The Australian arid zone encompasses 70% of the continent yet contains only about 2% of the population. As an ecologist, I have spent years learning about how desert ecosystems work, in particular how two forces – erratic rainfall and limited soil fertility – govern their functioning and the lives of their plants and animals, and how through evolutionary time the inhabitants have come to call the deserts home. My talk will highlight examples of the organising influence of these factors. The same drivers that govern ecosystems of the arid zone also affect our society by causing scarcity of economic opportunity. The consequence is a ‘desert system’ in which residents must live with the notions of coastal decision-makers. Desert Australia resists most attempts to turn it to norms of productive use expected by people of Western cultures – while persisting as one of the world’s great wild places.