Popular and official appraisals of natural resources: some evidence from Australia

European occupation of the Australian continent from 1788 onwards has provided evidence of both officially designed land settlement schemes and independent privately organized activities. Both settlement processes required the resources of the continent to be appraised in some detail. Over the years those appraisals, of the arid and semi-arid lands in particular, can be seen to have varied not only within but also between government and the private sector. The variations have reflected not only the changing technological context but also the changing philosophical context of resource management. The resultant changing roles of the various colonial, state and Commonwealth governments have been parallelled by changing popular concepts of what constitute resources, how they should be managed and by whom. The conflicts which resulted and which still occur pose wider questions of resource management for not only these arid and semi-arid lands.