The Cairns Institute

🌱Join the Decarb Hub in their first webinar for 2025! 🌏💡 Queensland is endowed with significant quantities of bioresources in farm systems, food and industrial processing, and food and green waste.  Some of these feedstocks remain untapped or underutilised but could be put to better use to grow local economies, increase renewable bioenergy, improve soil health and ag systems and reduce Queensland’s carbon emissions. This webinar will discuss some of the innovative technologies and pathways and how Queensland innovators are using these to convert organics into renewable gases and future fuels, biochar and biofertilisers, and novel foods, feeds and chemicals. 🌱 Presenter: Dr Jennifer Yarnold, Senior Research Fellow (Adjunct), Centre for Policy Futures, UQ James Cook University

Orientation Week at James Cook University

✉️ We invite you to express your interest in attending this event. By submitting your EOI, you will be added to the waitlist for early bird ticket. 👉 https://lnkd.in/giKCA3de Millennia of Ag-Innovation, the first-ever First Nations-led agtech event in Tropical North Queensland (TNQ), will be held on 10-11 February 2025 in Cairns. 🌏 This event is focused on providing traditional landowners with access to cutting-edge agtech solutions, while fostering collaboration among First Nations farmers, contemporary producers, and agtech developers. With a diverse program covering livestock, cropping, and aquaculture, the event aims to enhance innovation, resilience, and sustainable growth across agricultural sectors. 🌱 Set against the stunning backdrop of Cairns, attendees will engage with live agtech showcases, installations, and workshops. As the sun sets on the first day showcase, attendees will be treated to a cultural evening celebrating local Indigenous food and heritage, featuring a performance by the Gimuy Yidinji tribe and a traditional dinner hosted by Local Indigenous Food Enterprise Services (LIFES) and BushTukkaWoman, Samantha Martin. The second day of the event includes an Innovation Trail, including Indigenous-led innovations at the Rainstick facility, breakfast event at James Cook University’s Ideas Lab to connect with agtech startups and explore TEKFARM on-farm deployments across the Cairns Hinterland. Millennia of Ag-Innovation is a collaborative initiative involving TEKFARM Farmers2Founders, TNQ Drought Hub, LIFES, and Rainstick, with support from the Australian Government Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry through the Support Regional Trade Events Program. Launch your evokeAG2025 journey with an inspiring experience at Millenia of Ag-Innovation, nestled in the heart of Tropical North Queensland. This transformative two day event will link into the Central Queensland AgTech Showcase 2025 pre-evokeAG tour, offering the opportunity to continue onto Emerald, where they can join a tour traveling from Emerald to Rockhampton and then to Brisbane. Millennia of Ag-Innovation is a sideline event supporting evokeAG 2025 in Brisbane on 18-19 February 2025. Millennia of Ag-Innovation is supported by funding from the Australian Government Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry as part of its Support Regional Trade Events Program. 👉 https://lnkd.in/gMDABEUd James Cook University Tropical North Queensland Drought Resilience Adoption and Innovation Hub Farmers2Founders

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🌊Australian Perspectives on Reef Intervention 🌿 A new paper from RRAP's Engagement research team, co-authored by Professor Stewart Lockie and colleagues, reveals key insights from surveys of over 8,000 Australians: 🔹 Most Australians believe climate change is harming the Great Barrier Reef. 🔹 Strong public support exists for climate action and reef restoration efforts. 🔹 Confidence in science to protect and restore the reef is high. 🔹 Inclusive engagement with First Nations, stakeholders, and the public is vital to sustaining support for intervention strategies. These findings highlight the need for collaborative, science-driven, and inclusive approaches to protect this iconic ecosystem. Read the open access manuscript here 👉 https://lnkd.in/g2Cvw5wA #ReefRestoration #ClimateAction #GreatBarrierReef #RRAP #ScienceForImpact James Cook University

Issue Four has just landed! https://bit.ly/TCI2024Four 📬📩 James Cook University

📚Research Paper | Articulating futures: Community storylines and assisted ecosystem adaptation in the Great Barrier Reef. 🌍From The Cairns Institute researchers Dr Gillian Paxton, Distinguished Professor Stewart Lockie & Dr Vincent Backhaus. Abstract Public discourse about the Great Barrier Reef – a globally significant coral reef system stretching 2300 kilometres along the coast of northeast Australia – has become dominated by forecasts of its decline due to climate change. While a common and understandable response to fears about the Reef’s imminent loss is advocacy for stronger action on climate change, there have also been increased calls for a shift toward resilience-based management supported by technological interventions to help coral ecosystems survive and adapt to inevitable temperature rises. This paper explores how local community perspectives are formed and expressed within this broader dialogue. Drawing on qualitative interviews with 80 people living and working in proximity to the Reef, we use composite narrative maps to illustrate how narratives of the Reef’s imminent loss are used by communities to articulate alternative futures in the possibility of social change and in the ongoing efficacy of local protection and care. However, we also show how these narratives of loss can constrain the articulation of responses to technologically assisted adaptation, forcing the majority of participants into an uncomfortable moral binary between offering practical help to an imperilled Reef or allowing its imminent loss to catalyse social change. We reflect on what this might mean for fostering a productive and inclusive dialogue about assisted ecosystem adaptation in the Great Barrier Reef. Read the full article👉 https://lnkd.in/gX2pzPyh James Cook University

👍 The Cairns Institute's Researcher, Dr Rana Dadpour will be moderating this important webinar. 🔜 See below for details. 🔽 🔽 🔽 James Cook University

📖 "Alone Together" by Cairns Institute Fellow E. Smyth ✨ In a powerful new fiction piece Dr Elizabeth Smyth explores themes of connection and solitude, weaving a narrative that resonates with the complex emotions of being “Alone Together. Read the article below to experience this evocative story. 👉 https://shorturl.at/hM1GJ    James Cook University