The need to improve the conservation status of Australian agricultural and pastoral land is one of the most compelling challenges for Australia in the 1990s. It is time to start managing this country as if we intend to stay, rather than as if we are just passing through, or as if it is a business in liquidation. The solutions of the past are not the solutions for the future. We must make use of our unique natural heritage, our plants and animals, linking natural resource management and ecology to invest in natural capital, especially in the rangelands.
Conservation of our environment - our species and ecosystems and the processes they support; the water levels and quality of our rivers, wetlands and groundwater resources; soil structures and landscape features - is crucial to the sustainability of all the industries based in the rangelands. Conservation is an investment in natural capital. It is not an alternative land use nor an opportunity cost, it is the fundamental protection of the natural resources which underwrite our material wealth. This vision should inform our management of the rangelands, today and in the future.
Port Augusta, South Australia
ISSN 1323 -6660
Full-text publications from the Australian Rangelands Society (ARS) Biennial Conference Proceedings (1997-), Rangeland Journal (ARS/CSIRO; 1976-), plus videos and other resources about the rangelands of Australia.