Description
The Murray-Darling Basin - Australia's food bowl - is in crisis. For more than a century, a series of environmental catastrophes have brought the ecosystem to its knees: soil erosion, sand drifts and dust storms, salinity, algal blooms, the threat to native flora and fauna and the drying out of internationally recognised wetlands, along with steadily worsening droughts.
Award-winning author Quentin Beresford delves into the history of the river system since European settlement and reveals Australia's destructive relationship with the environment, and the willingness of politicians to ignore expert advice. The dispossession and marginalisation of local Indigenous people denied European settlers the cultural knowledge to manage the Basin sustainably. Instead, we've had waves of nation-building irrigation schemes and agricultural enterprises, all promoted by politicians more concerned with short-term profits than long-term sustainability.
We are now at a point of reckoning. Only an end to the centuries-old development-at-all-costs approach, along with a recognition of Indigenous water rights, an acceptance of science and the adoption of sustainable farming practices can save the once mighty Murray-Darling.
About the Author
Professor Quentin Beresford has had a diverse career in teaching, the public service and journalism. He is the author of Rites of Passage: Aboriginal Youth Crime and Justice; Our State of Mind: Racial Planning and the Stolen Generations, which won the Western Australian Premier's nonfiction prize; the multi-award winning biography Rob Riley: An Aboriginal Leader's Quest for Justice; The Rise and Fall of Gunns Ltd, which won the Tasmanian Premier's Literary Prize and Adani and the War on Coal.
Book Information
ISBN 9781742236780
Author Quentin Beresford
Format Paperback
Page Count 432
Imprint NewSouth Publishing
Publisher NewSouth Publishing
Weight(grams) 333g
Dimensions(mm) 233mm * 155mm * 24mm
Award-winning author Quentin Beresford delves into the history of the river system since European settlement and reveals Australia's destructive relationship with the environment, and the willingness of politicians to ignore expert advice. The dispossession and marginalisation of local Indigenous people denied European settlers the cultural knowledge to manage the Basin sustainably. Instead, we've had waves of nation-building irrigation schemes and agricultural enterprises, all promoted by politicians more concerned with short-term profits than long-term sustainability.
We are now at a point of reckoning. Only an end to the centuries-old development-at-all-costs approach, along with a recognition of Indigenous water rights, an acceptance of science and the adoption of sustainable farming practices can save the once mighty Murray-Darling.
About the Author
Professor Quentin Beresford has had a diverse career in teaching, the public service and journalism. He is the author of Rites of Passage: Aboriginal Youth Crime and Justice; Our State of Mind: Racial Planning and the Stolen Generations, which won the Western Australian Premier's nonfiction prize; the multi-award winning biography Rob Riley: An Aboriginal Leader's Quest for Justice; The Rise and Fall of Gunns Ltd, which won the Tasmanian Premier's Literary Prize and Adani and the War on Coal.
Book Information
ISBN 9781742236780
Author Quentin Beresford
Format Paperback
Page Count 432
Imprint NewSouth Publishing
Publisher NewSouth Publishing
Weight(grams) 333g
Dimensions(mm) 233mm * 155mm * 24mm
