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van den Akker, JW orcid:0000-0002-1906-6128 ; Historically, Australian policy makers have associated rural Indigenous community's high un-employment levels and low labour force participation rates with poor livelihood outcomes. This is primarily a result of a 'one size fits all' approach where labour market outcomes are seen not within their geographical and cultural contexts (Biddle, 2017; Altman et al, 2007), and where the indigenous unemployment issues are often seen through a western lens (Lawrence, 2005). This paper develops further on these ideas to propose that the patterns of Indigenous unemployment must be considered within a complex and colonising system. These patterns need to be recognised, admitted to, and amended in partnership with the local communities taking into account the specific geographical and cultural concerns. Sustainable livelihood solutions must be sought to address economic development in remote Indigenous communities, and this would require challenging the value perspectives informing government policy. Transformation must come from within the local communities and governments need to change how they conceptualise Indigenous peoples' 'issues'. Otherwise, colonising and disempowering processes will continue to be reinforced. The researchers explore the ideas through fieldwork in Wakathuni, a remote Aboriginal community settlement located in the Pilbara region of Western Australia.

In the Netherlands land subsidence is a continuously ongoing process. Consequently, an increasing number of people and economic assets are exposed to subsidence, damage costs are soaring, and flood risk and greenhouse gas emissions are increasing. In some areas tipping points have already been reached, where current land-use can no longer be maintained without considerable costs, underlining the urgency to take action. Together with a consortium consisting of universities, research institutes, governmental agencies, public and private partners we have developed a national, multidisciplinary research programme aiming to develop an integrative approach to achieve feasible, legitimate and sustainable solutions for managing the negative societal effects of land subsidence, connecting fundamental research on subsidence processes to socio-economic impact of subsidence and to governance and legal framework design. The program is designed to co-create insights that help to effectively mitigate and adapt to subsidence within the Netherlands by making major improvements in measuring and modeling the processes and consequences of subsidence, identifying, developing and critically evaluating control measures and designing governance and legal approaches that facilitate their implementation. Hereto we will develop (a) new satellite-based technology to measure, attribute and monitor subsidence, (b) solid understanding of the interacting multiple processes contributing to total subsidence, (c) sophisticated physical and economic numerical models to predict human-induced subsidence rates and impacts, and (d) implementation strategies that go beyond technical measures, to strengthen governance and financing capacities as well as legal frameworks. This fully integrated approach deals with all impacts of land subsidence on society and the economy.

11 páginas, 3 figuras, 3 tablas. ; Central to the EU thematic strategy for soil protection is that areas affected by soil degradation through erosion, soil organic matter (SOM) decline, compaction, salinization and landslides should be identified in a clear and consistent way. However, the current methodologies to achieve this often differ and this can result in different perceptions of risks amongst EU Member States. The aims of this paper are to: (i) assess the current status of assessment methodologies in Europe (EU27) associated with erosion, SOM decline, compaction, salinization and landslides and (ii) discuss the issues associated with harmonization of these methodologies throughout the EU27. The need for harmonization is assessed using the relative share of common elements between different methodologies. The results demonstrate that the need for harmonization in methodology is greatest for erosion and compaction and least for SOM decline and landslides. However, many of the methodologies which were investigated are still incomplete and there are significant differences in terms of: (i) understanding the threats, (ii) methods of data collection, (iii) processing and interpretation and (iv) risk perception. We propose two options for the harmonized assessment of soil threats: (i) a two-tiered approach based on data availability and spatial scale and (ii) a combination of standardization and harmonization for each assessment methodology. Future assessments should focus on the advantages and disadvantages of these options as the current situation will result in endless discussions on differences and the merits of particular methodologies instead of taking appropriate measures to reduce or eliminate the actual threats. ; This study was part of the RAMSOIL project on harmonization of RAMs for soil threats. The RAMSOIL project was co-funded by the European Commission, DG Research, within the sixth Framework Programme of RTD (Priority 8 – Specific Support to Policies, contract no. 44240). The views and opinions expressed in this publication are purely those of the writers and may not in any circumstances be regarded as stating an official position of the European Commission. ; Peer reviewed