Living with the Earth : Mastery to Mutuality

This book is about the relationship between humans and the earth, people and place, culture and nature. It argues that the concepts and categories of natural history, scientific ecology, landscape aesthetics and their associated practices in conservation landscapes and industrial land use work-over (if not overwork) nature (land, living beings, air and water). By contrast, conservation counter-aesthetics, Australian Aboriginal Country and symbiotic livelihood in a bioregion work (with) the earth as living being. Beginning with a historical account of the cultural construction of nature, it ends with a contemporary discussion of land symbiotic. It moves from the discourse of nature as dead machine to the practices of living with the earth as living being. On the way it critiques nature conservationism in national parks and wilderness for its will to mastery over nature.