The Management of a Degraded Environment - Maralinga

Candidates must study one degraded environment, showing the causes of its degradation, problems faced, issues in attempts to improve the environment and evaluate the attempted solutions 

The Lessons of Maralinga - Podcast 

Prior to 1978, most people had never heard of Maralinga.

It was the main site of the British nuclear testing program, where seven mushroom cloud bombs (the 'major trials') were exploded.

In the 1950s and 60s, Australia's then Prime Minister, Robert Menzies, had agreed to provide land and support to the British nuclear test program.

By doing so, Britain became the world's third nuclear power, and created some of the most contaminated land on the planet.

It wasn't until the 1970s that whistle-blowers and journalists began to expose the full extent of the environmental, and human, costs of the tests at Maralinga.