Australian River Restoration Centre (ARRC)

Science telling stories

Siwan Lovett — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 00:36:00 +0000

In the week of the Science Festival, I came across a great blog from Ines Cifuentes of the Amercian Geophysical Union who talks about the need for scientists to become storytellers. What does that mean? Instead of relying on giving out information, we have to use emotions, humor, visuals, anything and all to draw people in, hold their attention, and make them learn.

This blog also linked us to the work of Randy Olson who is a scientist turned film maker. In his ‘Benshi Blog’, there is a film about the rare Majestic Plastic Bag: A Mockumentary – we encourage you to take a look. Randy has also written a book called Don’t be such a scientist, talking substance in an age of style – we will be reviewing this book and getting back to you! We have also placed more of Ines Cifuentes’s blog on our New information and knowledge page.

Siwan

Business Narrative Conference in Singapore

Nerida Hart — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 00:30:45 +0000

It is only 2 weeks until the Origins Asia Pacific Conference in Singapore and I am so lucky to be presenting at this event.

This conference is part of the Singapore International Storytelling Festival and is organised by The National Book Development Council of Singapore. The aim of Origins is to foster the practice of business storytelling and narrative techniques in the Asia Pacific region and to build awareness among government agencies and corporations of the power of storytelling and narrative for business.

At the ARRC we believe that storytelling and narrative techniques are essential skills and knowledge for organisational effectiveness. We will keep you posted because this is an area where the ARRC will continue to promote and provide resources. Check out our Resources section for more information on narrative techniques and story.

I will be keeping our followers posted through Twitter during the event and the ARRC blog after the event.

Nerida

13th International Riversymposium, Perth, 11-14 Oct

Siwan Lovett — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 00:28:36 +0000

In a bold move the International Riversymposium team has bravely left Brisbane to host the event in Perth! I applaud this initiative, as river protection, restoration and management is happening all around Australia and it is great to have the opportunity to attract people with a new location.

I am particularly excited about the Riversymposium this year, as it is my first as one of the domestic Riverprize judges – what an honour this is as we get down to our final round of judging. I have been so impressed with the quality of applications, and am heartened and thrilled to see so much great work going on in our river, creeks, wetlands and waterways. I encourage anyone who can, to get to Perth, I will be presenting a paper, as well as running a few workshops with Natalie Baker from the International River Foundation on ‘connecting through conversation’ and ‘knowledge sharing’. I look forward to seeing you there! For more information click here.

Siwan

Australian Network for Plant Conservation National Conference, Perth, 28 Sept-1 Oct

Siwan Lovett — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 00:27:58 +0000

Torbay Catchment, Photo courtesy Louise Duxbury

The theme of this year’s ANPC conference is: planning conservation to achieve restoration. I attended an ANPC conference last year in the Grampians (Vic), and was very impressed with the commitment, insight and expertise of all those who attended. I recommend anyone with an interest in native plants take the opportunity to get along to what is sure to be a great conference. The post-conference field trip to the international biodiversity ‘hot spot’ of the south-west of WA is sure to be fantastic! For more information click here.

Siwan

C.H.O.O.S.E. Happiness

Siwan Lovett — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 02:47:50 +0000

Last week I attended a three day positive psychology course run by Dr Timothy Sharp from The Happiness Institute. Now before you think I am going all ‘touchy and feely’ I want to reassure you that positive psychology is an academic discipline that focuses on what makes people ‘happy’, rather than the traditional approach of trying to ‘fix’ people who are sad. At the ARRC we believe people are valuable natural resources, so this course was a great way for me to tap back into the latest thinking on how we can create workplaces and assist individuals to feel happy in the work they do.

Over the next few months I will be developing some new training materials and ideas about how we can use Dr Sharp’s research to help, support and celebrate people working in NRM. In the meantime, if you are interested in learning more, click here to find out about how to C.H.O.O.S.E. Happiness, go to The Happiness Institute website, and stay tuned to the ARRC for opportunities to apply these teachings in your professional and personal life.

Siwan

Happy Birthday Wetland Care

Siwan Lovett — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 02:41:34 +0000

On Friday the 23rd of July, Wetland Care celebrated its 19 year old birthday. This great organisation is dedicated to protecting and restoring Australian wetlands and inspiring others to get involved.

Wetland Care focuses on building capacity and providing ongoing support to over 16,000 volunteers, community groups, landholders and natural resource managers working to protect and rehabilitate wetlands across the country. Together, these people have conserved, restored and sustainably managed over 175,000ha of Australia’s functioning wetland ecosystems and their catchments, and assisted wetland managers in rehabilitation planning through mapping and assessing over 1,480,000ha of wetlands across New South Wales and Queensland.

Well done to all the staff, Board and volunteers … and Happy Birthday Wetland Care!

Siwan

Knowledge and Information Framework and collaborative sharing space for Qld NRM

Bruce Boyes — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 02:41:14 +0000

A new Knowledge and Information Framework outlining how regional natural resource management (NRM) knowledge and information needs across Queensland can be better managed has been released by the Regional Groups Collective (RGC), which represents the state-wide interests of the 14 regional NRM bodies in Queensland. To download the framework click here or visit the Collective Projects page of the RGC website.

The collaborative online wiki www.collections.org.au has also been established to document NRM projects and facilitate knowledge and information sharing for NRM groups.

What is your clean water worth to you?

Nerida Hart — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 23:13:48 +0000

Thanks to Twitter (yet again) I was alerted to this amazing web site called I count for my earth and videos on water. The video is called “Tapped” and covers everything from chemicals (including endocrine disrupting chemicals) in the water, to the amount of landfill created each year by plastic bottles used for selling drinking water. From plastic bottle production to the public’s right for water – this video has it all. Even though it is a US based site it is well worth a look.

After ploughing my way through this site I thought it was important to revisit a major piece of research undertaken by Land & Water Australia (LWA) on Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals in the Australian Riverine Environment by M Williams, M Woods, A Kumar and R Kookana. This report looks at evidence of endocrine disruption in wildlife populations, including skewed sex ratios, abnormal development of gonads and reproductive failure in exposed populations of aquatic organisms. Of particular interest are compounds including steroidal hormones, alkylphenols (degradates of non-ionic surfactants), phthalates (“plasticisers”), pesticides and organometals that have endocrine disrupting potency. This research is now being continued by CSIRO and was one of the fascinating papers presented at the recent ‘Knowledge for managing Australian landscapes‘ conference.

Nerida