Manifest Destiny, Mirage and Mabo: Contemporary Images of the Rangelands.

Abstract

Attitudes to the Australian rangelands have changed markedly over the last 20 years in response to a variety of changes in societal attitudes to the environment in general and changes in national and international scientific knowledge on the nature of the rangeland ecosystem. The paper provides a brief review of those changing attitudes, seen in the context of the sociologist Cohen's four environmental orientations: instrumental, territorial, sentimental and symbolic. Evidence of each is provided and it is argued that future management of the rangelands will need to take cognisance of the variety of views of the nature and role of the rangelands which those orientations encompass.