May 2021

Uluru: a rock that plagues Australia’s conscience | Paul Daley

Mark McKenna’s short, elegant book Return to Uluru gazes inwards to the continental interior, metaphor for a nation’s yearning

Occasionally a piece of writing will capture us and turn our thoughts inwards on to how we connect to the geographic, spiritual and emotional places where we live.

It will spin our minds around and force us to confront existential questions about belonging to a continent of many nations.

Continue reading...

Uluru: a rock that plagues Australia’s conscience | Paul Daley

Mark McKenna’s short, elegant book Return to Uluru gazes inwards to the continental interior, metaphor for a nation’s yearning

Occasionally a piece of writing will capture us and turn our thoughts inwards on to how we connect to the geographic, spiritual and emotional places where we live.

It will spin our minds around and force us to confront existential questions about belonging to a continent of many nations.

Continue reading...

The story of the Paradise parrot – the only mainland Australian bird marked ‘extinct’

Conservationists could make a case for saving a gorgeous bird but preserving its prosaic habitat was, in the 1920s and 30s, a bridge too far

Few but the most dedicated ornithologist will know anything about Australia’s Paradise parrot.

That is because it has the dubious distinction of being the only mainland Australian bird marked “extinct” by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. Its premature vanishment almost a century ago, meanwhile, remains prescient today when it comes to how best to protect other threatened Australian avian species.

The story of the Paradise parrot – the only mainland Australian bird marked ‘extinct’

Conservationists could make a case for saving a gorgeous bird but preserving its prosaic habitat was, in the 1920s and 30s, a bridge too far

Few but the most dedicated ornithologist will know anything about Australia’s Paradise parrot.

That is because it has the dubious distinction of being the only mainland Australian bird marked “extinct” by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. Its premature vanishment almost a century ago, meanwhile, remains prescient today when it comes to how best to protect other threatened Australian avian species.