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| Once upon a time, when native grassland communities were intact, when now-endangered or extinct species were prolific, when indigenous peoples managed their country in ways that had been tested over thousands of years … |
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| Digital composite by Csaba Szamosy for Imagine The Future Inc, 1996, created from photographs by James Ross, John Seebeck, Vanessa Craigee, Tom Wheller, Ian McCann and Mike Martin. |
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| The Plains Wanderer, Pedionomus borquatus, is listed on Schedule 2 of the Victorian Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act 1988 as a protected species. |
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| Photo by Tom Wheller. |
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Imagine flowers for as far as you can see in late winter and early spring. The sweet fragrance, the buzz of native bees, the fluttering of butterflies.
Quails, bustards, plains wanderers and bush thicknees in the long grass. Eagles and hawks riding the thermals overhead, scouring the plain for those tiny marsupials or reptiles careless enough to expose themselves in daylight. A mob of kangaroos, an emu with chicks, and over there, towards the hills, a chattering clan of women digging murnong tubers, or yam daisies, for their evening meal.
This was once Victoria's basalt plain. Since Europeans colonised this bioregion in the 1830s, more than 99.98 per cent of its native grassland communities have been destroyed, and many of the flora and fauna species the first peoples knew are either extinct or threatened. Most of the remaining grassland communities, such as the Derrimut and Albion grasslands, are found only as remnants in places left undisturbed by stock and farm machinery, such as buffer zones around industrial sites, road verges, paddock corners, rocky areas, cemeteries and railway lines. Local people are now battling to conserve and rehabilitate these few remaining refuges so they, and future generations can enjoy the extraordinary biological diversity and beauty of our native grasslands.
The biological diversity of these communities includes tussock-forming perennial grasses like kangaroo grass and many other plant families, such as daisies, peas, lilies, rushes and orchids. Other species integral to grassland ecosystems include the mychorrizal fungi and other soil organisms that some orchids require for their ongoing survival; the insects, such as native bees, that fertilise the flowering plants; and all the other vertebrates and invertebrates that have co-evolved with plants, including the Eastern Barred Bandicoot and the Striped Legless Lizard.
Scientists are still learning new and unexpected things about the complex interrelationships between species and physical processes in native grassland communities. For example, it is now believed that ethylene gas produced by grassfires may trigger flowering in some of the grassland orchids. Only when such complexities are understood can scientists, and others who care about the future of the grasslands of Victoria's basalt plain, design and implement appropriate strategies to conserve, rehabilitate and extend these most endangered ecosystems.
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| For millennia the indigenous people of Victoria's basalt plain used fire as their primary land management tool. Contemporary land managers are once again learning these ancient 'firestick farming' methods to conserve remnant grassland communities. |
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| Photo by James Ross, grasslands officer, Victorian National Parks Association. |
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Destruction of the grasslands
Throughout history grasslands have always been amongst the first biological systems to be colonised, and the open grasslands of Victoria's basalt plain were no exception. Matthew Flinders was one of the first Europeans to document their economic potential. As he noted in his journal for 2 May 1802:
The country surrounding Port Phillip has a pleasing, and in many parts a fertile appearance; and the side of some of the hills and several of the vallies, are fit for agricultural purposes. It is in great measure a grassy country, and capable of supporting much cattle, though better calculated for sheep. ... Indented Head, at the northern part of the western peninsula, had an appearance particularly agreeable; the grass had been burned not long before, and had sprung up green and tender; the wood was so thinly scattered that one might see to a considerable distance; and the hills rose one over the other to a moderate elevation, but so gently, that a plough might every where be used.
(From A Voyage to Terra Australis by Matthew
Flinders, London, 1814.)
Both explorer William Hovell and land speculator John Batman also saw the potential. In 1835 Batman observed in his journal that the western bank of the Maribyrnong or Saltwater River consisted of 'rich flats about a mile wide and 2 or three long [with] not a tree and covered with kangaroo grass above my knees; Hundreds of tons of hay could have been made of the above grass; the land of the best description equal to any in the world.'
The following year, 1836, Major Thomas Mitchell, the Surveyor-General of the colony of New South Wales, also gazed out at the rich grasslands of the basalt plain. He called them 'champagne country', and could already see their future as the ideal setting for 'a lasting monument of British power and colonization.' Not surprisingly his prediction was absolutely correct.
What are your stories about native grasslands on Victoria's basalt plain?
Copyright Imagine The Future Inc 2002.
Text by Merrill Findlay.
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