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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 rights’ intensified. Heated meetings were held around the State. The Department of Natural Resources commissioned two significant consultancies and its own officers produced a significant internal report. These analyses lead to a government decision not to pay ‘compensation’ for newly imposed restrictions (which were of a regulatory and not proprietorial nature), but instead to establish funds for industry adjustment, property management planning and purchase of distressed enterprises.
Institutional Reform in Rural Australia: Defining and Allocating Property Rights, Tony Gleeson and Kirstie Piper, 2002.
Property Rights and Natural Resource Management, Ian Reeve, Institute of Rural Futures, 2002.
The Department’s internal paper was titled as if confined to property in water, but that was an artifact of late-stage internal negotiations; the analysis applies also to land.
In 2002 the Department commissioned eminent planner and lawyer Phil Day to produce an Issues Paper examining the concept of betterment – the taxing of the unlearned increment in value when government decisions and the general advance of a community result in a rising value of land. The paper – Incentives and Disincentives – the Potential of Property Taxes to Reinforce Public Policy Objectives wasn’t published but a copy has fallen from the back of a truck into QSN’s hands.
Maps of land use and land tenure in South-east Queensland:
Public land map – April 2008.
Map plus table.
Land use summary for the SEQ NRM region – June 2014.
In 2014 the Queensland Government published a Discussion Paper envisaging freeholding some of the public land estate. The Queensland Outdoor Recreation Federation (now Outdoors Queensland) commissioned a report titled Underpinning the Foundations of the Four Pillars. Queensland State Land–. A copy of the State’s Discussion Paper Strengthening our economic future has been annotated with detailed comments by QORF’s consultant.
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Professor Hugh Possingham has been awarded one of the global scientific community’s highest honours with his election as a Fellow of the Royal Society.
A world-leading ecologist, Professor Possingham is one of 90 scientific experts from across the world who have been awarded fellowship of the London-based Royal Society this year. He was elected for his contributions to biological diversity and nature conservation, including his role in co-developing a leading conservation planning tool that is used in more than 180 countries.
Professor Possingham is currently a VC Senior Research Fellow in the University of Queensland’s School of the Environment, and he is an Affiliate of both the Centre for Marine Science and the Centre for Biodiversity and Conservation Science. He also served as Queensland’s Chief Scientist from 2020 to 2022.
The Fellowship of the Royal Society is made up of the world’s most eminent scientists,
engineers and technologists. Past Fellows include luminaries such as Isaac Newton, Stephen Hawking, Charles Darwin and Albert Einstein.
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This remarkable book was produced by the British Association for the Advancement of Science in preparation for its “Australian Meeting 1914”. Not least of its remarkable features is a reference to The Royal Society of Queensland – on page 596, in the fifth volume – including a record of the number of members and the number of books in its library!
QSN has arranged scanning of the book and has uploaded it in five files because of their size. all have been rendered “searchable” though the search function is imperfect.
Federal Handbook A, pages i-209 – History, Aboriginals, Geology, Climate, Vegetation – 61 MB.
Federal Handbook B, pages 210-390 – Geology, Astronomy, Geodesy – 47 MB.
Federal Handbook C, pages 391-462 – Pastoral, Agricultural, Mining – 19 MB.
Federal Handbook D, pages 463-508 – Commercial – 16 MB.
Federal Handbook E, pages 509-598 – Education, Political, Miscellaneous – 32 MB.
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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 knowledge-generating projects. So QSN has decided to open a page to accommodate some benchmark writings on the subject.
Two landmark documents in this field were published in the Proceedings of The Royal Society of Queensland in volume 124 of 2020:
Creating and then abolishing bodies of scientific knowledge, expertise and analytical capability: An Australian political malaise, by the late David Marlow, a member of the Royal Society of Queensland at the time.
Processes and institutions for scientific independence – Reflections on Land & Water Australia, by Jason Alexandra, highlighting the appalling decision to destroy one of the few national bodies aiming to reach across disciplinary boundaries to produce integrated analysis.
Society member Dr Geoff Edwards has written a few articles on the importance of knowledge in the series of opinion pieces Prevention or Patch-up? as contributions to a project by the Royal Societies of Australia on preventative health. Look especially for the first article on 28 February 2024; and the article “Prevention or patch-up? Data, information, and knowledge are not ‘wisdom’”on 8 May 2024; and on 1 May 2025 a critique of the political platform that would see large numbers cut from the Australian Public Service.
An opinion piece was published in the Times Higher Education on 24 April by Rhodri Davies and Dorrit Jacob:
“Earth science is critical to national resilience – so why is it being gutted? Australia must fund its universities in ways that reflect their mission – not just their margins”.
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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 was Assistant Professor of Entomology at its agricultural college for seven years. This was followed by thirty years of teaching senior biology and general science in New Zealand. She worked for six years as field assistant with geologists mapping landforms in outback Western Australia. She has also developed an olive orchard. She has a life-long interest in the natural sciences, ecology and the effects of human activities on the natural world.
In late 2024 she visited Norfolk Island and recorded her observations in this charming report – part natural history, part travelogue, part commentary on local affairs.
(Norfolk Island is administered by the Commonwealth of Australia. Health and education services are provided by the Queensland Government under contract to the Commonwealth. It is deemed by The Royal Society of Queensland to lie within Queensland for the purpose of publishing scientific articles).
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Reef Ecologic specialises in providing expert advice to design and implement innovative solutions to environmental challenges facing tropical marine ecosystems and the people who love and depend upon them. Reef Ecologic brings more than 40 years of experience at the leading edge of coral reefs science, management and policy to provide insight, guide strategic actions and build capacity among the leaders of today and tomorrow.
Reef Ecologic is a commercial firm. Read its capability statement here.
14 Cleveland Terrace
Townsville QLD 4810
p: 0418 726 584
ABN 66 601 301 099
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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 practice was based on anecdotal narratives passed on between bee-keepers – not necessarily inaccurate, but limited. Graham Kleinschmidt, based at Gatton Agricultural College, conducted scientific research that significantly improved the skills of apiarists and so improved productivity.
His research reports were compiled into a folder dated May 1986. It is reproduced here in three files:
Introduction to page 4.4.2 (58.1 MB)
Pages 4.4.3 to 5.1.6 (31.9 MB)
Page 5.1.7 to the end, including the Charles Roff Memorial Lecture of 1989 delivered by Graham Kleinschmidt, a former colleague. (11.6 MB).
Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION
2. POPULATION MANAGEMENT
2.1 Colony management for maximum populations
2.2 Feeding and populations
2.3 Summary of management for the 1980s
2.4 Building large hive populations
3. NUTRITION
3.1 The.influence of crude protein levels on colony production
3.2 The effect of dietary protein on colony performance
3.3 Colony management for low quality pollens
3.4 Advantages and disadvantages of supplementary feeding
3.5 Nutrition for long life bees
4. POLLEN
4.1 The value of plant pollens in honey bee nutrition
4.2 Pollen sources and pollen collection by bees foraging in agricultural areas
4.3 Pollen sources and pollen collection by bees foraging in coastal wallum areas
4.4 Pollen sources and pollen collection by bees foraging on the Darling Downs
4.5 Pollen sources and pollen collection by bees foraging in the coastal ranges
5. QUEEN BEES
5.1 Queen rearing
51 Breeding systems for stock improvement
5.3 Evaluation of honey bee stock
6. DISEASE
6.1 Influence of management on the effects of Nosema disease
6..2 Incidence of Nosema disease
7. HIVE EQUIPMENT
7.1 The influence of hive design on colony production and microclimate
7.2 The influence of hive design on honey production and colony management
8. HONEY PROCESSING AND STORAGE
8.1 Temperature darkening of honey
8.2 Honey creaming machine
9. POLLINATION
9.1 The role of insects in crop production
9.2 Insect pollinators
9.3 Colony food requirements
9.4 Honey bee food selection
9.5 Development of a management system for pollination of field crops
9.6 Insect pollination requirements of hybrid sunflowers
9.7 Encouraging bees to sunflowers
9,8 Relationship between yield/head, yield/hectare and bees
9.9 Pollination requirement of a range of sunflower cultivars
10. PESTICIDES
10.1 Toxicity of insecticides to honey bees in major entomophilous crops in Australia
10.2 Long term effects of systemic pesticides on honey bees.
Charles Roff Lecture.
Don Keith’s writings on bee-keeping
Don Keith has written two insightful papers published in the Proceedings of The Royal Society of Queensland:
The decline of melliferous native flora for European Honey Bees in Queensland: Some reflections, Volume 122.
Native forest changes affecting apiculture and crop production, published in Volume 127, A Rangelands Dialogue.
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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 . For more detail consult the Foundation’s website.
A video of the launch is available on the website of Redlands 2030, an activist group based in Bayside South East Queensland.
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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 for a greater urgency for climate adaptation and includes an outline of a ‘how-to?’ approach.
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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 farmers and to farmland.
Under workplace health and safety legislation, farmers who are unwilling hosts to energy/resource projects have a right to a safe workplace protected from the risks created by co-location. It places on persons in control of energy undertakings clear obligations to address workplace psychosocial well-being within farming workplaces.
The absence of effective enforcement of Queensland workplace law severely minimises the visibility, voice and role of host farmers in both the resource and planning regulatory arrangements. Co-location creates an unmitigated shifting of hazards and risks from the energy project to the farming occupational group.
Click on the image above for a poster explaining the PSC Scorecard. For more information contact Dr Dougall.
Dr Dougall has also has a chapter “An Overview of Unconventional Gas Extraction in Australia: The First Decade”. By Geralyn McCarron and Shay Dougall in the following book:
Stolz, J., Bain, D., Griffin, M., & Stolz, J. (2022). Environmental Impacts from the Development of Unconventional Oil and Gas Reserves (First edition.). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108774178