The early afternoon sun was pounding the parched soil, and Gus Whyte was pulling on his dust-caked cowboy boots to take me for a drive. We\u2019d just finished lunch\u2014cured ham, a loaf of bread I\u2019d bought on the trip up, chutney pickled by Whyte\u2019s wife, Kelly\u2014at his house in Anabranch South, which isn\u2019t a town but rather a fuzzy cartographic notion in the far west of New South Wales, a seven-hour drive from Melbourne and half as far again from Sydney. I\u2019d been grateful, as I pulled off the blacktop of the Silver City Highway to cover the last 10 miles or so, that I\u2019d rented the biggest 4×4 Hertz could give me. I was on a dirt road, technically, but the dirt was mostly sand, punctuated with rocks the size of small livestock and marked only by the faintest of tire tracks.<\/p>\n
We climbed into Whyte\u2019s pickup, and I reached instinctively over my shoulder. \u201cDon\u2019t worry about seat belts,\u201d he said, amiably but firmly. \u201cI know it\u2019s a habit.\u201d His Jack Russell terrier, Molly, balanced herself on his lap as he drove.<\/p>\n
Whyte, who has reddish-brown hair, sheltered his ruddy, sun-weathered face beneath a battered bush hat. He raises livestock, mostly sheep and some cattle, on nearly 80,000 acres. Normally he\u2019d run about 7,500 sheep, but he was down to 2,000. There wasn\u2019t enough water for more. \u201cI can\u2019t remember it being this dry,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s disheartening to see a landscape like this. You hate it. This is where I was born and grew up, and it means the world to me.\u201d<\/p>\n
He kept driving, rattling off statistics about rainfall (down) and temperatures (up). Every so often he\u2019d stop and get out to check on one of the storage tanks dotting the property, which held what little water he had. After a while we pulled onto the crest of a small hill, and Whyte pointed out Yelta Lake, a kidney-shaped landmark that\u2019s colored, on maps, in a reassuringly cool blue. In real life it was the same dun color as everything else. \u201cIt hasn\u2019t had any water in it since 2014,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Read it all<\/a>.<\/p>\n Australia’s most important river system is on the verge of collapse, and other waterways around the world are next. My story for Bloomberg Green on a crisis that should be a warning to us all. https:\/\/t.co\/ktbWHbEeNj<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Matthew Campbell (@MattCampbell) June 2, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n