To: Committee, EC (SEN); SeniorClerk, Committee (SEN)
Subject: Submission to Senate Inquiry into “Australia"s environment - The Abbott Government"s attacks on Australia's
environment, and their effects on our natural heritage and future prosperity.”
Submission to Senate Inquiry into “Australia's environment - The
Abbott Government's attacks on Australia's environment, and
their effects on our natural heritage and future prosperity.”
Having only just read about this Inquiry today, the last day for submissions (my
fault – I should sign up to alerts…) I would nevertheless like to make a submission,
based not simply on the Abbott Government’s “attacks on the environment”,
which have been mainly via defunding of essential programs, but rather on my
solution to the problem of this de-funding, in two initiatives: “Identify, Protect,
Augment and Connect” to set up a social funding program for the restoration of
threatened ecosystems, and my “Continental Connectivity Initiative”.
Both my initiatives have been soundly supported by many professionals in the field,
including the authors of two essential reports in the past few days: The
Wentworth Group’s “Blueprint for a Healthy Environment and a Productive
Economy” and the World Wildlife Fund “2014 Living Planet Report”, with it’s
shocking and frightening findings about just how degraded our ecosystems are,
many close to the point of no return.
My submission is in the form of emails between myself and the government.
---------------------o0o-----------------------
To: 20 Million Trees
Subject: Fw: Application for 20 million trees funding enquiry
It appears I cannot submit online forms for this funding – I fell at the first hurdle of not
having an ABN and not knowing how to file a ‘Statement by Supplier’. I did however
complete some of the form, included here for my files, before I realised filing would be
impossible, and hope that there will be a funding opportunity more suitable for my
project in the near future. Any advice would be very welcome!
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Herewith my answers:
Description and what it will achieve - 750 characters 120 words
Australia's environment
Submission 38
An installation on tables of all the topographical maps of the continent
overlaid with sheets of acetate on which Aboriginal tribal boundaries
and Songlines are outlined with coloured permanent markers.
Remnants of each discrete threatened ecosystem marked, presettlement
extent outlined and current legal conservation status
identified. The project will provide a high specificity localised template
covering Wakka Wakka territory, focusing on threatened ecosystems
triage, that can be adopted nation-wide, to establish an inter-linked
continental network of Songline-Wildlife Conservation Corridors that
integrates all existing remnants and corridors, and provides contiguous
habitat for maximum biodiversity potential and mobility, bringing
together the expertise of all the people who have invested themselves in
threatened biota conservation and restoration.
Describe the Environmental Conservation outcomes your Project will deliver. Applicants are encouraged
to provide a SMART statement (that is, a statement that is Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic,)
2000 characters 350 words
I am hoping and expecting this project to deliver myriad quantifiable and
unquantifiable environmental conservation outcomes. Blending the
Aboriginal Songlines with Wildlife Conservation Corridors is a unique
proposition and an initiative whose time I believe has come. Even at this
very early stage, it has already generated great interest and engagement
in academia, with many experts and professors in this field such as John
Woinarski and John Blay, enthusiastically pledging their assistance, and
in the local community, with businesses and the Regional Council
offering support. Senior Wakka Wakka law-people such as Robert Bond,
have offered their cultural knowledge, different perspectives and deep
understanding of the diverse physical and spiritual inter-relationships
between the plants, animals and people. The quantifiable outcomes will
be delivered when local land owners, townspeople and schools
undertake the final stage of this process, the wide range of actual
plantings, with a comprehensive program of staggered stages that my
research will identify as having optimum potential for success to
encourage maximum biodiversity. For example along the newly
established Rail Trail, plantings of shade trees for the walkers and
riders and aromatic natives planted along the route will affect people in
subtle, healing ways and provide them with an unforgettable encounter
with Nature in all her biodiverse glory. Unquantifiable outcomes also
include a greater understanding and caring in the community about the
real threats and harsh realities of imminent multi-species extinctions
should we all continue to do nothing to help these last remnants survive
and thrive and expand. After visiting the exhibition and seeing graphic
representation of how little is left of some endangered ecosystems,
people will hopefully consider participating in tree planting projects
and other ways they can help ‘identify, protect, augment/buffer and
connect’ last remnants and save them from inevitable extinction.
List any relevant environment or natural resource management plans, programmes, projects and/or
initiatives and describe how your
Project links to or supports them. *
Limit your response to no more than 1200 characters (approximately 200 words).
My project links with every conservation corridor in the country! The major
schemes are in “Linking Australia’s Landscapes”:the famous Gondwana
Link,the Great Eastern Ranges Initiative,Habitat 141°,South Australian
NatureLinks .The Bundian Way, established by John Blay in collaboration
with Aboriginal culture custodians, is the most advanced and sophisticated
template for Indigenous Eco-Cultural tourism. TREAT have been
establishing three major habitat linkages on the Atherton Tableland over the
past 40 years. The Flinders Karawatha Corridor is a great example of a state
and local govt partnership where a number of stakeholders developed a fiveyear
Management Strategy.The Baralba Corridor Nature Refuge comprises
Australia's environment
Submission 38
8properties in the CowBay area and links two isolated areas of the Daintree
National Park. Yarra Yarra Biodiversity Corridor, Yarraweyah
BiodiverseReforestation &Moresby Ranges Reforestation, three recent
initiatives. Aboriginal Cultural Tourism Trails include the Canning Stock
Route, The TulampangaTrail near Mole Creek; The Karunjie Track,an old
stock route that transverses numerous cattle stations in the Kimberley
&TheBullawah IndigenousCultureTrail near Wangaratta.
To: 20 Million Trees
Subject: Application for 20 million trees funding enquiry
I would like to submit an application for this funding but am not sure whether
my project conforms to the stated eligibility requirements. I did read in the
guidelines that “The Minister may select strategic or exceptional projects
from outside the competitive funding round described in these Guidelines,
provided such projects meet the Programme Objectives” and I am
encouraged by that, as I believe my project does meet the government’s stated
objectives of “enhancing local biodiversity by improving the extent,
condition and connectivity of native vegetation”, and eminently so,
especially in terms of addressing endangered ecologies and due to its
inclusive nature. The practical planting stage however, which this funding
appears to be specifically targeting, is just not the first stage - it is, as it
logically should be, the final stage of an holistic process that determines
exactly where to plant what tree, shrub and ground-cover species for the very
best outcomes of sustainability and resilience, and when to plant, as there will
need to be successive stages in the development of the three tiers of a forest
ecosystem. Anything less is vulnerable to failure.
The goal is to create a continental-scale inter-connected network of selfperpetuating
natural ecologies that will provide habitat for the maximum
biodiversity potential of the ecosystem the corridors transverse, and support
all life, from soil microbes right up to apex creatures. At the completion of this
initial stage, I will be able to provide high specificity for a program of connectivity
projects covering Wakka Wakka territory, focusing on endangered ecosystems
triage.
My application is as an individual, as I haven’t had time to organise the various
local groups who will eventually be involved (I only found out about this
funding opportunity through an article in my local paper a week ago) but it
will bring together the expertise of all the major players in the South Burnett
who have invested themselves in conservation and threatened biota
restoration. Two people in particular have the extensive local knowledge
needed to oversee any future planting projects – Biologist, SGAP President
and Greening Australia Caroline Haskard and native plant expert Harry Franz.
I have full support from associated businesses in Murgon and have an emailed
letter of support from South Burnett Mayor Wayne Kratzmann. In addition
and fortuitously, the South Burnett Regional Council's Department of Natural
Resources Management and Parks, with five administrative and 40
supporting staff, will soon be relocating from Kingaroy to the Murgon offices –
this will provide invaluable professional assistance to my project and I fully
anticipate a close relationship with them.
Australia's environment
Submission 38
My project, the culmination of 20 years of dedicated work and research, will
provide a localised template that can be adopted nation-wide of how to
establish an inter-linked continental network of Songline-Wildlife
Conservation Corridors that integrates all existing remnants and corridors,
such as the National Trail and the Stock Route system. The network of
Songlines is largely preserved in the stock route system that superimposed
them and I am proposing the Dreaming Tracks be accorded the same legal
status as the stock routes. This will provide numerous economic and social
benefits and opportunities via eco-cultural tourism.
I am bringing together knowledge and ideas from a variety of sources such as
Professor Woinarski’s article in The Conversation “Why Australia’s outback is
globally important”; Paul Tacon’s 2005 “Chains of Connection”; Ian Pulsford,
James Fitzsimons and Geoff Westcott’s “Linking Australia’s Landscape”;
Elizabeth Kolbert, Bill Laurance Conversation essay “Why a carbon tax for
wildlife corridors is a good idea”, to augment my proposed Songlines thesis,
outlined here :http://worldatpolarity.blogspot.com.au/2014/10/thedreaming-
tracks.html, that I hope to undertake in the not-to-distant future in my
Indigenous Studies BA with Southern Cross at the moment, but I’m looking for
other options. I will also contact Professor David Lindenmayer as another leading
light in this field, particularly addressing a forest’s moist understory strata that
creates humus, often misunderstood as ‘fuel load’ that must be regularly ‘cleaned
up’ or burnt. (more contacts in note 1)
I’m also working on an endangered ecosystem social policy, encapsulated in my
Innovations Challenge submission ‘Identify-Protect-Augment-Connect’
(http://worldatpolarity.blogspot.com.au/2014_10_01_archive.html ) In this
effort I have taken inspiration from Mason Crane (below in note 2).
My Floriade ‘Aspiring Inventors Competition’ submission: A system of
rainforest regeneration utilising trenches and seed beds
(http://worldatpolarity.blogspot.com.au/2014_08_01_archive.html ), which was
selected as a finalist; and my ‘Cloyna Nature Reserve Report’ addresses a lot
of the specifics of reforestation. I have had a lot of practical experience – two
projects in particular are relevant: on the Atherton Tablelands, I helped
TREAT (3) in the early 1990’s (who were even then devising plans for habitat
connectivity) and virtually on my own, planted and established 2000 assorted
native trees around the boundaries of the 80 acre property I was caretaking
by Ellinjaa Falls - it was a period of severe drought – no sooner had I finished
watering all the trees, I had to start again! The other major project was
establishing 400 dry vine forest trees planted around the last standing
rainforest giant on my privately-owned Nature Reserve in Cloyna and
regenerating an area of rainforest via concentric trenches and raised islands
for seed planting. It was extremely challenging; the soil was poor and rock
hard and I had to devise adaptive techniques. Both major projects were steep
learning curves but my success rate was over 95% as I never planted a tree
unless I was absolutely certain it would thrive.
In some degraded landscapes, planting a corridor alone may not be
appropriate or sufficient to achieve this objective. For example, the Kyapo
Amazon people’s cultural practice of creating ‘apete’ or forest islands across a
Australia's environment
Submission 38
savannah utilises a wide range of methods to augment the biodiversity of the
stepping stones that animals birds and insects use when they ‘hop’ from one
apete to the next. In the case of restoring the ‘Yidinji Walkway’ Songline on
the Atherton tablelands, the issue of water pollution and introduced grasses
must first be addressed to encourage back species that have become locally
extinct – this is one case where vegetation may need to be removed to reopen
the traditional walkway through the dense rainforest that has overgrown it.
One corridor I have identifying as having potential for immediate bioenrichment
with shade trees and endangered flora species is the recently
state-funded (to the tune of $2 million) South Burnett Rail Corridor – local
cyclists and tourists can only benefit greatly from specific plantings to offer
shade and provide an unforgettable engagement with nature in its full
glorious complement. I have previously put forward a proposal to utilise the
railway embankment from Murgon to Cloyna as a cycling venture, opening up
opportunities for refreshments or B&B accommodation in the village and
along the route. The old railway line transverses a few remnants and once
again is perfect for a wide corridor of specific plantings. Roadside reserves are
naturally adaptable to enrichment planting to provide continuity, however
the dangers posed to native animals attracted to them are at present
insurmountable. Plantings should utilise species that attract insects, birds,
sugar gliders and flying fox at this stage.
To set up this project, I have already obtained permission from the proprietor
of Murgon’s magnificent old Star Theatre, now a secondhand/
discount/nursery centre, to lease for a year a part of the extensive
storage area at the back connected to a large foyer area for a year, at a very
reasonable cost I might add. It will involve a number of tables (inexpensively
bespoke-built, perhaps by Zelinski’s Engineering in Murgon), each able to
accommodate a group of topographical maps to afford easy access. Overlaying
the maps will be sheets of acetate on which the conservation status of each
ecosystem will be delineated (such as Will Pringle’s map of Tasmania in
Australian Geographic), the tribal boundaries and Songlines marked.
I believe I am the only person attempting to map the entire continent’s
Songlines, drawing the information from a vast corpus of publications. My
future thesis is encapsulated in this competition entry: THE COMMON WAYS -
How restoring the network of the world's ancient trade routes with ecocultural
tourism can unite humanity, enhance biodiversity and bring about
lasting peace: http://worldatpolarity.blogspot.com.au/2014/05/the-common-ways-howrestoring-
network.html My submission to the House of Representatives Inquiry
into Biodiversity PRECIOUS BEYOND MEASURE is here:
http://worldatpolarity.blogspot.com.au/search?updated-min=2011-01-
01T00:00:00-08:00&updated-max=2012-01-01T00:00:00-08:00&maxresults=
13
Remnants of threatened ecosystems will be colour-coded, along with an
outline of estimated pre-settlement cover – the idea is to graphically
represent exactly how much of these habitats have been cleared over the
decades, 98% erased in the case of the dry-vine forests of this district and
99% of brigalow I believe - the once extensive Bunya Lands have also shrunk
Australia's environment
Submission 38
drastically to the confines of the mountains themselves. People will hopefully
then understand the urgent imperative of just why we must all get involved in
‘identifying, protecting, augmenting and connecting’ these last fragments of
precious biodiversity that provide habitat for so many species, doomed to
local or national extinction if nothing is done. Around the walls will be
numerous pictures of the species represented in Wakka Wakka country.
Eventually all the tables will all be placed together for the final exhibition at
completion of the project.
My concept of combining the Songline network to Conservation Corridors is a
“powerful way of viewing nature and its myriad interconnections” [Professor
John Woinarski’s endorsement Note 1] and has enormous potential for
expansion and further innovation. I am confident that Wakka Wakka elders at
Cherbourg and Nurunderi TAFE which is located in the town, will have a
major input. South Burnett School children will also be involved in the project,
and at the completion of this funding after one year, I will be submitting an
educational program to the State Government for their consideration for
inclusion into the curriculum. The schools project may involve a papier-mâché
topographical construction of the Indigenous nation on whose tribal territory
the school is located – each will receive a laminated wall map of the Aboriginal
language groups: (4) http://www.aiatsis.gov.au/asp/map.html
I sincerely hope I will be successful in receiving funds to establish this holistic
approach to at last turn the tide of ecological destruction and degradation. Of
course, the very first priority of endangered ecology ‘triage’ is to not
unnecessarily fragment existing remnants, which is why the NSW RMS’
current plans to construct a large freeway through the Clarence Valley’s last
remaining intact habitat of the endangered coastal emu (5), when there are
perfectly viable alternate routes, is counter-productive to and directly
conflicts with the federal government’s objectives stated here and must be
rejected.
A Continental Network of Conservation Corridors is a concept whose time has
come.
--------------------o0o-----------------------
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
(1) *Comment on my project by Professor John Woinarski – I have his and Barry Traill’s (Gondwana Link)
enthusiastic support for my project, and commitment to provide me with their input – I have also received advice and
encouragement from John Blay who set up the Bundian Way , the most sophisticated and advanced template for
Indigenous Eco-Cultural tourism http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2014/06/02/4017106.htm and
http://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/heritageapp/ViewHeritageItemDetails.aspx?ID=5060185 ).
The Bundian Way Heritage Route is the most established integrated conservation/Indigenous cultural/tourist
enterprise, and is the shining example of how to go about establishing such corridors in real terms with an
environmental/social/economic triple bottom line.
“The Bundian Way will take its place as one of the world's great ancient walks.” Mark McKenna, author of the
award winning history of European settlement, 'Looking for Blackfellas Point',
Australia's environment
Submission 38
I have not had time to call for expressions of interest to input into this scheme, but I am confident many more academics in
these fields will be involved - Keith Bradby from Gondwana Link, Professor David Lindenmayer is another leading light
in this field, particularly addressing the critical value of a forest’s moist understory strata that creates humus, so often
misunderstood as ‘fuel load’ that must be regularly ‘cleaned up’ or burnt; Professor Jean Joss (endangered lungfish
expert), Michael ‘Ghillar’ Anderson has promised to put me in touch with some people who are pursuing similar goals,
Dr Woolombi Waters of Griffith University to name just a few. Bush foods expert Vic Cherikoff is a longtime colleague
of mine –we collaborated to write: WILD FOODS v PROCESSED FOODS or Traditional Indigenous Diet v the
Modern Industrial Diet http://worldatpolarity.blogspot.com.au/2014/08/wild-foods-vs-processed-foods.html
Three professors I will prioritise contacting are Professor Paul Ehrlich Population Studies, Stanford
University Emeritus Professor Harry Recher Edith Cowan University Associate Professor Peter
Banks School of Biological Sciences, University of Sydney
National Parks system or the conservation reserve system, which is fragmented, where the great majority
of Parks are too small to provide all the resources that all the fauna and even all the flora that live in them
require. These Parks are basically unrepresentative in their totality of continental biodiversity because
they haven’t been selected to sample the biodiversity of a continent…. The other part of the biodiversity
that is critical in this huge amount of biodiversity which is not birds or mammals or frogs or lizards or
plants … they’re insects, they’re microbes, they’re fungi …. that’s 99% of the biodiversity of the
continent and its also the diversity that makes everything work. ………….‘Invert the Paradigm’Instead
of thinking about National Parks within Australia, think about Australia within a National Park … think
about the entire continent as one big conservation reserve………I would be thinking of centres of human
activities; just like we now think of the continent with a few national parks scattered around it, start
thinking of the continent as a National Park with lots of human activity. So there would be mine sites and
there would be villages and roads and all those sorts of things, but the big change would be on managing
the land in between those nodes, to cater for the requirements of all species - and the nodes themselves,
the cities, can also be managed for Nature conservation purposes. We’d have healthier cities!
(2) Mason Crane: Can a sheep farm be a biodiversity haven?
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/offtrack/can-a-sheep-farm-be-a-biodiversity-haven/5658898 Monday 11 August
2014 - After more than 100 years of this treatment, the landscape that is left near Gundagai is a mixture of introduced
and native grasses with a smattering of large trees and some new plantings, mostly along roads or fence lines. Now
there is less than half a percent of that sort of environment left intact (and most of that is in cemeteries). ‘Even
though it’s highly cleared now, there is still a lot of value in these scattered paddock trees and sometimes small remnant
patches that still exist’ “Every farmer has got a shade of green in them…” “People used to say to me, ‘We know you’re
a conservationist but you’re not a greenie, are ya?” and I’d say “Nahhh…” But now I say “Yes I am a greenie! There’s
nothing wrong with being a greenie – it just means you care…”
My comment: Mason Crane steers a middle path between the ‘right’ and ‘left’ factions in his community (whilst being a
deep green at heart) and is able to bring everyone together in a mutually agreed stewardship plan for the land’s
biodiversity – what an ideal to aspire to. The reason why I made a point of the ‘obligation free’ approach to farmers and
land holders who may have remnants of endangered vegetation on their land in my Identify/Protect/Augment/Connect
initiative, is specifically to address the all-too-common mindset behind the horrendous killing of a Dept of Environment
compliance officer in Moree, and the response by the Mayor that he was somehow justified because he’d been “pushed
and pushed” by the tree clearing laws! So the approach is EDUCATION first and foremost then incentive.’
(3) TREAT - Trees for the Evelyn and Atherton Tablelands (“The right tree in the right place for the right
reason”) Habitat Linkages in the Southern Atherton Tableland This project involves the re-establishment of three
habitat linkages in a wet tropical environment using an ecological restoration approach. The restoration projects have
been established in the Wet Tropics bioregion of far north Queensland, known for its very high levels of biodiversity and
endemism, and the highly fragmented nature of its predominately rain forest vegetation. The habitat linkages - Lakes,
Donaghy's and Peterson Creek - were conceived as a potential response to issues of land degradation, localised species
extinctions and patch isolation (Bennett 1999, Tucker et al 2004). All three projects traverse the private lands (Map 1)
which surround three rain forest reserves; Lake Eacham (466ha) and Lake Barrine (465ha), collectively forming the
Crater Lakes National Park, and the Curtain Fig National Park (303ha). Each of these reserves is located between 1km
and 10kms from Wooroonooran National Park, one of the largest blocks of intact forest within the Wet Tropics World
Heritage Area (WTWHA). By inter-connecting each reserve, and having linkage into Wooroonooran, ecological
connectivity would be increased across this unit of the landscape.
(4) http://www.healthinfonet.ecu.edu.au/map-aboriginal-australia Aboriginal Australia Wall Map, D R Horton,
Aboriginal Studies Press, AIATSIS, 1996 The Map of Aboriginal Australia was created by David Horton and is
based on language data gathered by Aboriginal Studies Press, AIATSIS and Auslig/Sinclair, Knight, Merz,
(1996). The map attempts to represent all language groups of the Indigenous people of Australia. However, it
indicates only the general location of larger groupings of people, which may include smaller groups, such as
clans, dialects or individual languages in a group
(5) About this PetitionThe Coastal Emu is listed as an endangered population on the New South
Wales North Coast. It has declined in recent years due to predation by feral and domestic
animals and road deaths. The current population estimate is about 100 birds. The Roads and
Australia's environment
Submission 38
Maritime Services plan to construct a large freeway through the remaining habitat of the
species in the Clarence Valley interrupting, or preventing, the natural movements of the
species. There is a less ecologically destructive alternative route, the orange option, but this
has been rejected on social and economic grounds. The major environmental issues have
been ignored.
MORE CULTURE TRAILS:
Koori Mail 22.10.14 Funding allocated to new culture trail
A large granite rock, known as the ‘Elder Rock’ etched with a local honour roll, will be the focal point at
the start of the Bullawah Indigenous Culture Trail being developed near Wangaratta, in north-east
Victoria. The Victorian Government has announced $120,000 to support the $180,000 Culture Trail and
Elders Rock Project, with funds also being contributed by the Rural City of Wangaratta. The Dirrawa
Local Indigenous Network and the Rural City of Wangaratta will work to complete the project, which
will provide a cultural and educational precinct for the local community. The Bullawah trail will be
developed along the existing Ovens River walking trail, highlighting a place rich in cultural heritage and
a source of pride for the local Aboriginal community.
Flinders Karawatha Corridorhttps://www.ehp.qld.gov.au/land/naturalresource/
flinders-karawatha/index.html
This well-established corridor provides a great example and deserves careful study - I will be following
the progress of this excellent initiative very closely to learn as much as possible to incorporate into my
own program:
The Queensland Government, in partnership with local government and the community,
is committed to maintaining and enhancing the rural and environmental amenity of the
Flinders Karawatha Corridor.The partnership and its activities will provide incentives that
will assist landholders to ensure that the values of the corridor are maintained for future
generations. Participation by landholders will be completely voluntary and inclusion in
the corridor program does not impose any new regulations. No property rights will be
restricted by inclusion within the Flinders Karawatha Corridor boundary.The Queensland
Government, in partnership with local government and a number of other stakeholders,
has developed the Flinders Karawatha Corridor Management Strategy—a five-year
management plan that identifies actions that maintain and enhance its environmental,
recreational and cultural heritage values. The management strategy focuses project
partners and the community on key activities that ensure the long-term maintenance.
Excerpt from my 2003 published article: If the Dreaming Tracks could be mapped, as
with the Kayapo’s tracks in the Amazon Basin and the ancient walking tracks of
Britain and Europe, they could be accorded the same legal status as the stock
route system, i.e. free access to walkers and riders. There would be no need for
any land claims and all property owners whose land the tracks pass through would
be obliged to do, as with the stock route, is allow a gate through any fence that
crossed the pathway. Eventually these corridors could be expanded to kilometreswide
belts of sacred landscape and re-vegetated with native bush tucker. This
scheme also has tremendous eco-tourism possibilities, as well as educating young
indigenous kids in their cultural heritage. It seemed to me to be a far more
realistic way to restore dignity, cultural strength and indigenous people’s
rightful custodianship of their countries, peacefully and with elegant
simplicity.
According to the 2000 ‘State of the Environment Report’, 3,000 of the ecocommunities
that native people once managed sustainably for hundreds of thousands
of years on this continent, are nearing total collapse, half of these deemed too
fragmented and too denuded to save, due mostly to land clearing. Indigenous
people, and the wider community, will have to take drastic measures to protect
every last fragment of each endangered ecosystem remaining, and to re-vegetate
vast areas of agricultural land (perhaps using the Kayapo blueprint) before they
can resume their traditional cultural methods of managing that land.
Biodiversity world-wide is plummeting - we're in the midst of what could become
the worst mass extinction phase this planet has ever experienced, due primarily
to land-clearing, pollution & mega-dams etc. exacerbated by global warming. This
tragedy-in-progress could be turned around tomorrow, at least with land based
biodiversity, and every last remnant of our natural environment saved and
restored back to sustainable levels, but even though this is what every
thinking, caring person wants, there is no political will.
Excerpt from First Footprints by Scott Cane:
The enormity and complexity of the religious geography across arid Australia is indicated by the
representation of desert dreaming, or Tjukurrpa, tracks. There are many hundreds more tracks and
Australia's environment
Submission 38
stories than are represented here and each provided a pathway across the desert, between countries,
linking waterholes with reliable living areas and places of religious importance. These highways of
subsistence, ceremony and society conditioned life in one of the hardest landscapes on Earth. Armed
with this oral tradition, a desert nomad could survive anywhere, at almost any time over the last 45,000
years of settlement in the desert. Sand Goanna, Water Snake. Thorny Devil, Fire/Bustard, Two Men, Two
(other) Men, Eagle, Moon, Native Cat, Man and Kangaroo, Scrubby Kangaroo and Magpie, Red Kangaroo,
Echidna, Sand Goanna, Emu, Women (Fire), Many Women, Sweet Potato, Kingfisher, Water Desert Finch
-------------------------------------------------------------
Excerpt from PAUL TACON’s essay Chains of Connection: The European-
Australian and contemporary Western world’s approach is one that focuses on dividing the
universe into discrete units for management and study, with connections and relationships
examined later. The Aboriginal approach is generally from the opposite direction, focusing on
relationships and connections first. Thus landscapes are viewed from a broad historical
perspective first, with areas of interest or speciality within noted next. It is very important in
this context to explain the connections between places, whether they be stone quarries, places
of food resources, sites to be avoided or whatever, in order to more fully understand them.
This understanding can be crucial for survival, especially in times of increased environmental
or political change. If we were to plot all of these tracks, a number of fascinating details would
become apparent. First of all, we would see that many correspond with traditional seasonal
travel routes and that some also correspond with modern roads and highways. Second, we
would see a strong correlation between sacred sites associated with Ancestral Beings and
Dreaming Tracks. We would also find correspondence between Dreaming Tracks and meeting
places, some types of rock art and some forms of stone arrangement. Finally, we would
observe links to places of geo-diversity and biodiversity. We would have a map that was
social, historical, geological, biological, ecological and archaeological at the same time.
Indigenous World Views Topic 2 provides an excellent description of the Songlines: “The Australian continent is crisscrossed
with the tracks of the Dreaming: walking, slithering, crawling, flying, chasing, hunting, weeping, dying, giving
birth. Performing rituals, distributing the plants, making the landforms and water, establishing things in their own places;
making the relationships between one place and another. Leaving parts or essences of themselves, looking back in
sorrow; and still traveling, changing languages, changing songs, changing skin … Where they travelled, where they
stopped, where they lived the events of their lives, all these places are sources and sites of Law. These tracks and sites,
and the Dreamings associated with them, make up the sacred geography of Australia they are visible in paintings and
engravings; they are sung in songs, depicted in body paintings and engravings they form the basis of a major dimension
of the land tenure system for most Aboriginal people. To know the knowledge of how the human owners of that country
came into being. Except in cases of succession, the relationship between the people and their country is understood to
have existed from time immemorial – to be part of the land itself. (Rose 1996, pp 35-36)
Excerpt from SONGLINES AND STONE AXES by John Nicholson
CHAPTER 2 – TRAVELLERS AND TRADERS - PATHWAYS
English-speaking people talk about ‘Dreaming tracks’ or ‘songlines’ when referring to the many
pathways that criss-crossed ancient Australia. These are rough translations of Aboriginal words. People
used the Dreaming tracks for everyday travel or trade, but originally these pathways followed mythical
journeys of ‘Dreamtime’ ancestors. The myths described how ancestors created the important places
along each track: waterholes, hills, groups of boulders, creek beds, etc. the stories served as oral maps –
like a set of directions on how to get from one place to another.
The tracks were often hundreds of kilometers long, threading the territories of many clans and language
groups. Most people would have known the story describing just a small section of the track. Their
knowledge of the pathway (and its story) was like their knowledge of language. The further away from
home they were, the less they knew. Just how far along these tracks people could travel also depended on
how friendly they were with other groups along the way. In one direction there could be a long chain of
friendly clans. In another direction, travel might be dangerous. Because of this, trade routes often
followed tribal boundaries, threading the ‘no-man’s-land’ or neutral ground where one territory met
another. [This boundary was flexible, changing with seasons and tribal conflict….mb] Here, people from
both sides (and people from far away) could travel free from danger. Pathways also followed the easiest
routes. In mountain country, for example, they followed ridgelines rather than the steep, choked gullies.
Routes changed from time to time, but the large amounts of discarded bones, shells and broken tools
discovered by archaeologists along these paths indicate that most stayed the same for thousands of years.
They wee well-beaten and easy to follow. In Tasmania, travel corridors through dense forest were
maintained by regular burning, creating broad swathes of open grassland. [Also through dense tropical
rainforests, as George Davis’ description of the YIDINJII WALKWAY …mb] One such corridor skirted
almost the entire west coast during the 3000 to 4000 years before European settlement. After the arrival
of Europeans, settlers used Aboriginal tracks as stock routes because they led to sources of water,
convenient river crossings, sheltered campsites and good sources of food for people and animals.
Australia's environment
Submission 38
From The Language Man John BradleyA Songline is like a map of how the land was
created by the old people – thing that they have got to follow as a line their law like the bible some
kept everybody in their place everybody had that in their mind – doesn’t mean much to the
younger gen they never continued to carry that on. It’s a sad fact that Yanuwa children, even
adults, have little knowledge of songlines. You sense in kids that they want to know –that the big
challenge how do you create device in young might be interest in what the old storyboard 400 kms
of Songlines - series of animated songlines via internet – radical intervention of another kind
culture law is worth something – well see if it works. This notion of the sacred is really an
important issue - they have a very strong idea in force of sacred no separation between secular and
sacred songlines missed opportunity for austalians of the core these invisible threads of creation
create a senes of sacredness, something that is seriously misunderstood.
Cultural tourism: Aboriginal tourism venture opens: A new interpretation trail has been opened in the state's north to
provide an insight into Tasmanian Aboriginal cultural heritage. The Tulampanga trail near Mole Creek is an
example of the attractions that will be developed and promoted as part of the state government's Aboriginal Tourism
Development Plan. The Community Development Minister, Michelle O'Byrne, says the plan, although in its early stages,
will help create a better understanding of Aboriginal culture. "There's a great opportunity for Tasmanian Aboriginal
Tourism, not only in some of the sites that have great meaning and tell great stories of the journey of the Tasmanian
Aboriginal people over thousands of years but also there is wonderful theatre, wonderful singing, there is great dance
work, a whole multitude of experience that we can have," Ms O'Byrne said.
The Digital Songlines Project is a narrative that allows the viewer to follow an Aboriginal songline through the landscape, encountering the
legends, lore, totemic items and practical issues of day-to-day living as a traditional person would. http://songlines.interactiondesign.com.au
Songlines Across the Wollemi http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/09/26/1064083186183.html
Dreaming Tracks or Trading Paths: The Common Ways: Dale Kerwin - Recognises the great significance of 'walkabout'
as a major trading tradition whereby the Dreaming paths and songlines formed major ceremonial routes along which
goods and knowledge flowed. These became the trade routes that criss-crossed Australia and transported religion and
cultural values. The thesis also highlights the valuable contribution Aboriginal people made in assisting the European
explorers, surveyors, and stockmen to open the country for colonisation, and it explores the interface between Aboriginal
possession of the Australian continent and European colonisation and appropriation. Instead of positing a radical
disjunction between cultural competencies 'before' and 'after', the thesis considers how European colonisation of Australia
(as with other colonial settings) appropriated Aboriginal competence in terms of the landscape: by tapping into culinary
and medicinal knowledge, water and resource knowledge, hunting, food collecting and path-finding. As a consequence of
this assistance, Aboriginal Dreaming tracks and trading paths also became the routes and roads of colonisers. This
dissertation seeks to reinstate Aboriginal people into the historical landscape of Australia. From its beginnings as a
footnote in Australian history, Aboriginal society, culture, and history has moved into the preamble, but it is now time to
inscribe Aboriginal people firmly in the body of Australian history.
The Karunjie Track, an old stock route that weaves through El Questro and Digger's Rest cattle
stations in Western Australia's far north Kimberley. Though the Karunjie Track is a gazetted
public road, it hasn't always been easy in recent times for tourists to get to the Gulabidgi Swamp,
SONGLINES across the night sky “DARK SPARKLERS” – Yidumduma’s Wardaman
Aboriginal Astronomy by High Cairns and Bill Yidumduma Harney
There is life-preserving mimicry in the songlines that lead to such matters as finding water (watch where
the birds find it!); but putting it all together in language is the genius of humanity. Concepts stem from
observations an experience, and become the material for one of human being’s magisterial skills, the
displacement of metaphors. It is in this skill that Aboriginal culture excelled in its provision of story and
songline for the living of full and goodly life.
Songlines Across the Wollemi
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/09/26/1064083186183.html
The Digital Songlines Project is a narrative that allows the viewer to follow an Aboriginal songline
through the landscape, encountering the legends, lore, totemic items and practical issues of day-to-day
living as a traditional person would. http://songlines.interactiondesign.com.au
“The Australian continent is criss-crossed with the tracks of the Dreaming: walking, slithering, crawling,
flying, chasing, hunting, weeping, dying, giving birth. Performing rituals, distributing the plants, making
the landforms and water, establishing things in their own places; making the relationships between one
place and another. Leaving parts or essences of themselves, looking back in sorrow; and still traveling,
changing languages, changing songs, changing skin … Where they traveled, where they stopped, where
they lived the events of their lives, all these places are sources and sites of Law. These tracks and sites,
and the Dreamings associated with them, make up the sacred geography of Australia they are visible in
Australia's environment
Submission 38
paintings and engravings; they are sung in songs, depicted in body paintings and engravings they form
the basis of a major dimension of the land tenure system for most Aboriginal people. To know the
knowledge of how the human owners of that country came into being. Except in cases of succession, the
relationship between the people and their country is understood to have existed from time immemorial –
to be part of the land itself. (Rose 1996, pp 35-36)
'Aboriginal Pathways in Southeast Queensland and the Richmond River' by J G Steele, University of Qld
Press, 1984.
Habitat 141, a plan to link national parks from the outback to the ocean, is the largest
environmental restoration project ever tackled in Victoria.
Flinders Karawatha Corridor
“The diverse landscapes of the Flinders Karawatha Corridor are identified, and
managed to support the sustainability of its significant environmental, scenic,
cultural, recreation, economic and tourism values and the liveability and wellbeing of
existing and future regional communities and landowners.”
Key objectives Implementation of the vision will be built around the following key
objectives:
Develop a corridor management strategy that will guide actions to achieve the vision for the
corridor.
Establish enduring partnership arrangements and build capacity for cooperative management of
the corridor’s values.
Improve habitat and connectivity values in the corridor by providing financial incentives for
landholders to participate in voluntary programs.
Promote recreation, economic and tourism opportunities consistent with maintaining the values
of the corridor
The Queensland Government, in partnership with local government and the community, is
committed to maintaining and enhancing the rural and environmental amenity of the Flinders
Karawatha Corridor.
The partnership and its activities will provide incentives that will assist landholders to ensure
that the values of the corridor are maintained for future generations. Participation by
landholders will be completely voluntary and inclusion in the corridor program does not impose
any new regulations. No property rights will be restricted by inclusion within the Flinders
Karawatha Corridor boundary.
The Queensland Government, in partnership with local government and a number of other
stakeholders, has developed the Flinders Karawatha Corridor Management Strategy—a fiveyear
management plan that identifies actions that maintain and enhance its environmental,
recreational and cultural heritage values. The management strategy focuses project partners
and the community on key activities that ensure the long-term maintenance.
In order to maintain the environmental, recreational and cultural heritage values, issues such as
management of fire, weeds and erosion control need to be coordinated. In some cases
innovative engineering solutions may be required to ensure wildlife can safely travel between
habitats. All participation by the community and landholders in these programs will be
voluntary.
The corridor is the largest remaining continuous stretch of open eucalypt forest in South East
Queensland and is a significant landscape feature for the region.
The corridor extends from Karawatha Forest in Brisbane’s southern suburbs to Flinders Peak, on
to the south side of Ipswich and down to the Wyaralong Dam near Boonah.
The corridor is about 563.5km² or 56,350 hectares in size and about 60km long. In comparison:
Brisbane Forest Park (now officially the southern part of D'Aguilar National Park) is about
25,000 hectares in size
North Stradbroke Island is about 285km² or 28,500 hectares and 38km long.
Australia's environment
Submission 38
The corridor contains significant rural areas for the region as well as outdoor recreation
opportunities on the numerous public estates. The corridor contributes to the long-term health
and wellbeing of the people in the region, by providing clean air, clean water, healthy
landscapes, areas for grazing, farming and biodiversity.
Painting puts Trunkey Creek on the map
10 Jun, 2010 01:36 PM
By the time you read this Blayney artist Nyree Reynolds and students from Trunkey Creek
Public School will be at the Parliament House in Sydney at the launch of a new art exhibition
featuring their paintings. Mrs Reynolds was invited to exhibit her paintings, inspired by maps
from the Department of Lands website, after they were shown at a surveyors’ conference in
Sydney. A landscape map painting of the Trunkey Creek area, that Mrs Reynolds created with
students from Trunkey Creek last year, will also feature as part of the exhibition titled, ‘MapArt:
Australia's environment
Submission 38
