Australian People and Animals in Today's Dreamtime

This volume, a collection of papers presented at the 1988 biennial conference of the International Society for Comparative Psychology in Australia, affirms how comparative psychology can help confront global environmental problems by analyzing and comparing the behavior of humans and animals. This often complex relationship is clarified and given fresh insight as each contributor examines a particular aspect pertaining to the ecology of Australia. The continuities and discontinuities in the evolutionary patterns of animal species, the impact of human knowledge and use of animals on the ecological balance, and the need for collaborative efforts to effect change figure prominently in the study, and confirm the book's worldwide scope.

Much of the reported work in this volume details data collected from Australian aboriginal sources, which trace the behavior development of many native species. Comparative psychology's respect for indigenous people's knowledge and technology with regard to the use of natural resources is thereby evident, and proves crucial to the study's commitment to the renewal of environmental stability. Australia may be the focus of this conference, but the conclusions drawn have worldwide ramifications. By reading this volume, one finds clues to the nature of a people's knowledge and values and the need for diverse populations to learn from each other in order to survive.

David B. Croft is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Biological Sciences at the University of New South Wales, Australia, where he teaches General Biology and Animal Behaviour. He graduated from Flinders University in South Australia with a University Medal and gained his PhD at the University of Cambridge in England. He has published numerous papers on the behaviour of species as diverse as Australian ant-lions and Javan leaf-eating monkeys. Croft has been the President of the Australasian Society for the Study of Animal Behaviour.

Ethel Tobach, PhD, Curator Emerita at the American Museum of Natural History, New York City, is the series editor of Advances in Comparative Psychology, publication of the International Society for Comparative Psychology and the University of Calabria. This series stresses the responsibility of comparative psychology to the people and natural resources of the countries in which their biennial international conferences take place. The first volume dealt with this responsibility as it applied to Costa Rica. This second volume resulted from the joint meeting of the Australian Society for the Study of Animal Behaviour and the International Society for Comparative Psychology. The third volume will be concerned with similar issues in Barbados.