Professor Catherine Pickering and team at Griffith University School of Environment and Science have used social media data from Flickr photo sharing website to start to assess how people value and use a natural site. Social media provides a new way of a looking at sociocultural values of sites, and Professor Pickering and teams study is one of the first in Australia to use this method.
If you want to be inspired, or reduce your carbon footprint, or hear how a community is growing innovative entrepreneurs while doing good, don’t miss this talk.
Electronic waste—the fastest-growing scourge to our soil and water—can be the catalyst to changing lives and communities. Tony Sharp, founder of Logan-based Substation 33, will share how this is happening when he speaks at Gecko Talkssoon at Currumbin.
Cyclone Debbie damaged fauna and flora, Gecko, Gecko Talks, Guest Speaker
The Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games (GC2018) has delivered a lot of ‘firsts’ for the Gold Coast. Now the real challenge is how we, as a community, adopt its legacy in areas such as environmental behavioural change.
Katie Barton-Harvey, Sustainability Marketing Manager for the Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games Corporation (GOLDOC), will outline the major ‘behind the scenes’ work that’s been done to ensure the Games’ success continues after the closing ceremony.
She’s guest speaker at Gecko Talks at Currumbin RSL later this month and will outline some of the work done over the past four years or more to ensure the success of GC2018 and that there’s a continuing positive legacy for our local economy, environment and society.
Internationally-known film maker Lin Sutherland will be sharing her story with us and a sneak preview of her next series Endangered (Channel 9) at Gecko Talks at Currumbin RSL later this month.
When Kevin Tracy talks about bees, it’s not just about how to produce raw unprocessed honey. He believes they also have much to teach us as humans—and can aid our psychological and physical health.
‘Bees are intriguing animals,’ he says. ‘Hives are very complex and act as a super organism where it’s never about the individual, but about the colony. We’d be a more peaceful world if we learnt from them.’
Paul Revie is a zoologist and ecologist currently working with Seaworld’s penguins while undertaking a number of research projects in southeast Queensland.
Gecko’s online magazine Hills to Headlands, is also lucky to have Paul as a regular article contributor. Paul’s popular and informative articles also include his up close and personal photographic encounters with wildlife, As his passion is small carnivorous mammals, notably the spotted-tailed quoll, it was no surprise that his Hills to Headlands’ article ‘Quolls of the Gold Coast Hinterland, Our Last Carnivores’ was soon picked up by local mainstream media, further leading to the activation of a Facebook page called QuollSA (Quoll Society of Australia); to help raise awareness and funds for the dying species in the Gold Coast Hinterland and surrounding areas. In other Hills to Headland’s articles, Paul has introduced readers to the fascinating world of penguins; our feathered fishermen the ospreys; the amazing frogs of the Coastal Wallum, and more recently our largest migrating locals, the humpback whales.
After dreaming of visiting the Galapagos for much of his life, Paul finally had the opportunity to travel there earlier this year as part of a small group of environmentalists. His talk will discuss how the special flora and fauna of the Galapagos have evolved, and convey his first-hand impressions of the conservation issues facing these remarkable islands.
Dr Tuszynska will talk about fungi’s vital impact on the environment, and humans, covering areas from transforming pollutants such as pesticides and petrochemicals, to fungi creating soils and nourishing all life forms by munching on rocks and wood, to how universities and companies are actually growing myco-plastics, clothing, furniture and buildings with fungi.
Come along to Gecko Environment Council’s Guest Speaker Night this
month to hear experienced environmental scientist Sam Howard from Wild
Encounters talk to you about his close encounters with both furry and scaly
wildlife who visit our gardens. Animals can be safely captured and returned to
a suitable habitat by a trained expert like Sam, providing the best outcome for
both the beautiful but uninvited animal guest and its reluctant host.
Trees bring different reactions from delight in their beauty to exasperation in their habit of shedding leaves on the driveway. However trees are essential to life on earth and they need our protection and preservation, the more trees we have the healthier is the planet and the human species.Trees are also crucial for their role in removing and storing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.