What is your clean water worth to you?

Thanks to Twitter (yet again) I was alerted to this amazing web site called I count for my earth and videos on water.  The video is called “Tapped” and covers everything from chemicals (including endocrine disrupting chemicals) in the water, to the amount of landfill created each year by plastic bottles used for selling drinking water. From plastic bottle production to the public’s right for water – this video has it all.  Even though it is a US based site it is well worth a look.

After ploughing my way through this site I thought it was important to revisit a major piece of research undertaken by Land & Water Australia (LWA) on Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals in the Australian Riverine Environment by M Williams, M Woods, A Kumar and R Kookana. This report looks at evidence of endocrine disruption in wildlife populations, including skewed sex ratios, abnormal development of gonads and reproductive failure in exposed populations of aquatic organisms. Of particular interest are compounds including steroidal hormones, alkylphenols (degradates of non-ionic surfactants), phthalates (“plasticisers”), pesticides and organometals that have endocrine disrupting potency. This research is now being continued by CSIRO and was one of the fascinating papers presented at the recent ‘Knowledge for managing Australian landscapes‘ conference.

Nerida

The House on the Hill : the transformation of Australia’s farming communities

On the land and in country towns, the battle to survive goes on forever. Increasingly, the world needs food and fibre, but squeezes out the communities which provide them. Young people leave, farmers sell up, towns die, football teams amalgamate, communities keep reinventing themselves.

What’s going on? What can we do?

Neil Barr looks close up, and he looks at the big picture. What affects real people on the land affects everybody.

This is the second of our book summaries/reviews. Neil Barr, the author, was funded by Land & Water Australia (LWA) to write this book and it has got to be one of the best publications LWA produced (in my opinion as a non scientist)

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Out of the Scientist’s Garden: a Story of Water and Food

Over the next few months we will be bringing you a series of posts on publications produced by Land & Water Australia over the last 20 years. We would really like to highlight some of the wonderful work undertaken and tell you about the publications which provide the detail of this work.

Richard Stirzaker’s Out of the Scientist’s Garden is a true classic and was funded through Land & Water Australia.  A few months ago Richard opened his garden up to the public through the Australian Open Gardens scheme and I got to see his work first hand.   I was in complete awe of his ability to provide a food supply for a whole family from an ordinary suburban block in Canberra.  Also I managed to purchase an autographed copy of Richard’s book. Read more »