A Continent and a Country, Australia is nearly the size of the contiguous United States. For the most part the population of Australia hugs the coast. Fully seventy percent is arid or semi-arid land. Perhaps even more than in other deserts, the climate here is wildly unpredictable. It either rains too much or not at all.
The Erratic pattern makes it difficult for ranchers--or Station managers, as they are called in Australia--to manage their herds and land. They have learned
that to survive, they must plan for the worst. Along with her father and brother Robyn Cadzow runs a 624-thousand acre ranch, or station. In the Northwest Territory of Australia, where 60 percent
of the land is rangeland, conditions vary widely, even on a single station.
In this vast land scientists have taken to the sky to get perspective on the changes wrought by Europeans in the past 170 years. They hope what they learn will help people like Robyn repair the damage done by past mistakes, and cope with this extreme environment.
Faced with vast territory, limited resources and unpredictable rainfall, Australian station managers work to restore small patches at a time. The techniques are simple and straightforward. Robyn's
family plows or "Pits" the ground to create ditches that trap rain when it finally comes. Larger patches of green are created by ponding--building up embankments to trap water. Reversing the effects
of desertification takes years. Deserts do not advance and retreat in a straight line.
The story of the Australian Outback and it's unpredictable climate is one of many stories documented in Survivors in the Sand, a video tracking human adaptation in the desert.
Survivors in the Sand is available from the
Department of
Media ProductionsCollege of Agriculture, Consumer and Environmental Sciences
New Mexico State University
phone: (505) 646-2701
e-mail: aaccount@nmsu.edu price: $24.95 plus shipping and handling Funded in part by the International Arid Lands Consortium
