Consumption,Environmental Sustainability and Human Geography in Australia: a Missing Research Agenda?

‘Consumption’ is a central concept in the global environmental sustainability agenda. However, one important argument from Agenda 21 — that all social actors must now practise ‘sustainable consumption’— has been publicly and politically marginalised in high‐income countries such as Australia. Geographers potentially have a role in bringing consumption back onto the agenda by constructing a critical geography of consumption. Such research can help understand how the contextual use of natural resources is perceived and practised, and how consumption helps to shape contemporary social relations. This body of knowledge is vital for building sustainable development into everyday lives. Yet a focus on urban consumption perceptions and practices appears somewhat lacking in Australian geography. Ways forward can be drawn from international geography, such as in the United Kingdom where a substantial body of work has drawn a complex picture of contemporary consumption and environmental understanding. It has also challenged prevailing ‘ecological modernisation’ policy approaches, which ignore consumption's cultural facets. In sum, considering consumption in Australia can offer insights into cultural practices expressed through consumption; can challenge and add to European geographical literatures, and can also contribute to sustainability debates by offering alternatives to currently ineffective policy discourses.     

Monkey business: human–animal conflicts in urban Singapore

Ongoing human–long-tailed macaque (Macaca fascicularis) conflicts in Bukit Timah Nature Reserve, Singapore, have seen native macaques significantly affected, as residential development encroaches into animals' habitat, destroying important wildlife corridors. The search for a more humane treatment of these transgressive animals can be seen as an attempt to extend and include non-human animals within humanistic notions of ethics and care, in the process destabilizing the assumed divide between human/animal. Yet, a feasible solution is difficult to reach as National Parks Board (NParks), the state agency overseeing the conservation of reserves and wildlife, has to negotiate constantly between their goal of maintaining biodiversity and appeasing the complaining residents. The paper seek to understand urban–wilderness conflicts between human–macaque, showing that the divide between tamed/wild is multi-sited, ambiguous and constantly shifting. In this regard, we are especially interested in the role of intermediaries in initiating actions to ‘make discursive as well as material space’ for macaques in the reserve. Intermediaries, here referring to NParks and animal activists, are actors who do not reside near the reserve thus having no frequent encounters with wildlife, yet are enrolled as mitigators during instances of human–animal conflicts.     

The long‐term effects of explosive munitions on the WWI battlefield surface of Verdun,France

This paper aims to characterise the varying magnitudes of landscape disturbance across the WWI battlefield of Verdun, France. Five study sites were surveyed to best reflect the varying degrees of disturbance under common similar environmental characteristics, e.g. bedrock, soil type and topographic position. Disturbance magnitude was determined by counting and measuring the dimensional attributes of craters in two 0.25 hectare plots at each of the five study sites. Additionally, a survey of microtopography was performed at each of the five study sites to record changes in elevation of damaged sites. The spatial character and variation in the magnitude of disturbance at the five disturbance study sites was linked to four variables: (1) location of armies in relation to the front; (2) stagnation of front lines; (3) topographic location of armies; and (4) geologic characteristics of the site.