For 20 years, Cosmos Magazine inspired curiosity and made science accessible to everyone. It was a trusted source of fact-based content that attracted a large audience from across the globe. […]

Allocation or Regulation: Reasserting Society’s Control Over Corporations Through Tenure. This paper, by Society members the late David Marlow and Dr Geoff Edwards, was delivered by Geoff Edwards to the […]

Dan Daly, an officer of the Department of Primary Industries, compiled this critique of drought policy after being transferred to the Department’s Drought Secretariat. Qualified originally in agriculture and latterly […]

In 2020, the Royal Society of Queensland, along with the Australian Rangeland Society, submitted in favour of this initiative to the Government of Mongolia, sponsor of the proposal. The letter […]

Dr Geoff Edwards, Webmaster of QSN, writes: The Biodiversity Heritage Library, long funded by the Smithsonian Institution, has been instrumental in digitising and making accessible a range of Australian scientific […]

We are indebted to Jan Arens, President of the Gladstone Conservation Council, for the following documents detailing the damage being done to the Great Barrier Reef, nearshore marine habitats and […]

This 176-page report (21 MB) summarises an eight-year program of pre-competitive gathering of geoscience information, by Geoscience Australia, completed in 2024. The concept of public funding of pre-competitive, pre-project assessment […]

From c.1995-2006 the Department of Natural Resources published a series of Resource Planning Guidelines that are no longer readily accessible . Some of these documents have enduring value, though legislation […]

As the likelihood of legislation to limit clearing of native vegetation gained public notoriety in the late 1990s, and pre-emptory clearing accelerated, concern by rural landholders in particular about ‘property […]

There has long been sensitivity by drillers licensed to sink wells for farming and miscellaneous purposes towards drillers engaged on drilling for mining and gas projects and who are not […]

Published between 1970 and 1975, this series of black-and-white leaflets was produced by the national Forestry and Timber Bureau. Leaflets 1 – 42 Leaflets 43 – 100 Leaflets 101 – […]

The late Ray Specht delivered the Romeo Lahey lecture in 1978 on behalf of the National Parks Association of Queensland. Titled In Wildness is the Preservation of the World, it […]

See this calendar of events on turtles, hammerhead sharks, crocodiles and climate change and invertebrates or Moreton Bay. First one Sunday 4 May.   Related Images:

Saltmarshes are vital intertidal ecosystems typically found between mangrove forests and dry land. These areas experience tidal flooding during king and spring tides. They support a diverse array of vegetation, […]

At the time of drafting this post (April 2025), there seems to be no end of distressing news about loss of scientific knowledge, disbandment of scientific institutions and abandonment of […]

This ~225 page proceedings of a symposium held by the Water Research Foundation of Australia (South Australian State Committee) and the Department of Adult Education at the University of Adelaide […]

Two “Final Reports” about this project are available. The report dated April 2016 commences thus: “The NRM Spatial Hub (the Hub) gives rangeland managers the capability to map, plan, analyse […]

This ~200 page report is by the Scientific Committee of the then Northern Rainforest Management Agency based in Cairns. Dated August 1988. The volume was  edited by Dr R.A Hynes, […]

A “Milestone Report” No. 8, 2018, entitled Assessment of the status and options for recovery of prawns & estuarine biodiversity in the Noosa River by Greg Skilleter (Uni. Qld. & […]

This series of seven scenarios in a hypothetical Department of Crown Lands is pitched at tertiary level students in land, regional planning or environmental management. Subjects covered include the nature […]

The Dasgupta Review was a landmark statement of UK origin of the importance of protecting global biodiversity. The review produced ten “Headline Messages“: Our economies, livelihoods and well-being all depend […]

The following Abstract explains this research update report by the Office of Groundwater Impact Assessment dated April 2023: “Coal seam gas extraction involves two key subsurface processes: fluid flow primarily […]

This informative booklet by A.N. Burns, Curator of Insects at the National Museum of Victoria, was published in Victoria, in 1964. Many details will be out of date – biosecurity […]

Dr Felicity Cutten is a scientist and freelance writer who has published popular science, short stories, poetry and short fiction. She has a PhD from McGill University, Montreal, Canada and […]

John Elfick, now retired to Victoria, has authorised QSN to re-publish a range of lesson materials commenced while he served with UNESCO. They include primary-level lessons and also experiments for […]

This page showcases materials that educators may be able to adapt for their classroom purposes, even though the items have (mostly) not been particularly designed to fit the Queensland science […]

This page presents materials that either have been developed with teaching as a primary purpose, or include datasets capable of being utilised for student projects  in  years 11 and 12 […]

Don Keith, member of The Royal Society of Queensland and former President of Queensland Beekeepers Association, reports that until the pioneering research of Graham Kleinschmidt in the 1980s, most apiary […]

How different lesson materials are in the 2020s ! However, one can’t be confident that this knowledge-packed volume of 178 pages will be useless for modern-day teachers. First Studies in […]

QSN doesn’t normally feature material from interstate, but this thoughtful little document from about 1995-1996, titled NSW Weirs Policy, an element of water reforms, has some valuable lessons for the […]

A report Community understanding and appreciation of Moreton Bay – a framework to support engaging communities dated 1 December 2023 explores residents’ understanding, appreciation, and behaviours related to Moreton Bay […]

This informative briefing note by the predecessor to QSN member body Healthy Land and Water, Newsletter No. 2 of March 2011, is useful not just as a summary of the […]

QSN member body The Moreton Bay Foundation has released a Blueprint for a sustainable Moreton Bay for people and nature (2025-2035) along with a Technical Appendix and a readable summary […]

Royal Society Member Adj. Prof. David George has penned a thoughtful account of NCCARF and its relevance after the disappointing 2024 Conference of the Parties on climate change. It advocates […]

  Royal Society of Queensland Member Dr Shay Dougall has co-developed a ‘Psycho-social Climate’ Scorecard to highlight the damage that the energy industries are doing to the well-being of Queensland’s […]

Property owners Dave and Liza Balmain (“Glendon”, Nangwee Queensland) have supplied some documents which shed some considerable light on the failure of the Queensland Government to protect the public interest […]

The President has announced that Society member John Brisbin had won the David Marlow Prize for an essay entitled Planning for purpose: How Queenslanders might flourish in the challenging times […]

Crown of Thorns Starfish On the Great Barrier Reef: Evaluating Control Programs and Funding Opportunities in Australia By Alicia Dunn, Down Deep Drones and Member, The Royal Society of Queensland  […]

In two articles in volume 124 of the Proceedings of The Royal Society of Queensland, David Marlow, member of the Society, and Jason Alexandra wrote of the destruction of a […]

This report summarises knowledge as at 1998 of the potential threat posed by storm tides along the Queensland coast. As single catastrophic events, extreme storm tides generated by tropical cyclones […]

This post is based upon a presentation by robotics engineer John Griffiths and Alicia Dunn at the Norfolk Island Knowledge and Learning Centre, Norfolk Island, on 5 July 2024. It […]

QSN member body The Moreton Bay Foundation has appealed for help to develop and maintain a Knowledge Hub to guide research, action and advocacy. Moreton Bay is one of Australia’s […]

Dr Sean Foley B.Sc.(Hons.); PhD; FRGS and Member of The Royal Society of Queensland is an international expert in aircraft noise. He has written to QSN: “…the effects of aircraft […]

The collective Royal Societies of Australia (RSA) has endorsed a proposal by The Royal Society of Queensland to run an initiative called “Identifying the pre-conditions of well-being”. The project aims […]

Context For an introduction to ACRIS, see the QSN parent page https://scienceqld.org/2023/11/20/condition-and-trend/. For its contemporary website (as at 3 October 2021), see Reporting Change in the Rangelands. This official website […]

Liza Balmain of Glendon Station, Nangwee, has drawn QSN’s attention to a critique of the ‘adaptive management’ approach to mopping up the deleterious effects of mining. Australia’s ‘learning by doing’ […]

There are strategies and strategies. Animated by concern by graziers about declining financial profitability and declining condition of the natural resource base in the 1980s and early 1990s, regional plans […]

Gympie East State School community From the Mary River Catchment Coordinating Committee, new member of QSN 2023 marks the seventh year of the Find a Frog in February citizen science […]

Prof Kerrie Wilson, Queensland Chief Scientist, delivered the Romeo Lahey Memorial Lecture 2024 on the theme: The role of protected areas The impact of climate change on national parks Adapting […]

 The Australian Reptile Online Database is a searchable database containing information on all currently recognised Australian reptile species. At the moment, information for most species is limited to taxonomic details. […]