Mention predators and parasites to the average person and their mind's eye will conjure up images of hoodie-clad youths, angrily manifesting a non-preferred ideology. But to all good gardeners nature's reality is quite the opposite. Predators and parasites are the good guys of the natural world and are critically important in their role of biological pest control. Whilst it is true that their methods, if closely scrutinised, may seem violent; their activities are most beneficial to humans.

Accompanying the post-war proliferation of petro-chemical based pest management has been a parallel proliferation of insidious impacts upon human health. At the time nobody stopped to consider the probability that the use of a chemical designed to exterminate vast populations of organisms with similar life-requirements to humans, might also result in undesirable effects upon human quality of life or life itself.

The well-publicised discovery of the Wollemi Pine (Wollemia nobilis) west of Sydney in 1994 drew the gardening world's attention to the fact new species can sit on our doorsteps eluding detection for hundreds of years. Such an event may appear to be a rarity but in actual fact at least two species of plants or animal have been discovered or described every week in Australia for the last decade. The majority of these discoveries, as amazing as they are, only make an appearance in scientific journals and papers, lacking the appeal necessary to grab the attention of the general
public or gardening communities.