THE NATURE OF NORTHERN AUSTRALIA Natural values, ecological processes and future prospects 1 (Inside cover) Lotus Flowers, Blue Lagoon, Lakefield National Park, Cape York Peninsula. Photo by Kerry Trapnell 2 Northern Quoll. Photo by Lochman Transparencies 3 Sammy Walker, elder of Tirralintji, Kimberley. Photo by Sarah Legge 2 3 4 Recreational fisherman with 4 barramundi, Gulf Country. Photo by Larissa Cordner 5 Tourists in Zebidee Springs, Kimberley. Photo by Barry Traill 5 6 Dr Tommy George, Laura, 6 7 Cape York Peninsula. Photo by Kerry Trapnell 7 Cattle mustering, Mornington Station, Kimberley. Photo by Alex Dudley ii THE NATURE OF NORTHERN AUSTRALIA Natural values, ecological processes and future prospects AUTHORS John Woinarski, Brendan Mackey, Henry Nix & Barry Traill PROJECT COORDINATED BY Larelle McMillan & Barry Traill iii Published by ANU E Press Design by Oblong + Sons Pty Ltd The Australian National University 07 3254 2586 Canberra ACT 0200, Australia www.oblong.net.au Email: [email protected] Web: http://epress.anu.edu.au Printed by Printpoint using an environmentally Online version available at: http://epress. friendly waterless printing process, anu.edu.au/nature_na_citation.html eliminating greenhouse gas emissions and saving precious water supplies. National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry This book has been printed on ecoStar 300gsm and 9Lives 80 Silk 115gsm The nature of Northern Australia: paper using soy-based inks. it’s natural values, ecological processes and future prospects. EcoStar is an environmentally responsible 100% recycled paper made from 100% ISBN 9781921313301 (pbk.) post-consumer waste that is FSC (Forest ISBN 9781921313318 (online) Stewardship Council) CoC (Chain of Custody) certified and bleached chlorine free (PCF). 1. Environmental sciences - Australia, Northern. 2. Human ecology - Australia, 9lives 80 has strong environmental credentials Northern. 3. Social ecology - Australia, including 80% post-consumer fibre and 20% Northern. 4. Human geography - Australia, Totally Chlorine Free (TCF) Fibre. 9lives 80 is Northern. 5. Australia, Northern - Economic a certified mixed source FSC Certified paper. conditions. 6. Australia, Northern - Social policy. I. Woinarski, John. 333.70994 All rights reserved. No part of this publication THE DOTS may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or We’ve used as the basis for the book two by any means, electronic, mechanical, of the central findings of the book itself, photocopying or otherwise, without the namely that the ecosystems across the whole prior permission of the publisher. of the North are inextricably intertwined and that their conditions vary greatly from Printed by University Printing Services, ANU season to season and from year to year. This edition © 2007 ANU E Press To convey this we’ve chosen six representative centres – Broome, Kununurra, Darwin, Cover photo: Eucalypt Savanna in Kakadu Katherine, Normanton and Weipa – which cover National Park by Glenn Walker. all of Northern Australia west to east and which vary north to south and between the coast and inland. The dots at the bottom of each page represent these six centres. The dots change colour and number according to the land and weather conditions at each centre across the course of a chosen year, giving a subtle indication of the inter-related weather patterns across the whole of the North and the variability of the conditions. The colours of headings, captions and pull-out boxes change per chapter as the weather patterns cycle through, corresponding with the dots at the bottom of the page. iv COntEntS vii PreFacE 4 The naturaL VALues OF Northern AustraLIA 1 IntroductioN 45 Local values 2 Objectives of this study 47 National and international values 3 The region 53 The state of Australia’s woodlands 4 Indigenous knowledge and values 53 The state of Australia’s waterways 4 The structure of this study 59 The North and Australia’s biodiversity 5 The authors 60 Conclusion 2 The Land and its peopLE 5 ProbLEMS in the LandscapE 7 The past: an Arafura inheritance 63 Why worry? 9 The Northern landscape 65 Species decline 9 Climate 66 Landscape change 10 Soils 71 The causes of current decline 11 Landforms 81 Depopulation and lack of resources 12 Environments 82 Climate change 15 Biodiversity 83 Solace 20 People of Northern Australia 23 Regions of the North 6 A SustainabLE Future For Northern AustraLIA 25 Current land use and economies 85 Protecting the natural legacy 27 Conclusion 85 Conservation planning 3 HOW the Landscape WorKS 89 Living in the land 29 Ecological functioning and linkages 92 Stories from the land 30 Hydro-ecology: the interdependence 101 Economic activities of water and landscape function 107 Where to from here? 34 Ecological disturbance 109 Summary 38 Interconnections of ecological movements 109 Conclusion 42 Other critical ecological 110 Diagram: Alternative approaches to processes and linkages land use in Northern Australia 43 Conclusion 113 appendiX 1 Methods OF anaLyseS 117 REFerenceS 122 IndeX v 1 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 1 Waterbirds, Aurukun The authors and contributors to this report All photographers who have generously Wetlands, West Coast Cape York Peninsula. Photo by acknowledge the Indigenous Traditional contributed to the publication Kerry Trapnell Owners of Country throughout Northern (acknowledged individually in the text). Australia, and their right to speak for Country. Andrew Wong and Luciana Porfirio for The authors are recipients of an ARC Linkage producing the figures and graphs. Grant focused on investigating connectivity conservation issues in various regions, including Anthony Esposito, Peter Jacklyn, Joe Northern Australia. Some of the outcomes from Morrison, Michael Soulé, Jann Williams, that research were drawn upon for this report. Cecile van der Burgh, Andrew Wong, Simon Kennedy and James Watson The authors would like to thank the for additional comments on what the following people and organisations for project should cover and specific text. their assistance with the publication: Julie McGuiness, Christabel Mitchell, Lyndon The Myer Foundation for its generous Schneiders, James Watson, Virginia Young, funding, without which the project Heidi Douglas and Sylvia Tobler for support would not have been possible. in different ways throughout the project. The Dara Foundation for its support of The Tropical Savannas Cooperative Research the establishment and maintenance of Centre for assistance, and for supporting some the WildCountry Science Council. of the research on which this book is based. Larelle McMillan and Lena Ruby for their Lorena Kanellopoulos and ANU E Press for support in bringing this project together. their assistance in publishing this report. Written contributions from Alan Andersen, Our editors, Hilary Cadman and Sandra Berry, Peter Jacklyn, Stephen An Van den Borre, for their bringing together Garnett, Raina Plowright, Samantha of the authors’ four writing styles. Setterfield and Dick Williams. And lastly thanks to everyone at Oblong + Sons Our reviewers – Peter Cooke, Stephen for their skill and patience with design Garnett, Bob Wasson, Alex Kutt, Garry and printing of the publication. Cook, Chris Margules, Peter Jacklyn, Rosemary Hill, Stuart Blanch, Sarah Legge, Paddy O’Leary and Peter Whitehead. vi PREFACE Why did WE Write this booK? It is because we see something of value here, that committee itself, that growth was a good thing, that is in the process of being devalued. It is because it could be achieved primarily by seeking to impose we are aware of the increasing momentum on the North a pattern of productive activity and to transform these lands, largely by those a way of life essentially European in its origin and unaware of or impervious to its intrinsic value. substantially European in its relevance. There is It is because we consider that the fate, health little evidence in the work of the committee, I am and societies of people in Northern Australia sorry to say, of a genuine understanding of, or an are bound inextricably with their natural intuitive sympathy with, the climatic and territorial landscapes. It is because it is time to consider environments of the North. We were southerners, and systematically and realistically the future of Europeans, and never really got over the sense of being this land, and mechanisms to guide it to that in a somewhat alien and hostile environment … There future. It is because of the failures of the past. was an almost complete disregard for the character and potential of the natural flora andfauna of the We take inspiration and instruction from our North … There was nothing organic in the growth history. Notwithstanding a general anarchic we planned for; it was fundamentally to be based on pattern of development, there have been some extractive and exploitative techniques … It is this lack, extraordinarily detailed and systematic attempts not merely in the work of the committee, but in the to understand the North and to plan its future. thinking about developments by me and my colleagues The most grand of these was the North Australia and the generation to which we belonged, which in Development Committee which, from 1946 to retrospect is so disappointing. (Coombs 1977) 1948, was charged with investigation of the lands and their potential for pastoral, agricultural, Thirty years further down the track, it is mining, forestry, marine, fuel and power, and timely that we mark this message, accept the processing and manufacturing industries. shortcomings of such narrowly developmental Thirty years later, its chairman, Nugget Coombs, perspectives, and work towards a future for reflected on its limitations and biases: Northern Australia that recognises and nurtures its societies and land, and the links between Apart from its emphasis on research and experiment, them. It is in this spirit that this book is offered. the committee’s work reflected the optimism of the time and the prevailing views, shared firmly by the vii viii 1 CHAPTER 1 IntRODUctION If you leave the Wet Tropics around Cairns, Great flocks of birds still move over the land and head west by car for an hour or so, the searching for nectar, seeds and fruit.