Land degradation in all its forms is one of the most serious problems facing the Australian agricultural, horticultural and pastoral industries. Not only is it a worry for the present generation, but there must also be a concern for future generations.

The Workshop from which this volume derives brought together people from the rural industry, natural and social scientists from many disciplines, lawyers and representatives from Commonwealth and state governments and from various government or semi-government agencies. The response was so great that a number of people who wished to attend unfortunately could not be invited. This book gives an opportunity for access to the papers and some of the comments made on them.

In keeping with the multi-disciplinary nature of the Workshop the contributions were valuable in giving information across the disciplinary borderlines. But the objectives were more ambitious than this: there was an attempt to define the biological and physical boundaries of the problem, to identify some of the important social as well as physical issues involved, to consider some of the central scientific, political, legal, economic, social and bureaucratic difficulties in developing an Australian land management strategy or series of strategies and to offer some alternatives.

One thing that came through, and it is reflected in the chapters and commentaries, was that there was less common ground about the extent of the problem than perhaps could have been expected.