UQ Gatton lecturer and ecologist Dr Manda Page will speak on the need for partnerships between researchers, government and the community to tackle environmental issues at the 2004 Queensland Landcare Conference in Toowoomba on Thursday, September 2.
An expert in ecology, national park management and fire ecology, Dr Page believes collaboration between research providers, research funders and both public and private land managers is critical for effective environmental management.
Training future conservation managers in how to work with landholders to achieve biodiversity objectives outside protected areas is equally important, she says.
Dr Page is involved in a number of courses that help develop the skills and knowledge students need to work with the community, including an industrial placement program with community conservation organisations and a course in South Africa that focuses on broader resource management issues with comparisons to Australia.
She also works with the Save the Bilby Fund on a bilby recovery program in Currawinya national park, South West Queensland, a project that has relied heavily on community support. She will draw on that experience and other environmental projects UQ is involved with to advise the Landcare conference’s international delegation on the use of partnerships.
“Effective collaboration means you can employ each partner’s best resources and combine their unique skills to tackle an environmental problem,” Dr Page said.
“That delivers a better environmental outcome because the necessary research can be better directed, the funders of that research get more value for money and most importantly, everyone including public and private landholders are working to a common goal of fixing the problem.”
Dr Page is scheduled to speak to the conference’s international delegation at 10am Thursday, September 2, at the Burke and Wills Hotel, Toowoomba.
UQ’s Faculty of Natural Resources, Agriculture and Veterinary Science (NRAVS), based at the Gatton campus, is a major sponsor of the 2004 Landcare Conference. More information on the Landcare Conference can be found at www.tlg.org.au
For more information, contact Dr Manda Page, School of Natural & Rural Systems Management,
Faculty of NRAVS, (07) 5460 1182 or Brad Henderson, Marketing Coordinator, Faculty of NRAVS
(07) 5460 1229 or 0409.265.587
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