Assessment of Riparian Rainforest Vegetation Change in Tropical North Queensland for Management and Restoration Purposes

Changes in riparian vegetation extent in northern Queensland, Australia were assessed using aerial photographs from 1944 and 2000. Change in riparian extent was recorded as vegetation gain or loss. Changes in density were recorded as vegetation thickening. Riparian forest coverage increased by 22 ha during this time period in the Mossman River catchment. A total of 124 ha of riparian forest were gained, while 101 ha of riparian forest were lost. A further 59 ha of forest increased in density over this time period. Clearing, changes in farm management practices and natural stream channel movement have been identified as three potential causes for these changes. Areas with little or no riparian vegetation were identified and categorised into priority levels for potential revegetation efforts.     

‘How it is grown doesn't matter,as long as it's on the table’: Pesticide use,uncertainty and future aspirations

Agricultural pesticides are widely considered to be a crucial aspect of increasing food production, particularly in developing countries - despite concerns around their potentially harmful toxic effects. Based on 11 months of ethnographic fieldwork in 2019, the author explores how smallholder farmers in a rural community in western Kenya face new pest infestations introduced through global trade networks and exacerbated by climate change. In response, they increasingly adopt agricultural pesticides against these threats to their harvests to secure their aspirations for the future as well as shorter-term livelihoods. The author argues that the farmers were ‘trying’: trying out new things, unsure of the outcome, to secure livelihoods, food and good health. They shared concerns about toxic exposure and the potential effects of increased pesticide use. Yet the uncertain status of pesticides as both poison and medicine, combined with divergent temporalities of risk and exposure, meant that economic considerations heavily shaped decisions around pesticide use at a household level.