The Living Pavilion

CAUL Hub was proud to co-produce The Living Pavilion from 1-17 May, together with The University of Melbourne's Thrive Hub and New Student Precinct (NSP), and CLIMARTE’s ART+CLIMATE = CHANGE 2019 Festival. Over 60 diverse events took place at the site, surrounded by 40,000 Kulin Nation plants supplied by partners AILA Victoria and Ecodynamics. You can read more in a report by NSP here. 

There are 3 ongoing CAUL Hub research projects being conducted through The Living Pavilion - more details here. Researchers are also looking for feedback from attendees, to help understand the power of temporary spaces for placemaking. You can take the survey here. 

Image: A section of The Living Pavilion. Credit: Sarah Fisher

Local actions to conserve urban biodiversity: a national summary

A new CAUL Hub report shows how Australian cities are implementing novel solutions to conserve urban biodiversity. The two-part report summarises common barriers and enablers of urban biodiversity conservation, outlines opportunities and challenges for undertaking future action, documents the extent to which Indigenous perspectives are currently considered in urban biodiversity conservation and provides recommendations for future Indigenous engagement.

Check out a summary here or download Part I and Part II (written by Indigilab) of the full report.

Image: Fairy tern with a chick.
Credit: Claire Greenwell

Animal Attractiveness Survey

The Animal Attractiveness Survey is now live - you can take it here. We're seeking responses worldwide to help determine which visual and social features make animals charismatic and likeable to humans. Results will contribute to wider research in Project 5, helping improve conservation messaging and decide which species are best suited to bring back into our cities.

You can share the survey with your networks by retweeting this Twitter post or forwarding on this email. 

Image: RMIT Centre for Urban Research

Healthy Liveable Cities Report wins PIA Award

The Creating Liveable Cities Report was recently awarded the Planning Institute of Australia’s National Research Excellence Award. The report examines 7 domains of a city’s liveability that also promote the health and wellbeing of Australians - and is the first “baseline” measure of liveability in Australia’s state and territory capitals. Dr Melanie Davern and Carl Higgs are currently investigating the extended application of these liveability indicators in regional areas of Australia and will release liveability indicators for Australia’s largest 21 cities via the RMIT’s Urban Observatory in August 2019.

Vacant positions at CAUL

CAUL Hub is advertising for two new positions: 

• Knowledge Broker
• Communications Officer 

Please share with anyone in your network who you think may be well-suited to the roles. Applications for the Comms Officer close on 11 July and for the Knowledge Broker on 15 July.

#BeatAirPollution for World Environment Day

For World Environment Day, Hugh Forehead presented to the Department of the Environment and Energy on CAUL's urban air quality research.

His presentation looked broadly at the effect of poor air quality on health, focusing on heatwaves, personal exposure and indoor air pollutants. 

Media

The 39 endangered species in Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide and other Australian cities

Kylie Soanes and Pia Lentini wrote this article for The Conversation, suggesting we need to think differently about how and where we do conservation, get to know the species that live in our cities and involve urban communities in the process. Read their full paper here. 

Image: Caley's grevillea. Credit: Tatters via flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0)

AIATSIS Conference

Zena Cumpston recently attended the AIATSIS National Indigenous Research Conference in Brisbane. Themed 'Research for the 21st Century,' the conference was a portal into the world of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander researchers and academics. Presentations were both fascinating and challenging, and explored new ways of working and thinking. 
 

Media

Melbourne reimagined with 40,000 native plants in 'Living Pavilion'

This article for The Age was one of ten media stories to come from The Living Pavilion. In this article, Tanja Beer and Zena Cumpston talk about the importance of getting people to experience nature in the city and how the arts-science initiative is a "portal" to understand Indigenous knowledge systems. 

Image: Tanja Beer, Cathy Oke and Zena Cumpston. Credit: Eddie Jim (via The Age)

Nature of Cities Summit

Judy Bush attended the Nature of Cities Summit in Paris to co-present a workshop on policy mechanisms to support retention of trees on private land. The workshop gathered ideas from conference participants from cities around the world on new approaches to tree retention – both regulations and incentives. More info in this article by Camilo Ordóñez, Judy Bush, Joe Hurley, Marco Amati and Stephen Livesley.