ORCID Profile
0000-0001-6751-8291
Current Organisation
University of Adelaide
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Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 05-2015
Publisher: American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
Date: 31-03-2017
Abstract: Distributions of Earth's species are changing at accelerating rates, increasingly driven by human-mediated climate change. Such changes are already altering the composition of ecological communities, but beyond conservation of natural systems, how and why does this matter? We review evidence that climate-driven species redistribution at regional to global scales affects ecosystem functioning, human well-being, and the dynamics of climate change itself. Production of natural resources required for food security, patterns of disease transmission, and processes of carbon sequestration are all altered by changes in species distribution. Consideration of these effects of bio ersity redistribution is critical yet lacking in most mitigation and adaptation strategies, including the United Nation's Sustainable Development Goals.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Date: 22-12-2022
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 26-09-2019
DOI: 10.1002/WCC.555
Abstract: Globally, bio ersity is under increasing pressure from human activities despite protective measures in conservation laws. Climate change will exacerbate those pressures and the effects of habitat loss and species decline. Current approaches to conservation law in most countries focus on establishing protected areas and limiting activities outside reserves that might affect priority species, habitats, and ecological communities. These measures have had mixed success depending on scale and implementation, but are likely to perform poorly under conditions of future change. To prepare for the future, we consider how conservation law and policy needs to anticipate and manage for future change widen its scope beyond species and ecological communities that are currently threatened and support adaptive management of priority areas and species. Using Australian conservation law as a case study, we outline three possible routes by which this shift could occur. The first involves enhancing the adaptiveness of conservation law, the second expands the focus of conservation law from protected areas and listed species to include ecosystems and ecosystem services, while the third attempts to do both simultaneously. We examine the legal mechanisms needed to implement each route, ex les of their use in practice, and barriers that must be overcome for successful implementation. This article is categorized under: Climate, Ecology, and Conservation Conservation Strategies
Publisher: MDPI AG
Date: 03-08-2023
DOI: 10.3390/FIRE6080298
Abstract: The Victorian Government Inquiry into wildfires that killed 173 people in 2009 has driven an Australian policy shift from self-evacuation or staying and defending a well-prepared property (‘go or stay’) to self-evacuation under catastrophic fire weather (‘leave early’). The Inquiry also led to the establishment of national ‘performance standards’ for Private Fire Shelters (PFSs, that are also known as bunkers). Nonetheless, the incorporation of PFSs into national bushfire policy remains embryonic, with only Victoria having streamlined accreditation and planning approval processes. Arguments against PFSs include potentially engendering complacency about preparing dwellings to survive fire and encouraging risky behaviour in response to a fire threat. Counteracting these arguments is research that shows that residents without PFSs have low engagement with bushfire preparation and typically delay evacuation. In any case, because wildfire is unpredictable, it is accepted that self-evacuation plans must have fallback positions that include sheltering ‘in place’ from the bushfire, making properly used and well-maintained PFSs an important element of bushfire safety. A less discussed barrier to PFS uptake outside Victoria appears to hinge on a lack of clarity about obligations for their design, certification, and consistency with planning approvals. The escalating Australian fire crisis demands much greater research and development in legal frameworks, policy and planning processes for PFSs, as well as design and construction standards. Progress in enhancing Australian laws and policies on this issue may offer important opportunities for other jurisdictions that will experience similar challenges as climate change intensifies fire regimes around the world.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 21-09-2022
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 06-2018
DOI: 10.1111/BRV.12344
Abstract: Climate change is driving a pervasive global redistribution of the planet's species. Species redistribution poses new questions for the study of ecosystems, conservation science and human societies that require a coordinated and integrated approach. Here we review recent progress, key gaps and strategic directions in this nascent research area, emphasising emerging themes in species redistribution biology, the importance of understanding underlying drivers and the need to anticipate novel outcomes of changes in species ranges. We highlight that species redistribution has manifest implications across multiple temporal and spatial scales and from genes to ecosystems. Understanding range shifts from ecological, physiological, genetic and biogeographical perspectives is essential for informing changing paradigms in conservation science and for designing conservation strategies that incorporate changing population connectivity and advance adaptation to climate change. Species redistributions present challenges for human well-being, environmental management and sustainable development. By synthesising recent approaches, theories and tools, our review establishes an interdisciplinary foundation for the development of future research on species redistribution. Specifically, we demonstrate how ecological, conservation and social research on species redistribution can best be achieved by working across disciplinary boundaries to develop and implement solutions to climate change challenges. Future studies should therefore integrate existing and complementary scientific frameworks while incorporating social science and human-centred approaches. Finally, we emphasise that the best science will not be useful unless more scientists engage with managers, policy makers and the public to develop responsible and socially acceptable options for the global challenges arising from species redistributions.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 07-2021
DOI: 10.1002/WCC.726
Abstract: The article evaluates the role of law in adaptation over the past decade. We track the emergence of international adaptation law within the climate and non‐climate regime, alongside increasingly dire extreme events and strident scientific consensus. Examining the growth in national and subnational laws for adaptation, we reflect on the role of framework legislation and legal mechanisms used in sectoral laws. Based on progress over the past decade, we outline how the role of law can be enhanced and accelerated in the decade ahead. We identify important trends in adaptation law and consider the potential for these innovations to drive future adaptation: the sheer growth in priority and volume of laws directed towards adaptation the intersection of adaptation with other policy domains, especially disaster risk reduction the need for improved architecture for funding adaptation and the important role of strategic litigation. Largely absent from the past decade of adaptation law reform is evaluation of effectiveness, or ex les of systemic reform that addresses underlying causes of vulnerability. With slow progress in implementing transformational adaptation law reform, we identify five design principles for adaptation laws. The design of laws must (1) be responsive to change (2) address equity dimensions of climate change (3) implement innovative solutions (4) maximize co‐benefits and (5) establish processes for managing trade‐offs. This article is categorized under: Vulnerability and Adaptation to Climate Change Institutions for Adaptation
Publisher: Resilience Alliance, Inc.
Date: 2016
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 19-11-2018
Publisher: Brill
Date: 26-06-2020
DOI: 10.1163/18786561-01002001
Abstract: Climate change is a fundamental threat to bio ersity. Climate mitigation in general, and Negative-Emission Technologies ( net s) in particular, have the potential to benefit bio ersity by reducing climate impacts. Domestic laws could help to ensure that net s have benefits for bio ersity adaptation to climate change (e.g. reducing land clearing and habitat loss and facilitating habitat restoration, corridors for species’ migration, and broader ecological resilience). Domestic laws will also need to govern trade-offs between net s and bio ersity adaptation (e.g. increased competition for land and landscape-scale fragmentation by new industrial developments and linear infrastructure). We argue that domestic laws should be used to maximize the benefits of net s while minimizing trade-offs for bio ersity. These laws should ensure that trade-offs are, at the very least, explicit and transparent, both in terms of their implications for current bio ersity and in the context of an acceleration of climate-driven bio ersity decline.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 22-02-2017
DOI: 10.1111/CONL.12345
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 03-2022
DOI: 10.1007/S11160-022-09700-3
Abstract: Marine ecosystems and their associated bio ersity sustain life on Earth and hold intrinsic value. Critical marine ecosystem services include maintenance of global oxygen and carbon cycles, production of food and energy, and sustenance of human wellbeing. However marine ecosystems are swiftly being degraded due to the unsustainable use of marine environments and a rapidly changing climate. The fundamental challenge for the future is therefore to safeguard marine ecosystem bio ersity, function, and adaptive capacity whilst continuing to provide vital resources for the global population. Here, we use foresighting/hindcasting to consider two plausible futures towards 2030: a business-as-usual trajectory (i.e. continuation of current trends), and a more sustainable but technically achievable future in line with the UN Sustainable Development Goals. We identify key drivers that differentiate these alternative futures and use these to develop an action pathway towards the desirable, more sustainable future. Key to achieving the more sustainable future will be establishing integrative (i.e. across jurisdictions and sectors), adaptive management that supports equitable and sustainable stewardship of marine environments. Conserving marine ecosystems will require recalibrating our social, financial, and industrial relationships with the marine environment. While a sustainable future requires long-term planning and commitment beyond 2030, immediate action is needed to avoid tipping points and avert trajectories of ecosystem decline. By acting now to optimise management and protection of marine ecosystems, building upon existing technologies, and conserving the remaining bio ersity, we can create the best opportunity for a sustainable future in 2030 and beyond.
Publisher: CSIRO Publishing
Date: 26-04-2023
DOI: 10.1071/WF22229
Abstract: Bio ersity is in chronic decline, and extreme events – such as wildfires – can add further episodes of acute losses. Fires of increasing magnitude will often overwhelm response capacity, and decision-makers need to make choices about what to protect. Conventionally, such choices prioritise human life then infrastructure then bio ersity. Based on shortcomings revealed in the 2019–20 Australian wildfires, we propose a series of linked steps that can be used to identify and prioritise bio ersity assets (including their priority relative to other types of assets), enhance and implement their protection through planning and practice, and strengthen legislation to safeguard them.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 09-2015
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 29-03-2021
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Date: 2023
DOI: 10.1017/EXT.2023.19
Abstract: Bio ersity laws around the world differ, but, at their core, these laws promote the fundamental objective of preventing environmental decline and species extinctions. A variety of legal mechanisms have been implemented in domestic laws around the world to achieve this objective, including protection for habitat, environmental impact assessments and threatened species recovery plans. In many jurisdictions, if these mechanisms fail to protect a species, it may be legally declared extinct, or added to a formal list of those that have been lost. This article examines the conservation purpose and legal implications for laws about extinction. A legal power to recognise a species as extinct has the potential to foster ambition, transparency and rigorous measurement of progress against conservation goals. However, in practice, efforts to prevent extinction are applied selectively. Without an obligation to learn from extinctions, recognition of species extinctions in law may have perverse effects, or no effect at all. This article proposes a conceptual model for the role of law in relation to extinctions, highlighting opportunities to improve legal frameworks to achieve more productive and positive conservation outcomes, even as climate change and other pressures drive many more species towards extinction.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Date: 11-01-2018
DOI: 10.1017/S2047102517000383
Abstract: Anthropogenic climate change represents a wicked problem, both for the Earth’s natural systems and for bio ersity conservation law and policy. Legal frameworks for conservation have a critical role to play in helping species and ecosystems to adapt as the climate changes. However, they are currently poorly equipped to regulate adaptation strategies that demand high levels of human intervention. This article investigates law and policy for conservation introductions, which involve relocating species outside their historical habitat. It takes as a case study Australian law on conservation introductions, demonstrating theoretical and practical legal hurdles to these strategies at international, national and subnational levels. The article argues that existing legal mechanisms may be repurposed, in some cases, to better regulate conservation introduction projects. However, new legal mechanisms are also needed, and soon, to effectively conserve species and ecosystems in a period of unprecedented ecological change.
Publisher: Brill
Date: 25-04-2022
DOI: 10.1163/18786561-20210003
Abstract: ‘Shared responsibility’ for managing risk is central to Australian adaptation and disaster-resilience policies, yet there is no consensus on what this term means or how it is discharged by various actors at each phase of the risk-management process. This has implications for both equity and effectiveness, because shared responsibility assumes that in iduals have capacity and that the decisions they make will not conflict with other public values. This article explores how law assigns responsibility for climate adaptation by examining its approach to a specific climate impact in Australia: the increasing frequency and severity of bushfire. Australia faces heightened bushfire risk from the interplay of climate change effects and demographic shifts. While planning laws attempt to limit exposure of new communities to fire risks, adapting existing communities involves hazard mitigation across the landscape, through fuel reduction – accomplished by controlled burning or clearing of brush and timber – and the construction of fuel breaks. Most Australian jurisdictions impose some form of obligation on land managers or owners to mitigate fire risk. However, the effectiveness of shifting responsibility onto in idual landholders, measured in terms of bushfire risk mitigation, is not established. The shifting of responsibility also has implications for equity because shared responsibility for fire management assumes that in iduals know what must be done and have the capacity to do it themselves or pay others to. The law also privileges bushfire protection above other public values, including the protection of bio ersity and cultural values. To account for the complexity of adaptation decision-making, bushfire mitigation laws should avoid creating inequities and should include mechanisms for resolving trade-offs between competing values.
Publisher: Routledge
Date: 25-01-2019
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 10-2015
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 12-01-2021
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 04-02-2020
DOI: 10.1002/PAN3.10073
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
Date: 12-08-2021
Publisher: Ovid Technologies (Wolters Kluwer Health)
Date: 10-2015
Publisher: CSIRO Publishing
Date: 2023
DOI: 10.1071/WF22213
No related grants have been discovered for Phillipa C McCormack.