In this issue

	Issue 169

Features

Carp herpesvirus could stem the tide While two years of flooding rains have brought our river systems back to life, populations of carp – previously held in check by the drought – have exploded. This will likely have dire consequences for our waterways and native wildlife. A recently identified biological control agent may one day keep carp numbers in check. Learn more

An island getaway for the birds
Twelve years ago, kikuyu grass was wreaking havoc on the seabird habitat of Montague Island, nine kilometres from the southern New South Wales coast. Revegetation programs have since started to push back the weed front. In February this year, ECOS joined a group of 16 volunteers from Narooma to find out what effect the weed invasion and revegetation are having on the island's avian inhabitants.
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Limits to managing the landscape with fire The practice of controlled burning – whether to protect property (fuel reduction burns) or biodiversity (ecological burns) – continues to divide public opinion. However, scientists remind us that controlled burns can only achieve so much, and that the risk of fire will never be completely removed from the Australian landscape. Learn more

Cattle king a climate adaptation pioneer? Australian cattle king Sir Sidney Kidman (1857–1935) thrived in Australia's ‘dead heart', a huge arid area that few regarded as good pastoral land. His unorthodox approach to dealing with this unpredictable climate and landscape may contain valuable lessons for today's graziers when adapting their enterprises to climate change. Learn more

Coral bleaching: a new form of El Niño implicated?
Coral bleaching in the World-Heritage-listed Great Barrier Reef (GBR) has previously been attributed to large-scale climate patterns such as El Niño and La Niña. But these two phenomena – along with the lesser known ‘El Niño/La Niña Modoki' climate pattern – are influencing the GBR in more complex ways than we previously thought.
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Workspaces that work for people: an interview with Frank Becker
Professor Frank Becker of Cornell University works in the field of ‘organisational ecology'. This new discipline understands that physical workspaces both shape and are shaped by the humans who use them. Prof. Becker recently visited Australia as a guest of the Green Building Council of Australia. Michele Sabto asked him how we might use insights from organisational ecology to maximise the benefits of our growing stock of green buildings.
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Top ten predictions for green buildings Australia's green building sector has come a long way since the first Green-Star rated building was completed in Canberra in 2004. Ms Romilly Madew, Chief Executive of the Green Building Council of Australia, believes green building is fast becoming the norm. Here, she presents her top ten predictions for our future built environment. Learn more