Abstract

The twentieth century has forced Australians to finally recognize the disastrous effects that various forms of land degradation are having on their country's soil and environment. Two centuries of poor government policies based on conflicting support for both local initiatives trying to halt land degradation and international goals of trying to compete within a competitive global market economy drove Australians to focus on management practices that maximized short-term production with little regard for, or understanding of the damage being done to the biophysical make-up of the land. As global support for the concept of sustainable development grew throughout the 1980s, the concept of Landcare was established in Australia. Landcare was conceived as a bottom-up, grassroots movement dedicated to developing social cohesion among individual farmers, landholders and individuals, all of whom had a common concern for the environment. Landcare's objective was to help create sustainable land management initiatives that would be based on both government policy and public support. Has Landcare's objective been achieved, or has it yielded to the forces of economics and misunderstanding? Landcare's importance in creating awareness and providing education and training about land degradation and how to combat its resulting effects has been very effective. Its ability to move beyond simply being an information movement has yet to be decided. Landcare's ability to become active in policy discourse and to become a political issue holds the key to its future success