Matthew Brown, who hails from Redcliffe is completing his honours with the SRC in collaboration with Bunya Bunya Country Aboriginal Corporation (BBCAC) with supervision from Dr Tristan Pearce, Dr Javier Leon and Ms Rachele Wilson.
Matthew seeks to examine the resilience of a coastal social-ecological system to climatic and non-climatic changes through a case study of the Maroochy River, Queens-land. The Maroochy River was selected for its characteristics of being a highly populated coastal area where exponential population growth is resulting in the large scale clearing of local vegetation for the development of infrastructure. This novel research entangles Western scientific understandings with Traditional Ecological Knowledge to develop a robust understanding of the stressors driving system change and identifying ways to alleviate stress. This research aims to stimulate the revision of current policy and guide new legislative practices to promote sustainable land and resource management and further increase social-ecological resilience to current and future stressors in the Maroochy River.