Consuming Eden: An Environmental History of Food, Culture and Nature in the Esperance Bioregion. Nicole Y. Chalmer BSc., Dip.Ed., Grad. Dip. Agribusiness This thesis is presented for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy of The University of Western Australia School of Humanities March 2017 THESIS DECLARATION I, Nicole Yvonne Chalmer, certify that: This thesis has been substantially accomplished during enrolment in the degree. This thesis does not contain material which has been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma in my name, in any university or other tertiary institution. No part of this work will, in the future, be used in a submission in my name, for any other degree or diploma in any university or other tertiary institution without the prior approval of The University of Western Australia and where applicable, any partner institution responsible for the joint-award of this degree. This thesis does not contain any material previously published or written by another person, except where due reference has been made in the text. The work is not in any way a violation or infringement of any copyright, trademark, patent, or other rights whatsoever of any person. The research involving human data reported in this thesis was assessed and approved by La Trobe University and the University of Western Australia Human Research Ethics Committee. Approval #: 1084- 13 The work described in this thesis was funded by an ARC scholarship DP13012169 This thesis does contain work that is under review for publication: 1. Chalmer, Nicole. ‘A Swarm of Sheep.’ In Cushing, Nancy and Frawley, Jodi. Editors, Animals Count. Routledge, Melbourne, Victoria, 2018. 2. Chalmer, Nicole. ‘Brumbies (Equus ferus caballus) as colonisers of the Esperance Mallee– Recherche bioregion, Western Australia.’ In Kirchberger, Ulrike and Bennett, Brett. Editors, Environments of Empire. Networks and Agents of Ecological Change. UNC Press, USA,(in press). Signature: Date: 27/02/2018 ii THESIS ABSTRACT Australia’s future food security depends on long term sustainable production systems. Whilst present agro- systems attempt adaptation to economic drivers, their long-term environmental sustainability is barely considered. This thesis investigates the environmental/ecological history of food production from prehistory to present, focusing on the Esperance Bioregion - a model for wider Australia. Producing food is an ecological phenomenon dependent on nature though critically influenced by culture. The human ecological, cultural and political processes involved in food production transformed the evolving landscapes and Social Ecological Systems (SES) of nature, to apparently sustainable Aboriginal SES, then to colonial SES followed by modern industrial agro-ecosystems. Deep time forms a significant part of this thesis, for humanity is not the centre of the world, and landscapes and SES without people have existed successfully for far longer than humans. Understanding and acknowledgement of ecosystems before people – the Esperance Bioregion as Eden with landscapes of nature - is essential before conclusions can be made about human environmental history and its impacts. The first modern peoples coming to Sahul/Australia encountered seemingly unending food and resources from the human naïve animals who lived there. They did not automatically live in perfect harmony with the existing landscapes of nature but became a consumer front culminating in a period of destructive ecosystem change from which few of the original ecosystems, their keystone species and ecosystem engineering megafauna and their cohorts survived. As an adaptation to the changes they had caused , people reorganized their culture to fulfill the ecological roles of apex predators, herbivores and ecosystem engineers so becoming the keystone culture. Becoming eco-farmers enabled them to ensure ongoing sustainability of the biodiverse food production that defined their SES. iii To understand present agro-systems it is essential to first understand the historical and ecological factors that influenced their development. In 1829 Western Australian European colonisation and environmental change was ecologically a consumer front. Invasion of the Esperance bioregion started in 1864, when sheep pastoralists came to the region and were for a period successful, despite the impacts of their sheep swarms on local flora, fauna and Aboriginal SES. Pastoralists were soon followed by settler farmers, whose systems adapted partly to local environmental conditions as they used fertile mosaics to grow their imported animals and plants. Aboriginal SES then collapsed spectacularly as land loss, conflict, hunger and disease combined to remove most of their landscape ownership and management. Transformation increased significantly from the 1920’s, despite a short respite due to depression and war. Farming changed from communities living in and farming the landscape as shaped by Aboriginal SES, to re- engineering the landscape to more closely reflect an image of European/Anglo models of agricultural productivity, economy and country. These new SES featured a dramatic reduction in community landscape interaction and native biodiversity to produce a limited range of foods from domesticates. State Government policies supported a terraforming type of landscape change to the mallee and sandplain, resulting in large scale industrialized agricultural systems producing simple foods from crop monocultures mostly based on wheat, sheep and cattle pastures. The clear at all costs attitude continued into the 1980s, with vast areas of mallee–heath and mallee woodlands cleared in the Esperance bioregion, despite clear scientific evidence-based predictions of future land degradation problems, especially from salinity. These are now rapidly materializing. Modern solutions to food production problems may be found by using the concepts of sustainability and resilience thinking to establish how lessons can be learnt from nature and past SES. I conclude with a short discussion of local and global obstacles to developing sustainable food production, along with ideas for possible future systems. Their successful implementation is contingent upon a paradigm shift among farmers as well as society at large. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements viii Figure 1: Map of the Esperance Bioregion with many of the places referred xii to in this thesis. 1. Transformations of Nature and People Introduction 1 1.1 Social Ecological Systems 3 1.2 Sustainability, Resilience and Transformation 7 1.3 Environmental History 9 1.4 Thesis Structure 14 Conclusion 20 2. The Original Eden: Landscapes of Nature and Culture Introduction 21 2.1 Geophysical history – the evolution of a landscape 22 2.2 Geographical and Vegetation Features of the Study Area 26 2.2.1 Aboriginal Landscape 29 2.3 Climate and Weather 31 2.4 Water, Salt, Soils and Plants 33 2.5 Landscapes of Nature and Culture 38 2.5.1 Fire in Landscapes of Nature 40 2.5.2 When Animal Landscapes Dominated 42 Conclusion 44 3. The First Consumers of Eden Introduction 46 3.1 Origins 47 3.2 The Original Eden 51 3.3 Extinction – a Domino Effect 53 3.4 Consuming Eden 55 3.5 Afterwards: the landscapes of people 61 3.6 Human Ecology and Culture 64 Conclusion 67 4. How to Sustain Eating an Eden Introduction 68 4.1 Hunter-gatherers or Eco-farmers? 69 4.1.1 Managing People 71 4.1.2 Managing Nature 75 4.1.3 The fire Tool 76 4.2 Food and Water 80 Conclusion 91 v 5. Pastoralists in the Esperance Bioregion. Introduction 93 5.1 Some Drivers and Enablers of Colonization 95 5.1.1 Discovery - ships and explorers 100 5.2 How many mouths captured Eden 106 5.2.1 Pastoralism, Transhumance, Mobile Strategic Shepherding and Fire 110 5.3 Connections 119 Conclusion 120 6. Ending Aboriginal Social Ecological Systems and Animal Landscapes Introduction 122 6.1 Claiming the Land: Upheld with Law 123 6.2 Population collapse- disease and hunger 124 6.3 Resistance and Conflict 127 6.4 Nanambinia 130 6.5 Ecosystem Baselines and Pastoral Impacts 138 6.5.1 Humans and Other Predators 142 6.5.2 Marsupials and Disease 144 Conclusion 145 7. Whilst I Stretched My Weary Length: Settlers to 1949 Introduction 147 7.1 Pastoral Estates to Freehold: Dividing and Renaming the Landscape 149 7.2 Agriculture, Grass and the Yeoman Ideal 151 7.3 First Farms Were on the Sandplain 154 7.3.1 No Phosphate, No Farming 158 7.4 Farming the Mallee-Woodlands 160 7.4.1 Soils, Salt and the Mallee 167 Conclusion 170 8. Why Change the Landuse When You Can Change the Landscape? Introduction 172 8.1 Industrialising Agriculture 173 8.2 Defeating Limits 176 8.3 The Great Clearing (‘they weren’t doing anything with it anyway!’) 181 8.3.1 The Last Settlers and Rise of Conservation in the 1980’s 188 8.4 Agro-systems Now 194 8.4.1 Self-Sufficiency Ends. 196 Conclusion 197 9. Comparing Pathways, Past and Present – the path chosen may not let you return Introduction 199 9.1 Social Ecological Systems, Resilience, Sustainability and Change 201 9.2 Pleistocene Landscapes - a true baseline? 206 9.3 Sustainability of Aboriginal SES 207 9.4 Sustainability of Colonial SES 209 9.5 Sustainability of Modern Industrial Agriculture 212 9.5.1 Biodiversity Loss, Species Extinction 213 vi 9.5.2 Open Nutrient and Energy Cycles 214 9.5.3 Unlinked natural and social capital 216 9.6 Is Long-Term Sustainable Agriculture Possible in the Esperance Bioregion? 220 9.6.1 Salinity 221 9.6.2 Acidification 225 9.6.3 Carbon 226 9.6.4 Phosphorous 227 9.6.5 Chemical Farming 229 9.6.6 Climate Change and Other Things 230 Conclusion 233 10. Conclusion 238 Uncertain Futures 240 vii List of Figures and Tables, Diagrams -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Figures Figure 1. Map of Esperance Bioregion xii Figure 2.0: Map of underlying geological formations of Esperance 24 Sandplain/Mallee… Figure 2.1: a) Russell Range viewed from the limestone karst plain, Kangawarrie. 25 b) Cheetup Hill a granite dome, viewed from the north with Southern Ocean behind.