A free webinar with Dr Martino Malerba on Managing farm dams to reduce carbon emissions while improving biodiversity and water security

About this event

Farm dams are the most abundant type of freshwater wetland in Australia. Farm dams are also among the highest greenhouse gas emitters of all freshwater ecosystems, producing the equivalent of 385,000 cars each day in Victoria alone.

In this 1 hour webinar presentation, Dr Martino Malerba, a senior environmental scientist at Deakin Uni.’s Blue Carbon Lab, will discuss how farms can be managed to reduce carbon emissions whilst improving biodiversity and water security – follow this link to reserve your place EVENTBRITE.

Dr Malerba manages the Teal Carbon group at Deakin Uni.’s Blue Carbon Lab, which focuses on the sustainable management of freshwater systems and leads an interdisciplinary research team to quantify the scale of these emissions, explore strategies for greener practices, and develop financial mechanisms for better management. His research group collaborates with CSIRO to develop hydrological modelling, with the National Carbon Inventory team to quantify carbon emissions from freshwater systems, and with the Clean Energy Regulator to develop new methodologies to award carbon credits for farm dam management.

This year Dr Malerba was awarded a DECRA Fellowship by the Australian Research Council to expand his research on farm dam emissions.

This webinar is made possible with funding through the Australian Government’s Future Drought Fund Natural Resource Management Drought Resilience Program which is supporting ACT NRM to work with land managers to improve the drought resilience of water resources on rural lands across the ACT.

About Martino

Martino leads the Teal Carbon group at Deakin’s Blue Carbon Lab. He is an environmental scientist, ecologist, and evolutionary biologist whose research focuses on freshwater wetlands.

Equivalent to coastal wetlands, teal carbon ecosystems are key to regulating greenhouse gases and mitigating the effects of climate change. However, their degradation due to land-use change, pollution, water extraction, and landscape modification can release large amounts of carbon back into the atmosphere.

For example, farm dams are among the highest greenhouse gas emitters of all freshwater ecosystems. Yet, simple management interventions (such as using fences to exclude livestock) can change these systems from a source of pollution (carbon sources) to becoming part of the solution (carbon sinks).

Dr Malerba’s research team works to quantify carbon emissions, restores degraded sites, explores strategies for greener practices, identifies social drivers of sustainable development, and explores financial mechanisms for better management of freshwater resources.

His research is supported by the Australian Research Council through a DECRA Fellowship. He collaborates with the Australian National Carbon Inventory team to improve our estimates of carbon emissions from freshwater systems, and with the Clean Energy Regulator to develop new methodologies for financial incentives (carbon credits).

Extract from the Blue Carbon Lab Website

Our gardens and bushlands are host to a wide range of beneficial insects, many of whom go unnoticed in your daily life due to their size. Local pollinators are adapted to spread the reproductive material from local plant to local plant. As many of our indigenous flowers are tiny, so to are the majority of our insect pollinators.

While you may not always see them, in the warmer months our gardens, farms and bush blocks are abuzz with all manner of local pollinators, including the more obvious butterflies, flies, bees, bugs and beetles.

This local guide is designed to help you identify these beneficial insects (and a whole lot more) and gives an idea of the type of plants you might find them in, should you decide to follow our advice and go looking.

The handy booklet is in the same format as local Council’s flora, weeds and bird guides, and features over 220 local insect species in full colour.

The Upper Campaspe Landcare Network led the project to develop the guide, with partners Wombat Forestcare and local councils, Macedon Ranges, Bendigo, Mount Alexander and Hepburn.

The guide features a selection of pollinating insects observed during onground surveying across the Upper Campaspe Catchment by the UCLN Pollinator Project over nearly two years. Additional insect species are also included to demonstrate the incredible diversity of insect life found within our region.

Beautifully photographed by John Walter, Gayle Osborne, Lynda Wilson, Euan Moore, Albert Golden, Andrew Allen, Brian Bainbridge, Shiloh Ritchie and Roger Standen, these insects are likely to be observed if you sit quietly for 10 minutes in your garden or nearby bushland.

The guide is available at Council offices and is being distributed by the UCLN Landcare groups.

Join us online with ecologist John Harris of Wildlife & Ecology as he discusses the impacts of drought on biodiversity

As one of the driest populated continents on earth, Australia will never eliminate the physical or psychological threat or effects of drought.

As severe weather events become more frequent, and the effects of climate change alter natural ecosystems, building human and environmental drought resilience into our community and land management practices will become increasingly important to the continuation of functional ecosystems and biodiversity.

Join John Harris online as he talks about the impacts of drought on biodiversity, and opens the conversation about steps we can take to assist local biodiversity.

Tickets are available through Eventbrite:

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-effects-of-drought-on-biodiversity-with-ecologist-john-harris-tickets-373080302227

John Harris (BASc, GDipEd) – Director and Principal Zoologist / Ecologist

Throughout his career, John has worked in both the environmental and education sectors, often combining the two. He has been in the education sector for over 20 years as a primary school teacher and secondary Biology/Science teacher as well as Environment and Sustainability Manager. John has also worked for National Parks and Wildlife in Queensland as a ranger, the Department of Conservation and Environment (now DELWP – Vic) and is currently our Principal ecological consultant

As an environmental consultant, John has worked with a number of larger consultancies as a senior environmental consultant or subcontractor. He has been involved in flora and fauna surveys, habitat hectare assessments, vegetation mapping, environmental audits, flora and fauna salvaging (spotter/catcher) and as sustainability adviser in Victoria and interstate. He has authored many assessment reports, flora and fauna management plans, EPBC Act (Commonwealth) and Environmental Effects Statement (Victoria) referrals.

John has had vast experience with the ResourceSmart Schools program in Victoria. He has presenting at conferences and workshops across Australia and published a number of articles on environmental education for teaching and parent journals. He is also a past president of Environmental Education Victoria (formerly the Victorian Association for Environmental Education). Combined with his experience in schools, John has also been actively involved in environmental education in the community as a guest speaker and workshop presenter at various organizations including the Field Naturalists Club of Victoria, gardening clubs, Landcare groups, scouts, “friends of” groups and churches. He has also presented workshops for a number of local governments including the City of Whittlesea, Manningham City Council and Frankston City Council.

ABOUT THIS EVENT

This event is funded by the NRM Drought Resilience Program – Grants. The grants support projects that contribute to improved drought resilience of agricultural landscapes through experimentation in NRM practices, systems and approaches that go beyond current best practice.

This event forms part of the Upper Campaspe Landcare Network’s NRM Drought Resilience Grant project – Empowering an informed and engaged community to allow for the creation of connecting pollinator corridors through the Upper Campaspe Catchment to ensure environmental resilience and improved functionality of drought threatened agricultural landscapes.

Image credit -https://assets.nationbuilder.com/veganaustralia/pages/17654/meta_images/original/VictoriaDrought.jpg?1598972122