Back from the Brink: How Australia's Landscape Can Be Saved
Environmental Conservation Australian Natural History Ecological Restoration Memoir & Biography Sustainable Agriculture Hydrology & Water Management Permaculture & Regenerative Farming
Back from the Brink: How Australia’s Landscape Can Be Saved is Peter Andrews’ landmark 2006 call-to-arms that turned the national conversation about drought, land-clearing and river health on its head. In 244 tightly-written pages the horse-breeder–turned–land-care revolutionary explains, in plain language any gardener, farmer or city-dwelling reader can follow, how Australia’s unique “pulse” hydrology once kept the continent hydrated and fertile, and how simple, low-cost structures—weed-trap banks, leaky weirs and recycled organic matter—can rehydrate parched soils, revive dying farms and buffer catastrophic floods. Andrews’ storytelling is part memoir, part field manual: he walks you through drought-struck properties where salt scalds have healed, eroded gullies have refilled with reeds and birdlife has returned within a single season, proving that landscape function can be restored faster and cheaper than anyone believed possible.
What makes this particular copy worth owning is its scarcity in good, clean condition and the personal inscription inside—an anonymous gift note that hints at the book’s life-changing impact on its first owner. The paperback is still tight-spined, pages are unmarked apart from the gentle yellowing typical of ABC Books’ 2006 stock, and every diagram and photograph is present and sharp. For students, permaculture designers, Landcare volunteers or policy makers, it is the original, unabridged text that sparked the Natural Sequence Farming movement and still underpins today’s regenerative-agriculture courses.
Beyond the practical DIY, Back from the Brink is a gripping Australian story: one man’s battle against official scepticism, bureaucratic inertia and the myth that native plants alone can repair damaged country. Andrews’ voice is optimistic, humorous and utterly place-based—readers come away understanding not just what to do on their own patch, but why Australia’s ancient landscape once functioned as a giant biological sponge and how every citizen can help put that sponge back. In an era of accelerating climate extremes, this accessible classic remains the fastest route to grasping how landscape rehydration can simultaneously drought-proof farms, refill wetlands and draw down carbon at continental scale.
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