ABSTRACT
Patricia Please writes about a psycho-social research project in which she explored the emotional/affective dimension of the experience of individuals and groups working on the pressing environmental issue of dryland salinity in Australia. Land clearing has been an environmental disaster worldwide. For example, in Australia European settlement led to the clearing of thousands of hectares of native vegetation and its replacement with shallow-rooted crops and pastures. This change in land use has contributed to desertification or dryland salinity. Over the past few decades, significant resources and effort has gone into research to better understand this issue and into implementing remediation strategies. What makes Patricia's contribution unique is that she describes her personal responses to the process of research itself and to her relationship to her country through dreams and other experiences while working on this project. What emerges is a deeper understanding of the affective component of land use research and attitudes to the Australian environment in a culture in transition.
