In 1874 Sarah Brooks, with her mother and brother, walked nearly 700 kilometers out to the land of the Noongar people in the south-eastern extremities of the South-west Australian Floristic Region. It is still unclear how and why Sarah, an educated, accomplished, single woman, spent the last fifty-four years of her life out in this isolated place.
![The cover image is an excerpt from a press article entitled “Ecological disaster in the upper valley. The Aude river polluted by a violent poison” (“Catastrophe écologique en Haute-Vallée. L’Aude polluée par un poison violent [sic]”), published by the regional newspaper L'Indépendant on 18 September 1983, the day after the pollution. Beneath the headline are two photographs. On the left lies a dead trout, “fallen victim to human stupidity” as the caption states (“Une truite splendide victime de la bêtise des hommes”). On the right, there are the inhabitants of Quillan perched on the city's old bridge, gazing out over the river. The caption reads: “A destruction that rallied all the Quillan residents” (“Une destruction qui a mobilisé tous les habitants de Quillan”).](https://i0.wp.com/envhistnow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Image_LT.jpeg?fit=640%2C377&ssl=1)