20 March – Biodiversity and agriculture – working together
Posted on 16 March, 2012 by Connecting Country
Dr Denis Saunders, former CSIRO chief research scientist, member of the Wentworth Group, and president of World Wildlife Fund.
Biodiversity and agriculture are often seen as separate entities, however, this doesn’t need to be the case. On Tuesday evening, 20 March 2012, internationally renowned scientist Dr. Denis Saunders will present a free public talk at the Newstead Community Centre on the reasons why. With a long and distinguished career in landscape-scale analyses of agricultural rangelands and studies of Australian bird ecology, Dr Saunders is well placed to deliver this presentation – which will be of great interest to everyone – conservationists and farmers alike.
“Biodiversity – the variety of all life forms and their geographic patterns – is integral to a functioning landscape and provides critical environmental services such as nutrient cycling, water filtration and soil stability. Everyone benefits from a biodiverse environment. When biodiversity is diminished these benefits, such as life support processes, are decreased”, says Connecting Country Project Coordinator Chris Timewell. Dr. Saunders will present a case that agriculture is an enterprise that is critically dependent on biodiversity services and will describe how we might go about integrating them. A question and answer session will follow the presentation.
Denis’s evening talk, the first of Connecting Country’s 2012 Education Program, commences at 6.30pm with a pre-talk supper (gold coin donation to the local Newstead Landcare group). This free event is fully catered and the food will be sourced from locally grown ingredients. All the evening talks and field days are open to all members of the public.
Also coming up on Sunday the 25th of March is a field trip with Connecting Country to Pilchers Bridge where participants will learn about the process of identifying Ecological Vegetation Classes (EVCs) and learn how they can be used in revegetation and biodiversity management. There are still places available for the field trip so register now to guarantee your place.
For more information and to RSVP please contact bryan@connectingcountry.org.au or call the Connecting Country office on 5472 1594. Full details of Connecting Country’s 2012 education program and a registration form can be found here.
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