Edward Charles Lefroy

University of Tasmania ·  Tasmanian Institute of Agriculture (TIA)

Long-term erosion rates in Tasmania, at the southern end of Australia's Great Dividing Range, are poorly known; yet, this knowledge is critical for making informed land-use decisions and improving the ecological health of coastal ecosystems. Here, we present quantitative, geologically relevant estimates of erosion rates for the George River basin,...

Long-term erosion rates in Tasmania, at the southern end of Australia’s Great Dividing Range, are poorly known, yet such knowledge is critical for making informed land-use decisions and improving ecological health of coastal ecosystems. Here, we present the first quantitative, geologically-relevant estimates of erosion rates for the George River ba...

Aim Understanding past distributions of people across the landscape is key to understanding how people used, affected and related to the natural environment. Here, we use habitat suitability modelling to represent the landscape distribution of Tasmanian Aboriginal archaeological sites and assess the implications for patterns of past human activity....

Strong attachments to places are important in understanding the politics of environmental planning, but, as in Tasmania, Australia, are not usually incorporated in planning criteria and standards. We determine whether groups of individuals have similar spatial patterns of attachment at a State scale in Tasmania, and whether attachments to these 'pl...

Throughout the world, feral horses (Equus caballus) are causing environmental degradation and a decline in ecological integrity. Evidence from scientific monitoring is needed to inform the public debate and help land managers make informed decisions. We used field observations of vegetation condition at a network of sites in the Australian Alps whe...

Global biodiversity is facing an extinction crisis. Australia has one of the highest terrestrial species extinction rates in the world. Scientists, policy advisors and governments have recommended that the issue be addressed at a landscape-scale, while noting that there are significant knowledge gaps that are hampering implementation of such an app...

The proportion of funds received by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Organisation (CSIRO) from sources other than Treasury, referred to as external earnings, has been used by the Australian government as an indicator of CSIRO's engagement with industry and contribution to the economy. Two periods of decline in external earnings in the 194...

Developing regional scenarios enables planners to engage land managers in discussions about the future, especially in contexts that are complex, uncertain and difficult to control. Richly-crafted qualitative narratives are an effective way to document future scenarios that integrate social, economic and biophysical attributes. Converting such narra...

ContextLand use changes have modified the extent and structure of native vegetation, resulting in fragmentation of native species habitat. Connectivity is increasingly seen as a requirement for effective conservation in these landscapes, but the question remains: ‘connectivity for which species?’. Objective The aim of this study was to develop and...

Deer are among the world's most successful invasive mammals and can have substantial deleterious impacts on natural and agricultural ecosystems. Six species have established wild populations in Australia, and the distributions and abundances of some species are increasing. Approaches to managing wild deer in Australia are diverse and complex, with...

Ecological restoration activities should be conceptualized as a form of governance, as this lens best captures the multiactor, collaborative processes by which societies through governments and nonstate entities seek to achieve environmental outcomes. Successful restoration governance depends on addressing a cluster of challenges concerning optimal...

Fine-landscape features such as scattered trees and roadside vegetation corridors are increasingly thought to be important for movement between habitat patches. However, existing connectivity modelling approaches fail to adequately account for fine-scale features and gap-crossing behaviour. We present a method for modelling connectivity at fine spa...

Focal targets for connectivity conservation range can be applied to species or ecological communities. In the previous GAP CLoSR study in the Lower Hunter region of New South Wales (Lechner & Lefroy 2014), we modelled functional connectivity between patches of remnant woody vegetation, with the assumption that these patches provide habitat for many...

Fine-scale landscape features such as scattered trees are increasingly thought to be critical for dispersal, and need to be considered in connectivity modelling and planning. Yet existing modelling approaches struggle to adequately take fine-scale features and threshold dynamics of dispersal behaviour into account, in part because of computational...

Context. Since the introduction of fallow deer (Dama dama) to Tasmania in the early 1830s, the management of the species has been conflicted; the species is partially protected as a recreational hunting resource, yet simultaneously recognised as an invasive species because of its environmental impact and the biosecurity risk that it poses. The rang...

Identifying land-use drivers of changes in river condition is complicated by spatial scale, geomorphological context, land management, and correlations among responding variables such as nutrients and sediments. Furthermore, variations in standard metrics, such as substratum composition, do not necessarily relate causally to ecological impacts. Con...

THIS book is a valuable historic record of the practices employed by land managers, government programs and community groups to ensure a place for nature in farming landscapes. Its strength lies in the 16 case studies of individual properties and the 14 examples of general approaches to integrating conservation into production systems. Those two ve...

Available for download http://www.nacc.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Trees-Shrubs-for-the-Midlands-and-Northern-Wheatbelt-2nd-edition.pdf

Choice of variables, climate models and emissions scenarios all influence the results of species distribution models under future climatic conditions. However, an overview of applied studies suggests that the uncertainty associated with these factors is not always appropriately incorporated or even considered. We examine the effects of choice of va...

Background/Question/Methods Habitat fragmentation from human activity is a key threat to natural systems, resulting in landscapes that support smaller, more isolated populations of native species. A consequence is reduced population viability and increased extinction risk. Mitigation efforts often focus on identifying, conserving and restoring ha...

Recent conservation planning studies have presented approaches for integrating spatially referenced social (SRS) data with a view to improving the feasibility of conservation action. We reviewed the growing conservation literature on SRS data, focusing on elicited or stated preferences derived through social survey methods such as choice experiment...

THIS book is a valuable historic record of the practices employed by land managers, government programs and community groups to ensure a place for nature in farming landscapes. Its strength lies in the 16 case studies of individual properties and the 14 examples of general approaches to integrating conservation into production systems. Those two ve...

This commentary starts with responses to four questions posed by the editor, and finishes with some reflections on a recent interdisciplinary research project in the field of environmental management. IF YOU HAD $1MILLION TO SPEND, WHICH OF THE PROPOSALS IN THIS BOOK WOULD YOU FUND TO BE FURTHER DEVELOPED? Firstly I applaud the approach proposed in...

In the lead up to World Youth Day in July 2013, Pope Francis offered plenary indulgences to his 2.7 million Twitter followers @Pontifex. Indulgences, a device that until the sixteenth century enabled a prospective sinner to offset time spent in purgatory by donating to the church, are now granted for pious acts performed in person or online (The Va...

Historical water quality data from stations at Baden, downstream of the Craigbourne Dam, Richmond and White Kangaroo Rivulet collected between 1999 and 2008 were obtained from DPIPWE. Riparian land use within one kilometre of the river was assessed and digitised using 2005/7 colour aerial photographs and water quality data for that period were exam...

New Zealand dairy farmers face a tradeoff between profit maximisation and environmental performance. The integrated simulation model presented here enables assessment of the economic and environmental impact of dairy farming with a focus on nitrogen ...

In response to the increasingly complex social–ecological issues facing society, there is a growing trend to conduct environmental research in large collaborative programs. This approach is described as transdisciplinary research as it transcends formal disciplinary boundaries, explicitly acknowledges that many different perspectives are relevant t...

Natural resource management (NRM) in Australia began as a series of campaigns against specific threats to agricultural and pastoral production, with war progressively declared on soil erosion, introduced pests and dryland salinity. Critiques of NRM programs in the 1990s coincided with a shift towards an asset-based approach. This approach emphasise...

Computer based Decision Support Tools or Systems (DST or DSS) have been used in agriculture and natural resource management for over 30 years. However their uptake has been patchy, and reviews in both fields arrive at a similar set of explanations; 1) Absence of market research to establish need and target audience; 2) Failure to clearly define the...

The need to improve environmental management in Australia is urgent because human health, well-being and social stability all depend ultimately on maintenance of life-supporting ecological processes. Ecological science can inform this effort, but when issues are socially and economically complex the inclination is to wait for science to provide ans...

A collaborative project between researchers, regional natural resource management organisations and landholders set out to explore three questions about the relationships between biodiversity and land use in Australia's mixed-farming landscapes: (1) the extent to which farm-scale measures of biodiversity were related to agricultural production; (2)...

Since the emergence of national natural resource management programs, there have been few tools that can assist regional bodies in planning, monitoring and evaluating the success of investments. Tools are needed to assist natural resource managers in better focusing investments, more efficiently allocating scare resources available to regional bodi...

Three themes of this conference were the progress that's been made in recent years in achieving landscape scale restoration, the enormity of the challenges, and the promise of a 'turbo-charged' carbon future. Case studies of successful restoration efforts suggested several principles, introduced by the keynote speakers and reinforced by presentatio...

T wo hundred and sixty-five people – from overseas, from every state of Australia, from every level of Australian government and every major primary industry – attended this three-day conference on 'Biodiversity: balancing conservation and production'. One hundred stayed an extra day to attend an interactive session with a bold aim: to distil their...

23 Closing the adaptive management loop: why practical experience is necessary but not sufficient and science is essential but not always right Ted Lefroy F rom the air in summer, inland Australia presents an intricate pattern of creek lines and vegetation over a patchwork of soils, all lying beneath a rigid grid of fence lines and roads. Occasiona...

Scenario planning was used to identify issues and drivers of change that are relevant to community efforts to improve regional prospects in the Western Australian Wheatbelt. The region, some 20 million hectares in area, is under pressure to respond to a variety of environmental ( salinity, erosion, acidification, biodiversity decline), economic ( d...

Existing perennial plant-based farming systems are examined within 4 climatic zones in southern Australia (western winter rainfall, south-eastern low to medium rainfall, south-eastern high rainfall and northern summer rainfall) to assess their potential to improve the management of dryland salinity. If profit is to be the primary driver of adoption...

In the dryland cropping areas of southern Australia, at risk from dryland salinity, tree belts can improve water management by taking up water unused by crops, with the risk that crop yield will be reduced through competition. As there are few direct markets for tree products grown in the medium to low rainfall areas, the design of agroforestry sys...

This research investigated the potential to domesticate an Australian native grass (Microlaena stipoides) to produce a perennial grain crop. Perennial grain crops offer a new solution to the long-standing problems of salinity and soil erosion associated with conventional cropping systems based on annual plants. Seed yield and its components (culm n...

The current effort in Australia to increase the proportion of perennial vegetation in agricultural landscapes to manage dryland salinity presents opportunities to improve the viability of remnant vegetation and its dependant biota. At this intersection of ecology and agricUlture, many questions arise concerning interpretations of biodiversity from...

Two fundamental changes in attitude are required before efforts to develop sustainable agricultural systems will be successful. Firstly, the deeply held and often unexamined views we have of our relationship with the natural world, particularly the view of nature as a commodity, must be challenged. Secondly, we must question our continuing faith in...

Wind erosion and rising water tables are serious threats to the ecological sustainability of annual plant-based farming systems on deep, infertile sandplain soils in southwestern Australia. In this study, an annual cropping system was compared with two novel perennial plant-based systems designed to address these threats in terms of their use of re...

Introduction This energy analysis of the Australian economy was carried out as part of a study comparing the sustainability of alternative land use systems in southwestern Australia (Lefroy and Rydberg 2003). Flows of energy and materials between the environment and the economy were identified for each of three farming systems (annual crop rotation...

The introduction of deep-rooted perennial species into catchments dominated by annual crops and pastures forms part of the strategy for managing dryland salinity in south Australia. This paper provides a methodology for determining whether it is better to mix trees and crops (agroforestry), or segregate them into plantations and monocrops, when att...

Four-year-old tagasaste trees in dense plantation and wide-spaced alley cropping layouts at Moora, Western Australia, were cut back to 0.6 m high and their patterns of coppice regrowth and water use monitored over 3 years. Trees reached a permanent fresh watertable at 5 m depth by means of deeply penetrating sinker roots. Dry matter (DM) accumulati...

Components of the water balance of an alley cropping system were measured to assess the extent to which tree rows 30 m apart with access to a fresh, perched watertable at 5 m depth were able to capture deep drainage from an inter-cropped cereal–legume rotation. Neutron probe data showed that the 4-year-old trees, cut back to 0.6-m high at the begin...

Nitrogen (N) isotope fractionation and symbiotic N fixation were investigated in the shrub legume tagasaste, growing in the glasshouse and field. In a pot study of effectively nodulated plants supplied with 0, 1, 5 and 10 mM nitrate [stable isotope 15N (δ15N) of 3.45‰], the δ15N of dry matter N of fully symbiotic cultures indicated a greater isotop...

In the preceding papers, the authors evaluate the usefulness of the proposition that mimicking characteristics of natural ecosystems, particularly patterns of resource capture and distribution, can lead to improved sustainability of agricultural systems. They approach this question from a diverse array of disciplines over a broad range of geographi...

Agroforestry has been advocated as a means of managing excess water that has accumulated in the agricultural landscape of southern Australia since clearing of native vegetation. This article examines the feasibility and profitability of agroforestry systems designed to manage rising, saline watertables. A framework for Australian conditions is desc...

Wide spaced rows of the forage shrub Acacia saligna and Tagasaste (Chamaecytisus proliferus) had a stronlgy directional influence on the yield of grain lupins (Lupinus angustifolius Gunguru) in the 1993 growing season with yield, reduction being greater on the eastern side of tree belts than the western side. The yield of lupins was not significant...

Despite abundant evidence that much of Earth's resources are being used at faster than replacement rate, western industrial societies tend to behave as if they were not. As several authors in this volume note, a change in behaviour must be preceded by a change of mind. This chapter takes a brief look at the range of attitudes towards the increasing...