VCE Outdoor & Environmental Studies Resources

Unit Three: Relationships with natural environments
Area of Study One: Historical perspectives

Interactions, perceptions and relationships with the Australian environment as expressed by: the first non-indigenous settlers; those from the Goldrush period to Federation; and those since Federation

"Australia Unlimited" by Geoffrey Blainey
Boyer Lectures, ABC Radio National

Discussion Questions:

1. What three reasons does Blainey give for Australia's of the 20th century wanting a large population?
2. How is it an optimistic view that Australia should have a large population?
3. How was it that the Aboriginal people were "quiet masters" of the continent? How might non-indigenous Australians be described in contrast? Give examples in your answer of non-indigenous interaction with the land.
4. "natural resources - especially soil and pastures and climate - were the unchanging determinants of Australia's capacity to carry a large or small population." Write your own list of determinants with particular consideration of environmental factors.
5. "...life should be lived in Australia, with the maximum of flocks and the minimum of factories." (JS McDonald, 1931, paragraph 17) What might have influenced such a belief about Australia? Consider the motivation that brought people to Australia in the early part of the 20th century and the land they were emigrating from.
6. What factors lay behind the establishment of a government portfolio for National Development? What type of development was the focus. Give examples from the article and other sources.

---

"Green Crusades" by Geoffrey Blainey
Boyer Lectures, ABC Radio National

Paragraphs 12-15 provide interesting insight into early European perceptions and relationships with the Australian environment.

---

These relationships have been well-documented in the past. Most recently, Tim Flannery has provided further insights in "The birth of Melbourne", (Text Publishing, Melbourne 2002), which is a storehouse of the eye witness accounts of early settlers, edited by Flannery.

Consider also the following extract from Flannery’s essay "Beautiful lies: population & environment in Australia" in Quarterly essay (Issue 9, Black inc., Melbourne 2003).

When John Batman sailed into Hobson’s Bay, he found a paradise, a temperate Kakadu whose waters thronged with waterfowl. Black swans dotted the bay in their countless thousands, while magpie geese and brolga bred along the banks of a limpid Yarra. Within a decade the Europeans had shot most of the waterbirds out of existence and turned the river into a slaughterhouse-lined sewer. The tallow works were surrounded by piles of bones more than ten metres high, and the edges of the waterway were strewn with guts, amidst which pigs wallowed. For a century the jewel in Melbourne’s natural crown would remain a putrid drain, shunned by wildlife and Melburnians alike. The fate of the Yarra was a foretaste of how Australia’s colonial people would treat the water throughout this driest of continents. It was essentially a thing to squander and lay waste. The nation’s recklessness with its waterways was to reach its apogee in the decades following the 1950s, and the greatest catastrophe of them all was the Snowy Mountains Scheme.

Back to top

---

Boag’s Rocks Gunnamatta

Notes on the relationship between the criteria and the Clean Ocean Foundation, Boag’s Rocks Gunnamatta Campaign, supplied by Madeline Chandler, Education Officer, Clean Ocean Foundation.

Early non-Indigenous Cultures

Sealers and Whaleboats removed aboriginal women from the southern coastline and held them captive (1798). Settlements developed in Westernport area in 1824-25 and aboriginal people began to disappear. Pioneering families lay claim to large pastoral leases for farming in the 1800’s. Collins settlement in Sorrento was made up of free settlers and convicts early 1800’s.

Gold rush Period to Federation (1850-1901)

Some gold mining late 1800’s near Dromana. The area was used for fishing and boating.

Lime was mined heavily on the Peninsula, which saw the removal of native She Oak and Tea Tree to burn in the kilns (1839 - 1860’s). Flinders Shire came into existence in 1862. A railway to Baxter (1888) and Redhill linked the Peninsula to Melbourne up to 1953.

The Hieldelberg Art School had favourite sections of the coast line they liked to paint.

Twentieth Century

1960’s Outfall Planned for Port Phillip Bay at Carrum met with a lot of community opposition. Metal Trades and Construction Unions placed a ban on works. It was a more expensive option to bring the pipe to Gunnamatta, which was built in 1975.

Gunnamatta in the 60’s

very remote and was accessible by a dirt track, an area mainly used by fishermen and surfers. There was a very small residential community. The development of the outfall met with no significant public opposion.

People were told that the water would be good enough to drink.

Gunnamatta now

It is a high use area for bushwalkers, swimmers, surfers, and equestrian trail, fishing as it is close to Melbourne with a controlled beach, toilet facilities and National Park. It is also a popular residential area with many beneficial uses.

Back to top