The image above shows just one of the many divergent and distinctive landscapes that we aspire to have and to hold. Perhaps that sounds melodramatic - to have and to hold. Don't we feel this way about all land?

My response is that this Chapter is about the landcover types that have been the focus of new kinds of attention for the last two decades. These landcover types had particular value in the eyes of various sections of society and, through political action, they became subject to two new landuses.

This Chapter deals with the landcover that Australian society has democratically decided to protect. These particular landcovers are now subject to the new landuse of Conservation. This Chapter also deals with those lands whose tenure passed to Aboriginal Australians and consequently became subject to Aboriginal landuse once again.

It may seem strange to you to connect these two landuses. I do so to make it easier to discover and discuss some very important issues. However, be warned. This Chapter may offend.

Much has been made of the cultural attachment to, and affinity with, the land by Aboriginal people. This attachment I have had the privilege to appreciate at first hand. That was for me a very moving experience and it altered my life. So the first point I wish to make is that the cultural attachment to the land by Aboriginal people is not a matter of dispute.

Nevertheless, I believe that not enough has been said about the attachment to, and affinity with, the land by many Non-Aboriginal Australians. Their feelings, like Aboriginal Australians, are also often strong and spiritually based. Only the origins of these feelings differ between the two groups. The difference in origin is important.

In the last few decades, both groups of Australians have had a common focus. They have struggled for a change in land tenure so that use of particular areas of land could be controlled, or in some way changed. The common focus was the objective of their struggle. That objective was to change the landuse to ensure the survival of the landcover, forever.

Tenure, the legal conditions determining the degree of ownership, control and responsibility over a parcel of land, is the 'have' of this Chapter. The determination in the hearts and minds of Australians to protect some area or type of landcover forever is the 'hold'.

The political struggle to have and to hold landcover had its most fruitful period of activity in the last two decades. This Chapter uses satellite data to look back over these two decades to examine some of the landcover changes that are the consequence of Conservation and Aboriginal landuse.

In addition, a comparison is made between Conservation and Aboriginal landuse, and one of the largest landuses on the continent- "Unused".

A considerable area of Australia is unused on any permanent basis. In a world that is desperately crowded with people, and rapidly becoming more so, unused land is unusual. It is also very valuable to any society simply because it is unused.