Precisely Russell.

I'd suggest it also has big ramifications for this notion of "untouched pristine wilderness". Untouched?

What we are usually looking at is the result of many centuries of management and human intervention - mostly through fire.

It is a conceit - a quasi-scientific sort of terra nullius - to remove the influence of Aboriginal people from the landscape. It fosters the delusion that we can maintain the existing landscape just be leaving it alone.

My view is that we are obliged to learn to manage this place if we want it to keep it and protect those ecosystems that have had adapted and indeed been created by the influence of fire over many millenia. Just sticking a do not touch label on it and leaving it alone won't do it.

Moving palms into Palm Valley - now that's serious gardening. Nice bit of work folks.

Restoration of native flora and fauna is impossible, because the obvious questions that it raises are - restoration to what point? and for what purpose?

We oftern speak about 'restoring' the ecosystem to the state it was at when Europeans arrived - but that is a very eurocentric view of the environment and one which is totally devoid of both common sense and practical purpose.

I would also like to suggest that it is a racist view, and suggests that Europeans are alien invaders and the Aboriginals are somehow an intrinsic part of nature - they are not. Whilst the changes wrought by the Aboriginal people may have taken a lot longer to fundamentally alter the environment, they still did so. There is a great deal of evidence which suggests that just about every vegetation community only exists in its current (or 1788) form as a result of Aboriginal land management practices.

The Aboriginals also introduced the dingo, which is now being credited as a significant component which caused the extinction of other species such as the thylacine from the mainland. Aboriginal people are also - possibly - the reason why much of the megafauna went extinct.

If we are to properly manage the Australian ecosystem - including both native and introduced species - then we need to first understand some of these concepts. We also need to have a clear understanding of what we are trying to achieve and why we are trying to achieve it - and even if it is achievable at all. Throwing millions of dollars and years of effort at trying to preserve species which will not survive once that support is withdrawn is futile - and we need to be smart about what we are doing.

Russell, I'd always believed that Australian Aborigines didn't do farming. However, it's clear from the records of some early WA European explorers that Aborigines in fact farmed several species of native plant. For example, a fringed lily which produced an edible tuber was harvested at the most productive time of the year and a proportion of the tubers were replanted for next year's crop. This was recorded happening south of Geraldton. I'm sure that other species would have been equally well managed to allow sustainable harvesting.

Russel, there are dogs in indonesia and Bali that are very close to the dingo, if not the same. I would suggest that the dingo arrived with the people and it did have an impact on native fauna in it's new home but the past is the past and we can't change it, even if we wanted to.

Bernie,

There's a rather interesting description contained in Watkin Tench's journal of riding at full gallop out to Parramatta through knee high grass all the way and there are repeated descrptions of the park-like nature encountered by early settlers and explorers. Lots of grass and mature timber but little undergrowth and scrub.

Patch burning - low temperature fast fires - done seasonally were designed - yep designed - to reduce undergrowth and foster grass - all to boost the populations of roos, wallabies and emus. "Cleaning the place up". Farming but not as we know it.

Peter,

Yes, the phrase "Aboriginal Australians lived in harmony with the environment" is particularly annoying and ignorant. Indigenous people, like humans anywhere, modified their environment to suit themselves.

In his book "The Future Eaters" Tim Flannery present anecdotal evidence that the ancestors of aborigines, like most humans, did not live in harmony with the landscape and may have played a major role in its wholesale alteration to what it is today from something quite different.

However they were forced to learn to live in harmony with this altered landscape and responded remarkably well given the level of biodiversity that Europeans found when they arrived here.

So relative to what we are doing, yes, modern aborigines lived in harmony with their landscape. Their society lasted, relatively unchanged, for tens of thousands of years.

Our society will clearly not last for any where for this length of time in its current form.

"Enhanced biodiversity"? Actually, no, since hunting and changed fire regimes when Aborigines first colonised Australia 50,000 years ago led to the extinction of the mega-fauna. "Ecological productivity"? Again, no, they enhanced parts of the environment that best met their needs, which by definition implies that other parts of the environment suffered.

And, as peter has pointed out, there has been no "wilderness" in Australia for 50,000 years.

Having made these points, however, I have to say that the important issue facing all Australians right now is how to protect existing biodiversity and ecosystem functions and services in the face of climate change and human disturbances such as clearing and altered fire regimes, etc.

Bernie,

I can remember an article in "Australasian Science" that suggests that Aboriginal Australians did, in some areas, practise a limited form of agriculture, however I don't know what's the latest archaeological consensus in regard to pre-European agriculture.

Russell,

There's a heap of very detailed work on fishing and eel "farming" ... these range big timber fish traps on beaches that were rebuilt each year in time for the tailor run down the east coast through to inland freshwater systems using rocks to create fish traps - some of these structures remain. Eels seemed particularly significant in Victoria where there are the remains of stone foundations of semi-permanent seasonal camps.

One of the interesting things about the NSW beach visits was that inland Aboriginals groups would assess the value of making the wander over to the beach and rebuilding the tidal pens by the strength of the wattle bloom that spring. That's pretty sophisticated and professional observation I reckon. Talk about science! Indigenous empiricism.

Greg Boyles,

I think that the phrase "living in harmony" originally meant that Aboriginal Australians always had a negligible environmental impact, not that they adapted to a transformed situation. The notion seemed more 'deep green' ideology than science and contrary to the evidence-- it's highly probable that the first settlers exterminated the megafauna for example.

If Aboriginals are not an intrinsic part of nature, what then are they a part of?

Indeed Europeans are also an intrinsic part of nature. The difference is that this modern cultural form is utterly unable to restrain itself from constant and severe interference upon the ambient ecological balances underway around us all.

A metastic tumour is an intrinsic part of nature, nonetheless the host finds it an unsustainable condition to bear.

The fundamental measure of 'native', human or non-human, is the degree to which the equilibrium impacts due to a species' introduction, via either mutation or migration, have stabilised. In that respect, Aboriginals and the Red Cabbage Palm quite clearly qualify as native.

Conversely the tropes of European and Asian civilisation do not and will not likely ever conform to such a measure. As self-concious beings we cannot ever hope to rationally learn and acquit the 'technics' of environmental management. Humans have to love a thing as much or more than themselves to securely look after it. Or, in a more classical form, to do unto it as we would have done to ourselves.

Sadly our civilised form simply cannot rationalise the required sacrifice to its acquired veneers of pretence and self-indulgence.

Wow Greg - so many ad homs and baseless assertions in only a few short posts. So let me reply if I may.

You have already answered your own assertion about the restoration of native flora and fauna with your own statements - but you also cherry picked my position and ignored the most important aspects.

When I said restoration etc is impossible, note that I said - to what state and why? You must first define this - restoration means that you are returning it to some pre-existing condition. To what pre-existing condition did you restore your remant grassland - and why did you choose that particular condition as opposed to the miriad other pre-existing conditions that would have existed at that location at some time in the past? Was it because there was some endangered species there that was deemed necessary to preserve, or did you just want to make it look nice and keep out the 'rabbits. foxes and snakes' (why do you want to keep snakes away - aren't they a native species that should be afforded habitat protection?). Did you really 'restore' it to some pre-existing condition, or did you turn it into another state that has never existed at any time previously? Answer honestly when you think about that one.

And how much time and effort did you spend on the restoration process - and how much have you 'restored'? Do you think that is possible on a large scale - on the sort of scale required to provide sufficient habitat for an endangered species? What is going to happen to that 'restored area' when the money runs out and the invasive species return?

Your assertion that I do not understand the term 'racism', and that the aborigines lived in harmony with the environment for thousands of years are just nonsense. Despite how we like to romanticise the lives of indigenous humans, they did not live in harmony with the land any more than Europeans did - who are also indigenous to part of the world as well. Read my post again - and the comments of many others here who have clearly spelt out some of the impacts of aboriginal humans on the Australian landscape. And then go and read a few scientific papers on the issue. I provided one example - the impact of the introduced dingo on the existing carnivores - but there are many others.

And I never said that the koala and devil are not worth saving - what a fantastic builder of strawmen you are! What I said - very clearly - was that we need to be smart about how we allocate limited resources, and to spend millions of dollars attempting to save some species who will not be able to survive without ongoing costly support is foolishness. There is only so much money to throw around, and we have to use it wisely. Or would you rather spend it all on saving one species while dozens of others go extinct?

Oh - and I have a degree in Parks and Wildlife management; have been involved in native animal rescue, rehabilitation and release for many years; and do volunteer work with a number of environmental and conservation organisations. So your baseless postulation that I bring no evidence or experience to this issue is just that - baseless. And rather than making baseless postulations about lack of evidence you would be better served gathering some of your own before putting your fingers to the keyboard next time.

Your point is taken Greg (Wood)). Aboriginal people are an intrinsic part of nature, just as Europeans are. And that is a very important thing to remember.

My point was that Europeans are often considered as separate to nature, while Aboriginal people are considered somehow different. They and their actions are considered 'natural', while Europeans are artificial.

It is a false distinction.

I accept that distinction. 'Consummately suicidal' is a much more accurate and practically useful descriptor than is 'artificial'.

This somewhat parallel to the OP which deals with 'nativeness'. Species that behave so have muich greater trouble acquiring 'nativeness'.

It is not posisble to accept your view that:
"Despite how we like to romanticise the lives of indigenous humans, they did not live in harmony with the land any more than Europeans did - who are also indigenous to part of the world as well."

After an inevitably necessary process of adjustment Aboringinals were able to attenuate a new landscape equilibrium and have since existed within this new balance for many thousands of years.

In just over 200 years we have wrought abominable destruction upon every facet of the resource base and, whilst continuing to assault the expiring remnants of these values, are now engaged in shipping the continent's entrails to China as fast and as furiously as we possibly can.

The respective performances of the two cultures simply cannot be credibly equated.

So why it is not possible to accept that view? Let's look at what you have said shall we?

"...After an inevitably necessary process of adjustment Aboringinals were able to attenuate a new landscape equilibrium and have since existed within this new balance for many thousands of years. ..."

Why do you allow a 'necessary process of adjustment' before Aboriginal people were able to live in a 'new landscape equilibrium', but not allow the same for Europeans? We have only been here for 200 years - maybe we just haven't reach 'landscape equilibrium' yet. You have allowed Aboriginal people to fundamentally change the landscape to suit their needs, but don't appear to be allowing Europeans the same latitude. Why?

But in any case, the concept of 'landscape equilibrium' is a very old, and very discredited, view of the ecosystem. The ecosystem is always changing - as a result of climate, disturbance, and deliberate processes of change. There is no 'equilibrium point' - which is also why the concept of 'restoring' a landscape to a pre-existing condition is flawed. Even if you could restore a small portion of the landscape to something resembling what it used to be, the rest of the landscape surrounding it would have changed to the point where the 'restored' region would not stay 'restored' for long without continuing intervention.

Europeans have wrought major changes to the Australian landscape in a short time. But I am going to suggest that the extent of the changes are not orders of magnitude greater than those wrought by Aboriginal people - they have just occurred over a much shorter time. Those changes wrought by Europeans are ongoing (hence, no equilibrium), but even if Europeans had not come to Australia, the Aboriginals would have continued to make major changes to the landscape. They would probably also accelerated those changes once they gained the use of technology and increased the size of their population.

The definition of wilderness is subjective.

But if you compare biodiversity poor european agricultural landscapes to aborigine maintained landscapes then the latter is clearly wilderness relative to the former.

Maybe you have an overly saccharine view of 'harmony'.
The fact is the changes wrought by the arriving aboriginal settlers eventually settled and enable a new form of system 'harmony' to prevail.

That is something our current system will never allow to occur. A new balance will only be struck beyond the reach of its cold dead hand.

I don't think anyone in the industry believes that any landscapes can be returned in totallity to a pre-European state. But they can certainly be returned to a state close to pre-European with respect to flora.

In the grassland I work on that pre-European state would be minus the major introduced weeds like Nassella, Phalaris, Bromus, Brassica and thistles etc.

And some areas in the grassland, that were dominated by these weeds, have indeed been successfully returned to a state where the native grasses now dominate and they are now quite resistance to re-invasion by former weeds.

With some introduced weeds like Romulea, it is a case of learning to live with them.

I am merely pointing out that you assertion that it is impossible and not worth the effort is false.

Aboriginal maintained landscapes? This idea may appeal to those who subscribe to the "noble savage" view of the original settlers in Australia but exactly what "maintaining" did they do apart from starting the odd forest fire to barbecue some slow kangaroos and unfortunate koalas. A stone-age people living at subsistence levels with a short life-span were not "living in harmony" but surviving any way they could . Of course they did have a minimal effect on the environment due to this lifestyle but to paint them as the original greenies is ridiculous.

Neil, I think you are under-estimating the impact that pre-European Aborigines had on the Australian landscape. While they probably had no goal of maintaining the landscape, they clearly understood the management actions needed to provide food, allow seasonal access, protect water sources, etc. If you read the reviews by people such as Sylvia Hallam and Bill Gammage, Aboriginal fires were extremely frequent and carefully managed. There's absolutely no doubt that the resulting ecosystem modifications resulting from their fire regimes were profound and of great impact on the continent's biodiversity.
In many parts of Australia, they also lived a lifestyle that was well above subsistence level. Along the banks of the lower Murray River, a population density of 10 people per square mile has been estimated, thanks to the permanence of water and the abundance of food. Similar conditions prevailed in parts of south west WA and in many coastal parts of the north.
However, I agree that it is completely wrong to pain them as the original greenies. They were the original exploiters of the continent and their impact, from early mega-fauna extinction to later fire regime landscape-scale management, was profound.

Greg Boyles,

Really? The "first settlers" were literally, the first settlers.

How could you possibly think I was referring to Europeans, it's not the 1950s.

More of the "noble savage"mythology about a people with no written records and stories passed down from generation to generation. A typical business training device is to give one person verbal information and for them to pass it serially to other people. Usually the message is indecipherable by the time it has passed across the room in a few minutes.
Silly old fools are just not as gullible as those who make such ageist remarks and who are stupid enough to have to resort to name-calling to make a point.

Thanks for your rational, reasoned comments there Greg. When it comes to what had been 'proven' here, I can say with some confidence that the greatest 'proof' that has been offered is that you are someone who is unwilling to address the issue with anything approaching substantial argument other than to offer ad homs. 'Ignorant urbanite' huh? Well, you sure showed me!

You keep 'plugging away' with your weed removal programs - they probably achieve something. You are obviously taking 'wasteground' and turning into something - it is probably now very pretty and people can now go there for a picnic - free from the threat of those nasty snakes that you have indicated were a problem. That is somewhat confusing, because I always thought that we restored habitat for the benefit of native species. Obviously, I have it wrong because, as you say, I am 'divorced from my country'. Thanks for setting me straight on that. Now I know that the purpose of habitat restoration is to keep native species away.

So you keep it up. I will go back to my ignorant urban existence and keep doing what I am doing as well. There are plenty of native species that need our support - especially with council officers and landscapers like yourself who are making every effort to exclude them from their habitat.

Jeeeeeeez,

I never said that snakes are generally aggressive.

Relieved to hear that you are still adovcates of making all practical efforts to eliminate weeds.

What is the PDE framework briefly?

Surely there would be no plants introduced since European settlement that this framework would define as native?

It might however define that they are a low priority with respect to eliminating them.

Again I return you to the issue of the huge volume of new introductions in a very short time span in Australia.

Environmental weeds are a natural phenomenum via the wings and gullets of migratory birds etc.

But what would be the average rate of introduction......perhaps 1 species every few thousand years or something like that.

I think you need to be very careful about removing the label of weed in the context of the last 200 years in Australia.

Deforestation is a natural process too, particularly on the african savanahs under the hooves and teeth of the megafauna. So some argue that deforestation by humans via the chainsaw is equally natural and not worthy of concern.

But in the context of CO2 emissions and reduction of the Earth's carbon sequestration capacity?