Geelong, Australia
The autobiography of world-renowned agronomist Tony Rinaudo has won the 2022 Australian Christian Book of the Year.
Tony Rinaudo (left) accepts the award from SparkLit president Paul Barker. PICTURE: Screenshot.
The Forest Underground: Hope for a Planet in Crisis tells of how Rinaudo discovered a simple method of reviving damaged trees instead of planting new ones while working with a Christian mission organisation in Niger. The system he developed – known as Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration – has since regreened some 18 million hectares of land in 27 countries, impacting millions of lives.
Rinaudo, who now works for World Vision Australia, accepted the award at an event Thursday night at St Alfred’s Anglican Church in Blackburn North, Melbourne. The award is presented by Christian literature organisation SparkLit.
Other short-listed books included John Dickson’s Bullies and Saints: An Honest Look at the Good and Evil of Christian History, Greg Sheridan’s Christians: The Urgent Case for Jesus in our World and Mandy Smith’s Unfettered: Imagining a Childlike Faith beyond the Baggage of Western Culture.
Other winners on the night were Nichola Chadwick, of New South Wales, who won the Young Australian Christian Writer Award with her poetry collection Breathe on Me and Victorian Rachael Board who won the 2022 Australian Christian Teen Writer Award with her composition To Be Like Him.
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