Brendan Mackey
Brendan Mackey is a professor of environmental science in the Fenner School of Environment and Society, The Australian National University. His research, teaching and outreach are in the fields of environmental biogeography, ecosystem dynamics, and sustainability. Prof Mackey serves on the Science Advisory Panel to the Australian Government’s Climate Commission. He is a member of the IUCN Council, serves as co-Chair of the Council of Earth Charter International, and is a member of the editorial board of Pacific Conservation Biology. Brendan as published over 120 academic articles including two ANU Press books on “Green Carbon”.
Green Carbon Part 2 »
The role of natural forests in carbon storage
Authored by: Sandra L. Berry, Heather Keith, Brendan Mackey, Matthew Brookhouse, Justin Jonson
Publication date: November 2010
This report is the second in a series that examines the role of natural forests and woodlands in the storage of carbon. Understanding the role of natural ecosystems in carbon storage is an important part of solving the climate change problem. This report presents a landscape-wide green carbon account of the ‘Great Western Woodlands’ (GWW), sixteen million hectares of mostly contiguous natural woody vegetation to the east of the wheatbelt in south-western Western Australia. For the first time, we provide an overview of the vegetation structure, climate, geology and historical land use of the GWW, and examine how these interact to affect the carbon dynamics of this region’s landscape ecosystems. An analysis of time-series of satellite imagery is used to develop a fire history of the GWW since the 1970s. These layers of environmental information, along with field survey data and remotely sensed greenness, are used to construct a spatial model to estimate biomass carbon stocks of the woodlands at the present day, and to infer an upper limit to the carbon sequestration potential of the GWW. A range of management options to enable protection of high quality carbon stocks and restoration of degraded stocks are evaluated.
Green Carbon Part 1 »
The role of natural forests in carbon storage
Authored by: Brendan Mackey, Heather Keith, Sandra L. Berry, David B. Lindenmayer
Publication date: August 2008
The colour of carbon matters. Green carbon is the carbon stored in the plants and soil of natural ecosystems and is a vital part of the global carbon cycle. This report is the first in a series that examines the role of natural forests in the storage of carbon, the impacts of human land use activities, and the implications for climate change policy nationally and internationally. REDD (“reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation”) is now part of the agenda for the “Bali Action Plan” being debated in the lead-up to the Copenhagen climate change conference in 2009. Currently, international rules are blind to the colour of carbon so that the green carbon in natural forests is not recognised, resulting in perverse outcomes including ongoing deforestation and forest degradation, and the conversion of extensive areas of land to industrial plantations. This report examines REDD policy from a green carbon scientific perspective. Subsequent reports will focus on issues concerning the carbon sequestration potential of commercially logged natural forests, methods for monitoring REDD, and the long term implications of forest policy and management for the global carbon cycle and climate change.
The Nature of Northern Australia »
Its natural values, ecological processes and future prospects
Publication date: July 2007
Northern Australia stands out as one of the largest natural areas remaining on Earth- alongside such global treasures as the Amazon rainforests, the boreal conifer forests of Alaska and Canada, and the polar wilderness of Antarctica. Nature remains in abundance in ‘the North.’
Its intact tropical savannas, rainforests, and free flowing rivers provide a basis for much of the economic activity and the quality of life for residents of the area.
The Nature of Northern Australia details the latest science on the Northern environment.
With increasing debate over the future of Australia’s often forgotten North, this is a timely examination of its environmental significance, the ecological processes that make it function, and the economies that are compatible with maintaining healthy communities and people and healthy country into the future.
The authors, Dr. John Woinarski, Professor Brendan Mackey, Professor Henry Nix and Dr. Barry Traill, are leading experts on the environment of Northern Australia, and combined have many decades of experience on Northern ecology and land management.