Description

John Drinan has lived most of his life in the Hunter Valley. Over that time, he has witnessed the devastating impact of the lucrative coal mining industry on the Valley’s landscapes, its native wildlife and ecosystems, and its people. As an agriculturalist and environmentalist who has worked as a farmer, researcher and educator, he has not only observed the effects of coal mining from many different perspectives but experienced them first-hand.

The Sacrificial Valley is a record of John’s observations. It tries to understand how such damage was not only allowed, but facilitated, through often opaque cooperation between government and the mining industry. While he outlines the legacy mining has and will have on the Valley’s natural resources for generations to come, John Drinan utilises his lived experience in systems-based thinking and proposes how a repaired and reinvigorated Valley might be brought into being.