Climate change adaptation needs a rich social and practical infrastructure

L

eadership manifesting a rich social and practical infrastructure was among messages at Wednesday night’s Slap Adaptation forum organized by the Shepparton-based Slap Tomorrow.

Among the trio of speakers was the Director of the National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility (NCARF), Professor Jean Palutikof, from Griffith University on Queensland’s Gold Coast.

Prof Palutikof explained the facts of climate change and how what the world was experiencing was underpinned by science, and then discussed how people in the Goulburn Valley should respond.

She began her presentation with a wonderful picture of her maternal family on a farm illustrating that she had a long connection to the land.



Prof Jean Palutikof with a picture
of her maternal farming family.

The University of Melbourne’s Professor Snow Barlow, who has rich and broad experience in understanding how agricultural industries should respond to the quickly unfolding disruption, said any successful response may require a change in farming practices, and maybe even a change in what it was that people farmed.

A research officer with the Department of Agriculture and Food Systems at the University of Melbourne, who is based at the agriculture research station near Tatura, Rebecca Darbyshire, who completed her PhD under the guidance of Professor Barlow, also addressed the 30 or so people at Wednesday night’s forum.

Rebecca has a special interest in how climate change is altering the occurrence of frosts, the subsequent changes to bud-burst, what impact those slight, but important differences have on fruit quality, timing and general production.



Rebecca Darbyshire discusses the importance of
social infrastructure to climate change adaptation.

She told about how Queensland peanut growers eager to ensure they had both the needed warmth and water, invested heavily in a Northern Territory project that ultimately failed, not because of the science, but because of an inadequate social and practical and skills based infrastructure.



The event was staged with the cooperation and help of staff at the Shepparton campus of La Trobe University and it was the campus director, Sue Nalder, who welcomed those at the forum and provided the acknowledgement of country.

Fewer people than hoped for attended Wednesday’s forum, but despite that Slap Tomorrow officials were delighted with the outcome.