Frictions of management: Engaging and performing ‘nature’ in Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park Sarah Jane Bell, BDevStud (Hons) School of Environmental and Life Sciences University of Newcastle, NSW Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements of the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Human Geography) February 2015 i Statement of Originality The thesis contains no material which has been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma in any university or other tertiary institution and, to the best of my knowledge and belief, contains no material previously published or written by another person, except where due reference has been made in the text. I give consent to the final version of my thesis being made available worldwide when deposited in the University Digital Repository**, subject to the provisions of the Copyright Act 1968. **Unless an Embargo has been approved for a determined period. Sarah Bell February 2015 ii Abstract This work offers a more-than-human, performative reconfiguring of Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park, that embraces a motley collection of natures. Previously national parks have been understood as spaces of wilderness that require management to protect them from the detrimental effects of the human population. However as boundaries between nature and culture are being broken down and nature is recognised as connected to and entangled with culture, universal notions of national parks are brought into question. If there is no universal and true nature that is separate to humans and culture then: what is the purpose of national parks? How do decisions get made about what counts as national park nature and what species belong in park spaces? And what is the role of park management? It is these questions that I seek to tackle in this project. I combine Tsing’s notion of ‘friction’, with performative more- than-human geographies to rethink the ways in which Ku-ring-gai Chase is constantly being enacted by more-than-human bodies, objects and forces. I argue that if we think differently about national park nature, then we can also rethink national park management, not as a straightforward human process of preserving or conserving a universal ‘nature’, but as a set of more-than-human encounters that come together in moments of ‘”friction”: the awkward, unequal, unstable and creative qualities of interconnection across difference’ (Tsing 2005: 4). Throughout this thesis I examine a number of ‘frictions’ that spark up when universal notions of ‘national park nature’, ‘nativeness’ and ‘management’ land on the ground in Ku-ring-gai Chase and become messy as they encounter and rub up against the local. The point is not to show how to best manage Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park, but to challenge thinkings and doings to highlight the work that park management does in creating the park on a daily basis. I aim to show how Ku-ring-gai Chase is constituted by a myriad of natures that are constantly being created and recreated through messy, more-than-human encounters of friction. iii Acknowledgments Lesley, where to start! This thesis would not have been possible if not for the immense amount of time and effort that you devoted. Thank you for knowing when to rein me in and for all your finessing elegance. It has been a privilege working with you. I also thank you for your guidance, patience and never ending enthusiasm. You have made this work infinitely better. Kathy, I thank you for the endless encouragement and support you have offered me throughout the years. Thanks for being there to chat about the academic things, life and Harry Potter when I needed it. You started me on this journey, and although it was not always easy, I will be forever grateful that you did. The rest of the geography staff, thank you for the supportive environment you have created. You have all helped me in one way or another throughout this project, so thank you! Also special thanks to Sarah for her supervision stint. Post grads, thank you for letting me know I am not alone in the struggles of the past few years. Thanks to those who shared an office with me, listened to my whinging, gave me advice, proofread my writing, supported me, encouraged me and shared the occasional (one too many) beers with me. Thanks for getting me through. Participants, thank you to the NPWS employees, Discovery vols and the Advisory Committee members for participating in this research. Special thanks to Peter for making this possible and to Vera for organising everything! I am especially appreciative to those let me hang out with them, who answered my questions and who shared their stories, you enlivened this project and made my fieldwork an exciting and rewarding experience. Dennis Foley, thank you for your help and guidance especially during the beginning of this project and for sharing your love of the park with me. My parents and grandparents, thank you for your unwavering belief in me and for all the support you have given me. I am enormously thankful. Mum, I also thank you for the bushwalking trips and the countless hours you spent reading my writing. My family and friends, thank for the constant support throughout the years and for the welcome distractions that kept me sane. Josh, thank you for your patience, love, support and about a million other things. I could not have done it without you bud. I would also like to thank John Revington for his proofreading services and Olivier Rey Lescure for all his assistance with the maps in this thesis. iv Contents Statement of Originality ........................................................................................................................... ii Abstract ................................................................................................................................................... iii Acknowledgments.................................................................................................................................... iv Contents .................................................................................................................................................... v List of Maps.............................................................................................................................................. ix List of Figures ........................................................................................................................................... ix Abbreviations ........................................................................................................................................... xi Introduction ............................................................................................................. 1 Part 1: Introducing the project ................................................................................ 11 Chapter 1 Welcome to Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park .......................................................... 12 1.1 Introduction ...................................................................................................................... 12 1.2 Creation of Ku-ring-gai Chase ........................................................................................... 16 1.3 Effects of the Great Depression ........................................................................................ 19 1.4 Introduction of the NPWS and a new way of thinking ...................................................... 20 1.5 Indigenous history and contentions ................................................................................. 24 1.6 Australian park management ........................................................................................... 28 1.7 Waratah ............................................................................................................................ 31 1.8 Bandicoot monitoring ....................................................................................................... 35 1.9 Conflicting national parks ................................................................................................. 40 Chapter 2 Theorising a disruptive nature ................................................................................. 41 2.1 Introduction ...................................................................................................................... 41 2.2 Rethinking nature ............................................................................................................. 41 2.2.1 Performativity .......................................................................................................... 42 2.2.2 New materiality ........................................................................................................ 44 2.2.3 More-than-human geographies ............................................................................... 45 2.2.4 Challenges for protected areas ................................................................................ 47 2.3 Disruptive natures ............................................................................................................. 48 2.3.1 New ecology ............................................................................................................. 48 2.3.2 Novel ecosystems ..................................................................................................... 49 2.3.3 New nature .............................................................................................................. 51 2.3.4 Bioinvasion as natural .............................................................................................