Integrating Approaches (Asynchronous Session)
Unravelling the Relationships of the Social-ecological Indicators for Soil Carbon Management in Australia View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Md Nurul Amin, Lisa Lobry De Bruyn, Md Sarwar Hossain, Andrew Lawson, Brian Wilson
Recent research evidence supports the importance of understanding the linkage between the social-ecological system (SES) variables of soil carbon management (SCM) in Australian agriculture for sustainable production in a changing climate. This study attempts an interdisciplinary approach (e.g. Ostrom’s SES framework) to explore the relationships of the social-ecological variables for SCM of the dryland grazing system of New South Wales Australia. The relationships between variables and their associated indicators were explored by farm-level interviews (N=30) in terms of resource systems, the environment, the governance systems, and actors. The causal relationships (e.g. interactions, feedbacks) of SES indicators of SCM was examined by using participatory workshops with scientists and farmers. Initial results suggest that farmers choose management practices to build carbon for a number of reasons but the information on soil properties, climatic conditions, and landscape characteristics have limited influence on their choices. However, these environmental variables have been shown in the literature to predominantly influence the long-term sequestration of soil carbon in grazing lands. Majority (85%) of the interviewed farmers were unaware of the government carbon policy (e.g. climate solution funds). Farmers’ social network informally established information on carbon building processes, focused on increased production and profits. This study developed a fuller SES framework of SCM based on the farm level information of the variables and their relationships. Our SES framework can be useful to policymakers and farmers to ensure holistic farm management to store carbon by understanding the SES dynamics of the grazing systems of Australia.
The Evolution of Biomimicry Discourse 1997-2021: A Journey to Regeneration and Sustainability View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Carlos Fiorentino
The discourse of biomimicry–described as innovation inspired by nature (Benyus, 1997)–has gradually changed since the term was coined for the first time in 1997 by Janine Benyus. Initial criticism to biomimicry was focused on the naivety, lack of scientific rigour, and inconsistency of some of its foundational claims, as well as the limitations of its methods to be applied or adapted to traditional design processes. In addition, the biomimicry prospect demanded high technological advances not yet available or viable in many design industries. As a result of this combination of factors, biomimicry suffered from not having a good number of strong case studies of implementation to showcase for years. The examples frequently used were inventions older tan biomimicry itself (e.g. Velcro). Another angle of criticism to biomimicry has been the unsustainable nature of the materials and fabrication methods of such early biomimetic inventions. Biomimicry was not aligned to what sustainable design implied. Over the years though, the recalibration of the concept and consolidation of the biomimicry methodology allowed to three different levels of implementation, one of them– a systems level approach– clearly aligned to sustainability standards, and furthermore aligned to regenerative design practices. This study offers an epistemological framework of biomimicry, and reflects on the whole journey of the biomimicry discourse, from unsustainable implications in its beginning to today’s regenerative and sustainable prospect of the discipline.
The Absence of Resilience After Recurrent Wildfires at Mediterranean Ecosystems in Central Chile: A Qualitative Study View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Carolina G. Ojeda
Due to anthropogenic factors (land cover change and vegetation replacement to pinus/eucalyptus crops) and the impact of climate change (increase in drought and water scarcity), Mediterranean ecosystems are more exposed to the severity of forest fires and mega-fires have been occurring with more frequency in the Anthropocene. We conducted semi-structured interviews inquiring about practices and attitudes before/after the megafire of 2017 from key actors belonging to the rural communities of Quillón, Florida, and Yumbel in Chile during 2018.The results of the interviews were analyzed through discourse analysis in Atlas. ti software to obtain answers about the management from the Government Agencies and key actors at the landscape level. The findings show that the interviewees did not observe changes, indicating that a thorough work has not been done to include this perspective in the ecological and social restoration processes after wildfires, finally have not been achieving more resilient localities and more engaged communities
Achieving Multiple Sustainable Development Goals through Saline Agriculture View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Katarzyna Negacz
Saline agriculture, the cultivation of salt-tolerant crops under saline conditions, provides solutions for global food and water security. The increasing interest in saline agriculture provides an opportunity to define the link with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a means to facilitate communication, access funding, and connect projects worldwide. We have identified which SDGs can be linked to the process of the revitalisation of saline degraded lands through saline agriculture using two different methods which yielded similar results. The key finding of our study is that the revitalisation of saline degraded lands can assist in achieving multiple SDGs, in particular food security (SDG 2), the economic sustainability of local communities (SDG 8), water quality (SDG 6) and terrestrial biodiversity (SDG 15). Saline agriculture viewed as an integrated approach has the potential to substantially contribute to more than half of the SDGs.
