Late at night one Thursday in April, Robbie B disappeared. Continue reading
Category Archives: Restoration
In the future, how will restorationists think about the past?
The extinct Toolache Wallaby, as painted by John Gould. Source: Wikipedia.
It’s easy to argue that history has a bigger influence on why we restore ecosystems than on how we restore them. As climate change intensifies, that distinction can only grow. Continue reading
Watch this video to restore your enthusiasm for restoring your world
To restore the world we need to re-charge our batteries. We can’t save our climate, soils or biodiversity on a flat battery of despondency. Our governments aren’t going to restore the environment or our confidence – but our communities can.
I avoid posting blogs that simply say, ‘Ooh look, here’s something cool from the internet’ – but you do have to watch this. You’ll love it.
Forgotten woodlands, future landscapes
Hans Heysen’s famous painting, Droving into the Light. Art Gallery of Western Australia.
Picture a gorgeous woodland in the early 1800s. What do you see? Majestic gum trees with bent old boughs, golden grasses, a mob of sheep or kangaroos, and a forested hill in the distance? The luminous landscape of a Hans Heysen painting, perhaps.
It’s an iconic Aussie landscape. But something’s missing. The trees are wrong. Or at least, they aren’t all there. Continue reading
From Ballarat with love: Great biodiversity videos
Nothing on TV this weekend? Then watch a biodiversity video, or perhaps eight of them!
Last month the University of Ballarat hosted the excellent Biodiversity Across The Borders conference. Videos of many of the talks have just been posted on the University’s video site.
The opening speaker, Professor David Lindenmayer, kick-started the day with a fantastic talk on ‘Effective ecosystem restoration and management’. David’s talk includes many new findings from his group’s research on woodland restoration, and the video is a definite ‘must see’. I gave a talk on ‘Natural regeneration: connecting regional Australia’. An earlier blog contained a different version of the talk which I taped at home. This live, conference video includes a Google Earth ‘fly-over’ tour and loads of bad jokes, which weren’t in the earlier version. Continue reading
On restoration, old photos and provenance
Veteran White Cypress-pine (Callitris glaucophylla) at Terrick Terrick National Park.
Apologies for the delay in posting another blog, but I’ve been away in the field enjoying old-growth ironbark forests, long-unburnt box forests, grassland grazing exclosures, regrowth mallee and more. All of which have prompted lots of ideas for future posts.
In the interim, here are three ‘must read’ links from two fantastic vegetation bloggers, which you are sure to enjoy. All three posts highlight the importance of the way we think when we talk about ‘grasslands’, ‘restoration’, ‘conservation’ and ‘functionality’. Continue reading
It’s carnival time
In blog world, ‘carnival’ has a special meaning. A blog carnival is a regular blog that features links to blogs on a particular theme. Each ‘issue’ of the carnival is hosted by a different blogger. Blog carnivals are a great way to sample lots of writers. There’s a great description of nature blog carnivals at the Nature Blog Network.
Berry Go Round is a blog carnival ‘devoted to highlighting recent posts about any aspect of plant life from the blogosphere’. Each month, bloggers submit a story to the Berry Go Round web site, and a host blogger then links all of the submitted blogs into one post. Berry Go Round has hosted my blogs in the past, and this month it’s my turn to host the carnival. This month’s carnival is shorter than most, as only three bloggers submitted posts this time. Come on, all you plant, ecology and nature bloggers, submit a blog for next month’s carnival, at the Berry Go Round web site.
The first blog on the Berry Go Round list is one my regular readers will absolutely love. Make sure you read this, as all my efforts (in blogging and conservation) fade into insignificance by comparison. Continue reading
