Expedition Leader, Dr. Jonathan King, tells the townsfolk of Menindee about the Environmental Expedition’s mission and introduces the work of the Expedition artist, Ben Beeton.

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TRANSCRIPT

-All we're doing is trying to give a voice to the outback. So we're traveling along, asking people, what's happened to the environment since Burke and Wills came through? What are the issues you people are dealing with?

But if you look at that map of Australia, it's a long way from Melbourne to the gulf. And along that route, we'll strike people telling us about the problems of the rabbits, and the soil erosion, the cutting down of too many trees, or the overstocking, or feral goats, or maybe foxes in national parks, and problems of dust from the loose topsoil, blowing from places like Broken Hill Road across to Sydney.

We'll find out what the origins of that is. Right through up into the Queensland area, past Innamincka and the Cooper Creek, where Burke and Wills died. We'll talk about the water issues there, because they're worried like you're worried that the Darling's being held up, and over extracted and controlled by government.

The people on the Cooper are too. They're talking about taking water out of the Cooper, dry it up in Queensland, for cotton fields, which would leave the Coongee Lakes dry. And that's a national heritage site, so that's another issue. Right the way up to Normanton, where we'll have to fight our way through feral camels as we get closer and closer to that part of the desert and, then up the top, of course, we'll be dodging cane toads. So that's the story.

And so I guess, we're going to knit the whole thing together along the trek, because the trek is like a chain, and all the links are different issues that stretch all the way from Melbourne to the gulf. The work that each of us is doing is going to contribute to a wonderful tapestry. The film from Mike, the artistic work from Ben, because Ben's providing a whole lot of material to different websites, including Culture Victoria, the Arts Victoria website.

BEN: My focus is to create artwork for the kids in all the schools around Australia. So the way that I'm doing that is really creating my own artwork as we continue on our journey. The artwork is growing and growing and growing.

And it's made up of A4 sized images. So what the kids at schools can do is actually print off these images and as we continue our journey, they  can join them together. And each image is a story. So as they print them off, they can also go to Culture Victoria website. And the artworks are interactive in a way. You can click on the details and little films will come up, talking about endangered species, talking about an introduced plan, talking about the historical aspect of the Burke and Wills trip. So that's really my focus on this journey, to create one artwork, and I really hope that schools around Australia will start to follow this journey, that print off the images and learn about so many of the issues that our country's facing.