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Biodiversity is more than just the number of animal and plant species in the world. Biodiversity is who we are, what we eat, where we live, what we do and, most importantly, how all of these things come together to form a whole. The preoccupations of our daily lives often blind us to the dangers threatening fragile ecosystems around the globe. But we ignore these threats at our peril, for we are all connected to the many facets of the planet’s diverse ecosystems. Biodiversity is the fabric that binds us all together, allowing healthy environments to flourish, economies to develop, and humanity to grow and prosper. Whether we realize it or not, the story of biodiversity is our story.

A transect through the Australian continent from east to west at its greatest breadth, would show a narrow easterly belt of coastal plain. This plain, extending north and south along the whole east coast, is well watered by rivers. It is of variable width, seldom more than one hundred kilometres, and occasionally only a few kilometres. Bordering the western margin of this plain is the Great Dividing Range, which extends from the north of Queensland to the south of New South Wales, and thence one branch sweeps westward towards the boundary of Victoria and South Australia, and the other, the main branch, terminates in Tasmania. This range, which often arises abruptly from the plain, frequently presents steep escarpments on its eastern face, but the descent on its western slopes is gradual, until, in the country to the north of Spencers Gulf, South Australia, the inland plain is below sea-level in some places. Thence there is another almost imperceptible rise until the mountain ranges of Western Australia are reached, and beyond these lies another coastal plain.