Skateboard champ Desiree Von Essen

General note: Title and date provided by Bettye Lane.

H'ani : National Parks and Wildlife Facilities at Springbrook.

The paper describes the process in whcih a multi-disciplinary group of design students propose a redevelopment of individual and group camping facilities at Springbrook national Park. A romantic and fairyland atmosphere is developed to enhance the natural educational potential of the site and heighten the experience of the transient community, the campers.

Injury bulletin 105 : skateboard injury

Summary of findings: QISU estimates that approximately 1,000 skateboard-associated injuries are seen at emergency departments each year in Queensland. 10-14 year old males are the most likely group to present to a QISU ED with a skateboard related injury. The peak time for skateboard injuries to occur is on the weekend and in the late afternoon. Only 19% of skateboard injuries occur at skate park facilities, with the remainder oc-curring in non-skate parks, on roads and footpaths. Risk factors associated with more severe injuries are, age less than 10 years and involvement in a motor vehicle crash The most common types of injuries are fractures and sprains of the upper limbs. Isolated head injuries represent approximately 5% of skateboarding injuries, but 60% of serious injuries requiring resuscitation. These injuries may be minimized or pre-vented with helmet use.

Social interactions in Chinese parks : a walk in Lu Xun Park

What can we learn from Chinese parks and Chinese people? We took a walk through Lu Xun Park, one of Shanghai’s most popular parks. Here hundreds of people participate in dozens of physical and mental exercises that are considered to be essential for good health and fitness. We found that the most successful spaces for social interaction and inclusiveness were not just coded for ‘doing’ a diverse range of activities but also for ‘showing’ those activities. This dual role of park spaces could be given greater design consideration in encouraging occupants of small households in Australia to make greater use of public parks in the future.

Queen's Parks in Queensland

Queen's Park in Maryborough is one of many public gardens established in the nineteenth century in Queensland: in Brisbane, Ipswich, Toowoomba, Warwick, Rockhampton, Mackay, Townsville, Cairns and Cooktown. They were created primarily as places of horticultural experimentation, as well as for recreational purposes. They formed a local area network, with the Brisbane Botanic Garden and the Government Botanist, Walter Hill, at the centre – at least in the 1870s. From here, the links extended to other botanic gardens in Australia, and beyond Australia to the British colonial network managed through the Royal Botanic Gardens (RBG), Kew. It was an informal network, supplying a knowledge of basic economic botany that founded many tropical agricultural industries and also provided much-needed recreational, educational and inspirational opportunities for colonial newcomers and residents. The story of these parks, from the time when they were first set aside as public reserves by the government surveyors to the present day, is central to the history of urban planning in regional centres. This article provides a statewide overview together with a more in-depth examination of Maryborough's own historic Queen's Park.

Moving Landscapes : National Parks and the Vietnamese Experience

This study examines the range of Vietnamese understandings of the natural and cultural environment both in Australia and in Vietnam. It documents the differing experiences of Vietnamese-Australians to national parks, focusing on the factors influencing the involvement of Vietnamese people in parks and reserves. These include social, age, economic, gender and cultural determinants. The study also ascertains whether particular parks or reserves have social significance to Vietnamese people in Australia provides material that could impact on NPWS policy in relation to education strategies for different communities indicates ways of increasing community awareness about the NPWS in the Vietnamese community. The study is part of an NPWS research program on multiculturalism and conservation reserves.

Estimating the potential impact of entry fees for marine parks on dive tourism in South East Asia

Marine reserves are increasingly being established as a mechanism to protect marine biodiversity and sensitive habitats. As well as providing conservation benefits, marine reserves provide benefits to recreational scuba divers who dive within the reserve, as well as to recreational and commercial fishers outside the reserve through spill-over effects. To ensure benefits are being realised, management of marine reserves requires ongoing monitoring and surveillance. These are not costless, and many marine reserve managers impose an entry fee. In some countries, dive tourism is major income source to coastal industries, and a concern is that high entry fees may dissuade divers. In this paper, the price elasticity of demand for dive tourism in three countries in South East Asia – Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia – is estimated using a travel-cost model. From the model, the total non-market use value associated with diving in the area is estimated to be in the order of US$4.5 billion a year. The price elasticity of demand in the region is highly inelastic, such that increasing the cost of diving through a management levy would have little impact on total diver numbers.

Amenity grasses for salt-affected parks in coastal Australia

In February 2004, Redland Shire Council with help from a Horticulture Australia research project was able to establish a stable grass cover of seashore paspalum (Paspalum vaginatum) on a Birkdale park where the soil had previously proved too salty to grow anything else. Following on from their success with this small 0.2 ha demonstration area, Redland Shire has since invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in successfully turfing other similarly “impossible” park areas with seashore paspalum. Urban salinity can arise for different reasons in different places. In inland areas such as southern NSW and the WA wheatbelt, the usual cause is rising groundwater bringing salt to the surface. In coastal sites, salt spray or periodic tidal inundation can result in problems. In Redland Shire’s case, the issue was compacted marine sediments (mainly mud) dug up and dumped to create foreshore parkland in the course of artificial canal developments. At Birkdale, this had created a site that was both strongly acid and too salty for most plants. Bare saline scalds were interspersed by areas of unthrifty grass. Finding a salt tolerant grass is no “silver bullet” or easy solution to salinity problems. Rather, it buys time to implement sustainable long-term establishment and maintenance practices, which are even more critical than with conventional turfgrasses. These practices include annual slicing or coring in conjunction with gypsum/dolomite amendment and light topdressing with sandy loam soil (to about 1 cm depth), adequate maintenance fertiliser, weed control measures, regular leaching irrigation was applied to flush salts below the root zone, and irrigation scheduling to maximise infiltration and minimise run off. Three other halophytic turfgrass species were also identified, each of them adapted to different environments, management regimes and uses. These have been shortlisted for larger-scale plantings in future work.

Concentration levels of heavy metals and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in car parks at Queensland University of Technology

This study investigates the level of pollutants (polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and heavy metals) in three car parks at QUT, one at Kelvin Grove campus and two at the Gardens Point campus. In addition, comparisons between site designs were assessed to identify the possible sources of heavy metals and PAHs. The main contributing source for heavy metals was identified to be from vehicle debris and emissions, while the source of PAHs was identified to be from petrol and diesel engine vehicle emissions. The highest concentration of pollutants was typically found for the 63 micro meter dust samples, proposed to be due to increased surface areas and thus available adsorption sites.

Looking beyond parks: the conservation value of unprotected areas for hornbills in Arunachal Pradesh, Eastern Himalaya

The loss of tropical forests and associated biodiversity is a global concern. Conservation efforts in tropical countries such as India have mostly focused on state-administered protected areas despite the existence of vast tracts of forest outside these areas. We studied hornbills (Bucerotidae), an ecologically important vertebrate group and a flagship for tropical forest conservation, to assess the importance of forests outside protected areas in Arunachal Pradesh, north-east India. We conducted a state-wide survey to record encounters with hornbills in seven protected areas, six state-managed reserved forests and six community-managed unclassed forests. We estimated the density of hornbills in one protected area, four reserved forests and two unclassed forests in eastern Arunachal Pradesh. The state-wide survey showed that the mean rate of encounter of rufous-necked hornbills Aceros nipalensis was four times higher in protected areas than in reserved forests and 22 times higher in protected areas than in unclassed forests. The mean rate of encounter of wreathed hornbills Rhyticeros undulatus was twice as high in protected areas as in reserved forests and eight times higher in protected areas than in unclassed forests. The densities of rufous-necked hornbill were higher inside protected areas, whereas the densities of great hornbill Buceros bicornis and wreathed hornbill were similar inside and outside protected areas. Key informant surveys revealed possible extirpation of some hornbill species at sites in two protected areas and three unclassed forests. These results highlight a paradoxical situation where individual populations of hornbills are being lost even in some legally protected habitat, whereas they continue to persist over most of the landscape. Better protection within protected areas and creative community-based conservation efforts elsewhere are necessary to maintain hornbill populations in this biodiversity-rich region.