Listen Our Land is Crying: Australia's Environment: Problems and Solutions by Mary E White

Book Description

Secondhand. Very good condition. Minor wear to book corners and edges. Tear and price stickers on front cover.Dust jacket is enclosed in protective plastic cover. Interior and binding are still excellent. Signed by author.

Our Land is Crying presents the big picture of land use, the degradation of land and water resources, and some of the wonders of this amazing continent. It also provides a prescription for ensuring a bright future for Australia.

In the context of its island continent status, Australia has had a unique geological history that accounts for its poor soils and their erodibility, the nature of its rivers and groundwater supplies, its problems with salinity, and the specialised adaptations of its flora and fauna and the ecosystems they comprise to the uniquely Australian environments that evolved through geological time.

It is the driest vegetated continent, with 75% of its area under arid regimes - and arid lands are inherently fragile; it has a highly variable climate which compounds the effects of aridity; it is the flattest continent, with lowest overall relief, and its poor drainage accounts for its saline water-table; its biodiversity and the high level of endemism of its plants and animals are the result of its geological history, and preserving that biodiversity and preventing extinctions is our responsibility, and ours alone.

Understanding the geological history that has made Australia unique enables us to know why the imposition of European agriculture and land-use practices on this ancient, fragile land and the introduction of foreign animals and plants have had such disastrous consequences. (book flap)