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Historical Records of Australian Science Historical Records of Australian Science Society
The history of science, pure and applied, in Australia, New Zealand and the southwest Pacific
RESEARCH ARTICLE (Open Access)

A history of CSIRO’s Central Australian Laboratory 2, 1980–2018: interdisciplinary land research

Margaret H. Friedel https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8350-636X A * , Stephen R. Morton A , Gary N. Bastin B , Jocelyn Davies C and D. Mark Stafford Smith D
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations

A Research Institute for Environment and Livelihoods, Charles Darwin University, Grevillea Drive, Alice Springs, NT 0870, Australia.

B PO Box 2886, Alice Springs, NT 0871, Australia.

C Northern Institute, Charles Darwin University, Grevillea Drive, Alice Springs, NT 0870, Australia.

D CSIRO Land & Water, PO Box 1700, Canberra, ACT 2601, Australia.

* Correspondence to: mhfriedel@outlook.com

Historical Records of Australian Science 34(1) 50-62 https://doi.org/10.1071/HR22007
Published: 7 November 2022

© 2023 The Author(s) (or their employer(s)). Published by CSIRO Publishing on behalf of the Australian Academy of Science. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND)

Abstract

In the first 27 years of the Central Australian Laboratory (CAL), to 1980, research focussed almost entirely on the needs of the pastoral industry. By the 1980s, ongoing campaigns for Aboriginal land rights and demands to conserve biodiversity plainly showed that there were other land uses deserving research attention. Initially CAL’s research agenda expanded to include conservation in spinifex grasslands and grazing lands but remained biophysical in nature. It subsequently became clear that people’s roles in decision-making about land use and management should be part of research. By the 2000s, scientists were able to build trusting relationships with Aboriginal people and organisations and undertake collaborative studies to improve livelihoods and wellbeing on country. Over the 38 years from 1980 to 2018, CAL’s research activities responded to diverse societal expectations but it was not enough to prevent the laboratory’s eventual closure as public investment in rangelands dwindled.

Keywords: Aboriginal livelihoods, conservation, pastoralism, socio-ecological systems, sustainability, tourism.


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