Journal articles on the topic 'Tourism – Western Australia – Carnarvon Region'

Hadson Carnarvon Pty Ltd (Hadson), on behalf of the Joint Venture Partners, operates permits EP342 and TP/9 located at the northern end of Exmouth gulf, to the east of Cape Range peninsula, Western Australia. The Exmouth region is known for the Ningaloo Reef, and for its diving and recreational fishing. The area also supports a large commercial prawn fishery. Many marine areas in the Exmouth region are regarded as being environmentally sensitive with several areas of conservation value.The partners were committed to drilling two wells in EP342 and TP/9 in 1993 as part of the obligations under the permits. Public mistrust of, and an unfamiliarity with, the oil and gas industry gave the Exmouth community the perception that the EP342 drilling program would have a detrimental impact on the sensitive marine resources of the region and, hence, to the growing tourism industry in the region.Hadson developed a management strategy which involved an extensive local community education and consultation program. Activities for this program included presentations to various community and special interest groups and a two-day public exhibition in Exmouth. The management strategy also included commitment to statutory and voluntary environmental guidelines, and an impact assessment study.Hadson's communication program was successful on a local level: by the time drilling commenced, active opposition to the drilling program had diminished significantly. This drilling program showed the importance of involving the public in the plans of the company, of putting a 'face' to the company and of communicating environmental risk in a trustworthy manner.The State Government announced in July 1994 that petroleum exploration within Ningaloo Marine Park would not be permitted. This decision was not based on scientific evidence, but political strategy and a perception that in the Exmouth and wider community there was an innate 'fear' regarding the impact of the petroleum industry.

The under-explored Carnarvon Terrace is situated offshore of the Cape Range area in the Carnarvon Basin near the boundary of the Gascoyne and Exmouth Sub-basins. The stratigraphy of the area is controlled by only two wells (Pendock-1, Yardie East-1), but several onshore wells aid interpretation of seismic data.Understanding of the structural evolution of the region is facilitated by interpretation of a high-resolution non-exclusive seismic survey acquired by Geco-Prakla in 1993 (GPCTR-93 Survey).Three major tectonic stages are responsible for the structural configuration of the region:Late Palaeozoic extension in the Gascoyne Sub-basin;continental break-up between Australia and Greater India which took place along a major fracture marked by the Flinders-Long Island-Learmonth fault system active in Late Triassic and Early Jurassic times; andthe collision between Australia and Asia that commenced in Miocene times and is continuing to the present day. This event, marked by wrench and compressional structures, and often reactivation of older structures, is one of the most economically important in Australian geological history.From a regional prospectivity viewpoint at least three plays are worthy of further investigation.

Infauna are important in many ecological processes but have been rarely considered in biodiversity assessments of coral reefs and surrounding areas. We surveyed infaunal assemblages and associated environmental factors (depth, seabed reflectance, sediment characteristics) in three areas (Mandu, Point Cloates, Gnaraloo) along the Carnarvon Shelf, Western Australia. This region supports Ningaloo Reef, a relatively pristine coral reef protected by the Ningaloo Marine Park and a Commonwealth marine reserve. Macrofauna were sampled with a Smith-McIntyre grab and sieved through 500 µm. A total of 423 species and 4036 individuals was recorded from 145 grabs, with infauna accounting for 67% of species and 78% of individuals. Rare species (≤2 individuals per species) represented 42% of the total assemblage. Assemblages were significantly different among all three areas, with the most distinct recorded from the southern-most area (Gnaraloo). Although assemblages varied significantly with depth and sediment composition (mud and gravel), these relationships were weak. Results from the current study broadly quantify macrofaunal diversity in the region and identify potential spatial and environmental patterns which will help inform future marine management plans, including the provision of baseline information to assess the efficacy of protected areas in soft-sediment habitats adjacent to coral reefs.

This study investigates the fire regime for the arid Carnarvon Basin region of Western Australia using remotely sensed imagery. A fire history database was constructed from satellite images to characterise the general fire regime and determine any effect of vegetation types and pre-fire weather and climate. The study area was divided into two sections (northern and southern) due to their inherently different vegetation and climate. A total of 23.8% (15,646 km2) of the study area was burnt during the 39-year study period. Heathland vegetation (54%) burnt the most extensively in the southern study area, and hummock grasslands (68%) in the northern. A single, unusually large fire in 2012 followed exceptional rains in the previous 12 months and accounted for 55% of the total burnt area. This fire burnt mainly through Acacia shrublands and woodlands rather than hummock grasslands, as normally experienced in the northern study area. Antecedent rainfall and fire weather were found to be the main meteorological factors driving fire size. Both study areas showed a moderate to strong correlation between fire size and increased pre-fire rainfall in the year preceding the fire. Predicted future changes in climate may lead to more frequent and higher intensity fires.

Recent studies are increasingly shifting away from viewing drug and alcohol problems as individual medical disorders and recognising the significant role of environmental and community factors. In keeping with this, the Partysafe project, being implemented in the remote North West town of Carnarvon in Western Australia (WA), is utilising a community mobilisation approach to reducing harm associated with alcohol consumption in private residences. Carnarvon, like most rural communities in WA, has a higher rate of alcohol consumption than in the metropolitan region, hence its selection as the target site. An additional reason for selecting a remote town was the belief that national and state level prevention strategies cannot always be successfully implemented due to a region?s unique social and environmental influences. This paper discusses the community mobilisation methodology, giving a practical insight into the specific interventions and evaluation techniques developed for the Partysafe project. The process of identifying community-based alcohol issues and the problems associated with implementation and evaluation are illustrated. A combination of archival quantitative data and community based qualitative data will be used to assess the project?s success. Collection and use of this data is also practically depicted.

Natural fractures can be identified in wellbores using electric resistivity image logs; however, the challenge of predicting fracture orientations, densities, and probable contribution to subsurface fluid flow away from the wellbore remains. Regional interpretations of fracture sets are generally confined to areas featuring an extensive reservoir analog outcrop. We have made use of extensive data sets available in Western Australia’s Northern Carnarvon Basin to map subsurface natural fractures, contributing to a regional understanding of fracture sets that can be applied to broader parts of the basin. The Northern Carnarvon Basin is composed of distinct structural domains that have experienced differing tectonic histories. Interpretation of regional fractures was achieved through an integrated approach, incorporating electric resistivity image logs from 52 Carnarvon Basin wells and seismic attribute analysis of two 3D seismic data sets: Bonaventure_3D ([Formula: see text]) and HC_93_3D ([Formula: see text]). Integration of these two data sets allows for a regionally extensive identification of natural fractures away from well control. Fractures of differing age and character are identified within the basin: Outboard areas are dominated by fractures likely to be open to fluid flow that are parallel to subparallel to the approximately east–west present-day maximum horizontal stress, providing possible flow conduits between potential damage zones identified alongside the north–northeast/south–southwest-striking faults that constitute the major structural trend of the basin, and inboard areas dominated by northeast–southwest to north–northeast/south–southeast fractures formed in fault damage-zones alongside normal, and inverted-normal, faults at those orientations. Finally, fractures observed in wells from the Rankin Platform and Dampier Subbasin occur at neither of these orientations; rather, they closely parallel the strikes of local faults. Additionally, variation is seen in fracture strikes due to isotropic present-day stress magnitudes. This methodology extends fracture interpretations from the wellbore and throughout the region of interest, constituting a regional understanding of fracture sets that can be applied to broader parts of the basin.

We generated a multi-locus phylogeny to test monophyly and distributional limits in Australian toadlets of the genus Uperoleia from the western arid zone of Australia. The molecular data were used in combination with a detailed assessment of morphological variation and some data on call structure to complete a taxonomic revision of the species that occur in this region. Our work reveals the existence of not two but five species in the region. Uperoleia russelli is restricted to the Carnarvon and Gascoyne Regions south of the Pilbara. Uperoleia micromeles is distributed from the Tanami Desert through the Great Sandy Desert and along the northern edge of the Pilbara. Uperoleia talpa was previously believed to be a Fitzroyland region endemic but it is further distributed along Dampierland and into the Roebourne Plain. Uperoleia glandulosa is a larger species than previously described as well as a greater habitat generalist, inhabiting the rocky Pilbara region and the sandy region around Port Hedland. We also describe a new species, U. saxatilis sp. nov., endemic to the Pilbara craton.

The Exmouth Plateau is a deep-water plateau on the Australian continental margin underlain by 10–15 km of flat-lying, tilted and block-faulted Paleozoic–Mesozoic sedimentary rocks, which were deposited predominantly during periods of extension before continental break-up commenced in the middle Jurassic. The recent acquisition of the Mawson MC3D broadband seismic survey provides a modern, high-quality dataset located ~230 km to the north-west of Dampier, in the outboard Exmouth Plateau, in a relatively under-explored portion of the Northern Carnarvon Basin. The Late Triassic Mungaroo Formation is the primary reservoir target for the majority of the exploration in the Exmouth Plateau to date. A detailed investigation into the reservoir potential and prospectivity of the Mungaroo Formation is possible by utilising this modern dataset. The high-quality data presents a high-resolution view of the Rhaetian carbonate reef platforms and pinnacle reef complexes that are present within the Mawson survey footprint, revealing an under-explored play type within the region. The development of a detailed stratigraphic framework through the Late Triassic–Jurassic, combined with the use of attribute analyses and amplitude versus offset products can help de-risk identified prospects and highlight further prospectivity during the exploration process.

Esso's recent drilling program in the Merlinleigh Sub-basin, onshore Carnarvon Basin, represents the culmination of the first phase of concerted exploration activity in the area since the WAPET era of the 1960s. The region is unusual among Australian petroleum provinces in having excellent exposures of reservoir, source and seal rocks of Palaeozoic age. While both Esso wells (Burna 1 and Gascoyne 1) failed to encounter hydrocarbons in the primary Wooramel Group play, encouraging potential still exists. The reservoir in the Wooramel Group play is the Early Permian Moogooloo Sandstone, a fluviodeltaic to nearshore sheet-sand facies with porosities to 23 per cent and permeabilities in excess of 100 millidarcys. Likely hydrocarbon sources are siltstones in the overlying Byro Group, with total organic carbon contents averaging 3 per cent, and calcilutites in the subjacent Callytharra Formation with similar organic content. Locally, the Jimba Jimba Calcarenite Member (Billidee Formation) and the Cordalia Sandstone also provide rich source units. The least certain aspects of the Early Permian play are fault and top seal, and reservoir quality at depth. Notwithstanding the relatively shallow depths to source strata in the area, vitrinite reflectance analyses from drill cores indicate that maturation is attained as shallow as 900 m on the folded and faulted western margin of the sub-basin, and at an approximate depth of 1200 m in the depocentre beneath the Kennedy Range. This can be related to high regional heat flow, and to erosion of some 1500-2000 m of sediments prior to the regional Early Cretaceous transgression.Older plays which have been identified in the area remain to be adequately evaluated. Potential reservoir sands are present in the Silurian Tumblagooda Sandstone, the Middle and Late Devonian Nannyarra and Munabia Sandstones, and the Early Carboniferous Williambury Formation. Possible source rocks include carbonates of Middle Devonian and Early Carboniferous age. One of the objects of current research has been to locate areas where seal, provided by the glacigene Lyons Formation of Late Carboniferous-Early Permian age, is sufficiently thin to permit economic drilling.

The Cenozoic carbonates of the Bounty-Talisman region can be divided into five major facies. From oldest to youngest, these are: Paleocene to Eocene basinal facies, Oligocene to Miocene slope-canyon facies, Oligocene to Miocene shelf facies, Oligocene to Miocene near-shore facies, and Pliocene-Quaternary shelf facies. This represents a shallowing-upwards cycle up to the late Miocene, followed by a significant transgression and a return to more open marine conditions in the Pliocene- Quaternary. The dominant geological processes controlling sonic velocity in the Cenozoic carbonates are physical compaction, burial calcite cementation, dolomitisation, and anhydrite/gypsum cementation. In the more open marine facies of the Cenozoic carbonates, compaction and burial calcite cementation have been the dominant geological processes that have controlled sonic velocity. Large-scale carbonate content variations associated with submarine canyon-fill sediments have also produced lateral sonic velocity variations. Dolomitisation and anhydrite cementation have produced localised high velocity zones within the near-shore facies of the carbonates.

2009 saw an overall decrease from high activity from 2008, levelling off in the December quarter as the economy stabilised. Unsurprisingly, most activity was in offshore Western Australia and on coal seam methane (CSM) in Queensland. Highlights include: good results in the Carnarvon and Browse basins for Western Australian operators, interest in Karoon and Conoco-Phillips’ enigmatic Poseidon project, over 180 CSM exploration wells in Queenslandd, and a relatively busy year for Tasmania. Western Australian seismic acquisition approached 10,000 km of 2D and 25,000 km2 of 3D for 38* wells and success rate around 50%. South Australia saw the highest conventional onshore drilling and seismic activity, with good results for 17 wells, while other states saw low activity in this sector. Victoria saw one offshore exploration well and no seismic. Tasmania also saw no new seismic, but saw four exploration wells and encouragement at Rockhopper–1. CSM is picking up in South Australia, and New South Wales saw continued high CSM activity in a historically low-activity region. High success rates suggest two trends: explorers finding value in 3D seismic, and a ‘flight to quality’ as operating costs and poorer access to capital reinforce risk aversion among operators. Elsewhere, geothermal energy helped small cap investors satisfy their appetite for risk outside of the petroleum industry, and results will be watched with great interest. *Numbers are from early public and departmental statistics and may be revised.

The southern Merlinleigh Sub-basin is a frontier area for petroleum exploration within the onshore Southern Carnarvon Basin, with limited seismic coverage and only two deep exploration wells. High resolution aeromag- netic and semi-detailed gravity data acquired in 1995 provide relatively low cost structural inf ormation"comple- mentary to the regional seismic coverage.Two-dimensional seismic data can be mapped with confidence if the lines are closely spaced. By identifying lineaments on potential-field images, orientations for structures within the sedimentary succession, and at basement or intra-basement levels, can assist in the interpretation of faults and structures in areas of limited seismic coverage, and to extrapolate them outside areas of seismic control. Consequently, by integrating seismic and potential-field data, a more rigorous interpretation of the structural geometry can be achieved and thereby assists in reconstructing the evolution of a sedimentary basin.The aeromagnetic data provided only limited information about the structure of the Merlinleigh Sub-basin because magnetic anomalies appear to be dominated either by near-surface or deep intra-basement sources. In contrast, the gravity data provide a more reliable definition of the structure at basement level and, to a lesser extent, within the sedimentary sequence.Seismic, gravity and magnetic data show that the region is a large north-trending Late Carboniferous to Permian depocentre and can be sub-divided into two main troughs east of the Wandagee and Kennedy Range Faults. These are en-echelon fault systems with syn- depositional growth during the main period of rifting in the Late Carboniferous to Early Permian.

A combined molecular and morphological approach was used to revise the Australian spiny trapdoor spiders of the genus Blakistonia Hogg. Where possible, our molecular approach used sequence data from the COI barcoding gene, which were analysed using Bayesian, RAxML and neighbour-joining approaches. These molecular data were combined with morphology to describe and diagnose the genus, to redescribe the type (and only previously valid) species, B. aurea Hogg, 1902, and to diagnose, describe and map 19 new species: B. bassi sp. n., B. bella sp. n., B. birksi sp. n., B. carnarvon sp. n., B. emmottiorum sp. n., B. gemmelli sp. n., B. hortoni sp. n., B. mainae sp. n., B. maryae sp. n., B. newtoni sp. n., B. nullarborensis sp. n., B. olea sp. n., B. parva sp. n., B. pidax sp. n., B. plata sp. n., B. raveni sp. n., B. tariae sp. n., B. tunstilli sp. n., and B. wingellina sp. n. The genus Blakistonia is found to be distributed throughout the Australian arid and semi-arid zones, from the Wheatbelt region of Western Australia to central Queensland and western Victoria.

AbstractAn association of 100 teeth and 15 vertebrae from a large, lamniform shark, is described from the uppermost part of the Gearle Siltstone in the Giralia Anticline, Southern Carnarvon Basin, Western Australia. The material represents a new genus and species: Cardabiodon ricki. The taxon is referred to the new family Cardabiodontidae on the basis of its dental formula and uniquely oversized lower lateroposterior teeth. Other characteristic features include a strong dignathic heterodonty and the presence of four anterior and approximately 14 lateroposterior toothfiles in both the upper and lower jaw. The size of the recovered vertebral centra indicates that the shark measured at least 5 m in total length. The species had a wide but possibly patchy distribution with additional occurrences in England and Kazakstan, where it is present in strata of Cenomanian age. Cardabiodon shares several key dental characters with Parotodus, known from Oligocene–Pliocene deposits. The latter taxon was previously grouped with the ‘mega-toothed’ sharks of the genera Otodus and Carcharocles, but is here reassigned to the Cardabiodontidae.The nominal species Cretalamna woodwardi from the middle or late Cenomanian of southern England, is designated as the type species of the new genus Dwardius. The coeval nominal species Pseudoisurus tomosus from the Saratov region in Russia, is based on material that almost certainly includes C. ricki and/or D. woodwardi. Designation of a lectotype for P. tomosus and its proper documentation would probably allow either C. ricki or D. woodwardi to be synonomised with the older name P. tomosus. There is, however, a strong possibility that the syntypes of P. tomosus are lost. Until they are found, redescribed and compared carefully with the type material of C. ricki and D. woodwardi, P. tomosus is a name of doubtful application and therefore referred to as a women dubium

A key requirement for informed marine-zone management is an understanding of the spatial patterns of marine biodiversity, often measured as species richness, total abundance or presence of key taxa. In the present study, we focussed on the diversity of benthic infauna and applied a predictive modelling approach to map biodiversity patterns for three study sites on the tropical Carnarvon shelf of Western Australia. A random forest decision tree model was used to generate spatial predictions of two measures of infaunal diversity, namely, species richness and total abundance. Results explained between 20% and 37% of the variance of each measure. The modelling process also identified potential physical surrogates for species richness and abundance, with sediment physical properties ranked as most important across the study region. Specifically, coarse-grained heterogeneous sediments were associated with higher infaunal species richness and total abundance. Seabed topographic properties were also important at the local scale. The study demonstrated the value of a surrogacy approach to the prediction of biodiversity patterns, particularly when the number of biological samples was limited. Such an approach may facilitate an understanding of ecosystem processes in the region and contribute to integrated marine management.

Available data for 2018 indicates that exploration activity is on the rise in Australia, compared to 2017, and this represents a second year of growth in exploration activity in Australia. There has been an increase in area under licence by 92 000 km2, reversing the downward trend in area under licence that commenced in 2014. Since 2016, exploratory drilling within Australia has seen a continued upward trend in both the number of wells drilled and the percentage of total worldwide. Onshore, 77 conventional exploration and appraisal wells were spudded during the year. Offshore, exploration and appraisal drilling matched that seen in 2017, with five new wells spudded: two in the Roebuck Basin, two in the Gippsland Basin and one in the North Carnarvon Basin. Almost 1500 km of 2D seismic and over 10 000 km2 of 3D seismic were acquired within Australia during 2018, accounting for 2.4% and 3.9% of global acquisition, respectively. This represents an increase in the amount of both 2D and 3D seismic acquired in Australia compared with 2017. Once the 2017 Offshore Petroleum Acreage Release was finalised, seven new offshore exploration permits were awarded as a result. A total of 12 bids were received for round one of the 2018 Offshore Petroleum Exploration Release, demonstrating an increase in momentum for offshore exploration in Australia. The permits are in Commonwealth waters off Western Australia, Victoria and the Ashmore and Cartier islands. In June 2018, the Queensland Government announced the release of 11 areas for petroleum exploration acreage in onshore Queensland, with tenders closing in February/March 2019; a further 11 areas will be released in early 2019. The acreage is a mix of coal seam gas and conventional oil and gas. Victoria released five areas in the offshore Otway Basin within State waters. In the Northern Territory, the moratorium on fracking was lifted in April, clearing the way for exploration to recommence in the 2019 dry season. With the increase in exploration has come an increase in success, with total reserves discovered within Australia during 2018 at just under 400 million barrels of oil equivalent, representing a significant increase from 2017. In 2018, onshore drilling resulted in 18 new discoveries, while offshore, two new discoveries were made. The most notable exploration success of 2018 was Dorado-1 drilled in March by Quadrant and Carnarvon Petroleum in the underexplored Bedout Sub-basin. Dorado is the largest oil discovery in Australia of 100 million barrels, or over, since 1996 and has the potential to reinvigorate exploration in the region.

BHP is a leading global resources company which comprises four main business groups: BHP Copper, BHP Minerals, BHP Steel and BHP Petroleum. BHP Petroleum (BHPP) global operations are divided into four Regions and Australia/Asia Region is responsible for exploration, production, field development and joint ventures in the Asia-Pacific region. In Australia, the Company's largest producing assets are its shares of the Gippsland oil and gas fields in Bass Strait and the North West Shelf project in Western Australia.BHPP operates three Floating Production, Storage and Offloading (FPSO) vessels-Jabiru Venture, Challis Venture and Skua Venture-in the Timor Sea and one FPSO, the Griffin Venture, in the Southern Carnarvon Basin. Stabilised oil is offloaded from all four FPSOs by means of a floating hose to a shuttle tanker. Gas from the Griffin Venture is compressed and transferred through a submarine pipeline to an onshore gas treatment plant.BHPP's Asian production comes from the Dai Hung oil field offshore Vietnam where BHPP is the operator and from Kutubu in Papua New Guinea.In Melbourne, BHPP operates a Methanol Research Plant and produced Australia's first commercial quantities of methanol in October 1994.BHPP is an extremely active offshore oil and gas explorer and has interests in a number of permits and blocks in the Australian-Indonesian Zone of Co-operation.This paper discusses BHPP's approach to safety management, both for its worldwide operations and specifically in Australia/Asia Region. It explains how BHPP's worldwide safety management model takes regional regulatory variations into account. It shows, specifically, how this has been done in Australia/Asia Region using what BHPP considers to be a best practice approach.The paper describes how BHPP Australia/Asia Region benchmarked its performance against other operators in Australia and the North Sea. It explains how the findings of the benchmarking study were used to plan the preparation of a safety management system (SMS). The structure of the SMS is described along with the legal requirements in Australia.The paper concludes that implementation of the SMS is progressing according to plan and points out that safety cases for the FPSOs have been submitted to the Regulators. Implementation of the SMS and the drive for world class safety standards is having a substantial effect and safety performance is improving. One measure of safety performance, the Lost Time Injury Frequency Rate (LTIFR) is down from around 15 at the end of 1994 to under 3 in December 1996.

Thevenard Island area lies in the offshore Carnarvon Basin off the northwest coast of Western Australia. The Flacourt Formation of the Cretaceous Barrow Group sequence is the primary oil-producing reservoir. West Australian Petroleum Pty Limited (WAPET) as operator on behalf of its participants (Chevron, Texaco, Shell and Mobil) has been producing from this reservoir since 1989. It has widely been held that in this area the relatively thick, multi-darcy Barrow Group oil accumulations have had infinite aquifer pressure support with no regional draw-down effect.After the commencement of oil production from the Flacourt Formation, wireline pressure surveys in exploration and development wells have indicated anomalous pressure trends in the reservoir. Initially, the accuracy of pressure gauges and elevation measuring devices were questioned.Recent studies based on WAPET's production history in the region and re-analysis of wireline pressure data have shown that the Flacourt Formation does experience regional draw-down in aquifer pressure due to production. This paper demonstrates the existence of draw-down and how this information has aided in the evaluation of the Flacourt Formation and the overlying Mardie Greensand reservoirs.

A sustainability assessment of the Western Australian (WA) rangelands identified a range of issues associated with regional economic decline typical of many marginal rangeland regions in Australia. As part of a regional rejuvenation strategy, the WA state government purchased selected pastoral lease properties for incorporation into the conservation estate. It was intended as a means of land-use transition from mono-functional productivism to multi-functionality incorporating protection of significant rangeland bioregions and development of tourism. A 1-year project was conducted to assess the issues relating to this transition. Archived information was obtained from government relating to the characteristics of the lease properties at the time they were purchased. Site visits were undertaken to purchased leases acquired by the government as well as neighbouring leases. During site visits, interviews with pastoralists and purchased lease managers were conducted. A series of facilitated community discussion groups in the region was held to ascertain the views of landholders and managers, government representatives, indigenous interests and commercial operators in the region. This paper describes how the transition to a combination of protection and consumption exchanged one set of problems for another. This was due partly to the intrinsic character of the land, in terms of previous overgrazing, isolation, large distances, and limited infrastructure and services. More importantly, the top-down approach to land transition failed to allocate adequate management resources to replace those lost when the former pastoral leaseholders left. The consequences of inadequate management included theft and rapid degradation of assets, inadequate control of pests and weeds; inadequate fire prevention management and poor communication between the government and other stakeholders over management decisions. This paper discusses the dynamics of this WA rangeland transition with reference to the multi-functional rural transition concept.

Numerous Miocene reefs and related carbonate build-ups have been identified in the Rowley Shoals region of the central North West Shelf, offshore Western Australia. The reefs form part of an extensive Miocene reef tract over 1,600 km long, which extended northward into the Browse and Bonaparte basins and southward to North West Cape in the Carnarvon Basin—comparable in length to the modern Great Barrier Reef. Growth of the vast majority of these Miocene reefs failed to keep pace with relative sea-level changes in the latest Miocene, whereas reef growth continued on the central North West Shelf to form the three present-day atolls of the Rowley Shoals: Mermaid, Clerke and Imperieuse reefs. In the Rowley Shoals region, scattered small build-ups and local reef complexes were first established in the Early Miocene, but these build-ups were subsequently terminated at a major Mid Miocene sequence boundary. Widespread buildups and atoll reefs were re-established in the Middle Miocene, and the internal stacking geometries of the reefs appear to relate to distinct growth phases that are correlated with eustatic sea-level fluctuations. These geometries include: a basal aggradational buildup of early Middle Miocene age; a strongly progradational growth phase in the late Middle to early Late Miocene that constructed large reef atolls with infilling lagoon deposits; and a back-stepped aggradational growth phase that formed smaller reef caps in the early–latest Late Miocene. Growth of the majority of the reefs ceased at a major sea-level fall in the Late Miocene (Messinian), and only the reefs of the present-day Rowley Shoals (Mermaid, Clerke and Imperieuse reefs, as well as a drowned shoal to the southwest of Imperieuse Reef) continued to grow after this event. Growth of the Rowley Shoals reefs continued to keep pace with Pliocene-Recent sea-level changes, whereas the surrounding shelf subsided to depths of 230–440 m. We conclude that initial reef growth in the Rowley Shoals region was controlled by transpressional reactivation and structuring of the Mermaid Fault Zone during the early stage of collision between the Australian and Eurasian plates. During this structural reactivation, seabed fault scarps and topographic highs likely provided ideal sites for the initiation of reef growth. The subsequent growth and selective demise of the reefs was controlled by the interplay of eustatic sea-level variations and differential subsidence resulting from continued structural reactivation of the Mermaid Fault Zone. In contrast to models proposed in other regions, there is no direct evidence that active or palaeo hydrocarbon seepage triggered or controlled growth of the Rowley Shoals reefs or their buried Miocene predecessors.

The Australian Government formally releases new offshore exploration areas at the annual APPEA conference. In 2010, thirty-one areas in five offshore basins are being released for work program bidding. Closing dates for bid submissions are either six or twelve months after the release date—i.e. 11 November 2010 and 12 May 2011—depending on the exploration status in these areas and on data availability. The 2010 release areas are located in Commonwealth waters offshore Northern Territory, Western Australia and South Australia, comprising intensively explored areas close to existing production as well as new frontiers. The Westralian Superbasin along the North West Shelf continues to feature prominently, and is complimented by a new frontier area in offshore SW Australia (Mentelle Basin), as well as two areas in the Ceduna/Duntroon sub-basins in the eastern part of the Bight Basin. The Bonaparte Basin is represented by three areas in the Petrel Sub-basin and two areas in the Vulcan Sub-basin. Further southwest, four large areas are being released in the outer Roebuck Basin—a significantly under-explored region. This year, the Carnarvon Basin provides 16 release areas of which three are located in the Beagle Sub-basin, five in the Dampier Sub-basin, five in the Barrow Sub-basin, three on the Exmouth Plateau and three in the Exmouth Sub-basin. The largest singular release area covers much of the Mentelle Basin in offshore SW Australia, and two areas are available in the Ceduna and Duntroon sub-basins as part of South Australia’s easternmost section of the Bight Basin. The 2010 Offshore Acreage Release offers a wide variety of block sizes in shallow as well as deep water environments. Area selection has been undertaken in consultation with industry, the States and the Northern Territory. As part of Geoscience Australia’s Offshore Energy Security Program, new data has been acquired in offshore frontier regions parts of which are being published on the Mentelle Basin (Borissova et al, this volume).

Theses for search of new types of ecological tourism on the basis of allocation of the prevailing signs of the territory are formed. Currently, ecotourism is spread all over the world: Latin America, Asia and Africa. As a result of natural and cultural features, the existing models of ecotourism have been transformed and new types of ecotourism have appeared. The Middle East is the centre of the origin of the planet's religions. A distinctive feature of Iran, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Israel is the orientation of tourism on pilgrimage tours to sacred places. In Africa and Australia, there is a type of ecotourism, such as ethnic or aboriginal tourism, the cultural landscape of which includes the territory of traditional nature management of local tribes. A special feature of ecotourism in Central and Latin America is the organisation of national parks for the preservation of ancient landscape complexes of extinct civilisations. In Russia, a new type of ecotourism has emerged—expeditionary tourism, which is less dependent on the transport accessibility of the territory and its routes cover large areas. Ecological and cultural synthesis, going beyond the protected areas to the cultural landscape, the greening of the local economy—these can and should be the new principles of the Russian strategy of ecotourism. Each macro region is characterised by its model of environmental and cultural values, which should form national eco-tourism concepts. Keywords: Ecological tourism, American (North American, Australian) ecotourism model, Western European (German) ecotourism model, recreational tourism, educational tourism, scientific tourism, rural tourism, ethnic tourism.

The Barrow and Dampier Sub-basins of the Northern Carnarvon Basin developed by repeated reactivation of long-lived basement structures during Palaeozoic and Mesozoic tectonism. Inherited basement fabric specific to the terranes and mobile belts in the region comprise northwest, northeast, and north–south-trending Archaean and Proterozoic structures. Reactivation of these structures controlled the shape of the sub-basin depocentres and basement topography, and determined the orientation and style of structures in the sediments.The Lewis Trough is localised over a reactivated NEtrending former strike-slip zone, the North West Shelf (NWS) Megashear. The inboard Dampier Sub-basin reflects the influence of the fabric of the underlying Pilbara Craton. Proterozoic mobile belts underlie the Barrow Sub-basin where basement fabric is dominated by two structural trends, NE-trending Megashear structures offset sinistrally by NS-trending Pinjarra structures.The present-day geometry and basement topography of the basins is the result of accumulated deformation produced by three main tectonic phases. Regional NESW extension in the Devonian produced sinistral strikeslip on NE-trending Megashear structures. Large Devonian-Carboniferous pull-apart basins were introduced in the Barrow Sub-basin where Megashear structures stepped to the left and are responsible for the major structural differences between the Barrow and Dampier Sub-basins. Northwest extension in the Late Carboniferous to Early Permian marks the main extensional phase with extreme crustal attenuation. The majority of the Northern Carnarvon basin sediments were deposited during this extensional basin phase and the subsequent Triassic sag phase. Jurassic extension reactivated Permian faults during renewed NW extension. A change in extension direction occurred prior to Cretaceous sea floor spreading, manifest in basement block rotation concentrated in the Tithonian. This event changed the shape and size of basin compartments and altered fluid migration pathways.The currently mapped structural trends, compartment size and shape of the Barrow and Dampier Sub-basins of the Northern Carnarvon Basin reflect the “character” of the basement beneath and surrounding each of the subbasins.Basement character is defined by the composition, lithology, structure, grain, fabric, rheology and regolith of each basement terrane beneath or surrounding the target basins. Basement character can be discriminated and mapped with mineral exploration methods that use non-seismic data such as gravity, magnetics and bathymetry, and then calibrated with available seismic and well datasets. A range of remote sensing and geophysical datasets were systematically calibrated, integrated and interpreted starting at a scale of about 1:1.5 million (covering much of Western Australia) and progressing to scales of about 1:250,000 in the sub-basins. The interpretation produced a new view of the basement geology of the region and its influence on basin architecture and fill history. The bottom-up or basement-first interpretation process complements the more traditional top-down seismic and well-driven exploration methods, providing a consistent map-based regional structural model that constrains structural interpretation of seismic data.The combination of non-seismic and seismic data provides a powerful tool for mapping basement architecture (SEEBASE™: Structurally Enhanced view of Economic Basement); basement-involved faults (trap type and size); intra-sedimentary geology (igneous bodies, basement-detached faults, basin floor fans); primary fluid focussing and migration pathways and paleo-river drainage patterns, sediment composition and lithology.

SUMMARYThe exposure of indigenous humans and native fauna in Australia and the Wallacea zoogeographical region of Indonesia to exoticSalmonellaserovars commenced during the colonial period and has accelerated with urbanization and international travel. In this study, the distribution and prevalence of exoticSalmonellaserovars are mapped to assess the extent to which introduced infections are invading native wildlife in areas of high natural biodiversity under threat from expanding human activity. The major exoticSalmonellaserovars, Bovismorbificans, Derby, Javiana, Newport, Panama, Saintpaul and Typhimurium, isolated from wildlife on populated coastal islands in southern temperate areas of Western Australia, were mostly absent from reptiles and native mammals in less populated tropical areas of the state. They were also not recorded on the uninhabited Mitchell Plateau or islands of the Bonaparte Archipelago, adjacent to south-eastern Indonesia. Exotic serovars were, however, isolated in wildlife on 14/17 islands sampled in the Wallacea region of Indonesia and several islands off the west coast of Perth. Increases in international tourism, involving islands such as Bali, have resulted in the isolation of a high proportion of exotic serovar infections suggesting that densely populated island resorts in the Asian region are acting as staging posts for the interchange ofSalmonellainfections between tropical and temperate regions.

Purpose The purpose of this study is to understand the destination image perceptions about Australia – a Western culture country – as held by the rapidly increasing, high spending, culturally dissimilar new segment of travellers, the Emiratis[1] from the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Design/methodology/approach A qualitative methodology was used to understand the cognitive, affective and conative images of Australia. A structured categorisation matrix was used to analyse the data so that only aspects fitting the matrix were selected. Findings Within the cognitive variable, Australia was found to be pleasant, family oriented, a fun place, laid back and the local people friendly. From an affective factor perspective, Australia was seen as being exciting, because of the variety of activities available for these tourists. Exciting was expressed by words like fantastic, amazing and extreme experience. In terms of the conative variable most of the Emirati tourists expressed strong feelings to go back to Australia and to even re-visit with friends. They also mentioned that they would recommend Australia to family and friends. Research limitations/implications A limitation of this study was that our sample comprised informants mainly from the Emirates of Abu Dhabi and Dubai, the two largest Emirates of the nation. The study offers destination marketing organisations’ (DMOs) insights into Emirati travellers’ perceptions about Australia, which would benefit destination marketing. Originality/value This study examines the under researched area of how Australia – with its liberal Western culture – could be better marketed to the growing numbers of culturally conservative, high spending Emirati outbound tourists from the officially Islamic UAE, and also more generally to the socio-culturally homogeneous Gulf Cooperation Council region that the UAE is part of. Whilst destination image is an intensively analysed topic within the realm of tourism research, and reportedly a powerful influence on destination choice, the extant literature on how Australia is perceived as a travel destination by Emiratis is scant. For DMO’s attempting to attract wealthy Emirati tourists into Australia, this research is valuable and timely, as several Emiratis are seeking newer travel destinations away from the Western hemisphere, where the general anti-Arab/Islamic sentiments are currently quite strong.

Collaboration in decommissioning offshore infrastructure could save both industry and taxpayers billions of dollars and facilitate new industries and exports for Australia, especially in the Asia-Pacific region. At the end of the liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant construction boom, Australia must not miss out on this major new opportunity. The 2017 bid for Commonwealth funding to establish a Decommissioning Offshore Infrastructure Cooperative Research Centre (DOI-CRC) involved more than 30 participants and many other collaborators. High-level commitments were made by Chevron, Woodside, Shell, BHP, ExxonMobil, Quadrant, The University of Western Australia, Curtin University, the University of New South Wales, Deakin University, Australian Maritime College, CSIRO and Australian Institute of Marine Science. A Perth-based DOI-CRC was supported by National Energy Resources Australia, National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority and other Australian Government bodies and by the Western Australian Government and its Chief Scientist and agencies but did not receive sufficient support from the CRC Advisory Committee. Meeting decommissioning challenges in the North West Shelf, Bass Strait and the Northern Territory in a timely, robust, scientific, efficient and cost-effective manner that contributes to a sustainable marine environment should draw upon and augment international best practice with local capability and expertise. Good science and innovative engineering are needed to support regulatory approval of options such as ‘rigs to reefs’ and commercial opportunities such as in waste management and expanded fishing and tourism. APPEA and operators wish to maintain DOI-CRC’s momentum and learn from UK research arrangements through funding marine science projects. But we must be much broader if we are to build a sustainable world-class Australian decommissioning industry. In particular, we need to work more closely with state and federal regulators and policymakers and undertake more engineering science research and innovation.

The article substantiates the need to create tourist information centers in Ukraine as one of the important tools of information support for the development of modern tourism and the promotion of a national tourism product. The success of the tourism industry in Ukraine in the context of the formation of a global information space is largely determined by the effectiveness of information support for the tourism sector. It is noted that an important task of the policy of local authorities in tourism management is to improve the information support of this process, since without advertising and information that attracts consumers of certain services, the development of tourist and recreational activities is impossible. The activity of the TIC is extremely important for destinations with a significant share of independent tourists, because, in this case, they are the main centers for the provision of information services. The essence of the concept of “tourist information center” is revealed and its main tasks are defined. It was noted that the tourist information center is an important tool of the tourist infrastructure, with the help of which tourists and other tourism entities have the opportunity to receive complete tourist information and advisory services on tourism activities in the area and beyond. The TIC can provide information support to the system of state regulation and tourism management in the region, since it is necessary to constantly update the regulatory and informational and analytical framework that provides effective management of the development of tourism and resorts. The following goals of creating tourist information centers in Ukraine are proposed: promoting the development of domestic tourism; providing information to local and foreign tourists and tourist organizations; promoting cooperation between tourism organizations of the city; conducting trainings and seminars for specialists in the field of tourism; development of tourist opportunities of the city; attracting more tourists to the area; improving the competitive advantages of the area by improving the tourism infrastructure; replenishment of the local budget due to taxation of tourism business entities; rational use of tourist and recreational resources of the area; attracting investment in the tourism business; creating a positive international image and popularizing tourist areas. The world experience of organizational and economic aspects of the activity of tourist information centers is investigated. In the developed tourist countries of the world, an extensive modern network of tourist infrastructure institutions, which includes information centers, is successfully operating. Such establishments allow tourists to receive the necessary tourist information and advisory services on tourist destinations. In the USA, each state has its own tourist information centers. The “Hospitality Center” is a recreation area, including a center for visitors, they are funded by local taxes included in each bed. In South America, the most active tourist information centers operate in Peru. Free centers provide tourist information and assistance for domestic and foreign tourists. Information includes monuments and recommended itineraries. In Australia, most visitor centers are run by local or state authorities, and in some cases by the Tourism Operators Association on behalf of the government. These information centers provide services such as housing selection and booking tours (automobile, air, bus, rail). They are the first link in acquaintance of a visitor with a city or region. The practice of the work of tourist information centers in Ukraine is considered and a list of them is compiled. It is noted that today tourist information centers have been created in most regions of Ukraine and in small cities of the Western region of Ukraine. Keywords tourist information center, world experience, domestic practice, creation goals, objectives, activity results.

The role of towns and small business is poorly understood, yet towns are vital for the long-term viability of communities in rural and remote Australia. This case study in the central western region of Queensland (CWQ) examines the impacts of drought on rural towns and how to build a resilient regional community and alleviate hardship. Evidence was collected during drought from town businesses through surveys, interviews and a public meeting in 2017. Towns in CWQ are especially exposed to the risks of drought, as approximately half of the businesses are directly linked to agriculture. Townspeople are major contributors to social cohesion and resilience in rural and regional communities, which are often service and maintenance centres of nationally important infrastructure such as roads for inter-state freight transport and tourism. Drought and declining grazier incomes have led to reduced spending in towns. Populations have dropped sharply, as itinerant agricultural workers leave the region. The complex economic and social flow-on impacts of drought have resulted in lower socioeconomic resilience. The majority of community members interviewed expressed a desire to build secure livelihoods, which echoes other research where existing and new rangelands livelihoods are seen as contributing to the success of the nation, a common global desire. Local organisations in CWQ display innovative business and community strategies. Future actions need to support and build on these initiatives. A framework with the acronym D.U.S.T. has been developed, with associated actions aimed at building resilience in these communities. D.U.S.T. is appropriate for this often-dusty region, and stands for: D. Decide to act; U. Understand the context; S. Support and develop local capacities and institutions; and T. Transform regional governance. The key for decision-makers is to work with local people who understand the contextual complexity and local needs. Actions need to be based on principles of adaptability, equity and inclusiveness, and working with the whole of the community. Building on existing collaborations and innovations as well as transforming governance and secure funding arrangements are needed. Lessons from the communities in CWQ may help other rural and remote regions build resilience to cope with the unpredictable financial, social and environmental future.

In Mediterranean-Climate Ecosystems (MCEs), Holocene coastal dunes comprise small, fragmented and dynamic features which have nutritionally imbalanced and excessively drained, droughty, sandy soils. These characteristics, along with summer drought and salt-laden winds, pose many challenges for plant colonization and persistence. Consequently, MCE dune floras are likely to be distinctive with a high proportion of habitat specialists and strong convergence in growth form mixes. Very little research has compared the species traits of dune floras within and across MCEs. This paper contributes to filling that gap. Here, we analyze the taxonomic, biological and geographical traits for all 402 species in a flora from a dune landscape (Cape St Francis) in the southeastern Cape Floristic Region (CFR) and compare patterns with the trait profiles of other dune floras at a regional (CFR) and global (MCE) scale. Within the CFR, the southeastern (all-year-rainfall) flora at Cape St Francis had a similar trait profile to western (winter-rainfall) dune floras, except for having a lower representation of species belonging to CFR-endemic clades, and higher number of species associated with tropical lineages. The St Francis flora, in common with other CFR and MCE floras, was dominated by members of the Asteraceae, Fabaceae and Poaceae. Some 40% of the St Francis flora was endemic to the CFR, typical of the high rate of MCE-level endemism elsewhere in the CFR, and in other MCEs. About 30% of the flora was confined to calcareous sand, a value typical for many other MCE sites. The St Francis flora, as well as other CFR dune floras, differs from those of other MCEs by having many species associated with shrubby lineages, and by the relatively high incidence of species associated with tropical lineages. The growth form profile of the St Francis and other CFR floras shows strongest similarity with that of Australian MCE dunes in that in both regions, evergreen hemicryptophytes and shrubs share dominance, and annuals are floristically and ecologically subordinate. The least similar of MCEs to the St Francis trait profile is the Mediterranean Basin where annuals are the most frequent growth form while shrubs are subordinate. California and Chile dune floras appear to occupy an intermediate position, in terms of growth form mix, between the Cape and Australia on the one hand, where dune floras have retained features typical of nutrient-poor soils, and the Mediterranean Basin, where dwarf, deciduous shrubs and annuals dominate the life form spectrum. All MCE dunes are threatened by alien plants, infrastructure development, tourism demands and rising sea levels. The high incidence of species of conservation concern in CFR dune floras underestimates the exponentially increasing threats to their habitats, which are already historically at a much-reduced extent. All remaining coastal dune habitat in the CFR, and probably in other MCEs, should be conserved in their entirety.

Covid 19 – living the experience As I sit at my desk at home in suburban Brisbane, following the dictates on self-isolation shared with so many around the world, I am forced to contemplate the limits of human prediction. I look out on a world which few could have predicted six months ago. My thoughts at that time were all about 2020 as a metaphor for perfect vision and a plea for it to herald a new period of clarity which would arm us in resolving the whole host of false divisions that surrounded us. False, because so many appear to be generated by the use of polarised labelling strategies which sought to categorise humans by a whole range of identities, while losing the essential humanity and individuality which we all share. This was a troublesome trend and one which seemed reminiscent of the biblical tale concerning the tower of Babel, when a single unified language was what we needed to create harmony in a globalising world. However, yesterday’s concerns have, at least for the moment, been overshadowed by a more urgent and unifying concern with humanity’s health and wellbeing. For now, this concern has created a world which we would not have recognised in 2019. We rely more than ever on our various forms of electronic media to beam instant shots of the streets of London, New York, Berlin, Paris, Hong Kong etc. These centres of our worldly activity normally characterised by hustle and bustle, are now serenely peaceful and ordered. Their magnificent buildings have become foregrounded, assuming a dignity and presence that is more commonly overshadowed by the mad ceaseless scramble of humanity all around them. From there however the cameras can jump to some of the less fortunate areas of the globe. These streets are still teeming with people in close confined areas. There is little hope here of following frequent extended hand washing practices, let alone achieving the social distance prescribed to those of us in the global North. From this desk top perspective, it has been interesting to chart the mood as the crisis has unfolded. It has moved from a slightly distant sense of superiority as the news slowly unfolded about events in remote Wuhan. The explanation that the origins were from a live market, where customs unfamiliar to our hygienic pre-packaged approach to food consumption were practised, added to this sense of separateness and exoticism surrounding the source and initial development of the virus. However, this changed to a growing sense of concern as its growth and transmission slowly began to reveal the vulnerability of all cultures to its spread. At this early stage, countries who took steps to limit travel from infected areas seemed to gain some advantage. Australia, as just one example banned flights from China and required all Chinese students coming to study in Australia to self-isolate for two weeks in a third intermediate port. It was a step that had considerable economic costs associated with it. One that was vociferously resisted at the time by the university sector increasingly dependent on the revenue generated by servicing Chinese students. But it was when the epicentre moved to northern Italy, that the entire messaging around the event began to change internationally. At this time the tone became increasingly fearful, anxious and urgent as reports of overwhelmed hospitals and mass burials began to dominate the news. Consequently, governments attracted little criticism but were rather widely supported in the action of radically closing down their countries in order to limit human interaction. The debate had become one around the choice between health and economic wellbeing. The fact that the decision has been overwhelmingly for health, has been encouraging. It has not however stopped the pressure from those who believe that economic well-being is a determinant of human well-being, questioning the decisions of politicians and the advice of public health scientists that have dominated the responses to date. At this stage, the lives versus livelihoods debate has a long way still to run. Of some particular interest has been the musings of the opinion writers who have predicted that the events of these last months will change our world forever. Some of these predictions have included the idea that rather than piling into common office spaces working remotely from home and other advantageous locations will be here to stay. Schools and universities will become centres of learning more conveniently accessed on-line rather than face to face. Many shopping centres will become redundant and goods will increasingly be delivered via collection centres or couriers direct to the home. Social distancing will impact our consumption of entertainment at common venues and lifestyle events such as dining out. At the macro level, it has been predicted that globalisation in its present form will be reversed. The pandemic has led to actions being taken at national levels and movement being controlled by the strengthening and increased control of physical borders. Tourism has ground to a halt and may not resume on its current scale or in its present form as unnecessary travel, at least across borders, will become permanently reduced. Advocates of change have pointed to some of the unpredicted benefits that have been occurring. These include a drop in air pollution: increased interaction within families; more reading undertaken by younger adults; more systematic incorporation of exercise into daily life, and; a rediscovered sense of community with many initiatives paying tribute to the health and essential services workers who have been placed at the forefront of this latest struggle with nature. Of course, for all those who point to benefits in the forced lifestyle changes we have been experiencing, there are those who would tell a contrary tale. Demonstrations in the US have led the push by those who just want things to get back to normal as quickly as possible. For this group, confinement at home creates more problems. These may be a function of the proximity of modern cramped living quarters, today’s crowded city life, dysfunctional relationships, the boredom of self-entertainment or simply the anxiety that comes with an insecure livelihood and an unclear future. Personally however, I am left with two significant questions about our future stimulated by the events that have been ushered in by 2020. The first is how is it that the world has been caught so unprepared by this pandemic? The second is to what extent do we have the ability to recalibrate our current practices and view an alternative future? In considering the first, it has been enlightening to observe the extent to which politicians have turned to scientific expertise in order to determine their actions. Terms like ‘flattening the curve’, ‘community transmission rates’, have become part of our daily lexicon as the statistical modellers advance their predictions as to how the disease will spread and impact on our health systems. The fact that scientists are presented as the acceptable and credible authority and the basis for our actions reflects a growing dependency on data and modelling that has infused our society generally. This acceptance has been used to strengthen the actions on behalf of the human lives first and foremost position. For those who pursue the livelihoods argument even bigger figures are available to be thrown about. These relate to concepts such as numbers of jobless, increase in national debt, growth in domestic violence, rise in mental illness etc. However, given that they are more clearly estimates and based on less certain assumptions and variables, they do not at this stage seem to carry the impact of the data produced by public health experts. This is not surprising but perhaps not justifiable when we consider the failure of the public health lobby to adequately prepare or forewarn us of the current crisis in the first place. Statistical predictive models are built around historical data, yet their accuracy depends upon the quality of those data. Their robustness for extrapolation to new settings for example will differ as these differ in a multitude of subtle ways from the contexts in which they were initially gathered. Our often uncritical dependence upon ‘scientific’ processes has become worrying, given that as humans, even when guided by such useful tools, we still tend to repeat mistakes or ignore warnings. At such a time it is an opportunity for us to return to the reservoir of human wisdom to be found in places such as our great literature. Works such as The Plague by Albert Camus make fascinating and educative reading for us at this time. As the writer observes Everybody knows that pestilences have a way of recurring in the world, yet somehow, we find it hard to believe in ones that crash down on our heads from a blue sky. There have been as many plagues as wars in history, yet always plagues and wars take people equally by surprise. So it is that we constantly fail to study let alone learn the lessons of history. Yet 2020 mirrors 1919, as at that time the world was reeling with the impact of the Spanish ‘Flu, which infected 500 million people and killed an estimated 50 million. This was more than the 40 million casualties of the four years of the preceding Great War. There have of course been other pestilences since then and much more recently. Is our stubborn failure to learn because we fail to value history and the knowledge of our forebears? Yet we can accept with so little question the accuracy of predictions based on numbers, even with varying and unquestioned levels of validity and reliability. As to the second question, many writers have been observing some beneficial changes in our behaviour and our environment, which have emerged in association with this sudden break in our normal patterns of activity. It has given us the excuse to reevaluate some of our practices and identify some clear benefits that have been occurring. As Australian newspaper columnist Bernard Salt observes in an article titled “the end of narcissism?” I think we’ve been re-evaluating the entire contribution/reward equation since the summer bushfires and now, with the added experience of the pandemic, we can see the shallowness of the so-called glamour professions – the celebrities, the influencers. We appreciate the selflessness of volunteer firefighters, of healthcare workers and supermarket staff. From the pandemic’s earliest days, glib forays into social media by celebrities seeking attention and yet further adulation have been met with stony disapproval. Perhaps it is best that they stay offline while our real heroes do the heavy lifting. To this sad unquestioning adherence to both scientism and narcissism, we can add and stir the framing of the climate rebellion and a myriad of familiar ‘first world’ problems which have caused dissension and disharmony in our communities. Now with an external threat on which to focus our attention, there has been a short lull in the endless bickering and petty point scoring that has characterised our western liberal democracies in the last decade. As Camus observed: The one way of making people hang together is to give ‘em a spell of the plague. So, the ceaseless din of the topics that have driven us apart has miraculously paused for at least a moment. Does this then provide a unique opportunity for us together to review our habitual postures and adopt a more conciliatory and harmonious communication style, take stock, critically evaluate and retune our approach to life – as individuals, as nations, as a species? It is not too difficult to hypothesise futures driven by the major issues that have driven us apart. Now, in our attempts to resist the virus, we have given ourselves a glimpse of some of the very things the climate change activists have wished to happen. With few planes in the air and the majority of cars off the roads, we have already witnessed clearer and cleaner air. Working at home has freed up the commuter driven traffic and left many people with more time to spend with their family. Freed from the continuing throng of tourists, cities like Venice are regenerating and cleansing themselves. This small preview of what a less travelled world might start to look like surely has some attraction. But of course, it does not come without cost. With the lack of tourism and the need to work at home, jobs and livelihoods have started to change. As with any revolution there are both winners and losers. The lockdown has distinguished starkly between essential and non-essential workers. That represents a useful starting point from which to assess what is truly of value in our way of life and what is peripheral as Salt made clear. This is a question that I would encourage readers to explore and to take forward with them through the resolution of the current situation. However, on the basis that educators are seen as providing essential services, now is the time to turn to the content of our current volume. Once again, I direct you to the truly international range of our contributors. They come from five different continents yet share a common focus on one of the most popular of shared cultural experiences – sport. Unsurprisingly three of our reviewed papers bring different insights to the world’s most widely shared sport of all – football, or as it would be more easily recognised in some parts of the globe - soccer. Leading these offerings is a comparison of fandom in Australia and China. The story presented by Knijnk highlights the rise of the fanatical supporters known as the ultras. The origin of the movement is traced to Italy, but it is one that claims allegiances now around the world. Kniijnk identifies the movement’s progression into Australia and China and, in pointing to its stance against the commercialisation of their sport by the scions of big business, argues for its deeper political significance and its commitment to the democratic ownership of sport. Reflecting the increasing availability and use of data in our modern societies, Karadog, Parim and Cene apply some of the immense data collected on and around the FIFA World Cup to the task of selecting the best team from the 2018 tournament held in Russia, a task more usually undertaken by panels of experts. Mindful of the value of using data in ways that can assist future decision making, rather than just in terms of summarising past events, they also use the statistics available to undertake a second task. The second task was the selection of the team with the greatest future potential by limiting eligibility to those at an early stage in their careers, namely younger than 28 and who arguably had still to attain their prime as well as having a longer career still ahead of them. The results for both selections confirm how membership of the wealthy European based teams holds the path to success and recognition at the global level no matter what the national origins of players might be. Thirdly, taking links between the sport and the world of finance a step further, Gomez-Martinez, Marques-Bogliani and Paule-Vianez report on an interesting study designed to test the hypothesis that sporting success within a community is reflected in positive economic outcomes for members of that community. They make a bold attempt to test their hypothesis by examining the relationship of the performance of three world leading clubs in Europe - Bayern Munich, Juventus and Paris Saint Germain and the performance of their local stock markets. Their findings make for some interesting thoughts about the significance of sport in the global economy and beyond into the political landscape of our interconnected world. Our final paper comes from Africa but for its subject matter looks to a different sport, one that rules the subcontinent of India - cricket. Norrbhai questions the traditional coaching of batting in cricket by examining the backlift techniques of the top players in the Indian Premier league. His findings suggest that even in this most traditional of sports, technique will develop and change in response to the changing context provided by the game itself. In this case the context is the short form of the game, introduced to provide faster paced entertainment in an easily consumable time span. It provides a useful reminder how in sport, techniques will not be static but will continue to evolve as the game that provides the context for the skilled performance also evolves. To conclude our pages, I must apologise that our usual book review has fallen prey to the current world disruption. In its place I would like to draw your attention to the announcement of a new publication which would make a worthy addition to the bookshelf of any international sports scholar. “Softpower, Soccer, Supremacy – The Chinese Dream” represents a unique and timely analysis of the movement of the most popular and influential game in the world – Association Football, commonly abbreviated to soccer - into the mainstream of Chinese national policy. The editorial team led by one of sports histories most recognised scholars, Professor J A Mangan, has assembled a who’s who of current scholars in sport in Asia. Together they provide a perspective that takes in, not just the Chinese view of these important current developments but also, the view of others in the geographical region. From Japan, Korea and Australia, they bring with them significant experience to not just the beautiful game, but sport in general in that dynamic and fast-growing part of the world. Particularly in the light of the European dominance identified in the Karog, Parim and Cene paper this work raises the question as to whether we can expect to see a change in the world order sooner rather than later. It remains for me to make one important acknowledgement. In my last editorial I alerted you to the sorts of decisions we as an editorial and publication team were facing with regard to ensuring the future of the journal. Debates as to how best to proceed while staying true to our vision and goals are still proceeding. However, I am pleased to acknowledge the sponsorship provided by The University of Macao for volume 42 and recognise the invaluable contribution made by ISCPES former president Walter Ho to this process. Sponsorship can provide an important input to the ongoing existence and strength of this journal and we would be interested in talking to other institutions or groups who might also be interested in supporting our work, particularly where their goals align closely with ours. May I therefore commend to you the works of our international scholars and encourage your future involvement in sharing your interest in and expertise with others in the world of comparative and international sport studies, John Saunders, Brisbane, May 2020

Climate change induced sea-level rise (SLR) is on its increase globally. Regionally the lowlands of China, Vietnam, Bangladesh, and islands of the Malaysian, Indonesian and Philippine archipelagos are among the world’s most threatened regions. Sea-level rise has major impacts on the ecosystems and society. It threatens coastal populations, economic activities, and fragile ecosystems as mangroves, coastal salt-marches and wetlands. This paper provides a summary of the current state of knowledge of sea level-rise and its effects on both human and natural ecosystems. The focus is on coastal urban areas and low lying deltas in South-East Asia and Vietnam, as one of the most threatened areas in the world. About 3 mm per year reflects the growing consensus on the average SLR worldwide. The trend speeds up during recent decades. The figures are subject to local, temporal and methodological variation. In Vietnam the average values of 3.3 mm per year during the 1993-2014 period are above the worldwide average. Although a basic conceptual understanding exists that the increasing global frequency of the strongest tropical cyclones is related with the increasing temperature and SLR, this relationship is insufficiently understood. Moreover the precise, complex environmental, economic, social, and health impacts are currently unclear. SLR, storms and changing precipitation patterns increase flood risks, in particular in urban areas. Part of the current scientific debate is on how urban agglomeration can be made more resilient to flood risks. Where originally mainly technical interventions dominated this discussion, it becomes increasingly clear that proactive special planning, flood defense, flood risk mitigation, flood preparation, and flood recovery are important, but costly instruments. Next to the main focus on SLR and its effects on resilience, the paper reviews main SLR associated impacts: Floods and inundation, salinization, shoreline change, and effects on mangroves and wetlands. The hazards of SLR related floods increase fastest in urban areas. This is related with both the increasing surface major cities are expected to occupy during the decades to come and the increasing coastal population. In particular Asia and its megacities in the southern part of the continent are increasingly at risk. The discussion points to complexity, inter-disciplinarity, and the related uncertainty, as core characteristics. An integrated combination of mitigation, adaptation and resilience measures is currently considered as the most indicated way to resist SLR today and in the near future.References Aerts J.C.J.H., Hassan A., Savenije H.H.G., Khan M.F., 2000. Using GIS tools and rapid assessment techniques for determining salt intrusion: Stream a river basin management instrument. 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Introduction Many destinations promote culinary encounters. Foods and beverages, and especially how these will taste in situ, are being marketed as niche travel motivators and used in destination brand building across the globe. While initial usage of the term culinary tourism focused on experiencing exotic cultures of foreign destinations by sampling unfamiliar food and drinks, the term has expanded to embrace a range of leisure travel experiences where the aim is to locate and taste local specialities as part of a pleasurable, and hopefully notable, culinary encounter (Wolf). Long’s foundational work was central in developing the idea of culinary tourism as an active endeavor, suggesting that via consumption, individuals construct unique experiences. Ignatov and Smith’s literature review-inspired definition confirms the nature of activity as participatory, and adds consuming food production skills—from observing agriculture and local processors to visiting food markets and attending cooking schools—to culinary purchases. Despite importing almost all of its foodstuffs and beverages, including some of its water, Singapore is an acknowledged global leader in culinary tourism. Horng and Tsai note that culinary tourism conceptually implies that a transferal of “local or special knowledge and information that represent local culture and identities” (41) occurs via these experiences. This article adds the act of reading to these participatory activities and suggests that, because food writing forms an important component of Singapore’s suite of culinary tourism offerings, taste contributes to the cultural experience offered to both visitors and locals. While Singapore foodways have attracted significant scholarship (see, for instance, work by Bishop; Duruz; Huat & Rajah; Tarulevicz, Eating), Singapore food writing, like many artefacts of popular culture, has attracted less notice. Yet, this writing is an increasingly visible component of cultural production of, and about, Singapore, and performs a range of functions for locals, tourists and visitors before they arrive. Although many languages are spoken in Singapore, English is the national language (Alsagoff) and this study focuses on food writing in English. Background Tourism comprises a major part of Singapore’s economy, with recent figures detailing that food and beverage sales contribute over 10 per cent of this revenue, with spend on culinary tours and cookery classes, home wares such as tea-sets and cookbooks, food magazines and food memoirs additional to this (Singapore Government). This may be related to the fact that Singapore not only promotes food as a tourist attraction, but also actively promotes itself as an exceptional culinary destination. The Singapore Tourism Board (STB) includes food in its general information brochures and websites, and its print, television and cinema commercials (Huat and Rajah). It also mounts information-rich campaigns both abroad and inside Singapore. The 2007 ‘Singapore Seasons’ campaign, for instance, promoted Singaporean cuisine alongside films, design, books and other cultural products in London, New York and Beijing. Touring cities identified as key tourist markets in 2011, the ‘Singapore Takeout’ pop-up restaurant brought the taste of Singaporean foods into closer focus. Singaporean chefs worked with high profile locals in its kitchen in a custom-fabricated shipping container to create and demonstrate Singaporean dishes, attracting public and media interest. In country, the STB similarly actively promotes the tastes of Singaporean foods, hosting the annual World Gourmet Summit (Chaney and Ryan) and Pacific Food Expo, both attracting international culinary professionals to work alongside local leaders. The Singapore Food Festival each July is marketed to both locals and visitors. In these ways, the STB, as well as providing events for visitors, is actively urging Singaporeans to proud of their food culture and heritage, so that each Singaporean becomes a proactive ambassador of their cuisine. Singapore Food Writing Popular print guidebooks and online guides to Singapore pay significantly more attention to Singaporean food than they do for many other destinations. Sections on food in such publications discuss at relative length the taste of Singaporean food (always delicious) as well as how varied, authentic, hygienic and suited-to-all-budgets it is. These texts also recommend hawker stalls and food courts alongside cafés and restaurants (Henderson et al.), and a range of other culinary experiences such as city and farm food tours and cookery classes. This writing describes not only what can be seen or learned during these experiences, but also what foods can be sampled, and how these might taste. This focus on taste is reflected in the printed materials that greet the in-bound tourist at the airport. On a visit in October 2013, arrival banners featuring mouth-watering images of local specialities such as chicken rice and chilli crab marked the route from arrival to immigration and baggage collection. Even advertising for a bank was illustrated with photographs of luscious-looking fruits. The free maps and guidebooks available featured food-focused tours and restaurant locations, and there were also substantial free booklets dedicated solely to discussing local delicacies and their flavours, plus recommended locations to sample them. A website and free mobile app were available that contain practical information about dishes, ingredients, cookery methods, and places to eat, as well as historical and cultural information. These resources are also freely distributed to many hotels and popular tourist destinations. Alongside organising food walks, bus tours and cookery classes, the STB also recommends the work of a number of Singaporean food writers—principally prominent Singapore food bloggers, reviewers and a number of memoirists—as authentic guides to what are described as unique Singaporean flavours. The strategies at the heart of this promotion are linking advertising to useful information. At a number of food centres, for instance, STB information panels provide details about both specific dishes and Singapore’s food culture more generally (Henderson et al.). This focus is apparent at many tourist destinations, many of which are also popular local attractions. In historic Fort Canning Park, for instance, there is a recreation of Raffles’ experimental garden, established in 1822, where he grew the nutmeg, clove and other plants that were intended to form the foundation for spice plantations but were largely unsuccessful (Reisz). Today, information panels not only indicate the food plants’ names and how to grow them, but also their culinary and medicinal uses, recipes featuring them and the related food memories of famous Singaporeans. The Singapore Botanic Gardens similarly houses the Ginger Garden displaying several hundred species of ginger and information, and an Eco(-nomic/logical) Garden featuring many food plants and their stories. In Chinatown, panels mounted outside prominent heritage brands (often still quite small shops) add content to the shopping experience. A number of museums profile Singapore’s food culture in more depth. The National Museum of Singapore has a permanent Living History gallery that focuses on Singapore’s street food from the 1950s to 1970s. This display includes food-related artefacts, interactive aromatic displays of spices, films of dishes being made and eaten, and oral histories about food vendors, all supported by text panels and booklets. Here food is used to convey messages about the value of Singapore’s ethnic diversity and cross-cultural exchanges. Versions of some of these dishes can then be sampled in the museum café (Time Out Singapore). The Peranakan Museum—which profiles the unique hybrid culture of the descendants of the Chinese and South Indian traders who married local Malay women—shares this focus, with reconstructed kitchens and dining rooms, exhibits of cooking and eating utensils and displays on food’s ceremonial role in weddings and funerals all supported with significant textual information. The Chinatown Heritage Centre not only recreates food preparation areas as a vivid indicator of poor Chinese immigrants’ living conditions, but also houses The National Restaurant of Singapore, which translates this research directly into meals that recreate the heritage kopi tiam (traditional coffee shop) cuisine of Singapore in the 1930s, purposefully bringing taste into the service of education, as its descriptive menu states, “educationally delighting the palate” (Chinatown Heritage Centre). These museums recognise that shopping is a core tourist activity in Singapore (Chang; Yeung et al.). Their gift- and bookshops cater to the culinary tourist by featuring quality culinary products for sale (including, for instance, teapots and cups, teas, spices and traditional sweets, and other foods) many of which are accompanied by informative tags or brochures. At the centre of these curated, purchasable collections are a range written materials: culinary magazines, cookbooks, food histories and memoirs, as well as postcards and stationery printed with recipes. Food Magazines Locally produced food magazines cater to a range of readerships and serve to extend the culinary experience both in, and outside, Singapore. These include high-end gourmet, luxury lifestyle publications like venerable monthly Wine & Dine: The Art of Good Living, which, in in print for almost thirty years, targets an affluent readership (Wine & Dine). The magazine runs features on local dining, gourmet products and trends, as well as international epicurean locations and products. Beautifully illustrated recipes also feature, as the magazine declares, “we’ve recognised that sharing more recipes should be in the DNA of Wine & Dine’s editorial” (Wine & Dine). Appetite magazine, launched in 2006, targets the “new and emerging generation of gourmets—foodies with a discerning and cosmopolitan outlook, broad horizons and a insatiable appetite” (Edipresse Asia) and is reminiscent in much of its styling of New Zealand’s award-winning Cuisine magazine. Its focus is to present a fresh approach to both cooking at home and dining out, as readers are invited to “Whip up the perfect soufflé or feast with us at the finest restaurants in Singapore and around the region” (Edipresse Asia). Chefs from leading local restaurants are interviewed, and the voices of “fellow foodies and industry watchers” offer an “insider track” on food-related news: “what’s good and what’s new” (Edipresse Asia). In between these publications sits Epicure: Life’s Refinements, which features local dishes, chefs, and restaurants as well as an overseas travel section and a food memories column by a featured author. Locally available ingredients are also highlighted, such as abalone (Cheng) and an interesting range of mushrooms (Epicure). While there is a focus on an epicurean experience, this is presented slightly more casually than in Wine & Dine. Food & Travel focuses more on home cookery, but each issue also includes reviews of Singapore restaurants. The bimonthly bilingual (Chinese and English) Gourmet Living features recipes alongside a notable focus on food culture—with food history columns, restaurant reviews and profiles of celebrated chefs. An extensive range of imported international food magazines are also available, with those from nearby Malaysia and Indonesia regularly including articles on Singapore. Cookbooks These magazines all include reviews of cookery books including Singaporean examples – and some feature other food writing such as food histories, memoirs and blogs. These reviews draw attention to how many Singaporean cookbooks include a focus on food history alongside recipes. Cookery teacher Yee Soo Leong’s 1976 Singaporean Cooking was an early example of cookbook as heritage preservation. This 1976 book takes an unusual view of ‘Singaporean’ flavours. Beginning with sweet foods—Nonya/Singaporean and western cakes, biscuits, pies, pastries, bread, desserts and icings—it also focuses on both Singaporean and Western dishes. This text is also unusual as there are only 6 lines of direct authorial address in the author’s acknowledgements section. Expatriate food writer Wendy Hutton’s Singapore Food, first published in 1979, reprinted many times after and revised in 2007, has long been recognised as one of the most authoritative titles on Singapore’s food heritage. Providing an socio-historical map of Singapore’s culinary traditions, some one third of the first edition was devoted to information about Singaporean multi-cultural food history, including detailed profiles of a number of home cooks alongside its recipes. Published in 1980, Kenneth Mitchell’s A Taste of Singapore is clearly aimed at a foreign readership, noting the variety of foods available due to the racial origins of its inhabitants. The more modest, but equally educational in intent, Hawkers Flavour: A Guide to Hawkers Gourmet in Malaysia and Singapore (in its fourth printing in 1998) contains a detailed introductory essay outlining local food culture, favourite foods and drinks and times these might be served, festivals and festive foods, Indian, Indian Muslim, Chinese, Nyonya (Chinese-Malay), Malay and Halal foods and customs, followed with a selection of recipes from each. More contemporary examples of such information-rich cookbooks, such as those published in the frequently reprinted Periplus Mini Cookbook series, are sold at tourist attractions. Each of these modestly priced, 64-page, mouthwateringly illustrated booklets offer framing information, such as about a specific food culture as in the Nonya kitchen in Nonya Favourites (Boi), and explanatory glossaries of ingredients, as in Homestyle Malay Cooking (Jelani). Most recipes include a boxed paragraph detailing cookery or ingredient information that adds cultural nuance, as well as trying to describe tastes that the (obviously foreign) intended reader may not have encountered. Malaysian-born Violet Oon, who has been called the Julia Child of Singapore (Bergman), writes for both local and visiting readers. The FOOD Paper, published monthly for a decade from January 1987 was, she has stated, then “Singapore’s only monthly publication dedicated to the CSF—Certified Singapore Foodie” (Oon, Violet Oon Cooks 7). Under its auspices, Oon promoted her version of Singaporean cuisine to both locals and visitors, as well as running cookery classes and culinary events, hosting her own television cooking series on the Singapore Broadcasting Corporation, and touring internationally for the STB as a ‘Singapore Food Ambassador’ (Ahmad; Kraal). Taking this representation of flavor further, Oon has also produced a branded range of curry powders, spices, and biscuits, and set up a number of food outlets. Her first cookbook, World Peranakan Cookbook, was published in 1978. Her Singapore: 101 Meals of 1986 was commissioned by the STB, then known as the Singapore Tourist Promotion Board. Violet Oon Cooks, a compilation of recipes from The FOOD Paper, published in 1992, attracted a range of major international as well as Singaporean food sponsors, and her Timeless Recipes, published in 1997, similarly aimed to show how manufactured products could be incorporated into classic Singaporean dishes cooked at home. In 1998, Oon produced A Singapore Family Cookbook featuring 100 dishes. Many were from Nonya cuisine and her following books continued to focus on preserving heritage Singaporean recipes, as do a number of other nationally-cuisine focused collections such as Joyceline Tully and Christopher Tan’s Heritage Feasts: A Collection of Singapore Family Recipes. Sylvia Tan’s Singapore Heritage Food: Yesterday’s Recipes for Today’s Cooks, published in 2004, provides “a tentative account of Singapore’s food history” (5). It does this by mapping the various taste profiles of six thematically-arranged chronologically-overlapping sections, from the heritage of British colonialism, to the uptake of American and Russia foods in the Snackbar era of the 1960s and the use of convenience flavoring ingredients such as curry pastes, sauces, dried and frozen supermarket products from the 1970s. Other Volumes Other food-themed volumes focus on specific historical periods. Cecilia Leong-Salobir’s Food Culture in Colonial Asia: A Taste of Empire discusses the “unique hybrid” (1) cuisine of British expatriates in Singapore from 1858 to 1963. In 2009, the National Museum of Singapore produced the moving Wong Hong Suen’s Wartime Kitchen: Food and Eating in Singapore 1942–1950. This details the resilience and adaptability of both diners and cooks during the Japanese Occupation and in post-war Singapore, when shortages stimulated creativity. There is a centenary history of the Cold Storage company which shipped frozen foods all over south east Asia (Boon) and location-based studies such as Annette Tan’s Savour Chinatown: Stories Memories & Recipes. Tan interviewed hawkers, chefs and restaurant owners, working from this information to write both the book’s recipes and reflect on Chinatown’s culinary history. Food culture also features in (although it is not the main focus) more general book-length studies such as educational texts such as Chew Yen Fook’s The Magic of Singapore and Melanie Guile’s Culture in Singapore (2000). Works that navigate both spaces (of Singaporean culture more generally and its foodways) such Lily Kong’s Singapore Hawker Centres: People, Places, Food, provide an consistent narrative of food in Singapore, stressing its multicultural flavours that can be enjoyed from eateries ranging from hawker stalls to high-end restaurants that, interestingly, that agrees with that promulgated in the food writing discussed above. Food Memoirs and Blogs Many of these narratives include personal material, drawing on the author’s own food experiences and taste memories. This approach is fully developed in the food memoir, a growing sub-genre of Singapore food writing. While memoirs by expatriate Singaporeans such as Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan’s A Tiger in the Kitchen: A Memoir of Food and Family, produced by major publisher Hyperion in New York, has attracted considerable international attention, it presents a story of Singapore cuisine that agrees with such locally produced texts as television chef and food writer Terry Tan’s Stir-fried and Not Shaken: A Nostalgic Trip Down Singapore’s Memory Lane and the food memoir of the Singaporean chef credited with introducing fine Malay dining to Singapore, Aziza Ali’s Sambal Days, Kampong Cuisine, published in Singapore in 2013 with the support of the National Heritage Board. All these memoirs are currently available in Singapore in both bookshops and a number of museums and other attractions. While underscoring the historical and cultural value of these foods, all describe the unique flavours of Singaporean cuisine and its deliciousness. A number of prominent Singapore food bloggers are featured in general guidebooks and promoted by the STB as useful resources to dining out in Singapore. One of the most prominent of these is Leslie Tay, a medical doctor and “passionate foodie” (Knipp) whose awardwinning ieatŸishootŸipost is currently attracting some 90,000 unique visitors every month and has had over 20,000 million hits since its launch in 2006. An online diary of Tay’s visits to hundreds of Singaporean hawker stalls, it includes descriptions and photographs of meals consumed, creating accumulative oral culinary histories of these dishes and those who prepared them. These narratives have been reorganised and reshaped in Tay’s first book The End of Char Kway Teow and Other Hawker Mysteries, where each chapter tells the story of one particular dish, including recommended hawker stalls where it can be enjoyed. Ladyironchef.com is a popular food and travel site that began as a blog in 2007. An edited collection of reviews of eateries and travel information, many by the editor himself, the site features lists of, for example, the best cafes (LadyIronChef “Best Cafes”), eateries at the airport (LadyIronChef “Guide to Dining”), and hawker stalls (Lim). While attesting to the cultural value of these foods, many articles also discuss flavour, as in Lim’s musings on: ‘how good can chicken on rice taste? … The glistening grains of rice perfumed by fresh chicken stock and a whiff of ginger is so good you can even eat it on its own’. Conclusion Recent Singapore food publishing reflects this focus on taste. Tay’s publisher, Epigram, growing Singaporean food list includes the recently released Heritage Cookbooks Series. This highlights specialist Singaporean recipes and cookery techniques, with the stated aim of preserving tastes and foodways that continue to influence Singaporean food culture today. Volumes published to date on Peranakan, South Indian, Cantonese, Eurasian, and Teochew (from the Chaoshan region in the east of China’s Guangdong province) cuisines offer both cultural and practical guides to the quintessential dishes and flavours of each cuisine, featuring simple family dishes alongside more elaborate special occasion meals. In common with the food writing discussed above, the books in this series, although dealing with very different styles of cookery, contribute to an overall impression of the taste of Singapore food that is highly consistent and extremely persuasive. This food writing narrates that Singapore has a delicious as well as distinctive and interesting food culture that plays a significant role in Singaporean life both currently and historically. It also posits that this food culture is, at the same time, easily accessible and also worthy of detailed consideration and discussion. 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Acknowledgements Research to complete this article was supported by Central Queensland University, Australia, under its Outside Studies Program (OSPRO) and Learning and Teaching Education Research Centre (LTERC). An earlier version of part of this article was presented at the 2nd Australasian Regional Food Networks and Cultures Conference, in the Barossa Valley in South Australia, Australia, 11–14 November 2012. The delegates of that conference and expert reviewers of this article offered some excellent suggestions regarding strengthening this article and their advice was much appreciated. All errors are, of course, my own.

Introduction Utopia has always been countercultural, and ever since technological progress has allowed, utopia has been using alternative media to promote and strengthen its underpinning ideals. In this article, I am seeking to clarify the connections between counterculture and alternative media in utopian contexts to demonstrate their reciprocity, then draw together these threads through reference to a well-known figure of the Rainbow Region–Rusty Miller. His trajectory from iconic surfer and Aquarian reporter to mediator for utopian politics and ideals in the Rainbow Region encompasses in a single identity the three elements underpinning this study. In concluding, I will turn to Rusty’s Byron Guide, questioning its classification as alternative or mainstream media, and whether Byron Bay is represented as countercultural and utopian in this long-running and ongoing publication. Counterculture and Alternative Media in Utopian Contexts Counterculture is an umbrella that enfolds utopia, among many other genres and practices. It has been most often situated in the 1960s and 1970s as a new form of social movement embodying youth resistance to the technocratic mainstream and its norms of gender, sexuality, politics, music, and language (Roszak). Many scholars of counterculture underscore its utopian impulses both in the projection of better societies where the social goals are achieved, and in the withdrawal from mainstream society into intentional communities (Yinger 194-6; McKay 5; Berger). Before exploring further the connections between counterculture and alternative media, I want to define the scope of countercultural utopian contexts in general, and the Rainbow Region in particular. Utopia is a neologism created by Sir Thomas More almost 500 years ago to designate the island community that demonstrates order, harmony, justice, hope and desire in the right balance so that it seems like an ideal land. This imaginary place described in Utopia (1516) as a counterpoint to the social, political and religious shortcomings of contemporary 16th century British society, has attracted accusations of heresy (Molner), and been used as a pejorative term, an insult to denigrate political projects that seem farfetched or subversive, especially during the 19th century. Almost every study of utopian theory, literature and practice points to a dissatisfaction with the status quo, which inspires writers, politicians, architects, artists, individuals and communities to rail against it (see for example Davis, Moylan, Suvin, Levitas, Jameson). Kingsley Widmer’s book Counterings: Utopian Dialectics in Contemporary Contexts reiterates what many scholars have stated when he writes that utopias should be understood in terms of what they are countering. Lyman Tower Sargent defines utopia as “a non-existent society described in considerable detail and normally located in time and space” and utopianism as “social dreaming” (9), to which I would add that both indicate an improvement on the alternatives, and may indeed be striving to represent the best place imaginable. Utopian contexts, by extension, are those situations where the “social dreaming” is enhanced through human agency, good governance, just laws, education, and work, rather than being a divinely ordained state of nature (Schaer et al). In this way, utopian contexts are explicitly countercultural through their very conception, as human agency is required and their emphasis is on social change. These modes of resistance against dominant paradigms are most evident in attempts to realise textual projections of a better society in countercultural communal experiments. Almost immediately after its publication, More’s Utopia became the model for Bishop Vasco de Quiroga’s communitarian hospital-town Santa Fe de la Laguna in Michoacan, Mexico, established in the 1530s as a counterculture to the oppressive enslavement and massacres of the Purhépecha people by Nuno Guzmán (Green). The countercultural thrust of the 1960s and 1970s provided many utopian contexts, perhaps most readily identifiable as the intentional communities that spawned and flourished, especially in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand (Metcalf, Shared Lives). They were often inspired by texts such as Charles A. Reich’s The Greening of America (1970) and Ernest Callenbach’s Ecotopia (1975), and this convergence of textual practices and alternative lifestyles can be seen in the development of Australia’s own Rainbow Region. Located in northern New South Wales, the geographical area of the Northern Rivers that has come to be known as the Rainbow Region encompasses Byron Bay, Nimbin, Mullumbimby, Bangalow, Clunes, Dunoon, Federal, with Lismore as the region’s largest town. But more evocative than these place names are the “rivers and creeks, vivid green hills, fruit and nut farms […] bounded by subtropical beaches and rainforest mountains” (Wilson 1). Utopian by nature, and recognised as such by the indigenous Bundjalung people who inhabited it before the white settlers, whalers and dairy farmers moved in, the Rainbow Region became utopian through culture–or indeed counterculture–during the 1973 Aquarius Festival in Nimbin when the hippies of Mullumbimby and the surfers of Byron Bay were joined by up to 10,000 people seeking alternative ways of being in the world. When the party was over, many Aquarians stayed on to form intentional communities in the beautiful region, like Tuntable Falls, Nimbin’s first and largest such cooperative (Metcalf, From Utopian Dreaming to Communal Reality 74-83). In utopian contexts, from the Renaissance to the 1970s and beyond, counterculture has underpinned and alternative media has circulated the aims and ideals of the communities of resistance. The early utopian context of the Anabaptist movement has been dubbed as countercultural by Sigrun Haude: “During the reign of the Münster (1534-5) Anabaptists erected not only a religious but also a social and political counterculture to the existing order” (240). And it was this Protestant Reformation that John Downing calls the first real media war, with conflicting movements using pamphlets produced on the new technology of the Gutenberg press to disseminate their ideas (144). What is striking here is the confluence of ideas and practices at this time–countercultural ideals are articulated, published, and disseminated, printing presses make this possible, and utopian activists realise how mass media can be used and abused, exploited and censored. Twentieth century countercultural movements drew on the lessons learnt from historical uprising and revolutions, understanding the importance of getting the word out through their own forms of media which, given the subversive nature of the messages, were essentially alternative, according to the criteria proposed by Chris Atton: alternative media may be understood as a radical challenge to the professionalized and institutionalized practices of the mainstream media. Alternative media privileges a journalism that is closely wedded to notions of social responsibility, replacing an ideology of “objectivity” with overt advocacy and oppositional practices. Its practices emphasize first person, eyewitness accounts by participants; a reworking of the populist approaches of tabloid newspapers to recover a “radical popular” style of reporting; collective and antihierarchical forms of organization which eschew demarcation and specialization–and which importantly suggest an inclusive, radical form of civic journalism. (267) Nick Couldry goes further to point out the utopian processes required to identify agencies of change, including alternative media, which he defines as “practices of symbolic production which contest (in some way) media power itself–that is, the concentration of symbolic power in media institutions” (25). Alternative media’s orientation towards oppositional and contestatory practices demonstrates clear parallels between its ambitions and those of counterculture in utopian contexts. From the 1960s onwards, the upsurge in alternative newspaper numbers is commensurate with the blossoming of the counterculture and increased utopian contexts; Susan Forde describes it thus: “a huge resurgence in the popularity of publications throughout the ‘counter-culture’ days of the 1960s and 1970s” (“Monitoring the Establishment”, 114). The nexus of counterculture and alternative media in such utopian contexts is documented in texts like Roger Streitmatter’s Voices of Revolution and Bob Osterlag’s People’s Movements, People’s Press. Like the utopian newspapers that came out of 18th and 19th century intentional communities, many of the new alternative press served to educate, socialise, promote and represent the special interests of the founders and followers of the countercultural movements, often focusing on the philosophy and ideals underpinning these communities rather than the everyday events (see also Frobert). The radical press in Australia was also gaining ground, with OZ in Australia from 1963-1969, and then from 1967-1973 in London. Magazines launched by Philip Frazer like The Digger, Go-Set, Revolution and High Times, and university student newspapers were the main avenues for youth and alternative expression on the Vietnam war and conscription, gay and lesbian rights, racism, feminism and ecological activism (Forde, Challenging the News; Cock & Perry). Nimbin 1973: Rusty Miller and The Byron Express The 1973 Aquarius Festival of counterculture in Nimbin (12-23 May) was a utopian context that had an alternative media life of its own before it arrived in the Rainbow Region–in student publications like Tharnuka and newsletters distributed via the Aquarius Foundation. There were other voices that announced the coming of the Aquarius Festival to Nimbin and reported on its impact, like The Digger from Melbourne and the local paper, The Northern Star. During the Festival, the Nimbin Good Times first appeared as the daily bulletin and continues today with the original masthead drawn by the Festival’s co-organiser, Graeme Dunstan. Some interesting work has been done on this area, ranging from general studies of the Rainbow Region (Wilson; Munro-Clark) to articles analysing its alternative press (Ward & van Vuuren; Martin & Ellis), but to date, there has been no focus on the Rainbow Region’s first alternative newspaper, The Byron Express. Co-edited by Rusty Miller and David Guthrie, this paper presented and mediated the aims and desires of the Aquarian movement. Though short-lived, as only 7 issues were published from 15 February 1973 to September 1973, The Byron Express left a permanent printed vestige of the Aquarian counterculture movement’s activism and ideals from an independent regional perspective. Miller’s credentials for starting up the newspaper are clear–he has always been a trailblazer, mixing “smarts” with surfing and environmental politics. After graduating from a Bachelor of Arts in history from San Diego State College, he first set foot in Byron Bay during his two semesters with the inaugural Chapman College affiliated University of the Seven Seas in 1965-6. Returning to his hometown of Encinitas, he co-founded the Surf Research accessory company with legendary Californian surfer Mike Doyle, and launched Waxmate, the first specially formulated surf wax in 1967 (Davis, Witzig & James; Warshaw 217), selling his interest in the business soon after to spend a couple of years “living the counterculture life on the Hawaiian Island of Kauai” (Davis, Witzig & James), before heading back to Byron Bay via Bells Beach in 1970 (Miller & Shantz) and Sydney, where he worked as an advertising salesman and writer with Tracks surfing magazine (Martin & Ellis). In 1971, he was one of the first to ride the now famous waves of Uluwatu in Bali, and is captured with Steven Cooney in the iconic publicity image for Albe Falzon’s 1971 film, Morning Of The Earth. The champion surfer from the US knew a thing or two about counterculture, alternative media, advertising and business when he found his new utopian context in Byron Bay. Miller and Guthrie’s front-page editorial of the inaugural issue of The Byron Express, published on 15 February 1973, with the byline “for a higher shire”, expressed the countercultural (cl)aims of the publication. Land use, property development and the lack of concern that some people in Byron had for their impact on the environment and people of the region were a prime target: With this first issue of the Byron Express, we hope to explain that the area is badly in need of a focal point. The transitions of present are vast and moving fast. The land is being sold and resold. Lots of money is coming into the area in the way of developments […] caravan parts, hotels, businesses and real estate. Many of the trips incoming are not exactly “concerned” as to what long term effect such developments might have on the environment and its people. We hope to serve as a focus of concern and service, a centre for expression and reflection. We would ask your contributions in vocal and written form. We are ready for some sock it to ya criticism… and hope you would grab us upon the street to tell us how you feel…The mission of this alternative newspaper is thereby defined by the need for a “focal point” that inscribes the voices of the community in a freely accessible narrative, recorded in print for posterity. Although this first issue contains no mention of the Aquarius Festival, there were already rumours circulating about it, as organisers Graeme Dunstan and Johnny Allen had been up to Main Arm, Mullumbimby and Nimbin on reconnaissance missions beginning in September 1972. Instead, there was an article on “Mullumbimby Man–Close to the Land” by Nicholas Shand, who would go on to found the community-based weekly newspaper The Echo in 1986, then called The Brunswick Valley Echo and still going strong. Another by Bob McTavish asked whether there could be a better form of government; there was a surf story, and a soul food section with a recipe for honey meade entitled “Do you want to get out of it on 10 cents a bottle?” The second issue continues in much the same vein. It is not until the third issue comes out on 17 March 1973 that the Aquarius Festival is mentioned in a skinny half column on page four. And it’s not particularly promising: Arrived at Nimbin, sleepy hamlet… Office in disused R.S.L. rooms, met a couple of guys recently arrived, said nothing was being done. “Only women here, you know–no drive”. Met Joanne and Vi, both unable to say anything to be reported… Graham Dunstan (codenamed Superfest) and John Allen nowhere in sight. Allen off on trip overseas. Dunstan due back in a couple of weeks. 10 weeks to go till “they” all come… and to what… nobody is quite sure. This progress report provides a fascinating contemporary insight into the tensions–between the local surfies and hippies on one hand, and the incoming students on the other–around the organisation of the Aquarius Festival. There is an unbridled barb at the sexist comments made by the guys, implicit criticism of the absent organisers, obvious skepticism about whether anyone will actually come to the festival, and wonderment at what it will be like. Reading between the lines, we might find a feeling of resentment about not being privy to new developments in their own backyard. The final lines of the article are non-committal “Anyway, let’s see what eventuates when the Chiefs return.” It seems that all has been resolved by the fifth issue of 11 May, which is almost entirely dedicated to the Aquarius Festival with the front page headline “Welcome to the New Age”. But there is still an undertone of slight suspicion at what the newcomers to the area might mean in terms of property development: The goal is improving your fellow man’s mind and nourishment in concert with your own; competition to improve your day and the quality of the day for society. Meanwhile, what is the first thing one thinks about when he enters Byron and the area? The physical environment is so magnificent and all encompassing that it can actually hold a man’s breath back a few seconds. Then a man says, “Wow, this land is so beautiful that one could make a quid here.” And from that moment the natural aura and spells are broken and the mind lapses into speculative equations, sales projections and future interest payments. There is plenty of “love” though, in this article: “The gathering at Nimbin is the most spectacular demonstration of the faith people have in a belief that is possible (and possible just because they want it to be) to live in love, through love together.” The following article signed by Rusty Miller “A Town Together” is equally focused on love: “See what you could offer the spirit at Nimbin. It might introduce you to a style that could lead to LOVE.” The centre spread features photos: the obligatory nudes, tents, and back to nature activities, like planting and woodworking. With a text box of “random comments” including one from a Lismore executive: ‘I took my wife and kids out there last weekend and we had such a good time. Seems pretty organized and the town was loaded with love. Heard there is some hepatitis about and rumours of VD. Everyone happy.” And another from a land speculator (surely the prime target of Miller’s wrath): “Saw guys kissing girls on the street, so sweet, bought 200 acres right outside of town, it’s going to be valuable out there some day.” The interview with Johnny Allen as the centrepiece includes some pertinent commentary on the media and reveals a well-founded suspicion of the mediatisation of the Aquarius Festival: We have tried to avoid the media actually. But we haven’t succeeded in doing so. Part of the basic idea is that we don’t need to be sold. All the down town press can do is try and interpret you. And by doing that it automatically places it in the wrong sort of context. So we’ve tried to keep it to people writing about the festival to people who will be involved in it. It’s an involvement festival. Coopting The Byron Express as an “involved” party effects a fundamental shift from an external reporting newspaper to a kind of proponent or even propaganda for the Aquarius festival and its ideas, like so many utopian newspapers had done before. It is therefore perhaps inevitable that The Byron Express should disappear very soon after the Aquarius festival. Fiona Martin and Rhonda Ellis explain that Rusty Miller stopped producing the paper because he “found the production schedule exhausting and his readership too small to attract consistent advertising” (5). At any rate, there were only two more issues, one in June–with some follow up reporting of the festival–and another in September 1973, which was almost entirely devoted to environmentally focused features, including an interview with Kath Walker (Oodgeroo Noonuccal). Byron Bay 2013: Thirty Years of Rusty’s Byron Guide What Rusty did next is fairly well known locally–surfing and teaching people how to surf and a bit of writing. When major local employer Walkers slaughterhouse closed in 1983, he and his wife, social geographer Tricia Shantz, were asked by the local council to help promote Byron Bay as a tourist destination, writing the first Byron guide in 1983-4. Incorporating essays by local personalities and dedicated visitors, the Byron guide perpetuates the ideal of environmental awareness, spiritual experimentation, and respect for the land and sea. Recent contributors have included philosopher Peter Singer, political journalist Kerry O’Brien, and writer John Ralston Saul, and Miller and Shantz always have an essay in there themselves. “People, Politics and Culture” is the new byline for the 2013 edition. And Miller’s opening essay mediates the same utopian desires and environmental community messages that he espoused from the beginning of The Byron Express: The name Byron Bay represents something that we constantly try to articulate. If one was to dream up a menu of situations and conditions to compose a utopia, Australia would be the model of the nation-state and Byron would have many elements of the actual place one might wish to live for the rest of their lives. But of course there is always the danger of excesses in tropical paradises especially when they become famous destinations. Australia is being held to ransom for the ideology that we should be slaves to money and growth at the cost of a degraded and polluted physical and social environment. Byron at least was/is a refuge against this profusion of the so-called real-world perception that holds profit over environment as the way we must choose for our future. Even when writing for a much more commercial medium, Miller retains the countercultural utopian spirit that was crystallised in the Aquarius festival of 1973, and which remains relevant to many of those living in and visiting the Rainbow Region. Miller’s ethos moves beyond the alternative movements and communities to infiltrate travel writing and tourism initiatives in the area today, as evidenced in the Rusty’s Byron Guide essays. By presenting more radical discourses for a mainstream public, Miller together with Shantz have built on the participatory role that he played in launching the region’s first alternative newspaper in 1973 that became albeit briefly the equivalent of a countercultural utopian gazette. Now, he and Shantz effectively play the same role, producing a kind of countercultural form of utopian media for Byron Bay that corresponds to exactly the same criteria mentioned above. Through their free publication, they aim to educate, socialise, promote and represent the special interests of the founders and followers of the Rainbow Region, focusing on the philosophy and ideals underpinning these communities rather than the everyday events. The Byron Bay that Miller and Shantz promote is resolutely utopian, and certainly countercultural if compared to other free publications like The Book, a new shopping guide, or mainstream media elsewhere. Despite this new competition, they are planning the next edition for 2015 with essays to make people think, talk, and understand the region’s issues, so perhaps the counterculture is still holding its own against the mainstream. References Atton, Chris. “What Is ‘Alternative’ Journalism?” Journalism: Theory, Practice, Criticism 4.3 (2003): 267-72. Berger, Bennett M. The Survival of a Counterculture: Ideological Work and Everyday Life among Rural Communards. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 2004. Cock, Peter H., & Paul F. Perry. “Australia's Alternative Media.” Media Information Australia 6 (1977): 4-13. Couldry, Nick. “Mediation and Alternative Media, or Relocating the Centre of Media and Communication Studies.” Media International Australia, Incorporating Culture & Policy 103, (2002): 24-31. Davis, Dale, John Witzig & Don James. “Rusty Miller.” Encyclopedia of Surfing. 10 Nov. 2014 ‹http://encyclopediaofsurfing.com/entries/miller-rusty›. Downing, John. Radical Media: Rebellious Communication and Social Movements. Thousand Oaks: Sage. Davis, J.C. Utopia and the Ideal Society: A Study of English Utopian Writing 1516-1700. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1983. Forde, Susan. Challenging the News: The Journalism of Alternative and Independent Media. Palgrave Macmillan: London, 2011. ---. “Monitoring the Establishment: The Development of the Alternative Press in Australia” Media International Australia, Incorporating Culture & Policy 87 (May 1998): 114-133. Frobert, Lucien. “French Utopian Socialists as the First Pioneers in Development.” Cambridge Journal of Economics 35 (2011): 729-49. Green, Toby. Thomas More’s Magician: A Novel Account of Utopia in Mexico. London: Phoenix, 2004. Goffman, Ken, & Dan Joy. Counterculture through the Ages: From Abraham to Acid House. New York: Villard Books. 2004. Haude, Sigrun. “Anabaptism.” The Reformation World. Ed. Andrew Pettegree. London: Routledge, 2000. 237-256. Jameson, Fredric. Archeologies of the Future: The Desire Called Utopia and Other Science Fictions. New York: Verso, 2005. Levitas, Ruth. Utopia as Method. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013. Martin, Fiona, & Rhonda Ellis. “Dropping In, Not Out: The Evolution of the Alternative Press in Byron Shire 1970-2001.” Transformations 2 (2002). 10 Nov. 2014 ‹http://www.transformationsjournal.org/journal/issue_02/pdf/MartinEllis.pdf›. McKay, George. Senseless Acts of Beauty: Cultures of Resistance since the Sixties. London: Verso, 1996. Metcalf, Bill. From Utopian Dreaming to Communal Reality: Cooperative Lifestyles in Australia. Sydney: University of New South Wales Press, 1995. ---. Shared Visions, Shared Lives: Communal Living around the Globe. Forres, UK: Findhorn Press, 1996. Miller, Rusty & Tricia Shantz. Turning Point: Surf Portraits and Stories from Bells to Byron 1970-1971. Surf Research. 2012. Molnar, Thomas. Utopia: The Perennial Heresy. London: Tom Stacey, 1972. Moylan, Tom. Demand the Impossible: Science Fiction and the Utopian Imagination. New York: Methuen, 1986. Munro-Clark, Margaret. Communes in Rural Australia: The Movement since 1970. Sydney: Hale & Iremonger, 1986. Osterlag, Bob. People’s Movements, People’s Press: The Journalism of Social Justice Movements. Boston: Beacon Press, 2006. Roszak, Theodore. The Making of a Counter Culture: Reflections on the Technocratic Society and Its Youthful Opposition. New York: Anchor, 1969. Sargent, Lyman Tower. “Three Faces of Utopianism Revisited.” Utopian Studies 5.1 (1994): 1-37. Schaer, Roland, Gregory Claeys, and Lyman Tower Sargent, eds. Utopia: The Search for the Ideal Society in the Western World. New York: New York Public Library/Oxford UP, 2000. Streitmatter, Roger. Voices of Revolution: The Dissident Press in America. Columbia: Columbia UP, 2001. Suvin, Darko. Metamorphoses of Science Fiction: On the Poetics and History of a Literary Genre. New Haven: Yale UP, 1979. Ward, Susan, & Kitty van Vuuren. “Belonging to the Rainbow Region: Place, Local Media, and the Construction of Civil and Moral Identities Strategic to Climate Change Adaptability.” Environmental Communication 7.1 (2013): 63-79. Warshaw, Matt. The History of Surfing. San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2011. Wilson, Helen. (Ed.). Belonging in the Rainbow Region: Cultural Perspectives on the NSW North Coast. Lismore, NSW: Southern Cross University Press, 2003. Widmer, Kingsley. Counterings: Utopian Dialectics in Contemporary Contexts. Ann Arbor, London: UMI Research Press, 1988. Yinger, J. Milton. Countercultures: The Promise and Peril of a World Turned Upside Down. New York: The Free Press, 1982.

IntroductionIn regional Australia and New Zealand, museums and art galleries are increasingly becoming primary sites of cultural engagement. They are one of the key tourist attractions for regional towns and expected to generate much needed tourism revenue. In 2017 in New South Wales alone, there were three million visitors to regional galleries and museums (MGNSW 13). However, apart from those (partially) funded by local councils, they are often run on donations, good will, and the enthusiasm of volunteers. Regional museums and galleries provide some paid, and more unpaid, employment for ageing populations. While two-thirds of Australia’s population lives in capital cities, the remainder who live in regional towns are likely to be in the 60+ age cohort because people are choosing to retire away from the bustling, growing cities (ABS). At last count, there were about 3000 museums and galleries in Australia with about 80% of them located in regional areas (Scott). Over the last 40 years, this figure has tripled from the 1000 regional and provincial museums estimated by Peter Piggott in his 1975 report (24). According to a 2014 survey (Shaw and Davidson), New Zealand has about 470 museums and galleries and about 70% are located outside capital cities. The vast majority, 85%, have less than five, full-time paid staff, and more than half of these were run entirely by ageing volunteers. They are entrusted with managing the vast majority of the history and heritage collections of Australia and New Zealand. These ageing volunteers need a diverse range of skills and experience to care for and interpret collections. How do you find the time and budget for professional development for both paid staff and volunteers? Many professional development events are held in capital cities, which are often a significant distance from the regional museum—this adds substantially to the costs of attending and the time commitment required to get there. In addition, it is not uncommon for people working in regional museums to be responsible for everything—from security, collection management, conservation, research, interpretation and public programs to changing the light bulbs. While there are a large number of resources available online, following a manual is often more difficult than learning from other colleagues or learning in a more formal educational or vocational environment where you can receive timely feedback on your work. Further, a foundational level of prior knowledge and experience is often required to follow written instructions. This article will suggest some strategies for low cost professional development and networking. It involves planning, thinking strategically and forming partnerships with others in the region. It is time to harness the power of modern communications technology and use it as a tool for professional development. Some models of professional development in regional areas that have been implemented in the past will also be reviewed. The focus for this article is on training and professional development for workers in regional museums, heritage sites and keeping places. Regional art galleries have not been included because they tend to have separate regional networks and training opportunities. For example, there are professional development opportunities provided through the Art Galleries Association of Australia and their state branches. Regional galleries are also far more likely to have one or more paid staff members (Winkworth, “Fixing the Slums” 2). Regional Museums, Volunteers, and Social CapitalIt is widely accepted that regional museums and galleries enhance social capital and reduce social isolation (Kelly 32; Burton and Griffin 328). However, while working in a regional museum or gallery can help to build friendship networks, it can also be professionally isolating. How do you benchmark what you do against other places if you are two or more hours drive from those places? How do you learn from other colleagues if all your colleagues are also isolated by the ‘tyranny of distance’ and struggling with the same lack of access to training? In 2017 in New South Wales alone, there were 8,629 active volunteers working in regional museums and galleries giving almost five million hours, which Museums and Galleries NSW calculated was worth over $150 million per annum in unpaid labour (MGNSW 1). Providing training and professional development to this group is an investment in Australia’s social and cultural capital.Unlike other community-run groups, the museums and heritage places which have emerged in regional Australia and New Zealand are not part of a national or state branch network. Volunteers who work for the Red Cross, Scouts or Landcare benefit from being part of a national organisation which provides funding, support workers, a website, governance structure, marketing, political advocacy and training (Winkworth, “Let a Thousand Flowers” 11). In Australia and New Zealand, this role is undertaken by the Australian Museums and Galleries Association AMaGA (formerly Museums Australia) and Museums Aotearoa respectively. However, both of these groups operate at the macro policy level, for example organising annual conferences, publishing a journal and developing Indigenous policy frameworks, rather than the local, practical level. In 1995, due to their advocacy work, Landcare Australia received $500 million over five years from the federal government to fund 5000 Landcare groups, which are run by 120,000 volunteers (Oppenheimer 177). They argued successfully that the sustainable development of land resources started at the local level. What do we need to do to convince government of the need for sustainable development of our local and regional museum and heritage resources?Training for Volunteers Working in Regional Museums: The Current SituationAnother barrier to training for regional museum workers is the assumption that the 70:20:10 model of professional development should apply. That is, 70% of one’s professional development is done ‘on the job’ by completing tasks and problem-solving; 20% is achieved by learning from mentors, coaches and role models and 10% is learnt from attending conferences and symposia and enrolling in formal courses of study. However, this model pre-supposes that there are people in your workplace whom you can learn from and who can show you how to complete a task, and that you are not destroying or damaging a precious, unique object if you happen to make a mistake.Some museum volunteers come with skills in research, marketing, administration, customer service or photography, but very few come with specific museum skills like writing exhibition text, registering an acquisition or conserving artefacts. These skills need to be taught. As Kylie Winkworth has written, museum management now requires a [...] skills set, which is not so readily found in small communities, and which in many ways is less rewarding for the available volunteers, who may have left school at 15. We do not expect volunteer librarians to catalogue books, which are in any case of low intrinsic value, but we still expect volunteers in their 70s and 80s to catalogue irreplaceable heritage collections and meet ever more onerous museum standards. That so many volunteers manage to do this is extraordinary. (“Let a Thousand Flowers” 13)Workers in regional museums are constantly required to step outside their comfort zones and learn new skills with minimal professional support. While these challenging experiences can be very rewarding, they are also potentially damaging for our irreplaceable material cultural heritage.Training for museum professionals has been on the agenda of the International Council of Museums (ICOM) since 1947 (Boylan 62). However, until 1996, their work focused on recommending curricula for new museum professionals and did not include life-long learning and on-going professional development. ICOM’s International Committee for the Training of Personnel (ICTOP) and the ICOM Executive has responded to this in their new curricula—ICOM Curricula Guidelines for Professional Museum Development, but this does not address the difficulties staff or volunteers working in regional areas face in accessing training.In some parts of Australia, there are regional support and professional development programs in place. For example, in Queensland, there is the Museum Development Officer (MDO) network. However, because of the geographic size of the state and the spread of the museums, these five regionally based staff often have 60-80 museums or keeping places in their region needing support and so their time and expertise is spread very thinly. It is also predominantly a fee-for-service arrangement. That is, the museums have to pay for the MDO to come and deliver training. Usually this is done by the MDO working with a local museum to apply for a Regional Arts Development Fund (RADF) grant. In Victoria there is a roving curator program where eligible regional museums can apply to have a professional curator come and work with them for a few days to help the volunteers curate exhibitions. The roving curator can also provide advice on “develop[ing] high quality exhibitions for diverse audiences” via email, telephone and networking events. Tasmania operates a similar scheme but their two roving curators are available for up to 25 days of work each year with eligible museums, provided the local council makes a financial contribution. The New South Wales government supports the museum advisor program through which a museum professional will come to your museum for up to 20 days/year to give advice and hands-on training—provided your local council pays $7000, an amount that is matched by the state government—for this service. In 2010, in response to recommendations in the Dunn Report (2007), the Collections Council of Australia (CCA) established a pilot project with the City of Kalgoorlie-Boulder in Western Australia and $120,000 in funding from the Myer Foundation to trial the provision of a paid Collections Care Coordinator who would provide free training, expertise and support to local museums in the region. Tragically, CCA was de-funded by the Cultural Ministers Council the same year and the roll-out of a hub and spoke regional model was not supported by government due to the lack of an evidence base (Winkworth, “Let a Thousand Flowers” 18). An evaluation of the trial project would have tested a different model of regional training and added to the evidence base.All these state-based models (except the aborted Collections Care hub in Western Australia) require small regional museums to compete with each other for access to a museum professional and to successfully apply for funding, usually from their local council or state government. If they are successful, the training that is delivered is a one-off, as they are unlikely to get a second slice of the regional pie.An alternative to this competitive, fly-in fly-out, one-off model of professional development is to harness the technology and resources of local libraries and other cultural facilities in regional areas. This is what the Sydney Opera House Trust did in March 2019 to deliver their All about Women program of speakers via live streaming to 37 satellite sites throughout Australia and New Zealand.Harnessing Technology and Using Regional Library Infrastructure to Provide Training: ScenarioImagine the following scenario. It is a Monday morning in a regional library in Dubbo, New South Wales. Dubbo is 391 km or five hours drive by car from the nearest capital city (Sydney) and there are 50 regional museums within a 100 km radius. Ten people are gathered in a meeting room at the library watching a live stream of the keynote speakers who are presenting at their national museums conference. They are from five regional museums where they work as volunteers or part-time paid staff. They cannot afford to pay $2000, or more, to attend the conference, but they are happy to self-fund to drive for an hour or two to link up with other colleagues to listen to the presentations. They make notes and tweet in their questions using the conference twitter handle and hashtag. They have not been exposed to international speakers in the industry before and the ideas presented are fresh and stimulating. When the conference breaks for morning tea, they take a break too and get to know each other over a cuppa (provided free of charge by the library). Just as the networking sessions at conferences are vitally important for the delegates, they are even more important to address social isolation amongst this group. When they reconvene, they discuss their questions and agree to email the presenters with the questions that are unresolved. After the conference keynote sessions finish, the main conference (in the capital city) disperses into parallel sessions, which are no longer available via live stream.To make the two-hour drive more worthwhile and continue their professional development, they have arranged to hold a significance assessment workshop as well. Each museum worker has brought along photographs of one item in their collection that they want to do more research on. Some of them have also brought the object, if it is small and robust enough to travel. They have downloaded copies of Significance 2.0 and read it before they arrived. They started to write significance reports but could not fully understand how to apply some of the criteria. They cannot afford to pay for professional workshop facilitators, but they have arranged for the local studies librarian to give them an hour of free training on using the library’s resources (online and onsite) to do research on the local area and local families. They learn more about Trove, Papers Past and other research tools which are available online. This is hands-on and computer-based skills training using their own laptops/tablets or the ones provided by the library. After the training with the librarian, they break into two groups and read each other’s significance reports and make suggestions. The day finishes with a cuppa at 2.30pm giving them time to drive home before the sun sets. They agree to exchange email addresses so they can keep in touch. All the volunteers and staff who attended these sessions in regional areas feel energised after these meetings. They no longer feel so isolated and like they are working in the dark. They feel supported just knowing that there are other people who are struggling with the same issues and constraints as they are. They are sick of talking about the lack of budget, expertise, training and resources and want to do something with what they have.Bert (fictional name) decides that it is worth capitalising on this success. He emails the people who came to the session in Dubbo to ask them if they would like to do it again but focus on some different training needs. He asks them to choose two of the following three professional development options. First, they can choose to watch and discuss a recording of the keynote presentations from day two of the recent national conference. The conference organisers have uploaded digital recordings of the speakers’ presentations and the question time to the AMaGA website. This is an option for local libraries that do not have sufficient bandwidth to live stream video. The local library technician will help them cast the videos to a large screen. Second, they can each bring an object from their museum collection that they think needs conservation work. If the item is too fragile or big to move, they will bring digital photographs of it instead. Bert consulted their state-based museum and found some specialist conservators who have agreed to Skype or Facetime them in Dubbo free of charge, to give them expert advice about how to care for their objects, and most importantly, what not to do. The IT technician at Dubbo Library can set up their meeting room so that they can cast the Skype session onto a large smart screen TV. One week before the event, they will send a list of their objects and photographs of them to the conservator so that she can prepare, and they can make best use of her time. After this session, they will feel more confident about undertaking small cleaning and flattening treatments and know when they should not attempt a treatment themselves and need to call on the experts. Third, they could choose to have a training session with the council’s grants officer on writing grant applications. As he assesses grant applications, he can tell them what local councils look for in a successful grant application. He can also inform them about some of the grants that might be relevant to them. After the formal training, there will be an opportunity for them to exchange information about the grants they have applied for in the past—sometimes finding out what’s available can be difficult—and work in small groups to critique each other’s grant applications.The group chooses options two and three, as they want more practical skills development. They take a break in the middle of the day for lunch, which gives them the opportunity to exchange anecdotes from their volunteer work and listen to and support each other. They feel validated and affirmed. They have gained new skills and don’t feel so isolated. Before they leave, Alice agrees to get in touch with everyone to organise their next regional training day.Harnessing Technology and Using Regional Library Infrastructure to Provide Training: BenefitsThese scenarios need not be futuristic. The training needs are real, as is the desire to learn and the capacity of libraries to support regional groups. While funding for regional museums has stagnated or declined in recent years, libraries have been surging ahead. In August 2018, the New South Wales Government announced an “historic investment” of $60 million into all 370 public libraries that would “transform the way NSW’s public libraries deliver much-needed services, especially in regional areas” (Smith). Libraries are equipped and charged with the responsibility of enabling local community groups to make best use of their resources. Most state and national museum workers are keen to share their expertise with their regional colleagues: funding and distance are often the only barriers. These scenarios allow national conference keynote speakers to reach a much larger audience than the conference attendees. While this strategy might reduce the number of workers from regional areas who pay to attend conferences, the reality is that due to distance, other volunteer commitments, expense and family responsibilities, they probably would not attend anyway. Most regional museums and galleries and their staff might be asset-rich, but they are cash-poor, and the only way their workers get to attend conferences is if they win a bursary or grant. In 2005, Winkworth said: “the future for community museums is to locate them within local government as an integral part of the cultural, educational and economic infrastructure of the community, just like libraries and galleries” (“Fixing the Slums” 7). Fourteen years on, very little progress has been made in this direction. Those museums which have been integrated into the local council infrastructure, such as at Orange and Wagga Wagga in western New South Wales, are doing much better than those that are still stuck in ‘cultural poverty’ and trying to operate independently.However, the co-location and convergence of museums, libraries and archives is only successful if it is well managed. Helena Robinson has examined the impact on museum collection management and interpretation of five local government funded, converged collecting institutions in Australia and New Zealand and found that the process is complex and does not necessarily result in “optimal” cross-disciplinary expertise or best practice outcomes (14158).ConclusionRobinson’s research, however, did not consider community-based collecting institutions using regional libraries as sites for training and networking. By harnessing local library resources and making better use of existing communications technology it is possible to create regional hubs for professional development and collegiate support, which are not reliant on grants. If the current competitive, fly-in fly-out, self-funded model of providing professional development and support to regional museums continues, then the future for our cultural heritage collections and the dedicated volunteers who care for them is bleak. Alternatively, the scenarios I have described give regional museum workers agency to address their own professional development needs. This in no way removes the need for leadership, advocacy and coordination by national representative bodies such as AMaGA and Museums Aotearoa. If AMaGA partnered with the Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA) to stream their conference keynote sessions to strategically located regional libraries and used some of their annual funding from the Department of Communication and the Arts to pay for museum professionals to travel to some of those sites to deliver training, they would be investing in the nation’s social and cultural capital and addressing the professional development needs of regional museum workers. This would also increase the sustainability of our cultural heritage collections, which are valuable economic assets.ReferencesAustralian Bureau of Statistics. “2071.0—Census of Population and Housing: Reflecting Australia—Snapshot of Australia, 2016”. Canberra: Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2017. 17 Mar. 2019 <https://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/by%20Subject/2071.0~2016~Main%20Features~Snapshot%20of%20Australia,%202016~2>.Boylan, Patrick. “The Intangible Heritage: A Challenge and an Opportunity for Museums and Museum Professional Training.” International Journal of Intangible Heritage 1 (2006): 53–65.Burton, Christine, and Jane Griffin. “More than a Museum? Understanding How Small Museums Contribute to Social Capital in Regional Communities.” Asia Pacific Journal of Arts & Cultural Management 5.1 (2008): 314–32. 17 Mar. 2019 <http://apjacm.arts.unimelb.edu.au/article/view/32>.Dunn, Anne. The Dunn Report: A Report on the Concept of Regional Collections Jobs. Adelaide: Collections Council of Australia, 2007.ICOM Curricula Guidelines for Professional Museum Development. 2000. <http://museumstudies.si.edu/ICOM-ICTOP/comp.htm>.Kelly, Lynda. “Measuring the Impact of Museums on Their Communities: The Role of the 21st Century Museum.” New Roles and Issues of Museums INTERCOM Symposium (2006): 25–34. 17 Mar. 2019 <https://media.australianmuseum.net.au/media/dd/Uploads/Documents/9355/impact+paper+INTERCOM+2006.bb50ba1.pdf>.Museums and Galleries New South Wales (MGNSW). 2018 NSW Museums and Galleries Sector Census. Museums and Galleries of New South Wales. Data and Insights—Culture Counts. Sydney: MGNSW, 2019. 17 Mar. 2019 <https://mgnsw.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/2018-NSW-Museum-Gallery-Sector-Census.pdf>Oppenheimer, Melanie. Volunteering: Why We Can’t Survive without It. Sydney: U of New South Wales P, 2008.Pigott, Peter. Museums in Australia 1975. Report of the Committee of Inquiry on Museums and National Collections Including the Report of the Planning Committee on the Gallery of Aboriginal Australia. Canberra: Australian Government Printing Service, 1975. 17 Mar. 2019 <https://apo.org.au/node/35268>.Public Sector Commission, Western Australia. 70:20:10 Framework Learning Philosophy. Perth: Government of Western Australia, 2018. 17 Mar. 2019 <https://publicsector.wa.gov.au/centre-public-sector-excellence/about-centre/702010-framework>.Robinson, Helena. “‘A Lot of People Going That Extra Mile’: Professional Collaboration and Cross-Disciplinarity in Converged Collecting Institutions.” Museum Management and Curatorship 31 (2016): 141–58.Scott, Lee. National Operations Manager, Museums Australia, Personal Communication. 22 Oct. 2018.Shaw, Iain, and Lee Davidson, Museums Aotearoa 2014 Sector Survey Report. Wellington: Victoria U, 2014. 17 Mar. 2019 <http://www.museumsaotearoa.org.nz/sites/default/files/documents/museums_aotearoa_sector_survey_2014_report_-_final_draft_oct_2015.pdf>.Smith, Alexandra. “NSW Libraries to Benefit from $60 Million Boost.” Sydney Morning Herald 24 Aug. 2018. 17 Mar. 2019 <https://www.smh.com.au/politics/nsw/nsw-libraries-to-benefit-from-60-million-boost-20180823-p4zzdj.html>. Winkworth, Kylie. “Fixing the Slums of Australian Museums; or Sustaining Heritage Collections in Regional Australia.” Museums Australia Conference Paper. Canberra: Museums Australia, 2005. ———. “Let a Thousand Flowers Bloom: Museums in Regional Australia.” Understanding Museums—Australian Museums and Museology. Eds. Des Griffin and Leon Paroissien. Canberra: National Museum of Australia, 2011. 17 Mar. 2019 <https://nma.gov.au/research/understanding-museums/KWinkworth_2011.html>.

IntroductionBushfires have taken numerous lives and destroyed communities throughout Australia over many years. Catastrophic fire weather alerts have occurred during the Australian summer of 2012–13, and long-term forecasts predict increased bushfire events throughout several areas of Australia. This article highlights how organisational and individual responses to bushfire in Australia often entail creative responses—either improvised responses at the time of bushfire emergencies or innovative (organisational, strategic, or technological) changes which help protect the community from, or mitigate against, future bushfire catastrophes. These improvised or innovative responses include emergency communications systems, practices, and devices. This article reports on findings from a research project funded by the Australian Research Council titled Using Community Engagement and Enhanced Visual Information to Promote FireWatch Satellite Communications as a Support for Collaborative Decision-making. FireWatch is a Web-based public information product based on near real time satellite data produced by the West Australian (WA) Government entity, Landgate. The project researches ways in which remote and regional publics can be engaged and mobilised through the development of a more user-friendly FireWatch site to make fire information accessible and usable, allowing a community-focused response to risk.The significance of the research project is evident both in how it addresses the important and life-threatening challenge of bushfires; and also in how Australia’s increasingly hot, dry, long summers are adding to historically-established risks. This innovative project uses an iterative, participatory design process incorporating action-research practices. This will ensure that the new Firewatch interface is redesigned, tested, observed, and reflected upon multiple times—and will incorporate the collective creativity of users, designers, and researchers.The qualitative findings reported on in this article are based on 19 interviews with community members in the town of Kununurra in the remote Kimberley region of WA. The findings are positioned within a reconceptualised framework in which creativity is viewed as an essential component of successful emergency responses. This includes, we argue, two critical aspects of creativity: improvisation during a catastrophic event; and ongoing innovation to improve future responses to catastrophes—including communication practices and technologies. This shifts the discourse within the literature in relation to the effective management and community responses to the changing phenomenon of fire catastrophes. Findings from the first round of interviews, and results of enquiries into previous bushfires in Australia, are used to highlight how these elements of creativity often entail a collective creativity on the part of emergency responders or the community in general. An additional focus is on the importance of the critical use of communication during a bushfire event.ImprovisationThe notion of "improvisation" is often associated with artistic performance. Nonetheless, improvisation is also integral to making effectual responses during natural catastrophes. “Extreme events present unforeseen conditions and problems, requiring a need for adaptation, creativity, and improvisation while demanding efficient and rapid delivery of services under extreme conditions” (Harrald 257).Catastrophes present us with unexpected scenarios and require rapid, on the spot problem solving and “even if you plan for a bushfire it is not going to go to plan. When the wind changes direction there has to be a new plan” (Jeff. Personal Interview. 2012). Jazz musicians or improvisational actors “work to build their knowledge across a range of fields, and this knowledge provides the elements for each improvisational outcome” (Kendra and Wachendorf 2). Similarly, emergency responders’ knowledge and preparation can be drawn “upon in the ambiguous and dynamic conditions of a disaster where not every need has been anticipated or accounted for” (Kendra and Wachtendorf 2). Individuals and community organisations not associated with emergency services also improvise in a creative and intuitive manner in the way they respond to catastrophes (Webb and Chevreau). For example, during the 9/11 terrorism catastrophe in the USA an assorted group of boat owners rapidly self-organised to evacuate Lower Manhattan. On their return trips, they carried emergency personnel and supplies to the area (Kendra and Wachendorf 5). An interviewee in our study also recalls bush fire incidents where creative problem solving and intuitive decision-making are called for. “It’s like in a fire, you have to be thinking fast. You need to be semi self-sufficient until help arrives. But without doing anything stupid and creating a worse situation” (Kelly. Personal Interview. 2012). Kelly then describes the rapid community response she witnessed during a recent fire on the outskirts of Kununurra, WA.Everyone had to be accounted for, moving cars, getting the tractors out, protecting the bores because you need the water. It happens really fast and it is a matter of rustling everyone up with the machinery. (2012)In this sense, the strength of communities in responding to catastrophes or disasters “results largely from the abilities of [both] individuals and organisations to adapt and improvise under conditions of uncertainty” (Webb and Chevreau 67). These improvised responses frequently involve a collective creativity—where groups of neighbours or emergency workers act in response to the unforseen, often in a unified and self-organising manner. InnovationCatastrophes also stimulate change and innovation for the future. Disasters create a new environment that must be explored, assessed, and comprehended. Disasters change the physical and social landscape, and thereby require a period of exploration, learning, and the development of new approaches. (Kendra and Wachtendorf 6)These new approaches can include organisational change, new response strategies, and technologies and communication improvements. Celebrated inventor Benjamin Franklin, for instance, facilitated the formation of the first Volunteer Fire department in the 1850s as a response to previous urban fire catastrophes in the USA (Mumford 258). This organisational innovation continues to play an instrumental part in modern fire fighting practices. Indeed, people living in rural and remote areas of Australia are heavily reliant on volunteer groups, due to the sparse population and vast distances that need to be covered.As with most inventions and innovations, new endeavours aimed at improving responses to catastrophes do not occur in a vacuum. They “are not just accidents, nor the inscrutable products of sporadic genius, but have abundant and clear causes in prior scientific and technological development” (Gifillian 61). Likewise, the development of our user-friendly and publically available FireWatch site relies on the accumulation of preceding inventions and innovations. This includes the many years spent developing the existing FireWatch site, a site dense in information of significant value to scientists, foresters, land managers, and fire experts.CommunicationsOften overlooked in discussions regarding emergency communications is the microgeographical exchanges that occur in response to the threat of natural disasters. This is where neighbours fill the critical period before emergency service responders can appear on site. In this situation, it is often local knowledge that underpins improvised grassroots communication networks that inform and organise the neighbourhood. During a recent bushfire on peri-rural blocks on the outskirts of Kununurra, neighbours went into action before emergency services volunteers could respond.We phoned around and someone would phone and call in. Instead of 000 being rung ten times, make sure that one person rang it in. 40 channel [CB Radio] was handy – two-way communication, four wheelers – knocking on doors making sure everyone is out of the house, just in case. (Jane. Personal Interview. 2012) Similarly, individuals and community groups have been able to inform and assist each other on a larger scale via social network technologies (SNTs). This creative application of SNTs began after the 9/11 terror attacks in 2001 when individuals created wikis in order to find missing persons (Palen and Lui). Twitter has experienced considerable growth and was used freely during the 2009 Black Saturday fires in Australia. Studies of tweeting activity during these fires indicate that “tweets made during Black Saturday are laden with actionable factual information which contrasts with earlier claims that tweets are of no value made of mere random personal notes” (Sinnappan et al. n.p.).Traditionally, official alerts and warnings have been provided to the public via television and radio. However, several inquiries into the recent bushfires within Australia show concern “with the way in which fire agencies deliver information to community members during a bushfire...[and in order to] improve community safety from bushfire, systems need to be implemented that enable community members to communicate information to fire agencies, making use of local knowledge” (Elsworth et al. 8).Technological and social developments over the last decade mean the public no longer relies on a single source of official information (Sorensen and Sorensen). Therefore, SNTs such as Twitter and Facebook are being used by the media and emergency authorities to make information available to the public. These SNTs are dynamic, in that there can be a two-way flow of information between the public and emergency organisations. Nonetheless, there has been limited use of SNTs by emergency agencies to source information posted by in situ residents, in order to help in decision-making (Freeman). Organisational use of multiple communication channels and platforms to inform citizens about bushfire emergencies ensures a greater degree of coverage—in case of communication systems breakdowns or difficulties—as in the telephone alert system breakdown in Kelmscott-Roleystone, WA or a recent fire in Warrnambool, Victoria which took out the regional telephone exchange making telephone calls, mobiles, landlines, and the Internet non-operational (Johnson). The new FireWatch site will provide an additional information option for rural and remote Australians who, often rely on visual sightings and on word-of-mouth to be informed about fires in their region. “The neighbour came over and said - there is a fire, we’d better get our act together because it is going to hit us. No sooner than I turned around, I thought shit, here it comes” (Richard. Personal Interview. 2012). The FireWatch ProjectThe FireWatch project involves the redevelopment of an existing FireWatch website to extend the usability of the product from experts to ordinary users in order to facilitate community-based decision-making and action both before and during bushfire emergencies. To this purpose, the project has been broken down to two distinct, yet interdependent, strands. The community strand involves collaboration within a community (in this case the Kununurra community) in order to carry out a community-centred approach to further development of the site. The design strand involves the development of an intuitive and accessible Web presentation of complex information in clear, unambiguous ways to inform action in stressful circumstances. At this stage, a first round of 19 semi-structured interviews with stakeholders has been conducted in Kununurra to determine fire-related information-seeking behaviours, attitudes to mediated information services in the region, as well as user feedback on a prototype website developed in the design strand of the project. Stakeholders included emergency services personnel (payed and volunteer), shire representatives, tourism operators, small business operators (including tourism operators), a forest manager, a mango farmer, an Indigenous ranger team manager as well as general community members. Interviewees reported dissatisfaction with current information systems. They gave positive feedback about the website prototype. “It’s very much, very easy to follow” (David. Personal Interview. 2012). “It looks so much better than [the old site]. You couldn’t get in that close on [the other site]. It is fantastic” (Lance. Personal Interview. 2012). They also added thought-provoking contributions to the design of the website (to be discussed later).Residents of Kununurra who were interviewed for this research project found bushfire warning communications unsatisfactory, especially during a recent fire on the outskirts of town. People who called 000 had difficulties passing the information on, having to explain exactly where Kununurra was and the location of fires to operators not familiar with the area. When asked how the Kununurra community gets their fire information a Shire representative explained: That is not very good at the moment. The only other way we can think about it is perhaps more updates on things like Facebook, perhaps on a website, but with this current fire there really wasn’t a lot of information and a lot of people didn’t know what was going on. We [the shire] knew because we were talking to the [fire] brigades and to FESA [Fire and Emergency Services Authority] but most residents didn’t have any idea and it looks pretty bad. (Ginny. Personal Interview. 2012) All being well, the new user-friendly FireWatch site will add another platform through which fire information messages are transmitted. Community members will be offered continuously streamed bushfire location information, which is independent of any emergency services communication systems. In particular, rural and remote areas of Australia will have fire information at the ready.The participatory methodology used in the design of the new FireWatch website makes use of collaborative creativity, whereby users’ vision of the website and context are incorporated. This iterative process “creates an equal evolving participatory process between user and designer towards sharing values and knowledge and creating new domains of collective creativity” (Park 2012). The rich and sometimes contradictory suggestions made by interviewees in this project often reflected individual visions of the tasks and information required, and individual preferences regarding the delivery of this information. “I have been thinking about how could this really work for me? I can give you feedback on what has happened in the past but how could it work for me in the future?” (Keith. Personal Interview. 2012). Keith and other community members interviewed in Kununurra indicated a variety of extra functions on the site not expected by the product designers. Some of these unexpected functions were common to most interviewees such as the great importance placed on the inclusion of a satellite view option on the site map (example shown in Figure 1). Jeremy, a member of an Indigenous ranger unit in the Kununurra area, was very keen to incorporate the satellite view options on the site. He explained that some of the older rangers:can’t use GPSs and don’t know time zones or what zones to put in, so they’ll use a satellite-style view. We’ll have Google Earth up on one [screen], and also our [own] imagery up on another [screen] and go that way. Be scrolling in and see – we’ve got a huge fire scar for 2011 around here; another guy will be on another computer zoning in and say, I think it is here. It’s quite simplistic but it works. (Personal Interview. 2012) In the case above, where rangers are already switching between computer screens to incorporate a satellite view into their planning, the importance of a satellite view layer on the FireWatch website makes user context an essential part of the design process. Incorporating many layers on one screen, as recommended by participants also ensures a more elegant solution to an existing problem.Figure 1: Satellite view in the Kununurra area showing features such as gorges, rivers, escarpments and dry riverbedsThis research project will involve further consultation with participants (both online and offline) regarding bushfire safety communications in their region, as well as the further design of the site. The website will be available over multiple devices (for example desktops, smart phones, and hand held tablet devices) and will be launched late this year. Further work will also be carried out to determine if social media is appropriate for this community of users in order to build awareness and share information regarding the site.Conclusion Community members improvise and self-organise when communicating fire information and organising help for each other. This can happen at a microgeographical (neighbourhood) level or on a wider level via social networking sites. Organisations also develop innovative communication systems or devices as a response to the threat of bushfires. Communication innovations, such as the use of Twitter and Facebook by fire emergency services, have been appropriated and fine-tuned by these organisations. Other innovations such as the user-friendly Firewatch site rely on previous technological developments in satellite-delivered imagery—as well as community input regarding the design and use of the site.Our early research into community members’ fire-related information-seeking behaviours and attitudes to mediated information services in the region of Kununurra has found unexpectedly creative responses, which range from collective creativity on the part of emergency responders or the community in general during events to creative use of existing information and communication networks. We intend to utilise this creativity in re-purposing FireWatch alongside the creative work of the designers in the project.Although it is commonplace to think of graphic design and new technology as incorporating creativity, it is rarely acknowledged how frequently these innovations harness everyday perspectives from non-professionals. In the case of the FireWatch developments, the creativity of designers and technologists has been informed by the creative responses of members of the public who are best placed to understand the challenges posed by restricted information flows on the ground in times of crisis. In these situations, people respond not only with new ideas for the future but with innovative responses in the present as they communicate with each other to deal with the challenge of a fast-moving and unpredictable situation. Such improvisation, honed through close awareness of the contours and parameters of both community and communication, are one of the ways through which people help keep themselves and each other safe in the face of dramatic developments.ReferencesElsworth, G., and K. Stevens, J. Gilbert, H. Goodman, A Rhodes. "Evaluating the Community Safety Approach to Bushfires in Australia: Towards an Assessment of What Works and How." 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NATO Advanced Research Workshop on Understanding and Responding to Terrorism: A Multi-Dimensional Approach. Washington, DC, 8-9 Sep. 2006.———. "Creativity in Emergency Response after the World Trade Centre Attack". Amud Conference of the International Emergency Management Society. University of Delaware. 14-17 May 2002. Mumford, Michael D. "Social Innovation: Ten Cases from Benjamin Franklin." Creativity Research Journal 14.2 (2002): 253–66.Palen, Leysia, and Sophia.B. Liu. "Citizen Communications in Crisis: Anticipating a Future of ICT-Supported Public Participation." Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. San Jose, 28 Apr. - 3 May 2007.Park, Ji Yong. "Design Process Excludes Users: The Co-Creation Activities between User and Designer." Digital Creativity 23.1 (2012): 79–92. Sinnappan, Suku, Cathy Farrell, and Elizabeth Stewart. "Priceless Tweets! A Study on Twitter Messages Posted During Crisis: Black Saturday." Proceedings of 21st Australasian Conference on Information Systems (ACIS 2010). Brisbane, Australia, 1-3 Dec 2010.Sorensen, John H., and Barbara Vogt Sorensen. "Community Processes: Warning and Evacuation." Handbook of Disaster Research. Eds. Havidán Rodríguez, Enrico Louis Quarantelli, and Russell Rowe Dynes. New York: Springer, 2007. 183–99.Webb, Gary R., and Francois-Regis Chevreau. "Planning to Improvise: The Importance of Creativity and Flexibility in Crisis Response." International Journal of Emergency Management 3.1 (2006): 66–72.

“People live here, they die here so they must leave traces.” (Read 140) “Whatever colonialism was and is, it has made this place unsettling and unsettled.” (Gibson, Badland 2) Introduction What does it mean for [a] country to be haunted? In much theoretical work in film and Cultural Studies since the 1990s, the Australian continent, more often than not, bears traces of long suppressed traumas which inevitably resurface to haunt the present (Gelder and Jacobs; Gibson; Read; Collins and Davis). Felicity Collins and Therese Davis illuminate the ways Australian cinema acts as a public sphere, or “vernacular modernity,” for rethinking settler/indigenous relations. Their term “backtracking” serves as a mode of “collective mourning” in numerous films of the last decade which render unspoken colonial violence meaningful in contemporary Australia, and account for the “aftershocks” of the Mabo decision that overturned the founding fiction of terra nullius (7). Ray Lawrence’s 2006 film Jindabyne is another after-Mabo film in this sense; its focus on conflict within settler/indigenous relations in a small local town in the alpine region explores a traumatised ecology and drowned country. More than this, in our paper’s investigation of country and its attendant politics, Jindabyne country is the space of excessive haunting and resurfacing - engaging in the hard work of what Gibson (Transformations) has termed “historical backfill”, imaginative speculations “that make manifest an urge to account for the disconnected fragments” of country. Based on an adaptation by Beatrix Christian of the Raymond Carver story, So Much Water, So Close to Home, Jindabyne centres on the ethical dilemma produced when a group of fishermen find the floating, murdered body of a beautiful indigenous woman on a weekend trip, but decide to stay on and continue fishing. In Jindabyne, “'country' […] is made to do much discursive work” (Gorman-Murray). In this paper, we use the word as a metonym for the nation, where macro-political issues are played out and fought over. But we also use ‘country’ to signal the ‘wilderness’ alpine areas that appear in Jindabyne, where country is “a notion encompassing nature and human obligation that white Australia has learned slowly from indigenous Australia” (Gibson, Badland 178). This meaning enables a slippage between ‘land’ and ‘country’. Our discussion of country draws heavily on concepts from Ross Gibson’s theorisation of badlands. Gibson claims that originally, ‘badland’ was a term used by Europeans in North America when they came across “a tract of country that would not succumb to colonial ambition” (Badland 14). Using Collins and Davis’s “vernacular modernity” as a starting point, a film such as Jindabyne invites us to work through the productive possibilities of postcolonial haunting; to move from backtracking (going over old ground) to imaginative backfill (where holes and gaps in the ground are refilled in unconventional and creative returns to the past). Jindabyne (as place and filmic space) signifies “the special place that the Australian Alps occupy for so many Australians”, and the film engages in the discursive work of promoting “shared understanding” and the possibility of both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal being “in country” (Baird, Egloff and Lebehan 35). We argue specifically that Jindabyne is a product of “aftermath culture” (Gibson Transformations); a culture living within the ongoing effects of the past, where various levels of filmic haunting make manifest multiple levels of habitation, in turn the product of numerous historical and physical aftermaths. Colonial history, environmental change, expanding wire towers and overflowing dams all lend meaning in the film to personal dilemmas, communal conflict and horrific recent crimes. The discovery of a murdered indigenous woman in water high in the mountains lays bare the fragility of a relocated community founded in the drowning of the town of old Jindabyne which created Lake Jindabyne. Beatrix Christian (in Trbic 61), the film’s writer, explains “everybody in the story is haunted by something. […] There is this group of haunted people, and then you have the serial killer who emerges in his season to create havoc.” “What’s in this compulsion to know the negative space?” asks Gibson (Badland 14). It’s the desire to better know and more deeply understand where we live. And haunting gives us cause to investigate further. Drowned, Murderous Country Jindabyne rewrites “the iconic wilderness of Australia’s High Country” (McHugh online) and replaces it with “a vast, historical crime scene” (Gibson, Badland 2). Along with nearby Adaminaby, the township of Old Jindabyne was drowned and its inhabitants relocated to the new town in the 1960s as part of the Snowy Mountains Hydro-electric Scheme. When Jindabyne was made in 2006 the scheme no longer represented an uncontested example of Western technological progress ‘taming’ the vast mountainous country. Early on in the film a teacher shows a short documentary about the town’s history in which Old Jindabyne locals lament the houses that will soon be sacrificed to the Snowy River’s torrents. These sentiments sit in opposition to Manning Clark’s grand vision of the scheme as “an inspiration to all who dream dreams about Australia” (McHugh online). With a 100,000-strong workforce, mostly migrated from war-ravaged Europe, the post-war Snowy project took 25 years and was completed in 1974. Such was this engineering feat that 121 workmen “died for the dream, of turning the rivers back through the mountains, to irrigate the dry inland” (McHugh online). Jindabyne re-presents this romantic narrative of progress as nothing less than an environmental crime. The high-tension wires scar the ‘pristine’ high country and the lake haunts every aspect of the characters’ interactions, hinting at the high country’s intractability that will “not succumb to colonial ambition” (Gibson, Badland 14). Describing his critical excavation of places haunted, out-of-balance or simply badlands, Gibson explains: Rummaging in Australia's aftermath cultures, I try to re-dress the disintegration in our story-systems, in our traditional knowledge caches, our landscapes and ecologies […] recuperate scenes and collections […] torn by landgrabbing, let's say, or by accidents, or exploitation that ignores rituals of preservation and restoration (Transformations). Tourism is now the predominant focus of Lake Jindabyne and the surrounding areas but in the film, as in history, the area does not “succumb to the temptations of pictorialism” (McFarlane 10), that is, it cannot be framed solely by the picture postcard qualities that resort towns often engender and promote. Jindabyne’s sense of menace signals the transformation of the landscape that has taken place – from ‘untouched’ to country town, and from drowned old town to the relocated, damned and electrified new one. Soon after the opening of the film, a moment of fishing offers a reminder that a town once existed beneath the waters of the eerily still Lake Jindabyne. Hooking a rusty old alarm clock out of the lake, Stuart explains to Tom, his suitably puzzled young son: underneath the water is the town where all the old men sit in rocking chairs and there’s houses and shops. […] There was a night […] I heard this noise — boing, boing, boing. And it was a bell coming from under the water. ‘Cause the old church is still down there and sometimes when the water’s really low, you can see the tip of the spire. Jindabyne’s lake thus functions as “a revelation of horrors past” (Gibson Badland 2). It’s not the first time this man-made lake is filmically positioned as a place where “violence begins to seem natural” (Gibson, Badland 13). Cate Shortland’s Somersault (2004) also uses Lake Jindabyne and its surrounds to create a bleak and menacing ambience that heightens young Heidi’s sense of alienation (Simpson, ‘Reconfiguring rusticity’). In Somersault, the male-dominated Jindabyne is far from welcoming for the emotionally vulnerable out-of-towner, who is threatened by her friend’s father beside the Lake, then menaced again by boys she meets at a local pub. These scenes undermine the alpine region’s touristic image, inundated in the summer with tourists coming to fish and water ski, and likewise, with snow skiers in the winter. Even away from the Lake, there is no fleeing its spectre. “The high-tension wires marching down the hillside from the hydro-station” hum to such an extent that in one scene, “reminiscent of Picnic at Hanging Rock (Peter Weir, 1975)”, a member of the fishing party is spooked (Ryan 52). This violence wrought upon the landscape contextualises the murder of the young indigenous woman, Susan, by Greg, an electrician who after murdering Susan, seems to hover in the background of several scenes of the film. Close to the opening of Jindabyne, through binoculars from his rocky ridge, Greg spots Susan’s lone car coursing along the plain; he chases her in his vehicle, and forces her to stop. Before (we are lead to assume) he drags her from the vehicle and murders her, he rants madly through her window, “It all comes down from the power station, the electricity!” That the murder/murderer is connected with the hydro-electric project is emphasised by the location scout in the film’s pre-production: We had one location in the scene where Greg dumps the body in some water and Ray [Lawrence] had his heart set on filming that next to some huge pipelines on a dam near Talbingo but Snowy Hydro didn’t […] like that negative content […] in association with their facility and […] said ‘no’ they wouldn’t let us do it.” (Jindabyne DVD extras) “Tales of murder and itinerancy in wild country are as old as the story of Cain in the killing fields of Eden” (Badlands 14). In Jindabyne we never really get to meet Greg but he is a familiar figure in Australian film and culture. Like many before him, he is the lone Road Warrior, a ubiquitous white male presence roaming the de-populated country where the road constantly produces acts of (accidental and intentional) violence (Simpson, ‘Antipodean Automobility’). And after a litany of murders in recent films such as Wolf Creek (Greg McLean, 2005) and Gone (Ringan Ledwidge, 2007) the “violence begins to seem natural” (Gibson Transformations 13) in the isolating landscape. The murderer in Jindabyne, unlike those who have migrated here as adults (the Irish Stuart and his American wife, Claire), is autochthonous in a landscape familiar with a trauma that cannot remain hidden or submerged. Contested High Country The unsinkability of Susan’s body, now an ‘indigenous murdered body’, holds further metaphorical value for resurfacing as a necessary component of aftermath culture. Such movement is not always intelligible within non-indigenous relations to country, though the men’s initial response to the body frames its drifting in terms of ascension: they question whether they have “broken her journey by tying her up”. The film reconfigures terra nullius as the ultimate badland, one that can never truly suppress continuing forms of physical, spiritual, historical and cultural engagement with country, and the alpine areas of Jindabyne and the Snowy River in particular. Lennon (14) points to “the legacy of biased recording and analysis” that “constitutes a threat to the cultural significance of Aboriginal heritage in alpine areas” (15). This significance is central to the film, prompting Lawrence to state that “mountains in any country have a spiritual quality about them […] in Aboriginal culture the highest point in the landscape is the most significant and this is the highest point of our country” (in Cordaiy 40). So whilst the Jindabyne area is contested country, it is the surfacing, upward mobility and unsinkable quality of Aboriginal memory that Brewster argues “is unsettling the past in post-invasion Australia” (in Lambert, Balayi 7). As the agent of backfill, the indigenous body (Susan) unsettles Jindabyne country by offering both evidence of immediate violence and reigniting the memory of it, before the film can find even the smallest possibility of its characters being ‘in country’. Claire illustrates her understanding of this in a conversation with her young son, as she attempts to contact the dead girls’ family. “When a bad thing happens,” she says, “we all have to do a good thing, no matter how small, alright? Otherwise the bad things, they just pile up and up and up.” Her persistent yet clumsy enactment of the cross-cultural go-between illuminates the ways “the small town community move through the terms of recent debate: shame and denial, repressed grief and paternalism” (Ryan 53). It is the movement of backfill within the aftermath: The movement of a foreign non-Aboriginal woman into Aboriginal space intertextually re-animates the processes of ‘settlement’, resolution and environmental assimilation for its still ‘unsettled’ white protagonists. […] Claire attempts an apology to the woman’s family and the Aboriginal community – in an Australia before Kevin Rudd where official apologies for the travesties of Australian/colonial history had not been forthcoming […] her movement towards reconciliation here is reflective of the ‘moral failure’ of a disconnection from Aboriginal history. (Lambert, Diasporas) The shift from dead white girl in Carver’s story to young Aboriginal woman speaks of a political focus on the ‘significance’ of the alpine region at a given moment in time. The corpse functions “as the trigger for crisis and panic in an Australia after native title, the stolen generation and the war-on-terror” (Lambert, Diasporas). The process of reconnecting with country and history must confront its ghosts if the community is to move forward. Gibson (Transformations) argues that “if we continue to close our imaginations to the aberrations and insufficiencies in our historical records. […] It’s likely we won’t dwell in the joy till we get real about the darkness.” In the post-colonial, multicultural but still divided geographies and cultures of Jindabyne, “genocidal displacement” comes face to face with the “irreconciled relation” to land “that refuses to remain half-seen […] a measure of non-indigenous failure to move from being on the land to being in country” (Ryan 52), evidenced by water harvesting in the Snowy Mountains Scheme, and the more recent crises in water and land management. Aftermath Country Haunted by historical, cultural and environmental change, Jindabyne constitutes a post-traumatic screen space. In aftermath culture, bodies and landscapes offer the “traces” (Gibson, Transformations) of “the social consequences” of a “heritage of catastrophe” that people “suffer, witness, or even perpetrate” so that “the legacy of trauma is bequeathed” (Walker i). The youth of Jindabyne are charged with traumatic heritage. The young Susan’s body predictably bears the semiotic weight of colonial atrocity and non-indigenous environmental development. Evidence of witnesses, perpetrators and sufferers is still being revealed after the corpse is taken to the town morgue, where Claire (in a culturally improper viewing) is horrified by Susan’s marks from being secured in the water by Stuart and the other men. Other young characters are likewise haunted by a past that is environmental and tragically personal. Claire and Stuart’s young son, Tom (left by his mother for a period in early infancy and the witness of his parents strained marital relations), has an intense fear of drowning. This personal/historical fear is played with by his seven year old friend, Caylin-Calandria, who expresses her own grief from the death of her young mother environmentally - by escaping into the surrounding nature at night, by dabbling in the dark arts and sacrificing small animals. The two characters “have a lot to believe in and a lot of things to express – belief in zombies and ghosts, ritual death, drowning” (Cordaiy 42). As Boris Trbic (64) observes of the film’s characters, “communal and familial harmony is closely related to their intense perceptions of the natural world and their often distorted understanding of the ways their partners, friends and children cope with the grieving process.” Hence the legacy of trauma in Jindabyne is not limited to the young but pervades a community that must deal with unresolved ecologies no longer concealed by watery artifice. Backfilling works through unsettled aspects of country by moving, however unsteadily, toward healing and reconciliation. Within the aftermath of colonialism, 9/11 and the final years of the Howard era, Jindabyne uses race and place to foreground the “fallout” of an indigenous “condemnation to invisibility” and the “long years of neglect by the state” (Ryan 52). Claire’s unrelenting need to apologise to the indigenous family and Stuart’s final admission of impropriety are key gestures in the film’s “microcosm of reconciliation” (53), when “the notion of reconciliation, if it had occupied any substantial space in the public imagination, was largely gone” (Rundell 44). Likewise, the invisibility of Aboriginal significance has specificity in the Jindabyne area – indigeneity is absent from narratives recounting the Snowy Mountains Scheme which “recruited some 60,000 Europeans,” providing “a basis for Australia’s postwar multicultural society” (Lennon 15); both ‘schemes’ evidencing some of the “unrecognised implications” of colonialism for indigenous people (Curthoys 36). The fading of Aboriginal issues from public view and political discourse in the Howard era was serviced by the then governmental focus on “practical reconciliation” (Rundell 44), and post 9/11 by “the broad brushstrokes of western coalition and domestic political compliance” (Lambert, CMC 252), with its renewed focus on border control, and increased suspicion of non-Western, non-Anglo-European difference. Aftermath culture grapples with the country’s complicated multicultural and globalised self-understanding in and beyond Howard’s Australia and Jindabyne is one of a series of texts, along with “refugee plays” and Australian 9/11 novels, “that mobilised themselves against the Howard government” (Rundell 43-44). Although the film may well be seen as a “profoundly embarrassing” display of left-liberal “emotional politics” (44-45), it is precisely these politics that foreground aftermath: local neglect and invisibility, terror without and within, suspect American leadership and shaky Australian-American relations, the return of history through marked bodies and landscapes. Aftermath country is simultaneously local and global – both the disappearance and the ‘problem’ of Aboriginality post-Mabo and post-9/11 are backfilled by the traces and fragments of a hidden country that rises to the surface. Conclusion What can be made of this place now? What can we know about its piecemeal ecology, its choppy geomorphics and scarified townscapes? […] What can we make of the documents that have been generated in response to this country? (Gibson, Transformations). Amidst the apologies and potentialities of settler-indigenous recognition, the murdering electrician Gregory is left to roam the haunted alpine wilderness in Jindabyne. His allegorical presence in the landscape means there is work to be done before this badland can truly become something more. Gibson (Badland 178) suggests country gets “called bad […] partly because the law needs the outlaw for reassuring citizens that the unruly and the unknown can be named and contained even if they cannot be annihilated.” In Jindabyne the movement from backtracking to backfilling (as a speculative and fragmental approach to the bodies and landscapes of aftermath culture) undermines the institutional framing of country that still seeks to conceal shared historical, environmental and global trauma. The haunting of Jindabyne country undoes the ‘official’ production of outlaw/negative space and its discursively good double by realising the complexity of resurfacing – electricity is everywhere and the land is “uncanny” not in the least because “the town of Jindabyne itself is the living double of the drowned original” (Ryan 53). The imaginative backfill of Jindabyne reorients a confused, purgatorial Australia toward the “small light of home” (53) – the hope of one day being “in country,” and as Gibson (Badland 3) suggests, the “remembering,” that is “something good we can do in response to the bad in our lands.” References Baird, Warwick, Brian Egloff and Rachel Lenehan. “Sharing the mountains: joint management of Australia’s alpine region with Aboriginal people.” historic environment 17.2 (2003): 32-36. Collins, Felicity and Therese Davis. Australian Cinema after Mabo. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2005. Cordaiy, Hunter. “Man, Woman and Death: Ray Lawrence on Jindabyne.” Metro 149 (2006): 38-42. Curthoys, Anne. “An Uneasy Conversation: The Multicultural and the Indigenous.” Race Colour and Identity in Australia and New Zealand. Ed. John Docker and Gerhard Fischer. Sydney, UNSW P, 2000. 21-36. Gelder, Ken and Jane M. Jacobs. Uncanny Australia: Sacredness an Identity in a Postcolonial Nation. Carlton: Melbourne UP, 1998. Gibson, Ross. Seven Versions of an Australian Badland. St Lucia: U of Queensland P, 2002. Gibson, Ross. “Places, Past, Disappearance.” Transformations 13 (2006). Aug. 11 2008 transformations.cqu.edu.au/journal/issue_13/article_01.shtml. Gorman-Murray, Andrew. “Country.” M/C Journal 11.5 (this issue). Kitson, Michael. “Carver Country: Adapting Raymond Carver in Australia.” Metro150 (2006): 54-60. Lambert, Anthony. “Movement within a Filmic terra nullius: Woman, Land and Identity in Australian Cinema.” Balayi, Culture, Law and Colonialism 1.2 (2001): 7-17. Lambert, Anthony. “White Aborigines: Women, Mimicry, Mobility and Space.” Diasporas of Australian Cinema. Eds. Catherine Simpson, Renata Murawska, and Anthony Lambert. UK: Intellectbooks, 2009. Forthcoming. Lambert, Anthony. “Mediating Crime, Mediating Culture.” Crime, Media, Culture 4.2 (2008): 237-255. Lennon, Jane. “The cultural significance of Australian alpine areas.” Historic environment 17.2 (2003): 14-17. McFarlane, Brian. “Locations and Relocations: Jindabyne & MacBeth.” Metro Magazine 150 (Spring 2006): 10-15. McHugh, Siobhan. The Snowy: The People Behind the Power. William Heinemann Australia, 1999. http://www.mchugh.org/books/snowy.html. Read, Peter. Haunted Earth. Sydney: UNSW Press, 2003. Rundle, Guy. “Goodbye to all that: The end of Australian left-liberalism and the revival of a radical politics.” Arena Magazine 88 (2007): 40-46. Ryan, Matthew. “On the treatment of non-indigenous belonging.” Arena Magazine 84 (2006): 52-53. Simpson, Catherine. “Reconfiguring Rusticity: feminizing Australian Cinema’s country towns’. Studies in Australasian Cinemas 2.1 (2008): forthcoming. Simpson, Catherine. “Antipodean Automobility & Crash: Treachery, Trespass and Transformation of the Open Road.” Australian Humanities Review 39-40 (2006). http://www.australianhumanitiesreview.org/archive/Issue-September-2006/simpson.html. Trbic, Boris. “Ray Lawrence’s Jindabyne: So Much Pain, So Close to Home.” Screen Education 44 (2006): 58–64. Walker, Janet. Trauma Cinema: Documenting Incest and the Holocaust. Berkley, Los Angeles and London: U of California P, 2005.

Introduction In a period marked by the pervasiveness of new mobile technologies saturating urban areas of the Asia-Pacific region, it can be easy to forget the realities of life in the rural areas. In a location such as Australia, in which 80% of the population lives in urban areas, one must be reminded of the sociotechnological realities of rural existence where often-newer mobile communication devices cease to function. This paper focuses on these black spots – and often forgotten areas – where examples of older, mediated technologies such as UHF Citizen Band (CB) radios can be found as integral to practices of everyday rural life. As Anderson notes, constructs of the nation are formed through contested notions of what individuals and communities imagine and project as a sense of place. In Australia, one of the dominant contested imageries can be found in the urban and rural divide, a divide that is not just social and cultural but technological; it is marked by a digital divide. This divide neatly corresponds to the images of Australia experienced by Australians (predominantly living in urban areas) and exported tourist images of the rugged vast rural landscapes. The remote Australia Outback is a popular destination for domestic tourists. Its sparsely populated and rough terrain attracts tourists seeking a quintessentially Australian experience. Roads are often unmade and in poor condition. Fuel and food supplies and health services are widely separated and there is almost no permanent accommodation. Apart from a small number of regional centres there is no access to mobile phones or radio broadcasts. As a consequence tourists must be largely self sufficient. While the primary roads carry significant road traffic it is possible to drive all day on secondary roads without seeing another person. Isolation and self-sufficiency are both an attraction and a challenge. Travelling in campervans, towing caravans or camper trailers and staying in caravan parks, national parks, roadside stops or alone in the bush, tourists spend extended times in areas where there are few other tourists. Many tourists deal with this isolation by equipping their vehicles with CB radios. Depending on the terrain, they are able to listen to, and participate in conversations with other CB users within a 10-20 kilometre range. In some areas where there are repeater stations, the range of radio transmissions can be extended. This paper examines the role of these CB radios in the daily life of tourists in the Australian Outback. Theoretical Issues The links between travel, the new communications technologies and the diminished spatial-time divide have been explored by John Urry. According to Urry, mobile electronic devices make it possible for people “to leave traces of their selves in informational space” (266). Using these informational traces, mobile communication technologies ‘track’ the movements of travellers, enabling them to communicate synchronously. People become ’nodes in multiple networks of communication and mobility’ (266). Another consequence of readily available communication independent of location is for the meaning of social connections. Social encounters provide tourists with the opportunity to develop and affirm understandings of their shared common occupation of unfamiliar social and cultural landscapes (Harrison). Both transitory and enduring relationships provide information, companionship and resources that allow tourists to create, share and give meaning to their experiences (Stokowski). Communication technology also enables individuals to enter and remain part of social networks while physically absent and distant from them (Johnsen; Makimoto and Manners, Urry). The result is a “nomadic intimacy” in an everyday social and physical environment characterised by extended spaces and individual freedom to move around in these spaces (Fortunati). For travellers in the Australian Outback, this “nomadic intimacy” is both literal and metaphorical. Research has shown that travellers use mobile communications services and a range of other communication strategies to maintain a “symbolic proximity” with family, friends and colleagues (Wurtzel and Turner) and to promote a sense of “presence while absent”, or ‘co-presence’ (Gergen; Lury; Short, Williams and Christie; White and White, “Keeping Connected”; White and White, “Home and Away”). Central to the original notion of co-presence was that it was contingent on those involved in a given communication both being and feeling close enough to perceive each other and to be perceived in the course of their activities (Goffman). That is, the notion of co-presence initially referred to physical presence in face-to-face contact and interactions. However, increasing use of mobile phones in particular has meant that this sense of connection can be affirmed at a distance. But what happens when travellers do not have access to mobile phones and the Internet, and as a consequence, do not have access to their networks of family, friends and colleagues? How do they deal with travel and isolation in a harsh environment? These issues are the starting point for the present paper, which examines travellers’ experience of CB radio in the remote Australian Outback. This exploration of how the CB radio has been incorporated into the daily lives of these travellers can be seen as a contribution to an understanding of the domestication of mobile communications (Haddon). Methodology People were included in the study if they used CB radios while travelling in remote parts of Western Australian and the Northern Territory. The participants were approached in caravan parks, camping grounds and at roadside stops. Most were travelling in caravans while others were using camper trailers and campervans. Twenty-four travellers were interviewed, twelve men and twelve women. All were travelling with partners or spouses, and one group of two couples was travelling together. They ranged in age from twenty five to seventy years, and all were Australian residents. The duration of their travels varied from six weeks to eleven months. Participants were interviewed using a semi-structured interview schedule. The interviews were transcribed and then thematically coded with respect to regularly articulated points of view. Where points of view were distinctive, they were noted during the coding process as contrasting instances. While the relatively small sample size limits generalizability, the issues raised by the respondents provide insights into the meaning of CB radio use in the daily life of travellers in the Australian Outback. Findings Staying Safe The primary reason given for travelling with a CB radio was personal safety. The tourists interviewed were aware of the risks associated with travelling in the Outback. Health emergencies, car accidents and problems with tyres in a harsh and hot environment without ready access to water were often mentioned. ‘If you call a May Day someone will come out and answer…” (Female, 55). Another interviewee reported that: Last year we helped some folk who were bogged in the sand right at the end of the road in the middle of nowhere. The wife just started calling the various channels explaining that they were bogged and asking whether there was anyone out there….We went and towed them out. …. It would have been a long walk for them to get help. (Female, 55) Even though most interviewees had not themselves experienced a personal emergency, many recounted stories about how CB radio had been used to come to the aid of someone in distress. Road conditions were another concern. Travellers were often rightly very concerned about hazards ahead. One traveller noted: You are always going to hear someone who gives you an insight as to what is happening up ahead on the road. If there’s an accident up ahead someone’s going to get on the radio and let people know. Or there could be road works or the road could be shitty. (Male, 50) Safety arose in another context. Tourists share the rough and often dusty roads with road trains towing up to three trailers. These vehicles can be 50 metres long. A road train creates wind turbulence when it passes a car and trailer or caravan and the dust it raises reduces visibility. Because of this car drivers and caravanners need to be extremely careful when they pass or are passed by one. Passing a road train at 100 km can take 2.5km. Interviewees reported that they communicated with road train drivers to negotiate a safe time and place to pass. One caravanner noted: Sometimes you see a road train coming up behind you. You call him up and say ” I’ll pull over for you mate and slow down and you go”. You use it a lot because it’s safer. We are not in a hurry. Road trains are working and they are in a hurry and he (sic.) is bigger, so he has the right of way. (Male, 50) As with the dominant rationale for installing and using a CB radio, Rice and Katz showed that concern about safety is the primary motive for women acquiring a mobile phone, and safety was also important for men. The social contact enabled by CB radio provided a means of tracking the movements of other travellers who were nearby. This tracking ability engendered a sense of comfort and enabled them to communicate and exchange information synchronously in a potentially dangerous environment. As a consequence, a ‘metaworld’ (Suvantola) of ‘informational traces’ (Urry) was created. Making Oneself Known All interactions entail conventions and signals that enable a conversation to commence. These conventions were also seen to apply to CB conversations. Driving in a car or truck involves being physically enclosed with the drivers and passengers being either invisible or only partially visible to other travellers. Caravanners deal with this lack of visibility in a number of ways. Many have their first names, the name of their caravan and the channel they use on the rear of their van. A typical sign was “Bill and Rose, Travelling Everywhere, Channel 18” or “Harry and Mary, Bugger Work, Gone Fishing”, Channel 18” clearly visible to anyone coming from behind. (The male partner’s name was invariably first.) A sign that identified the occupants was seen as an invitation to chat by other travellers. One traveller said that if he saw such a sign he would call up by saying: “Hello Harry and Mary”. From then on who knows where it goes. It depends on the people. If someone comes back really cheery and a bit cheeky I can be cheery and cheeky back. (Male, 50) The names of caravans were used in other more personal ways. One couple from South Africa had given their van a Zulu name and that was seen as a way of identifying their origins and encouraging a specific kind of conversation while they were on the road. This couple reported that People call us up and ask us what it means. We have lots of calls about that. We’ve had more conversations about that than anything else. (Male, 67) Another caravanner reported that he had seen a van with “Nanna and Poppa’ on the back. They used that as a cue to start a conversation about their grandchildren. But caravan names linked to their CB radio channel can have a deeper personal meaning. One couple had their first names and the number 58 on the rear of their van. (The number 58 is beyond the range of CB channels.) On further questioning the number 58 was revealed to be the football club number of a daughter who had died. The sign was an attempt to deal with their grief and its public display a way of entering into a conversation about grief and loss. It has probably backfired because it puts people back into their shell because they think “We don’t want to talk about death”. But because of the sign we’ve met people who’ve lost a child too. (Male, 50) As Featherstone notes, drivers develop competence in switching between a range of communicative modes while they are travelling. These range from body gestures to formal signalling devices on other cars. Signage on caravans designed to invite conversation was a specialised signalling device specific to the CB user. Talking Loneliness was another theme emerging from the interviews. One of the attractions of the Outback is its sparse population. As one interviewee noted ‘You can travel all day and not see another soul’ (Female, 35). But this loneliness can be a challenge. Some of these roads are pretty lonely, the radio lets you know that there’s somebody else out there. (Male, 54) Hearing other travellers talk was comforting. As with previous research showing that travellers use mobile communications services to maintain a “symbolic proximity” (Gergen; Lury; Short, Williams and Christie; White and White, “Keeping Connected”) the CB conversations enabled the travellers to feel this sense of connection. These interactions also offered them the possibility of converting mediated relationships into face-to-face encounters along the road. That is, some travellers reported that CB-based chats with people while they were driving would lead to a decision to stop along the road for a shared morning tea or lunch. Conventions governed the use of specific channels. Some of these are government regulated, while others are user generated. For instance, Channels 18 and 40, were seen as ‘working channels’. Some interviewees felt very strongly about people who ‘cluttered up’ these channels and moved to another unused channel when they wanted to have an extended conversation. One couple was unaware of the local convention and could not understand why no one was calling them up. They later discovered that they were on the ‘wrong channel’. Interviewees travelling in a convoy would use the standard channel for travellers and then agree to move to another channel of their choice. When we travelling in a convoy we go off Channel 18 and use another channel to talk. The girls love it to talk about their knitting and work out what they’ve done wrong. We sometimes tell jokes. Also we work out what we are going to do in the next town. (Male, 67) These extended conversations parallel the lengthy conversations between drivers equipped with CB radio in the United States during the 1970’s which Dannaher described as ‘as diverse as those found at a cocktail party’. They also provided a sense of the “nomadic intimacy” described by Fortunati. Eavesdropping While travellers used Channel 18 for conversations they set their radio to automatically scan all forty channels. When a conversation was located the radio would stop scanning and they could listen to what was being said. This meant that travellers would overhear conversations between strangers. We scan all the channels so you can hear anyone coming up behind, especially trucks and you can hear them say “that damn caravan” and you can say ’ that damn caravan will pull over at the first opportunity.” (Female, 44) But the act of listening in to other people’s conversations created moral dilemmas for some travellers. One interviewee described it as “voyeurism for the ears”. While she described listening to farm conversations as giving her an insight into daily life on huge cattle station she was tempted to butt into one conversation that she was listening to. On reflection she decided against entering the conversation. She said: I didn’t want them to know that we were eavesdropping on their conversation. I’d be embarrassed if a third-party knew that we were listening in. I guess that I’ve been taught that you shouldn’t listen in to other people’s conversations. It’s not good manners… (Female, 35) When travellers overheard conversations between road train or truck drivers they had mixed responses. These conversations were often sexually loaded and seen as coarse by the middle class travellers. Some were forgiving of the conversational excesses, distinguishing themselves from the rough and tumble world of the ‘truckies’. One traveller noted that the truck drivers use a lot of bad language, but you’ve got to go with that, because that’s the type of people they are. But you have to go with the flow. We know that we are ‘playing’ and the truckies are ‘working’ so you have to be considerate to them. (Female, 50) While the language of the truck drivers was often threatening to middle class travellers, overhearing their conversations was also seen as a comfort. One traveller remarked that sometimes you hear truckies talking about their families and they obviously know each other. It’s kind of nice to see how they think. (Female, 50) Travellers had similar feelings when they overheard conversations from cattle stations. Also, local cattle station workers and their families would use CB radios for their social and working communications. Travellers would often overhear these conversations. One traveller noted that when we are driving through a cattle station we work out which channel they are using, and we lock it on that one. And then we listen until they are out of range. We are city people and listening to the station chatter gives us a bit of an insight into what it must be like as a farmer working land out here. And then we talk about the farmers’ conversations. (Female, 35) Another traveller noted: If you are travelling and there’s nothing you can see you can listen to the farmer talking to his wife or the kids. It’s absolutely awesome to hear conversations on radio. (Female, 67) This empathic listening allows the travellers to imagine the lives of others in settings quite different from those with which they are familiar. Furthermore, hearing farmers talking about fixing the fence in the left paddock or rounding up strays makes ‘you feel that you’re not alone’. The networking of the travellers’ social life arising from listening in to others meant that they were able to learn about the environment in which they found themselves, as well as enabling them to feel that they continued to remain embedded or ‘co-present’ in social relationships in circumstances of considerable physical isolation. Conclusions The accounts provided by tourists illustrated the way communications technologies – in this case, CB radio – enabled people to become ’nodes in multiple networks of communication and mobility’ described by Urry and to maintain ‘co-presence’. The CB radio allowed tourists to remain part of social networks while being physically absent from them (Gergen). Their responses also demonstrated the significance of CB radio in giving meaning to the experience of travel. The CB radio was shown to be an important part of the travel experience in the remote Australian Outback. 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Ithiel de Sola Pool. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1977. 246-61. Citation reference for this article MLA Style White, Peter B., and Naomi White. "Staying Safe and Guilty Pleasures: Tourists and CB Radio in the Australian Outback." M/C Journal 10.1 (2007). echo date('d M. Y'); ?> <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0703/11-white-white.php>. APA Style White, P., and N. White. (Mar. 2007) "Staying Safe and Guilty Pleasures: Tourists and CB Radio in the Australian Outback," M/C Journal, 10(1). Retrieved echo date('d M. Y'); ?> from <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0703/11-white-white.php>.