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The concept of cultural landscapes has a long and varied lineage, including antecedents in geography and ecomuseums, and can be applied at all scales. In the 1990s, the World Heritage Committee adopted cultural landscapes as an additional category of property as part of its strategy to broaden the scope of World Heritage listings. By July 2006, there were 53 properties inscribed on the World Heritage List and officially recognised as being cultural landscapes. Such recognition is an acknowledgement of the importance of human–environment interactions, especially those of a more traditional type. Not surprisingly, cultural landscapes have their own particular management issues, as well as sharing others with World Heritage properties in general. These properties, however, also present many opportunities to increase people’s understanding of both cultural and environmental values important to the future of humankind on a global level.

There are three key factors to be considered in comprehensive environmental management: (a) integration across disciplines and interests; (b) flexibility and adaptability based on feedback; and (c) interactions between policy and implementation at different scales. Successful management is both integrated and inclusive, and also adaptive and flexible. It involves a synthesis of work, requiring empathy among contributors and active synthesis. Furthermore, there is a need for a dialectical consideration of processes acting at various scales. Geographers who are not too narrowly specialised have a key role to play, and, collectively, might have been more centrally involved in environmental management than they have been.

The case of Kakadu National Park has had an unusually large amount of time and expense devoted to it in meetings of the World Heritage Bureau and the World Heritage Committee since 1997. Major controversy arose following the announcement that a new uranium mine would be developed at Jabiluka, located in an enclave surrounded by the World Heritage property, but not legally part of it. The explosive juxtaposition of issues concerning the trio of conservation of heritage values, uranium mining, and Aboriginal land rights inevitably led to strong reactions against the Federal Government's decision to allow mining, not least on the part of Australian and international non-government organisations. It was felt that the mining development would jeopardise the integrity of the key values for which Kakadu had been inscribed on the World Heritage List. This paper attempts to unravel some of the strands of the ensuing debate — to at least begin to deconstruct the debate — that saw Kakadu almost placed on the List of World Heritage in Danger. This is an important task to attempt because there were many undercurrents to the publicly reported debate, and a large degree of ‘reading between the lines’ is needed to interpret official records of meetings adequately. The paper also attempts to throw some light on the forceful opposition to such a move on the part of the Australian Government, based in large part on its underlying developmentalist philosophy, and at a time when it was giving less than wholehearted support to many international agreements to which Australia is a signatory. Finally, it is hoped that an insight into the workings of the World Heritage Convention and its supporting bodies will be gained.

Effective river management requires integration of biophysical and human dimensions of the ecosystem, which in turn involves the development of new forms of decision-making processes and institutional frameworks. In New South Wales, institutional changes to river management have been formalized in the Water Management Act 2000. This paper presents the findings of a case study that investigated decision-making processes in the establishment of environmental flow regimes for the Lachlan River in western New South Wales. The study was based on document analysis, observation and interviews with members and support staff of a stakeholder-based river management committee. The findings of the study highlight social capital, adaptive management and consensus decision making as key components in establishing environmental flow regimes as part of a participatory approach to river management.

Economics, especially the narrowly defined form of economics known as neo-liberal economics, along with its policy derivative known as economic rationalism, dominates public and political debate and decision-making in Australia and many other nations as the twentieth century approaches its close. In the context of environmental issues, as also in that of welfare issues, the present over-dominance is unhealthy. Despite the best attempts of environmental economists and ecological economists, they have had relatively little influence on the broader economic profession, or on the political and business communities. Economics and free trade also dominate the international scene at the expense of equity and environmental issues. Environmental debates, by their very nature, are usually complex, requiring interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary approaches which include the economic perspective, but much else besides. Despite the importance of local context and spatial and temporal location, there is a need for a ...

(1999). (The) Australian Geographer: Index by Author. Australian Geographer: Vol. 30, No. 2, pp. 253-281.

Following its rise to international prominence, sustainability has become an official principle or goal in many countries. Due to contextual differences, countries have followed different paths in the pursuit of sustainability. Approachescan be classified into three categories: green planning; institutional reform; and social mobilization. None of these courses on its own is likely to achieve sustainability. Yet, countries often appear to develop a path dominated by one of these approaches. This paper focuses on Australia, sketches the extent to which green planning, institutional reform and social mobilization have been playing a role in the pursuit of sustainability, and illustrates the difficulties of developing a pathway that combines these approaches.

This commentary concentrates on the physical production of the Australian Geographer and developments of a related nature. As I cannot pretend to have read every paper published over the last 71 years, comment on content is very limited. I also wish to avoid overlap with already published retrospectives included in Volume 19, Number 1, and Volume 27, Number 1, of this journal. A full issue-by-issue index is included in Volume 30, Number 1, of the Australian Geographer (pp. 103-26): all major papers, but not some minor pieces, are listed. Some of the latter, when part of a series, are listed in Tables 1 to 4 in this commentary. A full alphabetical author index for the 71 years of the journal will be included in the next issue (July 1999) as Appendix B.

Established models of urban change do not adequately allow for the complex interactions between the forces and relations of production and the effects of changes in these factors on urban settlements. A proposed, extended model includes a transition stage which can best be described as the mercantile or early capitalist city which hadnot yet adopted the modern technology developed in the Industrial Revolution. Sydney and its growth and development between 1820 and 1870, a crucial period, is viewed against this suggested framework. During this period, Sydney was clearly going through such a transitional phase.