Partnership reaps the reward

Volume 11 Number 7 July 13 - August 9 2015

Jason Leigh says a key partnership is helping create the next generation of environmental professionals.

BioScience students from the University of Melbourne are learning from internationally renowned conservation researchers as they work alongside them, as part of the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Environmental Decisions (CEED).

CEED is the world’s leading research centre for solving environmental management problems. It’s a partnership between Australian and international universities and other research institutes – including the University of Queensland and the University of Western Australia.

Associate Professor Brendan Wintle plays a key role in the Centre through his conservation ecology research, his work teaching undergraduate Applied Ecology at the University of Melbourne and his role as a research theme leader with CEED.

“As well as delivering research and funding benefits for the University, CEED is helping us create the next generation of professionals who will be making difficult environmental policy decisions,” says Dr Wintle.

“Our Masters and PhD students are building networks with the people at the cutting-edge of their field and have a very high employment rate as a result – around 90 per cent will eventually work in conservation research, for large NGOs or government agencies doing practical conservation work.”

The University of Melbourne is playing a key role in CEED, so far having invested more than $660,000.

“We’re working with government agencies and NGOs to deal with complexity and uncertainty when investing in environmental outcomes. These difficult funding decisions require a mix of ecology, maths, economics and common sense,” says Dr Wintle.

“Resources are limited and we need to figure out how to get the best bang for our buck and conserve the most we can.

“We might have to weigh up making nest boxes for the endangered leadbeater’s possum against controlling cats and foxes in the urban fringe to conserve southern grown bandicoots. You need to know the costs, benefits and likelihood of success for each option – also the consequences if no action is taken.

“CEED is providing us with a critical mass of world-leading researchers who are informing the way we make these complex decisions. Our work makes it easier to show the benefits of improving the way ecosystems function, the status of threatened species, and the benefits to agriculture and people.”

This approach is already supporting environmental decision-making at the federal level and recently proved useful in Perth, where CEED researchers worked with the WA Government to adapt their infrastructure planning to minimise habitat loss and impacts on endangered species.

“Developers can use our work to estimate potential impacts on biodiversity, and work with government to reduce negative effects. Better informed decisions can lead to significant gains in habitat conservation,” says Dr Wintle.

University of Melbourne Professor Mick McCarthy is Deputy Director of CEED, and says it is delivering some good research outcomes, including his own work in species management and conservation planning – more recently focusing on helping management agencies to better detect threatened species as well as identifying pests.

“CEED is becoming recognised internationally through its high-quality research. These Centres of Excellence are some of the most prestigious programs funded by the Federal Government’s Australian Research Council,” says Professor McCarthy.

“The University of Melbourne is certainly strong in the research component, particularly with regard to publishing journals, and CEED is helping us expand the breadth and amount of research in this area.

“Our research is being well cited and has direct application for the students and researchers, as well as feeding directly into government and non-government conservation policies.

“CEED also supports more than 30 Honours, Masters and PHD students through funding and research opportunities. It provides all sorts of benefits including a rich network of researchers, research for the students to get involved in and career prospects.

“These elements of research, teaching and engagement all working together have been critical to CEED’s success and epitomise Melbourne University’s Triple Helix Model,” says Professor McCarthy.