Recycled effluent irrigation in vineyards : an Australian case study. I. issues and monitoring

The viticultural industry is becoming an increasingly significant part of the Australian agricultural sector, with gross earnings of over $4 billion in 2002. Expansion of the industry in the last decade has been rapid, however its heavy reliance on irrigation has resulted in further expansion in many wine growing regions being limited by the availability of water. This problem is not confined to the viticultural industry, with ever increasing pressures on water resources worldwide. As demands for water continue to rise, new strategies to meet demands must be adopted. One of the strategies being increasingly employed is the recycling of waste waters for a number of applications such as irrigation and industrial uses. The use of recycled water for vineyard irrigation provides a number of benefits. Among them are the reduced demands on potable supplies, reduced waste discharges to surface waters, and the opportunity for expansion of production. Recycled waters however, contain constituents which have the potential to cause deleterious effects to both production and the environment. Therefore, the use of recycled water for irrigation requires targetted monitoring and management to ensure the long-term sustainability of both the vineyard and the surrounding environment. Traditional monitoring techniques including water quality monitoring and soil testing can be complimented by new technologies and techniques which provide large quantities of information with relatively less labour and time. Such techniques can be used to monitor the vineyard environment to identify impacts arising from management practices, allowing vineyard managers to adjust management for sustainable production

More? You want more?..of course I do! Transsexualism and birth certificates-changing records or attitudes?

In 2004, the Victorian Government enacted legislation allowing people treated for transsexualism to correct the record of their sex on the Register of Births, Deaths and Marriages and obtain a new certificate reflecting their contemporaneous circumstances. It was the last of all the States and Territories to do so.

The legislation gave effect to some important changes to the law and was generally couched in terms more sensitive than those already in place in the other jurisdictions. In the view of the author, however, its proponents failed to both understand the import of the expert medical evidence adduced in, and to implement the common law position enunciated by, the Family Court in Re Kevin (validity of marriage of transsexual) [2001] FamCA 1074 and subsequently confirmed on appeal two years later by the Full Court.

The author argues that, while a welcome improvement to the human rights record of successive Victorian Governments, the result is still a largely disappointing piece of legislation. Rather than being truly 'beneficial' to all who need security of their personal identities, it perpetuates some of the very worst discrimination directed at people with transsexualism and their families by continuing to portray them as psychologically deluded rather than physiologically atypical and denying a small number of them their rights on the basis of legal reasoning which is no longer regarded as tenable. She asserts the legislation serves as a clear demonstration that prejudices and misconceptions about transsexualism stilI abound and explains much more is needed if real human rights, acceptance and freedom from discrimination are to be eventually obtained by those affected by the phenomenon.

My name is Karen

Introduction : My name is Karen. In this chapter, I take a narrative approach and highlight ‘critical incidents’ that have caused me to reflect on my ‘being’ and recall events from childhood and adulthood. ‘Being’ or ‘to be’ is what Wilcock (1999) described as ‘being true to ourselves, to our nature, to our essence and to what is distinctive about us’ (p. 5). The state of ‘being’ requires time to think, reflect and to discover who we are (Wilcock 1999). My name is part of this. The constructivist view of learning posits that the learner comes with a representational model of personal constructs (in this instance, one’s name being a personal construct) and within these personal constructs, the learner makes sense of their learning situation (Stacey 1998). From the constructivist view, the teacher negotiates meaning with the learner through reflection, dialogue, guidance and feedback because the learner interprets ideas and constructs meaning based on pre-existing understandings (Candy 1991; Stacey 1998). Reflecting on my ‘being’ gives insight into the representational model of my personal constructs, of which my name is one. As a learner, this insight helps me interpret new information within a meaningful context. As a teacher, this insight informs me on how to engage with the students I teach.