WISENET Journal 34, March 1994, pp. 16-18.
What is now known as Southern Cross University, in northern New South Wales, is the end product of a series of transformations which my place of employ has undergone during my time here: from College of Advanced Education when I joined in 1987; to Dawkins university in 1989; to autonomous university in 1994. The following describes some of my work at this institution during an interesting evolutionary period.
I am a graduate of one of the'Big Seven'. Indeed I am a born and bred scientist, with both parents scientists and academics. I was one of only a few female students to gain their PhDs in my department, and one of even fewer to get a job actually fitting the qualification (more or less). Of the cohort who did their PhDs at our 'Big Seven' University at the same time as I, most got jobs at Colleges of Advanced Education or in public service departments. Only two of my peers got a post-doctoral position at a 'proper university', and none got jobs at CSIRO. I don't think there was any great quality difference between us.
I had a two-year post-doctoral appointment at the same university at which I got my PhD. During this time I applied for several jobs and was finally offered a position at the Northern Rivers College of Advanced Education (NRCAE) in Lismore, northern NSW. I leapt at the opportunity this job afforded, despite it not being at one of the 'big seven'. I had a particular need for a job, as I was a supporting parent. I was impressed by the goals of the new group in Coastal Management, and some of the applied approaches that they were (had to) take. For a C.A.E., of course, was not eligible for research grants, and the group set up under the auspices of the Centre for Coastal Management had decided to appoint 'proper' scientists. In order to attract us they had a program of obtaining consulting grants that would allow research opportunities, both within the jobs themselves and in the subsequent use of the consulting moneys, which we were not allowed to profit from directly. This attitude of support for a research ethic attracted several interesting and good scientists. Another advantage of the structure of the Centre was the diverse range of people from different backgrounds; it was not a department of only botanists, zoologists, but one more similar to a classical Department of Agriculture, with economists, engineers, botanists and so on. This offered several possibilities for collaborative work. This was 1987, and I was the only female on the campus with a PhD.
Seven years on I have been employed by three different institutions; the NRCAE, the University of New England-Northern Rivers and now the Southern Cross University. There has been no need to move, the moves have come to me! The consequences to me of being employed at this institution have been an increase in generalisation, a concentration on teaching in a manner I do not think would have happened at a larger, more established university, and a sense of responsibility for the research culture in this new university and the developing possibilities of the region.
My initial exposure to the demands of the region was to develop a Conservation Strategy for the Big Scrub Remnants in 1988. These are a number of small remnants of what was once the largest area of subtropical lowland rainforest in the world. Less than one percent remains of this previously extensive area in the form of these small remnants. The work I was able to do predated the majority of work on remnants of any sort in Australia. I was able to incorporate the theories of the causes of biodiversity in plant communities that have been the subject of several papers with my father over the last few years. It appeared that the Big Scrub remnants could be divided into two major types whose species diversity was strikingly different, regardless of their area, and I was able to relate this to site characteristics. This provides a valuable key to the causes of biodiversity, and consequently clues to more effective management. These observations as yet remain to be published, largely due to the community responsibilities of a member of the University/CAE, the demands of students and the need to do consultancies to obtain any research moneys.
Among the threats to future remnant survival that became apparent were the small size and isolation of the remnants. It was clear that no government authority had the means to purchase the remnants, let alone the ability to substantially enlarge them. The best option appeared to be to encourage landholders, both immediately adjacent to the remnants,and in the area as awhole, to plant more local species. In this way remnants could be enlarged, and the representation of threatened species across the landscape could be improved. How to encourage landholders was the big question.
In my PhD and in my post-doctoral work I looked at the seasonal growth of eucalypt species across moisture and nutrient gradients. As part of this I had become aware of an experiment on the relationship between trees and pasture conducted by the CSIRO Divisions of Forest Research and Tropical Crops and Pastures (as they then were). This was directed at encouraging landholders to plant more trees on their properties by showing them that trees and pasture were compatible. Indeed, in several situations trees would actually improve pasture production, and, as an additional bonus the trees would eventually be saleable. By this means, the goals of the billion trees program, and the reversal of land degradation due to tree removal would be easier to achieve. I thought that this approach might be appropriate in the Big Scrub region. We could encourage landholders to plant native rainforest trees as a commercial concern, which would at least get some of the species back on the land in some numbers This would have an added benefit in providing Australia with another much needed supply of timber (our import of timbers in some years has equalled in value our export of meat and livestock).
In the first instance we met with considerable scepticism and resistance from traditional foresters and agriculturalists. It became apparent, however, that much of the belief that Australian rainforest timbers were not suitable for plantation forestry was based on very Ittle evidence. Many rainforest species were trialed at spasmodic intervals in the short history of Australian forestry, but generally were poorly tested, and were invariably overcome by fashion; enthusiasm for exotic imports. The subtropics and tropics being geographically a long way away from Canberra, Melbourne and Sydney also had a great deal to do with it It was undeniable, however, that rainforest timbers were an exceedingly important export from Australia for many years. The north coast of NSW accounted for half of all of the timber produced in NSW at the turn of the century. It was thought by many that the 75,000 hectares of the Big Scrub could have been a valuable source of timber for many years, but land clearance for agriculture and dairying spelt its untimely end.
I was fortunate in 1990 to receive, with colleagues from the University of Queensland, CSIRO Division of Forest Research and Greening Australia, Queensland, a National Afforestation Grant to establish a trial plantation of sixteen cabinet timber species in Lismore on the University campus. This has proved of great value, and I have recently been successful in obtaining a Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation grant for a continuation of this program. This has been made possible in large part by the growing enthusiasm and breadth of expertise available in the region as a whole. Of course, trialling sixteen species which are essentially untested and recommending landholders to risk their all is a dicey business, especially when you compare it with the work done on the better growth of a single species such as Pinus elliotii. I am attempting to fast-track the information required for some modestly reliable predictions by examining as many rainforest timber plantings as we can find, and by conducting a research program looking at the water and nutrient relations of species from significant ecological groupings of rainforest plants.
The eventual product of this work will be a decision support package for landholders and extension officers to enable thern to select appropriate species and appropriate management for their land. Concurrently I am co-author of an Atlas of Australian Plant Communities (all 928 of them), around which are several papers. I am engaged in a long-term monitoring study of a swamp using remote sensing and land based techniques. I have my continuing work on the causes of the apparently prescribed diversity we see in plant communities throughout the world. Much of my work is now courtesy of equipment we have gained due to the ARC Mechanism B grant to us as a Dawkins University. We are about to add an electron microscope to our armory.
My future activities will depend on the papers that I keep promising myself and my husband to publish. I am now one of several fernales with a PhD on the campus, but still only one of a very few female scientists. I sit as female representative (although our previous deputy vice-chancellor said he would have had me on the committee anyway!) on the campus research and post-graduate committees. I am the University representative on several Greening Australia (north coast) advisory committees, on one of the local Council's environment committees, I have run a workshop on the prospects for Forestry on Private Lands in the Northern Rivers Region of NSW, and on it goes. Life is very busy for a (female) botanist in a Dawkins University. Maybe the wider world awaits one day when we are noticed. I think it is fun and challenging.