Blog

When I was studying at the University of Tasmania, I did my Honours thesis with the fabulous School of Geography and Environmental Studies, as a follow-on from my Bachelor of Science. I was studying invasive plantson Tasmania’s east coast beaches, which when I signed up for it, admittedly just sounded like a good excuse to go to the beach a lot.

However, frequent ocean swims and field roadies with botanically-minded friends weren’t enough to keep me going through the hardest bits of the thesis.  I found myself losing a bit of faith in the the whole weeds-on-beaches-thesis-thing, until I read Tim Low’s book, Feral Future.

This was the book that I’d been waiting for.  Tim clearly laid out the threat that invasive plants and animals posedto the environments I knew and loved, and gave my work some sorely-needed context.  Inspired, I renewed my studies with righteous vigour, eventually ending up with an Honours degree, supervised by the inimitable Prof. Jamie Kirkpatrick.

Tim’s book was really important for me, and I am so pleased that he’s now read my book, and apparently quite enjoyed it. Check out his review here on the Invasive Species Council’s website – an excellent organisation, who focus their energies on preventing new invasive species from entering and becoming established in Australia. For more on their work, go to https://invasives.org.au/