Richard Mackay

Many of us feel disconnected from the reality of Mother Earth, the plants, the animals, and the diverse cultural traditions. This is a book of my poetry to endeavor and hopefully bridge that gap inspirationally. We live in an age of information overload, however, our spiritual stories from the past fail to speak in depth to enlightened contemporary consciousness and action.

For much of the 19th and 20th centuries, Melbourne’s Little Lonsdale Street – locally known as ‘Little Lon’ – was notorious as a foul slum and brothel district, occupied by the itinerant and the criminal. The stereotype of ‘slumdom’ defined ‘Little Lon’ in the minds of Melbournians, and became entrenched in Australian literature and popular culture. The Commonwealth Block, Melbourne tells a different story. This groundbreaking book reports on almost three decades of excavations conducted on the Commonwealth Block – the area of central Melbourne bordered by Little Lonsdale, Lonsdale, Exhibition and Spring streets. Since the 1980s, archaeologists and historians have pieced together the rich and complex history of this area, revealing a working-class and immigrant community that was much more than just a slum. The Commonwealth Block, Melbourne delves into the complex social, cultural and economic history of this forgotten community.

Up to 20 percent of species may be extinct by 2030. Vividly presented through full-colour maps and graphics, this fully revised and updated atlas profiles species lost, threatened and surviving today. It examines different ecosystems, the major threats to their inhabitants and steps being taken towards conservation. Fully revised and updated, containing new maps covering environmental impacts of human development including climate change and damage caused by deep-sea trawling and mining Updated maps and data on birds, reptiles, amphibians, invertebrates and fish and of the increasing area of wetlands covered by the Ramsar Convention The latest information on endangered mammal species such as the panda, the Arabian oryx and the bonobo

With twenty percent of the earth's species facing extinction by 2030, this striking atlas brings up to date the data on those that have been lost already, those that are threatened, and those that are surviving today. Vividly illustrated with full-color maps and detailed graphics, "The Atlas of Endangered Species "catalogs the inhabitants of a wide variety of ecosystems, including forests, mangroves, and coral reefs. It examines the major threats to biodiversity, from loss of habitat to hunting, and describes the steps being taken toward conservation. "Copub: Myriad Editions "