Coast to Coast 2012

Monday 17th – Friday 21st September 2012

Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre, Grey Street, South Brisbane, Queensland

For full Coast to Coast 2012 details, go to Coast to Coast 2012 website

Welcome from the Chair

Queensland welcomes you to the next Coast to Coast Conference, to be held in Brisbane from 17th to 21st September 2012. The organising committee has been working hard to bring to you an innovative event, focusing on Living on the Edge, especially in light of the recent extreme weather that has devastated so much of Australia’s coastal landscape, urban and rural alike. We believe this modern and topical theme will encourage interest and attendance from a broad spectrum of coastal policy makers, managers and researchers.

At the 2010 Coast to Coast Conference we discussed climate change and its impact on Australian coastal environments. In 2012 we want to link closely to the outcomes of those discussions, applying climate change impacts such as prolonged droughts and increasing flood events to the coping mechanisms of coastal populations. Australia’s ever changing coast has provided a rich array of social, economic and environmental resources for people over many thousands of years. But how resilient is this coastal zone to current and future challenges? How can pressures such as urbanisation and coastal resource and development be managed? These are some of the questions which we want to address at the 2012 Coast to Coast Conference.

Brisbane is an ideal city from which to explore very fast urban and peri-urban growth first hand. It can set the scene for this conference by addressing issues such as rapid urbanisation, change in land-use, intensified agriculture, cultural heritage and, above all, managing growth sustainable. As Coast to Coast is a national conference, we will be liaising with State coastal organisations to ensure inclusion of major issues from all States, giving this conference a truly Australia-wide flavour and raising awareness of some pressing issues that need to be profiled more widely.

We would like to continue the very successful approach from 2010 by choosing keynote speakers who are passionate about Australia’s coastal future. We anticipate further development and use of the multi-media technology trialled at Coast to Coast 2010 and intend to use this opportunity to include more international speakers, without the high expenses of airfares. For keynotes, this is a very time-effective way to be involved. We consider this will put Coast to Coast 2012 at the forefront of web technology and the use of these online tools gives the opportunity for a much broader scope of keynotes. In addition, we are considering a focus on special student initiative/workshops with possible inclusion of ‘speed talks’ and extra plenary sessions. We will again invite the NRM bodies to hold their one-day workshop on the first day of the conference and will include one day of various full and half-day field trips.

We hope you will be inspired by our collaborative approach, to be better prepared to continue on our journey towards Living on the Edge.

Dr Mara Wolkenhauer
Chair, Coast to Coast 2012 Organising Committee