Tag Archives: biodiversity

Leapfrogging towards water sensitive cities: The Australia-Indonesia Centre Urban Water Cluster

How can cities grow and thrive in an era of climate change? This is a challenge faced by both Australia and Indonesia. With ever-increasing population shifts towards urban environments, it is crucial to make cities sustainable.

Australian cities are adopting water sensitive approaches. Melbourne Water, for example, has created over 10,000 raingardens. But progress is slow, in part because of the existing massive traditional water infrastructure.

Continue reading Leapfrogging towards water sensitive cities: The Australia-Indonesia Centre Urban Water Cluster

Better ways to conserve the Coral Triangle

Six Southeast Asian countries are working together to better conserve the world’s centre of marine biodiversity, the Coral Triangle, with the hope that this will lead to a more collaborative approach to sharing coral reef resources in the area.

The Coral Triangle sits between Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia, East Timor, Papua New Guinea, and the Solomon Islands, a group of countries that have formed the Coral Triangle Initiative. It is home to 76 per cent of the world’s known coral species, 2,500 reef fish species, and the largest area of mangroves in the world.

Continue reading Better ways to conserve the Coral Triangle

Citizen science recovering volcanic farmlands

An Indonesian initiative is putting science—and the laboratory—into the hands of communities; combining the arts, science, and technology with some basic science lessons for the general public.

In 2014, the HackteriaLab gathering in Yogyakarta brought 40 scientists, artists, and academics together for two weeks to work on existing local community projects.

Continue reading Citizen science recovering volcanic farmlands