The regional impact of the channel tunnel: Qualitative and quantitative analysis

The paper addresses the question of how different types of regions mill be affected by the development of a major new transport infrastructure such as the Channel Tunnel. It summarizes a study on the regional impacts of the Channel Tunnel throughout the European Union (EU). The research design combined qualitative methods of futures exploration employing 13 regional case studies with quantitative forecasting techniques using the MEPLAN transport and economic model. The paper presents the methodology and major results of the two approaches with respect to the impacts of the Channel Tunnel on transport flows and regional development in Europe and draws conclusions for transport and regional policy of the EU. The paper demonstrates that the removal of a bottleneck like the Channel Tunnel does not necessarily induce economic gains in all adjacent regions. Much more important for regional economic development than the reduction of transport costs are the image to be a region well integrated into the European high‐speed transport network and an active political response of the region to take advantage of opportunities like the Channel Tunnel.     

Tree Densities Last Century on the Lowland Gippsland Plain,Victoria

Tree densities in the mid 1800s were calculated for 16 areas on the lowland Gippsland plain, Victoria, using data on historical maps. The plotless, closest individual method was used on map data, which listed the distance and compass bearings of trees from allotment corners. Densities ranged from 2 to 59 trees per hectare, with most estimates below 30 trees per hectare. Sparsest trees were in and near areas mapped as ‘open plains’ and the densest tree cover was on seasonally flooded river flats. Whilst it seems prudent to treat such figures as indicative rather than precise, this simple method holds considerable promise for obtaining quantitative estimates of tree densities before widespread clearing.     

Envisioning Future Landscapes in the Environmentally Sensitive Areas of Scotland

Environmentally Sensitive Areas (ESAs) designated under EC Structure Regulation 797/85 now cover 1.4 million ha of the Scottish countryside and are likely to make a substantial contribution to the regulation of landscape change. Visual changes to landscapes with (policy on) and without (policy off) the ESA programme in two Scottish ESA areas, Breadalbane and the Machair, are predicted through impact-assessment procedures and computer manipulation of photographic images. The methodological requirements for such predictions are outlined and substantial differences in landscape characteristics under policy on/off scenarios are revealed. Such approaches to landscape change are an essential foundation for the development of environmental cost-benefit analyses and will contribute to public consultation processes.     

Anthropology,Self-determination and Aboriginal Belief in the Christian God

Over the past forty years the Aboriginal people of Galiwin'ku (Elcho Island) in north-east Arnhem Land have successfully incorporated Christianity into their world view. However, a Uniting Church report characterises members of this same Yolngu (Aboriginal) community as being overwhelmed with feelings of inferiority and powerlessness and unable to function within structures established by Balanda (non-Aborigines). This paper contrasts the ways in which Christianity has helped break down the separation between cultural groups with its function as a structure for explicit discourse on Aboriginal/non-Aboriginal relations and inequality. While some Elcho Islanders see anthropologists as people who listen in order to work for Aborigines, Aboriginal Christians see them and other ‘scientists’ as attempting to undermine Aboriginal belief in the Christian God. They are seen as degrading a spiritual movement which has its foundation in the Dreaming and as posing a potential threat to the momentum of Aboriginal directed change in the community.     

A battle in the Bush: Some lessons from liberal‐national rivalry in Warrnambool

An intriguing aspect of rural Australian politics has been the occasional capacity of one of the conservative parties to make sudden, substantial electoral gains at the other's expense. C.A. Hughes (1985:53) has suggested that, in order to understand Liberal‐National rivalry, we ought not dwell upon demographic variables but need undertake detailed electoral studies and draw out the importance of ‘the personalities and local popularity of candidates’. Such a micro‐level of political examination, he laments, is rarely attempted in Australia. Ours is a micro‐level study of the one‐time safe Liberal Victorian state seat of Warrnambool in which, in recent elections (1985 and 1988), the National Party has decisively wrested control. Certainly the local popularity of the National Party candidates contributed in no small way to the switch in conservative allegiance which has occurred in Warrnambool. However, contra Hughes, we also identify an important demographic explanatory variable in Catholicism.