How can human populations be sustained on the planet, while at the same time ensuring other species and ecosystems remain functionally important and are not driven to extinction?
- Integrated sustainability: economics, population density, resource consumption
- Ecologically sustainable food production systems (aquaculture, fish, agriculture)
- Conservation policy
- Blue Carbon and ecosystem services
- Engaging society with nature (media, citizen science, education, benefits for human health)
Find a CIE researcher in this theme (A to Z):
Dr Alecia Bellgrove | Prof Andy Bennett | Ange Pestell | Anne Canelle Eichholtzer | Dr Antoine Dujon | Ashley Whitt | Bhavendu Joshi | A/Prof Bill Borrie | Billy Geary | Alfred Deakin Prof Brett Bryan | Dr Carla Archibald | Dr Cecilia Biancacci | Dr Chloe Sato | Clare Vernon | A/Prof Daniel Ierodiaconou | Dr Desley Whisson | Prof Don Driscoll | Prof Emily Nicholson | Dr Enayat A. Moallemi | Dr Eric Treml | Erlania (Ellyn) | Prof Euan Ritchie | Dr Fjalar de Haan | Flora Lam Kim | Prof Graeme Hays | Huanbi Yue | Irin Sultana | Jaya Kelvin | Dr Jessica Rowland | Jingyu Lin | Jinzhu WANG | Dr Kate Watermeyer | Katrina Szetey | A/Prof Kelly Miller | Kendrika Gaur | Krista Bonfantine | Dr Lachlan G. Howell | Laura Medina Rivera | Louise Buckley | Marco Calderon | Dr Maria Palacios | Dr Martino E. Malerba | Dr Mary Young | Meghan Shaw | Michael Traurig | Dr Michalis Hadjikakou | Dr Micheli Duarte de Paula Costa | Mohammad Abdullah Shaikh | Muhammad Jawad Jilani | Dr Mylene Mariette | Nick Taylor | Nicolas Pucino | Dr Paul Carnell | Dr Paul Tixier | Dr Pawel Waryszak | A/Prof Peter Biro | A/Prof Peter Macreadie | Prahlad Lamichhane | Reihaneh Bandari | Roberto M. Venegas | Sarah Treby | Dr Scarlett Howard | Simone Stevenson | Stacey Harwood | Dr Stacey Trevathan-Tackett | Sundara Mawalagedera | Dr Tanveer Adyel | Thiruchenduran Somasundaram | Prof Thomas Madsen | Vanessa Skrzypczyk | Yakupjan (Yakup) Niyazi | Yonina H. Eizenberg | A/Prof Zhifeng Liu |
Dr Alecia Bellgrove
Exploration of the unique and diverse temperate Australian marine flora for sustainable food, fibre and health benefits. Working with industry to develop a sustainable seaweed industry for southeastern Australia and mitigate carbon emissions.
Prof Andy Bennett
Conservation of waterbirds and parrots.
Ange Pestell
Data from my studies will be used by land managers to inform conservation policies relating to fire management and invasive animal management. Camera trap data will also be used to educate the community, particularly citizen scientists, on the benefits of shared technology to improve our understanding of the natural world.
Anne Canelle Eichholtzer
There is no doubt that ‘citizen science’ is bringing a lot to science by allowing larger scale projects to take form – both spatially and temporally -, thanks to the implication of non-professional scientists. My research will seek to investigate the potential environmental, health and economic benefits of ‘biodiversity-oriented citizen science’ on citizens themselves: do they value nature more? Is their participation impacting their well-being? Is it influencing their pro-environmental behaviour outside of the project? This study is anticipated to help us gain a better understanding of conservationists, their motivations, as well as potential ‘buy-in’ points for citizens less engaged in conservation matters. Improved awareness of the benefits of citizen science will also help promote such initiatives.
Dr Antoine Dujon
Obtain insights on the effect of cancer in marine species of economical and cultural importance.
Ashley Whitt
Ashley worked on the Blue Carbon Lab’s team that contributed to Mapping Ocean Wealth Australia project. Mapping Ocean Wealth brought an understanding of social and economic benefits of local coastal wetlands in order to enhance their importance across decision making levels.
Bhavendu Joshi
My research interest lies in understanding human-nature relationships, especially with respect to socioeconomic factors that influence landscape ecology and spatial planning. Within this, I have a particular interest in valuation of ecosystem services and how land use and habitat change affect these services. Furthermore, I wish to understand and explore its role in decision making.
A/Prof Bill Borrie
Environmental policy, planning and management with an emphasis on nature conservation, National Parks and protected areas. Conservation social scientist with a specific focus on human-nature relationships, pro-environmental behavior, and quality visitor experiences. Valuation of nature, including intrinsic values, ecosystem services, and cultural services such as spiritual, recreational, and cultural benefits.
Billy Geary
My research aims to feed into the development of conservation policy and decision science for conservation.
Alfred Deakin Prof Brett Bryan
Our lab is called Planet-A Sustainability Science (see link below) – Integrated sustainability: economics, population density, resource consumption and production. Ecologically sustainable food systems (aquaculture, fisheries, agriculture).
Dr Carla Archibald
As apart of the Land-Use Futures Modelling Project I contribute towards developing sustainable pathways for environmental and food futures in Australia. I am particularly passionate about private land conservation and am eager to research and deliver real-world impacts. Overall my research aims to adopt a holistic perspective to understand how conservation fits into broader systems, such as food systems.
Dr Cecilia Biancacci
I have always worked to promote and establish a sustainable and environmentally friendly aquaculture that could protect the wild species, restore them and guarantee the production of sustainable resources (including food) without impacting the ecosystem.
Dr Chloe Sato
Exploring how ecosystem risk assessments, and indicators used within these assessments, can be used to inform conservation policy and sustainable land management at global, national and regional scales.
Clare Vernon
Assessing th integration and implementation of the Red List Ecosystem framework; this includes looking at Conservation Policy.
A/Prof Daniel Ierodiaconou
Undertaking core research across fisheries and other marine industries to inform management options. Leading state wide programs for Marine Parks assessments, Mapping ocean wealth and Citizen science initiatives such as Citizen Science Drones as part of the Victorian Coastal Monitoring Program to monitor shoreline change.
Dr Desley Whisson
I engage with communities and other stake holders for the collection of data, the development of scientifically-informed policy, and extension of research.
Prof Don Driscoll
Our research extends into conservation policy, with contributions on invasive pasture grasses, invasive herbivores, global conservation targets, academic freedom and science suppression. We also use new technology to monitor wildlife and engage citizen scientists with nature. This cross-disciplinary research spans science, IT, engineering, economics, arts and education.
Prof Emily Nicholson
Our research engages closely with conservation policy. Key areas include ecosystem risk assessment (IUCN Red List of Ecosystems), global goals and target for biodiversity, especially ecosystems, developing and evaluating indicators to support global goals and policy, and conservation and land-use planning.
Dr Enayat A. Moallemi
Enayat’s research is focused on computational and participatory approaches for modelling coupled human–natural systems and for informing robust decision making under deep uncertainty. Enayat’s work has led to developing robust pathways to sustainability in multiple contexts, such as renewable energy systems, sustainable mobility systems, and the Sustainable Development Goals, each facing unique environmental challenges.
Dr Eric Treml
Using model-based population connectivity estimates and existing conservation/management frameworks (e.g., countries, ecoregions), our goal is to help (re)define social-political partnerships and assist in coordinating policy actions for a more effective planning process. Thinking in terms of linked social-ecological systems results in more equitable and ecologically meaningful outcomes.
Erlania (Ellyn)
Rapid global increases in atmospheric CO2 has led to global climate change. Marine bio-sequestration is a viable part of any climate-change mitigation strategy. Seaweeds have amongst the highest rates of primary productivity and store significant amounts of carbon (C) in living biomass. What is uncertain is the fate and longevity of all this seaweed-derived C. However, seaweed tissue contains recalcitrant substances that are resistant to chemical breakdown and decay, potentially facilitating long-term C sequestration. In addition, seaweeds may be significant C donors to carbon sink ecosystems (Blue Carbon/BC) due to the ability to be transported. My PhD project will develop a suite of biomarkers (based on environmental DNA (eDNA), fatty acids and amino acids combined with stable isotopes) from seaweeds. These will then be used to detect and quantify seaweed C contributions to carbon sequestration in marine sediment using predictive modelling of seaweed beds proximity to BC sinks and coastal hydrodynamics.
Prof Euan Ritchie
Citizen Science; Environmental and Conservation Policy; Human-Wildlife Conflict; Science Communication.
Dr Fjalar de Haan
Much of my research is about understanding transitions to sustainable systems of production and consumption. This includes systems like energy provision, water management and food-production. In my research, I combine approaches from the natural sciences (i.e. mathematical and computational modelling) with the development of solid concepts and theory.
Flora Lam Kim
My PhD will study the commercial interest of antioxidants if a sustainable aquaculture production can be put in place. If some species of my study reveal a potential for the food or cosmetic industry, I will try to develop a cultivation system for these algae to produce sufficient biomass.
Graeme Hays
We are helping to drive global initiatives to promote marine animal tracking data sharing to maximise the conservation benefits of animal movement research and to ensure data are available for future generations. We are using long-term monitoring data-sets to assess how marine systems are changing and using new, innovative methodologies to reshape our view of how marine systems function, such as highlighting the broad trophic importance of jellyfish for higher trophic levels.
Huanbi Yue
Ambient air pollution and related health burden analysis at multiple scales.
Irin Sultana
My study can help to engage with the coastal society along the East Asian-Australasian Flyway to maintain a suitable habitat for themselves and migratory shorebirds as well (as they both use the similar habitats for their resources).
Jaya Kelvin
My research is to measure one of the ecosystem services provided by coastal wetlands, i.e. Coastal Protection and to estimate future projection in climate change scenario. The aim to help designing an integrated sustainable plan for coastal management that consider the safety of human-being and economic values while maintaining good nature condition.
Jessica Rowland
My research explores how ecosystem risk assessments and biodiversity indicators can be developed and used to inform conservation policy at local to global scales.
Jingyu Lin
The sustainability of water resource.
Jinzhu WANG
Food, sustainability.
Dr Kate Watermeyer
Informing and equipping conservation policy makers by improving and developing biodiversity indicators for monitoring and measuring progress towards conservation targets.
Katrina Szetey
My research finds ways for local communities to implement the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). I work with my case study community to identify their ambitions for the future and develop pathways to achieve local sustainability. Our research group is creating a framework for implementing the SDGs at a local level.
A/Prof Kelly Miller
Biophysical mEnvironmental social science, human dimensions of wildlife management, environmental education. Work focuses on bridging the gap between science and policy by exploring the social context for the application of science. Social research focuses on human values, attitudes, and behaviours.odelling is an important aspect of fisheries management. I use these models to understand the efficacy of management actions with the aim of preserving fisheries catch for communities into the future.
Kendrika Gaur
I will monitor endangered frog species in the Western Ghats Biodiversity Hotspot of India using eDNA. Frogs in our study areas are threatened by frog trade, traditional uses, agrochemical pollution, diseases, damming, villagers collecting leaf litter, habitat conversion to agricultural lands and culling following myths that frogs damage crops. At the end of our project, we will organise workshops for local communities. These workshops will spread the awareness on frogs endangerment and their urgent conservation. We would use our project results and interactive presentations to demonstrate how local practices have impacted the frog species. We will also ask the locals to voluntarily fill a feedback sheet about their opinions on the event and their thoughts on frog protection (whether they’ll change their practices for the cause of amphibian protection).
Krista Bonfantine
I am reshaping relationships with water and fire to create a better, wetter future for our kids. My passion is using ecological monitoring to rebuild community relationships and understanding.
Dr Lachlan G. Howell
My research focuses on developing economic arguments for the uptake and optimization of emerging technologies for more effective wildlife conservation. For example, biobanking and assisted reproductive technologies as support tools for captive breeding, and drone technology as a powerful emerging wildlife monitoring tool. My current postdoctoral research is a cross-disciplinary project evaluating new approaches for monitoring wildlife populations (e.g., kangaroos, waterbirds, and koalas) using emerging aerial-imagery approaches.
Laura Medina Rivera
BGI is a complex and complete methodology which encourage the environment to live in harmony, where biodiversity, population, development, water, air, land, economic and social aspects are covered successfully.
Louise Buckley
Traditional Owners partner with a range of public sector land managers at a Commonwealth, state, and local scale and collaborate with other non-profit and research organisations across a range of programs and projects.
The reserach project ‘Cross-cultural relationships in natural resource management: Understanding the nature and experiences of partnership and collaboration’ will use interviews and case studies to provide insight into the opportunities and challenges of Indigenous-led and decolonial conservation, and reconciliation partnerships in NRM with First Nations communities.
Marco Calderon
My research will look into the effects of global change on land use change in Australia. I will forecast land change trajectories for the whole Australia under different scenarios.
Dr Maria Palacios
My research engages community into Blue Carbon science and nature-based solutions to climate change.
Dr Martino E. Malerba
Artificial lakes are typically rich in nutrients, boosting microbial activity and greenhouse gas emissions. My research will focus on mapping the influence of greenhouse gas emissions from farm dams in Victoria and Australia.
Dr Mary Young
Drivers of blue carbon storage and impacts of climate change, quantifying ecosystem services.
Meghan Shaw
I study the relationship between humans and nature (mainly wildlife) when viewing varying elements of media and photographs.
Michael Traurig
As part of my research I will be conducting red list of ecosystem assessments on some habitats (likely aquatic, but to be confirmed).
Dr Michalis Hadjikakou
I develop frameworks and approaches for modelling sustainable food systems.
Dr Micheli Duarte de Paula Costa
My research aims to model blue carbon stocks and develop an assessment of potential land area amenable to blue carbon additionality.
Mohammad Abdullah Shaikh
Allocating the environmental limits of cropland, freshwater use and GHG emissions to countries by considering their population and socio-economic parameters in the context of planetary boundary framework.
Muhammad Jawad Jilani
Growing human populations are increasing demand for fresh water, while increasing effects of climate change is reducing water availability or increasing variability. These changes are particularly acute in developing countries like Pakistan where the population is expected to cross 300 million threshold by the year 2050 and water is often extracted at a local scale. I am using field surveys to determine the relationship between stream flow and frog success, then relate those risks to the expected change in water availability over the coming years in the Murree region of Pakistan. As amphibians are one of the most threatened taxonomic groups globally, they need immediate attention and there is still time to act to design frog-friendly development.
Dr Mylene Mariette
I endeavour to communicate my findings to the media and the public to improve society’s engagement with Nature.
Nick Taylor
I assist with administration of the Local SDGs Program and run the website for this and Planet-A. My Science Honours Project Title was: “How can we bridge the gap between climate science consensus and meaningful climate change mitigation?” My background was in teaching and foreign languages: French, Spanish, Chinese.
Nicolas Pucino
I study coastal erosion dynamics with a suite of optical remote sensing techniques. Beaches are important environments that provide numerous ecosystem services to human settlements as well as habitat for a variety of biota.
Dr Paul Carnell
I have focused on valuing the multiple ecosystem services that freshwater, coastal and marine ecosystems provide so that we can better manage and restore them. This has spanned from collecting field data on their carbon sequestration capacity, to collating national and global datasets of multiple ecosystem services and incorporating this into an environmental-economic accounting framework.
Dr Paul Tixier
Human-Wildlife coexistence in the oceans: developing mitigation solutions to fisheries – marine predators conflicts globally through integrated and interdisciplinary approaches in the social-ecological dimension.
Dr Pawel Waryszak
Wetland plants capture carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, from the atmosphere during photosynthesis. The plants then turn it into organic carbon (known as blue carbon) which allows them to grow. In doing so, wetlands plants are capable of pulling down and stowing away atmospheric carbon about 40 times more efficiently than terrestrial plants, and storing it in the soil for millennia to come. Australia holds one of the world’s largest stores of blue carbon, yet degradation of coastal ecosystems is weakening their capacity to perform this essential function. I assist and manage multiple blue carbon projects to develop new knowledge of how Australia’s coastal ecosystems can be managed to achieve maximum carbon offset capacity.
A/Prof Peter Biro
I am interested in the selective impacts of commercial and recreational fishing. Behavioural traits at the individual level can determine vulnerability to harvest, and these traits can be linked to physiology, growth and life history – thus, exploited fisheries are likely to experience evolutionary change to slow and unproductive life history making them more vulnerable to over exploitation.
A/Prof Peter Macreadie
Carbon drawdown through blue carbon ecosystems: seagrass meadows, mangrove forests, and tidal marshes. Nature-based climate change mitigation – aka ‘biosequestration’. Quantification and mapping of ecosystem services from coastal wetlands, including: coastal protection, biodiversity and fisheries enhancement, and tourism/recreation. Citizen science and education through immersive ‘day with a scientist’ experiences. Costs and benefits of rig-to-reef conversion of offshore oil and gas infrastructure.
Prahlad Lamichhane
Exploring resilience of smallholder crop production systems in the face of changing climate in bio-physically heterogeneous regions of Nepal.
Reihaneh Bandari
In our project, we work on Goal 12 related to the ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns, Goal 8 which related to the sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all and Goal 2 related to food production and sustainable agriculture.
Roberto M. Venegas
Engaging society with nature while producing reliable information for marine management planning.
Sarah Treby
I’m interested in how we can better manage natural carbon sinks to enhance climate change mitigation and inform related policy.
Dr Scarlett Howard
By engaging with the community and utilising social media, I will map pollinator distribution, identify at-risk species, assess ecosystem services such as pollination and food production, and help to design pollinator-friendly environments. We will thus develop a better understanding of anthropogenic effects on pollination and how to manage those impacts.
Simone Stevenson
Biodiversity indicators are important conservation policy tools, and a large part of my research focuses not only on ensuring that they are accurate, but that they are useful in policy contexts.
Stacey Harwood
My PhD involves investigating forestry operations related to koala management during plantation harvest.
Dr Stacey Trevathan-Tackett
My research focus is on wetland carbon cycling, particularly Blue Carbon, from a carbon chemistry and microbial ecology perspective. I lead TeaComposition H2O, a global wetland decomposition initiative. I am also engaged with citizen science programs.
Sundara Mawalagedera
I discuss the importance of combining aboriginal knowledge of medicinal plant with modern sciences to improve human health.
Dr Tanveer Adyel
I am researching on plastics pollution in coastal and marine ecosystems.
Thiruchenduran Somasundaram
Sustainable milk production system with the application of seaweeds as feed supplements.
Prof Thomas Madsen
No info….
Vanessa Skrzypczyk
Nutritionally seaweed contains many vitamins and minerals essential for human health, so promoting its consumption amongst western cultures is beneficial. However the greatest challenge is to do so in a sustainable manner, that educates society on the benefits of caring for the environment where our seaweed is harvested/cultured in.
Yakupjan (Yakup) Niyazi
Seafloor geomorphologies, as a function of geological and oceanographic processes, influence the sustainable food systems, sustainable food systems, and Carbon sequestration system.
Yonina H. Eizenberg
The intended outcomes of my project are to better inform management authorities about the predicted threats that climate change has on offshore islands and the marine environments used by small seabirds during the breeding season.
A/Prof Zhifeng Liu
Urban sustainability assessment.
Centre for Integrative Ecology 