Personal file

Outline

In putting together this Home Page, sitting in front of the computer screen in short stints over the weeks, the dry nature of the information being made available has become clear.
Also a mental image has developed of the people who will log in to browse here.
So some background about the motivations that have their realisation in the work described in other pages may be appropriate.

Personal background

Emilis Prelgauskas is a first generation Australian of European immigrants dislocated as a result of WWII. They arrived with their lives in a suitcase in each hand, bewildered by the strange land on the other side of the planet to which they had chosen to come as a result of their homelands having become unviable to non-combatants.

My parents therefore had put aside their 'cultural baggage' as well as physical belongings to make a go of life here. I was born in a home owner built from materials from salvaged crating right down to straightening the nails. Materials in general at the time were in short supply, money for materials even more so.
From this family background inevitably attitudes favouring self sufficiency and empowerment evolved.

My parents travelled widely in their adopted homeland; describing to me the uniqueness of the land, its flora and fauna, weather patterns, and carrying capacity compared with the European experience and expectations. I was able to see those for myself with 3 years travelling through Asia, Middle East and Europe.
Attitudes developed favouring protection of the land through respecting its fragility; and admiring its unique beauty.
Others, from the first colonists onward, in contrast have predominantly been homesick for European standards of landscape; dismissing the Australian natural landscape as dull and uninspiring.

Personal Involvement in Gliding

Outcomes

It is therefore no surprise that in the natural evolution of things I would choose to take on personal stewardship of a small piece of that landscape. Economics and policy guided that the land would be in desert country, degraded from past traditional farming use to which the land's soil, vegetation and weather had little resilience.

The progressive rehabilitation of the land was part of the goal. To accomplish this, residence on the land was a high priority. That residence itself should do no further harm to the land resulted in exploring and hands-on use of environmental technologies.
Succinct description by others of the result has included 'hermit in a tin shed in the scrub'.

Thereby work and living have become combined. The land also fulfills recreation focusses, both active and passive. Beyond the passive uses for vegetation appreciation (including miniature orchids in season), wildlife (Australian marsupials including kangaroos and migratory birds in season), there is the active revegetation and the gliding using the northern boudary fire break of the land as an airstrip. The latter pursuits have the unselfish assistance from friends and associates.

Through all this a wide range of people come into contact with this land and the principles and philosophies as these are evolving.
A possibility is that this rural land will at some time link formally with proposals for inner urban redevelopment on ecological parameters.
(see Home Page established separately by Urban Ecology Australia Inc.)
Advocates of dense urban living foresee this balanced with deliberately valued natural land for resource gathering, climate control, visual amenity and recreation purposes.