From Plesiosaurs to People: 100 Million Years of Environmental History

Professor Michael Archer, University of New South Wales Associate Professor Ian Burnley, University of New South Wales Professor John Dodson, University of Western Australia Associate Professor Ronnie Harding, University of New South Wales Dr Lesley Head, University of Wollongong Associate Professor Peter Murphy, University of New South Wales

Australia: State of the Environment Technical Paper Series Environment Australia, part of the Department of the Environment © Commonwealth of Australia 1998

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From plesiosaurs to people: 100 million years of environmental history / Michael Archer, Ian Burnley, John Dodson, Ronnie Harding, Lesley Head, Peter A Murphy.

66 p.

29.7 x 21 cm. - (Australia: State of the Environment technical paper series)

ISBN 0 642 54531 6

1. Natural resources–Australia–History. 2. Human ecology–Australia–History. 3. Land use–Australia–History. I. Archer, Michael. II. Series

304.2’0994-dc21

For bibliographic purposes, this document may be cited as: Archer, M., Burnley, I., Dodson, J., Harding, R., Head, L. and Murphy, A. 1998, From plesiosaurs to people: 100 million years of Australian environmental history, Australia: State of the Environment Technical Paper Series (Portrait of Australia), Department of the Environment, Canberra.

For additional copies of this document or for further information, please contact the Community Information Unit of the Department of the Environment, GPO Box 787, Canberra ACT 2601. Phone, toll free, 1800 803 772, Facsimile 02 6274 1970

This book was printed in Australia on Australian-made, 100% recycled paper (Tudor RP). Contents Page

Preface 5

Authorship 5

Introduction 6

Part 1: Origin and evolution of Australia’s environments 7

1.1 Introduction 7 1.2 History of Australia’s biophysical environment 7 1.3 Australia’s biotas: origins and change through time 9 References 25

List of Figures

Figure 1.1 The break-up of Gondwana 33 Figure 1.2 McGowran’s model of alternating icehouse/greenhouse states for Australia 8 Figure 1.3 Meganesia is separated from southeast Asia by Wallacea, a series of islands that once formed part of Gondwana 10 Figure 1.4 Meiolania platyceps 33 Figure 1.5 Australia in the early Cretaceous 34 Figure 1.6 Early Eocene deposit at Murgon, southeastern Queensland 34 Figure 1.7 The last parts of Gondwana to break-up: Australia, Antarctica and South America 14 Figure 1.8 Unexpected fossil from Murgon – lower molar tooth which resembles teeth of contemporaneous condylarth–like placental mammals of South America 14 Figure 1.9 Tirari Desert in northern South Australia 35 Figure 1.10 The early Miocene rainforest communities of the Riversleigh World Heritage area 35 Figure 1.11 Fossils of late Miocene creatures – Alcoota in the southern Northern Territory, Australia 36 Figure 1.12 By early Pliocene time – open forests; woodlands; grasslands; grazing kangaroos; the first rodents had invaded Australia 36 Figure 1.13 Family and species level diversity in mammals: Riversleigh’s ‘spot’ @ 20 mya VS whole of Wet Tropics 37 Figure 1.14 Large megafaunal mammals that occupied Australia prior to 40,000 years ago 37 Figure 1.15 Decline in size of megafaunal species 18 Figure 1.16: Investigations at Cuddie Springs 38 Figure 1.17: Mummified carcase of the mainland thylacine of Australia 38 Figure 1.18: The Toolache Wallaby 39 Figure 1.19: Destabilised dunes that destroyed the town of Eucla 39 Figure 1.20: The ages of the earth and key biological ‘milestones’ 40

3 Part 2: From the First Fleet to the Millenium 41

2.1 Introduction 41 2.2 Before 1788 41 2.3 1788 to 1850 45 2.4 1850 to 1914 48 2.5 1914 to World War II 51 2.6 World War II to 1972 53 2.7 1972 to 1987 54 2.8 1987 to 2000 57 List of Figures

Figure 2.1: Relative changes in population 1780-1995 46 Figure 2.2: Estimated growth and change in the population of Australia 1780-1995 49 List of Tables

Chart 2.1: Humans and the environment in Australia over time 42 The Future 60

References 62

4 Preface

Australia: State of the Environment 1996 (the first ever independent and comprehensive assessment of the state of Australia’s environment) was presented to the Commonwealth Environment Minister in 1996. This landmark report, which draws upon the expertise of a broad section of the Australian scientific and technical community, was prepared by seven expert reference groups working under the broad direction of an independent State of the Environment Advisory Council. While preparing the report, the former Department of the Environment, Sport and Territories commissioned a number of specialist technical papers. These have been refereed and are being published as the State of the Environment Technical Paper Series. This paper was commissioned as part of the preparation for Chapter 2 ‘Portrait of Australia’.

Authorship

Professors Archer and Dodson wrote Part 1 of this paper, with the exception of the sections on Aboriginal Australia, which were written by Dr Head. Professors Burnley, Harding and Murphy wrote Part 2. Professors Harding and Murphy tied the paper together.

5 Introduction with the land and each other, have generally had enough time to survive by evolving appropriate responses to those The most critical challenge imaginable faces Australians changes. Since 1788, however, the pace of change has as the twenty-first century races to meet us: we must shift accelerated far beyond that of any time before. Adverse our economic systems to an ecologically sustainable basis and well-known outcomes include soil erosion, salination, or prepare for an economic crisis of unprecedented deforestation, desertification, air and water pollution and proportions. The regional, national and even global extinction rates vastly greater than rates of species consequences of our present modes of production and origination. Since British colonisation, our production and consumption guarantee that if we do not rapidly refocus consumption systems and their technological our goals, future welfare will decline as our environments infrastructures have produced these changes in the degenerate. Economic, social, political and technological geological blink of an eye. factors that frustrate the achievement of sustainability must be identified and disempowered. We need to This paper provides an overview of Australian understand the geological, climatic and biological environmental change over the past 100 million years. Its processes that interacted to shape this land and its style is more like that of a text book than a scientific paper inhabitants before we can disentangle the factors that because its purpose is to introduce the topic to a younger, threaten our future from among those that make up our general audience – the audience that has the power to complex societies. Only with this understanding will we change the way we do things, without the entrenched find Australia’s unique identity, the real nature of the land economic inhibitions of their elders. Nevertheless, every that underpins and sustains us. effort has been made to verify the facts and interpretations presented here. The collective expertise of the team that First and foremost, we should explore the geological and researched and wrote the paper ensures that the terrain has climatic processes that for billions of years have sewn, been fairly if lightly traversed. torn and massaged our ancient land. It is these processes that have produced the fragile natural landscapes and The paper has two main parts. The first section covers the ecosystems that have been so misunderstood and abused history of changes in the natural environment from about by humans (Bridgewater, 1987; Flannery, 1994). These 100 million years ago – a time of plesiosaurs and ancient same processes have also produced an incomparable set of platypuses – to the start of British colonisation in 1788. assets that, properly managed, could yield benefits for the This part also considers archaeological evidence of the indefinite future. For at least 60 000 years – a blink on the history of Aboriginal Australia and the relationship geological time-scale but incomprehensibly long by between Aboriginal people and the Australian human measure – Aboriginal Australians have based their environment over the last 60 000 years. The second part hunter-gatherer economy on the land (Dodson, 1994). covers the period from British settlement through to the Over this period, Aboriginal mythology and religious present and is very different in character and intent. This values emerged from and became inextricably connected must be so because, firstly, 200 years is not (so far) a long with the Australian landscape. The settlers who arrived enough period to register significant non-human-induced after 1788 failed to grasp the depth and importance of this changes in the environment. Over that period, as far as can symbiosis. Now, more than ever, it is essential that all be determined, the natural processes evident in the Australians understand these attachments, not only Australian environment have been essentially constant. because they are a potential source of tried and proven, Secondly, more change has been wrought by human action sustainable land-husbandry practices, but because of the over this period than at any previous period in the intimate awareness Australia’s hunter-gatherers have of continent’s human or natural history. This second part of the absolute interdependence of our lives and this land. the paper sketches the major themes in human settlement While at least the last 30 000 years of Aboriginal and economy in each of a set of periods since 1788. This occupancy may have been lightly felt by the land, research economic history is then interwoven with an outline of the has recognised and continued to debate the extent to which main trends in the recent history of relationships between earlier changes to the landscape may have been wrought humans and the Australian environment. by fire-stick technology and hunting practices (e.g. Pyne, 1991; Horton, 1994; Dodson, 1994; Flannery, 1994; References given provide a source for, or general Kohen, 1995). introduction to, concepts discussed in this paper. References to edited works (e.g. Hill, 1994) are intended Within the vast frame of geological time, changes in to introduce the reader to compilations of integrated Australian environments have been massive, but the plant research papers that provide background information. and animal lineages, and the ecosystems that bind them

6 PART 1 stretches from India, through parts of Indonesia, New Caledonia and south through a major section of New Zealand (Veevers et al., 1991; BMR Palaeontological 1 Origin and evolution of Australia’s Group, 1990; Lawver et al., 1992). Before 100 million environments years ago, this plate was part of a larger unit called Gondwana and was adjacent to Africa and Antarctica. It 1.1 Introduction was joined to South America through Antarctica. About 100 million years ago, in the Cretaceous Period and This section examines background issues necessary to through to the earliest part of the Tertiary Period, these understand the present environmental character and biota land masses had many plant and animal groups in of Australia. Australia’s vast lands extend across many common. These groups consisted of ‘old endemic’ climatic zones, are diverse in their geological make-up and Gondwanan and intrusive Laurasian (northern continental) their biota has a fascinating evolutionary history. The elements. The Australian section of the plate was large climate of modern Australia is in stark contrast to that of enough to contain a significant number of unique its distant past. For example, aridity, which today affects elements, and it was probably a major centre of evolution 44 per cent of the continent, developed only within the last for a number of groups that subsequently migrated to other three million years. Land and sea level patterns have also parts of Gondwana and the northern supercontinent of changed significantly (Taylor, 1994). The evolution of Laurasia. modern patterns of habitat, vegetation, climate, soils and hydrology has been inextricably linked to changes in When our story opens, about 100 million years ago, intercontinental connections, climate, geology and biotas Australia was situated at a high latitude in the far south, as well as the effects of pre-modern human activity. If we with a large area of landscape already billions of years old, are to understand the nature of modern Australia, which is particularly in the west (Morrison & Morrison, 1988). The one of the most biologically diverse continents, we must climate at the time was warmer than now and it had been first understand the history and development of the a long time since any significant glacial or volcanic dynamic forces that have shaped and continue to shape activity had affected the land mass. Gondwana fragmented this continent, its climates and its biotas. as new material was forced from depth into the Earth’s crust, causing the sea floor to spread, and separating the 1.2 History of Australia’s land masses. India had separated from Antarctica by 118 million years ago and was headed for a collision with Asia biophysical environment by 50 million years ago. Australia had also begun to 1.2.1 Introduction separate (‘rift’) along its south-western margin by 118 million years ago but remained attached to Antarctica by a The surface of the Earth is ever-changing because it is pivotal connection involving Tasmania and the South underpinned by a number of plates that are in constant Tasman Rise, until perhaps as late as 35 million years ago. motion and conflict (Wilford et al., 1994). Recognition of With final separation, the oceanic current that surrounded this fact, based first on the deductions of Alfred Wegener, and isolated Antarctica was born. From that time, was the revolution to geology that Charles Darwin’s Australia drifted northwards at about 8 to 10 cm per year. model of evolution was to biology. The distribution of the Although an archipelago of small islands including Timor main plates and the driving mechanisms that cause them to linked the northwards-moving Australia to distant south- interact (collectively called plate tectonics) are both eastern Asia, opportunities for biotic exchanges with researched today. Modern research in this area also Antarctica and other southern areas gradually decreased contributes to understanding and, possibly, to predicting and the flora and fauna began to evolve in relative earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. isolation.

1.2.2 Geological history of the last 100 Importantly, Australia’s drift completely changed the million years climatic patterns over the continent. Although the general direction of drift was towards the equator and therefore Plate tectonism has been an active process for much of the towards warmer and wetter latitudes, two other processes Earth’s history, but it is the events of the last 100 million altered Australia’s climatic balance. years that have most significantly affected development of the modern climates and biotas of Australia. Australia is Firstly, during the early part of the drifting period part of the Indo-Australian Plate (Figure 1.1, p.33) which Australia was in a global zone dominated by the

7 Westerlies (Frakes et al., 1987; Wilford et al., 1994; 1991; Bowler, 1982, 1990). These climatic cycles, in part Chappell et al., 1995; Christophel et al., 1989; McGowran, driven by changes in the amount of ice present on 1986). Northward drift placed more and more of the Antarctica, affected the nature of evolutionary change in continent within the mid-latitude high pressure zone and the Australian biota (see ‘1.3 Australian biota: origins and finally in the tropics. Since the land mass was large change through time’ below). enough, it encouraged the formation of a weak summer monsoon as it moved into the tropics. Before this, From about 15 million years ago, as the northern edge of Australia’s rainfall was mainly seasonal. This late change the still northward-moving Indo-Australian Plate began to meant that the continent developed its present polarised buckle up against and then nose-dive beneath the land climate with most of its moisture budgets dominated by masses of south-east Asia, there were more opportunities evaporation. Winter rainfall began to characterise the for intercontinental exchanges involving the new southern half while summer rainfall characterised the Australian, the ancient Gondwanan and the Laurasian northern half. groups. Secondly, during the period of Australia’s drift, the Southern Hemisphere was undergoing a series of Because there has been little volcanic and mountain alternating greenhouse/icehouse cycles (Figure 1.2) that building activity over the last 100 million years on this resulted in alternating wet and dry conditions (Frakes et very old continent, Australia has a relatively flat al., 1987; McGowran, 1990). For example, Australia was landscape, with often very old soils (Flannery, 1994; van in ‘greenhouse’ states with relatively warm and wet Oosterzee, 1987; White, 1994). The mid-latitude position climates at 55, 20 and 5 million years ago. In contrast, of the continent during the last 2 million years meant that Australia had relatively cooler, drier climates at 65, 45 and glaciation has played an almost negligible role in soil 10 million years ago and at intervals during the last 2 rejuvenation. The long history of weathering, fluctuating million years. The present climate is in an overall icehouse sea levels and continental water tables and more recently state of uncertain duration (Frakes et al., 1987; Chappell, dune building, have been important factors in the

Figure 1.2: McGowran’s model of alternating icehouse/greenhouse states for Australia. The geological times (up to 5 million years ago) when each state was operative are indicated in the last column. (After Frakes et al. 1987)

TECTONISM SEA LEVEL CLIMATE BIOTA RECORD DURICRUST IN TERIARY

Middle to Early amplified: maritime increased: increased Miocene uplift, climate, habitat chance of sedimentary Late to Late rapid subsidence, marine global diversity, laterite and accumu- Middle seafloor trans- warming, deep igneous biotic lation and Eocene spreading gression weathering activity, more humid, diversity, fossilisation CO2 more evolutionary (marine and Early exhalation equable overturn non-marine) Eocene to Late end result: “greenhouse” Paleocene

Late subdued: decreased: decreased continental Miocene chance of uplift, climate, habitat sedimentary Oligocene slow subsidence, diversity, marine global accumu- seafloor silcrete igneous regression cooling, biotic lation and Early Middle spreading activity, diversity, fossilisation Eocene

MODE TWO MODE ONE more arid, evolutionary (marine and CO2 less equable exhalation overturn non-marine) Early

end result: “icehouse” Paleocene

8 evolution of the soils and river systems of Australia. Many temperatures, which feed into global biological of the soils are highly leached and poor in nutrients, and productivity, are controlled to a large extent by the the river systems carry significant amounts of clay and composition of the atmosphere. When the balance of the salts, especially where they traverse old marine deposits. Earth’s atmospheric gases changes, so must the nature of the living organisms that depend on that atmosphere. In the future, the Australian section of the Indo-Australian Plate will continue to move northward, and the climate These long-term climatic trends have been disrupted by will become more tropical. The winter rainfall in the south rapid climate changes associated with the recent Ice Ages will lessen as the Westerlies gradually decrease their and with human activity. One example of the latter influence. The southern climate will become warmer and includes the release back into the atmosphere and oceans drier, while in the north there will be more summer rainfall of significant amounts of carbon stored in the Earth’s coal, and cyclone patterns. These changes will be independent hydrocarbon and forest reservoirs, which has led to the of any influences from a human-enhanced (or induced) possibility of enhancement of the natural greenhouse greenhouse effect. effect. Another example is the production and release of ozone-depleting chemicals which appear to be reducing 1.2.3 The evolution of the atmosphere the effectiveness of the Earth’s natural ultraviolet shield. The records of these and more ancient changes in the The composition of the atmosphere over Australia is the Earth’s atmosphere are recorded in sedimentary deposits result of global processes and local factors. Earth’s early and the ice sheets at high latitude. Significant changes in atmosphere was high in carbon dioxide, methane and the composition of the atmosphere will affect climates and hydrogen, and low in oxygen (Morrison & Morrison, ultimately, as they have done in the past, the survival 1988). This was inherited as the Earth cooled and was capacity of the organisms that at any one time dominate added to by gases from volcanic eruptions. It was further the Earth. modified as many of the lighter components were lost to outer space. The early atmosphere was very much a greenhouse atmosphere, and global temperatures were 1.3 Australian biotas: origins and much warmer than present. change through time 1.3.1 Introduction With the evolution of photosynthesis (about 2,800 million years ago), the composition of the atmosphere began to The last 45 to 38 million years, the time since Australia change in a number of significant ways (Morrison & first became a distinct continent after separation from Morrison, 1988). Because oxygen accumulated at the Antarctica, represents little more than 1 per cent of the expense of carbon dioxide and hydrogen, the atmosphere long and complex record of Australian life. The earlier became more oxidising and much of the carbon became record contains many extraordinary creatures including, locked up in coal, hydrocarbons, various kinds of for example, the most diverse Precambrian groups in the carbonate rocks and in a large standing crop of living world (about 570 million years ago) and the richest and organisms. Oxygen was, in a sense, a waste-product of best-preserved record of Devonian fish (410 to 360 million early photosynthetic organisms that thrived in a reducing years ago). It also documents some of the most significant atmosphere. The accumulation of this gas, which was evolutionary events (White, 1990) including, at 3.5 billion poisonous to them, led to their decline and to the rapid rise years, some of the earliest traces of life on Earth. Mass of what were formerly rare organisms: oxygen-consumers, extinctions have, however, periodically eradicated most of which went on to dominate the Earth. these older groups. For example, the catastrophic extinction at the end of the Cretaceous Period, 65 million The early decline in atmospheric carbon dioxide reduced years ago, radically altered the balance of Australia’s the greenhouse effect. But it improved life’s ability to Gondwanan groups and in so doing paved the way for colonise the land because some of the increasingly development of the modern biota (Vickers-Rich et al., abundant oxygen atoms chemically combined to form 1991; Dettman, 1994; Archer et al ., 1997). To understand ozone. This gas accumulated in a layer within the not only this transition but the events that followed it and atmosphere creating a shield against the Sun’s ultraviolet their modern consequences, it is appropriate to consider light, probably a crucial event in aiding the establishment the history of life during the last 100 million years, of life on land. The development of many of the Earth’s including the effects of Australia’s changing current biogeochemical cycles depended on the way the intercontinental relationships, evolving climates, atmosphere evolved. Carbon budgets and possibly global palaeoenvironments, tectonic events and fluctuations in

9 sea level. Understanding how the components of Asia, the vast ocean that existed between the two Australia’s modern biota have been changing through time when Australia was connected to Antarctica was also helps to clarify their modern conservation status and linked via an island archipelago. This was used by at in some cases holds the key to their future. least plants, bats and birds (Audley-Charles et al., 1988). This connection was a filter barrier as is 1.3.2 Australia’s biotas during the last 100 shown by, for example, the significantly different million years biotas on either side of Wallace’s Line (Figure 1.3). Australia and New Zealand were once similarly Australia’s living organisms, as elsewhere, have evolved connected by archipelagos, as were Australia and in response to selection pressures from their changing New Caledonia (Lord Howe Island is the only environments. The environments change because of remaining link between these last two). alterations in the continent’s ‘forcing factors’, including global position, physical structure, sea levels and climates. • To what extent does vicariance (isolation because of the development of barriers) or dispersal Changes in these forcing factors are broadly correlated. (movement from one area to another) explain The model developed by Brian McGowran at the disjunct distributions of closely related University of Adelaide (Figure 1.2), based in part on organisms? Vicariance appears to explain the changes in the Cainozoic record of marine foraminiferans, occurrence in Australia and South America of various explores these correlations, which include alternations of groups of frogs, chelid turtles, marsupials and greenhouse and icehouse episodes of varying lengths casuarinaceans (Veevers et al., 1991; Godthelp et al., (Frakes et al., 1987; McGowran & Li, 1994, 1997; 1992). Dispersal (from Australia) better explains the McGowran, 1997). While some aspects of the model, such occurrence in New Zealand of bats of the genera as the degree of dry or wet conditions, are speculative, in Pteropus and Chalinolobus (Hand, 1984). Bats of the general the model predicts well newly discovered genus Mystacina, however, once thought to be unique attributes of the forcing factors and their biotic consequences. For example, greenhouse periods to New Zealand, are now known to have dispersed to determined on the basis of the movement of large marine New Zealand from Australia (Hand et al., in press). foraminifera to high latitudes match increases in the Palaeobotanists have concluded that there was diversity of fossil mammals now being discovered in continuous, though selective, dispersal of plant isolated terrestrial areas of the continent (Archer et al., groups between the southern continents throughout 1995, 1997). Figure 1.3: Meganesia (Australia plus New Guinea and Tasmania) is separated from southeastern Asia by In the discussions that follow, particular attention is paid Wallacea, a series of islands that once formed part of to the history of mammals and plants because the fossil Gondwana. Wallace’s Line separates the biotas of records for these groups is better known than for most Wallacea, which most resemble those of Meganesia, others. As far as can be determined, they are indicative of from those of southeastern Asia. (After Archer & general changes in the terrestrial biotas as a whole. Clayton, 1984) Problems in interpreting the history of Australia’s biotas

Controversial issues that affect the understanding of the development of Australian biotas over the last 100 million years include the following.

• To what extent was Australia really linked to or isolated from other lands? Although Australia was connected to Antarctica until at least 45 to 38 million years ago, was this a freeway or was it a filter barrier? Were the links to South America via Antarctica constrained by physiographic, climatic or ecological barriers? Similarly, although no continuous land connection has ever united Australia to south-eastern

10 the Tertiary (White, 1986; Truswell, 1990; Hill, throughout the Cainozoic (Frakes et al. 1987; 1994). McGowran, 1990, 1991, 1997; McGowran & Li, 1994, 1997). Australia may be able to provide unique • To what extent does convergence following information about the biotic effects of these isolation, or relationship followed by isolation, greenhouse/icehouse shifts because, when these explain the similarity of disjunctly distributed occurred during the mid to late Tertiary, the continent organisms? Despite striking similarities in some was isolated. On all other continents, the lowered sea aspects of structure such as tooth shape, the levels that accompanied shifts to icehouse conditions Australian Thylacine (Thylacinus) converged on the enabled massive biotic interchanges that obscured the extinct South American borhyaenid marsupials effects of the climatic change alone (Hallam, 1992; following the isolation of Australia. In contrast, Bradley, 1995). similarities between the extinct terrestrial horned turtles (Figure 1.4, p.33) of Australia, Lord Howe • To what extent was Australia a refuge or cul de sac Island and South America is the result of close for groups of organisms that did not fare as well relationship (Gaffney, 1996). Unresolved is the or live as long in other lands? Australia’s egg- nature of the similarity between Australian ratite laying monotremes survived 60 million years longer birds (emus, cassowaries and the extinct than those of anywhere else (e.g. Argentina), possibly dromornithids) and those of the other southern because of Australia’s isolation. Similarly, early continents. Cretaceous labyrinthodonts from Victoria are the last to have survived anywhere in the world. A similar • To what extent did Australian sea level argument has sometimes been made about the fluctuations aid dispersal and vicariance events? diversity of marsupials in Australia. In this case, Sea level fluctuations have varied significantly, in however, palaeontological discoveries suggest that some cases helping and in others frustrating marsupials dominate Australia by right of prehistoric intercontinental and intracontinental dispersal conquest rather than failure of placentals to reach this corridors (Hallam, 1992). Very high sea levels in the continent in the early Cainozoic (Godthelp et al., early Cretaceous carved Australia up into a series of 1992). large islands, each of which would have had an isolated biota. Both New Guinea and Tasmania were • To what extent was Australia a centre of dispersal connected to Australia by dry land at intervals during for competitively aggressive organisms rather the Tertiary (e.g. about 30 million years ago) and than a receiver? While there is a growing awareness frequently during the Pleistocene when sea levels that the Southern Hemisphere has been a centre for sometimes (e.g. at 18 000 years ago) reached 130 m the evolution and dispersal of many groups (e.g. below present levels. These low stands probably Crame, 1997), the particular role in this process aided human dispersal across narrowed stretches of played by the biotas of the Australian portion of water to Australia, possibly from the now Indonesian Gondwana is less well understood. Although it was island of Flores, and enabled humans to walk to once assumed that Australia received rather than Tasmania (e.g. White & O’Connell, 1982; Thorne & produced groups of organisms that dominate other Raymond, 1989; Horton, 1994; Dodson, 1994; continents, it is now evident that the great order of Flood, 1996). passerine (song) birds, for example, has an Australian fossil record almost 20 million years older than • What happened in Australia when the climate anywhere else (Boles, 1997). Similarly, mystacinids, shifted from greenhouse to icehouse conditions once thought to be unique to New Zealand and long and vice versa? There is a widespread notion that a puzzle to palaeobiogeographers, have now been Australia’s climate remained more or less stable discovered in late Oligocene to middle Miocene throughout much of the early to middle Cainozoic rocks in Australia, suggesting that Australia was the because its northward drift into warmer, wetter origin and centre of dispersal for this distinctive latitudes counteracted the more or less steady global group of bats (Hand et al. in press). drop in temperature and rainfall. However, as noted above, it now appears that, at least in the Southern • To what extent were Australian biotic conditions Hemisphere, there were complex cycles of in one area of the continent representative of the greenhouse/icehouse climatic shifts which led to continent as a whole? While it was once common to marked fluctuations in temperature and rainfall talk of a pancontinental Tertiary flora, detailed

11 studies suggest that the regional Tertiary floras of mid-Oligocene and some of the late Miocene, which Australia differed significantly in composition and to is about 64 per cent of the time that mammals are some extent structure throughout much of their known to have occupied the continent (Archer et al., history. There are also timing differences in events 1994a,b, 1995). Even then, what is known is known such that the dominance of sclerophyll-rich plants for certain from just one part of the continent. For probably occurred in western and central forests long example, pre-Pliocene fossil mammals are unknown before it did in eastern forests (Christophel & from the western half of the continent. Is it Greenwood, 1989; Martin, 1990a,b; Hill, 1992, 1994; reasonable to presume that groups known from the White, 1994; McLoughlin & Hill, 1996). eastern half of the continent at this time also existed in the western half? For some periods of time, such as • To what extent do modern distributions fairly the early Oligocene and late Miocene, unfavourable represent geographic history or capacities? climatic conditions across the continent mitigated Because of often profound changes in climate across against the accumulation of fossil deposits. Two the continent, modern distributions rarely give more fossil assemblages from Alcoota in the Northern than a hint of former distribution patterns. The shrub Territory have produced almost everything we know Dodonaea triquetra, today confined to a coastal strip about Australia’s terrestrial creatures of the late of south-eastern Australia in wet and dry sclerophyll Miocene. Are we justified in presuming these forests, was spread throughout the continent during assemblages represent the rest of the continent’s the Eocene, even into New Zealand (Hill, 1994). On biotas at this time? These questions reflect a lack of the other hand, Fuchsia, a native of New Zealand, certainty about the distribution patterns of pre- Tahiti and Central and South America, has been modern environments across the continent. found in Oligocene and Miocene sediments of Australia (Hill, 1994). The Mountain Pygmy Possum At the crossroads of major change: genus Burramys is today represented by a single Cretaceous time species restricted to a small area of the south-eastern Highlands. Oligocene to Pliocene species of this Between 146 and 97 million years ago, in the early genus, however were common in lowland rainforests Cretaceous Period, vast areas of Australia were covered by from north-western Queensland to south-western shallow, inland seas which divided the land into a Victoria (Brammall & Archer, 1997). changing complex of large islands (White, 1986; Vickers- Rich and Rich et al., 1993; Quilty, 1994) (Figure 1.5, • When did arid conditions and arid biotas actually p.34). Early Cretaceous biotas, variously represented in develop? Until recently, there was little hard Victoria (e.g. Dinosaur Cove), New South Wales (e.g. evidence to determine when aridity developed and, as Lightning Ridge), Queensland (e.g. the Richmond a result, models based on arguable premises were the /Hughenden area) and Western Australia (e.g. Broome) best guide. Following recent reviews (Martin, 1990a; include a variety of creatures such as dinosaurs, birds, Taylor et al., 1990; Tedford & Wells, 1990; Chen & pterosaurs, crocodiles, the world’s last surviving Barton ., 1991; Nicholls, 1991; Williams et al., 1991; labyrinthodont amphibians, and two medium-sized, egg- Hill, 1992, 1994; Longmore, 1997), it now appears laying monotreme mammals (from Lightning Ridge), a that no pre-Pliocene or pre-Pleistocene biota in group that today includes platypuses and echidnas Australia can be described as arid and it is doubtful (Flannery et al., 1995). A third much tinier early that true grasslands developed anywhere in Australia Cretaceous mammal from southern Victoria was originally before the late Pliocene. In the main, this was a claimed (Rich et al., 1997) to be a placental and, if so, one forested or wooded continent throughout most of the of the oldest in the world. However, restudy suggests it is Tertiary. The nature and variety of those forests, their more likely to be either a peramurid, a group of Jurassic to precise distribution and changes in their structure early Cretaceous mammals previously known from over time, however, are the subjects of debate. Europe, Africa and the Americas or a very ‘archaic’ monotreme. Some of the reptiles resemble • To what extent does the regional fossil record contemporaneous creatures of South America, a measure fairly represent the biotic history of the whole of the intercontinental links of the time, although several continent? Although the record steadily improves, it appear to be slightly more ‘archaic’ than their non- does so in fits and starts. In terms of the Australian Australian contemporaries. Australia’s cool to cold mammal record, there is still nothing at all known climates and near-polar position (Rich et al., 1988; Frakes, from the late Cretaceous, Paleocene, mid-Eocene to 1997) may be reflected in the unusually large eyes of some

12 of the Victorian dinosaurs (three months of total darkness Northern Hemisphere, was so profound that it marks the during polar winters) and possibly the relatively large size end of the Mesozoic Era and start of the Cainozoic Era. of the Lightning Ridge monotremes compared with Although the biotic consequences of the impact were Mesozoic mammals from other areas of the world. probably global, some palaeontologists are reluctant to discount the possibility that dinosaurs may have survived The late Cretaceous, from 97 to 65 million years ago, was into the early Tertiary of South America or Australia. In a time of major change (Quilty, 1994; Frakes, 1997). Most the case of at least Australia, the fossil record for this of the continent was uplifted and lost its extensive inland period is as yet too poorly known to discount this seas, climates warmed (until the end of the Cretaceous) potentially exciting possibility. and were humid (Hill, 1994). Sphenopsids (horsetails), pteridosperms (seed ferns) and cycads steeply declined by Key background events in the early Tertiary include the the end of the early Cretaceous and angiosperms uplift of the Transantarctic Mountains at about 50 million (flowering plants) became the dominant plants of the years ago which accelerated the accumulation of world. Antarctica was still forested (and remained so until Antarctica’s ice sheets that in the long run had a profound the Oligocene). Unfortunately, late Cretaceous vertebrate influence on Australia’s changing climates. During the assemblages are rare in Australia and provide little Paleocene, the southern edge of Australia was at 70˚ south information about Australian terrestrial biotas of the time. which today marks the coastline of Antarctica. The biota The Winton Formation (about 95 million years old) of would have had to cope with low light intensities in the Queensland has provided much of what is known as well winter, variable and seasonal rainfall but steadily warming as a spectacular dinosaur trackway near the town of conditions, not unlike those of modern Australia. The Winton. Western Australia has also produced some late nature of the Palaeocene vertebrate faunas of Australia is Cretaceous vertebrates including pterosaurs, dinosaurs poorly known. and marine reptiles. Considering the apocalyptic events of the latest Cretaceous documented in the Northern By the early Eocene, much warmer and wetter conditions Hemisphere, it is disappointing not to have a better record prevailed, rainforests were widespread across the of this interval in Australia. continent and there were large inland lakes (Christophel, 1994; Frakes, 1997). Australia’s only early Tertiary After the rift but before the drift: Paleocene mammal-bearing fossil deposit at Murgon (Figure 1.6, to Eocene time p.34), south-eastern Queensland, is earliest Eocene in age (Godthelp et al., 1992). It is particularly significant About 65 million years ago, a huge object, probably an because, at approximately 55 million years ago, it asteroid, collided with the Earth, possibly (there are provides the only information about the ‘pre-split’ arguments about the location) off the Yucatan Peninsula in mammal communities that occupied the Australian and the Gulf of Mexico. Although controversial (e.g. Hurlbert east Antarctic region of Gondwana (Figure 1.7, p.14). & Archibald, 1995), it has been argued that this impact Some of the vertebrates it contains, such as a bandicoot, resulted in catastrophic damage and significant world- mekosuchine crocodiles and frogs, represent groups wide extinctions. When the dust finally cleared, all common in the middle Tertiary record of Australia and dinosaurs (except birds, which are regarded by most suggest that a degree of ‘pre-Australian’ endemism had palaeontologists as small feathered dinosaurs; e.g. already become established in this eastern extremity of Lambert, 1993; Norman, 1994; Padian & Chiappe, 1998), Gondwana. Unexpected were microbiotheriid marsupials plesiosaurs, pterosaurs, ammonites, most mammals and a similar to others known from the Eocene of South host of other groups had vanished. Not all groups show the America and Antarctica (middle Eocene assemblages same levels of extinction. For example, it has recently from Seymour Island on the Antarctic Peninsula) and been shown by molecular evidence (Cooper & Penny, other marsupials similar to Paleocene forms from Peru and 1997) that many modern orders of birds survived this early Eocene forms from Argentina. Even less expected crisis, whatever its nature. Some palaeontologists suggest was the discovery of an archaeonycteridid bat (Hand et al. that contemporaneous massive volcanic activity, rather 1994) which is approximately as old as the oldest known than the asteroid’s impact, caused the extinctions. bat in the world, and the world’s oldest passerine birds (by Whatever the cause, freed from the shadow of the 20 million years) (Boles, 1997). Interestingly, in the case dinosaurs, the few groups of mammals, crocodiles, birds of passerines, DNA hybridisation studies predicted an and other relatively minor Mesozoic groups that survived early Eocene differentiation for this group. Far less then underwent massive adaptive radiations. The expected among the Murgon fossils were placental extinction event, best understood from the record of the condylarth-like mammals (Godthelp et al., 1992) (Figure

13 Figure 1.7: The last parts of Gondwana to break up surrounding Antarctica, vast areas of ice accumulated in were Australia, Antarctica and South America. Early Antarctica that in turn triggered the development of a drier Eocene Casamayoran deposits in Argentina and climate for Australia (although middle Eocene climates contemporaneous fossil deposits at Murgon, Australia, across Australia were not uniform) (Frakes, 1997). Eocene share some groups of extinct mammals. plants from the southern Northern Territory suggest areas of drier, open vegetation (Christophel, 1994). Included in this was a carnivorous plant most closely related to the Venus Fly Trap (the Venus Fly Trap is now confined to North America) (Macphail et al., 1994). Another striking mid-Eocene change was the shift in Australia’s rainforests from fern and conifer-dominated assemblages to ones dominated by the angiosperm genus Nothofagus. The middle to late Eocene saw a marked drop in temperature but cool temperate rainforests persisted even in central Australia (Greenwood, 1994). The complex evergreen rainforests of south-eastern Australia received year-round rainfall. In general, the Eocene was a time of lush, greenhouse conditions.

Although nothing is known about late Eocene mammals of Australia, elsewhere in the world this was a time of drastic change, often called the ‘Terminal Eocene Event’ or ‘Grand Coupure’ (e.g. Prothero & Berggren, 1992). Certainly in Australia there was a sudden cooling as elsewhere and a drop in sea level of about 125 metres, but the exact nature of the biotic events that resulted from these changes is obscure. In terms of the mammals, all it is possible to say is that there was an almost total change in the family-level composition between the only known early Eocene assemblage and those of the late Oligocene.

Figure 1.8: One of the most unexpected fossils from Murgon was this isolated lower molar tooth which resembles teeth of contemporaneous condylarth-like 1.8, p.14), a group that on other continents went on to placental mammals of South America. Mammals of this produce the hoofed animals, carnivores and even whales kind were most unexpected in Australia’s fossil record. (Norman, 1994). If confirmed, their presence in Australia (Photo by H. Godthelp) in the early Eocene suggests that marsupial mammals dominated this continent by out-competing placentals. This would challenge a more widespread view that marsupials dominated Australia because of the failure of early terrestrial placentals, like condylarths, to reach this continent.

By 45 million years ago, mid-Eocene time, the rate at which the continents of Australia and Antarctica were separating rapidly increased and, sometime before 38 million years ago, a deep marine strait developed between the two, severing the last land links via Tasmania and the South Tasman Rise (Veevers et al., 1991). With this final separation and the creation of the cold oceanic currents

14 A cool spell: Oligocene time sclerophyll forests. The genus is also known from the Miocene of New Zealand and has been claimed (there are The Oligocene, from 38 to 23.3 million years ago, was a sceptics) to be present in the Eocene of Argentina (Hill, time of icehouse conditions for Australia. Mountain 1994). Eucalypts, like many genera that eventually building began in New Guinea from about 30 million dominated the arid areas of Australia, were present in the years ago, potentially providing a dispersal destination for Tertiary rainforests of Australia where they probably Australia’s developing northern biotas. Sometime between specialised in areas of nutrient-deficient soils (Adam, 25 and 15 million years ago (Hallam, 1994), the northern 1994). This would have pre-adapted them to take edge of the Australian Plate began to crumple up against advantage of the wide expanses of deficient soils the southern edge of south-eastern Asia leading to an abandoned by the inland rainforests. increase in the rate of mountain building in New Guinea, which affected climates across northern Australia. Late Last of the good times: early to middle Oligocene pollens from Lake Frome in central Australia Miocene include Nothofagus brassospora, which suggests high rainfall (Truswell et al., 1987; Macphail et al., 1994). The Miocene (23.3 to 5 million years ago) was a time of Other plants in this assemblage include Restionaceae remarkably diverse climates and biotas as well as swamp plants, Cyperaceae, Sparganiaceae, algae such as fluctuating sea levels (Martin, 1994; Greenwood, 1994; Pediastrum and Botryococus, which collectively suggest Frakes, 1997; Kershaw, 1997; Macphail, 1997). The rainforests and swamps (Martin, 1990a). This is in northern margin of New Guinea had reached 10˚ south. By contrast to earlier conclusions, based on misidentification 20 million years ago, the northern edge of Australia, at of the Restionacaea as grass pollens, that there were arid about 20˚ south, was within reach of the tropical grasslands in the late Oligocene (then also misinterpreted monsoonal climates (Christophel & Greenwood, 1989; as middle Miocene) of central Australia. Feary et al., 1991; Hill, 1994). A thin arm of sea (or estuary) over the continental shelf extended from the Late Oligocene faunas (from approximately 26 to 24 Northern Territory-Western Australian border south- million years ago) from central and northern Australia are eastwards across what is now the Barkly Tableland and the next vertebrate communities to examine. into north-western Queensland, south-west of the Superpositional lake and stream deposits from the Lake Riversleigh region. Mean annual temperatures were at first Eyre Basin (Figure 1.9, p.35) and the Lake Frome Basin of about 1 to 3˚C warmer than the Oligocene and may have South Australia contain lungfish, frogs, lizards, horned been at about 22 to 23˚C (Frakes, 1997). Rainfall was high and chelid turtles, crocodiles, giant flightless birds known (more than 500 mm per year) at least in the northern as dromornithids, water birds such as flamingoes, regions, although areas of north-western Western Australia palaelodids, charadriiforms and ducks, a toothed platypus, may have been drier (Christophel & Greenwood, 1989; marsupials including archaic marsupicarnivores, Kershaw et al., 1994; Frakes, 1997). bandicoots, ringtail possums, koalas, ‘protowombats’, marsupial lions, sheep-like palorchestids, cow-size The Miocene includes parts of two icehouse/greenhouse ilariids, wynyardiids and rodent-like ektopodontids, a cycles. The cool icehouse conditions of the late Oligocene single bat and even a freshwater dolphin (Woodburne et gave way to very warm greenhouse conditions in the early al., 1985, 1993). Late Oligocene faunas from Riversleigh to middle Miocene. At 16 to 15 million years ago, at the in north-western Queensland are similar, with more end of the middle Miocene, some of the highest levels of dromornithids and bats but fewer water birds and no rainfall Australia has ever experienced caused extinctions dolphins (Archer et al., 1994a,b, 1995, 1997). On balance, among near-shore forams because of the vast amounts of these faunas suggest forest communities (possibly freshwater pouring off the continent (McGowran & Li, rainforest if we accept the evidence of pollen from South 1994). Following this extremely wet phase, the continent Australia) with open understoreys and adjacent freshwater began to change once again. Icehouse conditions set in streams and lakes. Although climates were probably rapidly and continued to increase in intensity throughout seasonal and cool, nothing about these faunas indicates the late Miocene (10.4 to 5 million years ago). aridity (Greenwood, 1994; Christophel, 1994). The richest early to middle Miocene (about 23 to 15 Noteworthy among the plant assemblages of the million years old) vertebrate biotas have been found at Oligocene are what may be Australia’s earliest eucalypts. Riversleigh in north-western Queensland (Figure 1.10, Species of Eucalyptus, which include the tallest flowering p.35). In this World Heritage property, more than 280 plants in the world, today dominate most of Australia’s fossil assemblages have produced more than 300

15 vertebrate and invertebrate species which appear to have Late Miocene floras from central Australia, such as those occupied species-rich, cool, perpetually wet, lowland from the Lake Frome Basin, are profoundly different from rainforests (Archer et al., 1994a,b, 1995, 1997). It is those of the late Oligocene of the same area and indicate a unclear whether there were seasonal variations in climate shift to dry sclerophyllous forest (Martin, 1990a, 1998). but Riversleigh’s early and middle Miocene frog Casuarinaceae dominate the assemblages with Eucalyptus assemblages suggest that there was no dry season. Many and Angophora subdominant. Although these groups have extinct and almost all modern families of Australian wide ecological ranges today, no undoubted rainforest mammals have representatives in these deposits. Many of species were present. Even in south-eastern Australia, the assemblages are more diverse, particularly in much of the rainforest had given way by this time to wet marsupials, than any modern Australian rainforest sclerophyll forest characterised by marked seasonal communities. The closest analogue in terms of rainforest dryness (Kershaw et al., 1994). type appears to have been either mid-montane New Guinea or perhaps the structurally complex rainforests of New Caledonia. No modern rainforests in Australia are The only reasonably well-known late Miocene vertebrate identical but several in the Wet Tropics contain communities are the Alcoota (8 to 7 million years old) and representatives of the same groups of mammals (e.g. Ongeva (7 to 6 million years old) assemblages from the striped possums, cuscuses and musky rat-kangaroos) southern Northern Territory (Figure 1.11, p.36). The (Adam, 1994). Alcoota assemblage appears to have accumulated along the margins of a large, shallow, freshwater lake. The Differences between the middle Miocene assemblages of deposit contains a plethora of large, incipiently Riversleigh and those of the Bullock Creek assemblage of megafaunal species including giant birds (such as the Northern Territory (about 12 million years old) suggest Dromornis stirtoni, which at 3 m high and perhaps 500 kg, that Bullock Creek may have been characterised by a more may well have been the largest bird anywhere in the open forest environment (Murray & Megirian, 1992). As world) and quadrupedal marsupials. All of the herbivores yet, it has produced none of the rainforest indicator groups appear to have been browsers rather than grazers (Murray, that are common at Riversleigh. Nevertheless, because 1997). none of the Bullock Creek herbivores have teeth sufficiently high-crowned to enable them to live on grass, This rugged final phase of the Miocene, with globally most probably dined on the softer leaves of shrubs and drier, cooler climates, is called the ‘Terminal Miocene trees. Event’ in the northern continents. There it was Paradise lost: mid Miocene to late Miocene accompanied by extensive intercontinental faunal time interchanges as well as adaptive radiations of non-forest groups. Unfortunately, the rarity of late Miocene The late Miocene (10.4 to 5 million years ago) was vertebrate deposits in Australia, itself a measure of the marked by the continuing development of icehouse rarity of wet situations conducive to fossilisation, means conditions throughout the continent (McGowran & Li, we have very little information about the biotas of this 1997; Macphail, 1997). Sea levels were dropping, time. The faunal distinctions between the Alcoota temperatures were cooling, rainfall was declining and the assemblage and those of the early Pliocene, however, are more central regions of the continent were drying, almost as profound as those between Australia’s middle although no biotic assemblages known from this interval and late Miocene assemblages and signal a major change can be described as arid and there is no evidence for late in the biota that must have occurred between 6 and 4 Miocene grasslands (Martin, 1990a, 1994, 1998; White, million years ago. 1997). Intense seasonality, begun at the end of the middle Miocene, became widespread (Chen & Barton, 1991; Murray & Megirian, 1992; Murray, 1997). These The global significance of late Miocene changes in conditions would have been very challenging to inland Australia, however, pale in comparison with events biotas in areas of shallow soils, particularly during dry unfolding at the same time in Africa, for there during this seasons. While these conditions were technically not arid, interval humans evolved, and with them the seeds of an they would probably have induced arid-type responses in unparalleled biotic catastrophe for Australia (Vrba et al., the animals of those regions. 1995).

16 Wobbling towards aridity: Pliocene to genera some of which (based on living relatives) indicate Holocene time arid conditions and others moderately moist conditions. But by the late Pliocene, many contain genera that today The Pliocene (5 to 1.6 million years ago; some researchers have species in semi-arid to arid regions. (e.g. Kershaw, 1997b) suggest that the Pliocene/ Pleistocene boundary should be placed at 2.6 million years In terms of flora, much of Australia remained forested ago) began with a surprising climatic shift to a mini- throughout the Pliocene, despite the drying conditions greenhouse event. Ice began to melt in Antarctica and may (Martin, 1998). Drier forests and woodlands characterised have disappeared from areas of West Antarctica between the interior, but wet sclerophyll forests were common in 4.5 and 4 million years ago. The amelioration in peripheral regions and rainforests persisted in areas of the temperatures and increase in rainfall in Australia enabled east, south-east and north-west (Hill, 1992, 1994). a brief resurgence of rainforest particularly in areas of eastern Australia (Martin, 1987). Some Nothofagus The Pleistocene Epoch inflicted extremely rapid, pollens, however, have also been identified from early fluctuating changes on the Australian biota. In contrast to Pliocene deposits in central and northern Western much of the Northern Hemisphere, glacial phases in Australia. Climates in the Bass Strait area were evidently Australia have been characterised mainly by cool, dry more like those of southern Queensland today (Macphail, conditions rather than continental ice sheets. Our 1997). interglacials have been characterised by warmer, wetter conditions. Both glacials and interglacials stress the biota In areas of central Australia, open woodland and perhaps by changing temperature and rainfall regimes. In the last limited grasslands occurred, although the notion of 2.3 million years, there have been more than 20 extensive early Pliocene grasslands has been challenged glacial/interglacial cycles (Bowler, 1990; Chappell, 1991; (Martin, 1990a, 1998). It is doubtful that true grasslands White, 1994; Allan & O’Connell, 1995). Each glacial existed before the late Pliocene. At Lake George near the phase lasts on average 100 000 years. Each interglacial Australian Capital Territory, there was a massive increase (such as the one we are now in) lasts about 10 000 years. in grasses at 3 to 2.5 million years ago (late Pliocene). In The last interglacial before the present one occurred 127 north-western Australia, the same pattern occurred. 000 years ago. Temperature drops of 5 to 10˚C However, in north-eastern Australia, herbfields accompanied transitions from interglacial to glacial (dominated by Asteraceae), rather than grasslands, phases. Low sea levels during glacial phases may have developed during the late Pliocene. A similar change in the enabled early humans to enter the continent because of late Pliocene to early Pleistocene of the south-east may reduced sea gaps between the islands of Wallacia and the indicate the time when the winter rainfall regime began in reduction of the sea gap between Wallacia (e.g. Flores) the south (Williams et al., 1991; Hill, 1994; Tedford, and Australia to about 60 km. 1994). Physiographic signs of aridity developed within the last In terms of faunal assemblages, most early Pliocene 1.2 million years (Chen & Barton, 1991) including the assemblages are the first to show the beginnings of extensive central Australian longitudinal dune fields modernisation (Archer et al., 1994a,b, 1995). They lack which originated about 700 000 years ago. Aridity of the most of the distinctive groups that characterise Miocene kind that characterises modern Australia developed about assemblages but have representatives of most modern 500 000 years ago. More intense arid conditions may have subfamilies and many modern genera including the characterised at least some of Australia’s glacial phases ubiquitous kangaroo genus Macropus. Here, too, are the including the last at 18 000 years ago. Mass extinctions first undoubted grazing species suggestive of dietary may have accompanied these glacial phases, but hard data specialisation on grasses (Figure 1.12, p.36). Some early to support this is scarce. It is even difficult to deduce the Pliocene assemblages, however, such as the Hamilton timing and potential simultaneous nature of extinctions Local Fauna, represent rainforest communities which that accompanied the last glacial phase. retain more of the mid to late Miocene-type groups and fewer modern groups. During the peak of the last glacial (about 18 000 years ago), based on the study of pollens from Lynch’s Crater on Throughout the rest of the Pliocene, vertebrate the Atherton Tableland, most of the montane Wet Tropics assemblages from central Australia show an almost rainforest shifted downslope from its present location, bewildering range of seemingly contradictory climatic possibly to riparian zones in the foothills and lowlands to indicators (Tedford, 1994). Several contain a mix of the east (Winter, 1988). While the montane plant

17 assemblages appear to have reestablished with little increasing in size since the late middle to early late documented loss, shifts of this kind unquestionably took a Miocene. In mammals, these trends to gigantism are terrible toll on animal, and in particular mammal, evident in, for example, Pleistocene kangaroos (e.g. the diversity. Most mammals are less resilient than plants 2.5 metre-tall Procoptodon goliath), wombats (the cow- when faced with habitat contraction. Not surprisingly, sized Phascolonus gigas), possums (the dingo-sized mammal diversity in the modern Wet Tropics, compared Pseudokoala), marsupial lions (the lion-sized Thylacoleo with ‘normal’ diversity in New Guinean rainforests and carnifex) and diprotodontids (the rhinoceros-sized the fossil rainforest assemblages of Riversleigh, is Diprotodon optatum, the largest marsupial that ever lived). impoverished. For example, Riversleigh’s early Miocene Gigantism also affected several non-mammalian groups (20 million years old) faunal assemblages have 44 per cent such as lizards (the 6 to 7 m long, one tonne carnivorous higher family-level diversity of mammals than the whole goanna Megalania prisca). of the modern Wet Tropics (Archer et al., 1997) (Figure 1.13, p.37).

The Pliocene-Pleistocene change to arid conditions was, in terms of evolutionary response time, extremely fast. Figure 1.15: Perhaps as an adaptation to increased Groups that in the long run were not resilient or quick unpredictability of good conditions during the late Pleistocene, some megafaunal species underwent a steep enough to adapt to or hide from this rapid spread of aridity decline in size into the present, the amount of reduction were lost. being proportional to their absolute size. (After Marshall & Curruccini, 1978) The rapid rate of change may also explain why Australia’s desert-adapted animals show many more behavioural than fossil %reduction living morphological specialisations for survival in arid areas, MACROPODIDAE such as burrowing or cave-dwelling, to avoid stressful conditions and nocturnal or crepuscular activity. Rapid environmental change and lack of time may also explain 30-35% the absence of marsupial bats, despite the fact that gliding arboreal possums independently developed in three Megaleia sp. M. rufa different families (pseudocheirids, acrobatids and petaurids) following the middle to late Miocene opening 29-30% of the continent’s closed forests. M. titan M. giganteus Biotically, the most stressful aspect of the Pleistocene conditions in Australia would have been the decline in the 26-27% predicability of resources. This selection pressure led to the evolution in animals of a variety of behavioural and O. cooperi O. robustus reproductive adaptations including long lives (allows longer time to reproduce), eusociality (individuals 15-16% cooperate in caring for the young), polyoestry (ovulating M. siva M. agilis more than once each year enables rapid reproduction following losses and r-strategy reproduction), parthenogenesis (in some lizards; enables reproduction 15% without males when they are hard to find), aestivation W. vishnu W. bicolor (more or less similar to hibernation but occurs during the dry summer months), and omnivory (opportunistic 9-10% feeding). Comparable adaptations have occurred in P. xanthopus P. xanthopus Australian dry country plants (e.g. Beadle, 1981; White, 1986, 1994). DASYURIDAE 16-17% One of the most striking attributes of Australia’s S. laniarius S. harrisii Pleistocene biotas is the predominance of what are called 5-6% megafaunal species (Figure 1.14, p.37). These are giants D. maculatus D. maculatus in lineages whose members have generally been

18 Similar gigantism characterised the animals of most other 1.3.3 Biotic change following the early continents such that the largest elephants, cattle, camels, arrival of humans lemurs, lions, bears and even hominoids (ourselves) evolved at this time. It is possible that one of the reasons First settlement and initial impacts could be the adaptive advantage herbivores gain by being It is not known when humans first arrived in Australia. large if the nutrient quality of vegetation is in decline. Many Aboriginal people believe that their ancestors have Being larger enables them to eat more of the poorer always been here, since the Dreaming. From a (Western) quality foods. Gigantism in carnivores would then be scientific perspective it appears that early humans (Homo explained by the need to deal with larger prey. erectus or H. sapiens erectus) were in Java at least 1.8 Alternatively, a tendency to increase in size with time may million years ago, a short while after erectus populations be something entrained in vertebrate evolutionary are first known in Africa. Archaeological debate over the processes. Although there are also many other hypotheses timing of the first settlement is presently focused on the to explain this phenomenon, no single idea has been differences between carbon dates at almost 40 000 years universally accepted (Murray, 1991). ago and luminescence dates around 60 000 or more years ago (Thorne & Raymond, 1989; Geyh & Schleicher, 1990; The late Pleistocene-Holocene biota has exhibited a Flood, 1990, 1996; Roberts & Jones, 1992; Fankhauser & variety of trends including trophic cascades of extinction Bird, 1993; Horton, 1994a,b; Vrba et al., 1995). One of the (sequences of extinctions which result when loss of one or most difficult aspects of this problem has been the fact that more species leads to the loss of others which depended on 40 000 years is near the reliable limit for most radiocarbon them for survival) (e.g. Flannery, 1990; see 1.3.4 ‘Changes dating techniques. Older dates based on carbon, in the biota from 1788 to the present’ below for a particularly in the older literature, should perhaps be discussion of the role played in these extinctions by regarded as indicating some unknown age greater than humans) and post-Pleistocene dwarfing (Marshall & 40 000 years before the present. Currucini, 1978; Horton 1980) (Figure 1.15, p.18). Although most Pleistocene giants became extinct (more The date of first arrival is just one of the vigorously than 40 species) sometime before about 40 000 years ago, debated issues surrounding Aboriginal interactions with a few, such as Red Kangaroos, Grey Kangaroos and Euros, their environment (Pyne, 1991; Horton, 1994a,b; Kohen, survived into the Holocene, albeit as dwarfed forms. 1995). Researchers from various disciplines have to Dwarfing seems to have affected larger species (such as consider both social and ecological processes that varied the Eastern Grey Kangaroo, Macropus giganteus) more in space and time; we should be wary of simplistic than it did smaller species (such as the Swamp Wallaby, summaries of these interactions. Archaeologists examine Wallabia bicolor). A hypothesis put forward to explain the material remains of human activity including stone dwarfing suggests that whereas gigantism was an artefacts, bones, shells, charcoal from hearths and rock art. evolutionary adaptive response to a decline in the nutrient Palaeoecological evidence includes plant and animal value of plant food, dwarfing may have been an remains that are interpreted as changing in response to appropriate response to increasing unpredicability in the climatic and other natural factors, but which may also length of good seasons. Large animals require a longer record a signature of human activity. The prehistoric period of time in which to successfully raise young. If record is often interpreted by comparison with good seasons were becoming increasingly unpredictable ethnographic descriptions of Aboriginal activity in the (or even predictably shorter), dwarfing may well have years following European contact. become more important for survival than gigantism. Speculation and argument about the reasons for both People have had an impact on the Australian environment trends continue (Main, 1978; Murray, 1991). since the first footsteps, through the formation of what are now archaeological sites and through more visible means The Holocene, the Epoch covered by the last 10 000 years, of marking the landscape such as rock art. However, the is probably little more than one of the many interglacial question of impacts has always focused on two more phases of the Pleistocene. It differs in only two ways: we biotic debates: the extent to which people changed the live in this one; and we may ultimately be responsible for vegetation through burning; and their role in the extinction extending it beyond its natural time and even exaggerating of the megafauna. Within these broad debates, the its attributes by artificially enhancing the greenhouse following issues are the subject of particular research and effect. discussion.

19 • The extent to which human use of fire increased evidence in Australia (Horton, 1980; Flannery, 1994) the pyrophilic (fire-loving) nature of Australia’s that humans had massive kill sites of the kind that biota (although some vegetation exhibited pyrophilic have been documented in North America (e.g. Head- tendencies as early as 10 million years ago). For Smashed-In Buffalo Jump Site in Alberta, Canada; example, the Lake George pollen record in New Reid, 1992). Others (e.g. Head, 1995) argue that South Wales is suggested to show expansion of extensive periods of overlap between humans and Eucalyptus at the expense of Casuarina as the forest megafauna are evidence that humans did not have an dominant around 120 000 years ago, in association instantaneous devastating effect on the biota. One site with charcoal levels unprecedented in the last 300 where new techniques are revealing evidence of 000 years (Singh & Geissler, 1985). people butchering megafauna is Cuddie Springs (Figure 1.16, p.38), in western New South Wales • The possibility that burning carried out by (Dodson et al., 1993). Initial dating of the site humans initiated significant declines in the extent suggests a period of coexistence of humans and of rainforest (although most of the declines in megafauna which may not support the hypothesis of Australia’s rainforests long predated the arrival of rapid overkill, at least in that area. Of course, human humans). In north-eastern Queensland, Lynch’s predation could have had a major impact without Crater is suggested to show the demise of dry being focused on adults of megafaunal species. Egg rainforest dominated by Araucaria with sclerophyll predation on dromornithids and the gigantic varanid expansion and high charcoal levels around 38 000 lizards as well as selective predation on juvenile years ago (Kershaw, 1985). An offshore core in the megafaunal mammals could have had a significant same region (ODP820) is suggested to show a similar impact on their survival. process about 140 000 years ago (Kershaw et al., 1993). In both the Lake George and Queensland • The possibility that early humans caused the cases, the researchers (Singh & Geissler, 1985; extinction of megafaunal species by critically Kershaw, 1994; Kershaw et al., 1994) have argued altering their habitat (although unambiguous that climatic change alone is insufficient as an evidence for this is lacking). It is possible that explanation. constant burning caused contractions in the extent of pre-human forest but, as noted above, the major • The possibility that some of Australia’s grasslands contraction of Australia’s rainforests long preceded (including Tasmanian buttongrass plains) are the arrival of humans (Horton, 1980; Murray, 1991; anthropogenic (created by humans) because of the Hill, 1994; Archer et al., 1995). Some researchers constant use of fire. The same argument has been have argued that climate change was at least as used to explain many of the grasslands found in New important as human activities in causing megafaunal Guinea (Pyne, 1991; Hope, 1994; Fensham, 1997). It extinctions (e.g. see discussions in Dodson, 1989). is perhaps more likely that a combination of climatic Nevertheless, there is a widespread conviction that as well as human factors contributed to initiating as early humans in Australia must have had a profound well as maintaining these changes. effect on environments through their regular use of fire and other land-use practices (e.g. Jones, 1968; • The possibility that early humans hunted Horton, 1994; Dodson, 1994). However, not megafaunal species into extinction (but there is everyone agrees about the nature of Australia’s pre- little evidence for direct predation, let alone European habitats. For example, whereas Flannery ‘overkills’). Flannery (1994) and several researchers (1994) suggests large areas of coastal New South before such as Merrilees (1968) suggest that humans Wales had been maintained by Aborigines as non- entering Australia encountered a naive biota, one forested grasslands, Benson & Redpath (1998) inexperienced with the ways and dangers of humans. suggest that most of these areas were forested when Flannery argues that this enabled Australia’s early Europeans arrived. humans to have a devastating direct impact on the continent’s megafauna such that a major extinction • The possibility that changes in the biota that event followed hard on the heels of human arrival. occurred while humans were here were several Human predation could have been particularly stage events in poorly understood long-term cycles significant during times of drought when both (was it a stable biota before humans arrived humans and megafaunal species were drawn together [unlikely] or did the first humans in Australia around shrinking water holes. However, there is no encounter a biota that was already in the process of

20 decline?). Knowledge about long-term cycles in environment? How does this compare with the later parts Australian ecosystems is restrained by the limited of prehistory when population and intensity of land use are time we have had to make direct observations. argued to have increased? Understanding of this kind may only come when the fossil record, ice cores, coral reef cores and For example, changes in the archaeological record for the sedimentary records spanning appropriately long last 4 000 to 5 000 years have prompted debate about the periods of time are better known (Flannery, 1990; degree of stability and change in Aboriginal societies of Dodson, 1989; Archer et al., 1992). the time (Horton, 1994a,b). Perhaps at this time there was increased interaction with Austronesian peoples to the Human responses to environmental change north? New and smaller types of stone tools are found across the continent. As well, there is greater The presently most widely accepted period of likely regionalisation and specialisation of tool types. In many colonisation (40 000 to 60 000 years ago) falls within a areas, there are increased numbers of archaeological sites time of wetter conditions across much of southern and and increased rates of deposition (although differential eastern Australia. Abundant freshwater lakes and well- preservation of evidence may play a role in this apparent watered river corridors would have helped the rapid difference, with older sites running increasingly higher colonisation of the continent. This is consistent with the risks of being destroyed). This has led to considerable archaeological evidence. debate about whether or not there were dramatic population increases during this recent period. Other In terms of the conditions for human occupation, the last technological changes include evidence of use of a wider glacial maximum, peaking between 25 000 to 17 000 range of resources, such as the processing of toxic cycads years ago, was the most hostile period of the last 100 000 and the construction of fish traps and weirs. These may years. Conditions, at least in the south, were cold, dry and well have occurred earlier but there is no known evidence windy. Large areas of the continental shelf were exposed for this. This is also the time when the dingo was as the sea dropped to its lowest levels. The arid centre introduced, leading to the hypothesis that its arrival led to expanded and forests retreated to moister coastal refugia. the extinction of the thylacine on the mainland (Figure Human settlement patterns must have changed also. Some 1.17, p.38) and its restriction to Tasmania, where the dingo arid areas would have been abandoned completely while was absent (Archer, 1974). people congregated around the remaining resources. In other parts of the continent, drier conditions offered new opportunities. For example, in south-western Tasmania an 1.3.4 Changes in the biota from 1788 to the active hunting economy was practised in the more open present vegetation. Despite the rigours and losses of the Pleistocene, modern Australia is still one of the world’s biologically most After about 15 000 years ago, temperature and rainfall diverse continents – a global diversity ‘hotspot’ as it has began to increase and sea levels rose. Forests expanded sometimes been described. With ecosystems ranging from from their glacial refugia. The pace of change varied the World Heritage Wet Tropics rainforests (the only considerably but in some situations would have been tropical rainforest in the so-called developed world) to the discernible within human lifetimes. The Holocene (the last vast inland deserts, Australian species diversity is 10 000 years), a milder interglacial phase of the staggeringly high particularly considering that some Quaternary Period, has generally been characterised by systematists suggest we are aware of less than half the conditions similar to those of the present. However, even number of invertebrates that are unique to this continent. in this relatively short period there were climatic fluctuations that significantly affected the resources available to hunter-gatherers (Chappell et al., 1995). Unfortunately, the rate of extinction of Australia’s animals since European invasion of the continent is unprecedented Changing impacts over time in the world. As an example, since 1788 at least 17 species of vertebrates have become extinct (two frogs, one bird, Discussion of human impacts on biota is not confined to seven marsupials and seven native rodents) (Flannery, questions relating to initial settlement (Thomson et al., 1990; Beale & Fray, 1990; Lunney et al., 1994; Lunney & 1987; Horton, 1994a,b; Hope, 1994; Kohen, 1995; Dawson, 1995; Strahan, 1995; Anon., 1997). Considering Kershaw, 1995). Are impacts likely to have been greatest regional extinctions, 16 marsupials present in the state of at the time of first colonisation of different ecosystems, New South Wales have disappeared since the time of followed by the coevolution of humans and their new settlement (ibid). Considering habitats within regions, 43

21 per cent of the marsupials present in the open plains of The third and most damaging factor has been agriculture New South Wales at the time of settlement are now gone (Beale & Fray, 1990; Anon., 1991a, Anon., 1997; Archer (ibid). Although less severe losses have occurred in some et al., 1997; White, 1997). At least half of the continent’s other habitats, such as sclerophyll forest, the overall native forests have been destroyed since 1788, and these decline, and most particularly its rate, is catastrophic. Not continue to be cleared with government support in areas since the impact of the meteor at the end of the Cretaceous such as Queensland (SoE Advisory Council (eds) 1996). have extinction rates been this high. Replacement of complex, high-diversity ecosystems with monocultures such as pastures (e.g. trifoliates, pampas While it is certainly true that human invasions of other grass, phalaris and so on), cattle and sheep, have occurred continents (e.g. Europe and Eurasia in the latest Pliocene; on vast scales across the continent, albeit originally North America and South America in the late Pleistocene) encouraged by now-discredited government policies of the had devastating environmental effects, most of these day. Over-use of fertiliser has acidified or changed many catastrophes were over before the European-induced crisis soils. Pollutants of many kinds including fertilisers have that struck Australia began. led to eutrophication (smothering by plant life) of inland waterways and blooms of toxic blue-green algae. Exposed The reasons for this unfolding disaster in Australia are surfaces constantly disturbed by herds of hard-hoofed probably complex but several factors can be identified as ungulates loose their topsoil to wind and water. With tree- major contributors. Firstly, Europeans have exterminated felling and irrigation has come the massive destruction of some species. Examples include extermination of the ecosystems through salination as well as degradation of thylacine (Thylacinus cynocephalus) and the Toolache inland waterways. Over-grazing has led to increased soil wallaby (Macropus greyi) (Figure 1.18, p.39). Shooting erosion and reduced the carrying capacity of the land for koalas (Phascolarctos cinereus) in South Australia native as well as introduced herbivores. In some situations, similarly led to their extinction in that state, although they it has led to the destabilising of dunefields which have are reasonably secure elsewhere and have been begun to consume adjoining lands (Figure 1.19, p.39). reintroduced to South Australia, where in some places Introduced weed species have spread over much of the such as Kangaroo Island, their populations are too large to continent reducing the productive capacity of the land. be supported by the resources of the area. In contrast, the Introduced animals such as foxes, cats, dogs, goats, kangaroo and crocodile industries, which are managed as rabbits, pigs, deer, European carp and cane toads have led strictly sustainable businesses, have led to no decline in to massive range contractions and extinctions of native the status of these species. On the contrary, the existence animals. With estimates of unredressed land degradation of these industries, supervised by state bodies which costs ranging between $2 to $5 billion per year (Beale & regularly monitor changes in the sizes of populations, Fray, 1990; Anon., 1997), agriculture is way in front as the guarantees the survival of these species. continent’s worst cause of habitat degradation and species loss (ibid; Anon., 1991a,b,c). Secondly, there are unfolding disasters that followed the deliberate introduction of alien species. Because most of The fourth factor is mining. Although mining has caused the other inhabited continents had cats, dogs, foxes, severe local environmental damage in the past, no more rabbits, ungulates and other placental mammal groups than 0.02 per cent of Australia’s surface has been mined. before humans introduced these, the total impact on the But the halo effect of damage that surrounds some mines indigenous biotas of those lands was probably not as great (e.g. air and water pollution, access tracks allowing as it was in Australia. Although dingoes were introduced invasion of feral plants and animals as well as increased to Australia about 4 000 years ago, and it has been argued damage resulting from associated human activities) can that cats were possibly introduced hundreds of years ago increase the amount of land affected by hundreds of by sailors from south-eastern Asia, there is no good kilometres. However, on balance, mining is a minor cause evidence that any hoofed animals were here before the of habitat damage (Anon., 1991c) and, given strict arrival of Europeans. The rapid spread of these and dozens controls and rigorous management, native species can of other environmental pests such as rabbits, cane toads even be helped by mining, such as occurs on Barrow and European carp, has been well-documented. Despite Island, where conservation programs and mine site two hundred years of such disasters, Australians are still rehabilitation both focus on the well-being of the native permitting potentially noxious species into the country biota (White, 1997). such as ostriches, llamas, ‘Bengal cats’ and exotic pasture plants. Lessons about the catastrophes caused by The fifth factor is the curious phenomenon of trophic introduced creatures seem to be hard to learn. cascades (Flannery, 1990, 1994). When the late

22 Pleistocene extinction of most of Australia’s megafaunal kinds of Thylacines present in Australia’s rainforests herbivores occurred sometime before 40 000 years ago, because that number are present as distinctly different the role they played in harvesting plants and creating a fossil species in rocks of that age at Riversleigh, north- patchwork of regenerating habitats was threatened. In western Queensland. But by 8 million years ago, that turn, this would have threatened the well-being of many number had declined to two species and by 5 million years small animals that required regenerating rather than ago, it had declined to one. By about 10 000 years ago, the climax habitats for survival. Without interference, they too Thylacine had become extinct in New Guinea (for reasons would have followed the megafauna into extinction. unknown) and by 4 000 years ago it had become extinct on However, because contemporary Aborigines were the Australian mainland (Archer, 1974; Dixon, 1989), probably accustomed to patch-burning areas of bush, these probably as a consequence of competition with the would have maintained the patchwork of regenerating introduced dingo (which was never introduced to habitats required by many of the smaller animals to Tasmania because at the time it was isolated by water). survive. When Europeans arrived with sheep and cattle, The dingo was also in New Guinea and may have been they interfered with the Aborigines’ practice of patch- involved in the extinction of the thylacine from that island. burning. As a consequence, the high rates of extinction Had the precarious state of the declining Tasmanian that have characterised the last 200 years may in effect be thylacines been known to the first Europeans who settled a renewal of the cascade of extinctions that, without Aboriginal patch-burning, would have been completed Tasmania, perhaps they would not have been so quick to thousands of years ago. Concern about this relationship pull out the trap and gun. has led to renewed interest in the importance of patch- burning habitats to maintain higher biodiversity. Similar long-term records are now available for most families of Australian mammals (Archer et al., 1992). 1.3.5 Lessons from the past about change in Considering representative examples, lineages that appear lineages and long-term viability of to be in general decline and hence perhaps more protected areas vulnerable to extinction than others include platypuses, mountain pygmy-possums, green ringtail possums, orange Studying Australia’s unique fossil record can provide horseshoe bats and wombats. Examples of lineages that information about the nature of long-term change in appear to be ‘holding their own’ include brushtail lineages that have surviving representatives (Archer et al., possums, striped possums, feather-tail possums and ghost 1992, 1997). Common perception is that two sorts of bats. Examples of lineages that appear to be on the rise information are required about a species to assess its and, in terms of their long-term records, doing well conservation status: its present situation (pollution threats, include cuscuses, Pseudocheirulus ringtail possums, genetic health and so on); and changes in its distribution dasyurids, peramelid bandicoots, petaurid possums, since European settlement. While these are certainly very rodents, fruit bats and macropodid kangaroos. important, knowledge about long-term change in lineages, which can only come from study of the fossil record, is Another, bigger conservation issue that derives in part also relevant. With increasing understanding about the from knowledge about prehistory concerns the viability of ‘deep’ history of the families of Australia’s living Australia’s (and for that matter the world’s) protected vertebrates comes the possibility of clarifying other issues relevant to their conservation. places – our reserve system. Considering that the decline in rainforest in Australia is correlated with a decline in 44 per cent of Australia’s family-level diversity over the last For example, depending on the completeness of the fossil record, it can demonstrate whether a living animal 20 million years (Archer et al., 1994a), we need to represents a lineage in decline, on the rise or in a steady consider the minimum viable size for reserves on a long- state in terms of diversity and geographic distribution. term basis. For long-term viability, we need to know how Several examples will make the point (Archer, 1997). The big reserves must be to enable long-term extinctions to be recently exterminated thylacine (Thylacinus offset by the origin of new species. While simply cynocephalus), when first encountered by Europeans in considering the size of an area may underestimate its Tasmania, was presumed to be a robust predator that had ecological complexity (e.g. high mountains or deep to be controlled to enable sheep to be established. canyons can provide in a small area unique environments Persecution led to a shockingly rapid decline into that would be absent in a topographically less diverse but extinction by the 1930s. We now know that between 25 larger area), it is on average the best single correlate of and 20 million years ago, there were at least five different overall biodiversity.

23 While it is possible reserves of the kind that Australia has of Australia’s major habitat types including wet forests, now can keep, in the long run, lineages of plants and some sclerophyll forests and woodlands, grasslands, deserts and animals, there is palaeontological evidence that suggests wetlands) should occur. While securing this much of the that all of Australia’s reserves are too small to ensure the drier habitats is possible, it is unlikely that 300 000 km2 of long-term viability of mammals (Archer et al., 1997). This remaining wet forest could be identified or even evidence comes from consideration of the size of the regenerated. As a consequence, for some habitat types world’s islands that have managed to keep lineages of such as this, most if not all existing remnants should be mammals on a long-term basis. In general, it seems likely targeted for conservation. Most of the land required for that areas of land smaller than about 300 000 km2 may be long-term viability of natural resources is currently too small. For example, New Caledonia, which is 18 650 dedicated to the single purpose of agriculture involving km2, had and lost a range of strange reptiles and birds and non-Australian species. Multiple use of a small percentage possibly even rhinoceroses (Flannery, 1994). Similarly, of this land, for sustainable agriculture, conservation and New Zealand, at about 267 311 km2, probably had natural resource utilisation, would provide the amount of monotremes (which were present in South America, healed land required for long-term viable conservation as Antarctica and Australia long before New Zealand broke well as sustainable agriculture. Linking restored areas away from Gondwana) but now has no native mammals through the use of natural vegetation corridors (e.g. except for several bats. In contrast, Borneo (746 308 km2), Saunders et al., 1987; Bennett et al., 1995) would further New Guinea (807 396 km2) and Madagascar (587 042 help to offset the problems of shifting environmental km2) clearly have had long-term viability. The largest conditions and local environmental disasters. These larger reserve in Australia that holds unique mammal lineages is areas, enabling long-term conservation of Australia’s Kakadu, and that is only 19 757 km2. The whole of the Wet native biotas, should be dedicated to multiple use: Tropics, the last stand for many of Australia’s unique sustainable agriculture, ecotourism and conservation. rainforest mammals, is now only 8 990 km2. Industries that can sustainably harvest natural (rather than introduced) resources such as kangaroos, emus and One of the most important reasons why small reserves crocodiles should be encouraged (e.g. Grigg, 1995). lack long-term viability for mammals is their greater Growth should also be encouraged in ecotourism and susceptibility to environmental disasters. Consider that the environmentally safe mining. All programs of land use Black Friday bushfire of 1939 destroyed in one hit 20 000 reform should also have as a major goal the conservation km2 of Victorian bushland, an area the size of Kakadu of, and benefit to, graziers and the rural communities. National Park, our largest faunal reserve. Similarly, in the Profits from the kangaroo industry and ecotourism, for Oligocene, much of New Zealand was submerged by example, must flow back to graziers if land-use reform is ocean water. Considering the future of Australia’s to succeed. reserves, apart from the fact that most may well be too small for the long-term viability of mammal lineages, The prophecy from our continent’s ancient record is clear; what will happen to them even in the short term if changes what we do about it is up to us. Ours is the last generation in global climates alter the microclimates required for that will have the chance to head off what otherwise survival by ecosystems in fixed reserves? Because most promises to be a biological catastrophe far greater than reserves by their nature are islands in a sea of alienated any that has gone before. While it is important to take this land dedicated to agriculture, their ecosystems are unable threat seriously, it is equally important to realise that it is to shift laterally as they would have to do to track the entirely within our power to implement sustainable land shifting climatic conditions. While Australians aware of use practices. In the process we can guarantee a viable the past must face these problems, we are not the only future for all Australians from people to proteaceans and country in this situation. For example, in the United States, parrots. Yellowstone National Park is 8 983 km2, Everglades National Park 5 660 km2 and Rocky Mountain National Park 1 080km2, all far below the size for long-term viability of mammals.

It has been suggested by some (e.g. Archer et al., 1997; Lunney et al., 1997) that ecologically and economically viable solutions to these problems should involve the following. Environmental recovery of about 20 per cent of Australia’s land area (approximately 300 000 km2 for each

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32 Figure 1.1: The break-up of Gondwana (Source: Bureau of Mineral Resources, Geology and Geophysics, as cited in ABS Yearbook Australia, 1988)

Figure 1.4: The very strange horned turtle known as Meiolania platyceps was discovered in Pleistocene sediments on Lord Howe Island. Meiolaniids, which are all extinct, also occurred in Australia, Antarctica, South America and Madagascar, all parts of ancient Gondwana. (Photo courtesy Australian Museum)

33 Figure 1.5: In the early Cretaceous, Australia was still attached to Antarctica but a vast shallow inland sea divided the continent up into a series of large islands or peninsulas. (After White 1994)

Figure 1.6: Australia’s oldest-known snakes, frogs, songbirds, marsupials and bats have come from this early Eocene deposit at Murgon, southeastern Queensland. (Photo by S. Williams)

34 Figure 1.9: The late Oligocene sediments of the Tirari Desert in northern South Australia have produced many interesting creatures including archaic koalas, rodent-like possums and even toothed platypuses. (Photo by M. Archer)

Figure 1.10: The early Miocene rainforest communities of the Riversleigh World Heritage area in northwestern Queensland were very diverse. Alongside familiar types like ancestral koalas and proto- emus were stranger creatures like ‘Thingodonta’ (Yalkaparidon; bottom centre), marsupial lions (lower right) and flesh-eating kangaroos (left centre, savaging a bird). (From Archer et al. 1994; Courtesy Reed Books)

35 Figure 1.11: Fossils of late Miocene creatures from Australia, including bones of the biggest bird that ever lived (Dromornis), are best known from Alcoota in the southern Northern Territory. By this time climates were drying out and the great inland forests had largely disappeared. (Photo by M. Archer)

Figure 1.12: By early Pliocene time, the lush forests of the Riversleigh area and much of Australia in general had given way to open forests, woodlands and some grasslands. By this time, the first grazing kangaroos had evolved and the first rodents had invaded Australia. (From Archer et al. 1994; Courtesy Reed Books)

36 Figure 1.13: Many more mammal families lived in the 20 million-year-old rainforests of Riversleigh, northwestern Queensland than survive in the Wet Tropics rainforests of northeastern Queensland. (From Archer et al. 1994; Courtesy Reed Books)

Figure 1.14: Prior to 40,000 years ago, Australia, like all other continents except Antarctica, supported very large megafaunal mammals most of which have since become extinct. What caused these extinctions is highly controversial. (After Murray, 1984)

37 Figure 1.16: Although most evidence for interaction of early humans and extinct megafauna in Australia has been challenged, investigations here at Cuddie Springs appear to provide unambiguous evidence that Aborigines made use of megafaunal species. (Photo courtesy J. Field)

Figure 1.17: The mainland thylacine of Australia. This mummified carcase was found in a cave on the Nullarbor Plain. It lived about 4 to 5,000 years ago, just prior to introduction of the Dingo. (Photo M. Archer)

38 Figure 1.18: By 1927, Europeans, encouraged by government bounties, exterminated the Toolache Wallaby because it was thought to compete with introduced stock. Many similar extinctions have occurred since 1788. (From Gould, 1863)

Figure 1.19: Destabilised dunes that destroyed the town of Eucla. Much of Australia’s surface has been damaged since arrival of Europeans, with 2 to 5 billion dollars of land degradation still occurring each year. There are alternatives. (Photo M. Archer)

39 Figure 1.20: The ages of the earth and key biological 'milestones' with a focus on what happened in Australia.

Time Intervals Notable Events for Australia

Holocene Europeans arrive by 1606 10,000 to now Dingoes introduced 5 to 4 ka Mass extinctions about 40 ka Pleistocene Humans arrive 100 to 60 ka 1.6 my to 10,000 First dunes & desert features @ 1mya Quarternary First arid habitats develop Pliocene Grasslands begin to develop 5 to 1.6 my First grazing mammals & Australian rodents Early Pliocene greenhouse event Late Miocene 10.4 to 5 my Dry, seasonal climates spread by 6 mya Middle Miocene

Tertiary Decline of widespread rainforests 16.3 to 10.4 my Start of major icehouse event @ 15 mya Miocene

Cainozoic Early Miocene Very diverse fossil assemblages from Riversleigh, Queensland 23.3 to 16.3 my Start of major greenhouse event @ 23 mya Oligocene Diverse fossil vertebrate communities from SA & Queensland @ 25 to 23 mya 38 to 23.3 my Eocene Final separation of Australia from Antarctica 45 to 38 mya 55 to 38 my Oldest Australian marsupials, bats & world's oldest songbirds @ 55 mya from Murgon, Queensland Paleocene 65 to 55 my Asteroid & mass extinctions @ 65 mya Late Cretaceous 97 to 65 my Dinosaur stampede trackway, Winton Qld Australia/Antarctica rifting starts c. 100 mya Early Cretaceous

Phanerozoic Possibly largest dinosaurs in the world e.g., tracks at Broome, W.A. @ 100 myo 146 to 97 my First monotremes @ 110 mya from Lightning Ridge, New South Wales Cretaceous Australian polar dinosaurs @ 120 mya Jurassic First undoubted birds (Eu.) by 150 mya

Mesozoic 208 to 146 my Southern supercontinent of Gondwana begins to break apart Triassic First mammals (N.A.) & first dinosaurs (S.A.) by about 230 mya 245 to 208 my Mammal-like reptiles diverse Major extinction event @ 245 mya Permian 290 to 245 my All continents joined as Pangaea Carboniferous Continental glaciation world-wide Widespread 'coal' forests (clubmosses etc) 360 to 290 my First reptiles @ 330 mya (N.A. & Eu.) Devonian 410 to 360 my First amphibians, e.g., tracks from Victoria possibly 400 myo Abundant and diverse fish all over the world and in particular Australia Silurian First land plants & animals, e.g., scorpian tracks from W.A. @ 420 mya

Paleozoic 440 to 410 my Ordovician 505 to 440 my First fish-like animals, e.g., from the N.T. @ 470 mya Cambrian First chordates @ 530 mya (N.A.) 544 to 505 my Vendian 650 to 544 my Diverse, strange animals @ 570 mya e.g., at Ediacara, S.A.

Proterozoic Evolution of first animals 1 bya to 600 mya 2.5 by to 544 my Oxygen-rich atmosphere 2.3 to 1.8 bya Archaean 3.8 to 2.5 by Oldest-known fossils, e.g., 3.5 byo prokaryotes from North Pole, W.A. Precambrian Hadean 4.5 to 3.8 by Formation of the Earth about 4.5 bya

ka: thousand years ago mya: million years ago byo: billion years old N.T.: Northern Territory my: million years myo: million years old Eu.: Europe S.A.: South Australia

KEY by: billion years bya: billion years ago N.A.: North America W.A.: Western Australia

40 PART 2 chart is that it unveils the complexity, interactiveness and variability of forces affecting environmental quality and its maintenance. The rows of the chart are time slices 2 From the first fleet to the based on key periods in Australia’s economic history and millennium patterns of environmental change.

2.1 Introduction For our purposes in this paper, ‘environment’ means surroundings. These include both ‘natural’ and ‘built’ The cultural ‘toolkit’ which European settlers brought to elements together with other aspects of our cultural Australia in 1788, and which influenced environmental heritage such as paintings, literature, values and modes of management in the new colonies, had been developed over behaviour. These latter influences are critical determinants a very long period in European environments which were of the way we manage our environment. They develop profoundly different to those in Australia. The process of gradually in close association with our natural adjustment to the new environments, which continues to surroundings. They are dynamic – evolving over time and this day, has been slow and painful, and has had profound under the influence of other cultures, people’s change of impacts on both the natural and cultural environments, place, and changing societal values. including the economy of the original inhabitants. The cultural background of the original inhabitants was much 2.2 Before 1788 more attuned to Australian environments because of the long period it had to adjust and develop. We cannot now 2.2.1 Economy, population and settlement emulate the much lower populations and the low-impact technology that sustained patterns of living for at least Immediately before European colonisation, Aboriginal 40 000 to 60 000 years. But we can perhaps learn the people interacted with the full range of different lesson that our social regulation of resource use must be ecosystems across the continent. It is estimated that there attuned to a variable environment of low productivity. were at least 750 000 people in Australia, although the total may have been much higher (Butlin, 1983). Some Apart from ecosystem differences, natural hazards 250 language groups have been identified. Population affecting Australian environments also contrast with those density showed a general relationship to rainfall and water in Europe. Non-Aboriginal Australians are only now supply and thus to the availability and reliability of accepting that natural hazards such as drought, bushfires, resources: lowest in the arid regions and highest around floods and cyclones are regular features rather than the coast and in riverine areas. Kinship and trading exceptional states of the environment. Failure to do so to networks linked people over very large distances, but there date has often intensified our impact on the environment was no overarching political structure. There was no urban (e.g. grazing stock levels in the context of drought and settlement (Mulvaney & White, 1987). building in bushfire-prone areas). Both continuity and diversity in economic activity need to Central to an understanding of interrelationships between be emphasised. The label ‘hunting and gathering’ is people and the Australian environment is to see these links usually applied to societies whose food procurement is as the outcomes of the production, for local and carried out in small groups (30 to 50 people) and who are international consumption, of goods and services. dependent on what the environment provides rather than Productive and consumptive activities have changed in transforming it. Hunting and gathering economies are form and intensity over the period of human settlement. As usually contrasted with agricultural ones which transform outcomes, the types, locations and significance of the environment on a large scale. Such definitions often environmental transformations have shifted over time. As understate the complexity of resource use in small-scale impacts varied so, in turn, have the forms and levels of societies, where imbalances in resource supply and community concern about those impacts. In a broad, demand are usually addressed by social means. These schematic form, Chart 2.1 sketches the interaction, over include population mobility and flexibility, and social territory and time, of economy and technology, population regulation of resource use, all of which are dependent on and settlement, environmental change and political detailed and timely knowledge of the environments and responses to the impacts of production and consumption resources of a particular tract of country. Social links were on the environment. The structure and detail of the chart, often strongest in areas where scarce or unpredictable like any history, are modifiable, according to the level of resources required an insurance policy in the form of knowledge and values of readers. The advantage of the reciprocal rights with neighbours. This was particularly

41 for country’ y (recreation and manry continues ovide basis to life and identity ovide still seen as ‘resource or pest’ by most lopment of ‘wise use’ public policy reflected in art, literature and ‘Bush ballads’ Australian continuing accommodation to the by non-Aboriginals environment Aboriginal inhabitants with Australian landscapes Aboriginal inhabitants with • 1938 NSW soil conservation service established • 1938 NSW soil conservation nd concern limited to governing • Environmental tion Australian landscape - • European perception of on. societies (1920s/30s) push for • Bushwalking wasteful of nature/resources by Europeans • Utilitarian view rn Australia ‘carrying capacity’ als. Variableals. a responsibility to continue actions People have gimes impacts human Australia’s - limits to Taylor • Griffith ion spreads and • ‘Populate or perish’Australia’s ethos - need to fill n pastoral zone role in public service key • Science gains n and soil erosion enterprise resource exploitation • Private d - impact on intrinsically - not protected valued controls prickly pear from early C20 although protection legislation Cactoblastis through contact with invaders and dispossessionthrough contact with invaders fauna interest in curious native • Elite scientific • Social impacts on Aboriginal populations• Social impacts on Architecture/landscaping - mimics Britain • iron and steel farming Selection Acts Selection farming settlements concentrated in station camps andmissions systems start in 1880s • Sewerage - public health concerns • Urban pollution grows and flora in reserves fauna interest in nature • Popular scientific Aboriginal people • Continuing dispossession of empathy of non- • Late 19th century - growing • Growth of specialised industrial cities based on• Growth Appreciation of desert landscapes through art - • • Aborigines employed in pastoral industry - someAborigines employed • around turn of century • From 1890s scientists call for protection of native Technology Settlement Cultural Impacts Cultural Ethos wool, seal, whale products, timber in • Settlement nuclei established - port cities a supplies in coastal towns • Pollution of water unprocessed form pastoral settlement by landed • Extensive settlements larger between forest-water classes. Links drawn adjunct to simple material culture Expansion of sugar cane plantation developmentExpansion of sugar million. Fuelled by strong assisted British in northe vegetation on fire-sensitive farms commencedfarms domestic demand • Reinforcement of metropolitan dominance and • agriculture areas, especially Murray - Few • Pressure on land for economic survival. of natural areas preservation and trading networks were extensiveand trading networks areas, coasts, eg riverine ecosystems outcomes in different Ancestral Beings through ‘caring of economy, creating demand for goods andAustralia in capital for investment providing • Reinforcement of colonial capitals as port cities Australia (and NZ, Canada) • Decimation of small mammals i fauna native and learned societies • Scientific 1890s exploration, pastoralism and smallholder by drought - exacerbated • Major land degradation for public amenit movement • Parks • First export boom:• First export 1851 of whales, exploitation • Over seals in south-east • Exploitation ethos • Capital from UK labour • Convict squattocracyAboriginal populations • Resource stress for conservation • Severe economic depression in 1930s• Severe Murrumbidgee area and north Queensland resources for rehabilitation wilderness) • Growth in heavy manufacturing to support manufacturing in heavy • Growth in irrigation and plantation population growth by depressi worsened • Land degradation • Labour shedding through capital substitution on immigration in the 1920s continues fauna killing of native Widespread • • Fauna • Most resource use locally based but kinship • Most resource use locally based but of resource use social regulation • Complex - highest in resource-rich • Population variable economic and spiritual go achieve • Gold rushes: 1850s - 1870s of British expansion by massive driven • Growth of surplus British population to • Redistribution economic depression and drought in• Severe species introduce exotic • Many of settlement frontier throughTesting • 1891 established from 1879 • National Parks • Deve • Introduction and spread of rabbits as resource or pest not species viewed • Native to1850 • Mercantilist - Colonial development basic needs of local population of European population to 403 000 in • Growth Aboriginal people - uncontrolled and exploitation • Forest • Start of dispossession on pastoral properties alien, ugly, value low 1788 of economic capacity to supply • Development Aboriginal population decline • Severe and land degrada • Ecosystem modification 1914 • Continued reliance on pastoral and agriculturalAboriginal population more stable, • slow • Land clearance and land degradat to and welfare for economic growth exports recovery, low life expectancy - salinity problems evident intensifies Yeo ‘empty spaces’. WW2 established • Nuclei of irrigated farming • European population rises from 5 million to 6.5 re Aboriginal burning of • Removal Period Economy & & Population & Environmental & Environmental Pre 1788 societies • Hunter-gatherer • Continent completely occupied to and ceremony • Landscape curated by fire • Links to land pr 1850to1914 exports, of pastoral and farming • Growth basedAboriginal population declines by 1890s to • in railways, on technological development and shipping ports 60 000 pollutio localised water • Severe • European population reaches almost 4 million by forest clearingWidespread • in goldfields • ‘Acclimatisation’ societies • ‘Yeomanry’ Chart 2.1: time over Australia in Humans and the environment

42 flicts between biodiversity and pollution control reness of environmental issues reness of environmental ional Parks sts formed (from 1950s) l avenues for public participation leads to l avenues lm flora conservation now primary goal in now flora conservation lian Conservation Foundation formed Foundation lian Conservation becomes an issue * bureaucracies * environmental impact * environmental * bureaucracies Act 1975 Act 1974 • World Heritage Convention (1974) Heritage Convention World • Commonwealth: Act 1975 Australian Heritage Commission • Act 1975 • Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Conservation Wildlife and • National Parks Protection (Impact of Proposals) • Environmental • Green Bans 1970 an-up a interests and conservation development Service - grows • Concern for indigenous fauna/flora emical air and awareness in environmental • Rapid growth ks estate conference on the environment World • 1972 First articularly on the concern institutionalised in: • Environmental and spread to further ‘pristine’ areas - numerousconflicts with conservationists in non-Aboriginal culture heritage emerges • State vs Commonwealth control of environment • Localised impacts from mining industry continueThrough 1970s pride in natural and cultural • boom, and forecasts for Sydney exceeds Melbourne Action Groups • Resident MIA, Renmark (SA), valley Namoi river • Large scale expansion of irrigation farming in of irrigation farming scale expansion • Large Technology Settlement Cultural Impacts Cultural Ethos output and employment serving mainly aoutput and employment domestic and increasingly affluent growing market scale immigration combined with post- • Large marriage and baby boom- population rises war urban pollution • Growing increasingly contaminate environment farmsfamily • Fauna/ establishing Nat from 7 million in 1947 to almost 12 • Inner urban decay and pressures to ‘re-develop’ • Population, marriage and baby aided by post-war planning • Environmental 1950s) (1965) agriculture with emerging cost-price squeeze onagriculture with emerging along with Melbourne-Geelong • Myxomatosis used to control rabbits (fromAustra • cost price squeeze coal corridors coast processes * formal * legislation technology manufacturing exportstechnology manufacturing Valley, Murray SE Queensland impacts from tourism • Environmental direct action industry and fertility decline issue key becomes a political issue • Environment shifting occupational structure and risingunemployment Australia to 1-1.2 slows • National population growth • 1980s contamination by hazardous wastes pollution con leads to many organisations concern. Establishment of environment Asia 5,000 peopleWorldAustralian sites on • First listing of assessment • Iron ore exports to Korea and Japan in 1960s to Korea • Iron ore exports • Bauxite mining and aluminium production• Continued capital for labour substitution in 1972 • Coastal NSW conurbation reinforced by immigration (Sydney-Wollongong-Newcastle) • Localised mining impacts heritage commences in 1960s • Limited public awa Tru • National of ‘old suburbs’ • Revitalisation and architectural measures weak • Adjustment problems continue in agriculture -• Heritage list - enhances protection • Hope Report on ‘National Estate’ (1974) • Marked reorientation of trade links with E/SE• Marked under inland towns • Population decline in many • Franklin Dam case (early 1980s) • Continued growth in minerals exports,• Continued growth especially cities along transport of inland regional • Growth and settlement p development • Growth in knowledge-intensive service and high in knowledge-intensive • Growth in coastal NSW, • Counterurbanisation growth woodchippingWidespread • lega • Few • International tourism emerges as a major• International tourism emerges percent per annum with diminished immigration recognised. Problems of disposal and cle Period Economy & & Population & Environmental & Environmental to1972 protection of factory under tariff growth • Marked capita incomes severe although social and economic marginalisation established (1967) chemicals (such as DDT) • Synthetic organic and importance in world increasingly based on intrinsic worth, uniqueness WW2 and rising per • Long period of economic growth Aboriginal population of • Stronger recovery Wildlife and • NSW National Parks 1972 • Onset of major economic restructuring - withAboriginal population increases to 200000 - • • Rapid increase in National Par to jobs decline in manufacturing massive urbanisation in NSW and Queensland, but - waste problems grow • Urban environmental Stockho 1987 between rich and poor related to gap • Growing Western and Territory outstations in Northern disposal, pollution, water photoch Chart 2.1: time (cont.) over Australia in Humans and the environment

43 nable in Australia ronment in Australia ronment in nternational agreements increasingly drive management - roles of Commonwealth and States Environment management in environmental of economic tools production production - recycling/cleaner Nullius’Aboriginal Land Rights - land management 1992 Development Australia’s Biological Dversity 1993 Biological Dversity Australia’s • Public participation in environmental • Public participation in environmental Agreement on the • 1992 - Intergovernmental to greater emphasis on use from regulation Trend • Reporting • State of the Environment damage increases • Liability for environmental • Emphasis on minimising resource use and waste • 1992 - Mabo decision quashes notion of ‘Terra of Aboriginal knowledge • Increased recognition of for Ecologically Sustainable • National Strategy of for the Conservation • National Strategy issue agendas on government development ‘natural’ habitat - • 1992- UNCED Conference in Rio - sustainability practices into management of National Parksfood and other products by non-Aboriginals • Business and industry play increasingly central • Further ‘institutionalisation’ of environmental • Increasing use of indigenous flora and fauna for• Increasing use of indigenous flora and fauna management initiatives role in environmental management• Public participation in environmental concern recognised as essential coastal zone 3.3 million. Brisbane and Perth passboth over million mark disposal • Pollution from waste Working • Ecologically Sustainable Development • ‘Intractable’ - disposal hazardous wastes Aboriginal fire • Incorporation of assumed statement on the environment • Prime Minister’s Groups (1990 - 91) • Continuing counterurbanisation settlement in and Melbourne fluctuates- of Sydney • Growth algae outbreaks problems escalates rapidly in 1989 (July 1989) Technology Settlement Cultural Impacts Cultural Ethos regulation of national economyregulation stronger platform for longereconomy provides diminished outmigration from inland rural areas management east Queensland conurbation particularly on coastal fringe management environmental imperative recognised as key term growth into the mid 1990s population growth • Slow pollution - urban and rural. Blue-greenWater • • Popular concern for envi • Unemployment remains high but ‘new look’ ‘new remains high but • Unemployment population decline but • Continuing small town in environmental • More stakeholders • I Period Economy & & Population & Environmental & Environmental toPresent by de- shifts in global economy and facilitated by • Economic restructuring continues to be driven • Internal migration from southeastern states to Queensland increases, in particular to the south- forests a key • Old growth of • Continued conversion 1987 economic recession 1991 - 94 • Severe • Immigration boom 1987-89 expandsWoodchipping • • 1987- ‘Brundtland Report’ puts sustai Chart 2.1: time (cont.) over Australia in Humans and the environment

44 important in the semi-arid and arid zones of Australia burning the landscape, visiting sites and carrying out (Young, 1993). appropriate ceremonies. The burning of the landscape was normally highly selective, to prevent the build up of litter The debates over the extent to which early hunter- and growth that could contribute to destructive fires gatherers transformed the biota at a continental scale have (Head, 1994). The reasons for burning included campsite been discussed earlier. At a more local scale, there are amenity, cross-country travel, hunting and defence. numerous examples of Aboriginal people actively manipulating the availability of resources, from leaving The important relationship between world view and plant parts in the ground to regenerate, to burning to environmental impacts is well-illustrated by the example encourage particular plants and animals. The specifics of of fire, which is used to achieve both economic and these hunter-gatherer economies vary considerably. The spiritual goals. Burning around a monsoon rainforest to relative importance of plant and animal foods, seasonal protect favoured food resources that grow there could have glut and seasonal famine, sedentism and mobility varied a protective outcome for the fire-sensitive vegetation. across the continent. In coastal areas as diverse as Victoria, Burning country after a death to drive the dead person’s Moreton Bay and Arnhem Land, shellfish and plant food spirit to the spirit world, or burning to reimprint a human carbohydrates combined to give a balanced diet. In signature on ‘wilderness’ that has not been visited (and western Victoria, eels were farmed through systems of thus cared for) for fifty years, could have quite the traps and weirs that utilised the natural migration patterns. opposite outcome. For Aboriginal as well as non- In the Swan Valley of Western Australia, extensive yam Aboriginal Australians, we cannot understand the impact grounds were serviced by artificial wells and approached of people on the landscape without understanding how by clearly defined roads. Seasonal changes in northern they see their place in it (Hynes & Chase, 1982; Jones, Australia often brought abundant resources – fruits, birds, 1980; Young, 1993). eggs, fish – during and after the wet season, but there was often considerable hardship by the end of the dry season. 2.3 1788 to 1850 In arid central Australia, the changes between wet and dry conditions could be just as dramatic but were much less 2.3.1 Economy and technology predictable. Grass, sedge and Acacia seeds were ground to produce flour, and reptiles and small mammals were In the period from the first British settlement up to 1850, collected. Along the Murray River valley, population the seeds were sown of Australia’s reliance for its density was so high that, despite the abundant resources of economic growth, and thus ultimately the welfare of its the region, members of the population showed symptoms citizens, on the export of primary produce. In the first associated with malnutrition (Butlin, 1983; Mulvaney & years of European settlement, the productive effort was White, 1987). naturally directed to feeding the infant British colonies. But as exploration revealed the potential of land for wool 2.2.2 Impacts and ethos production, and as British capital combined with convict labour, the nation’s pastoral industry was born to supply For Aboriginal people the biophysical landscape provides the burgeoning industrial economy of the home country. not only the economic basis of life but also incorporates The major period of land settlement for pastoralism and spiritual beliefs and power relationships. Ancestral beings agriculture lay in the latter part of the nineteenth century created features within the landscape, and continue to but Australia’s ride on the sheep’s back was well under ensure the productivity of the land. In terms of way before then. In this period too, other land and marine environmental ethos, the Dreaming thus challenges the resources began to be exploited for domestic and foreign Western philosophy deriving from biblical sources which consumption. Whaling and sealing in southern Australian advocates the separation of people and nature. But it does waters met various practical and cosmetic needs. As the not equate with a biocentric view of the universe in which east coast in particular was explored by sea, the short people are unimportant. The Aboriginal view of nature is rivers flowing from the mountainous drainage divide an intensely humanised one, in which people trace their provided access to rainforest timbers of the highest descent from ancestral beings and carry the responsibility quality. Forestry in turn provided the settlement nuclei for of continuing their actions. In terms of sustainability, for subsequent fishing and farming enterprises. The example, for many Aboriginal people the thing that needs essentially colonial nature of the Australian economy was sustaining is the responsibility of people to care for the fixed in this period and the trading basis for this economy land and fulfil ritual responsibilities. ‘Care for’ in this was distinctively mercantilist (Blainey, 1980; Burnley, context is often quite interventionist: it can include 1980; Jeans, 1972).

45 2.3.2 Population and settlement a ‘free’ settlement, it later became convict-based. Adelaide (1836) and Melbourne (1834) were free settlements and Figure 2.1 shows total population and Aboriginal like almost all the other colonial capitals were urban population from 1788 to 1995 in order to show relative implants from which hinterlands were later colonised. rates of change over time. There were upwards of 750 000 However, Moreton Bay settlement (later Brisbane) Aborigines in Australia in 1788, but the overall impact of became a base for settlement and supply after the colonialism and the associated economic penetration of hinterland was colonised from the south. Immigration the continent resulted in the dislocation of Aboriginal drove the growth of these small port cities and once the relationships with the land, and dispossession of sex ratio became balanced after the initial convict phase, traditional means of sustenance. The scourge of smallpox natural increase was high because of elevated fertility is estimated to have taken 125 000 Aboriginal lives in New levels, with average completed family sizes of six to seven South Wales and Victoria alone before 1840 (Butlin, children in the metropolitan cities and seven to eight 1983), while massacres and genocide, along with other children in the rural areas up to the 1870s. These fertility diseases took more lives in south-eastern Australia, levels were significantly higher than in most of the Third Queensland and Tasmania. Thus there was a severe World today (Day, 1970). decrease in the indigenous population in the first half of the nineteenth century, and especially after the 1829 The export-based nature of the colonial economy favoured smallpox epidemic (Butlin, 1983). large land holdings occupied by the ‘squattocracy’ and this hindered the development of inland towns while trade was Small European convict-based settlements were focused in the coastal ports, orienting the settlement established at Port Jackson (Sydney) from 1788, and in system to them. There were also small whaling and Newcastle and Port Macquarie in New South Wales, Port sealing settlements, along the south-east Australian coasts, Arthur and Hobart (Tasmania), Moreton Bay (Brisbane) in and forest and milling towns near the cedar forest Queensland and at Norfolk Island. While Perth started as resources of north-eastern New South Wales.

Figure 2.1: Relative changes in population 1780-1995 Structural change 20 million economic fluctuations

15 million Long economic boom Decreased birth rate Immigration 10 million 9 million Total population Increased birth rate 8 million Great depression Strong immigration 7 million Aboriginal population

6 million Low immigration 5 million Economic depression Declining birth rates 4 million

3 million Declining mortality

2 million Assisted immigration High birth rates

Gold rushes Immigration 1 million

Epidemics 500,000 severe Higher birth rates mortality Convict phase but elevated mortality 100,000 0 1996 1780 1790 1800 1810 1820 1830 1840 1850 1860 1870 1880 1890 1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 19th Century 20th Century

46 2.3.3 Impacts and ethos The hard hoofs and grazing habits of introduced pastoral species differed considerably from the impact of While Aboriginal groups in northern Australia had marsupial grazers, leading to changes in the structure of interacted across Torres Strait and with Macassan traders grasslands and soils. Provision of artificial water sources for at least several hundred years, the events of 1788 to these species also contributed to changes. The symbolise cultural contact with more far-reaching decimation of the Aboriginal population in the south-east implications for both the environment and its indigenous meant a sudden cessation in their management strategies inhabitants (Harris, 1977; Macknight, 1976). The British which also contributed to changes in vegetation structure. invasion of Australia involved not only Aborigines being In parts of Tasmania and around Sydney, shrubbiness of dispossessed of their land and livelihood, but also the the understorey increased when Aborigines stopped supplanting of one world view with another. burning, to the consternation of graziers who thought they Dispossession was not a single event during which whites had settled naturally open parklands in the first instance took absolute control and blacks were passive victims. (Jones, 1969). The increased shrubbiness of the While not ignoring the inequalities in the power understorey increased the risk and incidence of forest relationship, contact was a process rather than an event fires, the most destructive of which seriously damaged the (Fels, 1988; McGrath, 1987). To varying degrees, forest habitat and wildlife. Aborigines and white Australians influenced each other in their environmental relations. The wasteful nature of the indiscriminate exploitation by the early European settlers attracted concern from the The early European settlers saw the Australian colonial ruling elite as land degradation became apparent. environment through European senses and experience. Timber clearing along river banks caused erosion and The landscapes appeared alien, ugly and of low utilitarian flooding. From the earliest times, the governing classes value compared with Britain. In contrast to the Aboriginal saw the maintenance of water supply as critical and people they dispossessed, the new settlers did not see closely linked with conservation of forests. Hence, the ruling elite deplored wasteful felling of timber (Bolton, themselves as a part of the Australian land but separate 1981; Powell, 1976). However, legislation was seldom in from it. Neither did they accord intrinsic values to place to prevent it. Australian ecosystems. Knowledge of the capacities of land for development, as gained in Europe through In a similar way to the prehistoric period, more recent hundreds of years of trial and error, was not available. In Aboriginal interactions with the environment should be consequence, progress was to be achieved through seen as the outcome of social and ecological processes that exploitative pioneering (Bolton, 1981; Dovers, 1994; have been spatially and temporally variable. While the Flannery, 1994; Mosley, 1988; Powell, 1976; Rapoport, social changes, principally the interactions with white 1972; Seddon & Davis, 1976). settlers, have been dominant, it is often useful to consider these in ecological terms. For example, resource stress for Driven by this ethos and by economic pressures from hunter-gatherers was a feature of the post-contact period, Britain, rapid modification of the Australian landscape but arose because of competition with pastoral or radiated out from the main colonial settlements primarily agricultural land users, rather than because of prolonged in the south-east of the continent. Land was occupied by aridity. Of course, such stresses were exacerbated by pastoralists, forests felled for timber and some native drought and landscape degradation, and the changes were fauna heavily exploited. Prized wood trees, such as red on a much shorter time scale than ones induced solely by cedar in the coastal forests of New South Wales, and climatic change. In New South Wales and southern whales and fur seals in Bass Strait, were exploited to the Queensland, with land alienation caused by squatter limit of their commercial availability (Bolton, 1981; occupancy, many Aborigines were displaced into river bed Frawley, 1994; Lines, 1992; Mosley, 1988). While there or river bank settlements (Williams, 1993). was scientific curiosity regarding the unusual Australian fauna and flora, there was no concern for its preservation Environmental decay in the urban colonial settlements for intrinsic reasons. Rather, native species were classed also occurred rapidly, and with increasing population the either as pests, as targets for sport or as having utilitarian major ports became unhealthy places for human residence. value for food, skins or other products. There was limited For example, Sydney’s water supply (the Tank Stream) knowledge of the complex nature of ecology at this time, was, within a very few years of settlement, polluted and of course even less knowledge of the intricacies of through use as a drain for wastes (Butlin, 1976; Kelly, Australian flora-fauna-land relationships. 1978; Lloyd, 1993; Powell, 1976). Other sinks and ponds

47 in southern Sydney were locations for noxious industries 2.4 1850 to 1914 such as tallow-making and hide-curing because of the requirement for water in the manufacturing process. 2.4.1 Economics and technology Fresh-water pools were also used as dumping grounds for The British economy, booming as the result of Britain’s waste and offal. leadership of the industrial revolution and the creation of its massive colonial empire, created the conditions for The European settlers did all they could to remind Australia’s nascent economy to expand rapidly and themselves of home. The powerful pastoralists built grand diversify through most of the period from the mid- estates on scaled-down British lines. Georgian houses, nineteenth century up to World War I. Wool exports surrounded by landscaped parks and gardens featuring remained central and formed a primary basis for continued British trees and flowers, were favoured, although food land settlement and exploration. Added to wool in the plants were emphasised at first for obvious survival export stream were wheat and animal products, notably reasons. The early settlers had no idea of the problems hides, dairy products and meat. Technological innovations many of these introduced plants would later cause. and massive capital investment further unlocked the Lantana from South America, popular in early gardens comparative advantage latent in the continent’s land because of its drought resistant qualities, quickly took resources. Improved agricultural technology – such as the over large areas of coastal NSW and remains a widespread stump jump plough – was central to expanded production. pest plant to this day. Prickly pear, brought by Governor The discovery of artesian water enabled pastoralism to Phillip from Madeira, Rio de Janeiro or Capetown spread widely across the semi-arid lands. Investment in (although the original source was north-east Mexico), railways from the 1850s enabled produce to be transported soon over-ran a vast area of prime grazing land. The for export to the colonial ports. The adoption of European vision of Australia was further reflected through refrigerated shipping meant that perishable animal art and literature of this period. Both sought familiar products could feed an insatiable British market. Australia’s first mineral boom – the gold rushes from the images from Europe, failing to reflect the sort of 1850s to the 1870s and again in the 1890s – drew into the perception of Australia that would be shared by today’s country massive capital and population flows. inhabitants. Manufacturing on a small scale, largely dedicated to domestic markets, expanded significantly in the later Aboriginal perceptions accommodated and explained the nineteenth century. However, the boom times of the 1880s invaders in various ways. In many rock art sites, pictures were succeeded by the 1890s depression, the ill effects of of ships, horses and men with guns can be seen overlain on which were compounded by serious drought (Bromby, previous sequences. Traditional local Dreaming beings, 1986; Griffin, 1970; Jeans, 1972; Linge, 1979; Meinig, such as the Lightning Brothers in the Wardaman country 1970; Williams, 1974). of the Northern Territory, also appear painted on new rock shelter sites following European incursion (David et al., 2.4.2 Population and settlement 1994). This has been interpreted as an attempt by Aboriginal people to highlight the identity of the land in Figure 2.2 shows the estimated arithmetic change in the response to the dislocation caused by pastoralism. components of population in Australia over time, including the overseas-born second generation (Australian-born with overseas-born parents), Aborigines In considering the population-environment equation, and other Australians. The Aboriginal population much damage had been done to the natural environment continued to decline but at a decreasing rate with an by 1850 (Powell, 1976) when the European population estimated 60 000 in 1890 when the indigenous population was quite small. Indeed, on the eve of the gold rushes of stabilised. The Aboriginal population in northern and the 1850s, there were only slightly over 400 000 non- central Australia, although seriously affected by the indigenous persons in the whole of Australia (Census of European economy and contacts, was less critically the Australian Colonies, 1851). By this time there were affected than in south-eastern Australia. Aborigines were probably only about 80 000 indigenous people (Butlin, incorporated into the northern Australian pastoral industry 1983). The greatest impacts usually occurred within the as stockmen, where their knowledge of country was first 10 to 20 years of settlement so that timing varied utilised, and as domestic servants. Settlement patterns in across Australia from the early 1800s in parts of south-east the north became more concentrated, with extended Australia and Tasmania to as late as the early 1900s in the families and dependants of employees often living in north and inland. station camps (Broom & Lancaster Jones, 1973). This

48 Figure 2.2: Estimated growth and change in the population of Australia 1780-1994

18 million

16 million

Overseas-born population 14 million

Australian-born population with overseas-born parents

12 million Other Australian-born population

Aboriginal population Long economic boom 10 million

World War II 8 million population

Depression Assisted immigration 6 million

4 million

Assisted immigration

2 million Gold rushes European settlement Convicts

0

1780 1800 1820 1840 18601880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 1995 19th Century 20th Century pattern of ‘coming in’ was often reversed during the wet Melbourne which, with further strong assisted season, when most pastoral work was impossible, and immigration in the 1870s and 1880s and high rates of Aboriginal people returned to their own country and made natural increase, sustained annual population growth rates use of bush resources. of up to four per cent. Both metropolitan areas attained populations of half a million by 1900 when Australia had Over one million people, mostly from the United become one of the most urbanised nations on Earth. The Kingdom, settled in Australia in the 1850s and 1860s. non-Aboriginal population increased from 403 000 in Most went to New South Wales and Victoria, mainly as the 1851 to 1 142 000 in 1861 and reached 3 984 000 in 1891 result of the gold discoveries. There were many transitory (Census of the Australian Colonies, 1891; Census of the goldfield settlements of up to 30 000 people but few Commonwealth of Australia, 1911). became permanent. Bendigo and Ballarat were notable exceptions, as was Kalgoorlie in Western Australia, which Pastoral activity was further extended through the was established in the 1890s gold rush. Most of the introduction of refrigeration and the inland extension of goldfields population later flocked to Sydney and the pastoral frontier. Agricultural settlement also

49 intensified through the subdivision of large holdings and Geelong in Victoria is generally credited with the the selection system. This gave rise to the development of successful introduction of rabbits in 1859 which resulted many inland small towns and the emergence of regional in their rapid multiplication and spread across Australia service centres. Metropolitan centralisation was, however, (Bolton, 1981; Rolls, 1969). Rabbits spread across the reinforced by the radial railway systems which focused on southern two-thirds of Australia within 50 years and the colonial capitals which in turn exported primary means for their extermination were sought from the 1880s. products. Meanwhile, the coastal shipping trade also Acclimatisation was a major force in the introduction of reinforced metropolitan dominance as did rural-urban exotic species such as British song birds, foxes, trout, population drift. Low density suburbanisation began in the salmon, carp and blackberries. Closely linked with the 1890s and there were associated problems of reticulation recently-formed and influential learned and scientific including sewerage systems and water supply (Davidson, societies, acclimatisation was aimed at increasing the 1993). usefulness and aesthetic appeal of Australian landscapes (Bolton, 1981; Jarman & Smith, 1992; Lines, 1992; In 1902 the search for a site for the national Capital took Powell, 1976; Rolls, 1969). Fortunately stoats, weasels place. Albury, Bombala, Lake George, Lyndhurst, Tumut, and hedgehogs, introduced into New Zealand, were not Dalgety and Yass-Canberra were all examined against introduced into Australia. numerous requirements. Finally in 1908 the Yass- Canberra area was selected and 2368km2 were set aside as Parts of northern and western Australia did not experience the Australian Capital Territory. On 12 March 1913, Lady the frontier period until the end of the nineteenth century Denman announced the national Capital and Canberra was or later. These tropical and arid areas were less formally named at the laying of the foundation stone on accommodating of European land uses. For these two Capital Hill. reasons, aspects of Aboriginal tenure, mobility and land use were more likely to survive, even if not recognised by 2.4.3 Impacts and ethos the southern administrators. Commonwealth Parliamentary Debates of 1912 discuss the Northern Development through the exploitation of resources by Territory as ‘an uninhabited wilderness’, occupied by private enterprise remained largely unquestioned during Aborigines who are not really ‘land and property this period with natural resources such as timber regarded conscious’ (Director of Native Affairs, 1947, cited by as being inexhaustible by most people. At the same time, Riddett, 1990, p150). Wetter areas near the coast were a number of factors combined to accelerate widespread viewed as rich grazing land needing to be populated for land degradation and loss of native species. defence as well as economic reasons. However, even these more moist areas were extensively rather than intensively Land Selection Acts in all colonies between 1860 and the settled. There were further displacements of indigenous 1880s helped to create ‘Yeomanry’ or ‘Agrarianism’ people in these areas. (Dovers, 1994a; Lines, 1992; Powell, 1976, 1988). Derived from British tradition, this settlement of small- The combination of over-clearing, over-grazing, scale farmers on public domain was a key element in introduced pests and drought (in the 1860s and more social reform (Frawley, 1994) and resulted in further severely in the 1890s) produced major land degradation clearing of land (Bromby, 1986). (Bolton, 1981; Bromby, 1986; Frawley, 1994; Nix, 1994; Pickard, 1990; Powell, 1976; Rolls, 1994). Gold rushes Science and technology played a key role in furthering the had severe localised effects on vegetation, soil stability more intensive and extensive resource exploitation fuelled and river systems. By the turn of the century, many species by booming markets, population growth and agrarianism. of small marsupials were extinct or decimated in numbers The pastoral frontier was extended and widespread forest due to habitat changes and competition with introduced clearing continued, aided by greater use of ringbarking species. The timing of extinctions followed settlement from the 1870s. Deliberately introduced species had major patterns, commencing very early in the south-east and east effects on Australian ecosystems. Some introductions of the continent and later in the north and west. Native were beneficial to pastoralism and agriculture while species continued to be regarded as pests or game and others, such as the introduction of rabbits, were an until the 1890s their preservation was not an issue except economic and ecological disaster with effects continuing for utilitarian purposes. Legislation in the 1860s, aimed at to this day. There were numerous attempts to introduce protection of imported game species, later included native rabbits to the Australian countryside from the start of game species. In 1880, the Field Naturalists Club of European settlement, but Thomas Austin from near Victoria was founded for the popular study of Australian

50 wildlife. By the 1890s, similar organisations existed in of the Heidelberg School and the literature of Adam each colony and by the late 1890s scientists were calling Lindsay Gordon and Henry Kendall. The 1890s saw the for reserves to protect native flora and fauna. Starting with emergence of the bush ballad as the voice of the people Royal National Park (just to the south of Sydney) in 1879, drawing on a tradition of oral communication and anti- a number of parks were declared, generally close to major authoritarianism. Federation of the colonies in 1901 colonial settlements, and primarily for public amenity further reinforced the development of a national image, purposes rather than preservation of native species but notably one that excluded the Aboriginal population. (Bolton, 1981; Frawley, 1994; Mosley, 1978, 1988; Powell, 1976). The latter part of the nineteenth century and the early part of the twentieth century are a period in which Aboriginal The wise use of resources within a firm developmentalist people and their relations to land are relatively invisible. context became public policy, drawing on advice from the People who had survived dispossession were often scientific specialists who had increasingly gained key resettled on missions and reserves, or on station camps in roles in the public service (Frawley, 1994; Powell, 1976). pastoral areas. Recent research using sources such as oral Although this provided a more scientific basis for judging history is helping to retrieve some of this history the development potential of the land, forests and water (McGrath, 1987; Rose, 1991; Shaw, 1986). In many (e.g. Goyder in South Australia in 1865 suggested a situations, traditional knowledge was retained and passed northern limit to agriculture on climatic grounds), such on, albeit with more limited opportunities to put it into advice was usually ignored by developers. For example, practice. Forced crowding into station camps often forest conservation (for utilitarian motives) was pushed by resulted in insanitary conditions and associated health scientists and from the early 1900s professional forestry problems, particularly for Aboriginal children. was established throughout Australia. Despite this, the development ethos prevailed and forests were cut way beyond long-term sustainability (Frawley, 1994; Powell, 2.5 1914 to World War II 1976). 2.5.1 Economics and technology

Suburban expansion outstripped the ability of local Up to and beyond World War II, Australians, while authorities to provide basic services, such as water supply politically independent of Britain since 1901, remained and sanitation, and together with industrial activity economically dependent on the colonial economic model; resulted in water pollution, odours, air pollution and that is, that in which unprocessed and semi-processed public health hazards, culminating in an outbreak of agricultural and pastoral products were exported to other bubonic plague in Sydney in the early 1900s (Bolton, nations. The frontiers of agricultural and pastoral potential 1981; Curson, 1985; Freeland, 1972). From the 1880s, the had been established by World War I but in some areas visual impact of poles for telegraph wires, and later settlement intensified, notably the establishment of electricity wires grew, and growing traffic problems, were irrigated farming areas for the production of fruit and intensified with the introduction of motor vehicles. Water vegetables, which in turn provided the basis for food storages were established to cope with shortages in supply processing industries and further fuelled exports (Powell, and sewerage systems were put in place in the main cities 1974). Plantation economies based especially on sugar from 1879, but many suburbs remained unsewered, and cane were another example. The continued application of lack of treatment resulted in pollution at the discharge technology enabled production to become steadily less points (Beder, 1989; Bolton, 1981; Lloyd, 1993). The labour-intensive. Most notable in this period was the poorest suburbs were most affected by environmental expansion of Australia’s industrial base. Steel and deterioration and in 1909 a Royal Commission was petrochemicals, as well as other capital goods and charged with examining Sydney’s environmental consumer durables, were increasingly manufactured in problems (Bolton, 1981). In 1885, there were over 30 000 Australia, but with so much benefit deriving from primary cess pools in Sydney for the deposition of effluent (Glynn, exports there was little incentive for capital to flow 1971). strongly into manufacturing. This sector thus remained relatively small with markets for manufactured goods One hundred years after European settlement, the remaining dominated by imports, mostly from Britain. perception of Australian landscapes by the non-indigenous This period, as at the end of the nineteenth century, was inhabitants reflected a growing empathy with landscapes marked by a major economic downturn in the 1930s, with and environment. In the 1880s, appreciation of great pressures placed on land owners to sustain, or at least distinctively Australian landscapes was recorded in the art limit, the decline in their incomes. This was often done by

51 increased stocking of the land with consequential land vegetation extending into more remote regions, degradation (Bolton, 1981). particularly in the north. Closer settlement and mechanisation meant that land holdings were too small to 2.5.2 Population and settlement be economically efficient. Reckless exploitation by settlers in an attempt to break even further contributed to While there was further strong immigration from the long-term environmental damage to the land (Bolton, United Kingdom in the 1920s, population fertility decline, 1981; Ratcliffe, 1947). The eminent geographer, T. which had begun in the 1880s, intensified, while the Griffith Taylor, argued that there were environmental Aboriginal population began its slow demographic limits to population growth and was strongly criticised by recovery. Immigration reinforced metropolitan population public authorities and newspapers for this unpatriotic view growth but significant groups of assisted settlers took up (Davidson, 1969; Frawley, 1994; Harding, 1995; Powell, farming in new land releases in the south of Western 1988). Australia and in mid-coastal and central Queensland. There was further suburbanisation along railway lines in the metropolitan cities but with higher residential Over-clearing and intensive use of land led to salt creep, densities, due to apartment building, in central and eastern destruction of soil structure, soil erosion and lowering of Sydney. By 1939, the population of Australia had reached soil fertility. Land clearing in Western Australia was 6 500 000. There were also rural soldier settlements of linked to increased salinity of rivers by the 1920s (Bolton, British and Australian war veterans in New South Wales, 1981; Peck et al., 1983) and community concern about some of which were uneconomically sized subdivisions. land degradation developed in the 1930s and 1940s (Campbell, 1994), leading governments to address the Coal and iron ore mining were expanded in New South issue by establishing the first Soil Conservation Agency Wales and South Australia to support steel manufacturing (NSW) in 1938 (Bolton, 1981). The economic depression which in turn reinforced the growth of the secondary of the 1930s accentuated environmental destruction. industrial cities of Newcastle and Wollongong. Early Farmers were encouraged to intensify production, but white goods industries and fabricating metal industries prices were low and damage from over-stocking, pests and were established in these cities and in Sydney and drought in some regions, coupled with shortage of funds, Melbourne as inter-industry services and for the emerging resulted in further degradation (Lines, 1992). consumer economy, prior to the Great Depression. World War I was a stimulus to manufacturing (Rich, 1987). As we have seen, while a populate or perish policy was pushed by many, the geographer, T. Griffith Taylor, was Irrigation farming involving intensive horticultural espousing the limited capacity of Australian environments production was established along the Murrumbidgee and to support human population. The blight of soil erosion Murray Valleys in southern New South Wales and on the and collapse of many of the closer settlement schemes Murray at Renmark in South Australia, with southern provided vindication for Taylor’s views. European immigrants contributing prominently. While there was some new soldier settlement on alluvial lands, The clearing of land continued to destroy small species of the rural populations declined in small inland towns, but native mammals. Despite the introduction of protection grew in larger regional service centres which also began legislation early in the century, widespread killing of small scale agricultural processing industries. Sugar cane native fauna for sport and pelts continued. However, farming was expanded on a small scale in north-east further groups emerged lobbying for the protection of coastal New South Wales and, more significantly, in natural landscapes. The Wildlife Preservation Society was northern Queensland from Mossman to Innisfail in which established in 1909 and campaigned for improved fauna Italian settlers featured prominently. conservation laws and fauna reserves (Mosley, 1988). In 2.5.3 Impacts and ethos the 1920s and 1930s, a strong bushwalking movement pushed for the preservation of natural landscapes (Mosley, Various factors combined to produce more intensive rural 1978). Driven by an aesthetic and spiritual wilderness activity. The agrarian vision which emerged in the second ideal rather than a fauna preservation ethos, the National half of the nineteenth century continued to drive small- Parks and Primitive Areas Council, established in 1933, scale rural settlement while a ‘populate or perish’ ethos, lobbied for the declaration of parks and their stemming from defence concerns, led to a resource classification, emphasising the importance of ‘Primitive development policy aimed at filling Australia’s open Areas’ (a wilderness notion) (Frawley, 1994; Mosley, spaces. The result was further clearance of native 1988). The high level of urbanisation was one factor

52 underpinning the appreciation of the bush and wilderness markets and to maintain the labour force (Borrie, 1994; notions (Bolton, 1981). Wooden et al., 1994; Zubrzycki, 1960). There was a large scale immigration of 2.9 million people between 1947 and The effects of certain introduced pests initiated a search 1972, only 40 per cent of whom were from the United for solutions. In 1925, the Cactoblastis moth was Kingdom. This immigration, along with a post-war rise in successfully introduced to destroy prickly pear (Jarman & population fertility from 2 to an average 3.5 children per Smith, 1992; Lines, 1992) but in the 1930s cane toads family resulted in annual rates of population growth of 2 introduced to prey on sugar cane pests proved disastrous to 2.4 per cent per annum over the 25-year period. While as they turned into a pest in their own right (Jarman & Sydney and Melbourne experienced substantial Smith, 1992). unpredicted population growth, each reaching over 2.5 million people by 1971, the annual rates of population The appreciation of Australian landscapes was extended to growth in Perth and Brisbane were greater because of the dry outback through the art of Drysdale, Nolan and interstate migration. Underestimated population growth in Boyd in the 1940s, who drew on the pastoral but urban regions led to major problems of urban management impressionistic tradition of the 1890s in their work. and servicing. The national population grew from 7 million in 1947 to almost 12 million in 1972. 2.6 World War II to 1972 With sustained metropolitan growth, the suburbanisation 2.6.1 Economics and technology of households intensified, due to growth in household incomes and access to motor cars, with a consequently In this period Australia paralleled global trends in rapid rise in vehicle ownership, household consumer benefiting from an unprecedented period of economic durables and building materials. This reinforced the growth and rising real per capita incomes. While growth of manufacturing whose labour force was fuelled agricultural and pastoral exports remained a strong basis by overseas immigration in Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide for prosperity in the rural sector, storm clouds were on the and Perth, and in the rapidly growing regional industrial horizon. Britain’s entry into the European Economic centres of Wollongong, Newcastle, Latrobe Valley, Community (EEC) slashed export demand and the cost- Whyalla and Kwinana. price squeeze, the effects of which have been so problematic for farmers over the past quarter century, had Several new resource towns were established in north- begun to be evident (Sorensen & Epps, 1993). Farm western Australia and the Gulf of Carpentaria, while the produce was now supplemented by mineral exports as a major source of export income with iron ore enabling steel inland rural population continued to decline in small production in Australia but also in Japan and Korea. towns in eastern and south-western Australia. Irrigation Bauxite deposits were exploited to produce alumina prior settlements were extended along the Murray and to its export in large quantities while easily won coal Murrumbidgee Valleys in Victoria and New South Wales deposits began to be used to generate electricity needed and near Renmark in South Australia, using water from for smelting alumina to aluminium. The 1950s and 1960s major reservoirs such as the Hume, and water from the were decades of steady and substantial growth in Snowy Mountains scheme reservoirs. However, rural- manufacturing output and employment in industries which urban migration was accentuated in other areas due to were, for the most part, heavily protected from import periodic drought, farm amalgamations, commodity price competition. Especially notable in this period was the declines, and small town economic problems. manufacture of motor vehicles and consumer durables (refrigerators, washing machines, stoves and so on) to There was a stronger recovery of the Aboriginal meet demand from an increasingly affluent domestic population through settlement stability and child health market. This was also the period of the construction of the measures. However, social and economic marginalisation large Snowy Mountains hydro-electric and water remained severe and while migration to fringe camps on conservation scheme for the provision of energy for the outskirts of small inland towns took place, industry and the rapidly growing population (Pratt, 1966). metropolitan migration of Aborigines was only moderate.

2.6.2 Population and settlement 2.6.3 Impacts and ethos

After World War II, a large scale immigration program Urban population and industrial growth in the immediate was introduced to populate Australia as it was considered post-war period led, in the absence of appropriate too small to defend itself, to provide larger domestic planning and controls, to worsening air and water

53 pollution. Particulates were prominent air pollutants ‘appropriate development’ in cities and consideration of initially, but improved as filters and scrubbers were social and equity issues (Bolton, 1981; Hardman & employed (Fitzpatrick & Armstrong, 1972; Ryder, 1977). Manning, undated; Roddewig, 1978; Sandercock, 1975). Air pollution from motor vehicles became a key emerging problem, since the climate and physiography of Sydney in New concern for the native fauna and flora of Australia particular, were well suited for the formation of emerged, based on its intrinsic worth and recognition of its photochemical smog (Costin & Marples, 1974; Gilpin, uniqueness and worldwide importance. From the late 1980; Ryder, 1977; Young, 1992). Sewerage systems 1940s, fauna protection legislation was enacted in the lagged behind the rapidly sprawling suburbs and states and in 1967 the NSW National Parks and Wildlife unsewered areas served by septic systems caused local Service Act was passed and became a model for the other water pollution problems, with the risk of infectious states. National Parks were no longer set aside purely for hepatitis in particular (Beder, 1989). aesthetic or recreational reasons – the conservation of fauna, flora and ecosystems was a primary goal. The higher density inner-city suburbs comprising rows of Victorian terrace houses became run down and classified Removal of Aboriginal burning regimes in the highly as slums and in the immediate post-war period little value seasonal environments of Australia’s north had significant was accorded to the heritage of the built environment. implications for fire-sensitive vegetation. In the Top End However, in the 1950s National Trust branches were of the Northern Territory, a decline in Callitris pine formed in all states, with a particular brief to preserve the (Callitris intratropica) has been shown to have occurred built heritage. While the condition of the inner-city during the last 40 to 50 years, corresponding with the housing deteriorated, it was fundamentally of sound movement of Aboriginal people onto missions and construction as was realised in the late 1960s in Sydney’s towards towns (Bowman & Panton, 1993). Whereas the Paddington with the beginnings of inner-city high frequency of Aboriginal burning previously kept fuel gentrification (Bolton, 1981; Freeland, 1972; Kendig, levels low, fuel now builds up during the year, contributing 1979; Roddewig, 1978; Seddon & Davis, 1976). to intense fires ignited by lightning at the end of the dry season. Fire sensitive vegetation such as Callitris and In 1965 the first broadly based conservation group in monsoon rainforest patches are much more vulnerable to Australia - the Australian Conservation Foundation - was these intense fires, and are under threat in many areas formed. This preceded a period of major social today (Bowman & Panton, 1993). transformation which saw the emergence of environmental concern as a broad popular movement in With the post-war emergence and rapid growth of the the early 1970s in Australia, following a similar process in synthetic organic chemicals industry, thousands of new the late 1960s in North America and parts of Europe chemicals entered the marketplace. Many of these were (Bolton, 1981). For the first time, a widespread sector of highly toxic or persistent agricultural chemicals such as society used environmental grounds to question laissez- DDT, and the ground was laid for considerable faire economic development. The decline of environmental contamination. Recognition of the potential environmental quality in the cities was one factor of pesticides in particular for widespread impacts on fauna responsible for the ‘zero population growth’ movement saw emphasis placed on seeking biological control which developed in Australia in the early 1970s. Resident methods for pest problems (Costin & Marples, 1974). In Action Groups (RAGs) emerged in certain suburbs to the early 1950s, biological control employing the protect the built heritage and to fight for improved myxomatosis virus was successful, at least temporarily, environmental amenity. In 1970, a unique Australian against rabbits (Rolls, 1969). phenomenon, the Green Ban movement, was formed in Sydney from an unusual alliance of the radical edge of the trade union movement (the Builders Labourers Federation 2.7 1972 to 1987 or BLF) and middle-class environmentalists. The BLF 2.7.1 Economics and technology placed ‘green bans’ (strike action based on environmental and social grounds) on developments worth millions of These years were difficult ones as Australians began first dollars affecting parklands, historic buildings and to accept and then painfully adapt to changing global streetscapes in Sydney and Melbourne, mostly in the inner economic conditions which meant that export income and city. The actions of the RAGs and BLF, coupled with welfare levels could no longer ride on the backs of farmers environmental and social factors, led to the revitalisation and miners. Unemployment rose steadily from less than of many inner-city slum suburbs and to questioning of two per cent to over 10 per cent in the early 1980s, the

54 manufacturing sector lost a quarter of a million jobs and Coffs Harbour and Port Macquarie in New South Wales, the service economy grew, but in quantities and ways that became distinct cities. were of little assistance to the long-term unemployed. Business services and, especially in the latter part of this While there was population decline or net out-migration in period, international tourism, grew rapidly and reflected most small towns of under 5 000 people, exacerbated by Australia’s changing position in the global economy, drought and recession in the early 1980s, a number of especially our burgeoning links with Asia. The minerals major towns of between 8 000 to 15 000 people grew in sector expanded and diversified output in this period with size in the eastern states as did larger regional service much of this being exported. Notable were the rapid cities on major transport corridors, notably Albury- growth in coal exports from open-cut coal mines in the Wodonga and Wagga Wagga in New South Wales, 1970s and the use of these resources for electricity Toowoomba in Queensland, and Bendigo and Ballarat in production for alumina smelting. Gas from the North West Victoria. Shelf, uranium, nickel and gold also became more important sources of export income. Farmers and graziers The Aboriginal population increased to over 200 000 with continued to contribute in a major way to exports. The increasing urbanisation in New South Wales and farmers and pastoralists, however, continued to face the by Queensland. In some rural areas Aboriginal people now entrenched problem of falling international regained tenure under land rights legislation. In commodity prices set against rising domestic costs. association with the ‘out-station’ or ‘homelands’ Diversification in agriculture, often driven by movement, which has also occurred on pastoral land, there agribusiness, included notably cotton farming and the has been a partial repopulation of relatively remote areas. production of woodchips from native forests (Sorensen & The Torres Strait islander population numbered some Epps, 1993). 20 000 persons.

2.7.2 Population and settlement 2.7.3 Impacts and ethos

National population growth slowed to an annual average The first world conference on the environment held in of 1.0 to 1.2 per cent per annum due to reduced, although Stockholm in 1972 was an acknowledgment that fluctuating, immigration as well as fertility decline to an environmental issues deserved the concern of average completed family size of 2.1 persons. While governments around the world (Brenton, 1994). Sydney and Melbourne increased their populations from Environmental awareness grew rapidly among Australians over 2.5 million to 3.3 and 3.0 million respectively, their through the 1970s and numerous groups formed to protect shares of their respective state populations declined the natural and urban environment. With no formal slightly, due to the ‘population turnaround’ when internal avenues for environmental assessment or public comment, migration outflows from these cities exceeded internal such groups often resorted to direct action. immigration inflows (Newton & Bell, 1996). Perth and Brisbane grew more rapidly, at annual rates of 2 to 3 per Governments responded by institutionalising cent because of internal migration and overseas environmental concern through the introduction of immigration while Adelaide grew more slowly as the legislation and the establishment of bureaucracies and result of de-industrialisation, particularly in the formal decision-making processes (Fowler, 1984). automobile industry. Indeed there were interstate Following the US example, Environmental Impact migration losses from Adelaide throughout much of this Assessment procedures were adopted. The period. Commonwealth Environment Protection (Impact of Proposals) Act 1974 is an early example of this trend. Associated with the population turnaround was counter- Grinlinton (1990) records an enormous increase in urbanisation in coastal New South Wales and south- environmental legislation in Australia from the 1970s as eastern coastal Queensland, where retirement and 56 per cent of the 356 enactments in force by 1987 were amenity-related migration from Sydney, Melbourne and passed in the period after 1967. This was accompanied by inland areas took place. There was a smaller, but similar a substantial expansion in government organisations to migration and settlement along the Murray Valley. support the legislation (Fowler, 1984). Tourism-led urbanisation was also identified at the Gold Coast near Brisbane and at Townsville and Cairns in north Conservation of ‘The National Estate’ emerged as a key Queensland. Many coastal fishing villages and hamlets issue in the 1970s through the Hope Report of the National became distinct towns while some towns, such as Nowra, Estate (1974) (Commonwealth of Australia, 1974) and the

55 Australian Heritage Commission Act 1975 which conservation-based attempts to eradicate them (Rose, established the Australian Heritage Commission and the 1995). register of the National Estate. The establishment of the Australia Council in 1972 and the release of the Pigott • Aboriginal rights to hunt and gather traditional food Report of 1975, which recommended the establishment of sources are often protected. This can lead to conflict a national museum of the history of humans in Australia, with conservation ideals if food species are further endorsed this burgeoning sense of pride in our endangered, if predation levels are high or if the national heritage. The concept of the National Estate, technology of hunting has dramatically changed the which included both the natural and cultural environments yield. relevant to both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians, marked an important milestone in environmental management in Australia. After nearly 200 • Pre-European contact fire regimes in northern years, non-Aboriginal Australians formally acknowledged Australia seem to have usually had a ‘conservative’ a sense of national pride in the heritage of the continent effect in protecting fire-sensitive monsoon rainforest and the important place of the culture of its indigenous from high intensity burns (Bowman & Panton, 1993). inhabitants (Bonyhady, 1993; Commonwealth of However, this is likely to have been a side-effect. The Australia, 1974; Toyne, 1994). social imperatives to ‘clean up the country’ are stronger than the ecological ones to protect the food The 1970s and 1980s saw some Aboriginal control over resources of the rainforests. On returning to country land being regained. The most significant land rights came that has not been burned for a number of years, the under Commonwealth legislation, the Aboriginal Land requirement to re-imprint a human signature on the Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976, which has seen landscape has been observed to prevail even when it nearly 36 per cent of total Northern Territory land may not be the best season to burn. High intensity reverting to Aboriginal freehold title. Land rights fires detrimental to some species may result (Head, legislation in the states has been much more limited, 1996). although 19 per cent of South Australia has been returned to Aboriginal ownership. The struggle for repossession of land by Aboriginal people was fought also for the • Out-station occupation, the most usual means by regaining of culture. The period corresponds with greater which Aboriginal people access relatively remote visibility of Aboriginal cultural activities, including art, areas, has changed the distribution and density of language and education. This process has continued to the populations, and their associated impacts. present. Like dispossession, repossession was a long-term Populations are more sedentary than they would have process and had various manifestations. The out-station or been in prehistoric times (due to houses), but they are homelands movement took place on various types of land also more mobile, with access to vehicles (Cane & tenure, including both Aboriginal land and pastoral Stanley, 1985; Head & Fullagar, 1991). Population leasehold. In the cultural heritage management of most growth rates are high. The technology of hunting and states, there is strong Aboriginal input into land and fishing, particularly through the use of guns and cultural heritage management decisions, regardless of the outboard motors, has the potential to affect predation land tenure (Birckhead et al., 1992). rates.

This repossession leads to outcomes that may or may not • When gaining tenure of land which has been be desirable in terms of a Western conservation ethic. degraded by the intervening white land-use (e.g. Aboriginal activity differs from ‘conservation’ in both consequence and motive, and is itself variable. Examples many areas of northern and western Australia are of impacts are as follows. heavily over-grazed), Aboriginal people do not necessarily have the knowledge and resources to be • The maintenance of traditional fire regimes as a tool able to rehabilitate it (Young et al., 1991). for rare species management (Baker et al., 1992). Ratification of the World Heritage Convention by • The adoption of introduced animals (e.g. cats, Australia in 1974 set the scene for the listing during the buffalo) as important food resources. In some cases, 1970s of the first Australian sites accorded World Heritage they have also been incorporated into totemic status and demonstrated to Australians that our Estate had classifications. There is often then resistance to wider than national significance.

56 The growth in the minerals sector set the scene for a Commonwealth conflicts through to the 1990s and for a number of environmental battles as mining opened up climate of uncertainty for developers. often remote and pristine areas of Australia to development. Such developments engendered the anger of 2.8 1987 to 2000 the environmental lobby whose support was growing to match new-found pride in the National Estate. With 2.8.1 Economics and technology increased settlement through counter-urbanisation, tourism development and localised mining developments This period has seen a continuation of the economic (mineral sands), environmental protection of coastal areas restructuring processes of the 1970s and 1980s. But with emerged as a key issue. Aboriginal land rights emerged as the national economy relieved from the effects of the deep an issue in some parts of the coastal zone in eastern and prolonged recession of the early 1990s, Australia. macroeconomic settings are conducive to economic growth. Government-instigated restructuring measures are doing their work and have hopefully created conditions for The National Parks estate grew rapidly through this period sustained growth derived from trade into the global but nature conservation nevertheless remained a key economy of the twenty-first century (Fagan & Webber, concern. Protection of the remaining rainforests, 1994). Modernised farming and pastoral enterprises, in questioning widespread woodchipping employing clear many cases owned by agribusinesses, continue to be felling and setting aside ‘wilderness’ areas to serve both centrally important to Australia’s well being, as does an nature conservation and recreational or spiritual purposes expanding mining sector (Sorensen & Epps, 1993). But were added to the environmentalists’ agenda. Notions of these traditional sources of national wealth are wilderness at this time emphasised timeless places where increasingly complemented by tourism, by the export of no human footstep had trod, but research in the 1970s and manufactures (including more highly processed products 1980s into human prehistory had already begun to require from the primary sector) and services (Fagan & Webber, re-evaluation of the idea of a ‘pristine’ Australian 1994). While Australia’s long-standing comparative environment (Head, 1990; Jones, 1985; Langton, 1996). advantage in world trade terms as a site for low intensity grazing and dry land cropping remains intact - and should Urban environmental problems grew through this period markedly improve in a world hungry for foods and fibres due to population growth and increased industrial activity. - the nation’s wealth will increasingly derive from Waste disposal, and particularly the treatment of competitive advantages in knowledge-intensive hazardous wastes, was recognised as a major problem production. These advantages include the high standards following the Federal House of Representatives Inquiry of education long established in the country, modern into Hazardous Chemicals and Wastes in 1982. As well, infrastructure and environmental quality. These space for landfill of non-hazardous wastes was reaching considerations drive investment decisions especially by its limit close to the major cities and authorities transnational corporations. The downsides of economic emphasised the need to ‘reduce-reuse-recycle’. Various restructuring - unemployment and increased disparity in issues involving hazardous materials such as asbestos, incomes - remain serious challenges to governments with lead and a number of synthetic organic chemicals, the prospects for significant reductions in unemployment combined to alert us to the need for action and legislation in the short to medium term being poor. Continued high adopting an anticipatory and precautionary approach unemployment will limit the capacity of governments to (Deville & Harding, 1997). Indeed in Sydney, the issue of accelerate the pace of economic restructuring and may the handling of substantial amounts of industrial waste at also limit political commitment to stronger environmental the Olympic site in inner western Sydney became a major policies (Murphy & Watson, 1996). issue in the mid-1990s. 2.8.2 Population and settlement In sum, the environment became an important political issue during this period. In the early 1980s, the relative The population of Australia reached 18.2 million in early responsibilities for environmental management of the 1997, with the annual rate of increase fluctuating but Commonwealth and state governments was brought to the averaging 1.1 to 1.2 per cent. There was a major fore with the High Court challenge from Tasmania against immigration influx in 1988-89, the largest intake for an Commonwealth involvement in the Franklin Dam case. It equivalent period in Australia’s history, but immigration demonstrated that the Commonwealth had considerable diminished with the severe 1990s recession, recovering in scope for involvement in environmental management if it 1994-95. While the populations of Sydney and Melbourne so chose. This set the scene for numerous state- exceeded 3.5 and 3.3 million in 1994, Brisbane and Perth

57 had passed the 1.4 and 1.2 million mark, with Adelaide Environmental management in Australia is increasingly just over one million. A disproportionate share of being driven by international agreements. Many immigration went to Sydney, reflecting the transformation agreements were signed at Rio de Janeiro, including the of types and motivations of immigrants and its post- Framework Convention on Climate Change and the industrial economy and emergence as a global city Convention on Biodiversity, through which Australia is (Burnley et al., 1997; Burnley, in press). The south-east ‘committed’ to particular policies or targets. Queensland extended urban area emerged as a new economic dynamo, with the populations of the Sunshine Within Australia in the late 1980s, popular concern Coast, greater Brisbane and the Gold Coast urban areas in regarding the environment escalated dramatically. aggregate reaching over 2.1 million in 1996. Through the 1980s, polls showed that between 2 to 5 per cent of people rated the environment as the issue of Counter-urbanisation continued in strength, but on a more greatest concern, but from 1989 that figure jumped to 26 localised coastal basis than hitherto. Tourism urbanisation per cent. In July 1989, the then Prime Minister, Bob in south and north coastal Queensland continued, with a Hawke, in a Statement on the Environment (Our Country, great expansion of overseas tourist visitors. There was Our Future) catalogued the severe environmental growth in regional international airports to support this degradation in Australia since European settlement and trend, as in Cairns, Alice Springs and Darwin. Indeed urged the need to protect our ecological systems. Between Cairns was the fourth most important airport in Australia 1990 and 1992, a major process of discussion on in terms of traffic after Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. ‘Ecologically Sustainable Development’, instigated by the Prime Minister, produced recommendations on actions In inland areas, drought and recession exacerbated necessary to lead Australia towards sustainability. This population decline in centres with a population of under was subsequently adopted by all governments in Australia 5 000, while regionalisation and rationalisation of public as a National Strategy for Ecologically Sustainable and private services affected many other smaller centres. Development. Requirement to address sustainability issues Regional cities in the 25 000 to 60 000 population size in decision-making is gradually finding its way into tended to maintain their populations. legislation and policy throughout Australia.

The Aboriginal population increased to over 240 000 The environment is now a mainstream political concern in through relatively high rates of natural increase, although Australia. The process of institutionalisation of mortality remained high and the rates of natural increase environmental concern has continued, resulting in an are declining. While infant mortality among Aborigines increasing number of stakeholders in environmental had declined over the previous 15 years, there had been management. Public participation is formally recognised limited improvement in adult life expectancy (Taylor, as important and many bodies, such as Landcare, closely 1997). Outstations and homeland centres were extended involve the community (Alexandra et al., 1996; Campbell, on freehold and pastoral land in central and northern 1994; Environmental Defender’s Office (NSW), 1996; Australia as a way of accessing relatively remote areas. Sarkissian et al., 1997; Thomas, 1996). Organisations are now incorporating environmental concerns into their 2.8.3 Impacts and ethos overall management structures, and industry and the business community have become leading players in Our Common Future (the Brundtland Report), published environmental management initiatives (Cato, 1995). Some at the start of this period, played a significant role in sections of the conservation movement and industry have placing ‘sustainable development’ on government agendas cooperated in addressing environmental management around the world. In contrast to previous debate, the issues. For example, the Australian Conservation essential message of sustainable development is that Foundation and National Farmers Federation have jointly economic development and conservation are mutually addressed land degradation issues (Campbell, 1994). interdependent rather than in conflict. The Brundtland Governments are moving from almost total reliance on Report was the primary stimulus for the United Nations legislation in environmental management to exploration of Conference on Environment and Development held in Rio more flexible methods that will encourage continuous de Janeiro in June 1992. This second world environment improvement by industry. Nevertheless, liability for conference involved the largest gathering of heads of state pollution offences is now set at levels that should ever assembled for any issue, demonstrating the world- encourage responsible behaviour. The use of economic wide political importance of environmental issues by the tools to optimise efficient use of resources in early 1990s. environmental improvement is being increasingly

58 explored by government (Corbyn, 1996; Department of there has been extensive rethinking of the relationships Finance, 1994; EPA NSW, 1994). between Aboriginal Australians, non-Aboriginal Australians and the physical landscape. Notwithstanding In May 1992, the Intergovernmental Agreement on the the debate about how much Aborigines physically Environment was signed by all heads of government in transformed the environment, it became clear that all parts Australia. It is aimed at better defining the roles of various of Australia have been someone’s backyard for at least levels of government in environmental management and 30 000 years, and in many areas for much longer. Revised improving and standardising environmental management definitions of wilderness acknowledged this; a 1992 throughout Australia. The National Environment recommendation was for wilderness to be seen as an area Protection Council, established in 1995, is to develop ‘substantially undisturbed by colonial and modern National Environment Protection Measures designed to technological society’ (Robertson et al., 1992). provide a national approach to environmental standards. Notably, recent legislation has given local government an The increased visibility of Aboriginal people and their increasing role in environmental management, covering a land management in the last few decades has interacted far broader range of issues than before. with the changes happening in mainstream environmental thinking, as described below. Building the quality of the environment into our system of national accounts is now recognised as important. State of • Increased recognition of Aboriginal ecological the Environment Reporting is becoming required practice knowledge, both academically and in the wider throughout Australia. To support this, new requirements community (Williams & Baines, 1993). for environmental information collection and more sophisticated and compatible databases are needed. • Images of Aboriginality and of Aboriginal relations to land have been appropriated by various groups, Despite the high level of activity in environmental including conservationists and tourism promoters, management in the last few years, controversy has not over the last few decades. Some of these accord with vanished. Woodchipping, conserving flora and fauna and the available evidence (e.g. Aborigines had a way of managing old growth forests remain highly controversial. living in the Australian environment that was Agreement on how best to dispose of intractable wastes sustainable for perhaps 60 000 years) but others are has not been reached, but government and industry are simplistic and stereotyped (e.g. Aborigines seen as now emphasising cleaner production which should lead to always ‘living in harmony with the environment’) a significant reduction in the production of hazardous (Head, 1990; Langton, 1996; Waitt, 1997). wastes. Identification and clean-up of contaminated sites has become an important issue. As tourism is now one of • Concepts such as sacred site, significant place and the country’s biggest export earners, concern has cultural heritage, stemming originally from developed for its impact which now stretches into the Aboriginal concerns, have provided a currency with remotest parts of Australia (Mercer, 1995). In response, which white Australia can discuss and evaluate its ecotourism has emerged as a popular topic own interactions with the Australian landscape (Commonwealth Department of Tourism, 1994). Water (Murray, 1996). pollution remains a major issue. Problems include outbreaks of blue-green algae in inland rivers and the • Challenges to our separation of people and nature. effects of sewage pollution and run-off from settlement Most Aboriginal people would not consider and agriculture on coastal river systems and estuaries. themselves as being outside the ecological system, having an ‘impact’, yet this is usually how the Despite our many advances in environmental concern, Western scientific view expresses it (Rose, 1995). knowledge and management, in many aspects environmental deterioration continues and even worsens. The High Court Wik decision (1996) has raised issues This led in the early 1990s to a re-questioning of concerning the coexistence of native title and pastoral and Australia’s population support capacity (Harding, 1995). mining leases which are subject to political debate at the The issues raised by Griffith Taylor in the 1920s are just as time of going to press. On the other hand, there have been controversial today (Cocks, 1996). very promising bilateral and multilateral agreements on developments and traditional rights on the Cape York The High Court Mabo decision of 1992, finally quashing peninsula. the notion of terra nullius, symbolises a period in which

59 The Future consequences of human activities will impact on the changing natural processes that have for so much longer The current state of the Australian continent is a legacy of been shaping the face of Australia. This is the purpose of the ways in which geological and biological processes and this paper – to overview current understanding about the most recently human endeavours have impacted on last 100 million years of change in Australia’s surface, Australia’s uniquely biodiverse, often fragile, environments and its creatures. environments. Much change has occurred, measured both in geological and human time frames, to craft the History makes it clear that major increases in population, continent into its present form. The pace of environmental high per capita consumption of resources and technologies change has accelerated dramatically since European with the power to rapidly transform the environment, are settlement and continues at an escalating rate. If this rate important agents of environmental damage and of change is permitted to continue unhindered, unsustainable practices. In combination the effects can be environmental sustainability will never be realised. devastating.

Properly managed, however, the Australian continent is Notwithstanding its relatively small population in relation capable of providing for its human population economic to the size of the continent, resource exploitation of the and social benefits that can maintain or even increase Australian landscape following European arrival has led to quality of life in an ecologically sustainable manner. That massive environmental degradation. This degradation has necessary ambition – the shift to sustainability – is the been amplified by the impacts of exotic herd animals, land greatest challenge for the new millenium that confronts clearance for cultivation of introduced plant species, other the Australian nation. Sustainability in all its forms will biological introductions and the use or inadvertent not be achieved easily and certainly it will not be achieved production of environmentally toxic materials. overnight. Wide gaps in required knowledge need to be bridged and substantial shifts in current attitudes need to However, the environmental impact of Australians extends occur but with commitment from all Australians, these beyond the border of our continent and is currently out of challenges can be met. proportion to our share of the world’s population. For example, although Australia contributes only 1-2 per cent Australia occupies a special position in the global quest of total global greenhouse gas emissions, these emissions for sustainability. It is a large, sparsely populated judged on either a per capita basis or relative to GDP, are continent which properly counts itself among the high. As well, compared to other OECD countries we have ‘developed’ nations of the world. It is also the only made less progress over the past few years in lowering developed country among the 12 ‘megadiverse’ regions of greenhouse gas emissions relative to population and the globe that collectively house 75 per cent of the planet’s economic growth. biodiversity. This fact places upon us a special obligation to conserve this biodiversity. Yet to date our custodial care The challenges confronting Australia’s government and its of this unique inheritance and resource has been poor. people in their efforts to achieve long-term sustainability are considerable. The scale and diversity of accumulating To achieve sustainable management of Australia’s natural environmental degradation in Australia is vast, and the resources, we must first understand the non-human ‘sinks’ in the surface of our continent and its adjoining processes that control or impact on these resources. Even seas are limited in their capacity to absorb the emissions in the absence of humans, the Australian environment and wastes of poor rural practices, highly concentrated would have been in a constant state of change, tugged and urban populations and inefficient or outmoded pulled in all directions by inconstant ‘natural’ forces. technologies. Accepting international obligations to Understanding about how these natural, long-term achieve sustainability of Australia’s natural resources processes have controlled or impacted on, for example, the means: conserving, on a long-term basis, the continent’s origins and extinctions of individual Australian creatures, inherited biodiversity; remediating damaged land and their population dynamics, their changing geographic polluted waterways; more efficiently recycling waste; ranges, changes in river flow regimes and drainage decreasing energy consumption; encouraging cleaner patterns, the periodicity of droughts, fluctuations in sea production processes; and reducing the negative impacts levels, and so on, is an essential prerequisite for of both domestic and international tourism. These distinguishing the consequences that have resulted from challenges must be met if Australia is to transform itself human activities. If we are to anticipate and effectively from a colonial, expansionist and exploiting nation to one manage our future, we need to understand how the with a sustainably viable future.

60 Current destructive attitudes towards the environment the complex of factors that lead to undesirable were formed when the world’s resources seemed infinite, environmental outcomes. This is now recognised, but population numbers were low compared with the present, there is still much to be done to identify the institutional scientific knowledge was primitive, technological change and political barriers to, and opportunities for, change was rampant, and the growth ethos of an age of directed towards sustainability outcomes. A major exploration was pervasive. continuing issue for Australia is the split of responsibility between the Commonwealth, State/Territories and local These factors have changed profoundly. The world governments in environmental management. This has population has grown exponentially especially since the often hindered effective management, involving both 1940s and technological change has enabled mass duplication and omissions in addressing issues, as well as consumption and rapid transformation of natural leading to conflict. Efforts to better articulate the roles of environments. The detrimental impact of such growth on the three levels of government continue. the world’s environments has been dramatic. Hence the destructive attitudes formed in a different time and under Australia has always been an urbanised nation, despite the different circumstances need to be replaced and a emphasis on ‘outback’, rural and wilderness images and profound shift in our environmental management ethos is the strong historical reliance on agricultural and mining required if we are to halt continuing degradation. production from the non-urban environments. The early European settlers and more recent migrants have been While a major move to greater environmental care has slow to develop understanding of their new environment been evident for some time, overall that shift may be fairly and an intimate awareness of the needs of the land to judged as ‘too slow and too little’. Considerable match that developed by the indigenous Aboriginal technological advances have enabled increased production occupants over thousands of years. A consequence is the with lower energy use and less harmful emissions and severe land degradation that has not until very recently hence lowered environmental impact, but a combination received the attention it deserved as one of the most vital of population growth and higher per capita demands for environmental issues facing Australia. goods and energy has often undermined, and in some cases overtaken, the technological gains we have made. If we are to achieve a sustainable future for Australia, the causal factors leading to environmental degradation need Although scientific knowledge of the environmental to be redressed and importantly, supportive links between components and processes has increased exponentially, the urban centres and rural and ‘natural’ sectors of and this continues, we are also now more aware of the Australia must be forged. As well the ‘ecological enormous complexity of ecosystems and of the extent of footprint’ of our urban way of life both on non- our ignorance and uncertainty, necessitating a metropolitan Australia and on overseas environments must precautionary approach. Even with a precautionary be recognised and accounted for in assessments of approach to environmental management we must expect progress towards sustainability. Because of the high level that ‘surprises’, such as stratospheric ozone layer of urbanisation in Australia, it is inevitable that cities and depletion (the ‘hole’ in the ozone layer) from use of CFCs, urban dwellers will play a key role in overall progress to will continue to emerge. We are also now aware that sustainability, both in the urban and non-urban parts of the Australian environments have many unique characteristics country. This will necessarily involve new knowledge, meaning that knowledge of environmental processes from attitudinal change and both technological and institutional other parts of the world cannot be assumed to be relevant innovation. for Australia. This makes for an urgent need to maintain the development of knowledge about the effects of Through such innovation, Australia will be well placed to consumptive and productive practices on Australian not only solve its own problems and move towards environments. Knowledge of Australia’s biota, the impacts sustainability, but to also share these solutions for long- on it, and the success or otherwise of policy measures to term survival with the rest of the world. Prospects for an maintain biodiversity, are classic examples of areas for environmentally healthy Australia, sustainable economic which there is an urgent need for improved understanding wealth and long-term security for rural communities are to support better environmental management. surely reasons enough to make us stop and think about what our grandchildren will otherwise think of us. Environmental issues are inherently complex and ‘end of pipe’ solutions are now recognised as inappropriate. Rather, there is a need to address in an integrated manner,

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