Earth Protect Blog

One of Earth Protect’s founding Advisory Council Members, Dr Hugh Lavery AM, has published a sequel to the baseline account of environmental management set out in 1978 in his Exploration North: Australia’s Wildlife from Desert to Reef.

Again using Queensland as an illustrative focus, Conserving Nature: Fewer Laws, More Science (2021, amazon.com > books) offers insights emerging from decades of both scientific and experiential knowledge about the challenges of advancing sustainable land management, premised on ecological design.  

The author provides broad principles – imperatives of collaboration, scale, science, flexibility, the power of the narrative, and more – but goes beyond principles by drawing on case examples that move from the theoretical to the practical.  His themes are familiar – for example, the limits of legislation, the unintended consequences of action springing from media campaigns that invariably miss complexities and may drive short-term action rather than informed long-term strategic planning, and the need for scope but also the need for local action.

Though centered on the landscapes and peoples of Queensland, the insights are relevant for conservation efforts across the globe.

Former US Nature Conservancy Chief External Affairs Officer and Acting Secretary of the Interior, Lynn Scarlett, has written: “I found the book to be incredibly interesting, articulating (and anticipating) shifts in the conservation dialogue.  The examples are wide-ranging.  I really enjoyed reading the book!”