Events | The Conservation Decisions Team

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)

Mar 22

The Conservation Decisions team selected for ON Prime!

Sam, Josie, Iadine, Nicole and Stephanie will test and strengthen their Conservation Technology idea through ON Prime 2!

We are very excited and can’t wait to start! We can’t say much at this stage, however we will use our social media platforms to share the different stage of our adventure.

Nov 5

CDT x EDG seminar series #13: Dr Virginia Matzek

Friday 7th of November, from 3-4 pm in room GA604, ESP, Dr. Virginia Matzek (Santa Clara University, California) will present her research on “Bringing managers’ perspectives to bear on habitat restoration and ecosystem services in California and Australia”.

(beers and snacks available afterwards-as part of the social club!)

Title: Bringing managers’ perspectives to bear on habitat restoration and ecosystem services in California and Australia

Summary: This talk highlights some of the recent work my lab has done in California, as well as our planned work in Australia. The first part of the talk will treat a survey of managers’ research needs for invasive plant management in the state. As a follow-up to this work, we went to the literature to see what had actually been published relevant to California invasive plant management, and documented some mismatches in the topic, scope, and approach of scientific research, when compared with managers’ needs. The second part of the talk discusses whether managers can expect to recoup the cost of restoration of riparian forest in California via the state’s new compliance market for carbon credits. Both of these themes–the potential mismatch of perspectives, and the need to measure ecosystem services resulting from restoration–turn up in the work I’m planning to do here in Australia. I’ll close with a brief account of our proposed work surveying Australian managers and members of the general public for their perspectives on the desirability of ecosystem services as a project goal for restoration.

Bio: Virginia Matzek is an assistant professor in the Department of Environmental Studies and Sciences at Santa Clara University in California, USA. The primary focus of her lab is on linking ecosystem services to ecological restoration. A plant ecologist and biogeochemist by training, she now finds herself interested as much by why people restore ecosystems as by how they do it. She will be at CEED working with Kerrie Wilson and Marit Kragt until mid-December 2014.

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

Jun 24

CDT x EDG seminar series #8: Prof. Tom Dietterich

Apr 28

CDTx EDG seminar series #6

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