Tomorrow’s Country: Practice-oriented principles for Indigenous cultural fire research in south-east Australia

First Nations peoples are revitalising diverse cultural fire practices and knowledge. Institutional and societal recognition of these practices is growing. Yet there has been little academic research on these fire practices in south-east Australia, let alone research led by Aboriginal people. We are a group of Indigenous and settler academics, practitioners, and experts focused on cultural fire management in the Victorian Loddon Mallee region. Using interviews and workshops, we facilitated knowledge sharing and discussion. In this paper, we describe three practice-oriented principles to develop and maintain collaborations across Aboriginal groups, researchers, and government in the Indigenous-led revitalisation of fire on Country: relationships (creating reciprocity and trust), Country (working with place and people), and power (acknowledging structures and values). Collaborations based on these principles will be unique to each temporal, social, cultural, and geographic context. Considering our findings, we acknowledge the challenges that exist and the opportunities that emerge to constructively hold space to grow genuinely collaborative research that creates change. We suggest that the principles we identify can be applied by anyone wanting to form genuine collaborations around the world as the need for social–ecological justice grows.     

Early European Experience in Marine Spatial Planning: Planning the German Exclusive Economic Zone

Marine spatial planning is emerging as an integrated, resource management-led approach to governing the use of the seas. Recent initiatives include those of some north European countries, including Germany, which has now completed a plan for its federal offshore territory. In this article, an analysis is presented of this pioneering plan and the consultation process behind its production, with a particular emphasis on the treatment of different sectoral interests around which the plan was structured. This revealed the attempts to coordinate not only the different demands at sea by means of allocation of areas and cross-sectoral considerations, but also the uneven representation of activities with certain interests gaining strongly and others effectively marginalized. This study provides early empirical evidence of the tensions involved in the attempt to adopt a spatial approach to marine governance. This new domain for planning is situated in the overlapping, but distinct domains of marine management and spatial planning. The conceptual backgrounds of both are drawn upon in assessing the strengths and weaknesses of the plan and in suggesting how marine plans might gain by giving close attention to the broader principles of marine and strategic planning.     

Historical Climatology and coastal change associated with the ‘Great Storm’ of January 2005, South Uist and Benbecula,Scottish Outer Hebrides

Abstract

This paper describes some of the changes that affected the coastlines of South Uist and Benbecula following the ‘Great Storm’ of 11 January 2005. The paper considers historical changes in patterns of winter storminess and addresses the issue of whether or not there has been a recent increase in regional storminess, manifested partly by this particular storm. The paper concludes on the basis of available Greenland ice core chemistry data and historical climate data, together with recent meteorological data, that no such increase has taken place. This surprising conclusion is further discussed in relation to current thinking on the nature of recent climate change.     

国外旅游扶贫研究进展

在相关概念辨析的基础上,对国外旅游扶贫理论、实践模式、效果、研究方法、相关国际组织的作用进行了综述。国外旅游扶贫形成了较为系统的理论体系与研究框架,为旅游实践提供了理论支持。从研究内容看,自然旅游、遗产旅游、农业旅游、社区旅游是旅游扶贫的主要方式;从扶贫效果看,旅游扶贫对当地经济有较大的促进作用,但需要合理的规划与操控才能可持续。旅游扶贫研究方法以宏观的定量研究为主,研究案例呈现地理集中性。今后应加强城市贫困问题、精准旅游扶贫及中国旅游扶贫案例的研究。