The deluge of rain hitting south-east Australia has broken the 10-year drought that brought the Murray Darling Basin and many farming communities to the brink of disaster.
A few months of wet weather have brought the wetlands back to life. The rivers are flowing again, and farmers might even be able to harvest a bumper crop if they can beat the mass locust hatchings.
Nick Soudakoff
Australian agriculture both contributes to climate change and is adversely affected by it. Any campaign in to force urgent government action on climate change has to include a demand for the radical transformation of rural land use and farming systems to be ecologically sustainable.
The M1 Alliance here launched its May 1 blockade of the Northern Territory Chamber of Commerce on March 23, drawing an overwhelming response from passers-by when they asked them to vote for who they thought should be labelled the worst "corporate scumbag".