Back From The Brink & Beyond The Brink
Memoir Environmental Conservation Gardening & Horticulture Australian Natural History Ecological Restoration Sustainable Agriculture Permaculture & Regenerative Farming Drought & Climate Resilience
Back from the Brink (and its follow-up Beyond the Brink) is the book that turned Australian farmer Peter Andrews into a national conservation hero. In these pages Andrews explains, in plain, captivating language, how he reversed the salt-ravaged, dust-blown banks of the Hunter Valley by re-creating the natural water-retention systems that existed before European settlement. Readers watch him re-establish reed beds, redirect floodplains and let weeds do the work of expensive engineering, turning “hopeless” country back into fertile, drought-proof farmland. The result is a practical, step-by-step blueprint for regenerating soil, restoring native vegetation and making any property—whether a broad-acre farm or a suburban backyard—resilient to fire, flood and drought.
What makes this paperback special is that it is both memoir and manual: Andrews’ own story of bankruptcy, ridicule and eventual triumph is woven through with clear diagrams and before-and-after photographs that prove the methods work. Young adults studying environmental science, home gardeners fighting clay or salt, and graziers tired of watching topsoil blow away all find take-home techniques they can test tomorrow. Because the books originated as a single two-part narrative, owning both volumes together gives the complete arc—from ecological collapse to full landscape recovery—without repetition.
Collectors and second-hand hunters prize the 2008–2010 print runs for their stout, garden-bag-friendly paperbacks that survive thumbing in utes and tractors. This copy shows only one dog-eared page; the rest is crisp, unmarked and ready to pass through another generation of hands. In an era when every news bulletin carries another climate-extreme headline, Andrews’ proven, low-cost solutions make Back from the Brink & Beyond the Brink a timely, empowering addition to any Australian home library.
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