Australia's Dust Bowl: Transnational Influences in Soil Conservation and the Spread of Ecological Thought

Abstract

During the period 1930–46, drought and wind erosion turned parts of the US and Australia into dust bowls. While the US events are well studied, historical research on similar processes in Australia is less abundant. The first part of the paper focusses on the transnational transfer of soil conservation policy and science from the US to Australia, claiming it stimulated the diffusion of an ecological conservationist's conscience within the wider Australian society. The dust storm years were therefore a key period for the evolution of ecological thought and environmental ethics in Australia. Taking the example of four key figures of Australia's conservation movement of the 1960s and later, the second part of the paper shows intellectual continuities between these precursors and the later conservation movement.