The Magic Valley : The Paterson Valley -then and now

Author:    Cameron Archer
Publisher:   ACA Books
Format:   Softback
ISBN:   978064801650
Product Id:   6131 
Dimensions (cm): 22.9 H x 15.1 W
Pages: 410

This book is a detailed study compiled over 40 years living and working in the Paterson Valley. Cameron Archer analyses the relationship between humans and their environment. The impacts of Aboriginal land management are examined and how that unwittingly benefitted the invading Europeans, their herds and flocks.

Why is the book called Magic Valley? The Valley is seen as performing like the Magic Pudding, the children's story about a pudding which immediately replaces the part taken thus suggesting that it can go on forever.

How has the Valley changed and why? The Paterson Valley has been the source of a diverse range of products and services throughout its 200 years of European exploitation. The reader is taken through the rise and fall of many industries.

The book challenges the question of long-term sustainability and what the future may hold.An essential read for anyone with an interest in the Australian landscape and environment.Cameron Archer AM has spent his whole life in agriculture from growing up on a farm, attending an agricultural high school, studying agriculture at the University of Sydney and completing a PhD on the environmental history of the Paterson Valley.

This book is partly based on that study, but also on his long-term interest in local history and the environment. Over the past 35 years he has interviewed many local residents about the Valley. Cameron spent 40 years at Tocal College, 28 years as Principal, where he oversaw many changes and innovations in agriculture, agricultural education and heritage conservation. In 2013 he was awarded a medal in the Order of Australia for services to agricultural education and heritage conservation. He has written about, and spoken on, local history and agriculture and the environment.