Critical Landcare (Book review)

Abstract

The Landcare program was established in 1989, in part as a response to a joint submission for a National Land Management Program put to the government by the National Farmers’ Federation and the Australian Conservation Council. This apparently incongruous alliance seemed to represent a new era of co-operation in environmental management, based on Federal funding for community-based, participatory programs which would be able to utilise local knowledge and resources to tackle local problems. The 1990s were established as the ’Decade of Landcare’, and by 1997 there were about 2500 local groups in operation, involving some 30 per cent of commercial farming operations in Australia. This high level of participation is seen as a measure of the success of the Landcare ’movement’, and of the unique contribution it has made to the goal of environmental management. The introductory chapter to this volume quotes from Andrew Campbell, the first national Landcare facilitator, who asks us to: Imagine a country in which one person out of every four belongs to a conservation group, actively seeking ways of improving their local environment. Think 213 about the possibilities of this scenario for issues such as waste management, water quality, transport, urban design, food and fibre production, and wilderness management. In rural Australia, this is already happening (p. 1).