We need your contributions
We invite you to participate by contributing to the forums or submitting an article for our news.
You must be a registered member of the site to comment on the forum and request permission of the site admin to post articles. Registering on the site is an opportunity for you to:
- share ideas
- illuminate issues and challenges and
- provide constructive suggestions and solutions.
Through the conversations and information on the site we are aiming to develop capacity, inspire fresh thinking and build confidence in the use of fire for ecological restoration. Please take a moment to look over our simple guidelines.
Guidelines for participating
We understand that there are bound to be points of contention where conversations where bushfire is concerned, so there are a few house rules to help maintain a professional and cooperative environment for all discussions.
1. Be constructive – The Fire and Restoration Network is meant to be a place where you can put forward your questions and ideas openly. Help us maintain a supportive space by keeping your posts and replies constructive:
- Respect others’ opinions even if they do not reflect yours. If you disagree with a certain position, explain why and keep in mind that you can disagree without being disagreeable.
- You are free to correct facts posted by others as they are free to correct yours.
- Keep discussions centred on ideas, not the people behind them.
The aim of argument, or of discussion, is not victory, but progress
– Joseph Joubert
2. Back up your ideas – aim to maintain a standard of credibility in our discussions.
- Where possible, ground your posts with evidence and facts.
- Cite any sources that you have used so that your colleagues can refer to them and avoid any breach of copyright.
How to post
You must be a registered member of the site to post.
Register hereYour contribution may take a variety of forms. All registered members of the site are welcome to participate in the forums, asking questions, sharing experiences, ideas and useful resources. Please email the site admin if you wish to post an opinion piece or full article so we can update your access permissions.
Whichever form your contribution takes, we only have a few requirements:
- Make sure to cite any sources you have referenced or quoted. If the source is online, submit your article with an embedded link to the article. The Writing Centre at the University of Adelaide has a helpful style guide for citing references
- Try to keep posts within 300-600 words (this is only a guide and shorter or longer posts are acceptable).
- If you include images or video links, please add a reference to the image’s or video’s source to avoid any breach of copyright.
- Although we don’t require a formal review process we encourage you to ask a colleague to review your written piece before posting it.
- We reserve the right to approve any contributions before publication on the site and may ask you for further information or clarification before your post is visible to others.
Don’t have time to write?
If you have a great story to share but simply haven’t got the time to write up, please approach us at admin@fireandrestoration.org.au as we are planning to interview a number of people and write up case studies.
Suggestions for posts and articles
Stories of practice: This includes reflections and case studies of innovative local fire management practices and is suited to practitioners that are involved in innovative projects and want to share their experiences and knowledge. Talking points might include: an outline of the project; problem you were trying to solve, any challenges/obstacles that were faced in implementation; what worked or didn’t work well; lessons for other practitioners.
Event reviews: You might want to post about a workshop or conference you attended. Instead of just telling a couple of work colleagues why not share with the wider network? Talking points might include: what the event was for; the big issues under discussion; what inspired you; what you will do differently in your work. Include a link if the event details are publically available.
Analysis: The network forum is ideally suited to presenting a point of view on an issue relevant to the restoration community or respond to a story that is running in the media. If the issues you’re writing about are contentious you might pose questions for others in the network to encourage other points of view. If it seems under-researched you might ask if anyone is aware of work in progress on that topic.
Helpful resources online: You can even recommend other online resources or articles you have found useful in your practice. Include a brief description of the article, indicate whether you think it may be useful for a particular activity related to fire and restoration, or relevant to a specific geographic location.
