These meetings were held at the Museum of Tropical Queensland in
Townsville on the 9th and 10th of March.
The Savannas Advisory Committee which consists of members of
various stakeholders in savanna research provides a relevance check
on the Centre's research, communication and education programs.
There was much interest in the Bankers’ Forum in Charters
Towers (see story below). There was also much discussion on the
role of the Advisory Committee stimulated by a paper from the
conservation member, Jann Crase. The Committee was given an update
on the students that the TS-CRC supports and on the various
projects by the Theme Leaders. The Committee was generally pleased
with the progress of projects and wanted to see a clearer
explanation of the linkages to some key and emerging issues.
One of these issues is the importance of engaging with policy
makers which was outlined in a paper by Theme 3 leader Peter
Whitehead and extensively discussed. It was suggested that the
TS-CRC should produce Issues Papers as an aid to policy
development.
The Board spent some time looking at how best to resource the
forthcoming rebid for a third round CRC in the tropical savannas.
It was agreed that the considerable yet indirect economic impacts
of the Centre needed to effectively demonstrated – and that
research on how sustainable NCRM can be linked to real economic
benefits for communities should be a major focus of the rebid.
Presentations were given on two projects that are pursuing
important new directions for the Centre - on Knowledge Building
(Carl Smith) and on Outback Livelihoods (Rolf Gerritsen).
