Delegates to a United Nations Youth Forum in the Philippines, held during November, have surprised organisers with fervent and sometimes unexpected views of their nations¿ place in the emerging sustainable practice challenge.

In a strong endorsement of international carbon credit markets, HSBC Group, one of the world's financial services giants, is finalising its investment into carbon sink projects in Victoria and the North Island of New Zealand to meet new emissions targets in 2007.

After the Federal Government's applauded $200 million initiative last November to buy out about half of the country's 1200 commercial fisherman, it has followed up by brokering solid cooperation from Indonesia on illegal fishing.

Adelaide's Coppers Brewery has an agreement and a new export opportunity with Japanese distilling company Suntory under which live waste yeast from their brewing process will now be used to improve the flavour and complexity of Japan's favourite whisky.

Innovative Melbourne-based packaging company Plantic Technologies has won its first major customer in the European market, after signing a contract with Nestlé in the UK for the use of its bioplastic in the food giant's Dairy Box chocolate range.

An international research project involving Australian expertise has successfully stored carbon dioxide (CO2) in European coal beds, raising further promise that geological sequestration can be a viable strategy to help reduce greenhouse emissions from coal burning in Australia.

A number of emerging international studies are showing that the deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions needed to stave off severe global warming effects can actually be achieved, economically, by 2050.

An innovative rice-growing technique, known as the 'System of Rice Intensification'(SRI), is being steadily taken up by farmers across Asia because of its claims to significantly reduce water use, produce higher yields and endow farms with associated environmental benefits. But differing perceptions of the management, risk and verification of the technique are at the core of a widening international argument over whether SRI really has the radical advantages over the traditional flooded-field style of rice cultivation.

Numbers of the majestic Southern Brolga have declined dramatically since European settlement, but restoration of a wetland in northern Victoria, a combined effort by the Loddonvale Landcare Group, the Norman Wettenhall Foundation and the North Central Catchment Management Authority (NCCMA), is improving its local prospects.

Land trusts, also known as heritage, private or statutory conservation trusts, have led the recent growth of conservation on privately held land. They seem to be well organised, well informed and financially viable and now, collectively, hold stewardship over hundreds of thousands of hectares of land, chosen for its high conservation value. How do these trusts work, what have they achieved, and where are they headed?

Trust for Nature's Land Acquisition program is helping preserve Australia's disappearing natural heritage in Victoria's Gippsland region.

The Australian Bush Heritage Fund has a strong scientific focus when it comes to protecting and restoring environmental and cultural heritage.

With its archipelago lake system lapping at the shores of red-patched villages, Sweden's urban landscape doesn't really look much like Australia's. But that hasn't stopped Swedish and Australian representatives sharing a 'Partnership for Sustainable Cities'. Touring Australian cities earlier this year, the concept's creator, architect Ulf Ranhagen, of Lulea University, Lulea, joked that since the partnership began in the late 1990s, Australian cities have been turning a bit Swedish green around the edges.

Economics for Collaborative Environmental Management by Graham R. Marshall

Coral Reefs: Nature's Wonders by Walter & Jean Deas

Australian researchers have discovered that pesticides and other undesirable pollutants in soil can be rapidly destroyed by exposing them to ultrasound. They hope their work will mean that soil from chemically contaminated sites can be cleaned and rehabilitated byuse of powerful ultrasonic waves in purpose-built treatment plants.

Australian researchers are making good progress in assisting Acehenese farmers revive their tsunami-swamped agriculture. Dr Peter Slavich recently returned from the region with his team.

Grey nurse sharks have been killed in their thousands over the past two centuries. Originally hunted for their liver oil and later mistakenly blamed for shark attacks at Sydney beaches, fewer than 500 now remain on the east coast of Australia. With numbers continuing to decline by an estimated 18 sharks per year, these critically endangered and slow-breeding animals face local extinction. Researchers at the Macquarie University have joined an escalating race to help save them.

Forthcoming events related to sustainable development.