glasshouse with the addition of P to create five contents of P in the soil (7, 17, 32, 107 and 307 mg kg–1 soil) using a completely randomised design with four replicates per treatment. Grasses were harvested to 5 cm above the substrate surface, and the number of tillers and leaf area were recorded on Day 84 (harvest 1) and Day 112 (harvest 2) of the experiment. Dry matter production for kangaroo and weeping grass increased with P contents of the soil of 32 mg and ≥107 mg P kg–1 soil, respectively. Increased dry matter production for both species was the result of increased leaf area, tiller number and root growth. These results provide data that help to understand the disappearance sequence of kangaroo grass from more fertile soils and an increase in weeping grass, particularly in soils with greater fertility. Further research is required to determine if these results hold for other grass ecotypes.

Success Factors for Community-Based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM): Lessons from Kenya and Australia

Recent concerns over a crisis of identity and legitimacy in community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) have emerged following several decades of documented failure. A substantial literature has developed on the reasons for failure in CBNRM. In this paper, we complement this literature by considering these factors in relation to two successful CBNRM case studies. These cases have distinct differences, one focusing on the conservation of hirola in Kenya on community-held trust land and the other focusing on remnant vegetation conservation from grazing pressure on privately held farm land in Australia. What these cases have in common is that both CBNRM projects were initiated by local communities with strong attachments to their local environments. The projects both represent genuine community initiatives, closely aligned to the original aims of CBNRM. The intrinsically high level of "ownership" held by local residents has proven effective in surviving many challenges which have affected other CBNRM projects: from impacts on local livelihoods to complex governance arrangements involving non-government organizations and research organizations. The cases provide some signs of hope among broader signs of crisis in CBNRM practice.