Seeing is believing: The value of demonstration sites
Contents
- Theme: Seeing is believing: The value of demonstration sites
- Case study 1: Seeing is believing - The Johnstone River catchment experience
- Getting a Grip 1: Using native tubestock as an alternative to willows
- Case study 2: Is the value in the bed or the banks? - Upper Mary demonstration sites good as gold
- Getting a Grip 2: Rapid assessment of riparian health
- Local government focus: Ipswich City Council
- UK experience: The value of demonstration projects
- Case study 3: Riparian restoration in the Blackwood Catchment
- Getting a Grip 3: Willows - Ecological impacts and management
- It's a Wrap: News from around Australia
Seeing is believing: The value of demonstration sites
We live in a society awash with information and knowledge. What are the best ways of ensuring that we learn from the mass of information that surrounds us? The most basic source from which we gain understanding is to have first-hand experience. Western culture, however, has come to favour the indirect knowledge gained from secondary experience, in which information is selected, modified, packaged and presented to us by others. Edward Reed, a writer on this subject, argues that we are becoming increasingly removed from the environment in which we live and that this situation has become so dominant in our technological workplaces, schools and even our homes that first-hand experience is endangered. What is required, Reed contends, is a better balance between first-hand and second-hand experience, because without opportunities to learn directly we become less likely to think and feel for ourselves.
From the Editor
Welcome to the Christmas edition of RipRap. This edition is packed with information about the value of demonstration sites, both here and overseas, as ways of allowing people to experience first-hand riparian and river restoration activities. In addition, following requests from RipRap readers, we have some articles on rapid riparian assessment methods, as well as the use of long-stem native tubestock as a replacement for willows and poplars. Speaking of willows! - we have enclosed a free brochure for those RipRap readers who live in regions affected by willows, as well as a brochure on the Land and Water Resources R&D Corporation that gives an overview of the organisation, and lets you know what it is we aim to do. We hope you find both brochures useful and interesting - perhaps they will provide you with some enlightening reading over the Christmas break. Finally, I would like to say a big THANK YOU to all RipRap readers - our subscription list is continuing to grow (as is the size of the newsletter!) and your feedback and interest in the program is valued. Have a great Christmas and New Year, and I will look forward to working with you at the start of the new Millennium!
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