Christine ERIKSEN

PhD Details

Aims

• To identify landholders’ attitudes and actions (or lack of) towards bushfire and bushfire management in new rural landscapes.

• To identify what factors are significant in influencing the stance rural landholders take towards bushfire.

Objectives

• To examine how landholders value local nature, their property, the threat from bushfire, and their local community.

• To establish landholders’ experience of bushfire, land management, and local history.

• To examine how landholders manage their land and prepare for bushfire – their desired outcomes.

• To identify how people learn about bushfire, bushfire management, and land management.

• To establish landholders’ awareness of and concern for environmental, social and economic issues locally

Methods

• Critically evaluate the concept of local environmental knowledge in natural resource management literature (ongoing)

• A postal survey of landholders to establish types and levels of engagement with bushfire management (completed)

• In-depth field-based interviews with landholders to identify processes and pathways by which relationships with bushfire is generated and applied in new rural landscapes (completed)

• Participant observation with local bushfire brigades and local LandCare groups (completed)

New Rural Landscapes (NRL)?

My PhD focuses on three NRL in New South Wales, Australia: the Kangaroo Valley in the Shoalhaven, the Nattai-Oakdale/Orangeville-Werombi area of Wollondilly Shire, and Windellama in Goulburn-Mulwaree.

NRL are rural areas experiencing population growth as a result of their proximity to major urban areas or their high amenity value. With the influx of tree changers (lifestylers), the ageing and/or decline of more traditional rural populations and the subdivision of farmland, lifestyles and values more commonly associated with urban areas are being brought into rural places, whilst conflict over land use and management practices is increasing.

Project Relevance

Despite the recognized bushfire hazard in many NRL, little is currently known about how local environmental knowledge on bushfire is produced and/or shared amongst diverse landowners in changing rural landscapes and how this influences the dynamics of NSW Rural Fire Service brigades and local natural resource management.

Natural Resource Management (NRM)

NRM is important in NRL as these areas often sustain natural resources that are: strategically important (metropolitan water supplies), threatened (remnant native bushland) and scarce (‘prime’ agricultural land).

Bushfire is significant in NRM because it poses a risk to life and property; it is an agent of environmental change; it has an important ecological role; of its cultural significance in shaping Australian lives past and present.

PhD Supervisors

Dr. Nick Gill, Prof. Lesley Head and Prof. Ross Bradstock.

Project Funding

• UoW Research Partnerships Grant with the NSW Rural Fire Service

• Bushfire CRC Project Funding

• GeoQuEST Small Grant

Research Interests

• The role and place of local environmental knowledge in global frameworks
• Fire as a land management tool
• The impact of sustainable development initiatives on local environments and communities

Representative Publications

Eriksen, C. & Adams, M. (In press) ‘Indigenous Environmental Knowledge’, Encyclopaedia of Geography, Sage Publications

Eriksen, C. 2009. ‘Fired Up? Bushfire awareness and preparedness amongst diverse rural landowners’, South Australian Geographer, July 2009

Eriksen, C. 2007. ‘Why do they burn the ‘bush’? Fire, rural livelihoods, and conservation in Zambia’, Geographical Journal, September 2007, Vol.173, No.3, pp.242-256

Conference Papers

Eriksen, C. 2009. Fired Up? Understanding the disconnect between wildfire awareness and preparedness amongst diverse rural landowners.

• 15^th International Symposium of Society and Resource Management, July 2009, Vienna, Austria.

• May 2009, University of Wollongong Research Seminar at the NSW Rural Fire Service HO, Sydney.

Eriksen, C. 2008. Living with fire on the land. IAG Conference, July 2008, Hobart. This paper was awarded the IAG Postgraduate Presentation Award for an ‘outstanding presentation’.

Eriksen, C. 2007. Why do they burn the ‘bush’? Fire, rural livelihoods, and conservation in Zambia. Sch. of Earth & Environmental Sciences’ Seminar, November 2007, University of Wollongong

Eriksen, C. 2007. The production of local environmental knowledge. Geographical Society of NSW Emergent Geographies Conference, November 2007, Sydney

Eriksen, C. 2007. Why do they burn the ’bush’? Fire, rural livelihoods, and conservation in Zambia. IAG Conference, June 2007, Melbourne

Abbreviated CV

Education

2007 – present PhD Human Geography Candidate, University of Wollongong, Australia. Thesis topic: ‘The Production of Local Environmental Knowledge for Bushfire Management: a Case Study of New Rural Landscapes in NSW’.

2003 – 2004 MA Geography, King’s College London, University of London. Grade awarded: Distinction. Thesis topic: ‘Why do they burn the bush? Fire as a land management tool in Zambia’.

2000 – 2003 BA (Hons) Geography and Social Anthropology, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. Grade awarded: 2.1. Dissertation title: ‘Fire as a management tool in West African Savannas’.

1999 – 2000 Certificate in Natural History, Centre for Continuing Education, Edinburgh University

Employment

2007 – present Project Officer on an Educational Strategies Development Fund 2007 grant for ‘Principles and practice for fieldtrips in a multi-campus teaching environment’, University of Wollongong

2008 – 2009 ARTS201 Mountain Leader & Fieldtrip Logistics and Evaluation Coordinator, Study Abroad Program, University of Wollongong

2006 In-Country Project Supervisor, Sustainable Development and Community Enterprise Initiative, Mozambique, Sindisa Foundation

2004 – 2006 Administration & Training Officer, Expedition Advisory Centre, Royal Geographical Society (with IBG), UK

Other

2008 – present Post-Grad Council Rep and Member of the Geographical Society of NSW

2007 – present Member of the Institute of Australian Geographers

2007 – present Member of the GeoQuEST Research Centre, University of Wollongong

2007 – present Member of the Social Innovation Network (SiNet), University of Wollongong

2001 – present Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG), UK

2006 Mountain Leader Training (summer), Mountain Activities Ltd, UK

2006 Cambridge Certificate in English Language Teaching to Adults (CELTA), South Thames College, UK

2005 OCR Level 3 Certificate in Off-Site Safety Management

2003 – 2006 Working Conservation Holiday Leader, National Trust, UK

First Aid: Senior First Aid (2007) Wilderness Medical Training: Far From Help I (2006), First Aid at Work Certificate (2005), Emergency First Aid Certificate (2003)