PUBLIC LECTURE: JOSEPH GENTILLI MEMORIAL LECTURE : The role of refugia in biotic nature conservation

Abstract: A refugium is a refuge for organisms in environmentally inclement times. Refugia may be contemporary, as in the case of Australian alpine ecosystems, or historical, as with the last glacial rainforest refugia in eastern Australia. Many species that were confined to last glacial refugia have yet to attain their potential range in the brief warmth and wetness of the Holocene. Past refugia have been identified by the coincident ranges of local endemics and climatic reconstructions based on microfossil evidence. It has been argued that an obvious implication of past refugia for long term nature conservation planning is the necessity to protect them, and the pathways to them, from development. In many case, topographic heterogeneity created refugia dotted through the wider range of species, making such protection relatively easy. In some cases the protection of pathways may have been effectively rendered impossible, implying that people will need to transport species over gaps as we slide into the next glacial period. Present refugia equally deserve protection and strong forward planning. For example, the tenuous survival of many of our native vertebrates on island refugia will be threatened by the sea level falls that will occur in the next glacial period. The importance of refugia in biotic nature conservation has been recognised in world heritage criteria and Australian criteria for the conservation of forests, without necessarily being applied systematically in conservation planning. Yet, in the longer term, such systematic protection will be vital for the survival of most of the rarer species on our planet.

Biographical note: Jamie Kirkpatrick is Professor in the School of Geography and Environmental Studies at the University of Tasmania and Vice- President of the Institute of Australian Geographers. His main loves are alpine, grassy, coastal and garden ecosystems, nature conservation and understanding the politics of environment. He has been recognized by several national awards and prizes for his work developing methods for planning reserves and his contribution to forest conservation and world heritage matters, and has been recognized internationally for producing the seminal work on minimum set reservation planning methods. He has published more than 190 refereed papers and more than 20 books, several of which make ecological knowledge accessible to the general public. His books include: The Ecologies of Paradise: Explaining the Garden Next Door, Pandani Press, 2006; A Continent Transformed: Human Impact on the Vegetation of Australia, 2nd ed OUP, 1999; Alpine Tasmania, OUP, 1997 His major current research projects seek to gain an improved understanding of the effects of fire-grazing interactions on vegetation dynamics, and the causes, and conservation implications, of variation in the composition and structure of domestic gardens.

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