Louise Butwell

For husband and wife Louise and Mike Butwell, studying as mature-aged students brought them closer together and helped to secure their dream jobs.

While living in Victoria and owning and operating a security business, they decided it was time to transform a hobby into a viable career.

In their spare time the couple enjoyed spending time outdoors, hiking and experiencing Australia’s diverse natural wonders.

“We constantly enjoyed bush walking in our national parks and longed to help protect the wildlife,” Mrs Butwell said.

After moving to Queensland in 1995,  they enrolled in an Associate Diploma in Applied Science (Wilderness Reserves and Wildlife), graduating in 2000.

Both now work in Brisbane with the Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service in the import clearance department.

Mr Butwell is stationed at the International Airport, processing passengers arriving from around the world, while Mrs Butwell works in a surveillance role checking imported air and sea cargo.

Having accomplished their goals, the couple now feels they are doing their part to protect Australia’s flora and fauna.

“We are doing this by preventing exotic pests and diseases from  entering the country,” Mrs Butwell said.

The couple said they enjoyed their time studying at the Gatton campus while working as security officers at the international and domestic airports.

Although some subjects such as surveying and engineering were daunting, the couple said they recognised the advantages of their new skills.

“Studying together we found it helpful to consult each other and at the same time we were learning even more as we would each do different assignments,” Mrs Butwell said.

“All the science subjects were amazingly rewarding. We thoroughly enjoyed the whole course and at the end I wanted to keep learning more.”

For those thinking about changing career direction, Mrs Butwell said it was never too late.

“The atmosphere was wonderful and on graduation day we were rewarded for our hard work. If you want something bad enough you will achieve,” she said.

By Allison Rock

Cover of A Climare for Growth

An edited excerpt from A Climate for Growth, published by UQP

As Australia’s fastest growing urban area with population levels expected to double over the next 20 years, south-east Queensland offers a powerful illustration of the growth paradox.

The paradox takes three quite vexing dimensions.

First, the big spend underway on infrastructure is trying to address perilous deficits, especially in water and transport.

Much of it, especially the massive new tunnels, tollways and bridges, will worsen greenhouse emissions.

But should we let the region grind to a halt or dry up? How can we turn around the supertankers of car dependency and resource profligacy?

The second dimension of the paradox is political: how do we address rising community unease about growth in general in a democracy where people can’t be ordered to “stay put” and in a nation that continues to run one of the world’s highest immigration rates? There is rising pressure from longer-term residents for a growth cap. But how do you put up the “full” sign in Australia?

These questions point to the third vexing dimension, which is an institutional question. How do we further develop and deepen the governance capacity to push through the growth malaise and build on progressive and transformative practices?

Underpinning the region’s continued growth is the need to plan for key infrastructure networks around transport, electricity, gas, water, hospitals and schools.

Identified infrastructure pressures include: the continued growth of the SEQ economy and population; competition between projects and jurisdictions for scarce resources; changes in the living arrangements of the population causing stress on infrastructure, resulting in unreliability of supply; deterioration in environmental factors such as the level of rainfall; and traditional long lead times required to identify and commission new infrastructure.

A Climate for Growth, edited by Brendan Gleeson & Wendy Steele, UQP, RRP $34.95

Not many people would swim through a river populated with piranhas while researching their first book, but Andrew Westoll isn’t your typical author.

Click here to read an exclusive extract from The Riverbones

The Canadian journalist travelled to South America to pen The Riverbones, and was one of the featured speakers at the 2009 Brisbane Writers Festival.

The book traces Mr Westoll’s love affair with Suriname, a tiny country in South America that has the largest tract of pristine rainforest on earth and was his home for a year while researching capuchin monkeys in 2001.

After returning to Canada he couldn’t shake his experiences, and decided to enrol in postgraduate studies in creative writing at the University of British Columbia.

The book gives readers an insight into the former Dutch colony, its local inhabitants the Maroon people, and the scars remaining from civil unrest that shook the country in the 1980s.

Woven through the narrative is the hunt for the bright-blue okopipi frog – an extremely rare species that lives only in Suriname.

Mr Westoll said he hoped The Riverbones was a rollicking read that showed the importance of preserving what’s left of our planet.

“First, I hope readers enjoy the adventure. Second, I hope my book can somehow serve as a testament to Surinamese Maroon culture, a wake-up call for the Surinamese government to begin living up to the human rights treaties it signed long ago,” Mr Westoll said.

“But if nothing else, I’d like readers to learn and perhaps fall in love, as I did, with Suriname itself, a remarkable little land of rivers and jungles and monkeys and tiny blue frogs just north of the Amazon that may represent our last chance to save what remains of South America’s once-sprawling rainforest.”

By Cameron Pegg

The Riverbones, UQP, RRP $34.95

Joshua Soderholm gathers data with a theodolite

There is no denying South-east Queensland and storms are a match made in heaven, and on a field trip to Kooralbyn, near Beaudesert, in October, it was startling to see just how quickly this destructive relationship could unfold.

During the 2009 summer storm season, a team of UQ researchers set up a site at the country setting to collect real-time data for better storm warnings in the region.

The project, headed by Associate Professor Hamish McGowan and Bachelor of Science Honours student Joshua Soderholm, marked the first time the researchers – from the School of Geography, Planning and Environmental Management – placed themselves in the field before, during and after a storm hit.

The project aims to provide a greater understanding of the relationship between the pre-storm atmosphere and a storm’s evolution, direct impact areas and the weather it would produce.

“We collected a very wide set across as many storm days as possible, thereby allowing us to develop a climatology of thunderstorm events. We were then able to better understand the relationship between pre-storm conditions and the ensuing thunderstorm weather,” Mr Soderholm said.

As I travelled to Kooralbyn on October 13, the temperature was already about 26 degrees and the wind was howling through the dry terrain.

If you view a storm like a theatre production, the opening number had been forecast for late afternoon.

Mr Soderholm prepares to launch a radiosonde

“It’s a bit of a waiting game,” Dr McGowan says as we arrived on site.

“I’m still reasonably hopeful and optimistic. It’s a shame that the wind wasn’t more round in the north east rather than the north west to bring that moisture in.”

From about 8am, the team had been busy releasing radiosondes – small instrument packages attached to large helium-filled balloons – every two hours.

The technology aims to provide information on the ambient atmosphere in terms of temperature, humidity and wind speed and direction.

“If nothing is kicking off by 3.30pm then we can call it quits,” Dr McGowan says as he surveys the sky.

At about noon, the latest in a series of radiosondes is released – a big red balloon fading into the distance.

While the balloon becomes less visible, the monitor on the ground beeps to alert the team to new information on the developing weather conditions.

Every 20 seconds the optical telescope makes a measurement of the balloon’s position and the information is scanned into the computer for download.

Looking at the data on the computer screen, Mr Soderholm is excited by the balloon’s quick ascent into the atmosphere.

“It’s blowing up to 40 knots at 500 metres now,” he says.

“It’s gone over 1000 metres now.”

A quick scan of the surrounding environment and it appears the clouds are starting to thicken.

Associate Professor Hamish McGowan

“Fingers crossed, it’s only 1.15pm, hopefully by 3pm things will be a bit more organised and we’ll see some deeper convection,” Dr McGowan says.

“We should be getting pretty impressive storms under typical conditions but at present things are still relatively dry.

“That’s what you look for on thunderstorm days, conditionally unstable atmospheres that remain stable as long as it’s dry but as soon as it becomes moist it becomes unstable and remains so.”

Time continues and more data is collected. The sky is beginning to blacken as the clouds become thicker. Before we know it, the conditions have drastically changed and it is obvious that a storm is on the horizon.

Droplets of water begin to bucket down as the sound of rolling thunder echoes in the distance.

While we take cover, Dr McGowan and Mr Soderholm are busy releasing another radiosonde into the atmosphere. The red balloon is immediately whisked up into the turbulence.

Mr Soderholm interrupts the conversation excitedly to report that the radiosonde is caught in the storm’s updraft and is hovering at 8400 metres – “we’ve never tracked it this high before,” he says.

As the storm passes, a quick glimpse at the radar shows a series of severe cells rolling in from the west towards Brisbane, the bayside and the Sunshine Coast.

My ears remain pricked as talk of another storm passing through the Beaudesert area gains momentum.

“We’re measuring the structure of the lower atmosphere from the surface to about 6000 metres,” Dr McGowan adds, peering into a theodolite (a kind of telescope).

The research will hopefully allow the team to better identify what conditions are needed to predict the type of developing storms.

“For example, whether or not you are going to have a big super-cell thunderstorm or whether you are going to have a squall come through, a line of storms, that often passes through South-east Queensland in the spring.

“The more and more people that decide to reside in South-east Queensland, the greater the potential for severe impact on those urban environments in those communities.”

It’s about 4pm and the build-up for another storm begins to gain momentum just north of the research location.

It’s amazing to see how selective the storm path can be. Even though we can see the storm, it appears on the radar to be just shy of our location.

The storm’s ferocity is evident by the cloud dimensions and its increasing speed. Soon the panorama of black clouds is but a distant sight, closing the curtain on our storm-chasing adventure. At least until next time…

By Eliza Plant. Video by Jeremy Patten

PhD student Jereme Spiers with a bottle of Serenascent

Serenascent, which smells like cut grass and claims to make the wearer happier and less stressed, was launched by the State Treasurer and Minister for Employment and Economic Development, Andrew Fraser.

Mr Fraser congratulated researchers Dr Lavidis and retired pharmacologist Associate Professor Rosemarie Einstein for their seven-year research project.

Dr Lavidis said he first had the idea for Serenascent on a trip to Yosemite National Park in America more than 20 years ago.

“Three days in the park felt like a three-month holiday,” he said.

“I didn’t realise at the time that it was the actual combination of feel-good chemicals released by the pine trees, the lush vegetation and the cut grass that made me feel so relaxed.

“Years later my neighbour commented on the wonderful smell of cut grass after I had mowed the lawn and it all clicked into place.”

Dr Lavidis said the aroma of Serenascent worked directly on the brain, in particular the emotional and memory parts known as the amygdala and the hippocampus.

“These two areas form the limbic system that controls the sympathetic nervous system,” he said.

“They are responsible for the ‘flight or fight’ response and the endocrine system, which controls the releasing of stress hormones like corticosteroids. The new spray appears to regulate these areas.”

By Jan King

When UQ Gatton graduate Chris Walton and his partner Kerry Shepherd wanted to invent a way people could live sustainably in harmony with nature, The Ecovillage at Currumbin was born.

Chris Walton

The Ecovillage, an environmentally sustainable community located on the southern end of the Gold Coast at the entrance to Currumbin Valley, has attracted 26 industry awards including the 2008 FIABCI (International RealEstate Federation) Prix d’Excellence for World’s Best Environmental Development.

The site provides for 147 eco-homes with a variety of living possibilities as well as extensive community facilities.

Mr Walton said the Ecovillage achieved total water self-sufficiency through domestic potable supply and wastewater recycling.

“People’s homes produce most of their required energy and the project targets long-term food and material self-sufficiency,” he said.

“The Ecovillage philosophy aims for better biodiversity after development and it incorporates innovative social design which focuses on creating sustainable community for diverse needs.”

While the predevelopment state featured extensive Australian and overseas research, Mr Walton said most of the good ideas came from the skills and experience he acquired while at University and subsequently when he joined the Queensland Lands Department.

In 2006, Mr Walton received the inaugural Minister’s Award for Leadership in Sustainability and in 2008, as a property developer, he was awarded the city’s annual Environmental Citizen of the Year Award.

Kubo Yoshinobu with the water harp

Visitors to Brisbane’s Roma Street Parkland can now participate in a unique cross-cultural experience, but only if they are prepared to listen.

A purpose-built Japanese water harp, known as a suikinkutsu, was officially opened on January 30 by Senior Deputy Vice-Chancellor Professor Michael Keniger, and is now a permanent part of the parkland.

The harp is the centrepiece for a “sound garden” designed by UQ’s Dr Kumi Kato, local architect Will Marcus and Mr Kubo Yoshinobu, a specialist suikinkutsu builder from Japan who travelled to Brisbane specially for the construction.

The harp consists of a buried earthenware pot, which is tipped upside down and has a hole drilled at the top. When drops of water fall through onto a permanent layer of water at the base it creates a subtle musical effect which differs depending on the weather.

Mr Kubo also assisted Dr Kato with a similar installation in a Tasmanian forest in 2005 – believed to the first of its kind in Australia.

Dr Kato said the Australian harps were unique, as they weren’t built as part of a traditional Japanese garden, but instead were created to encourage conservation and the importance of dialogue across cultures.

“The Tasmanian water harp was built to celebrate the natural beauty of the region and the people’s dedication to forest conservation,” she said.

“The Queensland water harp is designed to address the importance of listening – not only to our changing environment but also to each other.”

The sound garden’s design also draws on Indigenous knowledge, and will in time incorporate a design of the Rainbow Serpent in honour of the local traditional owners, the Turrbal People. Indigenous elder Joe Kirk performed a traditional smoking ceremony as part of the opening proceedings.

Dr Kato thanked Roma Street Parkland staff and members of the Brisbane community who pitched in to make the project possible, with Mizu Japanese restaurant providing a traditional lunch to workers throughout the construction process, and artists Ken Kikkawa and Kat Leehy contributing to the design.

In a related project, Dr Kato is gathering an archive of the “sounds of Queensland” for Q150 celebrations.

Queenslanders can nominate their favourite sound at www.ecco.org.au/150sound/, with 150 to be chosen and then professionally recorded as a unique record of the state’s cultural history.

Story by Cameron Pegg, video by Jeremy Patten with footage courtesy Simon Wearne