Remote Australia Online

The Art of Business and the Business of Art

With a matching structure and topical emphasis, the accompanying Marketing Strategy Casebook is a collection of contemporary case studies designed to develop students' capacity to analyse challenging situations and to implement strategies to overcome them. The case studies are based on real-world scenarios and are drawn from diverse regions, industries and technologies.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art is a distinctive feature of Australia’s cultural and creative landscape and a sizeable com-ponent of Australian identity. While the political dimensions of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art remain much contested, the aesthetic and economic aspects are well established. Reflect-ing the prominent place of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art in Australian society, there have – for over 40 years – been numerous attempts to place Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art into the global art market, both as a cultural experience and a commercial opportunity. This paper surveys the uneven history of these attempts and the often contradictory motivations at work. These attempts are given some context through statisti-cal information and the paper concludes with a summary of the current challenges and opportunities.There are profound levels of economic and social marginalisation for many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, particu-larly in remote areas. In response, there have been numerous policy initiatives and funding programmes, implemented over many years – with limited success. One of the only long term economic successes for remote communities has been the crea-tive industries, through a national network of artist cooperatives, or art centres. While the art produced by remote area Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists has grown to prominence in the Australian cultural landscape, these domestic successes have not been replicated internationally.

The Art Economies Value Chain research is a central part of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Economies project. In 2014, five Art Economies Value Chain reports were released, each researching and reporting on a key stage in the production and sale of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art from remote Australia. One of these reports, The Art Economies Value Chain reports: Art Centre finances investigated the funding to remote area Art Centres and their financial circumstances. This report drew on funding and financial data up until 2012/13. Since the completion of those five reports, a further two financial years have passed. This report has collected data from the 2013/14 and 2014/15 years and added it to the earlier dataset. The data from the additional two financial years have increased the richness and accuracy of the findings contained in the 2014 report and enabled further tracking of the trends it identified. This update on Art Centre finances is provided with the aim of giving the sector, and its various stakeholders, contemporary information on the status, changes to and challenges for remote area Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Centres.

Age standardised skin cancers (melanoma and non-melanoma) continue to increase in Australia, although they are stabilising for those under age 40. People living in regional, rural and remote Australia have higher rates of skin cancer and challenges accessing care. Better targeting of skin protection measures and improved opportunistic screening have been promoted as ways to improve care for these populations as have increased use of information technology and upskilling of primary health care nurses. The Australian Government supports that Optimal Cancer Care Pathways for skin cancers be used as a key resource in exploring best practice models of care for skin cancer patients both for the development of digital platforms and face to face multidisciplinary teams (MDTs). Better use of technology has been a core recommendation of national health and skin cancer organisations for improving prevention and early detection of skin cancer. Skin cancers, as a primarily visual diagnosis are considered one of the prime areas for technological health interventions. The harnessing of artificial intelligence (AI) technology as a tool for early detection and disease management of skin cancers has great potential to reduce the burden of health care costs to the regional, rural and remote community and improve health outcomes.

The impacts of wild predators on livestock are a common source of human?wildlife conflict globally, and predators are subject to population control for this reason in many situations. Animal welfare is one of many important considerations affecting decisions about predation management. Recent studies discussing animal welfare in this context have presented arguments emphasizing the importance of avoiding intentional harm to predators, but they have not usually considered harms imposed by predators on livestock and other animals. Efforts to mitigate predation impacts (including ?no control? approaches) cause a variety of harms to predators, livestock and other wildlife. Successfully minimizing the overall frequency and magnitude of harms requires consideration of the direct, indirect, intentional and unintentional harms imposed on all animals inhabiting agricultural landscapes. We review the harms resulting from the management of dingoes and other wild dogs in the extensive beef cattle grazing systems of Australia to illustrate how these negative impacts can be minimized across both wild and domestic species present on a farm or in a free-ranging livestock grazing context. Similar to many other predator?livestock conflicts, wild dogs impose intermittent harms on beef cattle (especially calves) including fatal predation, non-fatal attack (mauling and biting), pathogen transmission, and fear- or stress-related effects. Wild dog control tools and strategies impose harms on dingoes and other wildlife including stress, pain and death as a consequence of both lethal and non-lethal control approaches. To balance these various sources of harm, we argue that the tactical use of lethal predator control approaches can result in harming the least number of individual animals, given certain conditions. This conclusion conflicts with both traditional (e.g. continuous or ongoing lethal control) and contemporary (e.g. predator-friendly or no-control) predation management approaches. The general and transferable issues, approaches and principles we describe have broad applicability to many other human?wildlife conflicts around the world.

Background: This study addresses two challenging areas at the interface of mining and Indigenous communities in Australia: 1. The persistent lack of direct employment of Indigenous landowners on mines operating on their land 2. Increasing expectations that mining companies engage local communities in closure planning and closure criteria setting as a prerequisite for relinquishment. The approach taken seeks to build on one of the greatest assets Indigenous people possess; their attachment to and knowledge of their land. Through this research, CSRM explores the opportunities for local Indigenous groups to conduct fee-for-service environmental management and rehabilitation work on the mining footprint as a way to increase Indigenous landowner participation to achieve beneficial outcomes for closure. The overarching aim is to understand ways Indigenous groups currently work with Australian mining companies on mine environment management and rehabilitation and identify key themes and questions for further research. The research focuses on the interactions between three main stakeholder groups; mining companies; Indigenous people and their representative agencies; and government. Method A rapid appraisal was undertaken across four sites in regional and remote Australia. These include Northern Star’s Jundee Mine in the Western Australian goldfields, Newmont Tanami Operations in central Australia, Woodcutters base metal mine near Darwin, and Rio Tinto’s Amrun operation south of Weipa in far north Queensland. One site was a closed mine, the others operating. Three are hard rock open-cut and underground mines, the other a surficial bauxite laterite operation that involves sequential mining, back-filling and progressive rehabilitation. Key representatives of the mining company and respective Indigenous groups were interviewed in each case to learn about their experiences and perspectives on Indigenous engagement in the mine’s environmental management and rehabilitation. Objectives The specific research objectives were to:•understand what mine environmental management and rehabilitation activities are currently being undertaken by Indigenous groups in Australia •document views, issues and opportunities around stakeholder groups working collaboratively on mined land rehabilitation and mine closure •understand the role of government in enabling or constraining the involvement of Indigenous groups •generate interest in the topic and build collaborative working relationships and trust with key stakeholder groups Indigenous groups, land rehabilitation and mine closure: exploring the Australian terrain •lay the foundations for the possibility of UQ hosting dialogues and knowledge sharing forums with Indigenous groups and mining companies to scale-up the expertise on innovative mine closure practices. Findings: The study identified innovative and progressive examples of local Indigenous groups working with mining companies on environmental management and rehabilitation projects. The case studies exhibit successful collaborations where Indigenous groups are clearly motivated by opportunities to participate in work meaningful to them as custodians of their land. The value derived from this mode of engagement justifies further investigation into how to consolidate, replicate and scale-up the opportunities.

Background: Australian surveillance data document higher rates of sexually transmissible infections (STIs) among young Aboriginal people (15–29 years) in remote settings than non-Aboriginal young people. Epidemiological data indicate a substantial number of young Aboriginal people do not test for STIs. Rigorous qualitative research can enhance understanding of these findings. This paper documents socio-ecological factors influencing young Aboriginal people’s engagement with clinic-based STI testing in two remote settings in the Northern Territory, Australia. Methods: In-depth interviews with 35 young Aboriginal men and women aged 16–21 years; thematic analysis examining their perceptions and personal experiences of access to clinic-based STI testing. Results: Findings reveal individual, social and health service level influences on willingness to undertake clinic-based STI testing. Individual level barriers included limited knowledge about asymptomatic STIs, attitudinal barriers against testing for symptomatic STIs, and lack of skills to communicate about STIs with health service staff. Social influences both promoted and inhibited STI testing. In setting 1, local social networks enabled intergenerational learning about sexual health and facilitated accompanied visits to health clinics for young women. In setting 2, however, social connectedness inhibited access to STI testing services. Being seen at clinics was perceived to lead to stigmatisation among peers and fear of reputational damage due to STI-related rumours. Modalities of health service provision both enhanced and inhibited STI testing. In setting 1, outreach strategies by male health workers provided young Aboriginal men with opportunities to learn about sexual health, initiate trusting relationships with clinic staff, and gain access to clinics. In setting 2, barriers were created by the location and visibility of the clinic, appointment procedures, waiting rooms and waiting times. Where inhibitive factors at the individual, social and health service levels exist, young Aboriginal people reported more limited access to STI testing. Conclusions: This is the first socio-ecological analysis of factors influencing young Aboriginal people’s willingness to undertake testing for STIs within clinics in Australia. Strategies to improve uptake of STI testing must tackle the overlapping social and health service factors that discourage young people from seeking sexual health support. Much can be learned from young people’s lived sexual health experiences and family- and community-based health promotion practices.

Research into contemporary Indigenous relationships with the archaeological record has increasingly drawn upon frameworks emphasising relational, affectual and cultural understandings to learn about the complex ways that meaning and symbolism are negotiated and expressed. In this paper, we use a series of case studies from Arnhem Land to investigate the network of relationships Aboriginal Traditional Owners use in the process of interpreting the archaeological record. At the core of this process is Edward Casey's idea of ?grasping-together?, where people draw on their social and cultural knowledge as a means to make sense out of what is being encountered and how it fits into existing frameworks of knowledge and understanding. By approaching rock art through the lens of encounter and interaction, archaeologists are in a privileged position to add another layer to the, symbolism and significance people attach to their cultural heritage today.

Objective: To determine the death rates and effect on premature mortality in the Northern Territory of acute rheumatic fever and rheumatic heart disease. Methods: We ascertained deaths due to acute rheumatic fever and rheumatic heart disease for the period 1979-96 from death certificates, a database of all patients with these diseases and mortuary records. Crude and age-standardised death rates were calculated, as were years of potential life lost before age 65, between 15 and 65, and before age 70. Results: Of 182 deaths, 171 (94%) were in Aboriginal people. The mean age at death of Aboriginal people was 35.7 years, compared to 67.3 years in non-Aboriginal people. The age-standardised death rate in Aboriginal people was 30.2 per 100,000 person-years, compared to 1.1 in non-Aboriginal people. Acute carditis caused 13 deaths at a mean age of 14.2 years. Mortality in Aboriginal people was highest in the >30 age groups and in females. Premature mortality for Aboriginal people was more than four times that from developing countries. Conclusions: Acute rheumatic fever and rheumatic heart disease are not only common in Aboriginal people, they affect and often kill people in their most productive years. A co-ordinated control program should help in the short term, but will not address underlying causes of these and other preventable diseases.

The development of the Australian Community Climate Earth-System Simulator-Seasonal version 1 (ACCESS-S1) prediction system signifies a major step in addressing predictive limitations in multi-week to seasonal forecasting. It is anticipated that ACCESS-S1 will provide greater skill in its prediction of the wet season onset and intensity, which are crucial to the viability of cattle grazing across northern Australia. We evaluate the hindcast skill of the ACCESS-S1 for the northern rainfall onset, defined as the date when 50 mm of precipitation has accumulated at a given location from the 1st of September, heralding the start of the seasonal dry-to-wet transition over northern Australia. We show that the raw ACCESS-S1 hindcasts, regridded to a 5 km observed grid, capture the broad-scale features of the median onset, including an early October onset over the western Top End and southeast Queensland. However, the hindcasts fail to capture the later December onsets over central Australia. The greatest improvement in onset skill comes from first calibrating the hindcasts using observations, which outperform the raw model and bias corrected hindcasts over central Australia and the far west in the Pilbara-Gascoyne basin. Based on its simulation of realistic northern rainfall onset dates and variability alone, ACCESS-S1’s prediction performance can be considered an improvement over the older predictive system. As the real-time onset forecasts have were issued using ACCESS-S1 in July 2019, it is expected that the calibrated predictions will help improve the resilience of cattle producers and graziers to drought across northern Australia.

Coastal, freshwater wetlands in northern Australia are at risk of increased saltwater intrusion associated with sea-level rise, which threatens the persistence of numerous freshwater plant species by increasing salinity. Waterlilies (Nymphaea) are widespread in northern Australia, and their loss from these wetlands will be detrimental, both ecologically and culturally. This study aimed to define the regeneration tolerance of Nymphaea to increased salinity through quantifying the effects of salinity on seed germination and early seedling growth in four Nymphaea species. Seed germination and seedling growth were assessed under a gradient of salinity concentrations. Seeds that did not germinate after salinity exposure were assessed for their ability to recover in fresh water. For all species, there was a significant reduction in germination when seeds were exposed to salinities of ≥ 100 mM NaCl. Total seedling biomass was less sensitive to increasing salinity than germination, however declined significantly across all species at salinities ≥ 100 mM NaCl. Ungerminated seeds from all salinity treatments displayed some degree of recovery when transferred to fresh water. For the majority of species, however, seed germination of these transferred seeds never reached the percentages observed in the non-saline controls. For most species of Nymphaea, any salinization event reaching ≥ 100 mM NaCl will significantly reduce recruitment from seeds, irrespective of whether saline water is flushed from the system. The predicted future increases of saltwater intrusion into coastal freshwater wetlands in Northern Australia associated with global sea-level rise will likely result in significant habitat loss for many Nymphaea species.

Environmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding surveys enable rapid, non-invasive identification of taxa from trace samples with wide-ranging applications from characterising local biodiversity to identifying food-web interactions. However, the technique is prone to error from two major sources: i) contamination through foreign DNA entering the workflow, and ii) misidentification of DNA within the workflow. Both types of error have the potential to obscure true taxon presence or to increase taxonomic richness by incorrectly identifying taxa as present at sample sites but multiple error sources can remain unaccounted for in metabarcoding studies. Here, we use data from an eDNA metabarcoding study designed to detect vertebrate species at waterholes in Australia?s arid zone to illustrate where and how in the workflow errors can arise, and how to mitigate those errors. We detected the DNA of 36 taxa spanning 34 families, 19 orders and 5 vertebrate classes in water samples from waterholes, demonstrating the potential for eDNA metabarcoding surveys to provide rapid, non-invasive detection in remote locations, and to widely sample taxonomic diversity from aquatic through to terrestrial taxa. However, we initially identified 152 taxa in the samples, meaning there were many false positive detections. We identified the sources of these errors, allowing us to design a stepwise process to detect and remove error, and provide a template to minimise similar errors that are likely to arise in other metabarcoding studies. Our findings suggest eDNA metabarcoding surveys need to be carefully conducted and screened for errors to ensure their accuracy.

Many recent policy documents have outlined the challenges of delivering high-quality education in remote First Nations communities and proposed that boarding schools are one important solution. These documents have influenced the increasing uptake of boarding options and there has been considerable public investment in scholarships, residential facilities and transition support. Yet the outcomes of this investment and policy effort are not well understood. The authors of this article came together as a collaboration of researchers who have published about boarding school education for First Nations students to examine the evidence and develop a theory-driven understanding of how policies drive systems to produce both desirable and undesirable outcomes for First Nations boarding school students. We applied complexity theory and post-structural policy analysis techniques and produced a useful tool for the evaluation of boarding policy and its implementation.

Housing and crowding are critical to health. Sufficient, well-maintained housing infrastructure can support healthy living practices for hygiene, nutrition and safety. However, when there is insufficient public housing for a growing community and a lack of functioning health hardware, the transmission risk of hygiene-related infectious diseases increases. The outcome is that many Indigenous Australians currently living in remote areas experience considerably higher levels of preventable infections, such as boils, scabies, middle ear infections and lung infections, than their non-Indigenous and urban counterparts. This report provides a case study of Tennant Creek and the surrounding Barkly Region in the Northern Territory, to highlight the relationship between remote housing, crowding and infectious disease. It was conducted in partnership between The University of Queensland (School of Public Health and Aboriginal Environments Research Centre) and Anyinginyi Health Aboriginal Corporation, an Aboriginal Community-Controlled Health Organisation that provides health services within the town and through a mobile clinic. Data were drawn from three sources: over two years of infection diagnoses from the Anyinginyi clinical database, a survey of 36 households in town Community Living Areas(CLAs)and remote bush communities, and 18 interviews with clinicians and public health staff of the Anyinginyi clinic. The data were not intended to be representative, due to a limited sample size, but instead to provide a ‘snapshot in time’ of the health status, housing quality and crowding levels that were experienced by the targeted residents, observed by Anyinginyi staff, and recorded by the clinicians. The project found that there are much higher levels of crowding in bush communities and in town than officially recorded, with an average of 7.3 and 10.8 people respectively, and up to maximums of 22 and 20 people respectively reported in households surveyed. Crowding increases the likelihood of health hardware malfunction and results in householders living with non-functional hot water systems, windows, kitchen facilities, washing machines and toilets, among other health hardware. This leads to difficulty performing health living practices such as washing bodies, clothes and bedding, hygienic sanitation, and safe food preparation. New housing is required to reduce current crowding, yet no new housing has been built in at least 12 years for Aboriginal people in this region. The $78.4 million Barkly Regional Deal and the Remote Housing Strategy ($110million dedicated in the 2019-20 Federal budget) offer an opportunity, but no details had been released as of December 2019.Housing repairs are often delayed. There are high rates of preventable, hygiene-related infectious diseases in the bush communities and CLAs. Over half of the total infectious disease diagnoses were skin infections (boils, sores, scabies and school sores), respiratory infections (upper and lower respiratory tract), and ear, nose and throat infections (middle ear/otitis media, tonsillitis, ear canal and pharyngitis/sore throat). Other notable diagnoses include trachoma, conjunctivitis, gastroenteritis, rheumatic fever, and tooth decay. Chronic kidney disease and rheumatic heart disease are the outcome of repeated infection. This burden of disease affects morbidity and mortality (life expectancy) with associated costs to the government for ongoing health care for dialysis and treatment. Bringing together this evidence, the fundamental cause of the high rates of preventable infections is crowding, that is in turn a result of insufficient housing supply, and a lack of maintenance of existing housing by authorities. Residents correctly perceived that specific health issues are exacerbated by housing conditions and crowding, including scabies from insufficient water for bathing, intestinal worms from leaking sewage, and mental health impacts from the stress of living in crowded conditions. This report provides new evidence that confirms ongoing issues of crowding and health impacts. Crowding rates are no longer being regularly monitored due to the cessation of targeted Aboriginal housing surveys by the Commonwealth Government. Therefore, based on the evidence collated in this report, questions are posed for policymakers in health, housing and Indigenous affairs, including:•When will new housing be built to reduce crowding and infection levels in remote towns and communities? •Can housing be better designed, implemented and maintained through increased local Indigenous governance and employment? •Can health hardware, including washing machines, be ensured to be functional, accessible and available? •Can infection diagnoses trigger environmental health improvements in clients’ homes? The research has highlighted the need for further research to strengthen the evidence and provide monitoring of improvement initiatives. In responding to these questions with a current evidence base, there is a possibility to achieve the expectation set out in the decade-old National Indigenous Reform Agreement that ‘children need to live in accommodation with adequate infrastructure conducive to good hygiene ... and free of overcrowding’.

Background: International studies provide evidence of an association between child disabilities, including hearing impairment (HI), and child maltreatment. There are high prevalences of ear disease with associated HI, and child maltreatment among Australian Aboriginal children, but the link between HI and child maltreatment is unknown. This study investigates the association between HI and child maltreatment for Aboriginal children living in the Northern Territory (NT) of Australia. Methods: This was a retrospective cohort study of 3895 Aboriginal school-aged children (born between 1999 and 2008) living in remote NT communities. The study used linked individual-level information from health, education and child protection services. The outcome variables were child maltreatment notifications and substantiations. The key explanatory variable, HI, was based on audiometric assessment. The Kaplan–Meier estimator method was used in univariate analysis; Cox proportional hazards regression was used in multivariable analysis. Results: A majority of the study cohort lived in very remote (94.5%) and most disadvantaged (93.1%) regions. Among all children in the study cohort, 56.1% had a record of either HI or unilateral hearing loss (UHL), and for those with a history of contact with child protection services (n = 2757), 56.7% had a record of HI/UHL (n = 1564). In the 1999–2003 birth cohort, by age 12 years, 53.5% of children with a record of moderate or worse HI had at least one maltreatment notification, compared to 47.3% of children with normal hearing. In the 2004–2008 cohort, the corresponding results were 83.4 and 71.7% respectively. In multivariable analysis, using the full cohort, children with moderate or worse HI had higher risk of any child maltreatment notification (adjusted Hazard Ratios (adjHR): 1.16, 95% CI:1.04–1.30), notification for neglect (adjHR:1.17, 95% CI:1.04–1.31) and substantiation (adjHR:1.20, 95% CI:1.04–1.40), than children with normal hearing. In the 2004–2008 birth cohort, children with moderate or worse HI had higher risk of a substantiated episode of physical abuse (adjHR:1.47, 95% CI:1.07–2.03) than children with normal hearing. Conclusion: Our findings demonstrate the urgent need for HI and child maltreatment prevention strategies through raised community awareness and inter-agency collaboration. Effective information-sharing between service providers is a critical first step to a public health approach in child protection.

Objective: To describe antibiotic prescription rates for Australian Aboriginal children aged <2 years living in three remote Northern Territory communities. Design: A retrospective cohort study using electronic health records. Setting: Three primary health care centres located in the Katherine East region. Participants: Consent was obtained from 149 mothers to extract data from 196 child records. There were 124 children born between January 2010 and July 2014 who resided in one of the three chosen communities and had electronic health records for their first two years of life. Main outcome measures: Antibiotic prescription rates, factors associated with antibiotic prescription and factors associated with appropriate antibiotic prescription. Results: There were 5,675 Primary Health Care (PHC) encounters for 124 children (median 41, IQR 25.5, 64). Of the 5,675 PHC encounters, 1,542 (27%) recorded at least one infection (total 1,777) and 1,330 (23%) had at least one antibiotic prescription recorded (total 1,468). Children had a median five (IQR 2, 9) prescriptions in both their first and second year of life, with a prescription rate of 5.99/person year (95% CI 5.35, 6.63). Acute otitis media was the most common infection (683 records, 38%) and Amoxycillin was the most commonly prescribed antibiotic (797 prescriptions, 54%). Of the 1,468 recorded prescriptions, 398 (27%) had no infection recorded and 116 (8%) with an infection recorded were not aligned with local treatment guidelines. Conclusion: Prescription rates for Australian Aboriginal children in these communities are significantly higher than that reported nationally for non-Aboriginal Australians. Prescriptions predominantly aligned with treatment guidelines in this setting where there is a high burden of infectious disease.

We conducted a brief health survey of adults in an isolated Northern Territory Aboriginal community, whose standardised mortality rates are the second highest in Australia. The screen revealed high rates of smoking and excessive drinking, of preventable infections and their sequelae, and of hypertension, insulin resistance, diabetes and renal disease. The infectious morbidities were more pronounced and the life?style morbidities almost entirely new since a health screen in 1957. Most morbidities were strongly associated with identifiable risk factors, such as overweight, smoking, excessive drinking, skin sores and scabies, all of which which are amenable to modification. Problems with food supply and pricing, poor food choices and diversion of money to cigarettes, beer and gambling all contributed to poor nutrition. Low birthweight probably compounds the risk for serious adult disease associated with these environmental influences. This profile highlights the failure of current systems to deal with health needs. Improvements in infrastructure, education and employment, and reinvigoration of preventive and primary health care programs, assumption of responsibility for health by the community and by individuals themselves, and better management of existing morbidities are essential to rectifying this shameful situation.

Objective This paper reports findings from a study that sought to better understand the experiences of parents and their children with emergent mental health challenges following the parent's participation in a nurse-led therapeutic group. Design This was an explorative qualitative study using semi-structured interviews which were then thematically analysed. Setting Findings from this single-site study are drawn from regional Australia. Participants Twenty parents and seven of their children aged between 13 and 24. Interventions Family systems based therapeutic group intervention delivered to the parents of young people attending headspace. Main outcome measure In line with qualitative research approaches, the participants lived experience was the outcome measure. Result Three key themes were found in the data: (a) improved parent-child relationships, (b) understanding and being understood and (c) multi-generational perspectives. Conclusion Regional and remote regions are challenged with comparatively fewer and less diverse services for youth mental health than in urban centres. Findings from this exploratory study highlight that young people can experience therapeutic gains where their parents are the recipients of the intervention. Recommendations from these findings include pursuing further research on the therapeutic gains of parental family system-based groups.

The Mintabie Precious Stones Field (MPSF) has, since the early 1920s, produced some of the finest quality opal in the world. This report book provides a review for understanding the remaining opal resources. A detailed spatial analysis shows that after approximately 40 years of mining in the MPSF, an area totalling less than 2 km2 has been intensively mined. A conservative estimate of the area of greatest prospectivity within the MPSF is 20 km2. Within this region of high prospectivity, assuming a similar deposit density to the intensively mined areas to date, the MPSF will support mining for ~400 years at the levels already experienced in its lifetime. Complimentary analysis published in 2002 reveals further prospective regions within the MPSF totalling 44 km2. The total value of the opal mined at Mintabie up to 2016 has been estimated by the South Australian Government to be $412M (unadjusted value of rough opal). An area-based analysis concludes that this is less than 10% of the total contained opal at Mintabie. The opal resource in the MPSF, including the opal already found, is therefore estimated to have an unadjusted raw opal value of over $4B.

Pet domestic cat (Felis catus) populations are increasing all around the world, resulting in an increase in contact with humans and wildlife, potentially spreading zoonotic diseases and predating on wildlife. With the recently identified rise in cat populations in remote Indigenous communities in Australia, culturally appropriate cat population management strategies are required. A systematic review process was conducted to review the current global cat population management practices that are suitable for owned, free-roaming cat populations in these communities. Eight articles on in-situ field cat populations and five studies simulating computer modelled cat populations reported results of 66 population management interventions. Surgical Sterilisation (SS) was used in all socialised owned cat articles. The trap&–neuter–release (TNR) method was used most frequently on unsocialised cats and gained the best results when the trap–remove (TR) method was used concurrently to adopt out unwanted social cats and euthanise ill or injured cats. The results of this review suggest that long-term TNR/SS programs supplemented with TR provide the current most ethically sound best practice, humane method of managing cat populations in remote Australian Indigenous communities. It is also recognised that no one plan will fit all, and that further research on the micro-level techniques used to deploy both TNR and TR needs to occur, and that culturally appropriate community consultation during all processes is vital in achieving a sustainable management program.

Kangaroo–vehicle collisions are frequent on Australian highways. Despite high economic costs, detrimental effects on animal welfare, and potential impacts on population viability, little research has been done to investigate the impact of road mortality on kangaroo populations, where and why accidents occur, and how the collisions can be mitigated. We therefore collected data on species (Macropus rufus, M. giganteus, M. fuliginosus, M. robustus), sex and age of kangaroos killed on a 21.2-km bitumenised section of outback highway over 6 months in far western New South Wales, Australia. The spatial and temporal distribution of road-killed kangaroos was investigated in relation to the cover and quality of road-side vegetation, road characteristics, the density of kangaroos along the road, climatic variables and traffic volume. A total of 125 kangaroos were found killed on the road at a rate of 0.03 deaths km–1 day–1. Grey kangaroos of two species (M. giganteus, M. fuliginosus) were under-represented in the road-kill sample in comparison with their proportion in the source population estimated during the day. No bias towards either sex was found. The age structure of road-killed kangaroos was similar to age structures typical of source kangaroo populations. Road-kills mainly occurred in open plains country. In road sections with curves or stock races, road-kill frequencies were higher than expected. Greater cover and greenness of roadside vegetation at the verge probably attracted kangaroos to the road and variation in this vegetation affected the spatial distribution of road-kills. The temporal distribution of road-kills was positively correlated with the volume of night-time traffic. The probability of a kangaroo–vehicle collision increased exponentially with traffic volume. Results are discussed in relation to the potential for mitigation of kangaroo–vehicle collisions.

Rivers provide crucial ecosystem services in water-stressed drylands. Australian dryland rivers are geomorphologically diverse, ranging from through-going, single channels to discontinuous, multi-channelled systems, yet we have limited understanding of their sensitivity to future hydroclimatic changes. Here, we characterise for the first time the geomorphology of 29 dryland rivers with catchments across a humid to arid gradient covering >1,800,000 km2 of continental eastern and central Australia. Statistical separation of five specific dominantly alluvial river types and quantification of their present-day catchment hydroclimates enables identification of potential thresholds of change. Projected aridity increases across eastern Australia by 2070 (RCP4.5) will result in ~80% of the dryland rivers crossing a threshold from one type to another, manifesting in major geomorphological changes. Dramatic cases will see currently through-going rivers (e.g. Murrumbidgee, Macintyre) experience step changes towards greater discontinuity, characterised by pronounced downstream declines in channel size and local termination. Expanding our approach to include other river styles (e.g. mixed bedrock-alluvial) would allow similar analyses of dryland rivers globally where hydroclimate is an important driver of change. Early identification of dryland river responses to future hydroclimatic change has far-reaching implications for the ~2 billion people that live in drylands and rely on riverine ecosystem services.

Introduction In recent years, Australian government policies have promoted access to secondary education through boarding schools for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (hereafter respectfully termed Indigenous) students from remote communities. These students experience the poorest health of any Australian adolescent group. This exploratory study examines how boarding schools across Queensland promote and manage healthcare and wellbeing support for Indigenous students. Methods Qualitative grounded theory methods were used to sample and collect data from the healthcare and wellbeing support staff of eight Queensland boarding schools using semi-structured interviews. Data were coded using NVIVO software and compared to identify the context, conditions, core process, strategies and outcomes of boarding schools’ healthcare and wellbeing support. Preliminary findings were fed back to school staff and students’ family members for discussion and response at an annual Schools and Communities meeting. Results Boarding school health staff support Indigenous student-centred healthcare and wellbeing by weaving a relational network with students, families, school staff and external healthcare providers. Either through on-site or school-linked centres, they provide students with access to healthcare services, support wellbeing, and offer health education. Through these strategies, they enable students’ participation in education and learning, receive quality healthcare improvement, “move to a better head space”, and become responsible for their own healthcare. Enabling conditions are the professional and cultural capabilities of school staff, school leadership and commitment, compatibility of intersectoral systems and resourcing of healthcare and wellbeing support. Conclusions Boarding schools are doing considerable work to improve the promotion and management of healthcare and wellbeing support for Indigenous students, but there is considerable variation across schools, impacts are not formally monitored or reported, and there are many opportunities for improvement. Working towards a best practice framework, school staff identified a need for a multi-levelled relational model of healthcare and wellbeing support to be iteratively embedded at each stage of the school cycle: at intake; enrolment; term one; and throughout the school year (including in emergencies/crises).

Supermarkets and Consumers in Africa