WISALTS has experienced its fair share of controversy during its 36 years of operation, but it marked off a new milestone with the gift of the organisation's papers to Murdoch University in a ceremony last week at the university.
The papers, including 1098 newspaper articles, have almost finished being sorted and collated, so that they will now be considered as a resource that can be accessed by future students and researchers.
Speaking on behalf of himself and his four sisters, John Whittington, son of WISALTS founder Harry Whittington, declared that the occasion gave them "a great sense of pride in Harry's work and those who started WISALTS".
"The family has been completely immersed in the subject, with a particular acknowledgment to our mother who stood behind him for all of those years in the search for sustainable farming," he said.
"The work in collating and gifting the WISALTS records is the greatest gift you could give our parents."
Another sibling, Sue Pike, Brookton, revealed how the work collating the documents had given her an understanding of what drove their father for all those years.
Whittington family members and some WISALTS members have spent many months at the Murdoch University library sorting, collating and classifying all the papers produced during WISALTS' first 36 years.
Murdoch has also set up two trust funds for funding further research, one to pay for ongoing work and the other to grow a fund for future research
Past WISALTS president Gavin Drew, Gingin, is a staunch supporter of the concept, declaring that "we haven't found all the answers yet, but we have found a lot of them".
WISALTS was started by Harry Whittington and other farmers who were concerned that the Department of Agriculture's recommendations for the treatment of salt-affected land were not working.
The advent of a second group dedicated to finding answers to the encroaching salt in farming land did not increase the effort, but rather divided it.
The division was seen by some as a "farmers versus scientists" divide, when in reality the problem was so widespread that it needed input from both groups.
WISALTS members were adamant that "there is no silver bullet" to solve the problems of land and soil degradation, and it is their hope that the ready availability of the past 36 years research by the group will assist more people to initiate research and more answers to be obtained.
It is a job that members felt required all the effort possible, including collaboration with the Department of Agriculture and Food.
