Climate Change and Coastlines

Leader: Jodi Frawley

Members: Alison Bashford, Maria Byrne, Michael Davis, Caitlin De Berigny Wall, Andrew Edgar, Will Figueira, Rosemary Lyster, Iain McCalman, Elspeth Probyn, Tim Stephens, Jody Webster

The concentration of human, animal and plant life along the Australian coastline makes it central to debates about climate change. This symposium will address issues related to the shifting baselines of the multiple bio-cultural and ecological communities of the coast. Shifting baselines refers to the way that each generation blindly considers their own ecological circumstances as a foundation for decision-making in science, policy and popular beliefs, ignoring prior conditions. Understanding the impacts of anthropogenic change requires historical and contemporary perspectives that will feed into the challenges of the climate changing coastlines of the future. We will address the past and futures of Australian marine ecosystems, fisheries and food security and coastal cultures to build new cross-disciplinary research networks in this area.

Changing Coastlines Symposium

Program Day 1: "Consider the Oyster…again"

When: Thursday November 7th
Venue: MacCallum Cullen Room, Holme Building

Animal, food, mineral? This amazing mollusc, keystone species in the estuarine waters of coastlines everywhere, has one foot on the land, and opens its life to the sea. These animals played an important role in the human diet in many coastal cultures, providing sustenance as they were gathered along the tidal shore. Oyster shells were also burned for their lime content for construction in colonial Australia helping to build new towns for convicts and other settlers. As the earliest form of aquaculture, they have been global travellers, exported along with French and British expertise to new world places in the antipodes. But they are also the canaries of the sea, their health sounding the warning of disease and pollution for the waters that flow through their valves. And now oysters are being enlisted to help reverse the toxic build up and environmental damage associated with the Anthropocene. This workshop brings together scholars of the Environmental Humanities to consider the oyster. We will grapple with the histories and meanings of oyster culture. Our aim is to examine the way the interrelationships of species change and adapt in association with the circumstances of people, place and ecosystems. Together researchers from Cultural Studies, Art Criticism, Environmental Science, History and Indigenous Studies will start a conversation about this fascinating creature of our more-than-human estuary worlds.

Function: Macleay Museum

Program Day 2: Climate Change and the Australian Coastline: Shifting Baselines

When: Friday November 8th
Venue: MacCallum Cullen Room, Holme Building

The concentration of human, animal and plant life along the Australian coastline makes it central to debates about climate change. This symposium will address issues related to the shifting baselines of the many bio-cultural and ecological communities of the coast. Shifting baselines refers to the way that each generation blindly considers their own ecological circumstances as a foundation for decision-making in science, policy and popular beliefs, ignoring prior conditions. Understanding the impacts of anthropogenic change requires historical and contemporary perspectives that will feed into the policy and other challenges of the climate changing coastlines of the future. We will address the past and futures of Australian marine ecosystems, fisheries and food security and coastal cultures to build new cross-disciplinary research networks in this area.

For more information contact Michelle St Anne.