Sharron Pfueller
Senior Lecturer, Coordinator, Master of Environment and Sustainability Program
Fields of interest:
- Multistakeholder partnerships in environmental governance
- Community participation in environmental assessment, monitoring and natural area management
- Tourism and sustainability
- Environment and health
- Community environmental education
Research
Multistakeholder partnerships in environmental governance.
Participation of a range of stakeholders in all aspects of environmental management is increasingly important in achieving environmental sustainability. The processes for facilitating this are diverse and contested.
One project is investigating the structures and processes involved in the coordination and management of biosphere reserves which combine, conservation, education, scientific research and sustainable development in areas which include both natural and urbanised landscapes. Community and institutional enthusiasm has frequently been dampened by governance processes and the challenge is to understand why and how to achieve optimal environmental outcomes.
Projects with research students:
- Monitoring of protected natural areas by local communities
Tourism and sustainability
Tourism is one of the fastest growing industries and in many natural areas is regarded as a means of providing income for communities and having lower environmental impacts than many other land uses. However, reducing tourism's own impacts is a challenge. As a member of Monash University's Tourism Research Unit, two projects funded by the Sustainable Tourism Cooperative Research Centre have been recently completed:
Community values for the Murray River Reserves
Communities value natural locations in different ways: from recreational, tourism, economic or natural resource perspectives. These perspectives are based on many factors including familiarity with the area, its intrinsic appeal, available facilities and desired recreational activities of that community. This collaborative project with Victoria and Latrobe Universities aimed to provide insight into these values with respect to sites for conservation, camping, tourism and recreation along the Victorian bank of the Murray River. It has provided strategic knowledge to Parks Victoria and other government bodies on which to base decisions for future management of tourism and of natural areas.
Developing effective partnerships for facilitating sustainable tourism in and around protected areas
This project aimed to explore a range of partnerships between natural resource managers, communities and the tourism industry to understand how these can be best managed to yield environmental, social and economic sustainability. It was conducted in collaboration with researchers in the Faculty of Business and Economics, Murdoch University and the University of Tasmania.
Projects with research students:
- the effects of the social impacts of National Parks and associated tourism on the capacity and willingness of local communities to undertake conservation activities
- the nature of conflict between recreational users of National Parks
- sustainability of seal tourism
Current Teaching
- ENV4030/5030
Environmental Analysis - ENV433E/533E
Environmental Internship
Selected recent publications:
- Pfueller, S.L, Zhu, X., Whitelaw, P., Winter, C. 2009. Spatial mapping of community values for tourism planning and conservation in the Murray River reserves, Victoria, Australia. Technical Report. The Gold Coast, Queensland: Sustainable Tourism Cooperative Research Centre.
- Laing, J., Wegner, A., Moore, S.A., Weiler, B., Pfueller, S., Lee, D., Macbeth, J., Croy G. and Lockwood, M. 2008. Developing Effective Partnerships for Facilitating Sustainable Protected Area Tourism: A Literature Review. Technical Report. The Gold Coast, Queensland: Sustainable Tourism Cooperative Research Centre.
- Pfueller, S.L. 2008, The Role of Bioregionalism in Bookmark Biosphere Reserve, Australia, Environmental Conservation, 35 (2), 173-186.
- Laing, J., Wegner, A., Moore, S., Weiler, B., Pfueller, S.L. Lee, D., Macbeth, M., Croy, G. and Lockwood, M. 2008. Understanding partnerships for protected area tourism. Learning from the literature. CRC for Sustainable Tourism.
- Arcari, P. J, Tapper, N. J, Pfueller, S. L, 2007, Regional variability in relationships between climate and dengue/DHF in Indonesia, Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography, 28 (3), 251-272
- Pfueller, S. L, 2001, The nature of health: embodying mythology, PAN: Philosophy Activism Nature, vol 1, pp. 35-41
- Arcari, P. J, Tapper, N. J, Pfueller, S. L, 2005, The Relationships between Dengue/Dengue Haemorrhagic Fever (DHF) and Climate in Indonesia, Annals of Meteorologie 41, 17th Intl Congress of Biometeorology, Deutscher Wetterdienst, Offenbach am Main 2005, pp. 324-327
- Loughnan, M., Tapper, N. J, Pfueller, S. L, 2005, Seasonal Variation in hospital admissions for Acute Myocardial Infarction (AMI) in Melbourne 1993 - 2003, Annals of Meteorologie 41, 17th Intl Congress of Biometeorology, Deutscher Wetterdienst, Offenbach am Main, pp. 421-424
- Pfueller SL and Cock PH. 2000. Ecotourism: approaches to sustainability through Australian best practice, Monash Publications in Geography and Environmental Science.
- Pfueller SL, Innes-Wardell I, Skondras H, Marshall D, Kruger T. 1997. An evaluation of Saltwatch - a school and community action research environmental project. Australian Journal of Environmental Education 13: 61 - 68.
- Monash Ecotourism Team. 1997. (In alphabetical order: Staff: P Cock, S Pfueller; Students: A Cook, A Curlewis, R Guevara, T Plumridge). Community ecotourism planning: partnerships for sustainable futures. Monash Publications in Geography and Environmental Science.
- Curlewis AB, Cook AJ, Guevara JR, Plumridge T, Pfueller S, Cock PH. 1996. Community research and planning for ecotourism in Halls Gap and the Grampians/Gariwerd region. In Ecotourism and Nature-based tourism: taking the next steps. The Ecotourism Association of Australia. Proceedings of the National Conference pp. 103-108.
- Guevara J, Cook A, Curlewis A, Plumridge T, Cock P, Pfueller S. 1996. Co-learning in community ecotourism planning. Windows on the World. 28th International Conference of the Community Development Society.
- Pfueller SL. 1995. Community and water quality - initiatives in Gippsland. Australian Journal of Soil and Water Conservation 8: 26 - 32.
- Pfueller SL, Hooper MA, Harvey DHP. (Editors). 1993. Proceedings of the Conference Greenhouse and the Energy Regions.
Address
- Room No: S103, Menzies Building
- Telephone No: +61 3 990 54619
- Sharron.Pfueller@arts.monash.edu.au