Program
Program Information
Organisers have carefully designed a program that provides an overview of the major issues for biodiversity conservation followed by an opportunity to explore success stories from different parts of the Pacific region. There are a range of keynote speakers presenting in the plenary sessions and these will soon be provided.
Poster Presentations
Posters can be printed at the University of New South Wales at a cost of $90 per poster. For further details, please email biodiversity2007@icms.com.au
Conference Themes
The five major themes are:
- Regional Challenges (particular issues for the world)
- Managing threatening processes of universal importance
- Case studies of conservation in action, including biodiversity monitoring and assessment
- Conservation science and policy
- Conservation science and the community (non-government organisations, indigenous people)
Invited Plenary Presenters
Opening Keynote Address
Professor Michael E. Soulé
Keynote address: Continental conservation: new scales, new science, new visions and new partners
Plenary Speakers
Professor Mike Archer
Dr Peter Brussard
Professor Stuart Bunn
Dr David Choquenot
Mr David Claudie
Professor Chris Dickman
Ms Alexandra de Blas
Professor Hugh Possingham
Dr David Towns
Dr John Woinarski
Dr Dick Watling
Professor Michael E. Soulé
Michael Soulé is Professor Emeritus of Environmental Studies, University of California, Santa Cruz. He was born, raised and educated in California. After spending much of his youth in the canyons, deserts and intertidal of San Diego and Baja California and after graduating from San Diego State, he went to Stanford to study population biology and evolution under Paul Ehrlich. Upon receiving his Ph.D. at Stanford, Michael went to Africa to help found the first university in Malawi. He has also taught in Samoa, the Universities of California at both San Diego and Santa Cruz and the University of Michigan. He has done field work on insects, lizards, birds, and mammals in Africa, Mexico, the Adriatic, the West Indies, in California and Colorado.
Michael was a founder of the Society for Conservation Biology and The Wildlands Project and has been the President of both. He has written and edited 9 books on biology, conservation biology, and the social and policy context of conservation. He has published more than 160 articles on population and evolutionary biology, fluctuating asymmetry, population genetics, island biogeography, environmental studies, biodiversity policy, nature conservation, and ethics. He continues to do research on ecosystem regulation by highly interactive species. He is a Fellow of both the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, has received a Guggenheim Fellowship, is the sixth recipient of the Archie Carr Medal, was named by Audubon Magazine in 1998 as one of the 100 Champions of Conservation of the 20th Century and is a recipient of the National Wildlife Federation's National Conservation Achievement Award for Science.
Now living in Colorado, Michael serves on the boards of several conservation organisations, and consults and speaks internationally on nature protection. Currently, he is Co-chair of the Science Council for Australia's WildCountry Project and is completing a book about compassion and practical means of achieving harmony between the three life-affirming movements-conservation, animal protection, and humanitarianism.
Professor Mike Archer
Mike Archer was born in Sydney and is a dual citizen of Australia and the USA. He did his undergraduate training in geology and biology at Princeton University (BA MCL, Geol./Biol. 1967), consecutive Fulbright Scholarships at the Western Australian Museum, Perth (1967-69) and a PhD in Zoology at the University of Western Australia (1976). From 1972-78, as Curator of Mammals at the Queensland Museum, he spent equal amounts of time on vertebrate palaeontology and modern mammalogy. In 1978, research at Riversleigh (NW Qld) and other areas escalated, he shifted to the University of New South Wales where, since 1989, he has been Professor of Biological Science. From 1999 to 2004 he was Director of the Australian Museum in Sydney. In 2004 he was appointed Dean of Science at UNSW. He has had significant ARC and other competitive funding continuously since 1978 and supervised about 12 postgraduate students at any one time.
Mike's primary contributions have occurred in nine areas: 1, documenting biodiversity of Australia's living marsupials; 2, the evolutionary history of Australia's marsupial carnivores; 3, ontogenetic development of the oral epithelium of marsupials and marsupial dental homology; 4, basicranial morphology and circulatory systems of tribosphenid marsupials; 5, Australia's first Mesozoic mammals and the monotreme fossil record; 6, Australia's only early Tertiary mammals at Murgon, Queensland; 7, the biodiversity of early Eocene to Holocene vertebrates at Murgon and Riversleigh; 8, the conservation status of living animals based on an understanding of their deep-time history; and 9 (most recently and increasingly consumingly), communication to the public as well as colleagues about the vital importance of implementing compatible, innovative approaches to maximise long-term, effective conservation of Australia's threatened biotas as well as rural and regional communities.
Awards received by Mike for his researches include: Inaugural Eureka Prize for the Promotion of Science 1990, Clarke Medal of the Royal Society of New South Wales 1984 for Researches in Natural Science, Inaugural Queensland Museum Medal 1987 for research, Australian Heritage Award for Nature Conservation 1989 for research, Inaugural IBM Conservation Award (with S. Hand & H. Godthelp) 1990 for research, Von Mueller Medal of ANZAAS 1994 for research, Verco Medal of the Royal Society of South Australia 1996 for researches in natural science, Skeptic of the Year 1998; Dr Alice Whitley Award for Science Education 2002, Australian College of Educators; Research Associate of the Australian Museum; Research Associate of the Queensland Museum; Fellowship of the RZSNSW (for sustained research), Fellowship of the Australian Academy of Science (from 2002); T.H. Huxley Award for research, 2004; and seven Whitley awards for books written or edited. He has produced/coordinated hundreds of scientific publications, books, conferences and keynote addresses at international conferences. He is fully or jointly responsible for the establishment of 5 regional and urban museums. Research at Riversleigh by Mike and more than 80 colleagues resulted in inscription in 1995 of Riversleigh & Naracoorte on the World Heritage List.
Dr Peter Brussard
Peter F. Brussard is currently Professor of Biology at the University of Nevada Reno. He received his Ph.D. in Biology from Stanford University under the direction of Paul Ehrlich. He has been on the faculty of Cornell University, the Head of Biology at Montana State University, the Director of the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory, and the Chair of
Biology at UNR. He has held offices in the American Society of Naturalists, the Society for the Study of Evolution, and the Society for Conservation Biology. His research focus is on ecosystem change and conservation challenges in the western USA.
Dr David Choquenot
Dr David Choquenot has undertaken research on vertebrate pests in Australia and New Zealand for 20 years. David completed his BSc at Macquarie University, MSc at the University of Canberra and PhD at the University of Sydney. His particular interests have grown from ecological responses of vertebrate pests to control, to consider the responses of species, communities and ecosystems that pests affect. He has published over 150 scientific papers, and has worked in a range of government agencies. David is currently with Landcare Research in New Zealand, where he oversees five research teams encompassing all aspects of biodiversity conservation management including pest control.
Mr David Claudie
Mr Claudie is a Traditional Owner for Kaanju Ngaachi (Homelands), which encompass some 840,000 hectares of culturally and biologically significant country centred on the Wenlock and Pascoe Rivers in central Cape York Peninsula, northern Australia. Mr Claudie is the Chairman of Chuulangun Aboriginal Corporation, which has established itself as the peak body for land and resource management, homelands development and economic development for Kaanju Ngaachi. Mr Claudie is a Kaanju Leader, knowledge holder, focal landowner and lawmaker under Indigenous law and custom. This qualification is determined by one's position and ranking in the Indigenous social organisation (kinship system) and associated life experiences. His knowledge encompasses the areas of resource use and management, links between biological and cultural diversity, and Indigenous cosmology. Mr Claudie is also engaged in Western academia bringing together Indigenous and Western science. In 2003 he was the Inaugural Indigenous Visiting Fellow at the Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research at the Australian National University and was Visiting Fellow again in 2005. Mr Claudie has published and presented a number of papers in the area of Indigenous land management, land tenure and Indigenous policy.
Professor Chris Dickman
Christopher R. Dickman was born in the wilds of south London in 1955. His mother first suspected that her son was hard-wired as a biologist when she sprained her ankle in a pitfall trap that young Chris had dug for mice and rats in the family's back garden, her suspicions being confirmed over the years as all manner of local animals were brought home as pets. Chris gained a joint Honours degree in Botany and Zoology from the University of Leeds in 1976 and then, after several months of globe-trotting, moved to the Australian National University in Canberra to undertake a PhD. This research, on competition between small marsupials, was completed in 1983. After two years of postdoctoral research on urban vertebrates at the University of Oxford, Chris took up faculty positions at the University of Western Australia and then at the University of Sydney, where he has held a personal chair in ecology since 2004.
The major focus of Chris' research is the investigation of factors that influence the distribution and abundance of terrestrial vertebrates. This research has been stimulated by his curiosity on the one hand about the causes of many intriguing patterns of vertebrate distributions in the Australian fauna, and concern on the other that many species have declined or become extinct with the advent of European settlement. He has been able to carry out his research in a wide range of overseas and Australian environments, including forest, woodland, heathland, urban, alpine and arid desert habitats, and on offshore islands. However, for the last twenty years his primary focus has been to elucidate, by observation and field experiment, the factors that regulate vertebrate diversity in arid Australia. Research on the exceptionally rich communities of small mammals, birds and lizards of this region provides an opportunity to contribute to theoretical debate about the importance of biotic and physical processes in shaping population and species dynamics, and especially to achieve practical conservation and management goals.
Professor Stuart Bunn
Professor Bunn is Director of the Australian Rivers Institute at Griffith University in Brisbane. His major research interests are in the ecology of river and wetland systems and he has published widely on this topic. Professor Bunn has extensive experience working with international and Australian government agencies on water resource management issues. He is a member of the Scientific Steering Committee for the Global Water System Project and has previously served as a member of the Scientific Committee for Water Research for the International Council of Science and as a Director of the Board of Land and Water Australia. He is also Deputy Chair of the Scientific Expert Panel for the Moreton Bay Waterways and Catchments Partnership in southeast Queensland.
Ms Alexandra de Blas
Alexandra de Blas is the Communications Strategist at the Australian Bush Heritage Fund, a not for profit, independent, private land conservation organisation with 25 reserves across the country. She is most widely known in her former role as the environmental voice of ABC Radio. Alexandra presented and produced Earthbeat, a specialist environment show, on Radio National for eight years. Prior to that she worked on the ABC's Country Hour program in Victoria, Tasmania and outback Queensland. She is a member of the Editorial Advisory Committee of Ecos the CSIRO's magazine on science, environment and sustainability.
Alexandra is a Vincent Fairfax Fellow and has won a number of awards including The 3rd World Water Forum Journalists Competition, Japan 2003 and the United Nations of Australia World Environment Day Award for Radio 2004. She has received scholarships which have taken her to the United States, Africa, the Pacific Islands and Asia. She is a member of the Italian Green Accord Environmental Journalists Forum.
She has a science degree majoring in zoology and psychology, and first class honours in environmental studies. She spent a couple of years writing a PhD on environmental communication before leaving it to work in the field. In the early nineties Alexandra attracted national media attention for her research into pollution associated with the Mt Lyell copper mine on Tasmania's west coast. During the same period she played an integral role in the establishment of the French black truffle industry in that state
Professor Hugh Possingham
Hugh completed Applied Mathematics Honours at The University of Adelaide in 1984. After attaining a Rhodes Scholarship in Hugh completed his D.Phil at Oxford University in 1987. Postdoctoral research periods followed at Stanford University and at the Australian National University (as a QEII Fellow). In 1991 he took a Lectureship, later Senior Lectureship, in Applied Mathematics back at The University of Adelaide. In 1995 he was appointed Foundation Chair and Professor of the Department of Environmental Science at the Roseworthy campus of The University of Adelaide. In July 2000 Hugh took up a joint Professorship between the Departments of Zoology & Entomology, and Mathematics at The University of Queensland. In February 2001 The Ecology Centre was established with Hugh as Director. The Possingham lab includes five postdoctoral researchers, three research assistants and fourteen PhD students working on empirical and theoretical aspects of the applied population ecology of plants and animals. Particular areas of recent research include: optimizing environmental monitoring, marine reserve design, optimal landscape reconstruction for birds, metapopulation dynamics of plants and animals, population viability analysis, kangaroo and koala management, and optimal weed control (as part of the Weeds CRC). The lab has a unifying interest in environmental applications of decision theory. Hugh has published over 150 refereed articles and book chapters, 127 in international peer-reviewed journals.
Hugh has a variety of broader public roles including: Member of The Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists, Chair of the Selection Advisory Panel for Market Based Instruements, and member of two Birds Australia committees.
Hugh has recently been awarded: the POL Eureka Prize for Environmental Research (for collaborative work with Dr David Lindenmayer) - 1999, the inaugural Fenner medal for plant and animal biology from the Australian Academy of Sciences - 2000, the Australian Mathematical Society Medal - 2001, ARC Professorial Fellow - 2003, Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science - 2005, ARC Federation Fellow - 2006.
He suffers from obsessive bird watching.
Dr David Towns
Dr Towns is Scientist in the RD & I Division of the New Zealand Department of Conservation (and Teaching Fellow at Victoria University of Wellington). For the last 25 years, he has worked on conservation of protected reptiles, pest eradication on islands, restoration of island ecosystems and policies for island management. He has also assisted with conservation projects on the Galapagos (threatened reptile management), Alaska (post Exxon Valdez island restoration) and Fiji (Technical Advisor for Pacific Invasives Initiative). He has published on stream ecology in New Zealand and Australia, taxonomy of New Zealand Ephemeroptera, reptile ecology and conservation, pest effects and eradication, and island ecosystem dynamics and restoration. He is President of the Society for Research on Amphibians and Reptiles in New Zealand.
Dr John Woinarski
Dr John Woinarski is a Principal Scientist with the Northern Territory Department of Natural Resources Environment and the Arts (and Adjunct Professorial Fellow with Charles Darwin University). He has worked extensively in northern Australia over the last 20 years on landscape-scale conservation planning, management of threatened species, impacts of fire and grazing regimes, biogeography, and Indigenous land management. He has published over 150 papers and book chapters, and has been awarded the Eureka Prize for Biodiversity Research and the Serventy Medal for lifetime research achievement in Australian ornithology.
Dr Dick Watling
Dr Dick Watling is Principal and Founder of Environment Consultants Fiji Ltd., Fiji's sole specialist environmental consultancy practice. In this capacity his 21 years of consultancy experience encompasses a very broad range of environmental and conservation planning and management in Pacific Island Countries and South East Asia.
A resident of Fiji since childhood, Dick's doctorate from Cambridge University was based on a field study of the applied ecology of the Red-vented Bulbul, an alien invasive in Fiji. This was followed by wide-ranging work in Fiji and, today, Dick is an internationally acknowledged authority on Fiji's environment, its birds and terrestrial wildlife. He has published five books and over 25 scientific papers.
Between 1978-82, Dick worked for the WWF Indonesia Programme which formed the basis of extensive work experience in South East Asia in conservation and protected area management over the next 15 years. He has worked regularly for many of the significant multilateral agencies including the Asian Development Bank, the World Bank, FAO, UNEP, SPREP, SPC, UNOPS, UNDP, IUCN and the European Union.
Dick was a Research Associate of the Smithsonian Institution, Washington between 1983-88; a Research Associate with the Institute. of Applied Science, University of the South Pacific since 1984; a Fellow of the Environment Research Institute, University of Wollongong since 1994; and, a Member, Commission on National Parks and Protected Areas - IUCN, The World Conservation Union since 1995. Dr Watling is a lead assessor and trainer with SmartWood for Forest Stewardship Council forest management certification, with experience in Indonesia, Lao PDR, Papua New Guinea and Fiji.