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Eco-anxiety, climate change and the 'bottom billion': a plea for better understanding
No full textClimate change poses enormous, rapidly increasing risks
to human well-being that remain poorly appreciated.
The growing understanding of this threat has generated
a phenomenon often called ’eco-anxiety’. Eco-anxiety
(and its synonyms) is best documented in the Global
North, mostly among people who are better educated
and whose reasons for concern are both altruistic and
self-interested. However, the populations who are most
vulnerable to climate change are disproportionately
poor and live in the Global South, where evidence for
eco-anxiety (or climate) anxiety is limited, especially
among those who have been called the ’bottom billion’,
approximately the global population’s poorest decile.
Here, I postulate reasons for this research gap as both
ethical and practical. Additionally, the bottom billion
experience many disadvantages, some of which plausibly
lower their recognition of anthropogenic climate change.
These disadvantages include nutritional and health
factors that can reduce learning capacity, even if access
to formal education exists. Many in this population
have limited or no electronic access to information.
Furthermore, the relationship between the stresses
faced by such populations and climate change is often
indirect, potentially also disguising recognition of the
role of climate change. The world is characterised by
many distressing forms of inequality, one of which is
the effective ’invisibilisation’ of the bottom billion. This
group faces many challenges; some of these may exceed
climate change as rational causes for anxiety. However,
it is here argued that policy makers should act on their
behalf, irrespective of evidence that they experience ecoanxiety.nilPeer-reviewe
A Dialogue Between Nature and Culture: An Ethnography of the Talesh People's Calling Tradition
No full textThis thesis examines khele, a calling tradition of the Taleshi people in Iran, who primarily live in the county of Talesh in Gilan province, located on the southwestern coast of the Caspian Sea. Rooted in the region's diverse geography, which includes coastal areas, plains, foothills, and mountains, khele initially served as a practical communication tool for ranching, farming, and fishing activities. Over time, khele developed into a cultural practice performed at local concerts, representing the Taleshi nomadic and agricultural lifestyle and evoking memories of rural life. This research explores how khele reflects the social, occupational, and emotional aspects of the Taleshi rural life, highlighting the people's relationship with their environment. It also investigates how khele contributes to the formation of cultural identity, memory, and a sense of belonging and well-being among the Taleshi communities. To examine these dynamics, I employed an ethnographic approach that included observational ethnography, netnography, soundscape recordings, and interviews (individual, feedback, and walking) conducted in the living and working places of the Taleshi people over a period of 12 months.
The findings demonstrate that khele acts in different ways: practically for communication, emotionally for self-expression, and symbolically in cultural performances. Khele is an important cultural marker that connects the community to the past through memory, sound and place. This thesis also demonstrates how khele has changed in response to urbanization and technological changes, shifting from a daily tool to a cultural symbol in performances and gatherings. This shift highlights the resilience of the Taleshi people, who have preserved their cultural heritage while adapting to modern life. This thesis contributes to ethnomusicology, anthropology and sound studies by providing a conceptual framework for understanding traditional and transformed calls, and demonstrating how calling traditions shape cultural and ecological understandings. It highlights the role of soundscape and landscape in constructing cultural meaning and memory, while also providing insights into the broader impact of sound in human-environment interactions. This work shows how khele represents the sonic world of the Taleshi people and contributes to the ongoing transformation of their cultural heritage
Using natural capital accounting for biodiversity offset policy: a case study from the Australian Capital Territory
No full textBiodiversity offsetting aims to balance biodiversity conservation against demand for land required for development, while natural capital accounting (NCA) is an information system for integrated environmental-economic decision-making. Many countries use both, but to date, NCA is untested for biodiversity offset policy. We rectify this using the Australian Capital Territory (ACT), a subnational jurisdiction using offsetting and facing global challenges common to offset implementation and biodiversity conservation. Hybrid land cover, land use and ecosystem extent accounts for offset areas, development areas, and protected areas were produced for 2010 to 2020. These identified 2217 ha of offsets required for 26 developments, mainly impacting natural temperate grasslands (NTG) and box-gum grassy woodlands (BGGW). Assessing net biodiversity changes was challenging because changes in ecosystem extent based on land cover are open to interpretation, and ecosystem condition accounts couldn't be produced. Between 2010 and 2020, land cover associated with NTG and BGGW declined across the ACT: 3011 ha fall in BGGW-short vegetation and 5761 ha fall in BGGW-open woodland. ACT offset areas were typically within land zones unlikely to be developed, and the area for new offsets is limited (9828 ha). While the data challenges of assessing offset policy identified in this study and others are a barrier to account production and use for offset policy, we conclude that accounting could inform offset policies in the ACT and globally by systematically linking biodiversity offsets to ecosystem extent and condition, allowing consistent net biodiversity changes assessment and providing a path to international standardisation of offset measurement and reporting.This study was funded by the Australian Capital Territory Government Environment, Planning, and Sustainable Development Directorate. We thank Victoria Clarke, Angelica Santini, Steven Gianakis, Amanda Roberts, and Shu-Yen Ee for providing information and advice used in this study. We also thank all who provided input at the seminar held on 12 July 2023 and in follow-up discussions of the project\u2019s results.Peer-reviewe
Responses of small mammals to prescribed low-intensity fire: Genetic insights from a northern Australian fire experiment
No full textPrescribed fire is widely used for habitat management in savannas, with biodiversity conservation as a specific objective. However, it is rarely underpinned by an understanding of the mechanisms determining species' responses to fire and persistence in fire-prone environments. We conducted a fire experiment in a mesic northern Australian savanna to investigate the demographic and genetic responses of three small mammal species to fire in areas with different fire frequencies. Live-trapping surveys were conducted before the experimental burns (pre-fire), six-weeks post-fire, and one-year post-fire. For each species, we tested for changes in the number of individuals, capture rates, apparent survival and temporary emigration, genetic diversity, genetic structure, and spatial patterns of relatedness.
More northern brown bandicoots (Isoodon macrourus) and northern brushtail possums (Trichosurus vulpecula arnhemensis) were captured in high fire frequency plots, whereas more black-footed tree-rats (Mesembriomys gouldii melvillensis) were captured in low fire frequency plots. There was no direct effect of the low-intensity fire event on any demographic or genetic metric for any species. However, there was evidence of species-specific dispersal dynamics, with genetically related northern brown bandicoots more dispersed than the other species, especially six-weeks post-fire. Genetically related northern brushtail possums and black-footed tree-rats mostly occupied the same plots with no effect of fire.
This research shows that low intensity fire events within early dry season fire management programs in northern Australia have minimal direct impact on populations of these small mammal species but heterogeneity in long-term fire frequency is important for providing habitat for diverse species. However, infrequently burnt habitat is increasingly rare but important for some declining species like the black-footed tree-rat. We therefore recommend strategic long-term fire management that considers the habitat characteristics required for co-occurring species with distinct habitat requirements and life-histories.This study was conducted under the Charles Darwin University Animal Ethics Permit A22010 and the Tiwi Land Council research permit NRM014 and visitor permits WOC001007 \u2013 WOC001053. This study was funded by the Australian Research Council Discovery Project grant ( DP210103227 ) and partially supported by Territory Natural Resource Management ( RLPMU03RP11 ). A. Carey and G. Neave were supported by a Research Training Program Stipend Scholarship , and a Holsworth wildlife research endowment grant.Peer-reviewe
Visa Status, Physical Activity and Mental Health Among Farsi/Dari Speaking Refugees, Immigrants and Asylum Seekers in Sydney, Australia
No full textBackground: Asylum-seekers in Australia are subjected to restrictive access, such as to education, work, and family reunion, which can affect mental and physical health. We examined the relationship between these restrictive measures and mental health symptoms and physical activity in a sample of Iranian and Afghan asylum seekers, refugees, and immigrants in Sydney. Methods: 276 Iranian and Afghan asylum seekers, refugees, and immigrants were recruited using a probability proportional to size representative, time by location sampling frame across randomly selected Iranian and Afghan grocery shops in Sydney. The interview recorded physical activity levels (Simple Physical Activity Questionnaire); posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms and trauma events (Harvard Trauma Questionnaire); depression symptoms (Hopkins Symptom Checklist) and demographics (Visa, gender, age). Cross-sectional hierarchical logistic regression examined the relationship between visa status and achieving World Health Organisation physical activity guidelines. Hierarchical linear regression examined visa status and sedentary time. Path Analysis tested whether these relationships were mediated by PTSD or depression symptoms. Results: Forty-six percent of Iranian and Afghan respondents who had secure residency in Australia engaged in levels of moderate to vigorous activity that met the WHO recommended rates. After controlling for variables, asylum seekers (with insecure visas) were three times less likely to meet guidelines and reported an average of 30 min per day more sedentary time. Mediation analysis indicated that depression symptoms and PTSD symptoms mediated the visa status and physical activity relationship. Likewise, depression and PTSD mediated the relationship between visa status and sedentary behaviour. Conclusion: Insecure visa status is associated with physical inactivity and sedentary behaviour, which are influenced by psychiatric symptoms. This could have long-term physical and mental health consequences for asylum seekers. So, What?Visa restrictions placed on people seeking asylum when they arrive in Australia could have long-term physical and mental health consequences. This could affect the quality of life for those affected, as well as placing a greater burden on the health system in the future.Open access publishing facilitated by University of New South Wales, as part of the Wiley - University of New South Wales agreement via the Council of Australian University Librarians.Peer-reviewe
Pastoral hazardscapes in Aotearoa New Zealand: gender, land dispossession, and dairying in a warming climate
No full textThe impacts of climate change are exposing vast stretches of dairy farms in the Waikato region of Aotearoa New Zealand to floods, droughts, and seawater inundation. This article describes how the Waikato ‘hazardscape’—co-created through processes of land dispossession, dairy intensification, and climate change—shapes the vulnerabilities and capacities of different dairy farming groups, specifically women, intergenerational, and Indigenous Māori farmers. Our findings show that while contemporary Māori owned dairy farms are sometimes situated on sub-optimal land as a result of decades of land dispossession, their size and collective ownership structures can support greater flexibility, diversification, and adaptive decision-making processes. The longevity and financial security of many non-Indigenous intergenerational dairy farms means they are also more able to invest in long-term adaptation decisions, albeit often tied to the continuation of dairying. Furthermore, within these farm units, dairy farm women make a significant contribution to adaptation goals, yet their unique adaptation strategies and requirements are often overlooked, particularly in industry-run settings. The article foregrounds how achieving equitable adaptation in Aotearoa New Zealand’s agricultural landscape will require more attention to the gendered impacts of climate change, and the ways in which access to land (or lack thereof) supports or creates barriers to flexible adaptation. We call for more diverse and inclusive platforms for adaptation planning that are receptive to envisioning alternative, more equitable, and ultimately lower risk ways of co-existing with hazards, while managing productive land.The authors would like to acknowledge the Deep South Science Challenge Te Komata o Te Tonga for funding this research as part of the \u2018primary sector preparedness for climate change\u2019 research project. We would like to thank Dairy NZ, for providing valuable knowledge and contacts for interviews. We also thank two anonymous reviewers for their helpful reviews of the manuscript. We thank all of the participants who generously shared their knowledge and time with us.Peer-reviewe
Estimating the impact of Western Australia's first respiratory syncytial virus immunisation program for all infants: A mathematical modelling study
No full textBackground: The Australian Therapeutic Goods Administration approved the use of nirsevimab, a long-acting monoclonal antibody for the prevention of Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV), in November 2023. Western Australia (WA) implemented a combination of nirsevimab administration strategies designed to protect all infants starting in April 2024, before the epidemic season. We developed a dynamic transmission model to predict the impact of WA's RSV immunisation program on infant hospitalisations. Methods: Our model is calibrated to monthly-aggregated hospitalisation data of children aged <5 years in temperate WA from 2015 to 2019. The model was extended to capture administration of nirsevimab at varying coverage levels for different age and risk groups, using efficacy trial data to parameterise the simulation of nirsevimab protection at a population-level from the time of administration. Results: We predict that under the observed coverage levels, approximately one-third of RSV-hospitalisations across temperate WA in under 2-year-olds will be averted by the nirsevimab infant immunisation program. We show that immunisation of newborns between April and September has the largest impact, potentially averting up to 28 % of RSV-hospitalisations in under 2-year-olds. Extending the program to immunise all children in their second year, could avert approximately half of RSV-hospitalisations of young children in temperate WA. Conclusions: A comprehensive seasonal infant immunisation program using nirsevimab, such as the one implemented in WA, can greatly reduce the RSV-hospitalisation burden in young children, with immunisation at birth prior to and during the yearly epidemic having the most impact on hospitalisations.The authors would like to thank Data Linkage Services Western Australia and acknowledge custodians of the datasets used (Birth and Death Register, Midwives Notification System, Emergency Department Data Collection, WA Notifiable Infectious Diseases Database, Hospital Morbidity Data Collection and PathWest Laboratory Medicine Database). The STAMP Investigator Team is Hannah C Moore, Christopher C Blyth, Samantha Carlson, Fiona Giannini, Mohinder Sarna, David Foley, Catherine Hughes, Peter Richmond, Avram Levy, Ewan Cameron. This work was partly funded through a Future Health Research and Innovation Fund through the WA Near-miss Awards program and the STAMP RSV program which is funded through a Stan Perron Charitable Foundation Program Grant (STAMP Program, ref.: 00046ProgPart). Alexandra B Hogan is funded by a National Health and Medical Research Council Investigator Grant and Scientia funding from UNSW. Hannah C Moore is funded by a Perron Charitable Foundation People Fellowship.Peer-reviewe
Hidden diversity in an ecologically specialized genus of Australian marsupials, the feather-tailed gliders, <i>Acrobates</i> (Diprotodontia, Acrobatidae)
No full textThe marsupial Family Acrobatidae includes the smallest gliding marsupial species in the monotypic Acrobates, found only in eastern Australia, and an equally small non-gliding species in another monotypic genus Distoechurus, found only in New Guinea. We applied molecular genetic analysis to Acrobates to assess the systematic significance of variation in superficial external characters of the tail and hindfoot (pes). Deep divergence in mitochondrial and nuclear genes demonstrated the broad sympatry of two species consistent with prior morphological diagnoses. Morphological assessment of museum vouchers showed that their distributions overlap extensively in New South Wales and Victoria and include locations where a range of biological research was conducted on the assumption of the presence of a single species. Many of these studies cannot be reassessed because neither vouchers nor tissue suitable for molecular genetic identification were collected. Intriguingly, acrobatids are the only marsupial group with internal ear discs, and the two species of Acrobates show demonstrable differences in the morphology of this structure, the biological significance of which needs to be established. Both species of Acrobates occur widely in the eucalypt forests of south-eastern Australia, which appear to be subject to a growing threat from bushfires likely aggravated by anthropogenic climate change.We thank Fred Ford for taking cranial microCT scans and figure construction, Mark Hutchinson for doing the microCT scans of Distoechurus and their reconstruction and Richie Abel for taking microCT scans of type specimens of Acrobates in the NHMUK collection. We thank Leanne Wheaton for some of the DNA sequencing, Leo Joseph for checking some of the cranial traits in the ANWC collection and for inciteful comments on the manuscript, Steve Jackson for editorial scrutiny and the collections managers at the Queensland Museum, South Australian Museum and Museum Victoria for access to their collections and Ron Lovatt, Australian Museum for the photographs in Figure 4. Salaries for KNA and FF and research activity in the Taxonomy Research & Information Network (TRIN) under the Australian Commonwealth Environmental Research Facilities (CERF) was funded by the then Department of Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts (now Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water) .Peer-reviewe
Passports, Prosperity and Problems: (Counter)geopolitical Narratives of Vanuatu’s Citizenship by Investment Scheme
No full textCitizenship by Investment (CBI) schemes – programs facilitating foreign nationals to purchase citizenship – can help governments of the Global South raise essential revenue. They can also exacerbate and facilitate corruption and undermine security, which has led to some Western governments taking action against countries that operate CBI schemes. To date, there has been scant research on the discursive contexts that shape geopolitical narratives framing Western understandings of, and responses to, CBI schemes in the Global South. In this article, we examine representations of Vanuatu’s CBI scheme through a critical discourse analysis of media reporting in Australia and New Zealand. We find that media mostly reproduce what we label the ‘security-governance nexus’ which stresses concerns about the scheme’s negative impact on security, foreign interference, and governance, to the detriment of counter-geopolitical narratives that highlight the importance of the Vanuatu’s CBI scheme for its independent economic development. In turn, we show that media play a critical, though overlooked, role in reproducing a geopolitical imagination that reflects donor priorities and interests, at the expense of efforts within the Global South to forge independent pathways to economic development.The work was supported by the Pacific Research Programme funded by the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.Peer-reviewe
Attainability of quantum state discrimination bounds with collective measurements on finite copies
No full textOne of the fundamental tenets of quantum mechanics is that nonorthogonal states cannot be distinguished perfectly. When distinguishing multiple copies of a mixed quantum state, a collective measurement, which generates entanglement between the different copies of the unknown state, can achieve a lower error probability than nonentangling measurements. The error probability that can be attained using a collective measurement on a finite number of copies of the unknown state is given by the Helstrom bound. In the limit where we can perform a collective measurement on asymptotically many copies of the quantum state, the quantum Chernoff bound gives the attainable error probability. It is natural to ask, then, what strategies can be employed to reach these two bounds - is entanglement across all available modes always necessary or can other, experimentally more simple measurements saturate these bounds In this work we address this question. We find analytic expressions for the Helstrom bound for arbitrarily many copies of the unknown state in simple qubit examples. Using these analytic expressions, we investigate whether the quantum Chernoff bound can be saturated by repeatedly implementing the M-copy Helstrom measurement. We also investigate the necessary conditions to saturate the M-copy Helstrom bound. It is known that a collective measurement on all M copies of the unknown state is always sufficient to saturate the M-copy Helstrom bound. However, general conditions for when such a measurement is necessary to saturate the Helstrom bound remain unknown. We investigate specific measurement strategies which involve entangling operations on fewer than all M copies of the unknown state. For many regimes we find that a collective measurement on all M copies of the unknown state is necessary to saturate the M-copy Helstrom bound.This research was funded by the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence CE170100012. This research is supported by A*STAR C230917010, Emerging Technology and A*STAR C230917004, Quantum Sensing. J.S.S. acknowledges support from the UK NQTP and the EPSRC Quantum Technology Hub in Quantum Communications (Grant No. EP/T001011/1).Peer-reviewe