2011
On 10 July 1890 Alfred Howitt addressed the Royal Society of Victoria, the same which 30 years before had sent him to find Burke and Wills, on ‘The Eucalypts of Gippsland’. His talk was remarkable.
1. He grouped and described 24 species of Gippsland eucalypt, plus numerous forms and local variations. His descriptions were based on up to 26 samples of each species and form taken from scattered Gippsland locations, and showed both typifying characteristics and minute local differences in leaf, bud, flower, fruit and sometimes wood. Dozens of differences were depicted in nine plates drawn by his daughter Annie.
2. He set down where each species and form occurred, whether local or general, on what soils, at what heights, in what terrain. For example he named species which rose from the coast up cool gullies on south facing slopes but gave way to others on warm north facing slopes, or still others in subalpine areas. He argued in detail that it followed that even small climate changes in the past must have affected and in the future would affect eucalypt distribution, perhaps even to extinction. This is accepted today, but on that night in 1890 Ferdinand von Mueller, director of Melbourne’s Botanic Gardens and no mug on eucalypts, observed that it was ‘work in an entirely new direction’.
3. He discussed the ‘Influence of Settlement’ on Gippsland’s eucalypts. This began ‘on the very day when the first hardy pioneers’ arrived. They put an end to the ‘annual’ fires of the Aborigines, letting undergrowth fill open forest and grass revert to bush. Howitt gave examples from all over Gippsland where it was ‘difficult to ride over parts which . . . were at one time open grassy country’, and concluded that in spite of European clearing, Gippsland’s forests were denser and more widespread than in 1788. Howitt’s chairman confessed that he ‘had never heard or dreamt of’ this re-foresting’.
4. He argued that ending Aboriginal fire let insect populations explode. In the 1870s he saw whole forests dying, and found them infested with myriads of insect larvae. These also made headway because stock hardened the ground, causing water which had once seeped in to run off, so weakening the eucalypts by thirst. Hard ground and increased water flow were also why floods were more catastrophic than before Europeans came.
With breathtaking detail and economy, Howitt illuminated much of what this book labours to cover. He could do this because he thought as an Australian. He understood less than the Aborigines, and he knew it. He acknowledged often what they taught him, and his talk began with a list of eucalypts and their Kurnai names, but he never offered what was common then and now: comparison with Europe. He never said eucalypts were less deciduous, less green, less shady than Europe’s trees. He never mentioned England, where he lived his first 21 years. He was not merely describing Australian examples; he was evolving Australian premises.
Important books wait on pre-contact management in other lands, but only in Australia did a mobile people organise a continent with such precision. In some past time, probably distant, their focus tipped from land use to land care. They sanctioned key principles: think long term; leave the world as it is; think globally, act locally; ally with fire; control population. They were active, not passive, striving for balance and continuity to make all life abundant, convenient and predictable. They put the mark of humanity firmly on every place. They kept the faith. The land lived. Its face spoke. ‘Here are managers’, it said, ‘caring, provident, hardworking.’ This is possession in its most fundamental sense. If terra nullius exists anywhere in our country, it was made by Europeans.
This book interrupts Law and country at the moment terra nullius came, and an ancient philosophy was destroyed by the completely unexpected, an invasion of new people and ideas. A majestic achievement ended. Only fragments remain. For the people of 1788 the loss was stupefying. For the newcomers it did not seem great. Until recently few noticed that they had lost anything at all. Knowledge of how to sustain Australia, of how to be Australian, vanished with barely a whisper of regret.
We have a continent to learn. If we are to survive, let alone feel at home, we must begin to understand our country. If we succeed, one day we might become Australian.
The Biggest Estate on Earth: How Aborigines Made Australia,
Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 2011