Environment and sustainable development

The World Commission on Environment and Development was created as a consequence of a United Nations' General Assembly resolution in 1983. The Secretary-General appointed the Chairman Gro Harlem Brundtland (Norway) and Vice-Chairman Mansour Khalid (Sudan), who were directed to appoint the other members of the Commission. The Commission's Secretary-General was a member of ex officio. Twelve of the twenty members came from developing countries. Four members were from Africa, five from Asia, four from Latin America, and eight from Europe and North America.     

Fly-in/Fly-out and Fly-over: Mining and regional development in Western Australia

Adoption of fly-in/fly-out (FIFO) or commute work systems in the Western Australian mining industry has increased rapidly over the last decade, with metropolitan Perth becoming the main source of labour and the base for major mining supply and service companies in the state. This situation has led to increasing concern on the part of many regional authorities about the loss of local benefits through 'fly-over' effects, and implications for regional development in their smaller resource-based communities. To date, the state government has paid little attention to these issues, but, at the same time, the regions have done relatively little to help themselves. The paper explores the reasons for the growth of this work system, the nature of the regions' concerns, the measures taken to address them, and options for future action.     

A Late Holocene Vegetation and Environment Record from Byenup Lagoon,South-western Australia

South-western Australia has a Mediterranean-type climate and its infertile soils support a highly diverse angiosperm flora. Little is known of the vegetation history of this region, and this means that little can be said of the roles of environmental stability, climate change, or human impact on the maintenance or development of the high biodiversity of the region. This study presents a pollen and fossil charcoal record from two peat profiles from a freshwater lagoon region near Lake Muir, east of Manjimup, in south-western Australia. The record shows a glimpse of an early Holocene where a mix of Casuarina and eucalypts with an understorey of heath and some open herbaceous vegetation, including chenopods, occurred. Fire was not an important factor at this time. The main record begins from about 4800 BP, and shows a vegetation mix of Corymbia calophylla and Eucalyptus marginata, with the latter becoming dominant by about 3500 BP. Corymbia calophylla again becomes prominent in the last few centuries. A heathy understorey is present throughout the last 4800 years, but was apparently less dense during phases when C. calophylla was more prominent. Melaleuca woodland has been the main vegetation type around the wetland areas and areas of inundation since the mid-Holocene. Major fire periods at Byenup, around 4200 BP and between about 3000 and 2000 BP, did not result in major vegetation changes. An analysis of cation content in the sediments suggests that weathering and erosion rates have been relatively stable throughout the record, but an increase in phosphorus and possibly organic matter in the surface layers suggests that agricultural practices have led to changes in the chemistry of sediments. It is hypothesised that an increase in effective precipitation about 4800 BP led to the initiation of the continuous part of the sediment record at Byenup. This increase most likely resulted from a more effective westerly wind stream. Changes since this time are more likely a result of changing fire regime and the interaction of species, rather than climate shifts.     

Between the Centre and the Periphery: the development of port trade in Darwin,Australia

Darwin, the capital of the Northern Territory, is a port city located in Australia's Top End and facing Southeast Asia. The distance from Darwin to Australia's main economic centres of Sydney and Melbourne is almost the same as to Singapore. This central geographical location has inspired the development of the Port and the City of Darwin from time to time while being held back by its remoteness, and especially the lack of an efficient railway link to Australia's major southern centres. The Port of Darwin has been redeveloped with the vision of repositioning the City of Darwin as Australia's gateway to Asia which it was expected to achieve with the completion of the transcontinental railway link from Adelaide to Darwin. This paper analyses trade and cargo movements for the Port of Darwin between 2000 and 2009—5 years for each period before and after the availability of intermodal transport—and examines the processes by which transformation of the gateway is actually occurring. The evidence to date, however, suggests that the landbridge development has had little material effect in terms of trans-shipments and throughputs for the Port of Darwin. The volume of container trade and interstate export and import cargo that passes through the port has in fact declined since the availability of the transcontinental railway in 2005.     

Globalisation and Border Dynamics: impacts on the urban development of Darwin,Australia

National boundaries and border cities have been transformed globally. This is partly due to neoliberal globalisation, the continuous formation of a ‘borderless world’ and partly to the global ‘war on terror’. Darwin, the capital city of the Northern Territory (NT), is on the northern coast of Australia, bordering its overseas Asian neighbours. Far away from the main Australian population centres in the south, the city grows slowly, relying mainly on Australian government investments, infrastructure, and the incorporation of defence programs in the north. The rise of Asia, as well as Australia's increasing economic reliance on Asia, has created new opportunities for Darwin's growth. The development of Asian economies has resulted in growing global investment in resource extraction in NT. Asia, though, has been seen as a key threat in the modern history of Australia. This national sensitivity is underpinned by the global ‘war on terror’ in which Australia is deeply involved. Australia has tight border control regimes and a growing military presence on the northern border area. This paper examines how these co-existing but contradictory dynamics have reshaped the urban development of Darwin City. The consequential social and spatial patterns are identified and discussed.     

Theoretical constraints and chronological evidence of Holocene coastal development in central and southern New South Wales, Australia

Holocene coastal evolution in New South Wales has been interpreted essentially as the unfolding of the impact of marine transgression. Sea level on this coast supposedly reached its present height at 6–6.5 ka, and varied < 1 m since then. The early Holocene rise of the sea has been considered the key factor (“forcing function”) in dune migration, coastal sand barrier development, and the evolution of estuaries. Episodic storminess during the late Holocene has been seen as an important, though secondary, factor in beach erosion and dune mobilisation. An alternate interpretation presented here challenges the concept of the marine transgression as the primary “forcing function”. It (a) attributes early Holocene dune mobilisation to climate rather than the rising sea; (b) shows that the sea reached its present level by 7 ka and rose to at least + 2 m until 1.5 ka; (c) links late Holocene dune activity to local disruption of vegetation rather than to regional episodic storminess; (d) demonstrates a fall of 2°C in sea surface temperature after 3 ka that coincides with the onset of barrier erosion; (e) recognises the imprint of at least three tsunamis in the coastal sedimentary record.     

Media Constructions of Aboriginality: implications for engagement with coal seam gas development in Australia

Recent neo-liberal policy frameworks in Australia advocate economic development opportunities for Aboriginal Australians as a viable strategy to redress the marginalisation and social disadvantage that appear to characterise many Aboriginal communities. In New South Wales (NSW), Aboriginal peoples are currently negotiating with industry for the chance to participate in coal seam gas (CSG) development opportunities. Based upon research focusing on CSG development in the Northern NSW region, this paper argues that certain constructions of Aboriginality inhibit successful Aboriginal engagement with the economic opportunities provided by CSG. This paper illuminates the role of the media in facilitating dominant discourse about Aboriginality and the implications of those constructions for Aboriginal engagement with the mainstream economy. Findings demonstrate that the media are complicit in constructing Aboriginal peoples in a way that could prejudice their attempts to engage in economic opportunities that do not align with the dominant constructions of Aboriginality.     

Manufacturing in Australia

Book reviewed in this article:
THE INDUSTRIALIZATION OF AUSTRALIA. By F. G. Davidson     

澳大利亚的红树林

<正>澳大利亚是一个大的岛国,海岸线长3万km。澳大利亚红树林生态系统(图1)覆盖20%的海岸线,红树林总面积约11500km2,它们向南延伸至维多利亚州的科列澳地区(南纬38o55'),但在澳大利亚北部的热带海岸分布的广度和多样性最大。     

Wilderness survey and evaluation in Australia

Increasing pressures on and interest in remote and natural lands have necessitated the formulation of wilderness protection and management policies by many Australian nature conservation authorities. Planners and managers require detailed information on variation in wilderness quality and the capacity to assess the impact on wilderness of development proposals or management strategies. To meet these demands advances have been made in techniques of wilderness identification and analysis, and a national inventory of remote and natural land in Australia has been commenced. This paper reviews these developments, discussing the newly established National Wilderness Inventory and its implications for wilderness protection in Australia.     

Industrialisation and South Australia

Like Australia as a whole, South Australia experienced rapid industrialisation from the 1930s, but employment growth rates in the state were generally well above national levels. Conversely, restructuring of Australian manufacturing since the mid 1970s has had especially severe consequences in the state. This paper documents and seeks to explain the distinctive pattern of industrial change in South Australia. Drawing on the contemporary literature on geographically uneven development, it argues that the state's experience must be explored in the wider context of the dynamics of capitalist development. International, national and local forces have combined in a complex fashion to produce the specific pattern of manufacturing growth and restructuring evident in South Australia. Analysis focuses on the activities of capital, labour and the institutions of the state, key agents of economic change.     

Tectonics and landscape evolution in southeast Australia

In southeast Australia the history of river development, basin sedimentation and the evolution of major divides can all be related. The region has a basement of Palaeozoic rocks eroded to a palaeoplain. Two sedimentary basins are separated by a system of tectonic warp axes that correspond closely to drainage divides. The Great Artesian Basin (GAB) is Mesozoic; the Murray Basin is Cenozoic. The Cretaceous-Cenozoic Gippsland-Otway Basin lies to the south, and a Cenozoic sedimentary wedge on the continental shelf to the east.In the Jurassic, before the breakup of Gondwana, Australia extended further east and south. Rivers from the south and east provided coarse sediment to the GAB.The catchment of Jurassic drainage was bounded to the east by the Tasman Divide. Downwarping of the palaeoplain formed the east-west Victoria Divide and the Gippsland Basin in which Cretaceous sediments accumulated. Rifting and seafloor spreading formed the Tasman Sea, starting about 80 m.y. ago. The palaeoplain was downwarped, creating the Great Divide and a new continental shelf on which marine sediments accumulated. Drainage from the Victoria Divide and the Great Divide continued to flow to the GAB until the Murray Basin started to subside in Paleocene times. A new warp axis, the Canobolas Divide, appeared between the GAB and the Murray Basin. Basically west-flowing drainage developed across the Murray Basin, Cenozoic sediments accumulated, and sediment supply to the GAB was further depleted.Ancillary features consistent with this morphotectonic history include: Ancient channels with gravels cross the Victoria, Great and Canobolas Divides. Volcanicity follows the warp axes. Reversed rivers are found on the coastal side of the Victoria and Great Divides. Deposition on the continental shelf is roughly equal to erosion on land. The change from coarse to fine sediment which gives the GAB its artesian character fits with the shrinkage of its catchment. The Divides are in different stages of erosion consistent with their ages.The morphotectonic development of southeast Australia, with responses to non-cyclic unique events on the time scale of global tectonics, is an example of evolutionary geomorphology.     

Demographic and Economic Changes in Remote Australia

Varied distribution of resources, populations and Indigenous people result in significant socio-economic differences among statistical local areas (SLAs) in remote Australia. These differences indicate that the experience of change at the height of the resources boom will differ among SLAs in the region. Using hierarchical cluster analysis with Ward's minimum variance method, four socio-economic clusters were identified among the 197 SLAs in the region. The first was the most disadvantaged, with limited resources and human capital and the highest percentage of Indigenous people. The other three clusters improved in sequence, with the fourth having the most resources with the highest employment rate and income but least number of Indigenous people. Multivariate analysis of variance with main and interaction effects showed changes in demographics, industry structure, human capital and income over the period of investigation for the region as a whole and differences in the extent of these changes among the clusters. Policy interventions in the region are suggested for each group to match its specific needs.     

Tectonic development of the Drummond Basin, eastern Australia: backarc extension and inversion in a Late Palaeozoic active margin setting

Detailed seismic reflection data combined with regional magnetic, gravity and geological data indicate that the Drummond Basin originated as a backare extensional basin associated with Late Devonian and Early Carboniferous active margin tectonism in the northern New England Fold Belt. Seismic reflection data have been used to generate a two-way time map of seismic basement, providing a clear view of the basinal geometry and structural development. Broadscale structural asymmetry of the basin implies that simple shear along a deep, upper-crustal detachment provided the extensional mechanism and generated an inter-related set of listric normal faults and associated transfer faults, as well as steeply-dipping planat normal faults. The orientation of normal faults near the basin margins appears to have been controlled by regional basement structural trends. Transfer-fault trends were approximarely orthogonal to the line of plate convergence as assessed from the orientation of coeval are, forcare and subduction complex stratorectonic elements. Three distinct phases of infill are represented in the basinal stratigraphic succession. The first consists largely of volcanics and volcaniclastics, indicating that effusive magmatism and extension were closely associated in space and time. The second is quartzose and of basement derivation, but was not derived from footwall blocks at the faulted basinal margins to the east and north. Uplifted hanging-wall crust beyond the western basinal margin, a product of west-directed simple shear detachment, was the likely source terrain. The final infill phase consisted of volcaniclastics considered to have been derived from a coeval volcanic are to the east. Major faults at the basin margins provided conduits for magmatism during extensional basin development, and long after the basinal history was complete. During the Late Carboniferous and mid-Triassic, the basin was affected by two discrete episodes of compressional deformation. This led to inversion with the development of folds, and reverse and wrench faults now seen at the surface.     

Diatom and foraminifera relationships to water quality in The Coorong,South Australia,and the development of a diatom-based salinity transfer function

The Ramsar-listed Coorong lagoon lies at the terminus of the Murray-Darling River system in South Australia. Diatom and foraminifera relationships with water quality were characterised in order to develop diatom- and foraminifera-based models with the potential to infer water column salinity. Seventy-four samples were collected during 2007, a year of continuing drought in the catchment, and of no discharges at the Murray Mouth. The sample sites had a salinity gradient of 1.8–190 g l⁻¹ total dissolved solids. The diatom data set comprised 215 taxa, while there were only eight taxa in the foraminiferal data set. Canonical correspondence analysis of diatom species-environment relationships showed that salinity explained the largest proportion of diatom variance. Hence, a diatom-based salinity transfer function with reasonable predictive power (measured vs. diatom-inferred salinity r _jack² = 0.82; Root Mean Squared Error of Prediction = 16 g l⁻¹) was developed. Application of the transfer function to fossil diatom assemblages from The Coorong suggested that pre-European salinity values were generally >50 g l⁻¹ and that salinity declined following settlement. These results, however, contradict the recent history of The Coorong where there have been substantial lagoon-wide salinity increases. The pre-impact diatom flora has no analogue in the modern data set, highlighting the degree of departure from past conditions. CCA of the foraminiferal data set identified salinity and total nitrogen as the variables with the greatest explanatory power. However, accurate predictive models could not be developed using either variable due to low foraminiferal abundance and species richness. These factors may have been a consequence of diminished foraminiferal recruitment rates over successive years, an artefact of reduced marine water input to The Coorong. Future attempts to generate predictive models from this region would benefit from the inclusion of data from distant locations, since suitable analogue sites do not exist in close proximity. The study has generated useful insights to the apparently broad salinity tolerances for several cosmopolitan diatom and foraminifera species, and has identified a number of diatom and foraminifera taxa that may prove useful in the qualitative interpretation of down-core trends in The Coorong and the lower Murray River region.