 |
 |
 |
| From left: Don Henry, Executive Director, Australian Conservation Foundation; Dr Colin Hocking, Victoria University; Dr Michael Buxton, RMIT; Harry van Moorst, community activist, Werribee; and Leo Gallo, environmental activist, Keilor. |
|
|
| Photo by Merrill Findlay, 3 December, 2002, taken on a native grassland remnant, Iramoo Sustainable Living Precinct, Victoria Univesity, St Albans campus, western Melbourne, after the launch of 'Redreaming the plain'. |
|
 |
|
| Victoria's University's St Albans Multimedia Centre where 'Redreaming the plain' was launched, is set in a native grassland garden. The building facade reflects the skin of the endangered Striped Legless Lizard, which inhabits this campus. |
|
|
| Photo by Merrill Findlay, 3 December 2002. |
|
|
|
Redreaming the plain was launched on December 3, 2002, overlooking a remnant grassland on the St Albans campus of Victoria University, by Don Henry, Director, Australian Conservation Foundation; Professor Jim Falk, Deputy Vice Chancellor, Victoria University; and Associate Professor Michael Buxton, from RMIT University's Environment and Planning Program, which hosts the e-journal.
Don Henry's presentation
It’s a great honour to be invited to speak at the launch of such a brilliantly conceived project.
Vision is something often notably lacking in our political discourse, so it is all the more important that the community share, nurture and continue to develop their own vision for this country, and for Victoria’s basalt plains in particular.
We need two robust dialogues if we are to forge a truly sustainable relationship with the land.
Firstly, we need a social dialogue where we can share our individual experiences, our aspirations and our vision of a relationship with the landscape.
At the same time, we need a dialogue with the land too, where we develop an understanding of climate, ecology and natural processes so that we can build a culture and an economy which is informed not only by our own needs but the needs of the landscape itself.
Redreaming the Plain is a unique forum where those two dialogues can evolve together towards a richly informed, collaboratively developed and sustainable future for the basalt plain's community.
Plains wanderers, past and present
The Koories managed this fertile landscape for millennia, fostering the maintenance of grasslands and grassy woodlands, and of a living culture which refers directly and intimately to the landscape.
So it is not surprising that the traumatic effects of European invasion were felt not only by the original stewards of the area, but by the landscape as well.
In 1836, Alexander Norcock was enchanted by Victoria’s grassy plains, reporting that:
The country round here is enchantingly beautiful- extensive rich plains all around with gently sloping hills in the distance, all thinly wooded and having the appearance of an immense park. The grasses, flowers and herbs that cover the plains are of every variety that can be imagine ...
Perhaps the most telling signal in this hymn to the plains was the word “rich”. Other settlers were more forthright about the values which underlay their excitement on seeing these plains for the first time, with John Batman describing them in 1835 as:
The most beautiful sheep pasturage I ever saw in my life.
Within ten years, virtually all of Victoria’s western basalt plains had been occupied for agriculture. This was a pattern of rapid agricultural, then urban and industrial development, and catastrophic ecological decline, repeated across much of the continent.
Across Australia, some 10% of tussock grasslands have been cleared since 1750. But here in Victoria’s basalt plains, 92% of native vegetation has been lost, with less than one percent of native grasslands remaining.
And yet only 2% of the region’s vegetation types are adequately protected in conservation reserves.
The extensive plains of wildflowers and herbs described by Norcock have been reduced to fragments of remnant vegetation isolated in an agricultural and urban matrix. Much of the original fauna and flora is either extinct or threatened.
A case in point is a pretty little ground-bird called the “Plains Wanderer”. This bird is in a family all its own- it is quite rare and special. And it relies on uncultivated open grasslands for its survival.
So it’s gone.
It’s extinct now right across the basalt plains. So now the “plains wandering” is done by sheep and farmers, industrialists, conservationists, politicians and academics.
 |
|
| The Plains Wanderer, Pedionomus borquatus, is listed on Schedule 2 of the Victorian Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act 1988 as a protected specie. It is locally extinct on the basalt plain. |
|
|
| Photo by Tom Wheller, contributed by the Victorian National Parks Association. with the photographer's permission. Copyright Tom Wheller. |
|
The national picture: Redreaming Australia
But I want now to loop out to a bigger picture of Australia as a whole.
I spoke earlier of the need to build a culture and an economy informed not only by our own needs but by the needs of the landscape itself.
For 170 years, the human economy and the natural ecology of the basalt plains have been out of whack. And this is also the case at national level.
We at ACF have put forward a raft of ideas which might be called our contribution to redreaming the country. In our project Natural Advantage: a blueprint for a sustainable Australia, we have put forward an optimistic and prosperous vision for the country as a whole.
Plains wondering
Coming back to the basalt plains and to our task of redreaming this region, my vision, or dream, would be the protection and good conservation management of what’s left of the native vegetation and biodiversity. It would be of truly sustainable land management, where ecosystem services are recognised in a cool, light and dry economy.
In this economy, triple bottom line outcomes would be woven through the activities of all who wander the plains, from government to industry to community.
And this vision is nested in a similar vision for Australia as a whole, where we all share responsibility for our actions and for playing our proper part in turning dreams into reality.
But without that first step of openly sharing our experiences, aspirations, creativity and curiosity, without a collaborative vision, we will simply see more of the same.
So it’s high time we did a little plains wondering: a little redreaming the plain.
Thank you.
Don Henry also spoke about ACF's new office in the 60L Green Building as a model for sustainability.
Copyright: Australian Conservation Foundation 2002
|
