AustLit

'Fatherhood and Conservation in an uncertain World

'‘They came at dusk, drawn to our camp site by the smell of food. We were cleaning up after dinner in the gathering dark, the pots and pans scraped empty but with traces of our meal still lingering, when we heard the noise of them: yapping calls, one to the other,
or just to themselves in their excitement.’

'When Harry Saddler first encountered a quoll while camping with his father, he was struck by the beauty of the rare creature who had emerged from the bush, sniffing for dinner. As Harry frantically snapped a photo, the fast-moving mammal disappeared back into the undergrowth.

'Many years later that blurry photo remains a memory, as fleeting as the animal it captured. After two centuries of habitat destruction, quolls are now on the brink of extinction and Harry, contemplating fatherhood, aches for the absence of all the species lost to children born today.' (Publication summary)

'The first thing you see of Broome when you fly in is Roebuck Bay. If you’re coming from the south you’ll circle low right over it; from the north it’ll still make its presence known by virtue of the fact that it defines the peninsula on which Broome is built. The colours of the bay are a postcard cliché, until you see them in person and you realise that they’re real: low rust-red cliffs fall to a vivid turquoise sea. The only time I’ve seen water that colour before was in Queenstown, Tasmania, and it was caused by copper sulphate, the waste product of mining. But the colour of the sea around Broome is natural. The red soil—called pindan—is so fine and soft that to walk on it barefoot is like walking on carpet.' (Introduction)