My ecological journey

Dr Sue Briggs

Adjunct Professor

University of Canberra

sue.briggs@canberra.edu.au

I have spent most of my academic and other working life (since 1972) investigating biodiversity, balancing the needs of biodiversity with those of production, and bridging the cultures of those who think Darling Harbour is a long way west with those who live on the other side of the sandstone curtain. The culture of many biodiversity officers in government departments is often very different from the culture of many primary producers, especially landholders in the western areas of NSW. These incompatibilities lead to culture "wars", which are undesirable and counter-productive to both biodiversity and production agriculture, and very counter-productive to sustainable agriculture and land management. I have had a few successes along the way (and some failures).

I have worked on waterbirds, wetlands, woodland condition and birds, cropping and grazing management, soil and eco-hydrology, wildlife management, and incentive schemes and policy instruments for biodiversity conservation and management. I have published a respectable number of papers, and have haunted the mini-corridors of power in my department - NSW Dept. Environment, Climate Change and Water (and very occasionally in Minister's offices). I have driven policy officers mad with my advice (which they usually ignore, but occasionally find useful). I remain concerned that some ecologists cling to long-outmoded, disciplinary silos of zoology and botany, and that some of us do not realise that conservation biology is as much about people as it is about ecology. Cultural understanding of people is as important for conservation management as are skills in ecology.

I am about to move to the University of Canberra, as an Adjunct Professor in the Institute of Applied Science. I aim to help expand the horizons of post-graduate students, help them understand policy worlds, finish a few papers (most of my work is written up, but a little bit is not), and explore institutional frameworks and cultures and the impediments and opportunities that these provide for natural resources management, in discussion and writing.