Social historians will look back on the 1980s as a period when a global consciousness of the environment developed. Stimulated by major issues and events such as oil and chemical spills, clearing of rainforests, pollu tion of waterways, and, towards the end of the decade, concern over the greenhouse effect, concern for the environment has become a major social and political force. Unfortunately, the state of the environment and its future manage ment are still very divisive issues. Often, at a local level, concern for the environment is the antithesis of development. The debate usually focusses on the possible negative environmental impacts of an activity versus the expected positive economic impacts. It is a very difficult task to integrate development and conservation, yet it is towards this objec tive that the sustainable development debate is moving. The issues in the central wheatbelt of Western Australia are typical of the environment versus development debate. It is undoubted that the development of the area, which involved clearing the native vegetation, has had a major impact upon the original ecosystems. Many of the natural habitats are threatened and local extinction of flora and fauna species is a continuing process. Moreover, there are clear signs that land degradation processes such as dryland salinity are depleting the land resource.

Social historians will look back on the 1980s as a period when a global consciousness of the environment developed. Stimulated by major issues and events such as oil and chemical spills, clearing of rainforests, pollu tion of waterways, and, towards the end of the decade, concern over the greenhouse effect, concern for the environment has become a major social and political force. Unfortunately, the state of the environment and its future manage ment are still very divisive issues. Often, at a local level, concern for the environment is the antithesis of development. The debate usually focusses on the possible negative environmental impacts of an activity versus the expected positive economic impacts. It is a very difficult task to integrate development and conservation, yet it is towards this objec tive that the sustainable development debate is moving. The issues in the central wheatbelt of Western Australia are typical of the environment versus development debate. It is undoubted that the development of the area, which involved clearing the native vegetation, has had a major impact upon the original ecosystems. Many of the natural habitats are threatened and local extinction of flora and fauna species is a continuing process. Moreover, there are clear signs that land degradation processes such as dryland salinity are depleting the land resource.

The effects of isolation, area size, and habitat quality on the survival of animal and plant populations in the cultural landscape are central aspects of a research project started in Germany in 1993 (,Forschungsverbund, Isolation, FHichengroBe und BiotopquaIiHit', abbreviated to 'FIFB'). After a long period of preparation, scientists from seven univer sities and one research institution started to work within the frame of this project. Fund ing for four years was provided by the former German Federal Ministry of Research and Technology (BMFT), now the Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). A strong focus of the project has been the improvement of the methodology for environmental impact assessments and the implementation of results into environmental planning. As there is a certain risk that national projects develop some kind of 'mental in breeding', it was decided to discuss concepts, methods, and first results with scientists of international reputation at a rather early stage of the project. For this purpose, an inter national workshop was held in the small village of Lubast, north of Leipzig (state of Saxony) in March 1995. 130 scientists from 10 nations met to discuss and debate issues surrounding habitat fragmentation for three days. Papers presented there formed the basis for this book. As discussions included general reviews as well as particular case studies, we decided to structure this book in a similar way. Consequently, a combination of broad and more general, review-like papers as well as original papers are presented.

Dryland farming is a major export earner for many temperate-zone countries, yet it continues to degrade a country's natural resources. Effects are not restricted to the land - changes in water quality can reduce the potential uses of water and bring about catastrophic changes in both freshwater and coastal ecosystems. Farming Action: Catchment Reaction provides a comprehensive technical overview of the relationships between dryland farming systems and catchment land and water quality in Australia, and integrates it in a whole system framework. It deals with the issues in terms of people, pointers, processes and prediction as it discusses social aspects of developing and implementing research to improve dryland farming systems in catchment management programs, indicators of catchment health, and the processes which determine the impact of the farming action on the catchment response. It concludes by considering the adequacy of our ability to use this process knowledge in models to predict the effect of dryland farming on catchment condition.

Growth in the field of landscape ecology has included the development of methods and results that can be applied to an impressive range of environmental issues. This book addresses a broad spectrum of political, theoretical and applied aspects that often arise in the design and execution of landscape studies. The concepts of geographical scale and hierarchy arising within the confines of landscape ecology are examined, and a series of techniques are presented to address problems in spatial and temporal analysis. This book will provide the reader with a current perspective on this rapidly evolving science.

An ideal text for students taking a course in landscape ecology. The book has been written by very well-known practitioners and pioneers in the new field of ecological analysis. Landscape ecology has emerged during the past two decades as a new and exciting level of ecological study. Environmental problems such as global climate change, land use change, habitat fragmentation and loss of biodiversity have required ecologists to expand their traditional spatial and temporal scales and the widespread availability of remote imagery, geographic information systems, and desk top computing has permitted the development of spatially explicit analyses. In this new text book this new field of landscape ecology is given the first fully integrated treatment suitable for the student. Throughout, the theoretical developments, modeling approaches and results, and empirical data are merged together, so as not to introduce barriers to the synthesis of the various approaches that constitute an effective ecological synthesis. The book also emphasizes selected topic areas in which landscape ecology has made the most contributions to our understanding of ecological processes, as well as identifying areas where its contributions have been limited. Each chapter features questions for discussion as well as recommended reading.