In this issue


ECOS ECOS
Issue 163



Features

Is Tilapia the new cane toad?
Northern Australian waterways are facing a new environmental threat. Tilapia mariae, a highly invasive fish that can tolerate and adapt to a range of environmental conditions, is rapidly expanding its range.
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Urban agriculture: it’s a veggie-roots movement
As a child, I was lucky to learn food growing skills that have stayed with me ever since – including through a long career in finance and technology. I often wonder how many of today's adults could grow their own food if they had to. My vision is for organic gardening to be built into the national curricula from early childhood centres upwards.
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Renewable energy sector to benefit from wind-speed research
While some recent international studies have shown a decrease in wind speeds in several parts of the globe, including Australia, more recent results from CSIRO show that Australia's average wind speed is actually increasing.
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The OECD cuts a green path ahead
With the world currently in the grip of an economic slowdown, the OECD's Green Growth Strategy describes how innovation driven by ‘green' economic policy can provide vibrant new sources of growth and employment worth trillions of dollars by 2050.
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Providing Australia’s tree species knowledge to the world
The Australian Tree Seed Centre (ATSC) was established in the 1960s with funding from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization to widely disseminate the seed of Australian tree species. It had become apparent that Australian trees – widely adaptable and especially suited to challenging and degraded environments – could help alleviate some of the unsustainable pressure that human population growth was placing on natural forests.
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Climatic tolerances: an Australian story
How will Australia's native species survive climate change? Observed distributions are the main source of information drawn upon to answer this question, but they need to be interpreted cautiously. In particular, we need to put aside assumptions based on northern hemisphere evidence.
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Carolyn Steel's Hungry City
As an architect, Carolyn Steel used to think about the city through its built environment. Now, the author of Hungry City thinks about it through food: and urges us all to do the same. She wants us to envision cities that have food at their centre, literally and metaphorically. For Steel, this is one of the most urgent tasks facing our increasingly urbanised world, in which by 2030, nearly five billion (61 per cent) of Earth's 8.1 billion people will live in cities.
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Australia in 2050
Welcome to 2050, ladies, gentlemen and children. You'll notice a few changes in how we Australians do things, compared with the turn of the century – all for the better, once we had shed the anxieties that were holding us back. Please accompany me on this brief tour of the new Terra Australis.
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Conserving Thailand’s whales, dolphins and porpoises
The first detailed study of whales, dolphins and porpoises in Trat Province, along the eastern coast of the Gulf of Thailand, will provide critical information on their abundance and distribution, and management and conservation needs.
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Business leaders review Asia’s green growth milestones
Asian countries and companies are activating broad sustainable development commitments in their pursuit of robust low-carbon economies. Australian industry and business leaders have recently been reviewing Asia's progress.
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Climate change bulletin: current research highlights
Fire is one of nature's primary carbon-cycling mechanisms. Under a warming climate, fire frequency and severity will likely increase, according to CSIRO researcher Dr Melita Keywood.
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In Brief - Round-up of sustainability news

New lab to identify pollution's DNA 'fingerprints'
 
 
Plant data helps map potential ‘bio-cultural diversity
 
 
CSIRO scientists win Eureka Prizes for innovation
 
 
Breaking up not always bad for reefs
 
 
Is Australia advancing? Have your say
 
 
Environmental bankers helping with environmental and social risk
 
 
WA mallee farmers take myrtle rust threat seriously
 
 
Latest Bush Blitz digs up new finds in WA
 
 
Clay locks up more carbon, improves soil health
 
 
Award recognises innovative use of maths and stats
 
 
Clean energy group launches road map for large-scale solar
 
 
Ecologists say logging increases risk of ‘mega’ fires
 
 
Switch from coal to natural gas may not slow climate change
 
 
Return visit sets up Kimberley research
 
 
Orange roughy and other deep-sea fisheries ‘unsustainable’
 
 
Case for capping our high level of e-waste contamination
 
 
Thylacines shot for sheep kills may have been innocent
 
 
Research initiative to foster sustainable manufacturing future
 
 
Protected areas not so effective in protecting tropical forests
 
 
Technology to underpin global equality and sustainability: UN survey
 
 
Garbage a growing problem on Kimberley coast
 
 

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