Urban Agriculture Online

Cr Campbell Newman, Lord Mayor of Brisbane is Chair of the Brisbane City Council's Civic Cabinet and an ex officio member of all Council Committees. As Lord Mayor, he represents all the residents of Brisbane. In Brisbane, the Lord Mayor is directly elected by Brisbane's 617,854 voters. The Brisbane City Council is the largest local council in Australia. It covers 1220 square kilometres, spanning the Brisbane River in radius of up to 25 kilometres from the Central Business District. Campbell Newman is a qualified civil engineer with an honours degree in civil engineering from the University of New South Wales and a MBA from the University of Queensland. He had a 13-year career as an Australian Army Engineer, retiring at the end of 1993 with the rank of major. Following his service in the army, Campbell worked as a business consultant. During his career he helped improve the performance of large Australian companies such as Telstra, BHP Australia Coal and the Hydro Electric Commission in Tasmania. Campbell moved from consulting to leading Queensland agribusiness, Grainco Australia, where he developed a $60 million grain handling system for growers in southern NSW and Victoria. He later became responsible for the operations of the entire company, including export grain terminals in Mackay, Gladstone, Brisbane and Melbourne. Before entering the Council, Campbell established his own consulting firm, specialising in bulk commodity logistics.

Steven Peck, Founder and President, Green Roofs for Healthy Cities, North America. Based in Toronto, Canada, the organization currently has an expanding membership of about 1,200 green roof designers, suppliers, constructors and municipal governments.

Geoff Wilson, Founder and President of Green Roofs for Healthy Australian Cities. Based in Brisbane, Australia this start-up organization has online delivery of green roof information services and membership participation in meetings, seminars, conferences and study tours. Geoff is a journalist and publisher specializing in green roofs and urban agriculture. He is a director of Nettworx Publishing Pty Ltd. which supplies online membership services for science and technology organisations, and publishes "Urban Agriculture Online".

Josh Kidd, Foundation Secretary of Green Roofs for Healthy Australian Cities. Josh is an engineering graduate from the University of Queensland whose final year thesis was on water absorbtion of green roofs for Brisbane.

Prof. David Midmore, Foundation Professor in Plant Cciences, Central Queensland Universoity, Rockhampton, Queensland, Australia. The Plant Sciences Group was established in 1991 with Associate Professor Kerry Walsh as the founding director. It is one of two groups (the other being Animal Production) in the CQU's formally designated Primary Industries Research Centre. David Midmore joined the group as Foundation Professor in Plant Sciences and director of the Plant Sciences Group in 1995.

Dr Raelene Mibus is Senior Lecturer at the South West TAFE, Warrnambool, Victoria, Australia where she currently teaches Horticulture and natural resource management. Her particular research interests are in native flora biology and applications, which have naturally extended to include green roof applications in Australian landscapes. Green roofs have been an area of interest since living and studying in Germany in the 1980s and culminated in a study tour and work in Swiss and German firms and research institutes in 2005, together with the presentation of papers at the World Green Roof congress in Basel Switzerland in 2005 and the International Landcare Conference, Melbourne, October 2006. Raelene is a Foundation Member of GRHAC. Read Dr Mibus's presentation for International Landcare Conference, Melbourne, October 2006.

Prof. Daryl Joyce is Professor and Director of the Centre for Native Floriculture at The University of Queensland. He has worked for over 20 years in horticulture research, teaching and extension in Australia and overseas (USA, UK). Daryl's research has focused on understanding the biology of native Australian plants. He is particularly interested in plant water use efficiency and drought tolerance.

Graeme Hopkins is a Registered Landscape Architect and Registered Architect, and a director of Fifth Creek Studio: landscape architecture, public art and urban design. He is currently President of the Australian Institute of Landscape Architects SA Group, and recently returned from a Churchill Fellowship overseas study tour of rooftops and living walls. Fifth Creek Studio has won national and state awards in architecture and landscape architecture. His publications include contributions to Landscape Australia, Landmark and Place journals, and he co-authored the chapter, 'Bushtops: Eco-Friendly Gardens for High-Density Living' in the BioCITY Centre for Urban Habitats publication Adelaide: Nature of a City, which was awarded the Whitley Medal for the best natural history book of 2005-6.

An urban planning (honours) graduate and Victoria's GRHC representative, Ben Nicholson moved to the city after leaving the NSW family farm at 13. Ben's interest in rooftop gardens continues to expand, with the recent completion of his Town Planning (Hons.) degree at RMIT University (a highly recommended read, and availble to GRHC members). In his honours thesis, Ben identified the major rooftop gardens in Melbourne's CBD with assistance from the City of Melbourne. He then interviewed local contractors to identify locally perceived benefits and barriers. Ben concluded that the environmental benefits of rooftop gardens have tended to be overlooked in favour of aesthetic principles. Ben identified various 'green' building rating tools as the most effective means through which green roof environmental performance can be measured and improved in Victoria. Ben is now concentrating his efforts toward developing local and state government planning policies that incorporate more sophisticated building rating tools, in consultation with peak industry organisations and their representatives.

David Baggs, CA FRAIA ABSA is a director of Natural Integrated Living Pty Ltd, a multidiscipline sustainable development consultancy and Technical Director of Ecospecifier a website of eco-preferable products. He is an award winning chartered architect, sustainability, energy-efficiency consultant and Accredited Green Stars Assessor with over 25 years experience. David has been responsible for the design of over 350 eco-homes as well as 40 earth covered and green roof buildings, numerous major residential, commercial, eco-tourism and other eco-projects. He was also sustainability, energy and eco-product and materials consultant to 10 Olympic projects including the Olympic Village and the Sydney SuperDome and more recently Brisbane City Councils new Headquarters fitout at Brisbane Square as well as Sydney's Green Square Town Centre and AMP Global Headquarters. David and Natural Integrated Living were the 2003/2004 HIA National GreenSmart Professionals of the Year. He is co-author of the book, Australian Earth Covered Buildings and Contributing Editor to the 2^nd Edition of The Healthy House book.

Dr Robyn Symcock is from the Manaaki Whenua Landcare Research.

Lalitha Ramachandran, is Project Manager Sustainability Environment Policy & Planning, City of Port Phillip

Terry White. Terry White is an environmental community development worker. He has been involved in issues relating to land degradation and salinity for over 20 years. His consultancy, Terry White & Associates, works with Greening Australia in implementing their large-scale biodiversity monitoring program; he is also working with the City Council in Melbourne, helping to establish a series of rooftop gardens and ?micro-farms? in the CBD. These gardens are demonstration gardens, and have recreational uses combined with the provision of herbs, salad vegetables and cut flowers, and the re-use of waste food through worm-farming. Terry is also involved with the mid-term review of National Heritage Trust programs, assessing projects in the urban environment theme. He is currently working with the City of Port Phillip.

Logan Whitelaw, Foundation Director of Greenroofs for Sustainable Cities (NZ), a not-for-profit organisation promoting the use of greenroofs in New Zealand. He comes from an urban planning background having gained a Bachelor of Planning (Hons.) from the University of Auckland. Logan became interested in greenroofs while on a university study tour to North America during 2004 where he visited a number of greenroof and low impact development sites. On his return, he completed a research project titled Beyond Ivy: How Bioclimatic Principles Can Contribute to Urban Sustainability as part of the Bachelor of Planning degree. A large component of this research was related to the use of greenroofs as part of the Bioclimatic approach. After graduating with a Bachelor of Planning (Hons.), Logan returned to the University of Auckland to undertake a Master of Planning degree focusing solely on greenroofs. His thesis, titled Greenroofs for a Sustainable Auckland Region: Using Greenroofs to Reduce the Adverse Effects of Increasing Urban Densities within the Auckland Region, is the first comprehensive greenroof report produced in New Zealand.