WA's outback is special to all of us. This great tract of country, through its vastness and beauty, challenges us to understand and accept our true place on the planet - not as one of a species which is superior to others or as a conqueror of nature, but as part of the environment, no more important than any other. Our inner map is there to find or not to find - a red dirt track, a campsite near a dry waterway, a parting of yellow grass where kangaroos travel, a lizard's stony trail through a sea of spinifex, a mirage up ahead - a line of mountains which will turn out to be nothing at all, or an opening in the scrub where the remains of a  tin fireplace and a rusted enamel teapot are all that's left of a dream.

We can touch base out there - see ourselves as we really are, and begin to understand the immense task we have ahead, to protect this country and work towards an ecologically sustainable future.