Jenny Styger is project leader for Adapt Land&Sea and is a Climate Research Fellow based at the University of Tasmania. With a background in ecology and land management her interests lie in bringing together the latest scientific understandings with the needs of on-ground decision makers to improve outcomes for Australia’s natural environment.
Adapt Land&Sea is a project within NESP that brings together interdisciplinary expertise with the goal of developing a cross-hub biodiversity adaptation knowledge platform.
We’re looking to build a platform for land and sea managers to get information, guidance, plans and advice. This will support land and sea managers better understand the actions they will need to take to adapt to climate change and hopefully enable as many elements as possible of Australia’s biodiversity persist into a new climate.
Perth workshop participants deep in discussion.
This really does mean the best available experts from across all the NESP hubs working together. We’re engaging with our physical climate scientists within the Climate System Hub but are also working with biodiversity experts from the Resilient Landscape Hub and Marine and Coastal Hub. The Sustainable Communities and Waste Hub is contributing their work as well, by better understanding the human side of things, such as how people connect with nature, or if urban greening projects could co-benefit biodiversity values.
But this platform is also being designed with the needs of those that will use it at the forefront. There’s so much amazing work being done across the country and our goal is to share this work and connect people so others can learn from what’s worked and ensure our platform helps people get the information they need. That’s why I have been getting around the country, consulting with a range of land and sea management experts through one-day workshops and other meetings.
The Canberra workshop brought together different perspectives. 3 government’s are pictured here talking – ACT Parks, DCCEEW and the NSW DCCEEW.
So far, we have delivered workshops in Hobart, Perth, Adelaide and Canberra with almost 100 people involved. These workshops are about finding out what people are doing and why they are doing it in the land and sea management and biodiversity conservation sectors. Each workshop brings together people from a range of backgrounds to share ideas.
Every workshop has been different and reflects the different ways and extents to which climate change is being felt. In the west, the discussion was around the changes happening right now, such as pervasive drought, which is causing huge ecosystem changes. This hasn’t been observed in many parts of eastern Australia to such an extent yet. Because of the urgency there’s some really interesting thinking happening in different organisations around adaptation.
One participant remarked that “the kangaroos are dying as there’s just no water.”
What really stood out to me was that for a lot of people witnessing this rapid change in climate and ecosystems there is a real sense of mourning. They’re losing the environments they’re familiar with and seeing animals disappear
At each workshop we’ve started with the science, but the conversation has organically gone towards these human elements and how people deal with seeing the environments they love change. An added bonus of these workshops has been bringing people together to discuss how we can deal with these feelings as individuals
We’re hoping to reach people across the country. Please reach out and tell us what you’re doing in the adaptation space or to share your stories and see how we can work together and collaborate
Upcoming workshops are:
- Brisbane on June 4th
- Melbourne on June 7th
- Cairns on August 9th
Please email jennifer.styger@utas.edu.au for more information.