rocioponcereyes

Jul 1

CSIRO Cutting Edge Symposium: “Developing Australia’s edible insect industry to improve environmental, health and cultural outcomes”

When: 28-30th August 2019, EcoSciences precinct, Brisbane, Australia

The pitch:
Reducing farmed animal protein consumption by introducing edible insects into the Australian diet promises significant health, cultural and environmental benefits. The global insect industry is expected to grow 23% by, to $1 billion, by 2023¹, yet few Australian companies produce and sell insects² (mostly non-native crickets and mealworms) for human consumption. This symposium will bring together leading scientific and traditional knowledge of native Australian edible insects, promote their inclusion in our diet, and drive commercialisation opportunities. We will produce a much needed roadmap for an Australian edible insect industry, providing innovative edible insect solutions.

Agenda:
The symposium will run over three days, and presentations will be followed up by group discussions. The symposium will be facilitated by the CSIRO ON team, with the support of a facilitation team (Rocio, Bryan and the CSIRO Conservation Decisions Team). We will include the following topics:

Cultural (for example, entomophagy around the world, traditional uses by Indigenous Australians, cultural appropriation, empowering Indigenous people in the development of knowledge, enterprises and economies based on culture and natural resources, etc)
Environmental (for example, reduction of environmental footprint of dietary changes, potential impacts to biodiversity, reduction of pesticide uses, biosecurity pros and cons, greenhouse gas emissions, etc)
Health and diet (for example, nutrition, inclusion in the diet, prevention of illnesses, safety, etc)
Commercialization (for example, current production, policy, regulation, ethics, current problems faces by the industry, what is happening in Europe/USA/Mexico, etc).

Participating enterprises will be able to set up a stand and promote/sell their products during the event. Please note that selling will only be permitted after 2:30 PM due to building restrictions.

We are looking for donations and sponsors!
Contact Rocio.PonceReyes-AT-csiro.au

Organising committee:
Rocio Ponce-Reyes (L&W), Bryan Lessard (CSIRO- NCMI), Emma Woodward (L&W-IF), Rene Cerritos (National Autonomous University of Mexico); Iadine Chades (L&W), Josie Carwardine (L&W), and Sam Nicol (L&W)

#CSIROediblebugs #ConservationDecisions #CSIRO #edibleinsects #innovation

¹ http://www.fao.org/edible-insects/en/ “Global Edible Insects Market Will Reach USD 1,181.6 Million by 2023: Exclusive Market Research Report”

² https://www.afr.com/technology/crickets-maggots-algae-on-the-front-lines-of-the-future-of-food-20181214-h194ca

(Photo by Bryan Lessard, Grilo Spread)

May 7

Implications of the Western Diet for Agricultural Production, Health and Climate Change

In this paper we look at biodiversity conservation from a different perspective: we analysed how our current eating habits drive agricultural production and affect not only our health but the environment.

Using global databases, we analysed the links between health, agricultural production and environmental data together. We found that the Western diet—dominated by processed foods, refined sugar, fats and flours—has negative implications for all three.

Apr 3

Forecasting ecosystem responses to climate change across Africa’s Albertine Rift

In a new paper, available online now in Biological Conservations, Rocio together with researchers from the Wildlife Conservation Society and the University of Queensland assessed the potential impact of climate change on the distributions of ecosystems.The distribution effects that we investigated here that may result from climate change are six: contraction, expansion or shifting of existing ecosystems, creation of new ecosystems, complete destruction to ecosystems, or no change to ecosystem distribution (Picture: Queen Elizabeth National Park, Acacia brachystegia grasslands (Northern Savannah) by Andy Plumptre)

Jan 14

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Come Together for the threatened species in the Brigalow Belt

We are very excited to to announce our new report ‘Priority Threat Management for Imperilled Species of the Queensland Brigalow Belt’ (PDF) (see The Conversation article, CSIRO website).

Ponce Reyes, R., Firn, J., Nicol, S., Chadès, I., Stratford, D.S., Martin, T.G., Whitten, S., Carwardine, J. (2016) Priority Threat Management for Imperilled Species of the Queensland Brigalow Belt CSIRO, Brisbane.

Mar 17

eating insects to …

… improve the protein uptake and therefore the health of millions of people globally;

…reduce the land clearing and use of pesticides while obtaining economic profit;

…reduce the carbon dioxide an methane emission

In our new paper:Exploiting a pest insect species Sphenarium purpurascens for human consumption: ecological, social, and economic repercussions published in the first issue of the Journal of Insects as Food and Feed we developed a model of sustainable exploitation for pest insect species and explore the potential benefits to humans in different areas, like health/nutrition, conservation, economy and even climate change!

Please contact me if you would like a copy of the paper!

The picture below is by Rene Cerritos the lead author of this paper.

Bon appétit!

by Rene Cerritos

Oct 7

CDT x EDG seminar series #12: Dr. Ronny Groenteman

2 for 1: New Zealand’s weed biocontrol in a nutshell plus a close-up examination of a case study on what we could do to overcome biocontrol scepticism

Ronny Groenteman¹, Simon Fowler¹, Jon Sullivan², Yvonne Buckley³, Rob Salguero-Gómez⁴

¹Landcare Research, ²Lincoln University, ³Trinity College Dublin, ⁴University of Queensland.

Biological control of weeds research in New Zealand is primarily done by a small group at the Crown Research Institute Landcare Research. In this talk I will give an overview of how our science works hand in hand with operative programmes, and will touch on why our regulatory system works well. I will then dwell on the successful programme against St. John’s wort, Hypericum perforatum – a case study selected to demonstrate the connection between biocontrol and weed populations decline. Demonstrating cause and effect in biological control is no easy undertaking yet it is crucial for us to provide strong scientific evidence of biocontrol effectiveness. The St. John’s wort project includes an intensive field experiment, multi-model inference approach to data analysis, and finally, periodic Integrated Projection Modelling approach to describe the population demography of the weed in the presence and absence of biocontrol. How effective will this undertaking be in convincing sceptics that biocontrol can work is yet to be seen. What is clear is that the resources required for such studies are vast and we must think carefully about the circumstances where this approach will advance decision making not only in a given programme, but in biocontrol science & practice a whole.

Sep 8

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CDT x EDG seminar series #11: Dr. Jean-Baptiste Pichancourt

Jul 31

CDT x EDG seminar series #10: Dr. Marta Pascual Altares

Apr 28

CDTx EDG seminar series #6

Mar 26

Geographical surrogates of genetic variation for selecting island populations for conservation

In this paper we explored three simple and cost-effective geographical measures to maximise genetic and phenotypic variation in fragmented populations when setting conservation priorities.We were interested in finding simple surrogates because limited financial resources usually constrain the allocation of funds to only a subset of threatened species’ populations. We tested our surrogates on two species of birds with differing genetic population structure (Zosterops flavifrons and Z. lateralis) in the Vanuatu archipelago.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ddi.12195/abstract

for more information please contact me: rocio.poncereyes@csiro.au

Mar 13

CDTx EDG seminar series #5

Feb 13

CDTx EDG seminar series #4

Friday 14th February 3 pm, Dr. Duan Biggs (UQ) will be presenting The wicked problem of conserving iconic species: making science and economic policy innovations relevant Read more

Jan 14

CDTx EDG seminar series #3

January 17th (3pm), Dr Shaun Coutts (Buckley Ecology Lab, UQ) will be doing a presentation on Why conservation researchers don’t do sensitivity analysis, and why they really should. Please come along ( CSIRO EcoSciences Precinct, 41 Boggo Rd, Dutton Park 4102 QLD- Rooms GA603): Read more

Nov 12

CDTx EDG seminar series #2

On Friday the 8th of November 2013, we had Dr Ross Dwyer (ross.dwyer@uq.edu.au) from the ECO-Lab at UQ visiting us and giving a talk about telemetry and the R-based software that he and his colleagues have developed to analyse the telemetric data they gather in the field-especially to get to know the life of estuarine crocodiles. Read more