The Sydney Environment Institute,

Sydney Network on Climate Change and Society &

Maricultures Environmental Research

CHANGING COASTLINES SYMPOSIUM

Two Days: Thursday November 7th – Friday November 8th

2013

DAY 1: ―CONSIDER THE

OYSTER…AGAIN‖

THURSDAY NOVEMBER 7TH

Animal, food, mineral?

This amazing mollusc, keystone species in

the estuarine waters of coastlines everywhere, has one foot on the land, and opens its life to the sea. These

animals played an important role in the human diet in many coastal cultures, providing sustenance as they were

gathered along the tidal shore. Oyster shells were also burned for their lime content for construction in colonial

Australia helping to build new towns for convicts and other settlers.

As the earliest form of aquaculture, they have been global travellers, exported along with French and British

expertise to new world places in the antipodes. But they are also the canaries of the sea, their health sounding

the warning of disease and pollution for the waters that flow through their valves. And now oysters are being

enlisted to help reverse the toxic build up and environmental damage associated with the Anthropocene.

This workshop brings together scholars of the environmental humanities and science to consider the oyster. We

will grapple with the histories and meanings of oyster culture. Our aim is to examine the way the

interrelationships of species change and adapt in association with the circumstances of people, place and

ecosystems. Together researchers from cultural studies, environmental science, history and indigenous studies

will start a conversation about this fascinating creature of our more-than-human estuary worlds.

To REGISTER for both days please contact: Michelle St Anne

CONSIDER THE OYSTER…AGAIN PROGRAM

9.30 – 10.30

Chair: Maria Byrne, invited

Keynote Lecture:

David Raftos, Consider the oyster…in a changing world

10.30 – 11.00 Morning tea

11.00- 12.30

Chair: Prudence Black

Panel Session: Consuming the Estuaries

Jodi Frawley, Farming the Foreshores: oystering in the Great Sandy Strait, Queensland

Wayne O’Connor, The impact of disease on the New South Wales oyster industry

Ana Rubio, Monitoring oysters, identifying estuarine change

12.30 – 1.30 Lunch

1.30 – 3.00

Chair: Julia Horne

Panel Session: Oyster attachments

Heather Goodall, The Oyster: Challenge and Exchange on the colonised Georges River

Michelle Voyer, Oyster culture: An exploration of the role of Aboriginal labour in the oyster

industry

Elspeth Probyn, The taste of place: Oysters and the making of communities

3.00 – 3.30 Afternoon Tea

3.30 – 4.30

4.30 – 5.00

Chair: Phil McManus

Keynote Lecture: Jennifer Silver, Humble bivalves? Oyster agency and the re-making of seascapes in British Columbia,

Canada

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Discussants and Wrap Up: Jodi Frawley & Kate Barclay

5.00 CLOSE

THURSDAY NOVEMBER 7TH

VENUE: HOLME BUILDING, SCIENCE ROAD UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY

8.45 – 9.00

Registration, tea and coffee

9.00 – 9.30

Welcome:

Jodi Frawley

The Sydney Environment Institute,

Sydney Network on Climate Change and Society &

Maricultutures Environmental Research

CHANGING COASTLINES SYMPOSIUM

Noosa 1910

DAY 2 – CLIMATE CHANGE AND THE AUSTRALIAN COASTLINE:

SHIFTING BASELINES

FRIDAY NOVEMBER 8TH

The concentration of human, animal and plant life along the Australian coastline makes it central to debates

about climate change. This symposium will address issues related to the shifting baselines of the many bio-

cultural and ecological communities of the coast. Shifting baselines refers to the way that each generation

blindly considers their own ecological circumstances as a foundation for decision-making in science, policy and

popular beliefs, ignoring prior conditions. Understanding the impacts of anthropogenic change requires

historical and contemporary perspectives that will feed into the policy and other challenges of the climate

changing coastlines of the future. We will address the past and futures of Australian marine ecosystems,

fisheries and food security and coastal cultures to build new cross-disciplinary research networks in this area.

REGISTER please contact: Michelle St Anne

CLIMATE CHANGE AND THE AUSTRALIAN COASTLINE: SHIFTING BASELINES

9.30 – 10.30

Chair: Cindy McCreery

Keynote Address:

Poul Holm Oceans Past and Future

10.30 – 11.00 Morning Tea

11.00 – 12.30

12.30 – 1.30

Chair: Jodi Frawley

Panel: History and the coast

Iain McCalman T. H. Huxley‟s subversive pupil: William Saville-Kent, pioneer of nineteenth-

century Australian marine baselines.

Caroline Ford, Shifting shorelines: the perils of waterfront living in mid-twentieth century Sydney

Patrick Dwyer, Historical harvesting of River Mangrove (Aegiceras corniculatum) for use as

„oyster sticks‟ in NSW.

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Chair: David Schlosberg

Keynote Address: Alistair Hobday, Climate change and coastal systems – past and present

1.30 – 2.15 Lunch

2.15 – 3.45

Chair: Michelle Voyer, invited

Panel: Pressure points

Phil McManus, Beach Road, Dulwich Hill: Planning urban infrastructure in an age of

anthropogenic climate change

Peter Cowell, Holding back the rising tide: Built Structures along the coast

Will Figueria, Climate change and range shifts of the marine biota of SE Australia:

patterns, processes and predictions

3.45 – 4.00 Afternoon Tea

4.00 – 5.00

5.00 – 5.30

Chair: Elspeth Probyn

Keynote Address: Patricia Maljuf

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Discussants & Wrap Up: Maria Byrne, invited & Iain McCalman

5.30 CLOSE

FRIDAY NOVEMBER 8TH

VENUE: HOLME BUILDING, SCIENCE ROAD

UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY

8.45 – 9.15

Registration, tea and coffee

9.15 – 9.30

Introduction

Jodi Frawley

“CONSIDER THE OYSTER…AGAIN”

SPEAKER ABSTRACTS AND BIOGRAPHIES IN PRESENTATION ORDER

David Raftos, Consider the oyster…in a changing world

Sydney rock oysters are an iconic component of Australia‟s coastal biodiversity. They were a valuable

source of food for indigenous Australians along much of Australia‟s eastern seaboard and they were

rapidly exploited by European settlers. Today, Sydney rock oysters remain the cornerstone of the

biggest aquaculture industry in New South Wales and account for about half of the edible oysters sold

in Australia. They also act as ecosystem engineers in estuaries from north eastern Victoria to south

eastern Queensland, providing stable habitats for a range of other species. One problem for Sydney

rock oysters is that the coastal estuaries where they live are surrounded by a substantial proportion of

Australia‟s human population. Most Australians live near the coast in heavily urbanised and

industrialised areas. This means that natural populations of Sydney rock oysters and many oyster

farming areas are threatened by the local effects of environmental change associated with human

activity. These threats are compounded by global factors, such as ocean acidification resulting from

the absorption of carbon dioxide into the world‟s oceans. My talk at the Changing Coastlines

Symposium will focus on the challenges facing Sydney rock oysters, and how they might adapt to a

rapidly changing world.

David Raftos is a Professor of Marine Science at Macquarie University and the Sydney

Institute of Marine Science. He is also a member of the Australian Research Council‟s

College of Experts and sits on the ARC‟s Biological Sciences, Biotechnology, Environmental,

Medical and Health Sciences (BEM) panel. Professor Raftos has over 25 years experience in

marine biology, focusing on the cell and molecular biology of marine invertebrates. After

completing his PhD, he worked as a Fulbright Scholar at the University of California Los

Angeles, and as an Australian Research Council Fellow at the University of Technology

Sydney. Professor Raftos has since held faculty positions at the University of Technology

Sydney and Macquarie University, and has been a Visiting Professor at the George

Washington University in Washington DC. His ongoing research programs focus on the

effects of environmental stress on marine animals, with particular emphasis on infectious

disease, environmental contamination and climate change.

Jodi Frawley, Farming the Foreshores: oystering in the Great Sandy Strait, Queensland

Oyster farming was short-lived in the Great Sandy Strati behind Fraser Island. It came and went

between 1885 and 1932. By 1890, in the sea-country of the Badtjala people, at least four Chinese and

six European boats worked the oyster banks. My aim in this paper is to explore how experimentation

to establish oyster culture drew on environmental knowledges from a range of sources. These include

the transfer of techniques from France and England; the advice of fisheries scientist William Saville-

Kent; growing fears of an invasive New Zealand mudworm (Polydora sp.); the business acumen of

the Moreton Bay Oyster Company and experience of the labyrinth of local creeks, swamps and

saltmarshes. Where other oyster culture in Australia used mangrove sticks, sandstone ballast, and

timber shingles to collect spat, in this area, cultivation included depositing young oysters in the grass

flats. This technique raises questions about the cross-cultural flows of information that remade the

socio-ecological worlds of these inter-tidal zones.

Jodi Frawley is ARC DECRA fellow in the Department of Gender and Cultural Studies at

the University of Sydney. She is interested in tracking the ways that people, animals and

plants adapt in response to environmental change. This work has two main streams: the

transnational plant transfers associated with botanic gardens including invasion ecologies

and the intersections of fisheries science, ideas of conservation and fishing communities in

popular cultures of fishing. She is currently working on a cultural history of fishing in

Eastern Australia.

Wayne O’Connor, The impact of disease on the New South Wales oyster industry

The NSW oyster industry is one of the oldest aquaculture industries in Australia and is the single most

valuable fishery in NSW. Founded in the late 1800s the industry is predominantly based on the

Sydney rock oyster (Saccostrea glomerata) but more recently has expanded to include the cultivation

of both Pacific oysters (Crassostrea gigas) and the native or flat oyster (Ostrea angasi). Each of

these oyster species are affected by disease and the impacts of diseases have served to shape the

modern oyster industry. From the first discovery of mudworm on subtidal oyster beds well over a

century ago to the recent emergence of OsHV-1 in Pacific oysters, farmers have changed locations,

methods and, in some instances, the species they culture in attempts to deal with the disease

challenges faced. Whether it‟s the loss of Sydney rock oysters to QX disease or winter mortality, the

translocation protocols in place to limit the spread of disease or the export restrictions that notifiable

diseases impose, oyster farming as we know it is inextricably tied to oyster health status.

In the future, oyster farming will continue to evolve to respond to disease pressures. Among the

industries highest research priorities is the development of selectively bred, disease resistant stocks.

Accessing this stock will imply a change from the collection of wild or naturally occurring seed to a

reliance upon seed propagated in hatcheries - this in turn will require further modification of the

cultivation practices used.

Dr O’Connor is a Principal Research Scientist at the NSW Industry & Investment‟s Port

Stephens Fisheries Institute, where he is currently Research Leader for Aquaculture and PSFI

Director. He has over 25 years experience in Aquaculture research and has worked on a

variety programs including algal culture and the development of propagation techniques for

a number of molluscs such as oysters (edible and pearl), scallops, mussels and clams. Dr

O‟Connor leads oyster research programs that range from the development of selective

breeding techniques and triploid induction to environmental impact and ecotoxicological

evaluations. Dr O‟Connor is a member of the Editorial boards for the journals Aquaculture,

Aquaculture Research and Water. He is the author of over 90 peer reviewed publications,

many of which address oyster issues. He is board member of the World Oyster Society and

member of the World Oysters Society, Scientific Committee.

Ana Rubio, Monitoring oysters, identifying estuarine change

Oysters play a key role in the ecology of estuaries as a result of their efficient filtration capacity,

which assists in the maintenance of water clarity and aquatic ecosystems. Oysters are often referred to

as the „canaries‟ of our catchments, as healthy oysters reflect healthy estuaries. Therefore the oyster

industry is a key indicator of the health and performance of our estuaries and important stewards of

these environments.

By combining resources from research organizations, local councils and oyster industry members, an

innovative oyster and environmental monitoring program has been established in 5 of the major oyster

growing areas in the South Coast of NSW. This program quantifies oyster growth and survival using

commercial oyster graders currently in used by the industry but here adapted to be used as

experimental tools. No standardised, industry-led, national monitoring programs exist in Australia.

The monitoring program here trialled is a pre-cursor to an industry-wide production and

environmental monitoring program, that examines unusual mortalities in response to environmental

shifts or industry husbandry practices.

This monitoring program has now been running for 2 years. Preliminary findings have characterised

oyster growing sites based on specific oyster growth patterns, mortality levels and environmental

features. This information has also been linked to existing environmental data collected by the oyster

industry and other estuarine/catchment management groups. Information on the effect of

environmental conditions on husbandry techniques can be used to improve management operations

for the industry. More importantly this information can be used by other stakeholders and managers

interested in understanding the health of our estuaries as oysters can be used as proxies for the health

of our catchments. This monitoring program is an innovative example of a cooperative partnership

where effort and cost by different groups/agencies is maximised to achieve estuary wide benefits.

Ana Rubio’s research has focused so far on different aspects related to the oyster industry

like determining nutrient controls into oyster estuaries, oyster food requirements, carrying

capacity of estuaries and new technologies to improve industry sustainability. Most of Ana‟s

research and work has heavily involved the NSW oyster industry working hand by hand with

growers and therefore, building a great partnership with this industry. Ana pioneered the

adoption and implementation of estuary-wide Environmental Management Systems (EMS)

by the NSW oyster industry. By 2013, EMSs have now been adopted by all major south coast

oyster estuaries and nearly 2/3 of the major producers on the north coast.

Heather Goodall, The Oyster: Challenge and Exchange on the colonised Georges River

Initial conflict between British invaders and Aboriginal owners on Botany Bay changed to uneasy

truce till the 1880s, when the NSW Government attempted to clear the metropolitan area of

Aboriginal people, except for remote La Perouse. After that, the settlers‟ Botany Bay origin myths

erased the Dharawal but there have been traces left behind. These traces offer a story not just of prior

possession, shown in the river‟s mountainous middens of oyster shells, but of challenge and exchange

in which the oyster again played a central role. This paper will open up one of those stories, which

focusses on the Dharawal fisherman William Rowley, forced away from his home at Towra Point

when, in 1861, wool entrepreneur Thomas Holt bought up the whole lower Georges River shore for

grazing. But defeated by the sandy soil, Holt turned to oyster farming in the muddy shallows around

Towra Point – and who better to guard his new empire than William Rowley, who became his

overseer. When the NSW Government clamped down in 1883, Rowley simply disappeared upstream.

Quietly purchasing land on Salt Pan Creek, on a low escarpment above an ancient, massive midden,

Rowley, the Andersons and others lived by fishing, gathering mangrove roots for souvenirs and eating

oysters. Their privately owned blocks formed a small space of freedom on which for four decades

they nurtured the Aboriginal opponents of the Protection Board.

Heather Goodall is a Professor of History at UTS and has researched and published in three

major areas: indigenous histories and relationships in Australia; environmental history,

focused on water, rivers and oceans and tracing in particular the ways environmental issues

are used in social conflicts and inter-cultural social relations and intercolonial networks,

particularly those between Australia and India and around the Indian Ocean, and including

the decolonization conflicts of the mid 20th century in India, Indonesia and Australia.

Michelle Voyer, Oyster culture: An exploration of the role of Aboriginal labour in the oyster industry

But I always say this, them days when I was working they were the best days of my life. The old boss

said to me one day that if we run all my oyster racks that we‟ve got in Port Stephens from end to end

we‟d run them all the way to Melbourne. That‟s a lot of timber. It was wonderful working on the

oyster farms. Worimi elder

This paper explores the experiences of Aboriginal men and women employed in the Port Stephens

oyster industry. Their stories suggest that Aboriginal people played a crucial role in the establishment

of this important industry, which benefited from the availability of a source of cheap labour from the

nearby Karuah mission, as well as the skills and knowledge of the Worimi people. Those employed in

the industry recall tough and sometimes exploitative conditions, including low pay and long hours.

Yet employment in the oyster industry also allowed the workers to maintain their connection to sea

country and community through their daily lives. Their stories provide insight into the rich histories

and complex relationships between coastal Aboriginal people and maritime industries that remain yet

to be fully explored.

Michelle Voyer is a PhD candidate with an interest in the human dimension of marine

conservation management, particularly in relation to Marine Protected Areas. Her PhD used

a multi-disciplinary approach to examine community responses to two NSW marine parks.

Prior to the commencement of her PhD she worked for 10 years in a range of state and

Commonwealth government positions relating to marine conservation and in particular to

Marine Protected Area planning and management.

Elspeth Probyn, The taste of place: Oysters and the making of communities

Given half a chance, eating reminds us of the different ways we are connected: economically,

globally, communally and emotionally. This is particularly true of eating oysters. As Rowan Jacobsen

notes, „the comparison of oysters is … not another food but always a place … the sea‟. Oysters give

us a taste of „somewhereness‟. Taste and tastes are forms of attachments: to the strangers who grow or

produce food, to friendships, which are made and remade in commensality and sharing, to the soil and

water, the factories, ships, and the oyster leases.

In this paper, I take the lead from MFK Fisher‟s beautiful account of „Love and death among the

molluscs‟. She describes how after two weeks of freedom, a little spat puts down his left foot, and „in

great good spirits he clamps himself firmly to his home, probably forever.‟ From this framing of

oyster homemaking, I turn to two case studies of how growing oysters has rejuvenated human

communities. In the case of Loch Fyne in the west of Scotland, a local landowner, John Noble,

decided that oysters could save the workers on his estate from having to repeat the experiences of

their forebears and leave the area. As his obituary in The Scotsman put it: „Sam Weller, in Dickens‟s

Pickwick Papers, says "poverty and oysters seem to go together". Noble set out to prove that wrong:

oysters were for everyone.‟ (Feb. 19, 2002) From the other study, I recount how an energetic woman

principal of the local Area School in Cowell on the Eyre Peninsula in South Australia used oyster

leases to turn around a school and to revive a sense of pride in the small town. The oysters certainly

taste differently, because they taste of place, water and human care – the one fed by the brackish

waters of the Loch versus the nutrient rich waters of Franklin‟s Harbour. However both are

wonderful, and eating them is a testimony to the remarkable ways in which the Crassostrea gigas has

helped to grow sustainable human-nonhuman communities.

Elspeth Probyn (Fellow of the Australian Academy of Humanities, and Fellow of the

Academy of Social Sciences in Australia) is Professor of Gender & Cultural Studies at the

University of Sydney. She has taught media, cultural studies, and sociology at universities in

Canada and the USA, and has held several prestigious visiting appointments. She is the

author of several groundbreaking monographs and over a hundred articles and chapters. Her

current research (funded by an ARC Discovery Project) focuses on the role of place and

community within the transglobal food system, and is particularly focused on the

sustainability of the production and consumption of fish, the results of which will be published

in a new book, Oceanic Entanglements (Duke University Press).

Jennifer Silver, Humble bivalves? Oyster agency and the re-making of seascapes in British

Columbia, Canada

This talk explores stories of the Pacific oyster (Crassostrea gigas) in the coastal waters of British

Columbia, Canada by tracing regional history, drawing from ethnographic research and considering

public discourse about shellfish. Introduced from Asia in the early decades of the 20th century, today

Pacific oysters ecologically out-compete many „native‟ shellfish species and are the most

voluminously produced species by the province‟s expanding shellfish aquaculture sector. In a region

renowned for environmental controversy and strong Indigenous politics, how have the shellfish

aquaculture sector and its non-native flagship species come to be perceived by many as ideal

inhabitants of intertidal and nearshore ocean space? Beginning with Pacific oysters as agents of

change, answers stretch to encompass a wider network of actors, relationships, places and things.

Jennifer Silver's research is motivated by the reality that politics and power influence

resource management decisions, and in turn, affect resource access and social-ecological

outcomes. She is particularly interested in oceans, marine species and coastal communities,

and currently is involved in projects that track oceans governance and Indigenous peoples in

British Columbia, Canada, oceans negotiations at Rio+20, and commitments by Canada's

largest food retailers to source sustainable seafood. Across all of these, she seeks to explain

the influence of politics and power in decision-making, and where possible, relate this to

social-ecological outcomes. Past graduate work has focused on fisher participation in marine

conservation in the Caribbean and initiatives that encourage the participation of Indigenous

communities in shellfish aquaculture expansion in BC.

Discussant: Kate Barclay

Kate Barclay researches the social aspects of the production and trade of food, especially

fisheries in the Asia Pacific region. One current project is the sustainable development of

tuna resources in the island Pacific in the context of changing governance systems and

globalization, especially the opportunities and pitfalls presented by „ethical consumption‟.

Another interest is how to meaningfully integrate social factors into assessments of

sustainability in fisheries. Kate has been commissioned to do research on social aspects of

fisheries by several organizations including: WWF, Greenpeace, the United Nations

Development Program, the European Parliament, and the Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries

Agency.

Kate‟s undergraduate teaching is in the International Studies program at the University of

Technology Sydney. She is Course Coordinator for the Bachelor of Global Studies.

Kate also supervises higher degree research students in the areas of international

development and international relations in the Asia Pacific region, and on topics relating to

the social aspects of fisheries.

SHIFTING BASELINES: SPEAKER ABSTRACTS AND BIOGRAPHIES

IN PRESENTATION ORDER

Poul Holm, Oceans Past and Future

More than half of the world‟s population now live by the coast and 85 per cent of the Australians. Our

future is directly linked to the health of the ocean. The problem with the sea is that we do not see the

effects of our actions when we fish, dump or extract. Not so on the coast. How we live by the sea is a

visible expression of our engagement with the sea.

Perceptions and fashions are fundamental to understand why we choose to live as we do. Those

sentiments are what drove Pre-Columbian American Indians to pluck Queen Conchs off the bottom of

the Caribbean Sea, the fascination of life in the sea is vivid in the imagery of the Mycenaean palace of

Knossos in ancient Greece, and the joy of the sea is evident today in our focus on healthy seafood, sea

air, diving and cruising.

Fishing, mining and using the sea is by no means an unstoppable sail towards emptying the oceans.

But it is an environmental history full of conflict and choice. The talk is an engaging revelation of the

richness of that human story. How we live by the coast is about our ability to cope with the future.

Poul Holm is Trinity Long Room Hub Professor of Humanities at Trinity College Dublin,

Ireland, and Director of the Irish Digital Arts and Humanities Structured PhD Programme.

He is President of the European Consortium of Humanities Institutes and Centres. In the past

he has been Academic Director of the Trinity Long Room Hub, Rector (President) of the

University of Roskilde, and Professor of Maritime History at the University of Southern

Denmark. He has served on national and European committees such as the Danish Research

Council for the Humanities (chairman 2001-5), the European Society for Environmental

History (President 2005-7), the EU DG Research METRIS group (chairman 2008-9), and the

ESF RESCUE initiative on Climate Change Research (lead author on Collaboration between

natural, human and social sciences).

His doctoral thesis examined the impact of war on everyday life in Norway, Sweden and

Denmark between 1550 and 1914. He has published on fisheries history and marine

environmental history; coastal communities and culture; and the Viking settlements in

Ireland. His current research is the History of Marine Animal Populations project, HMAP,

aiming to understand human benefits from and impact on ocean life.

Iain McCalman T. H. Huxley‟s subversive pupil: William Saville-Kent, pioneer of nineteenth-century

Australian marine baselines.

During the inaugural address to the International Fisheries Exhibition of 1883 in London a minor

organizer of the event, William Saville-Kent, had occasion to listen to his mentor, Royal Society

President T. H. Huxley, utter one of his typically punchy pronouncements. This famous marine

zoologist, whose intellect and oratory had made Charles Darwin feel „infantile‟, told the assembled

experts that all attempts to regulate fisheries were both useless and unnecessary. „Nothing we can do

seriously affects the number of fish‟, he thundered, and the findings of two Royal Commissions

proved it. The fishing stocks of the world‟s oceans were simply inexhaustible.

Saville-Kent had every reason to agree. Despite strenuous efforts to impress Huxley, he was little

more than a minnow in the great man‟s vast net of protégés and disciples. And nobody needed

Huxley‟s help more urgently. Behind Saville-Kent lay the secret of a terrible childhood crime, a

patchy scientific training and a trail of failed or squandered scientific positions. In front of him

beckoned the possibility of exposure and life imprisonment or escape through obtaining a scientific

position outside of Britain.

Thankfully Huxley delivered. July the following year saw William Saville-Kent arrive in Hobart to

take up the position of Superintendent of Tasmanian Fisheries, the beginning of a career that was

eventually to bring him international fame as Australia‟s first Great Barrier Reef marine scientist. In

this paper I will explain how and why Saville-Kent defied his revered mentor Huxley to become a

pioneer of Australian fisheries data collections and sustainable management and culturing practices.

Iain McCalman was born in Nyasaland in 1947, schooled in Zimbabwe and did his higher

education in Australia. His last book, Darwin‟s Armada (Penguin, 2009) won three prizes

and was the basis of the TV series, Darwin‟s Brave New World. He is a Fellow of three

Learned Academies and is a former President of the Australian Academy of the Humanities.

He was Director of the Humanities Research Centre, ANU, from 1995-2002 and won the

inaugural Vice-Chancellor‟s Prize at ANU for Teaching Excellence. He is a former

Federation Fellow and currently a Research Professor in history at the University of Sydney

and co-Director of the Sydney Environment Institute. His new book, The Reef – A Passionate

History, from Captain Cook to Climate Change, will be published by Penguin in Australia in

November and by Farrar, Strauss and Giroux in the USA in May 2014. He was made Officer

of the Order of Australia in 2007 for services to history and the humanities.

Caroline Ford, Shifting shorelines: the perils of waterfront living in mid-twentieth century Sydney

A series of severe storms in the mid-1940s terrorised coastal residents and caused significant damage

to homes along the Collaroy waterfront. Their owners and inhabitants attracted broad sympathy, and

state and local governments together purchased a number of properties to return a section of the

beachfront to open space. Two decades on and following further storm damage Collaroy residents and

beachgoers were losing patience with those who chose to build their homes, and large apartment

blocks, on the edge of the beach. No longer seen as victims, many resented the prospect that

ratepayers‟ money might be spent on protecting or repairing private property.

By the 1960s and „70s, the public debate about beach and property protection from major storm

events in Sydney was influenced by a growing awareness of the coastal environment as an important

natural process, and increasing criticisms about the ways that landscape was being managed. It was

intertwined with battles against sandmining and against a Gold Coast style development of the

Sydney and NSW coast. We see in his debate the origins of a way of thinking about erosion and

coastal zone management, and a censure of coastal property owners, which continue to pervade public

discourse today.

Caroline Ford is writing an environmental and cultural history of Sydney‟s ocean beaches for

UNSW Press, which is an extension of her doctoral research. She is an Honorary Associate of

the University of Sydney‟s History Department.

Patrick Dwyer, Historical harvesting of River Mangrove (Aegiceras corniculatum) for use as „oyster

sticks‟ in NSW.

In 1900 the majority of oyster growers on the NSW coastline relied on the natural foreshore for the

opportunistic settlement of spat (juvenile oysters less than 25mm). When the Fisheries Act 1902

commenced, oyster lessees were required to lay down suitable material such as rock, shingles, shells

and sticks to maximise the collection of spat. Laying down sticks cut from the River Mangrove

(Aegiceras corniculatum) became a favoured technique, and by 1909 the Fisheries Officer at Camden

Haven reported, for that estuary that: “heavy inroads made on this material has almost exhausted the

home supply, and in future long distances will have to be traversed for suitable supplies”.

NSW North Coast newspapers during the 1920s to 1940s document quantities of River Mangrove

sticks harvested from the Richmond River estuary and shipped to Port Stephens and the Hawkesbury

River for use as spat collecting oyster sticks. This information has been used to estimate a minimum

area of River Mangrove harvested from the Richmond River during this period.

Patrick Dwyer has worked for Fisheries NSW for the last 20 years. Based on the NSW North

Coast as a Fisheries Conservation Manager, he assesses impacts of proposed developments

on key fish habitats and negotiates the adoption by developers of mitigation measures and

habitat offsets. He also develops fish habitat rehabilitation projects and partnerships to

maintain and improve key fish habitats. He is working with Griffith University and several

local Councils on techniques to reduce egg laying habitat of the Saltmarsh Mosquito Aedes

vigilax within mangrove wetlands.

Alister Hobday, Climate change and coastal systems – past and present

The consequences of human activities increasing concentrations of atmospheric greenhouse gases are

already being felt in marine environments. More energy has been trapped in the global climate

system, resulting in warming sea temperatures. About 30% of the extra atmospheric carbon dioxide

has been absorbed by the oceans, increasing their acidity. Thermal expansion and some melting of

land-based ice has caused sea level to rise. Significant climate changes have now been observed in

Australian coastal seas, especially off south-eastern Australia. These south-eastern waters are a

climate change „hotspot‟, with marine waters warming at more than three times the global average.

The changes will affect Australia‟s marine biodiversity, fisheries and aquaculture sectors in different

ways, and the management of coastal marine regions. For example, global warming is resulting in

poleward movements for a range of species, potentially improving offshore fishing opportunities for

more topical species, while also threatening vulnerable southern species including abalone and rock

lobster. Overall these biological changes are creating significant challenges for natural resource

management, particularly due to shifting baselines and lack of sustained ocean monitoring. At the

coast, interactions between human development pressures and natural resource management will

intensify – integrated adaptation solutions developed as part of comprehensive adaptation pathways

are needed to ensure sustainable use of the marine environment in the face of these unprecedented

changes.

Dr Alistair Hobday received his BSc (Hons) from Stanford University in 1993 and his Ph.D.

in Biological Oceanography from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in 19998. He is

now a Principal Research Scientist at CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research, in Hobart

Australia. He leads CSIRO‟s Marine Climate Impacts and Adaptation research, is co-chair of

the international CLIOTOP (Climate Impacts on Top Ocean Predators) program, and

contributed to the IPCC 4th and 5

th assessment Australasia chapters, covering fisheries,

oceanic and coastal systems. Much of his current research focuses on investigating the

impacts of climate change on marine resources, and developing adaptation options to

underpin sustainable use into the future. He has over 100 peer-reviewed publications, with

recent work addressing the impacts of climate change on fisheries and aquaculture and

evaluating adaptation options.

Phil McManus Beach Road, Dulwich Hill: Planning urban infrastructure in an age of

anthropogenic climate change

Australia is vulnerable to changing coastal conditions resulting from anthropogenic climate

change. This vulnerability varies between cities and includes the risk of inundation of buildings and

transport infrastructure from sea level rise, storm surge and major flooding events. The extent of

impact is not fully known, nor is the timing of such impacts. There is a window of opportunity to

adapt, but this involves hard decisions about relocating or protecting existing valuable infrastructure,

siting new infrastructure in locations that in the short term may not appear optimal, and addressing the

social justice implications of falling property values for low-lying, flood prone suburbs that are

particularly vulnerable to a combination of sea-level rise and flooding from within the

catchment. Planning urban infrastructure in an age of anthropogenic climate change requires dealing

with uncertainty, complexity and accepting that while the costs of adaptation are high, the long-term

costs of failure to adapt will be even higher.

My current research focuses on sustainable cities, urban forestry and representations of

nature in the construction of a range of environmental issues. Within the area of sustainable

cities I am researching the potential to develop Industrial Ecology, the use of metrics such as

Ecological Footprints and migration issues such as the tree-change phenomenon in Australia.

My research on nature includes human-animal relations, particularly thoroughbred breeding

and the uses of nature. My work combines urban environmental history with policy and

planning research that is future-oriented.

Peter Cowell Holding back the rising tide: built structures along the coast

Research interests are in the geomorphology of coasts and continental shelves; or more

specifically, the nature of change in coastal landforms and the processes responsible for such

change (known formally as the field of coastal morphodynamics). The research involves the

combined use of field data and computer modeling to yield information that is otherwise

unattainable, with the application of formal methods for managing uncertainty. This

approach is applied to estimation of sediment transport and coastal change relevant to

coastal management and coastal impacts of climate change, as well as to geological

exploration. Research is being undertaken on four continents in collaboration with other

coastal scientists from Australia, Europe and the Americas. This work has focused on clastic

coasts (sand and mud deposits), and was expanded recently to include the morphodynamics

of coral atolls (in collaboration with other coastal scientists from Australia and New

Zealand).

William Figueira Climate change and range shifts of the marine biota of SE Australia: patterns,

processes and predictions

South East Australia is a global hot spot for coastal ocean warming with water temperatures

increasing at among the fastest rates of any spot on the planet. The rapid change is such an important

environmental factor, temperature, is certain to affect coastal marine life in this region. In this talk I

discuss the emerging patterns of shifting ranges of organisms within the region in response to the

changing thermal environment. I also discuss the mechanisms behind these shifts which begin with

the thermal physiology of individual organisms but ultimately interact with the ecology of

communities and ecosystems. The physiological responses of organisms are not fixed and I discuss

how plasticity and genetic selection can lead to variability in tolerances across spatial and temporal

gradients. A comprehensive understanding of all of these factors can give us a much better ability to

predict the speed of range shifts and thus the rate and nature of changes to the biota of coastal marine

environments.

My general interests lie in the area of fish population ecology and my research has focused

on the behavior and demographics of individual fish populations as well as the large scale

connectivity between these populations. The small scale studies are typically conducted on

SCUBA or snorkel and employ tools such as tagging, mapping and standard underwater

census and behavioural observation techniques. These studies have been conducted in a

variety of locations including the Florida Keys (USA), Lee Stocking Island (Bahamas), and

One Tree Island (Australia). My interest in the larger scale dynamics of reef fish involves understanding the mechanisms

and consequences of metapopulation, and specifically source-sink, dynamics in these systems.

While the spatial structure of these systems (distinct areas of occupied habitat) and the

connectivity within them (larval exchange between areas) lend themselves nicely to

descriptions invoking metapopulation theory, our current understanding of system dynamics

is quite low.

My work on this topic has run the spectrum from the highly theoretical exercise of creating

conceptual and analytical models to allow for the application of metapopulation theory to

marine systems in general to the much more applied topic of using metapopulation theory for

citing marine reserves and creating effective, biologically interacting reserve networks. I use

individually-based, stage-structured spatially realistic computer simulation models to study

the impact of variations in habitat quality and network connectivity on system dynamics and

specifically source-sink structure.

Patricia Maljuf

Patricia Majluf was born and raised in Lima, Peru. She graduated from the Cayetano

Heredia University in Lima, where she now works, and completed a Ph.D. in zoology at the

University of Cambridge focusing on Peruvian fur seal behavior at Punta San Juan.

Extending her doctorate into a long-term study, Majluf was an associate research scientist for

the Wildlife Conservation Society for almost 20 years. Since 1998, when a strong El Niño

wiped out her entire study population, she has been at the forefront of marine conservation

efforts in Peru, promoting establishment of the region‟s first marine protected area system

and strongly pushing for improvements in Peru‟s industrial fishery policies. She founded and

directs the Centre for Environmental Sustainability at the Cayetano Heredia University,

where she is committed to building knowledge and local capacities to enable improved

management and restoration of the Peruvian upwelling system.

Majluf is leading a collaboration with the Fisheries Centre at the University of British

Columbia and IMARPE, the Peruvian marine research institute, to develop a computer model

to evaluate the impacts of fishery management actions on the Peruvian upwelling ecosystem

structure, function, and value. The study will provide information to help improve fisheries

management policies and practices in Peru. Her team also conducted an evaluation of the

fishery management system that is central to reforms being implemented by the Peruvian

government. Majluf was recently designated vice president of IMARPE‟s board to help guide

this process.

Discussant: Iain MCCalman & Maria Byrne (invited)