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Sample
Articles: Australia's
Wilderness Movement - Abstract: AUSTRALIA WAS DUBBED "THE ANTIPODES" (literally, the opposite region) by early explorers for very good reasons. Therefore, to be fully understood, Australian wilderness must be viewed in the entire context of what makes Australia a unique continent and culture situated both symbolically and literally at the opposite extreme from that which is familiar in the northern hemisphere and "western" society. Though originally a British Colony and still a member of the British Commonwealth, Australia has had to develop its own approach to managing its vast and remote land estate. As a result, it has created its own voice on natural resource concerns, even as it is still actively developing a wilderness concept based on current needs and issues, as well as acknowledgment of indigenous history and concerns. Climate and Topography In general, the Australian landscape can be characterized as dry and remote, but it has special features. The arid nature of the country is predominate, with the median rainfall over half the continent being less than 30 centimeters (12 inches), with a significant one-third of the continent receiving less than 20 centimeters (8 inches). Australia is one of the oldest land masses on Earth, with more significant erosion than other continents. With the noticeable exception of the Great Dividing Range along the country's eastern shoreline, much of Australia is relatively flat but distinctively rugged. Australia's average elevation is only about 305 meters (1,000 feet), with a continental high point (Mount Kosciusko) of only 2,228 meters (7,310 feet). Therefore it lacks the dramatic mountain landscape that most people think of as wilderness (Stankey et al. 1990). However, Australia is rich in variety of landscape features, biodiversity, and unique flora and fauna from the tropical rainforest and wetlands of the far north, to the far flung arid ranges of the interior, to the monumental natural architecture of the Great Barrier Reef, to the temperate rainforest and "million lakes" of Tasmania. People and Land As a consequence of the climate and topography, Australia's population is concentrated in a relatively narrow band along the southeastern coast. Although it's the approximate size of the United States, Australia has less than one-tenth of the population (with its 17 million people being less than that found in southern California). Thus, Australia is the least densely populated continent (except Antarctica), and is also the most urbanized--80% of its population resides in the narrow coastal strip from Brisbane to Adelaide, plus about one million in the greater area of Perth (Western Australia). Because of its vast arid landscape and unusual plants and animals, Australia was considered hostile and uninviting to most early Europeans. However, this was certainly not the case for the thriving and diverse population of Aboriginal nations which inhabited the continent for over 50,000 years, possibly numbering up to one million at the time of European settlement. While the history of original contact between European settlers and Aboriginal inhabitants is very similar to that of other continents such as Africa and North and South America, the last 15 years has seen increased recognition of the history, diversity, and rights of these Australian indigenous Aboriginal and Torres Island peoples. This trend is reflected in natural resource management policy in general, and the Australian wilderness concept in particular, especially in the recognition of a legal right to land by the Australian High Court and through Commonwealth legislation granting Native Title. Culture and the Law The sheer immensity and power of the Australian landscape has been one of the most formative influences on Australian culture. Early European settlers, faced with a vast yet seemingly inhospitable new home, were forced to quickly develop independence and self- reliance. As modern Australia emerged, a well-developed taste for freedom and regard for individual rights helped shape a nation in which stateÕs rights are emphasized rather than the national authority (referred to as Commonwealth). This system has had a direct influence on the recognition and management of wilderness because, under the Australian constitution, the six states and two territories have prime responsibility for land management (see Figure 1). As a result, wilderness areas are legally designated in three states (Victoria, South Australia, New South Wales) and the Australian Capital Territory, and the ability to create or manage wilderness zones is recognized in Western Australia, Northern Territory, and Queensland. The remaining state, Tasmania, contains some of the most verdant and extensive forest wilderness areas in Australia (which are recognized by World Heritage status), the protection of which became an international issue and contributed to a change of national government in 1983. However, the state has yet to enact wilderness legislation or zoning, although a wilderness land use category is currently proposed under a government review. Though state's rights take the lead in Australia, wilderness is certainly a national issue. The national, or Commonwealth, government has the ability to recognize wilderness zones. The Commonwealth government has even intervened and ruled in favor of national authority over state authority, especially in forbidding dams on the lower Gordon and Franklin Rivers in southeast Tasmania. Furthermore, the Commonwealth government lent support to the significance of wilderness preservation in July 1989, when the (then) prime minister delivered the statement, Our Country Our Future, in which he said: "Wilderness is one of the many legitimate land use options. Sustainability has special relevance in this case as wilderness is essentially pristine and especially vulnerable to developmental pressures" (Hawke 1989). Aboriginal and
An understanding of the relationship of Aboriginals and Islanders to the Australian landscape is central to the development of the Australian wilderness concept. In general, and in keeping with the international pattern of colonialism, the importance of indigenous knowledge and the validity of some of their land management practices is only now becoming more widely recognized. The idea of wilderness as land with no human presence or impacts is of major concern to Aboriginal groups. Wilderness areas are no longer conceived of as lacking in human history, but are rather seen as areas large enough and in such condition that they allow the long-term maintenance of natural systems and biological diversity, as well as cultural values. The protection of cultural values in wilderness areas raises interesting questions and sometimes conflicting objectives. For example, increasing recognition of Aboriginal access rights to their traditional lands raises the issues of hunting in protected areas and mechanized access in wilderness areas. The most important issue is, as the amount of land recognized as Aboriginal land is legally recognized, how the protection of wilderness values on these lands might be achieved with the agreement of the Aboriginal owners (Miller 1995). Definition of Wilderness Described as "Australia's first wilderness society" (Thompson 1986), the National Parks and Primitive Area Council was formed in 1932 and made proposals for the preservation of primitive areas. These early moves to establish primitive areas were largely concerned with protecting wild landscape for recreational and nature conservation values. Many of the proposals were prepared by the pioneering conservationist, Myles Dunphy, who made his position very clear: "Our duty to posterity demands that provision be made for true conservation of wilderness" (Thompson 1986). As wilderness protection began to succeed, the definition of the concept evolved. At first the definitions were largely concerned with size, remoteness, and lack of human impact such as that defined by Myles Dunphy in 1934. This began to significantly change in the late 1970s, when human impacts were considered in a more tolerant light and a distinction was made between Aboriginal influences, which were considered generally to be more sustainable, compared to the major and nonsustainable impacts of the European settlers within the last 200 years. The Australian National Parks and Wildlife Service (Robertson et al. 1992), recognized that: "... in Australia, as in most parts of the world, wilderness is in large part an artifact of the original human inhabitants. Vegetation cover of Australia in 1788 [European settlement] was, with very few exceptions, an artifact of Aboriginal burning practices. This must be recognized in any definition of wilderness." As more states and the Commonwealth government become involved in wilderness designation and management, several common elements have emerged to tie together the many definitions of wilderness, and a generally adopted definition at this time is, "... an area that is, or can be restored to be: of sufficient size to enable the long-term protection of its natural systems and biological diversity; substantially undisturbed by colonial and modern technological society; and remote at its core from points of mechanized access and other evidence of colonial and modern technological society" (Robertson et al. 1992). National Actions to Protect Wilderness The Commonwealth government is increasingly involved in the move to define, designate, and manage wilderness areas. By legal necessity, and because the amount of land controlled by the Commonwealth is not significant, these actions will be somewhat limited. However, it is a force yet increasing and can have both positive and negative impact on wilderness, as is best seen in two recent issues. Forest Wilderness While wilderness was a powerful political issue of the 1980s, the major environmental issue of the 1990s has been forests because of the rate at which wilderness forests are being destroyed by the forest industry. Five hundred- year-old trees, with a girth of 10 or 15 feet, are reduced to woodchips for export to Japan, and complex forest ecology is often replaced with a single species wood crop. Wilderness is especially affected in Tasmania where logging operations extend high into the wooded valleys beside the World Heritage area and into the heart of the Tarkine in North Western Tasmania, which contains the largest temperate rainforest in Australia. The environmental movement initiated an 18-month, coordinated campaign (unprecedented in the history of the forest issue) to save the remaining areas of high conservation and wilderness forests. The Keating Government's decision, in December 1995, is a comprehensive loss for the forest wilderness, further supports a nonsustainable and destructive industry, and condemns the very best of the unprotected forest estate to woodchipping. The chances of an adequate reserve system to protect the rich biodiversity of the forests has been eliminated by this decision. The environmentalists agree that this was largely a political decision influenced by the Australian "wise use" movement and the needs of large corporations. Australian National Wilderness Inventory A series of inventories of Australia's wilderness were begun in the mid-1970s when Helman and his associates applied a dimensional criteria to areas in eastern New South Wales and southeastern Queensland. This was followed by Lesslie and Taylor (1983), who inventoried part of South Australian wilderness using a wilderness continuum characterized by two relative attributes (remoteness and naturalness), and therefore with no absolute boundaries, as their criteria. This interest in inventorying led to the Australian National Wilderness Inventory (ANWI), which was recently completed. (See IJW Volume 1, Number 2.) The ANWI used the method developed by Lesslie and Taylor and others to map wilderness quality across the continent. This has been established as a very large GIS database and is being used for a range of land management and policy applications. The Australian Heritage Commission will now start using the database for the systematic national identification of wilderness areas. State agencies are also using it for their own processes of wilderness identification. The ANWI is also being used to determine wilderness areas to be protected through joint Commonwealth-State forest assessments. Whereto Australian Wilderness? The call for wilderness designation and management is steadily increasing in Australia. The proliferation of activities of nongovernmental organizations, state agencies, and the Commonwealth government bode well for the future. However, much remains to be done if the goal of conserving Australia's fascinating and unique biological diversity, its spectacular wilderness landscapes, and its ancient, indigenous cultural heritage is to be sustained. Issues needing attention include:
Vance G. Martin is executive director of the International Center for Earth Concerns (ICEC), president of The International Wilderness Leadership (WILD) Foundation, and is IJW Executive Editor for international issues. He can be reached at ICEC/WILD, 2162 Baldwin Road, Ojai, CA 93023, USA. Fax: (805) 649-1757; e-mail WILD@fishnet.net. Acknowledgments SUBSCRIBE | SAMPLE ARTICLES | PUBLISHING | MORE INFORMATION Part of the Wilderness Information Network |
