In this issue

	ECOS Issue 188

Features

Fire and climate change: fire risk needs to be managed Recent fires in New South Wales highlight our current vulnerability, remind us about potential future risks and prompt us to think more strategically about risk management. But what do we mean by fire risk and how can we better deal with it in the future? Learn more

A walk through the parks of the future Author Amalie Wright talks to ECOS about her book Future Park: Imagining Tomorrow’s Urban Parks – a journey through unconventional park spaces in cemeteries and sewage treatment plants, on disused railway lines, among the ruins of industrialised zones, and in abandoned urban spaces. Learn more

Should we move species threatened by climate change? Climate change is one of the greatest threats the world’s animals and plants are facing. In fact the world is facing an extinction crisis, which should concern all of us. The major problem with climate change is not so much that climate is changing, but that it is changing faster than species can move or adapt. Learn more

Secrets of the Dig Tree
Aaron Paterson's family tree would make for a captivating episode of Who Do You Think You Are. According to the family's oral history, Aaron's great-great-great-great grandfather was Irishman, John King – the only survivor from Burke and Wills' fateful expedition to the Gulf of Carpentaria in 1860-61. Aaron's great-great-great-great grandmother, Turinyi, was a girl from the local Yandruwandha tribe.
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The multi-million dollar question: Is forest certification working?
Globally, deforestation and illegal logging take a significant toll on the environment, promoting loss of biodiversity and harmful carbon emissions at alarming rates. Forest certification is considered a promising tool to improve forest management, but it needs robust evaluation to establish its true value for various stakeholders, according to a new analysis.
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IPCC Fifth Assessment Report: CSIRO experts comment Every six years, some of the world's top scientific thinkers comprehensively assess what is known about climate change. The end result is the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report. Several CSIRO scientists are among the lead authors. Learn more

Buried treasure: finding safer ways to tap into oil and gas from our oceans If anything good is to come from the devastation caused by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and Australia's Montara oil and gas leak the year before, it is that we learn from our mistakes. Learn more