Plain facts: Tasmania under aboriginal Management

Landscape Research

Volumn 33, Issue 2, 2008, Pages 241-254

  Gammage, Bill ^a  

^a AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY   (Australia)

Author keywords

Aborigines; Environment; Land management at contact; Tasmania

Indexed keywords

CULTURAL TRADITION; ECOSYSTEM MANAGEMENT; INDIGENOUS POPULATION; LAND MANAGEMENT;

AUSTRALASIA; AUSTRALIA; TASMANIA;

EID: 42149106756     PISSN: 01426397     EISSN: 14699710     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/01426390701767278     Document Type: Conference Paper

References (64)

1. For example, Mitchell, T. L. (1848) Journal of an Expedition into ... Tropical Australia, p. 306 (London: Longman)
2. Leichhardt, L. (1964) Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia [1847], p. 355 (Adelaide: Libraries Board of South Australia [LBSA]).
3. Jackson, W. D. (1965) Vegetation, in: J. L. Davies (Ed.) Atlas of Tasmania, pp. 30-35 (Hobart: Lands and Surveys Department)
4. Jackson, W. D. (1968) Fire, air, water and earth - an elemental ecology of Tasmania, Proc. Ecological Soc. Aust., 3, pp. 9-16
5. Jackson, W. D. (1973) Vegetation of the Central Plateau, in: M. R. Banks (Ed.) The Lake Country of Tasmania, pp. 61-86 (Hobart: Royal Society of Tasmania [RST])
6. Jackson, W. D. (1999) The Tasmanian legacy of man and fire, P&P Royal Soc. Tas., 133, pp. 1-14
7. (1999) Vegetation types, in: J. B. Reid et al., The Vegetation of Tasmania, pp. 1-10 (Canberra: Australian Biological Resources Study).
8. Merrilees, D. (1968) Man the destroyer: Late Quaternary changes in the Australian marsupial fauna, J. Royal Soc. WA, 51, pp. 1-24.
9. Jones, R. (1968) The geographical background to the arrival of man in Australia and Tasmania, Archaeology and Physical Anthropology in Oceania, 3, pp. 186-215
10. Jones, R. (1969) Fire-stick farming, Aust. Natural Hist., 16, pp. 224-248.
11. Hallam, S. J. (1975) Fire and Hearth (Canberra: Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies).
12. Hallam surveys this debate charitably in (2002) Peopled landscapes in south-western Australia in the early 1800s: Aboriginal burning o. in the light of WA historical documents, Early Days (J. Royal WA Hist. Soc.), 12, pp. 177-191.
13. Jackson (1999).
14. Estimate by Fred Duncan, Forest Practices Board, Hobart. Fred took this photo in 1985-1986, and while the conclusions about it are mine I thank him for his help in interpreting it.
15. Talk with Bill Jackson, 8 February 2001. Jackson (1999, p. 3), calculates lightning fires at between. 01% and. 1%.
16. See also Bowman, D. M. J. S. & Brown, M. J. (1986) Bushfires in Tasmania..., Archaeology in Oceania, 21, p. 167.
17. For this and other aspects of grass, trees and fire see Kirkpatrick, J. et al. (1988) City Parks and Cemeteries, pp. 24-30 (Hobart: Tasmanian Conservation Trust)
18. Marsden-Smedley, J. (1998) Changes in southwestern fire regimes since the early 1800s, P&P Royal Soc. Tas., 132, pp. 15-29
19. Thomas, I. (1991) The Holocene Archaeology and Palaeoecology of Northeastern Tasmania, Australia, University of Tasmania, Geography, PhD, esp. pp. 313-316.
20. Hansen, D. (2002) Not in an English Country Garden, keynote address, Hobart, 4 October, courtesy David Hansen.
21. Glover, J. (1836) A Catalogue of Sixty Eight Pictures... p. 60 (London: A. Snell). See also Glover's 1832 sketch book, particularly sketches 1-11, 99-105, AG3318, Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery.
22. Glover, p. 9, also p. 7.
23. House of Commons, Report of Select Committee on Transportation, 341/ 1812, appendix, p. 78.
24. Visit to site, 11 February 2002.
25. Campbell, A. H. (1987) John Batman and the Aborigines, pp. 25-63 (Melbourne: Kibble Books). Glover's c. 1834 sketches of his 'Mill's Plains' foreground show that for the painting he replaced stockmen and cattle with Aborigines. See for example, pictures an4621593 and an4620809, NLA.
26. See Thomas, for examples, p. 27, p. 89, pp. 100-101.
27. Macquarie, L. (1956) Journals of his Tours in NSW and VDL 1810-22, pp. 65-66 (Sydney: Public Library of New South Wales).
28. 17 February 1827, in Bischo., J. (1967) Sketch of the History of VDL [1832], p. 170 (Adelaide: LBSA)
29. or Ellis, F. (Ed.) (1987) Venturing Westward, p. 30 (Hobart: RST).
30. Crawford, G. et al. (1962) The Diaries of John Helder Wedge, p. 14 (Hobart: RST).
31. Breton, W. H. (1834) Excursions in NSW, WA & VDL, p. 305 (London: R. Bentley).
32. 3 December 1830. Plomley, N. J. B. (Ed.) (1966) Friendly Mission, p. 285 (Hobart: Tasmanian Historical Research Association).
33. 23 July 1831. Plomley, p. 385.
34. 3 April 1829. Plomley, p. 54.
35. 2 April 1829. Plomley, p. 54.
36. For grassland burning by graziers and snarers, see Cubit, S. (1996) 'Burning back with the snow': Traditional approaches to grassland management in Tasmania, Aust. Geog. Stud., 34, pp. 216-224.
37. Thomas, pp. 302-303.
38. For plant lists, see Gilfedder, L. (1995) Montane Grasslands of North-Western Tasmania, pp. 25-30, 43 (Hobart: Geography and Earth Sciences, University of Tasmania).
39. Bill Mollison pointed this out to me, Sister's Creek, 12 February 2002.
40. Plomley, p. 884.
41. Binks, C. J. (1989) Explorers of Western Tasmania, pp. 63-64 (Devonport: C.J. Binks).
42. For a rainforest camp in this area, see Plomley, p. 884.
43. VDL Co Papers MM 71/5/20, 238 Henry Hellyer 7-23 November 1828, AO Tas.
44. Hellyer, 15 November 1828.
45. 16 February 1827. Bischo., p. 170
46. or Ellis, p. 30.
47. 13 August 1831. Plomley, p. 398.
48. 9 July 1834. Plomley, p. 898.
49. Brown, M. J. & Podger, F. (1982) On the apparent anomaly between observed and predicted percentages of vegetation types in South West Tasmania, Aust. J. Ecol., 7, pp. 203-205.
50. Furneaux and Burney journals, in Thomas, pp. 44-45.
51. See also Flanagan, R. (1985) A Terrible Beauty. History of the Gordon River Country, pp. 6-13 (Melbourne: Greenhouse).
52. For Louisa Bay archaeological work, see Vanderwal, R. & Horton, D. (1984) Coastal Southwest Tasmania, Terra Australis, 9, pp. 6-13.
53. January 1799, in Collins, D. (1975) An Account of the English Colony in NSW [1798], vol. 2, p. 130 (Sydney: Reed).
54. I thank Sib Corbett, Jayne Balmer and Mike Pemberton, Dept PIWE Hobart, for detailed comments on this area, February/March 2002. Direct quotes are from Sib, whom I thank especially for her help. Mike argues that this landscape has natural causes. He points out, for example, that except on boundaries no rainforest remnants have been found under local buttongrass, so that in these parts rainforest was never the climax vegetation.
55. For this paragraph, Corbett, S., Marsden-Smedley, J. & Kirkpatrick, J. (2000) Fire management in Tasmania's Wilderness World Heritage Area: ecosystem restoration using indigenous-style fire regimes?, Ecol. Management & Restoration, 1, pp. 195-203.
56. PWS Tas (1995) Freycinet National Park Management Plan, p. 13 (Hobart: PWS Tasmania).
57. Ibid., pp. 24-26
58. Hurley PIC FH/1834, NLA; Tasmanian Field Naturalists' Club (1909) Easter Camp-Out, 1909, to Wineglass Bay, pp. 6,9 (Hobart: Tasmanian Field Naturalists' Club). For research on Wineglass Bay, I thank Margaret Harman, Tasmanian Library, SL Tas; NPWS Coles Bay and Jon Marsden-Smedley, NPWS Hobart; Joyce Dunbabin, Glamorgan Spring Bay Historical Society; Ian Thomas, Geography, Melbourne University.
59. 4 July 1831. Plomley, p. 371.
60. 7 July 1831. Plomley, p. 372.
61. Gammage, B. (2006) Landscapes transformed, in:M Lake (Ed.) Memory, Monuments and Memorials, pp. 153-165, 270-273 (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press), argues that Tasmanians moved plains and forests across country, as these diary entries hint.
62. Thomas, p. 1.
63. Recollections of a Short Excursion to Lake Echo in March 1823, Hobart Town Almanac & VDL Annual, 1830, p. 180
64. Jetson, T. (1987) The Roof of Tasmania - The History of the Central Plateau, University of Tasmania, History, MA, p. 33.