Australasian Science Magazine

By Tom Chesson

Applied research suffers cuts while science loses farmers’ trust.

Recommendation 14 is one of the most important yet largely ignored recommendations from the Windsor Parliamentary Inquiry into the Murray–Darling Basin water reforms: “that the Commonwealth Government focus greater investment into research and development to improve irrigation efficiency”.

If we do not substantially increase funding for agriculture research, development and extension services the nation’s food security will be severely compromised. We cannot keep doing more with less.

By Jerry Vanclay

Energy generated by burning forestry waste and other biomass sources should be recognised as renewable.

As Australia prepares to pay for its carbon emissions, the challenge is to ensure wise behavioural change rather than “game-playing”. There is a danger that advocates for forests will over-emphasise their capacity for carbon farming, to the detriment of the overall carbon balance.

The two major pools of carbon – in the biosphere and the geosphere – have very different characteristics in terms of cycle time, natural ebb and flow, and reversibility.

By Gerard Guthrie

The failure of curriculum reforms in Papua New Guinea prove that formal teaching practices are best for developing nations.

The primary and secondary schools of developing countries are littered with the remnants of attempts to change formalistic teaching. Half a century of conventional educational wisdom has generated progressive teacher education and curriculum reforms that are wrong in principle and widespread failures in practice. Professional educators, especially in aid projects, frequently attempt to introduce inappropriate discovery-oriented teaching styles despite widespread warnings from previous failures.

By Andrew Barron

Almost 5 years since colony collapse was identified, the science tells us there is neither a single cause nor a single solution.

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