Australia has a hot new export product - knowledge about how to live, work and be sustainable in desert conditions.

A third of the world's land surface is desert or semi-arid and it is home to a billion people, all striving to build a more prosperous and sustainable future for themselves.

According to CSIRO's Dr Mark Stafford Smith this offers Inland Australia a unique, but narrow, window of opportunity to become a world leader in exporting desert knowledge - the know-how, technologies and social systems designed for better living in arid regions and communities.

Desert knowledge covers the full range of human activities from food and housing to distance healthcare and education, water and energy systems, landscape management, transport, energy, minerals, telecommunications, industry and social development.

"We already do some of these things very well. Many we could do a lot better - and we're trying to find out how.

"It's as much about building our knowledge-gathering capacity, about trust, about networking, about developing whole communities as it is about technology," he says.

"If we do all those things, there's no reason why desert knowledge shouldn't be like another wine industry or another mining services industry, earning Australia a billion dollars a year in time."

Dr Stafford-Smith will tomorrow outline a proposal for a Desert Knowledge Co-operative Research Centre to the Desert Knowledge Conference in Alice Springs, which is the climax of the year of the Outback 2002.

"Across the world, people living in arid regions face special challenges and difficulties, usually compounded by their remoteness. That's something we in Australia are good at overcoming, and are very creative in devising new answers. This know-how is going to be in big demand, right round the world.

"It means that, at the same time as we tackle our own problems and difficulties, we are devising ways to help others to tackle theirs. And this can potentially become a big industry for us, if we get our act together."

A key goal, says Dr Stafford Smith is to build the capacity of Australia's desert indigenous communities to develop new enterprises in fields where they already have strong knowledge - bush tucker, bush medicine, caring for landscapes and native species

Another important goal is the need to build critical mass among industries and enterprises that are presently dispersed across our continent.

"For instance, there are dozens of small companies supplying solar equipment across the Outback, mostly competing furiously with one another. If we can network these and find ways to work together, we can tackle the big export opportunities of supplying renewable energy to remote communities and arid countries round the world."

Dr Stafford Smith says Australians are already highly regarded around the world for their solutions to the challenges of desert living, and for their readiness to work with other countries to help them solve their problems.

"China, for example, has huge soil erosion problems like we do - which they have to get under control before 2006 when Beijing hosts the next Olympics. We're ready to talk with them about ways we can help them achieve their aim.

"Australia has a long history of working with China on the problems of remote area living. The largest man-made object on the planet - the Great Green Wall which helps hold back their deserts - contains a lot of Australian eucalypts and acacias. It's an example of our desert knowledge in action."

The communication revolution is creating the present window of opportunity to build a new industry around desert knowledge. Australia has the right combination of desert knowhow, political stability, research capacity, enthusiasm and ability to communicate and deliver using the latest ICT technology.

"But in 20 years of so other countries will also have that capability and will be exporting their desert knowledge. Our great opportunity is to get in ahead of them," Dr Stafford Smith says.

The proposed Desert Knowledge CRC will tackle the science of living in extreme conditions, devise solutions for remote and forgotten regions, help develop new enterprises and industries and bring widely-scattered communities closer together.

More information:

Dr Mark Stafford-Smith, CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems, 08 8950 7100, mobile: 0408 852 082
Email: markkss@cse.csiro.au

Nick Goldie, CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems, mobile: 0417 299 586