CAROLINE JONES - PRESENTER: Hello. I'm Caroline Jones. Tonight we continue the story that generated great interest round the country last week. Farmer and horseman, Peter Andrews, has spent the last 30 years developing natural methods for fighting drought and salinity and restoring damaged landscapes. His crusade has come at a great personal cost. Until very recently his ideas have been derided and dismissed. Now, finally, impressive support is arriving from scientists, politicians and senior business figures.

JOHN RYAN, RURAL REPORTER, WIN-TV: When Peter was declared bankrupt, a fellow who was a very successful farmer, a very successful ecological manager, somebody who honestly believes that his systems can save the world, to be declared bankrupt is incredibly demeaning. Here was a bloke who transformed a worthless, degraded old horse stud into the most amazingly productive oasis in the middle of a salt-tortured valley, one of the greatest environmental achievements ever. Only to see the farm that he had loved and nurtured and sacrificed so much for, just ripped away from him. Peter isn't the sort of fellow who wears his heart on his sleeve, but you could tell that he was really struggling, and he was struggling not only with the financial burdens, but also with the fact that he felt he'd let his family down and he felt he wasn't able to keep going with his work in an appropriate manner.

GERRY HARVEY, RETAILER AND STUD OWNER: In his whole life, the last 30-odd years has been - it's full of optimism in what he's doing, but he's been like smashed every time. But has that dulled his enthusiasm? No. Has it made him very suspicious of anyone he comes into contact with? Yes. Does he believe that he'll ever get there? Yes. So you're dealing with a bloke whose life's been, you know, he's been punched around a lot.

JOHN RYAN, RURAL REPORTER, WIN-TV: About four years ago, just when things were falling apart, Gerry Harvey, a staunch environmentalist, who's also got a strong interest in breeding the world's best racehorses, took Peter on. He gave him a place to stay and had enough faith in him to let him lease to develop his property.

PETER ANDREWS: I've known Gerry for 30-odd years, 32 years, I've always respected him and I've always at a distance liked him. We've always been able to talk and I trusted him. The first time I went to him he didn't take a lot of notice, and I was a bit upset about that. It took me nearly 18 years and a really desperate set of sort of situations to go back and say, oh, damn it, I'll try it again.

GERRY HARVEY, RETAILER AND STUD OWNER: See, the first thing Peter did when he got here was to put some barriers in the creeks. They're sort of man-made barriers, but made out of rocks and some old logs, and put reeds in there and types of grasses and just any growth you could get, to build this barrier, so that the next time a flood comes down, then it will hit this barrier and you get the water level rising, and you go down the creek now and the water level is up a metre in places. So, originally, what used to happen is the water would come down the creek, it created all this erosion and the water would come down and go - zoom - straight to sea and take a whole heap of soil and fertility with it and plant life. Now we're blocking all that, holding it, and we're creating this environment that allows us to retain all of this water and build all the plant life and the fertility.

DR JOHN WILLIAMS, FORMER HEAD CSIRO LAND AND WATER: Peter's come to find something that the scientific community largely have missed. Scientists had described the gouging out of the landscape as a consequence of our settlement, but what we'd never done as scientists was thought how to put the land and the stream and the river back together again. Our river systems generally did not have a very strongly defined gully or channelling, and what they often were, were quite smooth flood plains and chains of ponds, and the flood plain was often quite large. What Peter does in his work is controversial and he'll often use plants that are like willows and other things seen as weeds, because that will get the process started. And the second thing he's done that has caused concern is that he was cutting little channels and little brooks that took the water from the stream and distributed it back over the wetland much in the way it would have done in the earlier stream geomorphology. So much of it depends on the ability that Peter has to read the landscape and to know how to intervene. And that's the most difficult part of taking Peter's work, because you could do a lot of damage if you didn't know what you were doing. Peter's understood what to do, but often it's difficult to explain that to somebody else, and sometimes people are concerned, well, what if you get it so wrong you could make things worse? Peter can see changes in gradients and actually understand the previous stream structure. He is actually a very, very good geomorphologist.

JOHN RYAN, RURAL REPORTER, WIN-TV: Peter's improved the biodiversity of his country very simply and very unconventionally. One of Peter's main secrets is he uses weeds and ground cover. Australia's fragile soils need ground cover 100% of the time. He slashes his weeds. Eventually the soil improves so much that the weeds don't grow. The better things out compete them. The weeds aren't needed anymore. They're just repair mechanisms.

GERRY HARVEY - RETAILER and STUD OWNER: The practice has long been adhered to, that you don't have these weeds. You hit them with Round-up, you kill them, and it's not the way to do it. What Peter's saying is, "Hang on, this the way to do it. You've been doing it wrong for a long, long time. If you don't believe me, try it. Come out here. Work with us. Listen to what the scientists are going to tell you and let's change the way we look at weeds."

DR JOHN WILLIAMS, FORMER HEAD CSIRO LAND AND WATER: Peter's encountered lots of obstacles along the way, some of it's because you're interfering with the stream flow. There're also conflicts of using noxious weeds, and so neighbours say, "Hey, look, he's growing all these noxious weeds." A certain rainfall and a certain flood and up they come, and Peter says, "Good, that's working towards the function I want." There've been problems then of noxious weed and Pasture Protection Boards and then there's problems then with fresh water fish, Fisheries legislation.

GERRY HARVEY - RETAILER and STUD OWNER: All of these different departments have got all these rules. You just can't move forward and because you can't move forward, nothing happens.

JOHN RYAN, RURAL REPORTER, WIN-TV: His methods are so simple, cheap and effective. It's been three years since the Deputy Prime Minister walked on his property and acknowledged that, and told the bureaucracy to act. How many farmers have gone out the back door in those three years because of the bureaucratic inertia? Peter's made the ultimate sacrifice, in my mind. He has let this passion and the commitment he's showing to the country destroy his financial affairs, they've destroyed his family life, he's basically done everything except martyr himself for this cause.

ANNE ANDREWS: Of course he's suffered. He suffered when he lost his horses and lost the property. He had to walk off the property. Stuart very bravely decided that he would like to try and keep the place going, especially as his father had done so much here, and so he took over the debt, and has continued running the property from then on. But the place has been principally run as a cattle property.

STUART ANDREWS - SON: He took it very hard. I think he probably still does today, but he's come to terms with it now and I think he realises that I'm not actually out to ruin the place. I farm it similarly to the way he would farm it, except I run cattle, and he always ran horses. We seem to have a little bit of a clash there. He doesn't tend to like the cattle very much. We have lots of arguments and he's done lots of things wrong by us, but at the end of the day, he's still my father and I will stand by him 100%.

ANNE ANDREWS: Stuart still has respect for his work. He still comes over occasionally and helps Stuart with things that need to be done here on the property. Stuart certainly doesn't have the passion that Peter has, and he definitely understands that he has to feed his family. He still comes back here, but it's not the same for him anymore, so he never says much about it, but I know it's hard for him. I guess we're good friends, and if I need a hand with the horses, which I do quite often, he's quite happy to come over and help me. He's extremely patient with the horses. He just has a way of knowing what to do and when to do it. To me, that's great if he's prepared to help me. Because he knows if I haven't got him to help me, I can't continue with the horses. And I guess he knows the horses are a great love of mine, too, so I appreciate that very much. Even though my children probably find it a bit hard to understand sometimes.

STUART ANDREWS - SON: Now I can see it. I'm very proud of what he has managed to achieve. And at the end of the day, he's set up for me what I've got here now. We have feed in the middle of a drought like we're in at the moment, when other people don't. We don't have any irrigation as such. Lots of people use super and chemicals and so forth to grow their pastures, where we don't use any of that. So for us to have green feed on our flats when most other people's flats are quite dry, that's a bonus because I can still fatten stock when everybody else is having to sell them.

PETER ANDREWS: There's no doubt, there is a grass-covered dam. You're standing on water. John Anderson came here back in November two years ago and said, "Look, clover in November." Clover usually burns off in most areas, October. Well, here we are, we've been through the driest spell ever, and it's April, and the clover's still growing.

PROFESSOR DAVID MITCHELL, FRESH WATER ECOLOGIST: What Peter Andrews has done has opened our eyes to an alternative way of managing water resources across our landscape. What's really made a difference is the current drought. For many people it is the most serious they've experienced, and yet if you go to the properties where Peter Andrews has been working, those properties, from the air, are green. The neighbouring property is brown. So people are beginning to be interested. At this stage, there are a number of people who are very interested and there are a considerable number of people who are quite distrustful.

PETER ANDREWS: I haven't dreamed up something. I've gone out and said, "There it is. That's how it works. There, there, there. Get in the car, and we'll drive somewhere else." I can't understand why everyone - and, of course, they say, "He's impossible, he's hopeless. He's this, he's that. He's everything else," I've been accused of being everything - but all I am is telling them exactly what's there.

DR JOHN WILLIAMS, FORMER HEAD CSIRO LAND AND WATER: I think Peter's thinking has quite a deal to offer the rehabilitation of our rivers and our upland streams in eastern Australia. I haven't done enough thinking and observation in Western Australia where salinity is so strong, but I think in the southern tablelands the northern Tablelands, the south-west slopes of the Murray-Darling system, and the Hunter system, I think there's the scope there to make a significant difference.

GERRY HARVEY - RETAILER and STUD OWNER: In his defence, I don't recall anyone having left this property, after they've talked with Peter, and saying that "The bloke's a ratbag and doesn't know what he's talking about." If we can get this up as a model, create a situation where the scientists are involved with us, so that it's scientifically proven, we've got it documented, so that the sceptics when they come here, they can say, well you know I don't believe this. Well, here it is you know, we've got eminent scientists all agreeing that this works.

PROFESSOR DAVID GOLDNEY, LANDSCAPE ECOLOGIST: I go over farmland all across the Central West and you never see soil being built, you see it being degraded. Now, here in 18 months, you are seeing soil made on top of sand by a very simple process, and the organic layer is quite significant. That black layer that starts to form. I think it's the most significant contribution to landscape restoration that I've seen in Australia. It all comes together in this very simple process, that he in a sense has re-invented but it was always there in the Australian landscape. I think Peter is a near genius. He's a simple farmer who's understood science better than most scientists, if not all scientists. And they come somewhat grudgingly to learn at his feet.

DR RICHARD BUSH: That's amazing. It's mind-blowing in terms of the changes. We were here only in December and it's completely different to what it was like even only a few months ago.

DR ANNABELLE KEENE: What's the water quality like?

DR RICHARD BUSH: Fantastic. It it's certainly biologically active.

DR ANNABELLE KEENE: This would be a fairly flat, featureless sand bed stream here, right through Gerry's property, as well as upstream and downstream, but here Peter's reinstated those pools and backwaters and really created a habitat, and in drought times they sort of provide a refugia for fish. The logs certainly make great habitat.

DR RICHARD BUSH: Peter's got some theories that really challenge existing theories on how streams and landscapes function. We've spoken to land holders upstream and downstream and they've seen the results and now they're virtually beating on the door to get involved in some way from the top of the valley right to the bottom of the valley. So what's interesting here is he is trying to raise the ground water and elsewhere in Australia - I mean, the message is lower the ground water because of salinity, but the results are startling.

DR JOHN WILLIAMS, FORMER HEAD CSIRO LAND AND WATER: Salinity does take place by a rising water table, but if on top of that rising water table you can actually sit soil with fresh water then you can avoid the problem. So what Peter does, in summary, is he basically fills up the gouge stream channel and then letting the sediment accumulate behind it, and by encouraging, therefore, the water to flood out, fill up the flood plains and create a fresh water lens which sits on the salt.

GERRY HARVEY - RETAILER and STUD OWNER: It's difficult for me to understand what's a greater cause in Australia than someone saying, listen, here's a hundred scientists. Here's $100 million, or a billion dollars, it doesn't matter, get out there and work on this environment. There is nothing more important in our society than the environment that we live in - nothing. We've been bringing out some European scientists and they've come out here and looked at what he's doing and say, "Why doesn't your government understand this?" They see what he's doing as being monumentally important and the fact that nothing's happening here very much at all is a great tragedy.

DR WILHELM RIPL, LAND ECOLOGIST, TECH. UNI., BERLIN: We have practically no alternative to what Peter is doing. You are losing water to the sea and never get it back again. You are exporting your water, that's just what you're doing in Australia. You have to retain the water into the landscape. I put the question back - could we afford not to take him seriously, if all other scientific approaches to landscape failed? He can retain more water in the landscape and all the science with climactic change, I think they're on a quite wrong track, not giving credit for the water, just looking at the CO2, which is a very important gas in the whole business, however, as long as you have water in the landscape, you don't have to care about CO2. I think he is a crying prophet in the desert already. And I think it maybe a very good thing to take him serious, to follow him in a scientific way, but not with people trying to cheat him and to defeat him.

PROFESSOR DAVID MITCHELL, FRESH WATER ECOLOGIST: Peter Andrews gently and humbly, if you like, is returning the land to what it was naturally before. It's not a panacea. It will need to be used with discretion, with wisdom. Peter has done a huge amount of the pioneering work and has run all the risks that are intended on that, and has suffered as a consequence. His family has suffered perhaps even more because they've not only had to suffer those sorts of things, they've had to suffer Peter Andrews, if you like, and with what drives him so strongly.

ANNE ANDREWS: Nobody will ever know how much he's had to suffer, to go through it all, and I just hope that he is recognised before he's gone. It would be very sad if it happened, as it so often does with people, after he's gone.

PETER ANDREWS: It's cost me a daughter. I suppose the respect of my family, most of my friends - you could go on forever. You end up having to be prepared to forego all that if you're going to go against the status quo, and the status quo's been wrong, so either you decide you don't do it or you accept the consequences, and that's what I did. My youngest daughter was an incredible horse person. She understood the environment. But then the frustration of me continuing and her seeing it all go nowhere, she took her own life. And, you know, it's just - it's just the frustration of intelligent people within a society, when they know it's all going wrong, and they feel powerless to do anything. "What point is there?" I suppose is what she thought. And of course, I know that if I'd have not done what I've done, she would be still here today, probably contributing in some other way, you know, quite amazingly, so it's just another weight you've got to bear.

ANNE ANDREWS: Yes, I know he does blame himself for that, but he shouldn't, but she left no doubt that she took her own life because of the split with her partner of nine years. You know, we both do feel that it didn't help their relationship things that happened on the property, so, yes, we certainly do take some of the blame for that, and we always will.

PETER ANDREWS: I possibly would never have had the grit to keep going unless there was another reason why I had to, and it's probably given me a lot more fight and it has given me a fair bit more determination.

ANNE ANDREWS: I think it's a good relationship for him. Peter was very keen for me to meet her, and I must admit at first I wasn't so keen to meet this other person, but then when I did, she's a very nice girl. It does worry me a bit because he's so much older, of course, but hopefully things will work out and he'll be happy with his little ones as long as he can.

PETER ANDREWS: It would be nice if things changed, but why would I, having put this much time and effort in not attempt to complete the job. I've got to the stage where probably nothing else matters, in a way. It's probably not very clever, but I would actually condemn myself if I didn't achieve it or attempt to.

JOHN RYAN, RURAL REPORTER, WIN TV: Peter may be getting stymied by the bureaucracy, but he's getting an enormous level of support from Gerry Harvey and Richard Pratt, two of Australia's few billionaires. There's only one way to harness his genius and that's to act quickly. Peter's not going to be around forever. If he died in a car crash tomorrow, we would lose a priceless national resource that no amount of money would be able to buy.