The changing landscape of international business : From the Baltic Sea to the Indian Ocean

The article reviews the book "Foreign Direct Investment in Europe: A Changing Landscape," edited by Klaus Liebscher, Josef Christl, Peter Mooslechner, and Doris Ritzberger-Grünwald, and "International Business Marketing in Emerging Country Markets: The Third Wave of Internationalization of Firms," by Hans Jansson.

Visions of the surf coast – changing landscapes under future climate effects

The Surf Coast of Victoria is a traveller's paradise with some of Australia's best surf beaches, bustling resort towns, spectacular scenery, lush rainforests and huge cascading waterfalls. This incredible coastline of Victoria is home to the popular surf towns such as Barwon Heads, Torquay, Anglesea, Lome, and the infamous Bells Beach, all of which epitomise much of the 'sea-change' phenomena. These communities survive today because of the high visual and natural attributes they are situated within, or adjacent to, that underpins their existence and economic survival. Change these landscape attributes and qualities and you have a dramatic effect upon their context, economic, social and environmental attributes and values. This paper investigates the potential climate effects of these settlements, through literature review of various recent studies undertaken on climate change vulnerability and adaption of the Surf Coast and the Great Ocean Road corridor. The results are used as inputs to a proposed Design Based Adaptation Model (DBAM) which can inform adaptive planning and design responses of the physical and social infrastructure, through the visions of changing landscapes of the Surf Coast under future climate effects.

Indigenous knowledge and climate change : the Wathaurong and Gadubanud narrative for the Great Ocean Road region

For more than forty thousand years Aboriginal people of Australia have been confronted with major climate, ecological and geological changes as well as annual seasonal variations. Many of these changes have been captured in the cultural traditions of Maar (the people) of the south-west Victorian coast and the knowledge has been transferred from generation to generation through Dreaming stories. Many Dreaming stories recount the forming of the coastal landscape and Sea Country. Weather patterns and climate change were gauged by the occurrence of natural events such as the tidal changes, sea level rise, landscape changes, behaviour of animals, and the availability of food sources. Can this ancient knowledge provide answers for adaptation and resilience to a rapid changing climate? Drawing upon recent literature on coastal climate change in the Great Ocean Road Region (GORCC, 2012), literature review of indigenous environmental planning (Kooyang Sea Country Plan, 2004), and investigation of settlement patterns of the Wathaurong and Gadubanud people, this paper reviews the changes in the landscape due to climate change and explores traditional knowledge as input to a potential design based adaptation model for coastal settlements of the Great Ocean Road Region.