I was born in 1940 when my family lived in the Tooloom region. My grandfather, born in 1876, saw the open eucalyptus forests change. After Aboriginal burning ceased the feral European bees colonized the hollow limbs of old eucalyptus trees, causing the proliferation of eucalyptus saplings. My father moved his family to the foothills of the Bunya Mountains in Queensland and found that young eucalyptus trees were taking over that country too, so went out with a ring-barking axe. I remember not only lighting fires but beating them out. They were manageable fires. Now, thanks to a younger generation of landowners, the land he cleared is overgrown again not only with eucalyptus saplings, but other woody weeds like Lantana and deer have come to spread ticks to cattle herds.

It's well known that many of our ecosystems are well adapted to fire, and controlled burnoffs have been reintroduced in many areas. But it's absolutely ridiculous to claim "Tasmanian devils are diseased because they're starving". None of them survive the facial tumour disease (spread by contact) no matter how well fed they are.

Hi Country Girl,

I've just finished typing up and indexing three Reports (1857-1861) on the NSW/Qld Native Police, covering about 500 pages, and there is a huge amount of information there about that country between Maryborough, the Bunya and the Dawson. Try: www.firstsources.info
on the 'Queensland' page.

If you do, please let me know if you find it fascinating/interesting/of slight interest.

Cheers,

Joe

I agree that devils are doing it tougher because the carrion on which they feed is less abundant. However there could be reasons for that besides the right amount of tree cover. Those reasons include roadkill, shooting of wallabies, habitat fragmentation, use of poison and harassment by dogs.

Whether CO2 uptake is by trees, grass or shrubs I don't think we should rely on it due to the complexity of the issues. OTOH if we shut down a stinker like Hazelwood power station we can be fairly confident of less CO2.

G'day Aidan,
Far from ridiculous, it's well known that malnutrition incites disease epidemics. Sick animals are better food for diseases just as sick trees are better food for phytophthora.

When Aboriginal people arrived in Australia, they did have an immediate impact on the natural environment and local wildlife.

Anything else that occurred before that time, was nature simply taking its course as no humans existed in Australia (before humans arrived here).

Some websites talk down the impacts of Aboriginal people (and particularly relate to plants only and also a politically correct element) in terms of any impact, but re impact, there was no written detail in terms of Aboriginal impact - compared to the very detailed impacts of humans (and the more serious) environmental damage that came through British settlement, and other countries.

I personally am tired of hearing that we are meeting of the lands of the "XYZ" people. These people did not create it (say like a product for example). With humans (in general) having limited respect for the environment of Australia now, the natural world will not improve.

Finally there is no race card to play here as I have Aboriginal relatives (like two direct nephews for example) and was also involved with an Aboriginal art project last year.

We as a human species need a natural environment to survive, or I will not be having something as basic like a clean glass of water in the future.