The Message & the Bottle

Ted Lefroy

1. The reflective organisation

2. The marriage of biophysical & social sciences

3. Partnerships & Fellowships

4. The drivers of value & the role of govt.

5. Variable attention disorder

6. Understanding natural systems

Some personal observations

1. The reflective organisation

To reflect you need memory 53 years experience in 5 people Return on Investment – 20 years of data Harvest phase in RD&E Senior Fellowships

An unreflected life is a life unlived

At least we should be making new mistakes

Tony ‘Plato’ Gleeson

2. The marriage of social & biophysical sciences

NDSP phase 1 (processes) & 2 (people)

Riparian Program Sustainable Grazing Systems -

participatory Social & Institutional Research

Program Land Water & Wool Grain & Graze (cf. SGS, Tom

Dunbabin)

People as the solution not the problem (Siwan Lovett)

Ecocentric

Life is a conversation between the sun & the leaf with humans as interested bystanders

Anthropocentric

Life is a conversation between man and god with nature as a useful backdrop

Ian McHarg

3. Partnerships & Fellowships

Graham Farquhar Richard Stirzaker Rick Evans David FreebairnMark Stafford Smith Greg McKeon

Neil Barr Derek Eamus Pauline Mele Sam Lake David Lindenmayer Gary Stoneham

>100 partners neutral, cross-sectoral, knowledge &

adoption Top 7 B:C Climate Variability, NDSP, Cotton Pesticides, Effluent Management, SGS, Riparian, Native Vegetation

Managing ET in a carbon economy(Barney Foran)

Derek Eamus, Graham Farquhar, Rick Evans, Clive McAlpine, Ian Polglase..…

4. The drivers of value

Unrealistic to expect government to pick up the load (Paul Martin)

Innovation in the productive use of nature (Kevin Goss, Carl Binning)

Regulation that motivates (EBPC, Carl Binning)

Reward people for doing ‘the right thing’ (Tony Gleeson)

Institutional Architecture

We’re doing a whole lot of half baked things Paul Martin

We’re trying to patch management of the environment on to institutions and social systems designed for a different purpose

5. Variable attention disorder(Mark Stafford-Smith)

Human history consists of a series of excursions

from the same starting point to which humanity

returns time and time again in search of an

enduring set of values

Aldo Leopold

Big ideas

The cult of the hero The divine right of kings Organised religion The rights of the

individual Natural selection

Food & fibre production Transport Housing Energy Nature conservation

Food & fibre productionTransportHousingEnergy Nature conservation

(Cotton Pesticides)

6. Understanding natural systems

(Riparian, River Health, EWA, Native Vegetation, NDSP, SGS, Climate Variability, Land Water & Wool, Grain &

Graze, TRaCK)

1. Thematic, national, applied

2. Multiple spatial scales

3. Different Qs at different scales

Understanding processes at different scales

The story is in the variance not the mean

Australia is the only continent where the biota has been shaped more by the variability between years than within

Tim FlanneryProbabalistic vs deterministic

1. The reflective organisation

2. The marriage of biophysical & social science

3. Partnerships & Fellowships

4. The drivers of value & the role of govt.

5. Variable attention disorder

6. Understanding natural systems