This campaign is bringing together landmanagers and the community to implement the best scientific advice and to formulate action plans for the protection of habitats, healthy soils and a flourishing biodiversity in Australia.

Native plants need healthy soils to survive! The problems that plague soils in Australia - salinity, sodicity, acidity, acid sulphate, erosion, pesticides - threaten agriculture and also pose serious threats to nearby bushland, even National Parks. For example salinity, the Australian flora is remarkably salt tolerant but there are limits and not many will grow with the high levels of salinity found in salt pans and lakes and lesser levels will threaten many plants and ecological communities. The survival of the native fauna, from fish to birds, depends on the survival of the native flora.

The campaign by the Nature Conservation Council of NSW in partnership with the Australian Plants Society and the Wildlife Preservation Society of Australia, was launched in April, 2001, with a one day seminar. Jerry Coleby-Williams, well known from his contributions to Gardening Australia, chaired the seminar which included talks by

Dr. Vincent Serventy Keynote Address
Hon. John Aquilina (MP) Opening Address
Professor Stuart Hill Redesign: Lessons from Ecological Agriculture and Social Ecology
Dr. Brian Murphy Soils and Biodiversity
Dr. David Butcher Making the Connection
Dr. Pam Hazelton Soil, the Environment's Poor Relation - an urban perspective
Dr. David Freudenberger Where Should We Be Heading and How to Get There?
Mr. Bruce Maynard Case Study - Towards an Australian Agriculture
Dr. John Bartle Will Perennial Crops Make Agriculture Sustainable?

Some of the papers are available on the NCC website www.nccnsw.org.au.

Three public workshops are being held in rural NSW - Wagga Wagga, Orange, Tamworth - which will allow rural people to have input and to learn about current conditions and techniques.

More is planned and news will appear here.