Gallant Desert Flora: Olive Pink’s Australian Arid Regions Flora Reserve

2014 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 227 ◽  
Author(s):  
Saskia Beudel ◽  
Margo Daly

In the mid-1950s Olive Pink campaigned to have an area of land in Alice Springs set aside as a flora reserve. In 1956 the area was gazetted as the Australian Arid Regions Flora Reserve, with Pink appointed as honorary curator. Although Pink was not a professional horticulturalist or botanist, she established a garden that marked itself out from contemporary gardens, such as Maranoa Gardens and the Australian National Botanic Gardens, which were similarly committed to showcasing indigenous Australian plants. Pink's approach was pioneering in that she aimed to create a collection of plants selected by a delineated ‘climatic zone' and geographic area rather than drawn from all parts of the continent. This article argues that Pink developed a distinctive form of horticultural work informed by her passion for and close artistic observation of desert flora; her long experience establishing and maintaining gardens under central Australian ecological conditions; along with her anthropological insight into Indigenous knowledge of flora gained through her studies with Arrernte and Warlpiri people. Today we might recognize the principles that informed Pink's garden through the concepts of ‘water-wise gardens' and environmental sustainability practices.

2016 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Enongene Mirabeau Sone

The main objective of this paper is to show how oral literature is engaged by Swazis with regards to environmental sustainability. It demonstrates the relationship between nature and culture as reflected in Swazi oral literature and how indigenous knowledge embedded in this literature can be used to expand the concepts of eco-literature and eco-criticism. The paper argues that the indigenous environmental expertise among the Swazi people, encapsulated in their oral literature, can serve as a critical resource base for the process of developing a healthy environment. Furthermore, the paper contends that eco-criticism, which is essentially a Western concept, can benefit by drawing inspiration from the indigenous knowledge contained in Swazi culture and expressed in their oral literature. The paper concludes by recommending the need to strengthen traditional and customary knowledge and practices by protecting and recognising the values of such systems in the conservation of biodiversity for sustainable development.


Agriculture ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 213
Author(s):  
Alicia Ramírez-Orellana ◽  
Daniel Ruiz-Palomo ◽  
Alfonso Rojo-Ramírez ◽  
John E. Burgos-Burgos

This article aims to explore the perceptions of banana farms managers towards environmental sustainability practices through the impact of innovation, adoption of information systems, and training employees through a case study in the province of El Oro (Ecuador). Furthermore, the paper assesses how farmers’ perceptions could guide public policy incentives. PLS-Structural Equation Modeling are used as the framework by which the constructs is represented within the model. The model explained 59% of the environmental sustainability practices of Ecuadorian banana farms. The results indicate that environmental sustainability practices were positively influenced mainly by training employees, innovation, and adoption of information systems. Additionally, both the adoption of information systems and training employees indirectly influenced sustainable practices through innovation as a mediator. We may conclude that in the Ecuadorian banana farms, changes in environmental practices are derived from innovation strategies as an axis of development of useful information and training employees in public policies.


2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 84-88
Author(s):  
Greeshma G.M ◽  
Manoj G.S ◽  
Murugan K

Historically, Bryophytes were accounted to be a monophyletic group and were placed in an inclusive Bryophyta. Some species are aquatic though some can adapt and live in arid regions. Bryophytes size ranges from microscopic to 12 inches in length, the average size is between 0.5 – 2 inches long and colors vary from green to black and sometimes colorless. Bryophytes plays a vital role in the biosphere even their size is insignificant. As a biotic factor in the environment, they provide food for numerous herbivorous birds and animals. They prevent soil erosion by carpeting the soil. Bryophytes cause the outer portion of rock to slowly crumble as they grow with lichens on rock surfaces. And because of it they contribute and help to soil formation. When mixed with the soil, bryophytes increase the water-holding capacity of the soil and the amount of organic matter in the soil. Some bryophytes like sphagnum or peat moss has some economicimportance. It is used as packing material for breakable or fragile objects such as figurines and dinnerware’s. It is also used as packing materials for transporting plants and plant parts, since sphagnum holds water and hence prevent plants from drying during transport. As a whole, bryophytes are of little economic importance to man.


Author(s):  
Samuel White ◽  
Ray Kerkhove

Abstract Studies in Australian history have lamentably neglected the military traditions of First Australians prior to European contact. This is due largely to a combination of academic and social bigotry, and loss of Indigenous knowledge after settlement. Thankfully, the situation is beginning to change, in no small part due to the growing literature surrounding the Frontier Wars of Australia. All aspects of Indigenous customs and norms are now beginning to receive a balanced analysis. Yet, very little has ever been written on the laws, customs and norms that regulated Indigenous Australian collective armed conflicts. This paper, co-written by a military legal practitioner and an ethno-historian, uses early accounts to reconstruct ten laws of war evidently recognized across much of pre-settlement Australia. The study is a preliminary one, aiming to stimulate further research and debate in this neglected field, which has only recently been explored in international relations.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Teresa Eugenio ◽  
Pedro Carreira ◽  
Nina Miettinen ◽  
Isabel Maria Estima Costa Lourenço

PurposeThe study investigates whether the level of sustainability concerns of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in Malaysia and the Philippines is positively associated with accounting students' intentions to engage in sustainability accounting through its effect on students' attitude, subjective norm and perceived behavioural control regarding environmental sustainability practices.Design/methodology/approachThis empirical study relies on a structural equation model computed using data collected through a questionnaire and data collected from the HEIs websites.FindingsThe findings show that the willingness to engage in sustainability accounting is determined by students' subjective norm and perceived behavioural control, but it is not determined by attitude regarding environmental sustainability practices. The authors also found that the greater the concern with sustainability of the HEI in which a student is enrolled, the greater his/her attitude, subjective norm and perceived behavioural control towards environmental sustainability, and, indirectly, the greater his/her intention to engage in sustainability accounting.Originality/valueThese findings add to the literature on higher education and sustainability accounting by high-lighting the importance of the HEIs sector in promoting sustainability policies and practices, in acting as role models regarding sustainability issues, and in preparing students for building a sustainable society.


Author(s):  
Katja Neves

Botanic gardens came into existence in the late 1500s to document, study, and preserve plants originating from all over the world. The scientific field of botany was a direct outcome of these developments. From the 1600s onward, botanic gardens also paid key roles in acclimatizing plants across distinct ecosystems and respective climate zones. This often entailed the appropriation of Indigenous systems of plant expertise that were then used without recognition within the parameters of scientific botanical expertise. As such, botanic gardens operated as contact zones of unequal power dynamics between European and Indigenous knowledge systems. Botanic gardens were intimately embroiled with the global expansion of European colonialism and processes of empire building. They helped facilitate the establishment of cash-crop systems around the world, which effectively amounted to the extractive systems of plant wealth accumulation that characterize the modern European colonial enterprise. In the mid-20th century, botanic gardens began to take on leading roles in the conservation of plant biodiversity while also attending to issues of social equity and sustainable development. Relationships between lay expertise and scientific knowledge acquired renewed significance in this context, as did discussions of the knowledge politics that these interactions entailed. As a consequence of these transformations, former colonial exchanges within the botanical garden world between Indigenous knowledge practices and their appropriation by science came under scrutiny in the final decades of the 20th century. Efforts to decolonize botanic gardens and their knowledge practices emerged in the second decade of the 20th century.


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