title: The challenges to disaster risk reduction education in the South Pacific

authors: Vaioleti, Timote Masima

abstract: The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 2014 (IPCC) report confirms its 1990 research that a 30-50cm sea level rise projected by 2050 will threaten low lying islands, and that a 1m rise by 2100 ‘would render some island countries uninhabitable’. This article addresses the challenges to disaster risk reduction education, how Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) can respond to these challenges, and share initiatives to address disaster education and ESD in the South Pacific.

text: The challenges to disaster risk reduction education in the South Pacific The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 2014 (IPCC) report confirms its 1990 research that a 30-50cm sea level rise projected by 2050 will threaten low lying islands, and that a 1m rise by 2100 ‘would render some island countries uninhabitable’. This article addresses the challenges to disaster risk reduction education, how Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) can respond to these challenges, and share initiatives to address disaster education and ESD in the South Pacific.

year: 2014

title: Diverse hypolithic refuge communities in the McMurdo Dry Valleys

authors: Cowan, Don A.

subjects: Antarctic

abstract: Hyper-arid deserts present extreme challenges to life. The environmental buffering provided by quartz and other translucent rocks allows hypolithic microbial communities to develop on sub-soil surfaces of such rocks. These refuge communities have been reported, for many locations worldwide, to be predominantly cyanobacterial in nature. Here we report the discovery in Antarctica’s hyper-arid McMurdo Dry Valleys of three clearly distinguishable types of hypolithic community. Based on gross colonization morphology and identification of dominant taxa, we have classified hypolithic communities as Type I (cyanobacterial dominated), Type II (fungal dominated) and Type III (moss dominated). This discovery supports a growing awareness of the high biocomplexity in Antarctic deserts, emphasizes the possible importance of cryptic microbial communities in nutrient cycling and provides evidence for possible successional community processes within a cold arid landscape.

text: Diverse hypolithic refuge communities in the McMurdo Dry Valleys Hyper-arid deserts present extreme challenges to life. The environmental buffering provided by quartz and other translucent rocks allows hypolithic microbial communities to develop on sub-soil surfaces of such rocks. These refuge communities have been reported, for many locations worldwide, to be predominantly cyanobacterial in nature. Here we report the discovery in Antarctica’s hyper-arid McMurdo Dry Valleys of three clearly distinguishable types of hypolithic community. Based on gross colonization morphology and identification of dominant taxa, we have classified hypolithic communities as Type I (cyanobacterial dominated), Type II (fungal dominated) and Type III (moss dominated). This discovery supports a growing awareness of the high biocomplexity in Antarctic deserts, emphasizes the possible importance of cryptic microbial communities in nutrient cycling and provides evidence for possible successional community processes within a cold arid landscape.

year: 2010

title: The challenges of culture to psychology and post-modern thinking

authors: Waldegrave, Charles

subjects: Maori

abstract: Someone at a workshop in the Waikato once said to us, “You know a Maori, if they want to, can always learn to be a psychologist, but a psychologist can’t learn to be a Maori”. Cultural knowledge may or may not be accompanied by social science knowledge. Cultural knowledge can stand on its own. Those who possess it, and choose to work in the institutions we are associated with, have gifts this country desperately needs. All our organisations require such people, and they need to be properly resourced, have employment security and control over their work. Their own work away from our organisations also requires adequate resourcing. They can heal their own in ways that we will never be able to. They will almost certainly offer the field rich alternative metaphors and meanings that can free us from the tired old medical, biological and social science ones. This also has implications for those in other branches of psychology, including research, experimental and industrial psychology. There is perhaps a unique opportunity for psychologists in this country of Aotearoa/New Zealand to recognise other ways of describing events, which will lead to creative practices and enable the health and welfare resources to get to those who most need them, on their own terms. It would also enable other people, other workers from other cultures to develop new paradigms, and new shifts in our field. This will not lead to the abandonment of social science, but it will enable that body of knowledge, to sit appropriately along side other realms of knowledge such as gender knowledge, and cultural knowledge, without dominating. A new experience for the social scientists, but I suspect a liberating one!

text: The challenges of culture to psychology and post-modern thinking Someone at a workshop in the Waikato once said to us, “You know a Maori, if they want to, can always learn to be a psychologist, but a psychologist can’t learn to be a Maori”. Cultural knowledge may or may not be accompanied by social science knowledge. Cultural knowledge can stand on its own. Those who possess it, and choose to work in the institutions we are associated with, have gifts this country desperately needs. All our organisations require such people, and they need to be properly resourced, have employment security and control over their work. Their own work away from our organisations also requires adequate resourcing. They can heal their own in ways that we will never be able to. They will almost certainly offer the field rich alternative metaphors and meanings that can free us from the tired old medical, biological and social science ones. This also has implications for those in other branches of psychology, including research, experimental and industrial psychology. There is perhaps a unique opportunity for psychologists in this country of Aotearoa/New Zealand to recognise other ways of describing events, which will lead to creative practices and enable the health and welfare resources to get to those who most need them, on their own terms. It would also enable other people, other workers from other cultures to develop new paradigms, and new shifts in our field. This will not lead to the abandonment of social science, but it will enable that body of knowledge, to sit appropriately along side other realms of knowledge such as gender knowledge, and cultural knowledge, without dominating. A new experience for the social scientists, but I suspect a liberating one!

year: 1993