This comprehensive and warmly-presented account traces the emergence of ecological understanding in Australia.

The book is very much about the vision of Australia's naturalists and features a history covering indigenous land practices through to Joseph Banks and a gallery of well-known ecologists.

NPA readers will recognise many founding members and associates including Myles Dunphy, Marie Byles, Dot Butler, Charles Birch, John Sinclair, Romeo Lahey, Milo Dunphy, Vincent Serventy, and Bob Brown.

The book starts with the idea that many Australians tend to view their open spaces as a kind of lonely prison while in other new countries (eg North America) the settlers embraced the freedom of spaciousness — an observation by Robert Hughes.

The book refers to well-known stories such as the formation of 'the Tigers' – the Sydney Bushwalkers Club and the journey of 18-month old Milo Dunphy in a pram, pushed by his parents from Oberon to Kanangra Walls; and many stories perhaps not-so-well-known such as the active national parks advocation of poet Judith Wright following in the footsteps of her father Phillip who helped establish Mt Tamborine as the first NP in Queensland.

The book includes many interesting black and white photos and poses as many questions as solutions but as the authors note, that is the nature of ecological thinking.

by Marion Anstis
WWF/Reed New Holland, 2002
$59.95

Here it is at last! Marion Anstis is perhaps the leading authority on Australian tadpole identification, so this long awaited book has certainly been worth the wait.

The field identification of tadpoles has always been the soft point for naturalists as the only published guide till now (Gosner 1960) was not a comprehensive key to tadpoles.

Gone now are the days of having to try and metamorphose the poor things just to find out what they are. Hopefully now, that is a thing of the past.

The actual characters one must take note of are admittedly difficult to see to the untrained eye, eg. mouthparts, but size and shape are important as are a wide range of morphological and behavioural characteristics. There’s plenty to take note of when you’re checking out tadpoles.

What makes this book great are the large drawings for better identification and good colour pictures of all the adult frogs in south-eastern Australia and is worth getting just for this.

The book has loads of other interesting information about frog ecology, tadpoles habits and development, threats to frogs and tadpoles. The key itself is relatively easy to follow.

This book is a welcome addition to your nature library and a necessary addition to the reference collection of any serious naturalist.

Lonely Planet Books
480pp, $33.00

This book is a must if you are thinking of visiting Nepal. Even if you have already been there, there is a tremendous amount of information that you will not have caught up with. Just about everything you'd want to know from:

¨ Facts About Nepal (history, geography, geology, climate, ecology and environment, national parks, flora and fauna, people, religion, society and conduct!)

¨ Facts for the Trekker (suggested itineraries, where and when to trek, organised treks , guides and porters, accommodation, permits, food, equipment etc)

¨ Trekking with Children

¨ Embassies and consulates

¨ Customs, money etc

¨ Health and Safety

¨ Getting there and getting around

There are special sections on language – and maps with altitude profiles.

This book is excellent with an amazing amount of information and light enough (400g) to carry in a backpack.