IT’S JUST AFTER lunchtime, the morning rains have finally cleared and the sun begins breaking through the clouds. Max Breckenridge, a captive release project officer with BirdLife Australia (BLA) is slowly walking along a dirt road that cuts through a patch of untouched spotted gum–ironbark forest in the Lower Hunter Valley in New South Wales.

There were expectations it would reveal much about the evolution of this continent’s largely unique mammal fauna, and it has. But to most scientists working in Australian wildlife conservation, it didn’t seem to have a lot of practical relevance.

Below the modern Brewarrina Weir in north-western New South Wales, a 2km bend holds the remains of this ancient structure, a complex of dry-stone walls and a site of engineering brilliance. Displaying advanced knowledge of river hydrology and fish ecology, the traps were designed to catch Murray cod, golden and silver perch and other fish, but allow breeding stock to pass through.

THAT FEBRUARY 2011 earthquake, which struck during the city’s lunch hour, was the most destructive in a series. It was the one that broke so many of the Central Business District’s verticals and horizontals – its buildings and the roads, sewers, water and gas pipes. It was shallow and ferocious. Its peak vertical ground acceleration of 2.2G (more than twice the acceleration of gravity) momentarily lifted parts of Christchurch to the sort of face-distorting speeds astronauts experience when they ascend into space.

IT WAS 10 JANUARY 2011 and once again it was pouring with rain. Queensland had already endured its wettest spring and December on record, and yet still the rain kept coming. I was working at the time as a freelance photographer for Queensland’s main newspaper, The Courier Mail. And weary of capturing “wet weather photos”, I’d decided to stay dry inside my Toowoomba office.