28.5.07

Drought - Australia

Hi to all,

Firstly, I would like to thank all of you for reading my blog. I have noticed that several of you are living in Japan - The land of the Rising Sun - and I hope you are enjoying what you read. Please do not hesitate to comment, as I love you to participate.

Australia is at the moment experiencing its 6th drought year, and our farmers are having a hard time.The land is as dry as can be and water restrictions are everywhere. However, much of the difficulties come, from what I can see, from bad water management that goes back to the time white man first landed in this vast land.

White man has brought with it animals and agriculture foreign to this land, cleared the land of its trees, and instituted monoculture agriculture of annual crops.These inturn, produced vast areas of extended dessert, like the dustbowls of the USA, and in some salt levels rose to render the land unusable.

With much of the crops going to other lands, Australia has/is in fact, exporting much of its water and, there has been little attention given to harnessing water resources.In the area we living in, for example, there are quite often heavy dark clouds hanging overhead, but there is no cloud seeding; and in years where floods are abound, with farm animal up to their necks in water, there are no dams to collect that abundance.

Drought - Australia

In marginal land
no rain in site
the ground is cracked
like shattered glass

Salt has risen
no plant in sight
cattle and sheep
just wander about

They wonder perhaps
a blade of grass -
will stand up right
or semblance of wet
will denote a site

We uprooted the trees
lay waste the terrain
we destroyed all life
in this our land
© Renate 6.4.06

Renate
Artist, poet & the Author of
 From the Promised Land to the Lucky Country  
http://www.promisedland-renate.com/

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Hi Walter and Annette, Thanks for the feedback. Pleased you enjoyed reading it. What happened to the boat, comes in a period after the book ends and maybe a part of the next book...