History And Natural History: Conservation Movements In Conflict?

Australian Historical Studies

Volumn 24, Issue 96, 1991, Pages 16-32

  Griffiths, Tom ^a,b  

^a State Library of Victoria   (Australia)

^b MUSEUM VICTORIA   (Australia)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 84958359375     PISSN: 1031461X     EISSN: 19405049     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/10314619108595866     Document Type: Article

References (70)

1. W. Calder's main publications on the reserve are Langwarrin Military Reserve: Ecological evaluation for the Shire of Cranbourne, Melbourne (1975); Heroes and Gentlemen: Colonel Tom Price and the Victorian Mounted Rifles, Melbourne (1985); and Australian Aldershot: Langwarrin Military Reserve, Victoria 1886-(1980), Melbourne (1987). Telephone discussion with Winty Calder, September (1990); Interview with Jane Lennon, 11 July (1990) (tape and transcript in the possession of the author).
2. In this and the following paragraph, I have drawn on W. Cronon, Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists, and the Ecology of New England, New York (1983), pp. 10-12. 'Climax' is a term used by ecologists in this context. See also R.P. Mcintosh, The Background of Ecology: Concept and Theory, Cambridge (1985), esp. chapter 1.
3. D. Worster, ‘Doing Environmental History’, in Worster (ed.), The Ends of the Earth: Perspectives on Modem Environmental History, Cambridge (1988), pp. 294-8.
4. A useful review of the literature of conservation history in Australia is K.J. Frawley, ‘The History of Conservation and the National Parks Concept in Australia: A State of Knowledge Review’, in K.J. Frawley and N. Semple (eds), Australia's Ever Changing Forests, Campbell (1989), pp. 395—417.
5. J. Davidson, ‘Victoria’, in The Heritage of Australia, Melbourne (1981), pp. 3-7.
6. R. Nash, Wilderness and the American Mind, (third edition) New Haven and London (1982), p. 328.
7. B. Tokar, “Social Ecology, Deep Ecology and the Future of Green Political Thought', The Ecologist, vol. 18, nos 4/5,(1988), pp. 132-41, esp. p. 134.
8. Ibid., pp. 134, 138; ‘Forum: Only Man's Presence Can Save Nature', Harper's Magazine, April (1990), pp. 37—48 (report of a discussion between five environmentalists, James Lovelock, Dave Foreman, Robert D. Yaro, Daniel B. Botkin, Frederick Turner).
9. Oklahoma ecologist, Paul Sears in (1964), quoted in D. Worster, Nature's Economy: A History of Ecological Ideas, Cambridge (1985), pp. 23, 58.
10. I have drawn here on some of the speculative phrases used by P.R. Hay in ‘The Environmental Movement: Romanticism Reborn?’, Island, no. 29, Summer (1986)/7, pp. 10-17, esp. p. 15.
11. J.G. Mosley, ‘A History of the Wilderness Reserve Idea in Australia' [and minutes of discussion] in Mosley (ed.), Australia's Wilderness: Conservation Progress and Plans, Melbourne (1978), pp. 27-33, and p. 53.
12. Nash, op. cit., p. 186. Under the influences of ecological thought, Leopold later expanded his definition to include science as well as recreation: p. 198.
13. P. Thompson (ed.). Myles Dunphy: Selected Writings, Sydney (1986), p. 198. See also P. Thompson, ‘Myles Dunphy, The Father of Australian Wilderness’, in J.G. Mosley and J. Messer (eds). Fighting for Wilderness, Sydney and Melbourne (1984), pp. 125-32.
14. B. Brown, ‘The Disappearing Wilderness’, Wilderness (journal of the Wilderness Society), no. 18, Dec. (1982), p. 7.
15. D. Lowenthal, The Past is a Foreign Country, Cambridge (1985), p. 54. Other examples and some of the policy dilemmas are discussed in articles by S.S. Toothman and M. Webb in a special issue of The Public Historian, vol. 9, no. 2, Spring (1987), on ‘The National Park Service and Historic Preservation’.
16. Interview with David Tatnall, 12 October (1990) (tape and transcript in the possession of the author). Tatnall distanced himself from this practice.
17. J. Lennon, ‘Timeless Wilderness? The Use of Historical Source Material in Understanding Environmental Change in Gippsland Victoria’, in Frawley and Semple (eds), Australia's Ever Changing Forests, pp. 419—40.
18. M. Shoard, ‘The lure of the moors’, in J.R. Gold and J. Burgess (ed.). Valued Environments, London (1982), pp. 55-73.
19. M.C. Downes, ‘The History of Tower Hill to 1892’, unpublished report for the Victorian Fisheries and Wildlife Division, Melbourne (1961), pp. 32-4, 79; D. Hansen. Tower Hill and its Artists, Warrnambool (1985).
20. Lennon, op. cit., p. 420.
21. There are, of course, exceptions to this generalisation. For example, artificial water holes in arid lands have an impact on the distribution of animal populations and some mountain huts are a favoured habitat of the rare mountain pygmy possum.
22. Land Conservation Council of Victoria (LCC), Wilderness: Special Investigation Descriptive Report, Melbourne (1990), p. 116.
23. The phrases are those of explorer J.E. Calder writing of Tasmania in 1860, quoted in R. Flanagan, A Terrible Beauty: History of the Gordon River Country, Richmond, Victoria (1985), p. 66.
24. New Haven and London (1982).
25. A. Runte, National Parks: The American Experience, second edition, Lincoln and London (1987).
26. Ibid., pp. 11, 22,106; Nash, op. cit., p. 261.
27. The ‘Objects and Scope of Work' of Dunphy's Council can be found in Thompson, op. cit., p. 171.
28. S. Bardwell, ‘National Parks in Victoria, 1866-(1956): “For all of the people for all time”’, Ph. D. thesis, Monash University (1974), pp. 448, 454.
29. R.H. Croll, Letter to S.R. Mitchell (Chairman, National Monuments Preservation Committee), 24 October (1936), Lands Department File 7/20-Box 187 ('Glenaladale—Historical and General*), Department of Conservation and Environment; ‘Preserving the Best of our Past’, Age 27 July (1953), quoted in ibid., p. 559.
30. Australia ICOMOS (International Council On Monuments and Sites), The Australia ICOMOS Charter for the Conservation of Places of Cultural Significance (The Burra Charter), Sydney (1985), Article 16.
31. J.B. Jackson, The Necessity for Ruins, and Other Topics, Massachusetts (1980), pp. 100-02.
32. 'Sovereign Hill' is a re-created gold settlement in Ballarat, Victoria, that represents life in the 1850s.
33. R. Nash, The Rights of Nature: A History of Environmental Ethics, Madison (1989), p. 37.
34. S. Hallam, Fire and Hearth: A Study of Aboriginal Usage and European Usurpation in Southeastern Australia, Canberra (1979), p. vii.
35. Terra Nullius. ‘no person's land', that is, belonging to no-one. From the mid-eighteenth century, it was one of the conventions that governed the acquisition of empire. It signified a land that was literally uninhabited, or one inhabited by people considered to be in a state of nature, without social, political or religious organisation, and lacking any permanent or productive attachment to the land. See A. Frost, ‘New South Wales as Terra Nullius: The British Denial of Aboriginal Land Rights’, Historical Studies, vol. 19, no. 77, October (1981), pp. 513-23.
36. S.J. Pyne, Fire in America: A Cultural History of Wildland and Rural Fire, Princeton (1982), p. 16.
37. R. Jones, *Fire-stick farming', Australian Natural History, vol. 16, (1968), pp. 224-8; D.R. Horton, ‘The burning question: Aborigines, fire and Australian ecosystems’. Mankind, vol. 13, (1982), pp. 237-51.
38. P. Gell and I. Stuart, Human Settlement History and Environmental Impact: The Delegate River Catchment, East Gippsland, Victoria, Melbourne (1989), pp. 67-9.
39. E. Rolls, A Million Wild Acres, Melbourne (1981), p. 399.
40. L. Murray, ‘Eric Rolls and the Golden Disobedience’, in Persistence in Folly, Sydney (1984), pp. 149-67.
41. Cited in R. Jones, ‘Ordering the Landscape’, in I. and T. Donaldson (eds), Seeing the First Australians, Sydney (1985), p. 184.
42. LCC, Wilderness: Descriptive Report, p. 13.
43. J. Allen, ‘Aborigines and Archaeologists in Tasmania, (1983)’, Australian Archaeology, vol. 16, (1983), p. 9; Telephone discussion with Jim Allen, 21 August (1990).
44. D.J. Mulvaney, ‘Reflections on the future of Past Cultural Landscapes', Historic Environment, vol. 7, no. 2. (1989), p. 2
45. J. Everett, ‘Ecology, Politics and Aboriginal Heritage’, Ecopolitics 11 Conference Proceedings, Hobart (1987), p. 1.
46. For example, C. Harris, ‘Balance of Ethics: A Discussion’, Wilderness News, vol. 8, no. 6, August (1987), p. 12; P. Sharp, ‘Fear, disbelief and urgency in Kakadu’, Wilderness News, no. 112, May (1990), pp. 11-12. See also J. Lark, ‘Wilderness-Is it a Land Rights Issue?’, Chain Reaction, no. 61, July (1990), pp. 29-32.
47. Harris, ibid.; for a recent analysis of the moral dimensions of some Australian forest conservation campaigns, see I. Watson, Fighting over the Forests, Sydney (1990), pp. 104-9.
48. A. Caiothers, ‘Defenders of the Forest’, Greenpeace, vol. 15, no. 4, July/August (1990), p. 12.
49. Flanagan, op. cit.
50. The best source on the scientific discovery of the Victorian Alps is L. Gillbank, ‘How the Alps Started to Lose Their Grasslands’, draft report for the Historic Places Section, Department of Conservation and Environment, Victoria, (1989). The views of the cattlemen can be traced through their journal. Voice of the Mountains, and in B. Jameson, Movement at the Station: The Revolt of the Mountain Cattlemen, Sydney (1987). The arguments of the Victorian National Parks Association can be followed in its magazine, Parkwatch, and in D. Johnson, The Alps at the Crossroads, Melbourne (1974).
51. D.J. Mulvaney, ‘Gudgenby. A cultural heritage asset’, NPA Bulletin, vol. 25, no. 4,(1988), pp. 6-7. See also K.J. Frawley, ‘The Gudgenby property and grazing in national parks’, NPA Bulletin, vol. 25, no. 3, (1988), p. 4
52. This argument was put to a photographer of the huts, David Tatnall. Interview, 12 October (1990).
53. For the story of Dibbins Hut, see D. Tatnall, ‘Dibbins Hut—heritage destroyed’, Parkwatch, March (1988), p. 9; ‘Listed for repair. demolished instead’, Australian, 8 January (1990). See also J. Flood, ‘Cultural resources of the Australian Alps’, in K.J. Frawley (ed.), Australia's Alpine Areas: Management for Conservation, Canberra (1986), pp. 12-24.
54. Tatnall. interview.
55. Pyne, op. cit., pp. 16-17.
56. Nash, Wilderness and the American Mind, p. 270.
57. M. McCIoskey, ‘Wilderness Movement at the Crossroads, 19-45—(1970)’, Pacific Historical Review, vol. 41, (1972), p. 352.
58. Milne and Brown were commenting on Wilderness Society proposals to remove the modern signs of man from south-west Tasmania, Launceston Examiner, 17 April (1990), pp. 1, 6; Hobart Mercury, 14 April (1990), pp. 1, 8; “Erase signs of man, say greens', Age, 21 April (1990).
59. P. Cabena, Submission to the LCC Statewide Assessment on Post Settlement History, unpublished report held in the Historic Places Section, Department of Conservation and Environment, Victoria. Part of this report was published by the LCC in its Statewide Assessment of Public Land Use, Melbourne (1988), pp. 150-9.
60. K. Taylor, ‘Rural landscape protection—the need for a broader conservation base’. Heritage Australia, Summer (1984), pp. 3-8, and ‘Rural cultural landscapes’, Landscape Australia, 1/(1989), pp. 28-34; K. J. Frawley,' “Cultural Landscapes” and National Parks: Philosophical and Planning Issues', Australian Parks and Recreation, vol. 25, no. 3, Spring (1989), pp. 16-23, and ‘Rural cultural landscapes: some unresolved issues’, Landscape Australia, 1/(1990), pp. 93-5; J.A. Russell, Valuing Cultural Landscapes in the USA, Britain and Australia, Hobart (1988), and ”The Genesis of Historic Landscape Conservation in Australia', Landscape and Urban Planning, 17, (1989), pp. 305-12.
61. S. Blair and M. Truscott, ‘Cultural landscapes—their scope and their recognition’. Historic Environment, vol. 7, no. 2,(1989), p. 4. See also ‘Cultural Landscapes’, Australian Heritage Commission Background Notes No. 34, Canberra (1987).
62. QUOTED in Frawley, ‘Cultural Landscapes’, p. 16. Persuasive heritage arguments can be made for the preservation of landscapes of ecological disaster, such as the denuded hills of Queenstown, Tasmania. See G. Blainey, ‘History of a Pummelled Landscape’, in M.R. Banks and J.B. Kirkpatrick (eds), Landscape and Man, Hobart (1977), p. 4.
63. Age, 7 May (1990).
64. Gunns Kilndried Timber Industries, Submission to Commission of Inquiry into the Lemonthyme and Southern Forests, Launceston (1987), (Submission by Brendan A. Lyons), pp. 7-8.
65. D.J. Mulvaney criticised the Commission's 'travesty of cultural evidence' in a letter to the Federal Minister for the Environment (dated 20 May (1988). It was published in Wilderness News, vol. 9, no. 5, July (1988), p. 18. See also ANU Reporter, vol. 19, no. 8,10 June (1988).
66. London (1980), esp. chapter 1.
67. Ibid., pp. 24-5.
68. This was a central theme of a talk given by Don Saunders, Director of the National Parks Service in Victoria, on 'Park Management Issues' (LCC seminar, Melbourne), 14 August (1990).
69. Mabey, op. cit., pp. 33-7.
70. Tokar, op. cit., p. 139.