Biodiversity offsets are a popular policy tool to atone for the damage done by land development. Trouble is, they often don’t achieve their stated aims of ‘offsetting’ the development’s biodiversity losses with conservation gains elsewhere. The problem is amplified if the animals and plants you are trying to protect live…
I was asked to give a talk to a meeting at Environmental Justice Australia’s community forum for Rivers of the West last night. As usual, I banged on about the importance of stormwater retention and harvesting to protect rivers and streams, including in dry areas like the west of Melbourne. …
Our raingardens and tank have been operating for over three years now. I have been too busy to do the stocktake on performance that I have been intending to do for the last 6 months, but even without doing so, it is clear that the impressive growth of the grapevine…
One of the central tenets of stream ecology—at least since Noel Hynes’ seminal lecture “The stream and its valley” (Hynes, 1975)—is that the catchment is a primary determinant of the structure and function of its stream. If a stream ecologist or a stream manager is to understand the behaviour of…
At the risk of sounding like a cracked record, I note that once again, summer urban flooding makes the newspaper, when not a drop of runoff has left our property during or after this afternoon’s intense downpour. Our tank is now a bit over half-full, and the two raingardens remain close…
Many thanks to Yarra City Council for their commendation of our raingarden, and for a great awards night at the Collingwood Town Hall. Awards went to some amazing, inspiring people; I’m grateful there was room for recognition of our little idea. Here’s hoping it’s another step towards broader adoption of new…
If you think my raingarden diary is a useful resource, please consider voting for my entry in the City of Yarra Sustainability Awards peoples’ choice vote. They have listed it as an entry from Melbourne University, but I entered as a private resident of the City of Yarra (it is listed…
I occasionally get an email seeking an old excel macro that I wrote (back when I knew a lot less about such things, and frankly, I still don’t know very much) called treeflap.xls. It is referenced in this paper: Rees, G. N., Baldwin, D. S., Watson, G. O., Perryman, S.,…
Kakistocracy: a form of government that I look forward to us shedding soon.
