Griffith University’s research excellence has once again been recognised nationally taking out the top institution nationally in 10 fields of research with 10 researchers recognised as leaders in their field in The Australian’s 2021 research supplement.
The leading Australian institution in a field is found by the number of citations over the past five years given to papers published by researchers affiliated with that institution in the top 20 journals in that field.
Griffith is the top Research Institution in the following fields:
A new national survey finds that Australians support a net-zero carbon emissions target and want a carbon tax to fund renewable energy and a phasing out of all fossil fuel mining.
These are the initial findings of Griffith University’s five-year National Climate Action Survey, one of Australia’s first longitudinal national surveys to capture changing societal perceptions about climate change and, significantly, climate action.
“The Climate Action Survey will provide insight into how Australians’ knowledge, beliefs, attitudes, and actions change over time and how our sentiment compares with other countries around the world,” said Associate Professor Graham Bradley from the Griffith Climate Action research group.
“In light of the COP26 summit in Glasgow, the survey will be a timely and beneficial document for government and relevant stakeholders to get a clear picture of what Australians think and want around climate change and to guide their policy appropriately.
“A major finding that should spark government’s interest is that a majority of Australians regard climate action as an important consideration when deciding how to vote in the next federal election.”
This is the first wave of a planned five-year longitudinal study that traces Australians’ socio-demographic and lifestyle characteristics; opinions, self-identity, and worldviews; experience of natural disasters and extreme weather; understandings and beliefs about climate change; feelings and concerns about climate change and its impacts; and past, current, and future actions/inaction around climate change.
Examples of questions answered by the survey include:
Does anyone still not believe in climate change? If so, who?
What proportion of Australians support a net zero-carbon emission target by 2050? What proportion of federal coalition voters support this?
Should the government put a tax on carbon emissions?
How does the experience of extreme weather events like bushfires or floods impact Australians’ view on the need for climate action?
How interested are Australians in buying an electric or hybrid vehicle?
What proportion of Australians believe that the problems of climate change can be solved through new technology?
What concerns Australians more — climate change or COVID-19?
Are farmers concerned about climate change?
What sources do Australians most trust when it comes to information about climate change?
The national survey is one of many exciting projects of Griffith University’s Climate Action Beacon research group, a multidisciplinary research and education facility/team initiative established in 2020 to develop knowledge, leadership, capacity, and responses that support the transition towards a climate-resilient future.
“We hope that the findings from this survey will support the design of coherent policy around climate change. As such a complex, wicked problem, our inter-disciplinary interventions will assist pressing government and industry needs for up-to-date information on community sentiment and stimulate public debate concerning climate change-related matters,” said co-lead researcher Associate Professor Sameer Deshpande from the Griffith Climate Action research group and Social Marketing @ Griffith.
“These preliminary findings are just the tip of the iceberg in a survey that is unique in gauging the opinions of a large sample of Australian adults, stratified by gender, age, and region on climate action.”
“Our findings will also capture when Australians’ understanding of climate change is consistent with the science, their perceptions on how appropriate the government response is in addressing climate change and what more they could do to prevent or reduce its impact.”
This information derived from this survey will be crucial in policy discussions, especially in the design and implementation of interventions aimed at increasing awareness, interest and action concerning climate change.
The initial report of the full survey results will be available by December 2021 and can be accessed via the Griffith Climate Action Beacon website.
Griffith University and ASX-Listed emerging mineral processing technology company Zeotech have established a research program aimed at developing agricultural product applications for carbon markets and nutrient management.
The research partnership has been established following a successful nine-month pilot project by Griffith on behalf of Zeotech and will underpin agronomic opportunities for Zeotech products.
Zeotech and Griffith have established a research partnership.
The University will now carry out two concurrent streams of agricultural product development over 22 months, the first of which includes enhanced soil carbon storage and climate mitigation in agricultural landscapes, and the second in products to improve agricultural nutrient management.
Australian Rivers Institute researcher Dr Chris Pratt said the opportunity to work with Zeotech to develop solutions for challenges that climate change presents to farmers was an exciting one.
“Of particular interest is the potential to extend carbon market solutions to rural communities to aid the transition required in meeting Australia’s commitment to net zero emissions by 2050,” Dr Pratt said.
“We look forward to undertaking expanded pilot trials to evaluate solutions for advanced fertiliser delivery and the management of agricultural pollutants — representing a tangible opportunity to support sustainable food production.”
Dr Pratt said the pilot showed promising results, and the unique characteristics of advanced materials called synthetic zeolites presented a compelling opportunity for the application of Zeotech products for carbon sequestration.
Zeotech Managing Director Peter Zardo said the opportunity to develop solutions to aid the agricultural sector and help meet Australia’s emission reduction targets was important.
“Zeotech values the opportunity to be working with Griffith University’s Soil and Land Use team, which provides one of Australia’s most highly-specialised and well-resourced groups in the area of agricultural carbon and nutrient management,” he said.
Griffith University Vice President Industry and External Engagement Dr Peter Binks also welcomed the partnership.
Vice President (Industry and External Engagement) Dr Peter Binks.
“Griffith is very pleased to be working with Zeotech on this important and innovative program of research,” Dr Binks said.
“Zeotech is a leader in its innovative approach to carbon mitigation, which strongly aligns with our own objectives.
“The strategic research partnership allows Zeotech to draw on Griffith’s considerable research strengths in soil biogeochemistry and climate change mitigation.”
Zeotech leverages proprietary technology for the low-cost production of synthetic zeolites to deliver sustainability solutions.
Synthetic zeolites are manufactured aluminosilicate minerals with a sponge-like structure, made up of tiny pores (frameworks) that make them useful as catalysts or ultrafine filters. Commonly known as molecular sieves they can be designed to selectively absorb molecules or ions dependant on their unique construction.
Professor Davies said she was honoured to be elected to the prestigious Fellowship.
“It means that my peers think that the work that I’m doing is worthy of the recognition, and it means that I add to the voices of more women in the Academy receiving this honour,” Professor Davies said.
“It is also recognition of the diversity of research that’s now being recognized by the Academy.
“When I first published on global health governance in 2007, it seemed liked an odd choice for an International Relations scholar. The COVID-19 pandemic illustrates why we need to invest more knowledge in the diplomacy and politics of infectious disease outbreaks.”
An expert in forensic interviewing, Professor Powell has established evidence-based methods of teaching interviewing skills.
She has pioneered many innovations, including a standardised method of assessing interviewer performance, an avatar who plays the role of a child in practical exercises and a system for tailoring interview protocols for people of different linguistic and cultural backgrounds.
“I am honoured that my colleagues have elected me to the Academy,” Professor Powell said.
Professor Powell said investigative interviewing was a highly specialised skill, and that her election to the Academy recognised the body of science that underpins recommended techniques.
“Knowing how to elicit the best evidence from people is not intuitive. Despite the best of intentions, interviewers often stray from being relatively passive receivers of information and shape people’s accounts.
“Closing the gap between recommended and actual practice is the most talked about issue in my field and the focus of our work.”
The Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia (ASSA) is one of Australia’s five learned Academies and was established in 1971.
Each ASSA Fellow is elected by their peers for a sustained and internationally distinguished contribution to their field.
The development of a second-generation COVID-19 vaccine that will provide long-lasting immunity and withstand new and emerging variants and new therapies to treat anaemia of chronic disease are two of the Griffith University projects awarded National Health and Medical Research Funding.
Announced by the Federal Minister for Health Greg Hunt, the Ideas Grants projects will contribute to vital health and medical research.
Acting Deputy Vice Chancellor (Research) Professor Sheena Reilly said the funding highlights the exemplary work conducted by the University’s researchers in addressing major societal health challenges.
“These projects have the potential to make a significant difference to people’s health and wellbeing. I congratulate all staff who have contributed to these efforts.”
Project Team: (CIB) Tomas Ganz (University of California Los Angeles); (AI) Daniel Kolarich (Griffith University); (AI) David Frazer (The Council of the Queensland Institute of Medical Research); (AI) V. Nathan Subramaniam (Queensland University of Technology); (AI) David Craik (The University of Queensland); (AI) Gregory Anderson (The Council of the Queensland Institute of Medical Research); (AI) Richard Clark (The University of Queensland).
“The second most-common anaemia, Anaemia of Chronic Disease affects more than 80% of hospitalised patients suffering infections, malignancy and inflammation and causes significant morbidity,’’ Professor Richardson said.
“ACD is predominantly caused by an excessive production of hormone hepcidin which regulates iron metabolism. We recently designed a treatment that will allow gut iron absorption that corrects the deadly anaemia of ACD.”
Project Team:(CIB) Irina Caminschi (Monash University);(CIC) Penny Rudd (Griffith University); (AI) Gavin Painter (Victoria University of Wellington); (AI) Colin Pouton (Monash University);(AI) Michael Good (Griffith University); (AI) William Heath (University of Melbourne); (AI) Stephanie Gras (La Trobe University); (AI) Fan Fan (Olymvax Biopharmaceuticals Inc);(AI) Mark von Itzstein (Griffith University);(AI) Ailin Lepletier de Oliveira (Griffith University); (AI) John Gerrard (Gold Coast University Hospital).
“Despite the success of COVID-9 vaccination programs, the emergence of virus mutants threatens to undermine their effectiveness,’’ Dr Pandey said.
“Our aim is to design a vaccine with protective B and T-cell epitopes from the SARS-CoV2 spike protein that will broaden the immune response, reduce adverse events and allow for “vaccine updates” to accommodate emerging variants of concern.
“The vaccine will provide proof-of-concept for future-proofing COVID-19 vaccines.”
Project Team:(CIB) Lizbeth Kenny (Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital); (CIC) Sharath Sriram (RMIT University); (CID) Brett Hughes (Department of Health QLD); (CIE) Paul Leo (Queensland University of Technology); (CIF) Ian Papautsky (University of Illinois at Chicago); (AI) MAJID Ebrahimi Warkiani (University of Technology Sydney); (AI) Touraj Taheri (Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital); (AI) Rahul Ladwa (Metro South Hospital and Health Service); (AI) Riccardo Dolcetti (University of Melbourne); (AI) Gunter Hartel (The Council of the Queensland Institute of Medical Research); (AI) Nadia Rosin (Beyond Five); (AI) Samuel Dowthwaite (Gold Coast University Hospital); (AI) Ian Frazer (The University of Queensland); (AI) Cheryl Kelly (Metro South Hospital and Health Service); (AI) Sarju Vasani (Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital).
“Throat cancer affects people at a relatively young age, who often go on to suffer from long-term treatment related morbidities,’’ Professor Punyadeera said.
“In addition, 20% of throat cancers reoccur but current methods for detecting recurrence at an early and potentially salvageable stage are invasive and poor. There is a desire to reduce the intensity of treatment to lessen severe side effects as well as to monitor treatment response.
“We propose to use non-invasive, novel liquid biomarkers to address these unmet clinical
needs, thereby improving quality of life for cancer patients and significantly cutting healthcare costs.”
The Wilcannia community living on Barkindji country in remote north west New South Wales are no stranger to crises. In August 2021, this small remote community made international headlines when COVID-19 infected its majority First Nations population at a rate not seen in Australia during the pandemic. By local accounts, help arrived late, despite early warnings and concerns sent to governments and officials that existing conditions, especially overcrowded housing, would compound any outbreak. By October 2021, Wilcannia was declared COVID free and one crisis was contained.
Far less progress has been made on another crisis, the climate crisis, where again, Wilcannia locals have voiced concerns early to governments and industry. As in the COVID crisis, Wilcannia is at the behest of decision-makers far distant from their everyday experience – of watching rivers run dry, football fields turn to dust and family leave because work and opportunity dries up, literally and figuratively, like local water supplies.
A recent flood has bought welcome relief, reassuring an entire generation that their cultural heritage and practice, of hunting and fishing, seasons, ceremony and country, persists beneath the cracked earth of dry river bed. True, tens of thousands of years of cultural heritage have persisted through much more. This acknowledged and respected, until recently many children had lived their entire lives without seeing water in their mighty Baaka/Darling River.
Community radio station, 103.1FM Wilcannia River Radio has been critical to amplifying local concerns about climate changes and impacts and fostering discussion. Other media only arrive when there’s a disaster but their local radio is a source of ongoing connection to information, ideas and conversation. Wilcannia River Radio Station Manager and Ku-Ku Yalangii/Woopaburra man, Brendon Adams explains:
“…it’s pretty hard for us… practically, the only way [climate change] does get talked about is if we get guest speakers and sometimes elders come in and have a yarn about it. It is basically when something devastating happens. We’ve always spoken about our river, the Baaka, on the radio but when the million fish died [in nearby Menindee], that’s when the other people came and wanted to talk to us. That’s when SBS, ABC, all came to us. Locally, we always spoke about it but it never went out. But when the million fish died that’s when everyone wanted our attention.”
It is generally accepted in climate communication that the most meaningful and impactful messages draw upon local stories. Climate responses are often distant global discussions that don’t translate to the everyday lived experience of local communities. Accepted more broadly is that climate change is not a science problem but a social problem. The embeddedness of community radio in the social and cultural lives of their communities is thus a relatively untapped reservoir to communicate climate action and pursue climate justice.
In partnership with the Community Broadcasting Association of Australia, our project “Warming Up: Building the capacity of community broadcasting to communicate climate change” is leveraging the resources of this undervalued sector of Australian media to ready diverse Australian communities for arrived and forecast climate changes. Our project aims to build the confidence of stations to discuss climate changes and to develop training programs for the sector’s volunteers. We aim to co-design with selected stations exemplary content for sector wide broadcast and a podcast series. In our interaction with the sector, we will collect feedback from communities alongside ideas for local climate action. This deep engagement with communities and their local media is meaningful consultation for policy and decision makers.
Climate communication capabilities are enormous via this network of more than 450 stations delivering over 500 radio services (on AM, FM and DAB+) that crisscross the nation. From metropolitan, regional and remote geographic communities, to ethnic, faith-based, First Nations, youth and people with a disability communities, over 5 million Australian’s tune into community radio each week for on average 14 hours, representing 31 per cent of radio listeners in Australia.
Locally relevant conversations
Community radio in Australia, since its inception, has been premised on empowering marginalised communities. While not without its own weaknesses, community radio remains strongly, and often the best, positioned media to nurture locally relevant responses to climate change and other significant challenges. This role, already undertaken by some stations, is a peerless opportunity to bring local voices and experiences to the patchwork of climate change impacts so characteristic of a country as geographically and culturally diverse as Australia.
Community radio has always empowered local voices and with climate change, can again leverage its priority of local action and production in the service of a global community and environments. It is, in many ways, a useful synergy between the ambition and achievements of community radio stations and those of climate change action, where local stewardship and action is essential to meaningful efforts and success. Community Broadcasting Association of Australia CEO, Jon Bisset agrees:
“Because of its unique role within communities – often drawing announcers, technicians and support workers from the communities it serves – community radio is trusted by local people. It’s well-placed to build local understanding of local issues – such as the effects of climate change. And it plays a vital role in telling and amplifying local stories, ensuring that our most important experiences don’t go undocumented.”
The sector’s pursuit of communicative justice also parallels the pursuit of climate justice. Meaningful engagement with the benefits and burdens of climate changes – and its possibilities for action – is authentic and relevant from the bottom-up experience of local geographic communities and/or diverse communities of interest. For community radio, the collection and telling of these community stories are, and always have been, their raison d’être.
In Australia, the ‘climate wars’ have been a feature of mainstream news media with plenty of criticism about the role of Australia’s largest news media organisation, News Corp. Online media has somewhat complicated measurement of audience reach and news consumption though it is fair to say that News Corp, across platforms, dominates Australian news production, distribution and consumption. This dominance can lead to echo chambers that often fail to capture the voices and diversity of Australian communities. These criticisms are well rehearsed about the impact of the concentration of media ownership on Australian public debate and discussion.
News Corps’ recent (though ironically enough, yet to be believed) departure from decade long reporting of climate science denial could transform Australian public debate. In the meantime, stations like 103.1FM Wilcannia River Radio are an antidote to this deficiency, though their position in communities is much more than a mere subordinate to mainstream media. This is especially evident in their role, realised and potential – in the local communication of climate change impacts and opportunities. These stations remain long after the sensation of disaster, where they are also pivotal to responses. Beyond their role in emergency broadcasting, these stations are well poised to foster public participation in solutions for our climate altered future, one community at a time.
Author
Associate Professor Kerrie Foxwell-Norton lectures in journalism, media and communication studies. Her research interests oscillate around relationships between communication, communities, culture and country. She has consciously sought projects which involve a direct engagement with communities. As a result, she has worked extensively with Australia’s community media sector, various coastal communities and works for and with, Indigenous community throughout Australia. She is a member of the Griffith Centre for Social and Cultural Research and program leader in Griffith’s Climate Action Program.
Dr Bridget Backhaus is a Lecturer with the School of Humanities, Languages and Social Science at Griffith University. She has worked in community radio as a journalist and producer. Her research focusses on the intersections of voice, listening and social change in community radio.
Anne Leitch has a background in science, social science and communication. She has a strong interest in supporting communities to adapt to climate change, in particular to the impacts of sea level rise. She is also interested in narratives around climate change and how these support incremental and transformative societal change. Currently she has a role at NatureResearch as a casual senior editor for Partnership and Custom Media and also does interesting research projects at Griffith University School of Humanities, Languages and Social Science.
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Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM). traditionally referred to as child sexual exploitation material or child pornography, is an old problem that has been amplified to an alarming extent via new technologies. The scale and impact of CSAM makes it difficult to address, but crime script analysis, is emerging as a pragmatic tool that can help investigators understand how perpetrators operate and prevent crimes from happening in the first place.
What is the scale and impact of CSAM?
CSAM is distributed and produced either on what is called the clear web or the dark web. The clear web refers to the portion of the Internet that is indexed by search engines like Google and is as such, easily accessible by public. The dark web refers to the segment of the Internet that is hidden from the public.
In 2019, the Internet Watch Foundation confirmed the existence of 132,676 URLs or web pages to contain, link to, or advertise CSAM across 4,956 domains traced to 58 countries – a 27 per cent increase since 2018. In addition, 288 new dark websites selling CSAM were identified – an increase of 238 per cent since 2018.
A report from the Egmont Group of Financial Intelligence Units also indicated that the growth in online streaming of child sexual exploitation for financial gain has been facilitated by the expanding reach of 4G, and recently 5G in developing countries.
The scale of CSAM is particularly concerning given evidence indicating that many individuals who have never sexually abused a child before engaging with CSAM online will seek and have sexual contact with a child for a first time after engaging with CSAM on the dark web.
The negative psychological impacts that child sexual abuse can have on victims are well-known and include post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, anxiety, suicide and substance use disorders. Negative consequences can even be observed on the wellbeing of police investigators working in this field, including secondary traumatic stress disorder (e.g., intrusive imagery, flashbacks, nightmares and social withdrawal), increased generalised distrust of people and difficulty in relationships with partners and children.
Finally, the consequences of these crimes are also detrimental to the reputation and conduct of normal business for financial institutions and the broader economy, as seen with the Westpac Bank scandal in 2019.
How is CSAM being addressed?
There are several organisations dedicated to reducing online CSAM, such as the International Center for Missing and Exploited Children (ICMEC), the Australian Institute of Criminology (AIC), AUSTRAC, financial institutions, police and government agencies, . The complex and constantly evolving nature of our online lives, including social media and mobile devices make monitoring and protecting these spaces increasingly difficult. In this context, the world is in dire need of innovative approaches and methods to increase its capacity to address a phenomenon such as CSAM online.
Can crime script analysis help?
One unique approach to help address CSAM is called crime script analysis. Script analysis, based on the concept of schema, has its roots in cognitive science, rather than criminology. A schema is a cognitive structure that contains assumptions and expectations about the social world based on past behaviour and experience. We all are inhabited by different forms of schemas, which help us understand and interact in the social world. Specifically, the event schema is a knowledge structure that organises the sequence of actions step-by-step to adopt for a specific purpose. This is what we call a script. For instance, going to the cinema involves a script that will roughly look like the following: going to the cinema, searching for the movie, selecting the movie, choosing the seats, paying the tickets, getting the tickets, entering the room, finding the allocated seats, sitting, watching the movie, and leaving the cinema.
Script analysis can also be applied to look at the steps offenders take to commit crime. In the case of CSAM, we might ask: How do offenders operate to consume, distribute and produce CSAM online? Like a movie or novel, a crime script can be broken down by steps (or chapters in the case of a novel). Reading one chapter of a novel is clearly not sufficient to get the full storyline of the novel. However, reading the entire novel will reveal its full storyline. The same principle applies to crime – to fully understand how offenders operate, we need to get as close as possible to the full storyline underlying the commission of their crime.
There are two key reasons for using crime scripts. First, scripts offer a framework to break down and identify the step-by-step process involved in crime commission, which deepens our understanding of how offenders operate, and which is then used as a roadmap to guide investigations. Second, scripts can be used to pinpoint different intervention solutions that can be designed and applied at each step of the process to improve and facilitate crime disruption. In other words, each step of the process becomes a potential intervention-point. The more intervention-points, the more possibilities to disrupt the crime.
Script analysis is more than a textbook theory. It is a pragmatic tool that is already being applied to online CSAM with the collaboration of the AIC, police organisations and the ICMEC. The results are promising so far, and we are seeing how script analysis can guide organisations in their investigations and efforts to disrupt any form of crime.
Author
Dr Benoit Leclerc is an international leader on crime script analysis. He is leading the theoretical advancements of crime scripts and its translation to end users worldwide. Dr Leclerc has led several funded research projects using crime script analysis in Australia and Canada and currently leads this field on the significance of scholarly publications. Most recently, in collaboration with the Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation (ACCCE) and other Australian police agencies, he was the lead chief investigator of a project funded by the Australian Institute of Criminology on child sexual exploitation online.
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A Griffith University student making a mid-life career change to become a financial planner has been named the joint winner of the 2021 AMP University Challenge.
Mature age student Jamie Lee Fraser shared top honours in the national financial planning competition with two students from Deakin University and all three will now share the first and second place prize pool.
With one more subject left before graduating from her studies at Griffith Business School, where she initially started Accountancy only to realise Financial Planning was a better way to help people, Jamie Lee said everyone needed a financial planner.
“For me, financial planning is more about helping people really achieve their goals and work towards a financial future that is comfortable for them”
“For me, financial planning is more about helping people really achieve their goals and work towards a financial future that is comfortable for them,” she explained.
“It’s really getting more involved, helping them through the life stages, and I think that’s what’s connects with me more, because I can help people more.”
Like many, Jamie Lee admits that without any financial advice in her early years, she adopted some bad habits.
“I left high school and made a lot of the wrong decisions, like getting credit cards and loans and all sorts of things and got myself into quite a bit of debt, which I had to work a couple of jobs to pay down,” she said.
Pictured (L to R): Griffith University’s Jamie Lee Fraser and Deakin University’s Aaron Mynard and Molly McGinn. Image courtesy of AMP.
She says that experience taught her a lot, and combined with her studies, has left her well placed to help others.
“Life experience actually sets you up so much more. A lot of the mature age students say that too, but particularly in the industry that you’re going to be entering as well.
“I think it’s one of those things about being a mature age student to especially in my case, I’m definitely a lot more focused and motivated to do this.
“If I had gone to uni, straight out of high school, I don’t know if things would have worked out this way.”
Jamie thanked both Griffith and AMP for the opportunity to join the challenge, which is integrated into the curriculum and assessment for students studying financial planning majors at Griffith, Central Queensland University, Deakin University, TAFE NSW, University of Wollongong, Charles Sturt University and Western Sydney University.
“It’s really great that AMP is supporting the up-and-coming students who are looking to get into the industry, not only through this event, but also through the scholarships that the organisation provides to the universities. It’s a big help for us,” she said.”
Ecosystems under the sea, such as seagrass, cannot be easily observed like forests or prairies on the land.
A team ofresearchersled by Griffith Universityused data from the places where seagrass trends have been assessed to calculate for all the world’s oceans where risks to this ecosystem are greatest.
This will help to target monitoring geographicallyand ultimately focus conservation actions where they are most needed.
The researchersfound that poor water quality anddestructivefisheries practicessuch as trawling are contributing to the global decline of seagrass meadows, which are vitalhabitats and food sources for marine species and act as climate regulators.
Published inPNAS, researchers from theAustralian Rivers Instituteand Coastal and Marine Research Centremodelled the trajectories of seagrass meadows in response to anthropogenic pressures at 395 sitesaround the world between 2000 and 2010.
Seagrass meadows off Australian coastlines were among these sites, where meadows ranged from beingincreasingtorapidlydeclining.
The authors assessed the impacts of eight factors and predicted the regions at greatest risk of seagrass meadow decline. The results suggest that water quality and destructive trawl and dredge fishing had the strongest associations with rapid seagrass meadow decline.
“Seagrasses are critical coastal marine habitats that provide ecosystem services including climate regulation and fisheries production,” Dr MischaTurschwellsaid.
“With fisheries for example, seagrasses provide nursery habitat for juvenile fish and foraging grounds for about 25% of the world’s biggest fisheries.
“We identified associations between pressures and measured changes in seagrass extent and found that seagrasses are especially under threat from poor water quality and destructive fisheries like trawling.
“We gap-fill and predict risk of seagrass loss in regions where no long-term monitoring exists, highlighting where urgent monitoring and management is required.”
Most recent estimates suggest thatseagrass meadows cover around 160,000 km2 globally.
Seagrasses with different life histories had variable trajectories, and persistent seagrass species exhibited the most stable trajectories.
The authors identified areas at high risk of seagrass loss, including in the North Sea, the Baltic Sea, the northern British Isles, the western North Atlantic, the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, the northeast Pacific Ocean, Japan, and several hotspots in Southeast Asia.
“The results suggest the need for improved monitoringand targeted management actionsto reverse seagrass loss,” DrTurschwellsaid.
“Seagrasses face multiple anthropogenic pressures, but a lack of monitoring renders the assessment of risks of seagrass decline challenging.
“By identifying likely hotspots of change, we provide a stepping-stone to guide future monitoring efforts to support the protection of seagrass meadows.”
The research‘Anthropogenic pressures and life history predict trajectories of seagrass meadow extent at a global scale’has been published inPNAS.
Researchers fromSimon Fraser University, the University of British Columbia, Swansea University and James Cook University contributed to the study.
The shows are essential viewing for those looking for the art world’s “next big thing”, with hundreds of works by talented final-year students on display.
QCA Director, Professor Elisabeth Findlay, said the exhibitions were a chance for people to see pieces by talent being nurtured in their hometown.
“The QCA is one of Australia’s oldest and largest art schools and has produced some of the country’s leading contemporary artists,” she said.
“These showcase exhibitions are an ideal way to see the many diverse and exciting art forms the QCA has on offer and the extraordinary work being made here.”
Madeleine Draheim
Madeleine Draheim majored in Painting at the QCA’s South Bank campus and creates striking abstract works that use colour, form and graphic imagery from cartoons, video games and movies.
“I was able to develop my practice and discover the path I want to take my own art thanks to the teachers at QCA,” she said.
“Every teacher you meet has a unique perspective and approach to art which really encouraged me to get out of my comfort zone.”
“My advice to new students would be to never hold back. If there is something you really want to do, there will always be a way to achieve that.”
CAIA has established the careers of many leading Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists, including Vernon Ah Kee, Dale Harding and Tony Albert. Dylan said he had found a community of collaborators within the program.
“It doesn’t take long to notice a real sense of community and belonging within the space,” he said.
“It’s this feeling of belonging that gives you the security to explore your own cultural identity.”
The Taribelang Gooreng Gooreng artist uses his art to explore issues of identity and place across print, digital and sculpture.
Edwina McLennan
“I thought I was coming to QCA to learn how to become a better painter, but it didn’t take long to see that I had a wider skill set and what really mattered was the power of storytelling.”
Edwina McLennan majored in Sculpture (Expanded Practice) at QCA. The graduate exhibition showcased a series her works featuring collaged images in textiles, painting and found objects.
“This year I also had the opportunity to have my work included in a show at POP Gallery on Brunswick Street, one of the five QCA gallery spaces available to student,” she said.
“Along with my internship at GUAM, it was a great opportunity to work with other artists, show my work and gain experience in how exhibitions are put together.”
There is more information about the graduate shows online. You can also follow the QCA’s talented graduates on Instagram.
