Archive for January, 2011

The Dixson Library at the University of New England has acquired the archives of the Armidale Environment Centre (AEC) at a time when the University is launching new courses in environmental advocacy and sustainability.

Dr Marty Branagan, the convener of UNE’s new Master of Environmental Advocacy degree program, said the archives would be an important resource for students conducting research on historical aspects of the environmental and sustainability movements. A new Bachelor of Sustainability degree program also begins at UNE this year.

Dr Branagan used the archives himself when researching non-violent strategies in environmental, peace, and social justice activism for his PhD degree from UNE. “With UNE offering new degrees in environmentalism and sustainability, and feedback on the degree programs suggesting the importance of history, the archives will take on new importance,” he said.

The archives go back to the 1970s, when UNE students were involved in the movement to protect rainforests around Terania Creek in northern NSW, and they also document the involvement of Armidale-based people in forest-protection actions in Tasmania, the Daintree, Kakadu, and elsewhere.

The Armidale Environment Centre grew out of the Armidale branch of The Wilderness Society (TWS), which opened in 1987. “This branch was influential in securing wilderness declarations over large areas of relatively unspoilt bushland,” Dr Branagan said. “It also organised anti-logging blockades in the Washspool area, and ran a shop in various locations in Armidale. As the branch grew in the 1990s into the AEC, incorporating the North East Forest Alliance and later Friends of the Earth, it became an important centre for blockades in Chaelundi, the Styx River, Mummel Gulf, the Mistake State Forest, and Wild Cattle Creek. Many of those areas are now preserved in perpetuity for the public to enjoy as National Parks, as well as being carbon sinks and biodiversity stores.”

“The high cost of rents was always a problem for TWS and the AEC,” Dr Branagan said. “Volunteers were forced to spend much of their time and energy in fundraising, and the AEC finally closed in 2002 after 15 years of intense activity.”

The archives reveal the AEC’s involvement in forest protection campaigns and other local issues – including the lowering of Armidale’s speed limit – as well as global issues such as genetically modified foods, land degradation, recycling, pollution, militarism, and the nuclear industry. They are held in the New England Collection Room of the Dixson Library, and access to them is available to members of the University and the wider community by appointment through the Library’s Service Desk (phone 02 6773 2458).

UNE’s Master of Environmental Advocacy degree program, beginning this year, is aimed at staff and volunteers of environmental organisations, businesses and international non-government organisations, as well as teachers, sustainability officers, and citizens concerned about environmental issues.

The new Bachelor of Sustainability degree program, also beginning at UNE this year, is a unique course designed to equip graduates with the ability to understand the complexities of the environmental and social problems that beset our society, as well as the problem-solving abilities needed to build a sustainable future.

UNE is a signatory to the United Nations Principles of Responsible Management Education, and a recent major review of the University’s Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree program incorporates elements aimed at building the capabilities of students to be generators of sustainable value for business – and society generally – and to work for an inclusive and sustainable global economy.

For information on these degree programs phone 1800 818 865.

Clicking on the image displayed here reveals a photograph of Dr Marty Branagan and UNE’s Collection Services Librarian, Robyn Warwick, looking through some of the archives.

Dr Jeremy Bruhl and Karen Wilson have just returned to Australia from a field trip to the island of Réunion that will result in a better understanding of the evolution and ecology of the flora of south-east Africa and neighbouring Indian Ocean islands.

Plant specimens that Dr Bruhl and Mrs Wilson collected on the rim of Réunion’s active volcano, Piton de la Fournaise, include one that appears to be new to science.

Dr Bruhl, an Associate Professor of Botany at the University of New England and Director of UNE’s N.C.W. Beadle Herbarium, and Karen Wilson, a plant taxonomist from the National Herbarium of NSW in Sydney who is also an Adjunct Associate Professor at UNE, are international authorities on sedges, and it was plants in the sedge family (Cyperaceae) that were the object of their visit to Réunion.

Research on the sedge genus Carpha at UNE has resulted in species from Africa, Madagascar and Réunion being transferred from Carpha to the genus Asterochaete, and the restriction of Carpha to Australasia and South America. Some related taxonomic problems remain, and the Réunion trip was aimed at collecting specimens that will help to resolve those problems.

“We decided to go at this time of year,” Dr Bruhl explained, “because collected material (some dating back to the 1820s) indicated that this was the time for both flowering and fruiting of the plants. We aimed to obtain good, modern collections of species of Asterochaete, sampling sufficient variation to allow thorough study of their morphology, anatomy and fruit structure, and to get material suitable for DNA study of evolutionary relationships.

“We were very successful in making a range of collections from different locations and processing the specimens – finishing at 3 am the day I left. And it was exciting to find a sedge species previously unrecorded in the Mascarene Islands and probably new to science.”

The Australian botanists were hosted on Réunion by Dr Luc Gigord, Director of Science, and his team at the Conservatoire Botanique National de Mascarin (one of France’s eight Conservatoires botaniques nationaux), a centre for the study and conservation of Réunion’s native species. Their visit established a relationship that both parties hope will result in continuing collaboration in research, education, and the sharing of information.

“We had wonderful help from the people at the Conservatoire,” Dr Bruhl said. “Their local knowledge was invaluable, and we had access to data and herbarium specimens from their recent years of surveys, mapping, and ecological studies. And without the facilities of their herbarium, the preservation of the 77 collections we made would have been impossible.”

“They’re doing fantastic work on Réunion,” he said. “They’re protecting biodiversity in the island’s precious World Heritage sites, and I’m delighted that our work will contribute – in a small way – to that effort. Knowing what plants are in an area, and their evolutionary relationships, provides critical baseline knowledge for the conservation and management of the biota and ecosystems.”

The specimens collected on Réunion will be housed in the N.C.W. Beadle Herbarium at UNE, the National Herbarium of NSW in Sydney, and the Réunion Conservatoire.

Clicking on the photograph of the newly-discovered sedge displayed here reveals a photograph of Jeremy Bruhl and Karen Wilson examining the plant at the Conservatoire.

The University of New England is pleased with the main-round offers it received from the Universities Admissions Centre (UAC) on Friday. The Vice-Chancellor, Professor Jim Barber, welcomed the results, which highlight some significant increases for the University.

“In comparison to the same period in 2010, UNE has seen an increase in new commencing students both through direct applications and via application from UAC,” Professor Barber said.

Current figures indicate that UNE has enrolled 3,487 new students so far in 2011.

Professor Barber said that UNE was continuing to build on its reputation as a high-calibre institution offering a diverse range of courses and flexible learning opportunities. “We’ve seen positive growth across the overall suite of courses on offer at UNE,” he said. “I’ve also been very pleased to note that the new courses we introduced in 2010 have enjoyed an increase in application and offers in 2011.

“In particular, our Sports Sciences programs have all seen a boost in numbers, as have our continuingly popular Bachelor of Criminology, Bachelor of Zoology, Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Biomedical Science degrees. Our second intake of Pharmacy students will also increase, and this is a very encouraging result, given that UNE raised the ATAR for Pharmacy from 88 to 91 for 2011 admissions.

“It’s clear that interest in the sciences is growing at UNE. This is a significant trend: we have introduced Animal Science as a new course for 2011 and this degree has experienced an outstanding first-year round of offers. That’s a very encouraging result, because it shows us we’re on the right track in our preparations for the new demand-driven funding environment.”

UNE will also introduce Bachelor of Sustainability, Bachelor of Historical Inquiry & Practice, and Bachelor of Financial Services degree programs in 2011.

“Our established Arts, Nursing, Health and Education degrees are maintaining their consistently strong numbers also, and we’ve seen the Joint Medical Program fill its quota of places once again,” Professor Barber said. “This is great news for the region, which relies on increased intellectual investment in the areas of health and education.”

While UNE continues to diversify into industry-relevant degree programs, the University’s long-held traditions of excellence in Arts and Social Sciences will continue in 2011.

“UNE provides many alternative pathways for those without formal educational qualifications, and I would urge all those with an interest in studying at UNE to ring our Future Students’ Team on 1800 818 865 or visit the UNE Web site,” Professor Barber said. “Late applications for February 2011 commencement are being accepted until the end of January.”

Twenty-two senior high-school students from northern NSW and inter-State are pursuing their interest in agricultural science this summer holidays with scholarships awarded by the national Primary Industry Centre for Science Education (PICSE).

They spent all of last week at a Science to Industry Student Camp, engaged in a program of hands-on investigations in laboratories at the University of New England and elsewhere, and visits to state-of-the-art agricultural industries around the New England North West region.

Twenty of the students are in their final years at schools in Armidale, Bundarra, Glen Innes, Gunnedah, Guyra, Inverell, Tamworth and Walcha, and are heading towards university. They were joined by two students – one from Toowoomba in Queensland and the other from Willunga in South Australia – who hold PICSE travelling scholarships.

From their residential base at Echidna Gully, the students travelled to UNE to meet and talk to research scientists and conduct investigations in the biological control of insect pests, animal genetics, microbiology, and wool fibre measurement, to Tamworth Agricultural Institute to investigate the identification of insect pests, how insects develop resistance to pesticides, and research for the mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions in agriculture, and to Glen Innes Agricultural Research Station to investigate a long-term crop rotation experiment.

They also visited the laboratories of Veterinary Health Research in Armidale and East West EnviroAg in Tamworth, travelled to “Glendon” poultry farm near Tamworth, Walcha Dairy, the Banalasta & Bickling Estate Winery near Bendemeer, the Viterra Malt factory in Tamworth and Guyra’s Tomato Exchange, and learnt about the research activities of the CRC for Sheep Industry Innovation, and career opportunities with the international company Dow AgroSciences.

PICSE is a national program dedicated to informing talented science students about the variety of opportunities for careers in agricultural industries. The annual summer PICSE Industry Placement Scholarships not only provide scholarship holders with the week-long Science to Industry Student Camp experience, but also enable each student to spend five days working with scientists in an agricultural industry or research organisation of their choice.

This is the third summer that a component of the scholarship program has been conducted through UNE, which houses a PICSE activity centre, and Susanna Greig, the PICSE Science Education Officer based at UNE, said that the local program was going from strength to strength. “The students always make the most of this great opportunity,” she said, “and it’s exciting to see them interacting and working with scientists to explore possible career options.”

“We discovered the high demand for science-based careers in agriculture as well as the huge range of opportunities,” explained Toby Crothers, who is about to enter Year 12 at The Armidale School. Toby, whose ambition is to work as an agronomist in the cotton industry, said the Science to Industry Camp had confirmed his interest in aiming at a career in agricultural science.

Kirsty McCormack, from Calrossy Anglican School in Tamworth, said the experience had enabled her to broaden her interest in agricultural science – including some areas that were quite new to her. Kirsty – as well as Toby – has a keen interest in agronomy, and they will both complete the industry-placement component of the scholarship program working with Clare Edwards, an Armidale-based research agronomist with Industry & Investment NSW.

THE PHOTOGRAPH displayed here shows Kirsty McCormack, at UNE last week, engaged in an investigation of the microbiology of ruminant digestion.

The University of New England is putting in place measures to ensure that students affected by the floods in Queensland and northern NSW are not disadvantaged.

“The message to our students is simple – they have such a lot to contend with at the moment, and they should not worry about their studies,” said UNE’s Acting Vice-Chancellor, Professor Graham Webb (pictured here). “The thoughts of the UNE community are with our flood-affected students and their families, and we will do whatever we can to make sure they are not disadvantaged.”

As many as 150 students due to sit for Summer Semester examinations or special examinations from last year could be immediately affected either because of the inability to travel to an exam centre or by the centre’s closure, while others might be unable to apply formally for assignment extensions because of interrupted Internet and e-mail connections.

Students may be unable to travel to UNE for mandatory intensive schools that begin next week, and those due to begin studies in UNE’s Graduate School of Business may not be able to meet their study requirements. Enrolment processes for both new and continuing students could also be affected.

“The floods are affecting our students in different ways,” Professor Webb said, “and we will be attending to their difficulties on an individual basis.”

The University has established a page on its Web site, accessible from the UNE Home Page, outlining the measures it is taking to help students facing specific difficulties caused by the floods, and providing relevant contact details. Information will also be posted at: www.une.edu.au/insidersguide.

“We recognise that flood-affected students may have great difficulty in contacting us at the moment,” Professor Webb said. “They should not worry about this, but get in touch with us when they can. We send our thoughts and best wishes to those caught up in this terrible event  and assure them that we will be as flexible and accommodating as possible in finding solutions to the issues that arise.”

High-school students from a dozen towns and cities across northern NSW are gaining a hands-on “science experience” in University of New England laboratories this week.

The students, who all have a keen interest in science, are preparing to enter Year 10 or Year 11 in 2011. From Tuesday 11 to Thursday 13 January they are taking part in “The Science Experience”, a national program coordinated by the Science Schools Foundation.

UNE is one of about 30 universities around Australia involved in the program, which is designed to provide students with an opportunity to engage in a wide range of science-based activities under the guidance of scientists who love their work.

The students have travelled to UNE from Armidale, Ashford, Barraba, Bundarra, Camden Haven, Casino, Coffs Harbour, Grafton, Inverell, Muswellbrook, Uralla, and Woolgoolga. They are conducting experiments in chemistry, microbiology, biochemistry, pharmacy, physiology, and musical acoustics, and listening to entertaining talks by UNE scientists – including several on forensic science.

Most of them are staying at UNE’s Mary White College.

“They’re all really engaged and interested,” said UNE’s Dr Linda Agnew, who was guiding the students through some activities in the culture and observation of microorganisms. “We hope we’ll be able to inspire them to go on studying science.”

“They’re also gaining a broader educational experience through exposure to equipment and techniques that aren’t generally available in schools,” Dr Agnew said.

“My brother and his friend came here for The Science Experience last year,” said Amy Luckett from Ashford Central School, “and my best friend came the year before. They all said it was really good, so I thought I’d give it a go.” Amy, in her turn, has found the experience “really interesting”.

Some of the students have already formed ambitions to follow specific career paths in science – including pharmacy, psychology, agricultural science, veterinary science, and forensic science. Maddison Lusty and Hannah Marshall from Coffs Harbour High School said they were both particularly interested in the forensic science components of the program, adding: “That’s why we came.” Others, like Timothy Van Dalsen from South Grafton High School, are pursuing a more general interest in science. “It’s broadening my horizons,” Timothy said.

For more information on The Science Experience, go to: http://www.scienceexperience.com.au/.

More than 200 members of the Country Women’s Association (CWA) of NSW will travel to the University of New England from all over the State at the beginning of February to immerse themselves in the history and culture of Iceland.

Iceland is the subject of this year’s CWA Weekend Country of Study School – an event held every year at UNE and organised by the UNE Conference Company. (Last year’s “country of study” was Scotland.)

The Study School will begin on Friday 4 February and continue till lunchtime on Sunday 6 February. The program includes 10 informative presentations on Icelandic subjects (from the Sagas to the financial crisis), a formal dinner, an Icelandic cultural evening, and an ecumenical church service.

The delegates will be staying at UNE’s Earle Page College. On the Friday, a flag-raising ceremony on the lawns of the College at 6.30 pm will be followed by a formal dinner in the Earle Page Dining Hall, during which the Vice-Chancellor of UNE, Professor Jim Barber, will welcome the CWA delegates and the presenters to the University. Also during the dinner, the Armidale Dumaresq Mayor, Councillor Peter Ducat, will welcome the visitors to Armidale, and the Honorary Consul-General for Iceland, Mrs Sigrun K. Baldvinsdottir, will present a “Welcome to Iceland”.

The next day, Mrs Baldvinsdottir will open the study program with an “Introduction to Iceland”. The titles of the talks will include “The Sagas of Iceland” (presented by Dr Kári Gíslason from Queensland University of Technology), “Myths and modern times” (Dr Einar Thorsteinsson, UNE), “The challenges of growing up in rural Iceland” (Mrs Sibba Gudlaugsdottir, Icelandic Australian Association of NSW), and “Energy and nature in Iceland” (Mr Björg Thorsteinsson, Icelandic Club of Queensland).

The cultural evening on Saturday 5 February, organised by Linda Sigmundsdottir from the Icelandic Australian Association of NSW, will include performances of Icelandic folk songs arranged for flutes and played by professional musicians from Sydney. Ms Sigmundsdottir, who is herself a flute and oboe player, will contribute both to the music and to the explanation of its context and meaning. The local accordion player Anneke van Mosseveld will also perform with the group.

The annual CWA Study School is an expression of the long-standing relationship between the University of New England and the Country Women’s Association of NSW.

An international meeting at the University of New England this week has revealed that lawyers involved in the regulation of water use all round the world are looking with great interest at conflict over the management of water resources in Australia’s Murray-Darling Basin.

The “Water Law” colloquium, on Wednesday the 5^th and Thursday the 6^th of January, was hosted by the UNE School of Law’s Australian Centre for Agriculture and Law (AgLaw Centre). It brought experts in water law from Brazil, Canada, China, Egypt, Iceland, South Africa and the United States together with their Australian counterparts to discuss the role of law in addressing conflicts over water. “The rest of the world is looking to Australia and the Murray-Darling Basin,” said Professor Denise Fort from the School of Law at the University of New Mexico, USA.

Professor Fort said the inclusion of ecosystem management in plans for the regulation of water use in the Murray-Darling Basin was particularly exciting, and she emphasised the importance of ongoing scientific experiments to inform the framing of regulations flexible enough to take account of variable environmental factors.

She also emphasised the importance of community participation in the regulation process. And it was this “human” dimension of water regulation that was the focus of the UNE colloquium, titled “Water Law: Through the Lens of Conflict”. “The Murray-Darling Basin draft plan has largely neglected that dimension,” said Dr Amanda Kennedy, Deputy Director of the AgLaw Centre and one of the organisers of the colloquium. During the two days of the colloquium, and for several days of more informal talks beforehand, the participants discussed how laws could address the “human dimension” more effectively.

Speakers at the colloquium examined water law and its social implications in relation to subjects such as climate change, the environment, agricultural water use, trans-boundary water flows, property rights, international waters, and energy and mining. Among the presenters were Professor Du Qun, Deputy Director of the Research Institute of Environmental Law at Wuhan University, China, speaking on “Trans-boundary water flows, conflict and the rule of law in China”, Kristín Haraldsdóttir from the Institute on Natural Resources Law at Reykjavik University, Iceland (“Property rights to water and social conflict – an example from Iceland”), and Janice Gray from the Faculty of Law at the University of NSW (“Groundwater and property: a site of contestation”).

Janice Gray discussed the still unresolved issue of groundwater as “property”, and the implications of the fact that “people are now facing the realities of the over-allocation of groundwater”. “The ‘out-of-sight-out-of-mind’ attitude towards the use of groundwater is going to have to change,” she said.

UNE’s Professor Paul Martin, the Director of the AgLaw Centre and the convener of the colloquium, said that the discussions during the meeting would form the basis of “significant inputs” to a large international conference in South Africa in August. Papers from the colloquium will be published in the first issue of the new International Journal of Rural Law and Policy to be published mid-year by UNE’s School of Law.

THE PHOTOGRAPH displayed here shows UNE’s Dr Amanda Kennedy with one of the presenters at the colloquium, Professor Richard Paisley from the Institute of Asian Research at the University of British Columbia in Canada.

Tango dancing could add a new dimension of enjoyment to the lives of older people with a visual impairment.

“Tango dancing is an ideal activity for people with age-related macular degeneration,” said Rosa Pinniger, a researcher from the University of New England who is planning a program of tango classes in Sydney to test this hypothesis.

“Tango is conducted at a walking pace and is performed within a supportive embrace, the partner providing helpful sensory information for navigating through space,” Ms Pinniger explained. “In Tango, the most important thing is to be in the present moment, connecting totally with the partner – two people moving as one. In order to achieve this, the follower must pay full attention and focus on the leader’s movements – and in fact it is easier to do this with closed eyes so as not to get distracted.”

Ms Pinniger’s “tango trial” in Sydney, to begin in February 2011, is part of an international study on “the feasibility of using an Argentine Tango program for improving mood in individuals with age-related macular degeneration (ARMD)”. It follows a pilot study last year by Associate Professor Patricia McKinley of McGill University in Canada in which all of the ARMD-affected participants responded positively – and with pleasure – to the dance. Dr McKinley, who is co-supervisor (with UNE’s Dr Rhonda Brown and Dr Einar Thorsteinsson)  of Ms Pinniger’s doctoral research, will travel to Australia for the Sydney program.

Ms Pinniger has already conducted tango programs that have demonstrated beneficial effects for participants with depression or anxiety. “The aim of this new study is to assess the potential of tango dancing for promoting and enhancing mobility, social interaction, and a sense of wellbeing in seniors with ARMD – or any serious visual impairment,” she said. She is seeking participants in the Sydney trial, and anyone interested – either for themselves or on behalf of a friend or relative – can contact her on 0416 210 758 (or e-mail: rpinnige@une.edu.au).

The program will comprise two tango classes a week for four weeks (Tuesdays and Thursdays from 10.30 am to midday) at the Pyrmont Community Centre, starting on Tuesday 8 February. Each class will run for an hour and a half, with a break in the middle. The classes will be free of charge, with expert instructors as dance partners for the participants.

“ARMD is the leading cause of irreversible visual impairment in adults over 50 years of age around the world,” Ms Pinniger explained. “It results in the loss of central vision (although some peripheral vision may remain), so it is difficult or impossible for those affected to recognise faces, to read, to engage in other activities – such as playing cards or knitting – that they have always enjoyed, and to move around without fear of falling. The emotional consequences can be devastating – including reduced levels of wellbeing and greater levels of depression.

“We’re investigating the beneficial effects of tango dancing as an activity for which visual impairment is not a disadvantage. On the contrary, visual impairment enhances the connection with a partner during the dance, and thus the enjoyment of it.”