Rethinking Wilderness and the Wild: Conflict, Conservation and Co-existence

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Rethinking Wilderness and the Wild Rethinking Wilderness and the Wild: Conflict, Conservation and Co­ -​­ existence examines the complexities surrounding the concept of wilderness. Contemporary wilderness scholarship has tended to fall into two categories: the so­-​ ­called ‘fortress conservation’ and ‘co­-​­existence’ schools of thought. This book, contending that this polarisation has led to a silencing and concealment of alternative perspectives and lines of enquiry, extends beyond these confines and in particular steers away from the dilemmas of paradise or paradox in order to advance an intellectual and policy agenda of plurality and diversity rather than of prescription and definition. Drawing on case studies from Australia, Aoteoroa/New Zealand, the United States and Iceland, and explorations of embodied experience, creative practice, philosophy, and First Nations land management approaches, the assembled chapters examine wilderness ideals, conflicts and human­-​­nature dualities afresh, and examine co­ -​­ existence and conservation in the Anthropocene in diverse ontological and multidisciplinary ways. By demonstrating a strong commitment to respecting the knowledge and perspectives of Indigenous peoples, this work delivers a more nuanced, ethical and decolonising approach to issues arising from relationships with wilderness. Such a collection is immediately appropriate given the political challenges and social complexities of our time, and the mounting threats to life across the globe. The abiding and uniting logic of the book is to offer a unique and innovative contribution to engender transformations of wilderness scholarship, activism and conservation policy. This text refutes the inherent privileging and exclusionary tactics of dominant modes of enquiry that too often serve to silence non­-​­human and contrary positions. It reveals a multi­-​­faceted and contingent wilderness alive with agency, diversity and possibility. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of conservation, environmental and natural resource management, Indigenous studies and environmental policy and planning. It will also be of interest to practitioners, policymakers and NGOs involved in conservation, protected environments and environmental governance. Robyn Bartel is an Associate Professor at the University of New England, Australia. She is the lead editor of Water Policy, Imagination and Innovation: Interdisciplinary approaches (Routledge, 2018). Marty Branagan is a Senior Lecturer at the University of New England, Australia. He is the author of Global Warming, Militarism and Nonviolence: The Art of Active Resistance (2013). Fiona Utley is a Senior Lecturer at the University of New England, Australia. Her research, publications and international conference presentations explore phenomenological perspectives on identity, trauma, and embodiment. Stephen Harris is a Lecturer at the University of New England, Australia. He is one of the co­-​­editors of Water Policy, Imagination and Innovation: Interdisciplinary Approaches (Routledge, 2018).

Routledge Studies in Conservation and the Environment

This series includes a wide range of inter­ -​­ disciplinary approaches to conservation and the environment, integrating perspectives from both social and natural sciences. Topics include, but are not limited to, development, environmental policy and politics, ecosystem change, natural resources (including land, water, oceans and forests), security, wildlife, protected areas, tourism, human­ -​­ wildlife conflict, agriculture, economics, law and climate change. Natural Resources, Tourism and Community Livelihoods in Southern Africa Challenges of Sustainable Development Edited by Moren T. Stone, Monkgogi Lenao and Naomi Moswete Leaving Space for Nature The Critical Role of Area­-​­Based Conservation Nigel Dudley and Sue Stolton Power in Conservation Environmental Anthropology Beyond Political Ecology Carol Carpenter Rethinking Wilderness and the Wild Conflict, Conservation and Co­-​­existence Edited by Robyn Bartel, Marty Branagan, Fiona Utley and Stephen Harris For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/ Routledge­-​­Studies­-​­in­-​­Conservation­-​­and­-​­the­-​­Environment/book­-​­series/RSICE

Rethinking Wilderness and the Wild Conflict, Conservation and Co­-​­existence

Edited by Robyn Bartel, Marty Branagan, Fiona Utley and Stephen Harris

First published 2021 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2021 selection and editorial matter, Robyn Bartel, Marty Branagan, Fiona Utley and Stephen Harris; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Robyn Bartel, Marty Branagan, Fiona Utley and Stephen Harris to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing­-​­in­-​­Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging­-​­in­-​­Publication Data A catalog record has been requested for this book ISBN: 978­-​­0­-​­367­-​­27985­-​­1 (hbk) ISBN: 978­-​­0­-​­429­-​­29902­-​­5 (ebk) Typeset in Bembo by Wearset Ltd, Boldon, Tyne and Wear

Contents



Notes on contributorsviii Forewordxiv

Introduction

1

ROBYN BARTEL AND MARTY BRANAGAN

PART I

What is wilderness? The stories we tell   1 Wilderness in literature and culture: changing perceptions of the relationship with ‘country’

9 11

STEPHEN HARRIS

  2 Evolving values of wilderness in the Age of Extinction: environmental campaigning in Australia

31

VANESSA BIBLE AND TANYA HOWARD

  3 Collaborative wilderness preservation and the Franklin River campaign: environmentalists, Aboriginal people and the creative arts

50

MARTY BRANAGAN

  4 The wilderness experience in national parks: a case study of Boonoo Boonoo National Park

68

JOHANNA GARNETT

  5 Aboriginal owned and jointly managed national parks: caring for cultural imperatives and conservation outcomes JULIE COLLINS AND WARLPA KUTJIKA THOMPSON

87

vi  Contents   6 Changing attitudes towards wilderness in Aotearoa/ New Zealand: from disappointment to glorification and guardianship

105

TOM BROOKING

PART II

The how of wilderness: relationships and reciprocity

123

  7 Reimagining wilderness and the wild in Australia in the wake of bushfires

125

ROBYN BARTEL AND MARTY BRANAGAN

  8 Human engagement in place­-care: ​­ back from the wilderness

145

ROBYN BARTEL, DONALD W. HINE AND METHUEN MORGAN

  9 Botanical wilderness narratives: plant intelligence and shifting perceptions of the botanical world

165

JOHN CHARLES RYAN

10 People as purposeful and conscientious resource stewards: human agency in a world gone wild

179

TAO ORION

11 Exploring wilderness in Iceland: charting meaningful encounters with uninhabited lands

189

ÞORVARÐUR ÁRNASON

PART III

The why of wilderness: new and different wilds

205

12 Wilderness triumphant: beyond romantic nature, settlement and agriculture

207

ANTHONY LYNCH AND STEPHEN NORRIS

13 The future of wilderness in the Anthropocene and beyond: wild machinations BRENDAN MACKEY

218

Contents  vii 14 Rewilding as an expression of love: philosophical perspectives on human engagement

235

FIONA UTLEY

15 From wilderness preservation to the fight for Lawlands: towards a revisioning of conservation

254

FREYA MATHEWS

16 Rupturing the Western concept of wilderness: restoring human relationships with place and nature

274

LORINA L. BARKER



Index284

Contributors

Þorvarður Árnason is an interdisciplinary environmental humanist whose research over the years has addressed a broad array of environmental issues, most importantly wilderness, natural landscapes, protected area management and climate change. He has also worked extensively on tourism issues, especially involving protected areas and/or small, peripheral rural communities. Þorvarður is the Director of the University of Iceland’s Hornafjordur Research Centre and also an Associate Research Professor at the same university. He has served two terms as a member of expert group 1 of the Icelandic Master Plan for Nature Protection and Energy Utilization and has led three large­ -​­ scale research projects on landscape and/or wilderness for the Master Plan (phases 2–4). He has also served as a consultant for the Ministry for the Environment and Natural Resources in Iceland, the Icelandic National Planning Agency and Vatnajökull National Park. Þorvarður is furthermore an active landscape photographer and experimental filmmaker and enjoys choral singing, in particular in acapella ensembles. Lorina L. Barker is a descendant of the Wangkumara and Muruwari people from northwest NSW, Adnyamathanha (Flinders Rangers SA), the Kooma and Kunja (southwest QLD), and the Kurnu­-​­Baarkandji (northwest NSW). Lorina is an oral historian and filmmaker and teaches modern Australian history, Oral history and Local and Community history. Lorina uses multimedia as part of her multimedia projects to transfer knowledge, history, stories and culture to the next generations in mediums that they use and are familiar with, such as film, short stories, poetry and music. She wrote and directed the short film documentary, Tibooburra: My Grand­ mother’s Country. Robyn Bartel is a multi­-​­award­-​­winning scholar with multi­-​­disciplinary expertise in science, law and education. Recognised internationally for her contribution to environmental law and policy, her research encompasses regulation, regulatory agencies and the regulated, as well as the social, institutional and natural landscape in which all are situated. Appreciated by academic and professional audiences alike, her scholarship is highly valued

Contributors  ix for both its practical application and substantive intellectual contribution. Her work has been influential in policy development, heavily cited in the scholarly literature and hand­ -​­ picked for prestigious international collections and seminal texts in environmental law. She is a member of the executive of the Institute of Australian Geographers, sits on the editorial board of the esteemed journal Geographical Research and was the 2013 recipient of the prestigious Australasian Environmental Law and Regulators Network (AELERT) Achievement Award. Robyn is the lead editor of the recent collection Water Policy, Imagination and Innovation: Interdisciplinary Approaches (Routledge, 2018). Vanessa Bible teaches peace studies and history at the University of New England. Vanessa’s research interests lie within the environmental humanities and include environmental peace, environmental advocacy and Australian environmental history, with a specific focus on counterculture and activism. Vanessa’s passion for environmental and peace issues extends beyond academia and into community advocacy, and she is currently a UN Humanitarian Affairs Peace Ambassador. Her most recent publication of relevance to this contribution is Terania Creek and the Forging of Modern Environmental Activism, released by Palgrave in 2018. Marty Branagan researches and publishes extensively on the connections between environmental and peace issues, about learning in social movements, the use of humour and nonviolence against ruthless regimes, and developments in nonviolence and artistic activism that have arisen during environmental movements. His ground­ -​­ breaking book – Global Warming, Militarism and Nonviolence: The Art of Active Resistance (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013) – examines the carbon boot­-​­print of war and militarism and how it may be reduced through nonviolent direct action and constructive programs. His illustrated novel, Locked On! The Seventh and Most Illegal in the Hitch­-​­Hiker’s Guide Trilogy (Irene, 2019), is based on contemporary climate activism. Tom Brooking is Emeritus Professor of History at the University of Otago where he has taught for 40 years. He specialises in New Zealand agricultural, rural and environmental history as well as political history, the history of ideas and the Scottish New Zealand connection, and has always been interested in transnational and comparative history. He is the author of 12 books comprising seven monographs, three edited books and two co­-​ ­authored books as well as numerous articles, essays and book chapters. His biography of New Zealand’s longest serving Prime Minister Richard John Seddon (1893–1906) was co­-winner ​­ of the Ernst Scott prize in 2015 with the University of New England’s Alan Atkinson. Currently he is co­-​­editing a volume on culture and democracy in the Age of Empire (1776–1920) in a series on culture and democracy edited by Professor Eugenio Biagini of the University of Cambridge for Bloomsbury of London. And he is

x  Contributors looking forward to writing a big overview book once retired at the end of this year on the making of rural New Zealand for Otago University Press tentatively entitled Mud, Sweat and Dreams. Julie Collins is an academic at the University of New England, working primarily in the School of Education in contextual studies, but also in the areas of Indigenous studies for the School of Humanities, Arts and Social Science (HASS) and for the Oorala Aboriginal Centre. Julie has a PhD and B Applied Science (Honours) in the ecological humanities (Charles Sturt University); and a BSc majoring in zoology and ecology (UNE). Julie’s research interests include: the role of experiential theatre in evoking empathy and transforming behaviour in relation to the environment; decolonising history by creating theatre from oral history, working collaboratively with Aboriginal communities; and reconciliation between Indigenous and non­-indigenous ​­ Australians in the context of the Myall Creek Memorial in New South Wales, Australia. Johanna Garnett lectures in sociology and peace studies at the University of New England. She is a critical social theorist with a focus on environmental adult education, social movements and alternative development. She has been published in the Environmental Justice Journal, Peace and Conflict Review, New Community Quarterly, and Food Studies: an Inter­-​ ­Disciplinary Journal, and has a co­-​­authored journal article pending in the Journal of Conflict, Security and Development. She has a co­-​­authored book chapter in Education as a Panacea for Refugee Youth, and pending chapters in Youth Beyond the City: Thinking from the Margins, and the Handbook of Populism in Asia and the Pacific. Stephen Harris has a PhD in American Literature and an MA in Australian Literature. In his current position as a lecturer at the University of New England he teaches across the field of literary studies, with a focus on nineteenth­ -​­and twentieth­ -​­ century American Literature and the Contemporary Novel, and additional teaching responsibilities in the area of Ecocriticism and film studies. He has published two books – The Fiction of Gore Vidal and E. L. Doctorow: Writing the Historical Self (2002), and Gore Vidal’s Historical Novels and the Shaping of American Political Consciousness (2005) – and is currently working on a book­-​­length comparative study of concepts of individualism and selfhood in Australian and American literature. Harris has published numerous articles and book reviews, was the recipient of a Fulbright Postdoctoral Scholarship in 2001, and was a Writer in Residence at New England Writers’ Centre and Bundanon Trust in 2013. Harris recently coedited the collection Water Policy, Imagination and Innovation: Interdisciplinary Approaches (Routledge, 2018). Donald W. Hine is Head of the School of Psychology, Speech and Hearing at the University of Canterbury. He conducts research in the areas of environmental psychology and behaviourally effective communications.

Contributors  xi His work focuses on understanding situational and psychological factors that underlie environmental problems such as resource over­-​­consumption, climate change, air pollution, and the management of invasive species. Much of his work involves developing behaviour change strategies to encourage people to act in ways that benefit the common good. Tanya Howard is a Senior Research Fellow at the University of New England where she researches environmental governance and capacity building in rural communities. Tanya is currently leading a cross­-​­disciplinary investigation into the human dimensions of environmental crime in Australia. As a practitioner, Tanya has worked with rural and remote communities to develop and deliver quality natural resource management and environmental sustainability outcomes across the non­ -government ​­ to government sectors. She is a board member of the International Association of Society and Natural Resources. Anthony (Tony) Lynch is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy and Studies in Religion, and Politics and International Studies at the University of New England. He is co­-​­author of The Political Ecologist (2000) and The Morality of Money (2008, 2015). He writes on moral and political questions, with a special focus on environmental and animal ethics. His essays have been published in many collections and in such journals as Environmental Ethics, Environmental Values, Philosophy, Philosophical Investigations, Journal of Agriculture and Animal Ethics, Journal of Applied Philosophy. Brendan Mackey is Professor and Director of the Climate Change Program at Griffith University, Queensland Australia. Brendan has a PhD in plant ecology from the Australian National University. He is a coordinating lead author for the IPCC 6th Assessment. Brendan was a member of the Earth Charter core drafting team, and has published over 200 academic texts in the fields of environmental science, policy and ethics. Freya Mathews is Adjunct Professor of Environmental Philosophy at Latrobe University, Australia. Her books include The Ecological Self (1991), Ecology and Democracy (editor) (1996), For Love of Matter: A Contemporary Panpsychism (2003), Journey to the Source of the Merri (2003), Reinhabiting Reality: Towards a Recovery of Culture (2005), Without Animals Life Is Not Worth Living (2016) and Ardea: A Philosophical Novella (2016). She is the author of over 70 articles in the area of ecological philosophy. Her current special interests are in ecological civilisation; Indigenous (Australian and Chinese) perspectives on ‘sustainability’ and how these perspectives may be adapted to the context of contemporary global society; panpsychism and critique of the metaphysics of modernity; ecology and religion; and conservation ethics and rewilding in the context of the Anthropocene. In addition to her research activities, she co­-​­manages a private conservation estate in northern Victoria. She is a fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities.

xii  Contributors Methuen Morgan is an environmental psychologist interested in the barriers and drivers of behaviours that affect the environment. His research to date has focused on the impacts of coal seam gas (CSG) extraction on farming communities and strategies for behaviour change to manage invasive species. He is a Director of Meralli Solar, an award­-​­winning solar farm installation company. Stephen (Steve) Norris completed his PhD on Environmental Philosophy in 2014. Since then he has been employed in the Philosophy and Law departments of the University of New England. He has recently published a new book, with Ciprian Radavoi, Australian Law in Context: Social, Political and Global Perspectives which is a critical examination of Australian law in operation. Tao Orion is the co­-​­owner of Resilience Permaculture Design, LLC, a firm specialising in holistic farm, forest, water management, and restoration planning. She is the author of Beyond the War on Invasive Species: A Permaculture Approach to Ecosystem Restoration (Chelsea Green Publishing, 2015). She holds a degree in agroecology and sustainable agriculture from UC Santa Cruz, and grows fruits, vegetables, seeds, nuts, animals, and soil on her southern Willamette Valley homestead, Viriditas Farm. She serves on the Board of Directors of Aprovecho and the Cerro Gordo Land Conservancy. John Charles Ryan is Adjunct Associate Professor in the School of Arts and Social Sciences at Southern Cross University. His interests include ecocriticism, ecopoetics and critical plant studies. He is the author or editor of 15 books, including the Bloomsbury title Digital Arts (2014, co­-​­author), The Language of Plants (University of Minnesota Press, 2017, co­-​­editor), Plants in Contemporary Poetry (Routledge, 2017, author) and Australian Wetland Cultures (Lexington, 2019, co­-editor). ​­ His poetry collection Seeing Trees: A Poetic Arboretum will be published by Pinyon Press later in 2020. Warlpa Kutjika Thompson is a Wiimpatja from far western NSW. He grew up in Wilcannia, living in a tin shed with his mother and father until he was 9 years old. As Warlpa was growing up, his mother and the Old People taught him language and culture, whilst his father taught him a scientific perspective, but also reinforced the language and culture of his mother’s people. Warlpa is a member of the Mutawintji Land Council and is a Traditional Owner and on the Board of Management of the Mutawintji Lands, including the National Park, Historic site and Nature Reserve. Warlpa currently works as an Aboriginal Sites Officer for New South Wales National Parks. Fiona Utley has a PhD in Philosophy and is a Senior Lecturer currently working in research development at the University of New England. Her research focuses on the relationship between philosophy and the human

Contributors  xiii sciences, in particular regarding phenomenological perspectives on identity, embodiment and social oppression. Dr Utley has published several leading articles and chapters (including with Johns Hopkins University Press and Pennsylvania State University Press) examining and extending the contribution of thinkers such as Merleau­-Ponty ​­ and Derrida, with a particular focus on issues of trust, selfhood and intercorporeality. Her work has been selected for presentation before the International Merleau­-​­Ponty Circle, a leading forum for Merleau­-​­Ponty scholarship, in 2008 and again in 2012.

Foreword

We welcome the opportunity to herald the publication of this volume and offer a brief joint contribution to the learned discussion of the meanings of wilderness and its future, with some observations from our decades of experience. Initially may we say that it is a cause for celebration that recognition and protection of wild places has greatly advanced, and scholarship on wilderness has flourished since Wilderness in Australia was first published by the Department of Geography, University of New England, Australia in 1976.1 It is gratifying to observe over 40 years later, that the impact of its publication has been profound, leading to the enactment of wilderness legislation in New South Wales and other States, and many large natural areas being protected from future disturbance due to their status as ‘wilderness’. Looking back, however, it is apt to observe that it was unfortunate that our report canvassed early definitions of ‘wilderness’ which referred to areas ‘undisturbed by man’ or ‘unmodified by humans’ without questioning the suitability of their use in a post­-colonial ​­ Australian context. Though our report did not adopt these definitions,2 it would have been more accurate had we defined wilderness as ‘large areas of natural eco­-​­systems which are intact, or substantially unmodified by the environmentally destructive practices of European colonists and their stock’, because this was our methodology. The purpose of our report was to identify large natural areas that could be protected from exploitation. With the benefit of hindsight, it is clear these early definitions were culturally inappropriate and offensive to many Indigenous people because they ignored Aboriginal peoples’ sovereignty, and their agency as the custodians and managers of land and resources over centuries. We regret this, and the authors and the UNE Geography Department (now the Department of Geography and Planning) wish to take the opportunity here to offer an apology to First Nations’ peoples. We are sorry we did not acknowledge that these areas were, and remain Aboriginal land, and were always managed by Indigenous custodians. That said, it is also cause for celebration that in the decades since 1992 the native title of First Nations’ peoples have been formally recognised by the institutions of modern Australia, and many reserved lands are now managed or co­-​­managed as wilderness areas or national parks by Indigenous custodians to

Foreword  xv protect the natural integrity of country, its biodiversity and cultural heritage values. We recall that one early justification for wilderness protection was to allow for ‘self­-reliant ​­ adventure experience in nature’. In our view that rationale for protecting largely unmodified natural landscapes and the pursuit of those experiences still remains valid today. The value of profound personal experiences of immersion in nature have been long recognised by many cultures; but to benefit from such experiences, places must exist where this immersion can happen. Today, the challenge is to enjoy these experiences without creating adverse environmental impacts on natural systems, and to do so in ways which respect the country’s Indigenous cultural heritage significance. However, ‘recreational use’ is not the only reason for protecting large natural areas, or the sole benefit to modern society. Protecting undisturbed country provides places for rest and relaxation, of solace and inspiration, of great natural beauty in an increasingly de­-​­natured world. Doing so also protects water supply and ensures high water quality in coastal rivers used by coastal settlements. It also sequesters carbon when we desperately need to mitigate anthropogenic global warming. Taking a wider view, protecting large natural areas also protects the habitats needed by a diverse suite of threatened plants and animals, some of which require large natural areas managed as wilderness, if they are to escape extinction. Protecting some areas from gross disturbance also provides important examples of country pre­-​­European settlement which, used as reference points, can frame enquiry into the physical, biological and cultural transformation of country wrought by the British colonisation of Australia. The survival of undisturbed country also allows comparisons to be made with areas disturbed by European land­-​­uses, and can inform the vision for, and decisions about, the future of degraded areas. But perhaps most importantly, large natural areas are tangible and enduring links to our country’s pre­-​­colonial past. Having outlined their value to contemporary society, we hold that a more mature, ethical perspective on managing undisturbed natural areas ought not to insist on a (white) human use justification in order to protect country from gross mayhem of industrial exploitation. We hope that in the future our society recognises that our surviving natural places and native species, our ‘wildlife’, have their own intrinsic values, and we learn to respect their inherent ‘right to be wild’, to survive and prosper, free from destructive interference and independent of any human­-oriented ​­ rationale. From our experience, we have concluded that the essential integrity of natural places is easily damaged and often compromised by the arrogant use of modern roadmaking, logging and mining apparatus, and many large natural areas remain threatened by attempts by private interests to plunder them for their natural resources. However, these facts should not necessarily mean that wilderness will inevitably diminish in quality or extent. In our view, from a contemporary Western non­-​­indigenous ecological perspective, the quality of ‘wildness’ can be regained, and the area of wilderness enlarged, if disturbed areas are not further

xvi  Foreword disturbed and are carefully managed to allow natural processes sufficient time to displace disturbance impacts and restore ecological function. So, where this recovery of wilderness quality, natural integrity or ‘quietness’ of country is possible, we argue that land managers should not shy away from mounting the arguments and taking the steps necessary for this restoration to occur. Further, though we recommend more people enjoy wilderness experiences, we must warn of the potentially serious impacts of commercial access to wilderness areas. Done badly, commercial uses have the potential to create cumulative impacts which do harm to country, impair its naturalness and degrade the wilderness experience for others. In our view, the greatest scrutiny and strictest conditions must to be applied to any proposals for commercial use of undisturbed natural places. Though we are proud of the parts we have played, in closing, we would like to recognise the efforts of many other individuals and groups who, over the last 45 years, have striven to recognise and protect undisturbed natural places, and ensure their survival into the future. There are too many to name, but they are the people who advocated for wilderness in public debate; who brought the unique values, natural beauty, and the plight of threatened wilderness areas to public attention; who drafted, lobbied for and enacted wilderness protection legislation; who identified and nominated natural areas as ‘wilderness’; who rallied to protest and prevent the destruction of unique places; who carried out field work to investigate the presence and quality of threatened species’ habitat and furnished reports on these areas’ natural and cultural heritage values; the people who assessed these nominations and prepared relevant declarations; and those who manage or co­-manage ​­ country to protect, maintain and restore the integrity of large natural areas, deserve recognition and thanks for their invaluable work. We note that all these efforts accord with inspired vision and leadership of Myles Dunphy and the tenacious advocacy of his son, Milo. Finally, we would like to record our delight in seeing contemporary scholars, activists and land managers thinking and writing about wilderness, how it affects and is affected by society and exploring its future. Our congratulations to the editors for initiating and producing this volume and to all the authors for their erudite contributions. Dr Peter Helman, principal author Wilderness in Australia (UNE 1976) John R. Corkill OAM, public interest litigant and wilderness defender (1990–1992)

Notes 1 Peter M. Helman, Alan D. Jones, John J. Pigram and Jeremy M. B. Smith. 1976. Wilderness in Australia: Eastern New South Wales and Southern Queensland, Armidale Australia: Geography Department, University of New England. 2 The definition of wilderness used was ‘a large area of land perceived to be natural, where genetic diversity and natural cycles remain essentially unaltered’ (Helman et al. 1976, 29).

Introduction Robyn Bartel and Marty Branagan

Contemporary wilderness scholarship has tended to fall into two categories: the so­-​­called ‘fortress conservation’ and ‘co­-​­existence’ schools of thought. This collection, contending that this polarisation has led to a silencing and concealment of alternative perspectives and lines of enquiry, extends beyond these confines and in particular steers away from the dilemmas of considering the wild as paradise or paradox in order to advance an intellectual and policy agenda of plurality and diversity rather than of prescription and definition. We have thus undertaken to rethink wilderness and the wild, particularly through perspectives that have been most marginalised in wilderness thinking to date and extending beyond the Atlantocentric, Anglophone, and generally also anthropocentric arenas of scholarship and practice. All of the chapters herein focus on areas that have been marginal, and marginalised, in wilderness scholarship to date, particularly given the predominance of wildlife in the popular imagination, itself with an overwhelming preference for the consideration of large mammals, and wilderness in the Global North, especially the United States (US). While we would not wish to dismiss the worth of those exercises, this anthology undertakes to cover the margins instead, taking to the ‘edgelands’ (Harris) of the world: to Australia and Aoteoroa/New Zealand in the Antipodes, to the frigid laval deserts of the northern climes of Iceland (Arnason), and sinking beneath the surface to subterranean waters (Bible and Howard). This anthology extends beyond the documentation of species numbers, land areas and statistical relationships – although it does some of this too (see Bartel and Branagan; Bartel, Hine and Morgan) – to embodied experiences and first­ -​­ person narratives (Barker; Collins and Thomson; Garnett), philosophical interrogations of accepted tenets (Lynch and Norris; Utley; Mathews) and also the role of artistry and creative expression, thereby demonstrating the story­ -telling ​­ ability of the arts and humanities, and their cogency in transforming worldviews at individual and collective levels (Branagan; Harris). We have a strong commitment to nurturing a debate that includes Indigenous perspectives and knowledges and thus also addresses the under­ -​ ­examined role of First Peoples and how this recognition must transform how wilderness is conceptualised. The First Nations’ perspectives included and

2  Robyn Bartel and Marty Branagan examined in this collection suggest not only that the wilderness is not human­-​ ­free but is in fact inter­-​­dependent upon humans for its very nature – in much the same way that we are dependent upon it (Barker; Collins and Thompson; see also Orion; Mathews). Several chapters challenge the human­ -​­ free wilderness ideal, and Bible and Howard argue that ‘the hegemonic Western worldview sometimes still classifies wilderness areas through the restriction of human interaction, as does the occasional well­ -​­ meaning environmentalist’ (Chapter 2). Much harm is ascribed to this ideal, which is interrogated as resting on an indefensible human/nature binary (or nature/culture dualism, see Collins and Thompson, or divide, see Bible and Howard), whose origins are attributed to Christianity by Bible and Howard, to the Enlightenment by Orion, to language by Barker, to pre­-​­Christian worldviews by Lynch and Norris, and to a combination of all of these by Bartel and Branagan. In Wilderness and the American Mind, Roderick Nash (1982, 343) suggested that ‘a society must become technological, urban and crowded before a need for wild nature makes economic and intellectual sense’. Lynch and Norris (Chapter 12) trace the roots of the illusion earlier, to settlement and agriculture, arguing that efforts to control wilderness have been just another misguided attempt to domesticate nature. Given our interdependency with nature, such actions, according to the authors, will destroy us. As Max Oelschlaeger (1991, 8) succinctly stated, ‘we are paradoxically destined to fail through our own success’. Far from success, the human/(non­-​­human) nature binary has led to prosaic and perverse consequences – not only in misadventure in the wilderness for the lost but also the projection onto wilderness of all that is feared and unknown (Barker). This imagined reality has then supported a very real subjugation, whether as resource, for timber, tourism, mining, ecosystem services, reflection or recreation (Bartel and Branagan), or to facilitate a well­-​ ­intentioned human need for self­-​­efficacy – to ‘do something’ about ecological crises (Utley). As noted by Bartel and Branagan (Chapter 7), the recognition of First Nations’ long, prior occupation and shaping of wilderness is long overdue, as is embracing non­-​­binary definitions of wilderness. Most importantly, in terms of rethinking, is that wilderness and the wild can mean the opposite to the conservation ideal: according to First Nations’ worldviews, wilderness areas and ‘wild’ country are those areas that have been neglected and require mutual tending and respect (Lynch and Norris), place care (Bartel, Hine and Morgan) stewardship (Orion) and caring for country (Barker; Collins and Thomson). Areas both within and outside traditional preserved areas may fall within this definition, due to the absence of proper human care. If country is loved, and its stories known, it is not, and can never be, a wilderness (see Collins and Thompson; Barker). In recognising this relationality, a greater appreciation of human agency in caring for country and place may be afforded. This may be within protected areas (Orion) or outside, including urban environs (Bartel, Hine and Morgan). Perhaps more significantly non­-​­human agency may also be foregrounded, including the role and the agency of wilderness itself (Lynch

Introduction  3 and Norris). This could be an abiotic and uninhabited wilderness (Anderson), an intelligent wilderness, appreciating in particular the agency of plants, and thereby also correcting zoocentrism (see Ryan, and also Orion, the latter chapter a rehabilitation of the much­-​­maligned invasive species). It could also be a more­ -​­ than­ -​­ human, ‘artificial’ intelligence (Mackey), or a dynamic (Orion), self­-​­willed and beyond­-​­human wild (Utley). These chapters adroitly challenge anthropocentric notions of intelligence and agency, addressing, in the words of the Tiddas song Happy Earth: ‘Every day, ignorance from everyone’ (Bennett et al. 1992).

A note on the arrangement The book is arranged in sections of what (stories we tell), how (practices of relationships and reciprocity), and why (new and different wilds beyond their current forms). This multi­-disciplinary ​­ volume aims for a broad readership including academics, advocates and activists, as well as policy makers and practitioners and all those interested in caring more for our world. For these groups, understanding change to the ‘what’, ‘how’ and ‘why’ of wilderness is important in that they inform our understanding of what wilderness is and should be, how it may be created, for whom, where, and for what purpose and ultimate consequence. Cross­-​­cutting each section are the themes of conflict, conservation and co­-​­existence. Table I.1 provides a guide, noting that many c­ hapters also explore more than one theme. Conflict is used as an umbrella­-term ​­ to describe various endeavours devoted to ‘conquering’ the wilderness, particularly through colonisation and violent discord between Europeans and the ‘new’ world, including its peoples, and their practices and philosophies (Brooking; Harris). The attendant clash of ‘reality’ with the supposed ‘ideal’ has led to the destruction of nature and people, as in the Australian bushfires of 2019–2020 (Bartel and Branagan), and suboptimal biophysical outcomes even for protected area management (Orion), as well as, and perhaps ironically, our own demise as a species (Lynch and Norris). The vacillant evolution of the colonists’ recognition of wilderness as cultural landscape may be familiar to those in North America and elsewhere, but Table I.1  Broad arrangement of topics and themes in the collection by chapter Rethinking

Sections

Themes

What

How

Conflict

Harris Brooking Bible and Howard Branagan Garnett Collins and Thompson

Bartel and Branagan Orion Arnason

Conservation Co­-​­existence

Why

Lynch and Norris Mackey Utley Bartel, Hine and Morgan Mathews Ryan Barker

4  Robyn Bartel and Marty Branagan perhaps not all would have heard of the history of Aoteoroa/New Zealand, a comparable but unique settler nation. Brooking (Chapter 6) describes how it was Māori, not Pākehā, who were responsible for the nation’s first National Park, and how Māori continue to lead the development of globally innovative legal arrangements such as the recent decision to recognise the personhood of the Whanganui River (see also Charpleix 2018). Recognition of the contribution of First Nations to conservation1 practice is explored by Branagan (Chapter 3), and by Bible and Howard (Chapter 2) in the context of activism against hydropower and coal seam gas respectively. Arnason (Chapter 11) identifies that although these types of proposals are also controversial in Iceland, so are recreation and tourism. These enterprises may be perceived as more ‘environmentally friendly’ (see also Brooking, and also Garnett) but may be comparable in terms of deleterious impacts to the more controversial proposals for mining and logging. The latter two are also explored in this collection – by Bible and Howard (Chapter 2) – with case studies of the fight for the iconic old­ -​­ growth New South Wales (NSW) forests, undertaken from the 1970s to the 1990s, and the more recent 2013 Bentley campaign against coal seam gas extraction. Notions of ‘locking up’ areas as human­-​­free wilderness zones – rightly interrogated by numerous authors in this volume – have long been weaponised by opponents to conservation who seek to exploit natural resources, and are therefore deeply problematic terms in this sense also, as publicly reserved areas are unique in being open to all people whereas it is globalised, neo­-​­liberal capitalist privatisation (Utley; and see also Watson 2019) which has ‘locked up’ most landscapes to most people. And rather than heavily­-​­defended fortresses, the legal and political protections of wilderness are inherently fragile (examples of allowing mining in national parks are provided by Brooking, and also Garnett), and offer no guarantees for the environment (as the bushfires in Australia have demonstrated, see Bartel and Branagan). For many and diverse reasons then, revitalised meanings of wilderness are needed in the future, explored by Mackey (Chapter 13) and particularly for rewilding as re­ -​­ interpreted by Utley (Chapter 14). Utley illuminates the cultivation of relationships that resist counter­ -​­ productive binaries and the presentism impeding inter­-​­generational equity inherent in political­-​­economic systems, and Mackey (Chapter 13) explores the potential of the Machinacene: the impending age of artificial intelligence. Co­-​­existence approaches, based on incorporating both humans and nature, first developed from apex predator, charismatic and keystone species conservation in wildlife programs in southern Africa (Frank et al. 2019; Miller et al. 2011) and have now expanded to all areas, in concert with more participatory approaches generally (Weir 2012). These have progressively broken down the boundaries – both physical and cultural – that have been placed around wilderness, that have impeded not only our understanding, but also environmental and social justice (see Barker; Collins and Thompson), as well as our individual embodied experience and enjoyment (see Garnett).

Introduction  5 Imagining ourselves into pre­-​­colonial and pre­-​­human pasts may facilitate the envisioning of alternative futures, as suggested by Garnett’s (Chapter 4) ethno­-​ inductive rumination on the educative and existential potentials of deep ­ immersion. Drawing on ancient Chinese wisdom as well as First Nations’ traditions, Mathews looks beyond recent pre­-​­occupations with biodiversity to offer new lawlands of enfolded humanatures, combining the sacred with the moral and the ethical. Collins and Thompson (Chapter 5) provide an example for how these lawlands are already being practised in Indigenous protected areas. Several of the chapters in this category demonstrate how these practices and philosophies must extend beyond the boundaries to co­-​­existence everywhere (Bartel, Hine and Morgan), everywhen (Utley), and with the broader ‘everyone’: human and non­-​­human alike (Ryan).

A concluding editorial reflection The idea for this anthology arose from a shared wish to mark the anniversary of the publication of Wilderness in Australia, by Peter Helman, Alan Jones, John Pigram and Jeremy Smith (1976). That publication inspired successful wilderness activism (Somerville 2005, 103), as reported here by Bible and Howard in northern NSW, which in turn influenced the Franklin Blockade described by Branagan (Chapter 3). It also made a significant contribution to policy (Prineas, 1983). However, in the time elapsed there has been much greater recognition accorded to First Nations’ perspectives of wilderness in Australia and globally. The Anthropocene (the Age of Extinction, according to Bible and Howard, this volume) has also since been recognised as having commenced (see Steffen et al., 2015): an epoch defined by global human impact, where few if any places may be described as being free of human harm (Arnason; Lynch and Norris), and where human and nature are indelibly, irrefutably and irrevocably linked. Thus, the human/nature binary is revealed again as absurd, and our fragility made starkly evident. We are reminded again of our vulnerability, if we needed any further prompts, by COVID­-​­19 (Barker). The challenge for addressing the ecological grief (Utley) we are experiencing, alongside growing disorientation, disconnection, alienation and fragmentation (Lynch and Norris), is met here through the charting of opportunities for reconnection and reorientation, via recognition and reckoning, reawakening and respect (Barker; Mathews; Collins and Thomson). This may be through rewilding, in its radical sense (Utley), through furthering vital interconnections (Arnason; Mackey), and by doing away with dualism altogether (Bartel and Branagan; Collins and Thompson). Critically, such an exploration demonstrates that there are a diversity of views, and no ‘one­-​­size­-​­fits­-​­all’ wilderness concept. It would be inappropriate to transfer wilderness ideas across space, from the US to Iceland (Arnason), or to Australia (Collins and Thompson, Garnett, see also Mackey), just as it was

6  Robyn Bartel and Marty Branagan misguided to apply human­-​­free ideas (and ideals) to the US in the first place (Orion), or for that matter to perpetuate ideas across time: from earliest settlement to the present (Lynch and Norris). Rather we need to appreciate context and adopt place­-​­based approaches (and assemblages, see Ryan), such as the ‘lawlands’ of Mathews (Chapter 15). These chapters chart inspirational and viable ways forward from racist dualism to an ethic of reconnected caring for country. In contrast to the more limited definitions of yore – dependent on various binaries and hailing from a fairly narrow range of voices – this collection reveals a multi­-​­faceted and contingent wilderness alive with agency, diversity and plural possibility (Orion; Utley). A rethought wilderness and the wild – in all its complex, nuanced, inter­-connected ​­ nature – is essential. We hope that this volume, like its 1976 predecessor, inspires activism, reflection, new policy, and paradigmatic shifts towards more cared­-​­for country.

Note 1 Protection, conservation and preservation have been ascribed very different meanings (see Callicott and Mumford 1997). Conservation may be thought of as referring to practices that conserve resources for wise use, preservation to the safeguarding of intrinsic values irrespective of utility to humans, and protection to consideration of both environmental health and human safety and wellbeing (as, for example, in pollution control). However, such differences may have been overstated (see Norton 1986) and as conservation is the most commonly used term, it has been adopted here, and also in the title, despite its resourcist connotations. The various terms may also be used interchangeably here, again reflecting popular usage.

References Bennett, Lou, Sally Dastey and Amy Saunders. 1992. ‘Happy Earth’. Inside My Kitchen. Sydney: Universal Music Australia. Callicott, J. Baird and Karen Mumford. 1997. ‘Ecological Sustainability as a Conservation Concept’. Conservation Biology 11 (1): 32–40. Charpleix, Liz. 2018. ‘The Whanganui River as Te Awa Tupua: Place Based Law in a Legally Pluralistic Society’. The Geographical Journal 184 (1): 19–30. Frank, Beatrice, Jenny A. Glikman and Silvio Marchini. 2019. Human–Wildlife Interactions: Turning Conflict into Coexistence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Helman, Peter, Alan Jones, John Pigram and Jeremy Smith. 1976. Wilderness in Australia. Armidale Australia: Geography Department, University of New England. Miller, Thadeus, R., Ben Minteer and Leon­-C. ​­ Malan. 2011. ‘The New Conservation Debate: The View from Practical Ethics’. Biological Conservation 144: 948–957. Nash, Roderick. 1982. Wilderness and the American Mind. 3rd ed. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Original edition, 1967. Norton, Bryan. G. 1986. ‘Conservation and Preservation: A Conceptual Rehabilitation’. Environmental Ethics 8 (3): 195–220. Oelschlaeger, Max. 1991. The Idea of Wilderness: From Prehistory to the Age of Ecology. New Haven: Yale University Press. Prineas, Peter. 1983. Wild Places. Sydney: Kalianna Press.

Introduction  7 Somerville, James G. 2005. Saving the Rainforest: The NSW Campaign 1973–1984. www.colongwilderness.org.au/files/news/saving_the_rainforest_pdf_format.pdf. Steffen, Will, Wendy Broadgate, Lisa Deutsch, Owen Gaffney, and Cornelia Ludwig. 2015. ‘The Trajectory of the Anthropocene: The Great Acceleration’. The Anthropocene Review 2 (1): 81–98. Watson, Irene. 2018. ‘Aboriginal Relationships to the Natural World: Colonial “Protection” of Human Rights and the Environment’. Journal of Human Rights and the Environment 9 (2): 119–140. Weir, Jessica. 2012. ‘Country, Native Title and Ecology’. In Country, Native Title and Ecology edited by Jessica Weir. ANU e­-​­press. 1–20.

Part I

What is wilderness? The stories we tell

1 Wilderness in literature and culture Changing perceptions of the relationship with ‘country’ Stephen Harris Introduction Die, wild country, like the eaglehawk, dangerous till the last breath’s gone, clawing and striking. Die cursing your captor through a raging eye. ‘Australia 1970’.

(Wright 2015)

In the poem ‘Australia 1970’, Judith Wright (2015), in mixed tones of contained rage and scornful impatience, calls upon the ‘wild country’, summoning the forces of nature to exact upon human beings retributive punishment for their cruelly Promethean contempt for the living creatures and the life energies of the earth: For we are conquerors and self­-​­poisoners more than scorpion or snake and dying of the venoms that we make even while you die of us. ‘Australia 1970’.

(Wright 2015)

This is at once a kind of fierce invocation, prayerful appeal and stern admonition – a call to the sacralised source of life, less the wilderness ­ conservation concept than the wild in country, as the animating principle in and of all things. The poem works in part through a darkly ironic expression of compassion: responding to the suffering of the natural world as the innocent victim in an abusive relationship, the narrator demands an end to the insulting, unequal struggle by way of nature’s self­-​­sacrifice. It also identifies the ruinous fault line in the colonisers’ fundamental beliefs: that nature is the subordinate ‘other’ to culture, and as such humans can presume dominion over earthly life and land, inimically so as the poem contends. And as a protest against gross injustice, it gains added force through the allusion to the colonisers’ conquest of Aboriginal people – an ancient

12  Stephen Harris culture, whose existence is bound up in a reverence and deep respect for the land, cruelly subdued along with the ancient country itself. In casting poetic judgement with such moral urgency, the narrator of the poem at once invokes corrective intervention in the antics of human beings and anticipates the grief­-​­riven frustration many more are feeling in the present day, close on a half century later, when the obstinate belligerence and wilfully destructive endeavours of humans – or at least, those humans who wield disproportionate degrees of control and influence, be that political and corporate – show no signs of self­ -​­ correction or arrest, both in Australia and, as magnified to daunting scale, across the planet itself. To adapt the words of W. H. Auden’s powerful twentieth­-​­century elegy, ‘what instruments we have agree’ that the dominant species on planet Earth, Homo sapiens sapiens, is at grave risk of becoming victim of its very own success, if ‘success’ is the appropriate word given the existential extremity of the present situation being reported with increasing urgency by a broad coalition of scientists, activists and concerned citizens. At this point in human history, when environmental concerns over the scale of destructive human influence on increasingly fragile natural ecosystems dominate public debate, the experience in Australia offers distinctive potential for new understandings of the relationship between twenty­ -​­ first­ -​­ century human beings and the natural world. Evidently, Wright’s poem is directly informed by her political and environmental activism, reflecting her dedication to both the practical task of political resistance and, inseparably, the effort to explore the full potential of poetry through which to speak of, for and to country – to the land beleaguered and abused under the rule of modern Australia. As one of many other writers then, and among many more now, the fundamental challenge lay in encouraging a broad change in attitude and behaviour among Australians. Yet, then as now, such challenges stand in often antagonistic relation to the encompassing social, political and cultural forces – to those beliefs, attitudes, habits and values that tenaciously persist, and which are so adamantly utilitarian, regardless of the burgeoning evidence testifying to the deleterious effects of climate change and relentless extermination of biodiversity. Irreducibly, as the efforts of Wright passionately attest, the contest involves the interwoven facts of language and perception: a focus that is on the role of language as informing consciousness, communicating the imagination and perpetuating behaviour. Ironically perhaps, while advances in broad­-scale ​­ environmental protections and safeguards were made in the latter part of the twentieth century – in Australia, Wright and her many colleagues could take credit for initiating such measures, particularly in regard to the Great Barrier Reef and the wider influence among mainstream politics by groups such as the Wilderness Society – the political situation at this point in the twenty­-first ​­ century is regressive, and militantly so, with the rise of authoritarian populists across Western democracies, most of whom are intent on dismantling policies protecting increasingly embattled natural environments across the globe.

Wilderness in literature and culture  13 In short, humans are again at a threshold, the marking of a limit around which tensions have escalated dramatically in regard to both the global scale and severity of the crisis, and the starkly partisan political divisions now apparent. In the words of one of the numerous commentators in recent years, we are witnessing ‘the end of the wild’: the notion that we should simply let nature take its course is, in a world so thoroughly dominated by humanity, as dangerous as it is self­ -​ ­contradictory. We cannot simply do nothing: neglect will not be benign. Yet there is nothing we can do to avoid the major manifestations of the end of the wild in the centuries ahead; we have accumulated a mountainous extinction debt that makes recovery and restoration – even with herculean efforts – an illusion. (Meyer 2006, 73) For anyone concerned with the protection of wilderness in the twenty­-first ​­ century, or in broader terms, with what environmental philosopher, Ben Minteer, refers to as ‘the narrative of environmental responsibility in the conservation tradition … [and so] to the intergenerational community [to whom we are] obliged to bequeath as broad and rich an ecological endowment as possible’ (2018, Chapter 6), the fundamental question arises: what might be the practical value of considering the significance of wilderness and ‘the wild’, given the combined effects of political manipulation, grief­-​ ­induced denial, widespread inertia and ideologically motivated prevarications evident at this historical juncture? The question is amplified when taking into account the circumscribing, apparently totalising dangers posed by, at once, the rapidly unfolding effects of climate change at large and the observable, very direct involvement of human beings in the depletion of biodiversity, and wholesale degradation of life­-​­sustaining systems.

Discussion Wilderness and the wild in the writings of Wright and Winton The relationship between human society (‘culture’) and nature in Australia is characterised by politicised and divisive debates around land use and ownership, and as such ideological contests press immediately upon both the concept and physical existence of the wilderness. In turn, these tensions generated around changing relationships to land find their gravity in language – at once in semantic specificity and, more currently, the enframing ‘voice’ of the contemporary media. Judith Wright’s impressive body of work as both poet and political activist acquires renewed relevance in view of the changing perceptions in Australia of the relationship with ‘country’ since European colonisation, The interrogative emphasis on that word, for example, identifies a semantic axis point – an interpretive shift marking a political reorientation – as novelist and environmental activist Tim Winton (the most

14  Stephen Harris highly lauded living Australian author) observes in his recent ‘landscape memoir’, Island Home: In my own lifetime Australians have come to use the word ‘country’ as Aborigines use it, to describe what my great­-​­great­-​­grandparents would surely have called territory. A familial, relational term has supplanted one more objectifying and acquisitive … [denoting] an emergent admiration and respect for the land we find ourselves in. (2015, 28)1 It is Winton’s conception of this same land as ‘wild’ that awards the country a distinctive value in the twenty­-​­first century. His claim is not original, given that ideas of Australia as an Antipodean ‘wilderness’ figured prominently (and negatively) in the first colonists’ perceptions. Nor is he a solitary voice in his effort to find both a common and compelling language for the importance of this slow transition towards a new relationship with Gondwanaland – an uneven, at times faltering shift, as he observes it, from the influence of early explorers and settlers as ‘possessive seers’, stubbornly enduring today in the persistent habit of seeing ‘landscape as property, territory, tenement’ (Winton 2015, 198). For Wright’s poem ‘Australia 1970’ also reads as an impassioned protest against the failure of European Australians to reach a more complete understanding as to how to inhabit this land – a problem of seeing, as Winton too insists. Indeed, in a doubled sense, Wright’s poem marks a threshold in the mounting contests over the natural environment, and particularly the protection of wilderness, in which she and others were involved in the later parts of the twentieth century. For it is both a temporal measure signified in the title ‘Australia 1970’, which serves as an historical reference point in the unequal relationship between land and colonisers – not a memorialised occasion but a stage in a deteriorating relationship. It also works as the registration of an emotional limit – the point at which reasoned discussion and organised, politically responsible resistance surrenders, or succumbs to, enraged frustration in the face of the implacable forces of vested interests and, more elementarily, collective human behaviour as governed by unquestioned assumptions and presumed privileges. As writers concerning themselves specifically with wilderness, Wright and Winton deploy their talents in both fictional and non­ -​­ fictional modes, exercising an imaginatively sensitive understanding of the relation between the terms ‘wilderness’ and the ‘wild’, so often and easily conflated. In doing so, each also contends directly with the culturally inflected ideas of, and political contestations around, wilderness as understood in Australia in the late twentieth and early twenty­-​­first centuries. Arguably, as Winton asserts, the idea and existence of ‘the wild’ in Australian experience affords particular opportunities in the broader humanistic sense, not least because the island continent might be thought of as a kind of enlarged and figurative ‘edgeland’, to adapt a recent concept – a global geographical space akin to the localised liminal zones

Wilderness in literature and culture  15 identified by writers in the northern hemisphere:2 zones that offer up political potential in the sense of challenging entrenched ideas about social order and human relations. In Winton’s recent novel The Shepherd’s Hut (2018), there is a recognition that human beings are, in planetary terms, far more diminutive in status than they might commonly acknowledge, and as such, a fleeting presence far subordinate in significance to the greater encompassing and ageless presence of a supreme life force. In the voice of one of the two main characters, failed priest, Fintan MacGillis, ‘Everything that ever happened here is still present now. In the crust, underneath, in the vapours. These days I look there and it says to me: Here I am, son, still here. I was here before the likes of you and yours were born. Before you even drew breath, I am’ (152). In this localised ‘earthing’ of the Irishman’s imported religious belief, Winton draws on long­-​ distilled Romantic ideas of humans’ place in nature, Aboriginal spiritual ­ conceptions and, as discussed below, ideas from fellow Australian writer David Foster and the earlier generation of thinkers expressing hopes for new spiritual possibilities in the ‘ancient land of Australia [… where] the Holy Spirit may come home to Terra Australis’ (Charlesworth in Haynes 1998, 280).3 The allusion to the God of the Old Testament (‘I am’) invokes both Winton’s own sense of practical mysticism centred on the living land – MacGillis attunes to the voice of God as earthed emanation, the deity as animistically imminent – and underscores his insistence on finding a distinctively vernacular literary voice through which to articulate such beliefs. The passage also hinges on MacGillis ‘looking’ to the earth beneath his feet, which is to say he has learnt to ‘see’; an ability that is central to Winton’s spiritual and political commitment to place, and which, in turn, is influenced by writers such as North American poet Gary Snyder, whose explorations in The Practice of the Wild are especially pertinent.4 In an earlier essay, ‘Strange Passion: A Landscape Memoir’ – the prefatory companion to Island Home  – Winton refers to the power of ‘vision beyond mere glimpsing’, in identifying the challenges surrounding contemporary Australian attitudes to place – ‘[l]earning to see has been a long, slow and sometimes bitter problem for non­-Indigenous ​­ Australians’ (xvi); to learn to do so is ‘[T]o be properly awake and aware of our place’, and so to know hope; and to learn to be in place is to accept and cherish the fact that ‘this earth is our home, our only home’ (Winton 1999, xx). In Australia, he argues further, one finds oneself in the humbling ‘presence of wildness’ (Winton 2015, 25), a presence to which too many Australians are oblivious given the prevailing mindset that the land lacks intrinsic value: any status must be conferred by an enterprising human and the only standard he or she will recognize is market price, which, despite sounding rational and authoritative, is based on ephemeral and arbitrary perceptions and therefore subject to fluctuation, or what the market touchingly calls ‘wildness’. (198–199)

16  Stephen Harris As I have argued elsewhere, Winton’s memoir ‘encourages Australians to change pace, reorient their perceptual frames and begin to walk in country, rather than to insist acquisitively on taking it over’ (Harris 2020, 11). By invoking ‘wildness’, Winton is working with ideas entertained in recent scholarship by which ‘wilderness’ is interpreted in ‘its original sense of “self­-​ ­willed land” ’ – wilderness understood to denote ‘autonomy, self­-​­organization, self­ -​­ ordering and autopoiesis’, and by extension, the more explicitly humanistic values of ‘vitality and freedom’ (Turner 1996, 111). These critical enquiries underpin continuing, increasingly interdisciplinary efforts among environmentalists, policy makers, scholars and activists to formulate new and workable wilderness ethics. With Island Home, Winton presses home the point that it requires a kind of learning to see and thus know differently; to commence the process of outgrowing the legacy of early explorers and settlers as ‘possessive seers’ – a legacy by which today so many are habituated to seeing ‘landscape as property, territory, tenement’ (Winton 2015, 198). Irreducibly, this involves working around – or working through and beyond – the dominant language of the globalised neoliberal worldview and so move towards what lapsed environmentalist Paul Kingsnorth calls ‘uncivilised writing’: ‘Writing that comes not … from the self­-absorbed ​­ and self­-​­congratulatory metropolitan centres of civilisation but from somewhere on its wilder fringes’ (2017, 274). To begin to do so is to begin to look over and around habituated modes of knowing, and so beyond the accustomed categories by which humans place themselves presumptuously on the land. To insist that ‘[t]he encounter between ourselves and the land is a live concern’ is, then, to insist we pay attention and be attentive: ‘our life in nature remains an open question and how we answer it will define not just our culture and politics but our very survival’ (Winton 2015, 21). To begin to see, in the way that Winton wants us to see, is not only to nurture a deeper understanding of land and place and so to endorse the human potential for change, but also to emphasise the fact that what we attend to involves most intimately the language as the bearer of ideas and beliefs that govern behaviour. Winton grounds his views on the ‘wild’ through accounts of direct physical encounter with the natural world, declaring that in Australia nature is not done with us yet … Everything we do in this country is still overborne and underwritten by the seething tumult of nature [and] … the presence of wildness […] elsewhere this story is largely done and dusted, with nature in stumbling retreat, but here [Australia] our life in nature remains an open question and how we answer it will define not just our culture and politics but our very survival. (2015; 17/25/21) His insistence marks his attempt to quite literally ground such ideological, political and economic contests over land use. As an active environmentalist, Winton is no less interested in ‘wilderness’ areas as conventionally defined (see

Wilderness in literature and culture  17 Ryan in this volume); instead, he favours the term ‘wildness’ for its added political (democratic) and ethical connotations: ‘I was the beneficiary of a kind of wildness and freedom, an ability to interact with living ecosystems and dynamic coastal processes by simple activities like wading, snorkeling [sic] and crabbing in bays and estuaries that were not yet degraded and compromised … a precious connection to wildness [which] has been one of the great inspirations of my work … these places have a moral right to exist and continue’ (2011, vii). For him, then, the untrammelled character of his Antipodean ‘island home’ points to the lesson; for ‘wildness soon intervenes to disabuse us’ that we might somehow live anywhere other than in country – ‘the pressure of geography reasserts itself palpably and unmistakably to remind us that, of course, we could only be here’ (Winton 2015, 25–26/28). In imaginatively divergent ways, both Wright and Winton contend necessarily with the disruptive effects of colonisation on all levels, although for Wright, the politics of the environment – centring on preservationist and conservationist ideas of wilderness – would become incompatible with her dedication to the cause of Aboriginal land rights. When, in a pivotal essay entitled ‘Wilderness and Wasteland’ (Wright 1990), she asks ‘What can the word “wilderness” mean to Aborigines?’, her answer draws into play the wider political implications of semantic definition – of the word ‘wilderness’, talismanic of modern environmentalist beliefs, and the ideological friction central to the politics of conservation (specifically the Wilderness Society of her day; see Branagan and Bartel in this volume) and Indigenous land rights claims. As she asserts, the land stolen from the ­Aborigines was never ‘wilderness’ – ‘even in our own sense of the word’: citing the influence on English law of the Old Testament conception of wilderness as ‘Waste’, she identifies an attitude persistent to this day: The relationship of the early settlers to the Wilderness was very much like that of the agriculturalists of early Europe. They believed that the Aboriginal inhabitants of the Waste were not only lawless, leaderless and immoral, but hostile and given to robbery and assault […] the Wilderness [then] must be turned to account even if in the process it becomes an even more unproductive waste [through excessive resource extraction] – and the psychology behind it is I think also the same: a continuing and deeply instinctive fear and dislike of the unknown, of country of which man is not in control and which pays no tribute to his economy and his technological powers. (Wright 1980, 28/30)5 Such perspectives are now more orthodox in both the critical and historical literature in Australia, and, for that reason, Winton’s view – that the idea and circumscribing reality of ‘wildness’ bears an important value in its power to compel Australians to alter the way the land is seen and so begin to more fully know their place in country – carries added weight. For both Wright and Winton, the crucial concern inheres in fostering a deeper

18  Stephen Harris understanding of the human place in this island continent, and in turn, encouraging Australians to come to appreciate the personal and social obligations that flow from belonging to and being dependent on the natural world. Country and belonging: a new continental consciousness Where Winton finds a broadly palatable voice in which to re­-frame ​­ the contemporary experience of living in Australia, fellow novelist and scientist David Foster’s observations are characterised by a combination of scientific interest, philosophical speculation and political provocation, evident when he argues that what Australians lack and need is ‘eucalypt dreaming’ (1997, 192) as a spiritual basis for learning to identify with, and thus more completely belong in, this country. Irreverently, Foster challenges contemporary Antipodean orthodoxies: it is no less the new world equivalent of that ‘old religion that reverenced trees and detested Venus, and of which vestiges remain in the Cult of the Virgin and the name Brigid’ (1999, 55) that is needed, even as it is just such a vestigial ‘religion’, in its refashioned guise as the New Age nature worship of the counter culture, that he satirises in his novel The Glade Within the Grove (1996). As he affirms more seriously in another essay, ‘Wilderness is the Reset Button: No Wilderness, no Reset’, even as he concedes matter­ -​­ of­ -​­ factly that ‘there is only comparative Wilderness’ (1999, 194). For Australian writer David Malouf, ‘Geography is fate’, as he declares in one of his perceptive enquiries into the tenuous nature of Australian identity in so far as this involves a lack of historical consciousness (begetting a ‘timidity’ and reflexive servility, ‘terrified that if we broke away, or slipped the mind of England, Europe, we might slide right off the world’ (2014, 105)). And revealingly, Malouf, akin to Winton and Foster in his preoccupations with the ‘spirit of place’ and the importance of the twinned powers of language and imagination as these determine the relationship to country,6 expends considerable imaginative energy delineating the Australian character, or ‘consciousness’ as he prefers, through both literary fiction and extended reflections in the form of essays: We measure our life on this continent by how far we have got, at any point, in our knowledge of it … [by] how much of it has been felled and fenced and made productive; how far our cities have extended beyond the original cluster of huts into the surrounding countryside. Or, for those who would put it another way, by the amount of land our farming and grazing methods have stripped or soured, the topsoil gone, the forests lost, the species of bird and animal life – and not only those – exterminated to make room for us […] There is, and always has been, something rootless and irresponsible about our attitude to the land. We treat it, we go at things ‘as if there is no tomorrow’, using, wasting, making the most of everything while it lasts, stripping assets, taking the

Wilderness in literature and culture  19 short view; as if we had no responsibility to those who might come after because we have no sense of what lies behind. (Malouf 2014, 104) It is of course no longer contentious to state that ‘geography is as much convention as fact. It is a way of seeing’ (Malouf 2014, 106), but such explicitly critical views of the national ‘self’ are still confronting for many, and more so given the recent rise of neo­-​­nationalist and authoritarian­-​­populist political movements. Both Foster’s and Malouf’s fundamental points stand: in understanding the foundations of consciousness in the Australian experience, we must come to terms with the ‘ways of seeing’ in all the inflections of that phrase. In the way I know all times are capable of being, [Watkin] Tench’s gaze is still there – but so is ours, staring back. (Araluen 2019a) Goorie/Koorie poet Evelyn Araluen’s literary allusion, referencing the colonial chronicler Watkin Tench’s own allusion to Milton’s Paradise Lost by way of dramatising his sense of a propitious (and literally precipitous) moment in his travels, underscores her point concerning the persistence of the colonial mindset that ‘ghosts’ the country (2019a). Contemplating a land and its Indigenous inhabitants [‘Indians’] that defy his comprehension, Tench not so much surrenders as sequesters territory, as the name ‘Prospect Mount’ denotes: in the manner of Milton’s rebel fiend, Tench’s ‘satanic’ imperialists survey the ‘new world’ they presumptuously deem to possess (the ‘prospect [of] his nether empire’), in so doing, taking captive the abyssal wastelands of the impenetrable ‘dreary wilds’ and ‘pile of desolation’ through the act of naming­-​­and­-​­claiming (Tench 1793).7 And so, an imported language is put in place, only to displace an observation now shared by many. Crucially, however, as Suzanne Falkiner (1992) aptly notes in her comprehensive study of the role of wilderness in Australian literature, it is the language itself that is haunted by the ‘ghosts of previous record keepers and poets and writers past [that] hover over every centimetre of its [England’s] moors and towns and monasteries and castles’ (12); a language which, through the visions and ideas it carries, and the force, through cultural dominance, with which it projects these, imprints itself upon the ‘new country’. That that language inflects under pressure of collective cultural experience over time does little to alter the power conveyed in the imported word: to propose that pre­-​­colonial Australia ‘was all wilderness … a wilderness continent … [the place of] The Aborigines with their wilderness homeland [and] wilderness wisdom’ (Brown 1983, 12–13), is to encage land and Indigenous inhabitants in European conceptions, however grandiloquent the rhetoric and embracingly humanistic the vision.8 That Evelyn Araluen sees her people ‘staring back’ at such visions – the imperial gaze countered with defiance and refusal – deftly

20  Stephen Harris captures the present state of decolonisation in this country, a collective crisis of communal relations inextricably bound up with non­ -​­ Indigenous relations with the land. As the poet Marc O’Connor notes, ‘Since 1788[,] the ecology of Australia’s dry continent has been profoundly affected by the verbal filters through which Anglo­-​­Celtic or English­-​­speaking Australians perceive it’ (2008, 103); or in Araluen’s phrase, the ‘Miltonic vision’ – the heavy imprint of the colonial gaze. Inevitably, therefore, humans commit the doubly perverse act of banishing themselves from their only home, at least according to the deeper spiritual understanding of ‘home’ communicated in the work of the many arguing for a ‘home in the wilderness’: ‘To be at home on the planet and welcome here, humanity must understand and appreciate the primacy of the home, the Eden we have never left, and the wild that is its emblem’ (Rowe 1990, 33–34).9 It could be speculated that urbanised twenty­-​­first­-​­century human beings might be impatient with, or at least indifferent to, the very idea of a long­-​­lost ‘home’ in nature, evoking as it does nostalgic images of a pre­-​­lapsarian order in which all living things exist in equable balance. It is, as so many have observed, an image glaringly at odds with the technocratic, industrialised, resource hungry imperatives animating contemporary life and the persistent belief in illimitable human progress. Future wildness For Amitav Ghosh, summarising the human predicament in his important study, The Great Derangement, and taking the long historical view, there would seem but one conclusion: ‘our lives and our choices are enframed in a pattern of history that seems to leave us nowhere to turn but toward our self­-​ ­annihilation’ (2016, 111).10 By this account, humans have collectively, and by connotation, gone ‘wild’, abandoning, wilfully or otherwise helplessly, their self­ -​­ anointed status as creatures of reason who, through ingenuity and adaptive prowess, might avert peril. Nothing, it seems to a growing number among the global citizenry, is to be done; nothing, at least, in proportion to the challenges bearing down upon the human collective. The great challenge of environmental responsibility in the human age [the Anthropocene], then, is whether we can retain the sense of restraint and moral regard for nature that we think of as being the best of the conservation tradition while at the same time being pragmatic and clear­-​ ­eyed about the global impact of human activities and technologies – and the partial eclipse of vulnerable cultural ideals of wilderness and the autonomy of a natural world beyond our ken. (Minteer 2018, Chapter 5) Human beings are at a profound ethical turning point – an ontological threshold, no less, that pivots on the emergence of new forms of being. As

Wilderness in literature and culture  21 noted above, that the distinction between the two terms ‘wilderness’ and ‘wildness’ is significant, is a crucial point that has been firmly established and articulated by a succession of scholars and writers over the last four decades. However, to bring the ‘wilderness’ and ‘wild’ into synonymy in this instance is to bring into sharper focus the conceptual fissuring that has occurred during the progress of the debate over the last 40 years or more, resulting in, as one author aptly observes, the ‘conceptual assassination of wilderness’ by which ‘we are encouraged to accept that everything, including wilderness, is an artefact of the human world, because we define it, represent it, and communicate about it’ (Kidner 2014, 10). As the authors of this collection attest from a range of critical and interpretive perspectives, such an argument, now well­-​­rehearsed by leading ‘eco­-​­pragmatists’ and ‘technoenvironmentalists’ promulgating their views under the banner of the ‘new conservation’, perpetuates by another rhetorical means the Old Testament injunction that humans ‘shall hold dominion over earth’. It is the still­-dominant ​­ view that justifies human intervention as entirely natural and necessary for what remains of the natural world, and principally and unapologetically for human benefit. Kidman convincingly argues that the heroic talk of science­-​­and technology­-​ led approaches to mitigating any negative effects of climate change, ­ anthropogenic disruption and ecological collapse – scientific techniques involved in ‘de­-​­extinction’ and biogenesis, proposed geo­-​­engineering techniques relating to carbon sequestration and solar radiation management, and notions that ‘wilderness’ areas will be better protected in being curated by Artificial Intelligence – are (in Minteer’s words) no more than ‘arrogant anthropocentrism traveling under the name of “conservation science” …’, one immediate effect of which is to obscure ‘what is most important’ now more than ever – ‘the core environmental and moral values … such as our respect for nature’s wildness and a sense of human proportion on the landscape’ (Minteer 2018, Chapters 5/6). What is also too readily lost to view is that debate concerning the value, and indeed the very existence of wilderness, is itself more nuanced than the frequently reactive and divisive arguments allow. When, for example, the writer David George Haskell insists that ‘we [humans] too are nature. Unsunderable […] we can have no deficit of nature; we are nature, even when we are unaware of this nature … we walk within [nature] …’ (2017, 177–179), one might detect a strain of ‘new conservationist’ logic. Yet, his conception of what he calls ‘a post­ -​­ Darwin world of networked kinship … the living choreography [of] the community of life’ is important, as is his view concerning ‘landscape’s duality’ as an effect of deep­-​­seated human tendencies: ‘the binary landscape of nature and nonnature reinforces itself. As the contrast between wilderness and reckless development grows more striking and alarming, the need for ‘wilderness’ appears to grow while the rest of the landscape gets seemingly more unnatural’ (2017, 177–179). Such attention to the pivotal role of ideas and conceptions, as these instruct human behaviour at the most fundamental collective level, is crucial, a point that Tim Low makes in

22  Stephen Harris similarly convincing terms when explaining his idea of the ‘new nature’ in relation to Australia; ‘new’ by virtue of an adjustment of perspective: The wilderness begins right here where we live. The ‘new nature’ is really the story of animals and plants responding to the latest environmental challenge – us … We are imprisoned by a paradox. Wilderness is supposed to be the one environment we let alone and don’t manipulate. But manipulate we must. We need to set fires and quell weeds and evict feral animals. Doing nothing destroys wilderness. ‘Wilderness management’ is a necessary contradiction … ironies abound. (2017, 43–44; emphasis added) In his references to the earlier and influential work of American scholars such as William Cronon (and the vigorous debates Cronon’s arguments generated in North American circles, now in their third generational iteration), Low acknowledges that he is not the first to interrogate the concept and language of ‘wilderness’ as this stands in paradoxical or contradictory relation to actual practice.11 In drawing attention to Australian Aborigines’ deep ‘distrust of the idea of wilderness’ – ‘the notion of land untainted by people sails too close to the idea of terra nullius that was used to justify white occupation of black land … If anything, Aborigines may identify with the older, European idea of wilderness: a chaotic wasteland where management has lapsed’ (45) – he here alludes to Deborah Bird Rose’s earlier and profoundly influential work on Aboriginal relationships to land and country in studies such as Nourishing Terrains (1996); contributions that in turn build on earlier arguments (notably Judith Wright’s) concerning the use and abuse of the idea of wilderness in relation to Aboriginal land rights activism. Evidently, then, the subject of wilderness, as construed through myriad interpretive inflections, mirrors the self­ -​­ reflecting play of what Wright describes as the human beings’ ‘torturing mind’. In turn, the enquiry readily shifts again to more fundamental, but equally more nebulous, elements of the human character writ large. If, as proposed above, twenty­ -​­ first­ -​­ century humans have gone ‘wild’ in the sense that the species has surrendered collectively to latent and irrational impulses en masse, then we are, that is to say, out of control. Again, as poet Evelyn Araluen expresses it in another recent poem, human beings are confronting this full and possibly final self­-​­realisation as a species in the form of a collective confrontation with our monstrous selves, creatures intent on mass self­-​­destruction, a fact that renders many of the more sensitive and attentive among the populace alternatingly disarmed through sheer shock and confusion, near­-​­speechless in inconsolable grief, and paralysed with suffocating rage: ‘Sis, I have a ghost story […] Sis, I’m haunted in and out of dreaming. I don’t know if we’re the nightmares’ (2019b). So begins and ends her poem ‘Unreckoning’: two statements, capped with a terminal rhetorical question, uttered in conversational confidence (‘Sis’), framing a tale told in three short stanzas, telling of a land and time, long distant

Wilderness in literature and culture  23 (misted with the mood of dream), when humans, existing in harmony with the natural world, were most completely at home. Along with Ghosh, Araluen points to a constitutive flaw in humanity: to an incurably perverse proclivity for self­-​­deception, further complicated by the engines of desire entwined with a kind of aggressive self­-​­loathing that motivates human behaviour, now alarmingly enacted on a mass scale. In her incisive argument concerning the uses and abuses of the concept of wilderness, the American novelist and literary critic, Marilynne Robinson (1998, 63) crystallises the point: The whole human disaster resides in the fact that, as individuals, families, cities, nations, as a tribe of ingratiating, brilliant, momentarily numerous animals, we are perverse, divided against ourselves, deceiving and defeating ourselves … the universality of self­-​­deceptive and self­-​­destructive behavior is what must impress us finally.12 To such disorienting challenges marking the advent of the Anthropocene, intrinsic to which is the radical uncertainty of ‘unknown ecological volatility’ (Gibson and Warren 2020, 326) and the multitude of questions, competing perspectives and oppositional arguments generated in turn, responses are numerous. Fittingly, then, it is important to note that the voices calling for both the protection and reclamation of the ever­-​­diminishing number of wild places in the world, and the fuller recognition of the importance of the idea of ‘wildness’ itself, have in recent times come to constitute an increasingly vocal chorus. Certainly, for all the entrenched opposition to any fundamental change in human behaviour, myriad elaborations on the range of possibilities for re­ -​­ conceiving human and non­ -​­ human relations continue to flourish. Many of these developed from earlier ideas and perspectives expressed by nineteenth­-​­century North American proto­-​­environmentalists such as John Muir and H. D. Thoreau. In turn, these influences flow through to philosophical proponents of ‘deep ecology’, to the more recent rise of the ‘rewilding’ movement and the varied expositions and explorations of the deeper, subtler dynamics of the ‘more than human’ natural world. Also notable are the ideas of ‘inter­-​­animation’ elaborated in the works of the ‘new nature’ writers in Britain (see Smith, 2017), alongside literary explorations of ‘geopoesis’ and ‘place consciousness’ articulated in the work of a growing number of cross­-​­disciplinary researchers and scholars. Foremost among those communicating encouraging re­ -​­ evaluations of human place in the wider interactive energies of the living earth are writers and artists. Indeed, as argued in this chapter, the creative role of the literary imagination, in generating transformative potential by appealing directly to the imaginative potential of human beings, complements such re­ -​­ conceptions of the human­ -​­ nature relationship as propounded by environmental theorists, ecocritical scholars and ecological activists.

24  Stephen Harris Among the many challenging received ideas, feminist theorist Elizabeth Grosz has made a rallying call to ‘regenerate and revitalise’ feminist political practice, which echoes Wright’s own urging of Australians to reach towards a new consciousness: we need to develop a more complex and sophisticated understanding of the ways in which natural forces, both living and nonliving, frame, enrich, and complicate our understanding of the subject, its interior, and what the subject can know … nature is that which is both within and without us, a nonnormative order which suffuses but never fixes us, which always places us within its constraints and requirements while generating numerous options for growth, development, and use. (2005, 119)13 Arguments such as Grosz’s confirm the observation Wright makes concerning the impediments of consciousness in the European mindset – ‘the old recoil from the Wilderness’ (1990, 30) that results perceptually in this form of ‘wild’ being, which animates existence, being turned into ‘unproductive Waste’ (1990, 30) in the minds of European colonisers, and expressive of fear and lack of control. If the ‘uncivilised’ or ‘undomesticated’, as it might be thought, can be and is now seen by many as a life­-​­sustaining, constitutive energy required by and for all living things, among which are human beings, that same fear and anxious urge towards control endures. This position is also a rallying call to go beyond what activist and scholar Natalie Osborne (2019, 145) more recently refers to as ‘monorealism’ by which present­ -​­ day powers perpetuate their dominance. Instructively, in relation to the now­-​­pervasive feelings of ‘eco­-​­grief ’ that many are beginning to articulate, Osbourne looks to the suffering of Indigenous people in Australia (and beyond) as a basis for reanimating constructive forms of optimism: The generative, creative, evolving survival­-​­and­-​­beyond of First Nations Peoples in settler­ -​­ colonial cities and countries tells us that while we might lose a world, other worlds are already here. The monorealism that dominates Western thought makes an apocalypse the apocalypse. Multirealism makes apocalypses possible, and while that is depressing in its own way, plurality means possibilities. (148)14 And, as emphasised in complementary ways by Wright, Grosz and Osbourne, it is language as perceptual and imaginative nexus that is so important – the means by which land is unlawfully seized, by which its character is so often misconstrued, and through which human beings can imaginatively transform this crucial relationship.

Wilderness in literature and culture  25

Conclusion Where Marilynne Robinson concludes that humans must ‘surrender wilderness’ as an idea, since it serves precisely the deceptions she identifies, we are in the same way compelled to accept another obdurate paradox. As the scholar Kylie Crane observes in discussing the literature she categorises in the ‘post­-​­natural wilderness’ mode, wilderness is a space that is marked by its natural qualities and that is conceived in terms that oppose it to civilisation … [yet] one of the central paradoxes of wilderness [is] that it cannot be entirely separated from civilisation – and, conversely, civilisation cannot be entirely free of wilderness. (2012, 15) As this illustrates, the idea of wilderness is intrinsic to the very conception of human civilisation. Equally, just as it is important to acknowledge this same anthropocentric ascription of value in respect to both the cultural provenance and valence of the concept of wilderness, it becomes more so because wilderness also refers to the ecological importance of the geographically defined areas across the planet, the complexity of which is far from fully understood. It is, then, crucial at this historical, social and political juncture to reaffirm that the concept has the power to influence social and political agendas positively in appealing directly to the deeper registers and powers of the human imagination, thus inducing the potential for the radical re­-​­imagining of human beings as fully integrated into the profoundly intricate, vastly complex biophilia of earthly existence. In arguing passionately for the ‘rewilding [of] our hearts’, Marc Bekoff tightens the focus: Laws and public policy won’t do it. Instead each of us must undergo a major personal paradigm shift in how we view and live in the world and how we behave [… which involves] our surrender to the deep­-​­rooted feelings of compassion and empathy when we connect and reconnect with nature. (2014, 25/29) This is no more urgent a need than in twenty­-​­first­-​­century Australia, where increasing friction is being generated through, on the one hand, a socially divisive public debate, directly reflecting the sharply partisan politicisation of attitudes towards conservation and climate change, and the graphic evidence of the effects of climate change and relentless exploitation of the natural environment. Again, and from the wider perspective, what is exactly at stake is as Ben Minteer identifies: the ‘moral regard’ for the natural world and the recognition of its ‘autonomy’ beyond human control and understanding. It is

26  Stephen Harris the ‘wild’ in country, as Judith Wright conveys it, that defies the human drive to contain and command. And where, with its sting of misanthropic contempt (‘Suffer wild country … [for] we corrupt you with our torturing mind’), Wright’s poem marks an ultimatum of a kind – cleanse the earth of the hubristic colonising human being enchained to destructive attitudes and behaviour through distorted ideas of human supremacy15 – Minteer appeals through a reasoned and meliorating balance of the practical and the moral, the political and the ethical, in his plea for a fundamental and complete change in human consciousness. Wright, in her paeans to ‘wild being’ and her defence of the natural world as an autonomous entity, was not alone in protesting against the seemingly insurmountable forces of the ‘empire of homo sapiens sapiens’, in Paul Kingsnorth’s phrase (2017, 80).16 Again, a paradox points the way: in the words of one of the many voices in recent years arguing for a fundamental change in human attitudes and behaviour, humans need urgently to reconsider just how widely the ‘boundaries of the self may be extended to the other [for] the ultimate purpose of protecting wildness is not to preserve nature or improve upon it, but to learn a sense of limits from it and to model culture after it …’ (Grumbine in Rothenberg 1995, 8–9/21). Unavoidably, there is always a notable disparity to consider: that between the immediacy of political struggle involving the imperative to act in the moment, and the invariably much slower process of encouraging a collective ‘reset’ which results in revolution, or more modestly, public displays of agitation resulting in significant changes, even reformations, in the governing rules and practices of a given society. The essayist and writer, Rebecca Solnit (2019), gives succinct expression to this relation in her recent commentary on the importance of political protest as a non­-​­violent activity in everyday life: ‘[…] the most important battle is often in the collective imagination, and it is won in part by books, ideas, songs, speeches, even new words and frameworks for old evils’, yet the call to action is itself ‘not the planting but the harvest of a change in public imagination.’ This lag, between such a transformative seeding (to appropriate Solnit’s metaphor) through the cultivation of ideas – the changing of minds – and the more decisive and newsworthy moments of disruption and resistance itself, is one of several crucial factors bearing on any claim concerning the political power of literature, particularly in view of the ‘environmental emergency’ many believe we are both witnessing and generating at present. Yet it is precisely the transformative potential of the literary imagination to reshape the human imagination – to reorientate ontologies, remap the field of human possibilities, and realign relations with the natural world – that is pivotal in facing the compounding uncertainties at this time in human history.

Notes   1 Among the numerous reflections and discussions of such semantics, see Martin Harrison (2008). On the mutability of the word ‘bush’ as it informs the heavily

Wilderness in literature and culture  27 mythologised notion of land and country in Australia, see Watson (2014, 72–91).   2 Consider Rob Cowen’s observation: ‘[Edge­-​­lands are] just beyond our doors and fences, the enmeshed border where human and nature collide are microcosms of our world at large, an extraordinary, exquisite world that is growing closer to the edge every day. These spaces reassert a vital truth: nature isn’t just some remote mountain or protected park. It is all around us. It is in us. It is us’ (2015, 12). See also Faley and Roberts (2011).   3 Catholic philosopher Max Charlesworth quoted in Haynes (1998, 280).  4 Snyder’s ruminations on decomposition and decay figure directly in Winton’s work: ‘Life in the wild is not just eating berries in the sunlight. I like to imagine a ‘depth ecology’ that would go to the dark side of nature – the ball of crunched bones in a scat, the feathers in the snow, the tales of insatiable appetite […] Life is not just a diurnal property of large interesting vertebrates; it is also nocturnal, anaerobic, cannibalistic, microscopic, digestive, fermentative […] a word of nature on the decay side’ (1990, 110).  5 Wright published two versions of the same article in different journals (Wright 1980, 1990). Also, while Wright’s allusions to biblical concepts of the wilderness­-​ ­as­-​­waste are accurate, the concept of the wilderness is more complex in Christian tradition, as examined by George H. Williams, the four ‘concepts or motifs as follows and as they recur in various combinations throughout post­ -​­ biblical history: (a) the wilderness as a moral waste but a potential paradise; (b) the wilderness as a place of testing or even punishment; (c) the wilderness as the experience or occasion of nuptial (covenantal) bliss, and (d) the wilderness as a place of refuge (protection) or contemplation (renewal)’ (1962, 25/29).   6 See Shaw (2002) for a perceptive comparative analysis of the themes of wilderness and the land in the work of Foster and Malouf.   7 For the full passage, see Tench 1793. Also Milton, Paradise Lost, Book IV: lines 144–145, and the descriptions of the forbidding ‘steep wilderness’ and ‘verdurous wall of Paradise’ (lines 135/143).  8 Brown orates in sacerdotal rhapsody, conjuring images of our Edenic original selves: ‘We come from wilderness … Before the advent of agriculture and industry, the whole world was wilderness and everyone lived in wilderness … wherever our origins, whether we are black or white, we were designed for life in the wild. Therefore, there is no­-​­one who does not have an innate bond with wilderness’ (1983, 12–13).  9 In his argument for what he calls an ‘Ecumenical Ecology’, Rowe castigates humans for their hubris and arrogance as so many others have: ‘We have mesmerised ourselves with talk of our pre­-​­eminence, our specialness, our uniqueness in the animal world. We have made ourselves in God’s image. We have described our ‘innovative genius’ and expressed pride in being as we are, asserting that we will be ‘less than fully human’ if we curb our assertiveness. To whatever degree this is true, it is dangerously unbalanced by humility. The conceit and arrogance of our species explains why we are such dangers to Nature and to ourselves’ (Rowe 1990, 246). 10 The recent name for such apocalyptic perspectives is ‘doomism’: ‘Doomism … is the latest frontier in the climate wars – a new tool being exploited by those resisting change in the way the world does business’ (Michael E. Mann in Snow 2019, 30). 11 Low certainly does not deny the intrinsic ecological value of wilderness: ‘Across much of Australia the land needs repair and ‘wilderness areas’ are points of reference

28  Stephen Harris to aim for in landscape rehabilitation … [for] they preserve information about how Australia looked before it was degraded and this information we cannot do without’ (2017, xiv). 12 Robinson’s argument turns on her observation that wilderness is a concept used to conceal the unsightly, often ethically questionable, and patently criminal activities of corporations and nation­-​­states – she refers to the siting of nuclear power plants in Idaho placed ‘under cover’ of wilderness: ‘the very idea of wilderness permits us to evade in some degree a recognition of the real starkness of precisely the kind of abuse most liable to occur outside the reach of political and economic constraints, where those who have isolation at their disposal can do as they will’ (1998, 62). Disconcertingly, this act of evasion aligns with Milton’s description of the garden of Paradise as being concealed from the roving eyes of Satan. 13 Grosz elaborates her ideas in her recent work: ‘Feminist theory needs to turn, or perhaps return, to questions of the real … [beyond] the focus on the primacy of the subject […] In short, it needs to welcome again what epistemologies have left out: the relentless force of the real, a new metaphysics’ (2011: 84–85). 14 Osborne (2019) provides a succinct and comprehensive overview of many views on and expressions of grief, despair, dread and hopelessness induced by the emerging and evident effects of climate change and relentless environmental destruction. 15 Wright’s later historical writing in The Cry for the Dead depicts the land in increasingly active revenge against the barbarous intrusions of white people (see Griffiths 2016, 108). 16 According to Paul Kingsnorth (2017, 80) ‘When we turn wilderness over to agriculture, we speak of our duty to feed the poor. When we industrialise the wild places, we speak of our duty to stop the climate from changing. When we raze forests, we speak of our duty to develop. We alter the atmospheric makeup of the entire world: half of us pretends it’s not happening, the other half immediately starts looking for machines that will reverse it.’

References Araluen, Evelyn. 2019a. ‘Snugglepot and Cuddlepie in the Ghost Gum’. Sydney Review of Books. https://sydneyreviewofbooks.com/essay/snugglepot­-​­and­-​ ­cuddlepie­-​­in­-​­the­-​­ghost­-​­gum­-​­evelyn­-​­araluen/. Araluen, Evelyn. 2019b. ‘Unreckoning’. The Saturday Paper, June 1–7, Edition No. 255. www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/opinion/poetry. Bekoff, Marc. 2014. Rewilding Our Hearts: Building Pathways of Compassion and Coexistence. Novato, CA: New World Library. Brown, Bob. 1983. ‘Foreword’. In Australia The Beautiful, Wilderness, by Allan Moult, 12–13. McMahon’s Point: Kevin Weldon. Cowen, Rob. 2015. Common Ground. London: Hutchinson. Crane, Kylie. 2012. Myths of Wilderness in Contemporary Narratives: Environmental Postcolonialism in Australia and Canada. New York: Palgrave/Macmillan. Falkiner, Suzanne. 1992. The Writer’s Landscape: Wilderness. East Roseville, NSW: Simon & Schuster. Farley, Paul and Michael Symmons Roberts. 2011. Edgelands: Journeys Into England’s True Wilderness. London: Jonathan Cape. Foster, David. 1997. ‘A Walk in the Southern Blue Mountains’. In Crossing the Blue Mountains: Journeys Through Two Centuries, from Naturalist Charles Darwin to Novelist

Wilderness in literature and culture  29 David Foster, edited by David Foster, 193–205. Potts Point, NSW: Duffy & Snellgrove. Foster, David. 1999. Studs and Nogs: Essays 1987–98. Milsons Point: Vintage. Ghosh, Amitav. 2016. The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Gibson, Chris, and Andrew Warren. 2020. ‘Keeping Time with Trees: Climate Change, Forest Resources, and Experimental Relations with the Future’. Geoforum 108: 325–337. Griffiths, Tom. 2016. The Art of Time Travel: Historians and their Craft. Melbourne: Black Inc Book. Grosz, Elizabeth. 2005. Time Travels: Feminism, Nature, Power. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Grosz, Elizabeth. 2011. Becoming Undone: Darwinian Reflections on Life, Politics, and Art. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Grumbine, R. Edward. 1995. ‘Wise and Sustainable Uses: Revisioning Wildness’. In Wild Ideas, edited by David Rothenberg, 3–27. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Harris, Stephen. (forthcoming) 2020. ‘Island Life and Wild Time: Crossing into Country in Tim Winton’s Island Home’. In Postcolonial Literatures of Climate Change, edited by R. McDougall, J. Ryan and P. Reynolds. Leiden: Brill. Harrison, Martin. 2008. ‘Poem Country’. In Belongin’ Place: New Writing from Australia, edited by Brian McCabe, 54–60. Edinburgh: Edinburgh Review. Haskell, David George. 2017. The Songs of the Trees: Stories from Nature’s Great Connectors. Carlton, Victoria: Black Books Inc. Haynes, Rosalynne D. 1998. Seeking the Centre: The Australian Desert in Literature, Art and Film. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kidner, David W. 2014. ‘The Conceptual Assassination of the Wilderness’. In Keeping it Wild: Against the Domestication of the Earth, edited by George Wuerthner, Eileen Crist and Tom Butler, 8–20. San Francisco: CA Foundation for Deep Ecology. Kingsnorth, Paul. 2017. Confessions of a Recovering Environmentalist. London: Faber & Faber. Low. Tim. 2017. The New Nature: Winners and Losers in Wild Australia. Sydney: Penguin Books. Malouf, David. 2014. A First Place. North Sydney: Knopf. Meyer, Stephen M. 2006. The End of the Wild. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Minteer, Ben A. 2018. The Fall of the Wild: Extinction, De­-​­Extinction, and the Ethics of Conservation. New York: Columbia University Press. Milton, John. 2006. Paradise Lost. In The Norton Anthology of English Literature, 2012. 9th edition, edited by Stephen Greenblatt, 2003–2007. New York: Norton. O’Connor, Marc. 2008. ‘The Ecology of Australia’. In Belongin’ Place: New Writing from Australia, edited by Brian McCabe, 102–132. Edinburgh: Edinburgh Review. Osborne, Natalie. 2019. ‘For Still Possible Cities: A Politics of Failure for the Politically Depressed’. Australian Geographer 50 (2): 145–154. Robinson, Marilynne. 1998. ‘Surrendering Wilderness’. The Wilson Quarterly 22 (4): 60–64. Rowe, Stan. 1990. Home Place: Essays on Ecology. Edmonton: NeWest. Rothenberg, David (ed.). 1995. Wild Ideas. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

30  Stephen Harris Shaw, Narelle. 2002. ‘Experiencing a Wilderness and Cultivating a Garden: The Literary Environmentalism of David Foster and David Malouf’. Antipodes 16 (1): 46–52. Smith, Jos. 2017. The New Nature Writing: Rethinking the Literature of Place. London: Bloomsbury. Snow, Deborah. 2019. ‘Leaving Politicians Behind on the Path to Tackling Climate Change’. Sydney Morning Herald, 19–20 October: 30. Snyder, Gary. 1990. The Practice of the Wild: Essays by Gary Snyder. San Francisco: North Point Press. Solnit, Rebecca. 2019. ‘Every Protest Shifts the World’s Balance’. Guardian, 1 June. www.theguardian.com/books/2019/jun/01/rebecca­-​­solnit­-​­protest­-​­politics­-​­world­-​ ­peterloo­-​­massacre. Tench, Watkin. 1793. ‘Exploring Down Under: Traveling Diaries in New South Wales. (Field Notes)’. In A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson, by Watkin Tench, 1793; Wednesday, 13 April, 1791. https://go­-​­gale­-​­com.ezproxy.une.edu.au/ ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA80175814&v=2.1&u=dixson&it=r&p=AONE&sw=w. Turner, Jack.1996. The Abstract Wild. Tuscon: University of Arizona Press. Watson, Don. 2014. The Bush. Melbourne: Penguin. Williams, George H. 1962. Wilderness and Paradise in Christian Thought: The Biblical Experience of the Desert in the History of Christianity and the Paradise Theme in the Theological Idea of the University. New York: Harper & Brothers. Winton, Tim. 1999. ‘Strange Passion: A Landscape Memoir’. In Down to Earth: Australian Landscapes, by Richard Woldendorp. ix–xxxii. North Fremantle: Fremantle Arts Centre Press. Winton, Tim. 2011. ‘Foreword’. Wild Guide to Moreton Bay and Adjacent Coasts (Vol. 1), Edited by Peter Davie et al.: vi–viii. South Brisbane: Queensland Museum. Winton, Tim. 2015. Island Home: A Landscape Memoir. North Sydney: Penguin. Winton, Tim. 2018. The Shepherd’s Hut. North Sydney: Hamish Hamilton. Wright, Judith. 2015. ‘Australia 1970’. In Collected Poems: 1942 to 1985, 269. Sydney: Fourth Estate. Wright, Judith. 1980. ‘Wilderness, Waste and History’. Habitat 8 (1): 27–31. Wright, Judith. 1990. ‘Wilderness and Wasteland’. Island Magazine 42 (Autumn): 3–7.

2 Evolving values of wilderness in the Age of Extinction Environmental campaigning in Australia Vanessa Bible and Tanya Howard Introduction In the epoch of the Anthropocene, faced as we are by unprecedented global environmental challenges and change wrought by human hands, is there such a thing as ‘wilderness’? That is the question that underpins this chapter. It presents some key understandings of changing Judeo­ -​­ Christian notions of wilderness, before turning to a deeper interrogation of the concept within the historical context of forestry and community action in the case­-​­study region of north­-​­eastern New South Wales (NSW). Through this lens, we can see how the concept of wilderness has not only been changing since Helman et al.’s Wilderness in Australia (1976), but also, as a human understanding of the natural landscape, how the notion has changed and evolved over many thousands of years. The Judeo­ -​­ Christian concept of wilderness has encompassed negative associations of wild and dangerous spaces, far from human ‘civilisation’, as well as more positive, romantic visions of ‘natural’ landscapes, ‘unspoilt’ by evidence of human habitation. In Australia, the imposition of both variants of this construction upon an Indigenous landscape has been sudden and ridden with conflict. While ‘pristine’ environments have long been considered the pinnacle of wilderness, it is unlikely that any place in Australia was unknown to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, and the term is not one that is well­-​ received by Australia’s Traditional Owners (Bayet­ ­ -​­ Charlton 2003; Strider 1984). The tension between these different approaches illustrates that ideas of wilderness are essentially subjective, and tethered to individual and collective social, economic and political values. Significantly, these different values can create a conceptual divide between the natural world and human society, a divide that finds resonance with contemporary dystopian visions of landscapes resulting from climate change. We agree with leading theorists that the term ‘wilderness’ is problematic because it creates an artificial divide between human life and the natural world, engaging in a definitional exercise that does not adequately address the interrelatedness of both human and non­-​­human environments (Valcuende del Río and Ruiz­-​­Ballesteros 2019; Saarinen 2019; Ziegler 2019).

32  Vanessa Bible and Tanya Howard This chapter revisits key flashpoints of wilderness protection in north­ -​ e­ astern NSW, a focus region of Helman et al.’s publication, to investigate what these might tell us about the evolution of the environment movement in Australia. The region is exemplary of shifting and changing understandings of wilderness, and the ways in which campaigning for wilderness has also changed as a result. Since the 1960s, early efforts in rainforest protection at Terania Creek and the Border Ranges have led to increased ecological awareness and campaigns of collective direct action, and contributed to the emergence of a countercultural community with a strong reputation for environmental activism. Their experiences illustrate that striving for environmental values has the potential to connect individuals to each other through shared experience, building community in the face of a perceived threat. We then consider how environmental campaigns often engage with the legal system through appeals, submissions, and in some cases legal challenge, to register concerns or prevent environmental impacts. These legal strategies require participants to work within the boundaries of the law, an exercise in ‘bounded rationality’ that relies on segregation of issues and impacts that denies a holistic view considered necessary for high quality environmental decision­-making. ​­ We conclude by reflecting on civil disobedience as a response to the ultimate threat of the Anthropocene being the possible end of human, and more­ -​­ than­ -human ​­ (Abram 1996), life on Earth. In 2019, the Intergovernmental Science­-​­Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) sounded a warning that the biosphere, upon which humanity as a whole depends, is being altered to an unparalleled degree across all spatial scales. Biodiversity, the diversity within species, between species and of ecosystems, is declining faster than at any other time in human history (IPBES 2019). As extinction rates soar and dire warnings of climate­-​ ­induced ecological collapse echo around the world, we strive to understand what wilderness means in the Age of Extinction. As humanity faces the reality that no part of the globe has been left untouched by human influence, we ask: what does wilderness in the Age of Extinction look like?

Discussion The threat of mass extinction conjures a landscape of desolation, devoid of humans and other carbon­-​­based life forms – a wilderness which echoes the biblical notion of being cast out and set adrift in a harsh, arid and hostile environment. This wilderness through mass extinctions renders the intellectual or emotional separation of human and non­-​­human life irrelevant. At the same time, the hegemonic Western worldview sometimes still classifies wilderness areas through the restriction of human interaction, as does the occasional well­-​­meaning environmentalist. For example, s 2(c) of the original US Wilderness Act (1964) defines wilderness as ‘an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammelled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain’. This long­ -​­ outmoded yet still frequently observed

Evolving values of wilderness  33 notion of wilderness, defined by an absence of human life, is damaging to our sense of environmental responsibility and creates a wedge between humans and the natural world. It is also highly offensive to Indigenous peoples, who find themselves erased from the landscape under the pressure of dominant Western epistemology. Historically, the term wilderness has been used to conjure landscapes free of human settlement, and in Australia, is explicitly tied to the legal fiction of ‘terra nullius’.1 In this chapter, we do not apply one definition of ‘wilderness’, but rather work with a pluralistic awareness of conceptual links across time between notions of wilderness, nature, wild places and wildness. In north­ -​­ eastern NSW, ideals of wilderness motivated citizens to find common ground and resist the ongoing development of forestry in the region (Bible 2016). In contemporary politics, the threat of climate change is generating a global community of activists who find common ground in an existential vision defined by extinction, and a dystopian Earth biosphere devoid of human life.2 We argue that defining and redefining wilderness values is necessary for each new generation to establish a common and shared understanding of what is worth fighting for. The concept of wilderness, whether nihilistic or utopian, animates human values and has the potential to generate community cohesion, as individuals come together to address a common threat or strive to reach a common vision. To harness the imaginative power of wilderness in service of the future, we argue that the concept can become a focal point for social cohesion and community action (Everts 2015). We see the human drive to find connection to self, to others, and to the Earth itself, as the common thread that connects past and contemporary experiences of wilderness campaigning. The Age of Extinction reminds humanity that all life forms are on the same path to extinction. Notions of community, in all of their scientific and social forms, are necessary to re­-​­empower notions of wilderness as a place of human connection and common action. Wilderness – an evolving concept The concept of wilderness has been problematised and challenged by ‘geographers, historians, cultural theorists, philosophers, and others’ (Christoff 2016, 1038). Taken together, the work of such scholars provides an overview of the changing values and attitudes towards wilderness, extending all the way back to prehistory. David Henderson (n.d.) argues that contested notions of wild places, and humanity’s place within them, predate the term ‘wilderness’ and can be found across cultures within the oldest known preserved literature. Max Oelschlaeger’s influential work, The Idea of Wilderness, makes a similar argument, but he takes the concept back even further, finding evidence of the notion of wilderness within the culture of ‘prehistoric’ hunter­ -gatherers. ​­ Oelschlaeger (1991) asserts that prehistoric civilisations revered humanity’s place within ‘wild nature’ – they did not perceive of themselves as separate from the Earth. Roderick Nash (1976, 17) also argues that nature reverence

34  Vanessa Bible and Tanya Howard was cross­-​­cultural: during the Ancient period, ‘in the far east, particularly in India, China, and Japan, a tradition of appreciating wild nature extended back to at least two thousand years before the New World was even settled.’ At the same time, however, a shift in thinking was starting to develop, as humans increasingly defined themselves as distinct from the natural world; Hellenism and Judeo­-​­Christianity marked an ‘unprecedented’ shift, deciding that nature was ‘valueless until humanized’ (Oelschlaeger 1991, 33). This shift, argue many scholars, marks the start of Western culture’s divorce from nature, or as it is commonly referred to, the nature/culture divide. The global pervasiveness of Judeo­-Christian ​­ worldviews is critical to the history of human­ -​­ nature relations and the nature/culture divide. A controversial and influential 1967 paper, penned by Lynn White Jr, held Christianity responsible for ‘the roots of our ecological crisis’ (White 1967). ‘The most anthropocentric religion’, he argued, Christianity encourages the domination of humans over their environment as a literal God­ -​­ given right (White 1967, 1206). While Edenic nature is constructed as a bountiful resource for humanity, wilderness sits on the other side of the border. Wilderness is a word that appears frequently in The Bible, and almost always appears as an allegory for an absence of human spirit, be it in the context of sin, trial or spiritual deprivation. Sinners are cast out into the desert; a place without people, culture or humanity, the wilderness represents the wild side of the nature/culture divide. For example, Deuteronomy 32:10 refers to wilderness as ‘the howling waste’, while Matthew 4:1 talks of how Jesus was ‘led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil’ (The Bible, English Standard Version). Several scholars, including Carolyn Merchant (1996) and Roslynn Haynes (2003), look at the consequences of Judeo­ -​­ Christian attitudes towards an external ‘nature’ in regards to colonisation. In contrast with Eden, ‘wilderness’ is land associated with sin and banishment. The process of converting wild country into tamed, productive land equates to a reclamation of the Garden of Eden. As Merchant (1996, 137) argues, ‘[a]s a powerful narrative, the idea of recovery functioned as ideology and legitimation for settlement of the New World’. Attitudes towards New World colonisation were heavily influenced by Enlightenment thought. Two of the most influential Enlightenment philosophers, René Descartes and John Locke, shaped attitudes towards wilderness. Descartes theorised that there exists a separation between body and mind (and by extension nature and culture, the earth and humanity), and, in doing so, became one of the engineers of the nature/culture divide (Berman 1981). While such ideas were conceived of by Greek philosophers, Descartes grounded the theory within Enlightenment paradigms. Equally influential, Locke’s belief in ‘life, liberty and property’ stood as a justification for the taming of land to suit human needs. Land, he argued, has no value until labour is invested into it, in order to convert it from a wild, untamed waste into a productive, cultivated possession. If ‘the intrinsic natural worth of anything consists in its fitness to supply the necessities or serve the conveniences of human life’, then wilderness is merely wasteland (Locke 1696, cited in Worster 1993, 215).

Evolving values of wilderness  35 This view of landscape as wasteland due to a lack of industrious exploitation of resources conveniently overlooked the Indigenous people resident in these landscapes. In Australia, evidence of Aboriginal people’s cultivation, harvest and management of the landscape has only recently become more widely accepted as evidence of pre­ -​­ colonial civilisation (Gammage 2012; Pascoe 2014). This belated recognition of Australia’s true landscape history has challenged the hegemony of the colonial concept of ‘wilderness’, by demonstrating that human life has always been intimately entwined with the natural world, rather than separate. The dissonance between pre­-colonial ​­ and colonial understandings of the landscape pivots on an artificial distinction between ‘useful’ resources and ‘wasted’ landscapes, a tension that underlies the contemporary challenges of wilderness management. One of the consequences of such ideas about wilderness was that the landscapes of North America, Australia and elsewhere were rapidly and dramatically transformed in the name of ‘improvement’. Such notions sit behind the contemporary drive to clear and tame, although in the mid­-nineteenth ​­ century there arose in North America voices of caution and concern. The American Romantics, including Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and George Perkins Marsh, are widely considered to be among the early founders of what would become modern environmentalism. The Romantic Movement also sought to challenge the nature/culture dualism of the Enlightenment, marking a ‘radical shift in ethical interpretations of the “human­ -​­ other” relationship’ (Haynes 2003, 84). An intellectual movement reflected in artistic and literary circles, it was at its heart characterised by a reverence for wild nature. It was during this period that the most widespread conception of the notion of wilderness was forged. Emerson and Thoreau, central to the establishment of National Parks in America, were strong advocates for wild places; not only did they believe in their preservation as places where one could seek freedom and solitude, they were also advocating for something deeper. Wild places, access to them, and their regulation, were all directly linked to an internalised notion of wild and a desire to see oneself reflected in nature (Dasmann 1975). ‘Nature’ was a place that men (specifically)3 could retreat to, to learn something of themselves, and to achieve a sense of freedom. Romanticised in the late 1800s, ‘space had become the common symbol of freedom in the western world’ (Read 1996, 137). North­-​­eastern NSW: a case study We now turn to north­ -eastern ​­ NSW as a case study to revisit these conceptions of wilderness, demonstrating the changing nature of wilderness values in practice. The reasons for this are twofold. First, Wilderness in Australia (Helman et al. 1976) focuses largely on the forests of north­-​­eastern NSW, and so it makes sense to return to the same region. Second, north­-​­eastern NSW has been at the heart of the evolution of the environment movement in

36  Vanessa Bible and Tanya Howard Australia. It is exemplary of the shifting and changing understandings we interrogate, and the ways in which campaigning for wilderness has also changed. The Bundjalung people were the first people to inhabit the area now known as north­-​­eastern NSW (and their tribal lands extend into what is now known as south­ -​­ eastern Queensland). They were, and are, the original custodians. The relationship between people and natural environment was imbued with spirituality, reverence, understanding, and a complex set of interrelationships between people, flora, fauna and abiotic elements such as rocks (Hoff 2006). The invasion of Aboriginal lands brought about not only the loss of Aboriginal life, culture, and livelihood, but also severe ecological impacts. From the earliest days of Australian colonisation, a resource extraction mentality exerted the most dominant influence over attitudes towards the environment. However, there were also those with conservationist concerns. Albeit with an anthropocentric attitude largely concerned with the protection of natural resources as financial assets, these concerns nevertheless demonstrate the necessary starting point in the evolution of a conservation movement. Environmental laws were enacted from 1788, ‘predictably utilitarian’ in nature and motivated by a desire to ensure the sustainability of food sources (Bonyhady 2000, 5). Forestry was one of the first industries to be established in NSW, and after 30 years of ‘indiscriminate felling’ of forests, a report by Governor King reveals evidence of the growing realisation that such practices were unsustainable and ‘efforts should be made to regulate their exploitation’ (Martin 1993, 33). Russell Kelly (2003, 105) points out that, by 1802, permits were required to fell cedar, demonstrating an understanding of the need for long­-​­term resource management. The Big Scrub – rainforest and restoration The Big Scrub was a vast expanse of ancient rainforest that covered much of north­-​­eastern NSW prior to European invasion. The colonisation of the Big Scrub occurred considerably later than much of the settlement of the rest of eastern Australia, some 72 years after Cook’s initial expedition of 1770. By the time policy makers, squatters and settlers would begin to shape the environment of the region, significant shifts in European, American and Australian environmental understandings were underway. It was during this era of new ideas that Europeans considered the landscape of the Big Scrub for the first time. Understandably, the powerful cultural paradigms of the time meant that despite an appreciation of the natural environment and a growing awareness of the need to ‘conserve’ nature, most were unable to break away from a resource extraction mentality when looking upon the environment. The early conservation movement in Australia was therefore focused on the wise use of resources, and would have a long way to go before it resembled an ecologically sensitive environmentalism.

Evolving values of wilderness  37 By the late 1800s, ‘in the wake of the rapid disappearance of the Big Scrub’, government concern for conservation was growing (Kijas 2003, 28). A government representative was sent to the region in 1886, tasked with the job of reporting upon the agricultural industry. While his report predictably described the fertility, climate and water resources, aesthetic landscape descriptors were also used, including ‘magnificent’, ‘blessed’, ‘beautiful’ and ‘wonderful’ (Campbell 1922, 311–312). These increasing descriptions of the aesthetic virtues of the land demonstrate the evolving nature of the conservation movement, progressively more focused on the beauty and grandeur of the Australian environment. Colin Michael Hall (1992, 85) argues that this aesthetic argument, influenced by the Romantic Movement, led to Australia’s ‘cult of the bush’. By the 1930s, the Big Scrub had become a major tourist attraction as people sought communion with the wild Australian bush; so commenced the thriving tourism industry that still comprises a significant proportion of the region’s economy today (Tourism Research Australia 2011, 4–7). A study by Tony Parkes et al. (2012, 212) argues that ‘[r]estoring the rainforests of the Big Scrub is a powerful restoration symbol for the regional communities of far north coast New South Wales’. In addition to more recent and less anthropocentric values attributed to rainforest, such as species conservation and biodiversity, there are now conversations about the significance of the Big Scrub to the survival of species in a world affected by climate change (Parkes 2012, 212). The area of Big Scrub remnants now preserved as parks and reserves is further indicative of its importance as both part of the character of the place as well as its environmental value. In addition to the 32 remnant sites in the region, 11 of which are deemed ‘significant’ and are protected in parks and reserves, there has also been a high degree of active regeneration through the efforts of local residents (NSW NPWS 1997; Turnbull 2016, The Echo 2016). The Border Ranges – biodiversity hotspot In 1948, logger John Lever proposed that the Border Ranges, so named because they sit upon the border between NSW and Queensland, be protected and conserved as a National Park (Kendell and Buivids 1987, 28). Although the initial proposal failed, it was still remarkable in that it challenged the assumption that loggers have no desire to protect wilderness. In 1969, Lever again proposed the creation of a National Park, and again the proposal was ignored. However, when conservation group the Colong Committee heard of the campaign, they too became involved, as did the National Parks Association; due to the significance of the forest, the local cause received substantial support from city­ -based ​­ conservationists (Meredith 1999, 268). The desire to protect this wilderness was inspired in part by ‘the extraordinary natural beauty … with its glorious mountain scenery, its unique rainforests, the enchanting scenery of the numerous creeks and waterfalls, [and]

38  Vanessa Bible and Tanya Howard the wild but beautiful gorges’ (Chick 1976, 16), while Ronald Monroe (1976, 79) argued that ‘scenically it is one of the most beautiful regions in Australia’. The campaign marked a significant turning point for wilderness values in the region, with environmental scientists starting to distinguish this unique form of forest from other, drier forest types; with this realisation, post­-​ ­colonial Australia discovered ‘rainforests’. The first botanical survey of NSW rainforests was not conducted until Alex Floyd was commissioned to undertake the task in 1976, and as knowledge was gained and there was a realisation that there was so much more to be learned, concerns were raised. One of the main arguments made in favour of the National Park was precautionary – without adequate knowledge of rainforest ecology, the impacts of logging were unknown. Ecologists warned of the risks of trying to manage logging operations, arguing that ‘we will be attempting to manage one of the least understood and most complex ecosystems in existence’ (Hopkins et al. 1976, 57). Once the significance of the ancient Gondwanan rainforest remnant was understood, this non­ -anthropocentric ​­ value became another argument for conservation and the protection of rainforest biodiversity. Milo Dunphy recalls the Colong Committee’s decision to take on the campaign: ‘when we decided to go for rainforests it was basically on biological conservation grounds. It was a move from recreation to biodiversity’ (cited in Meredith 1999, 269). The forest was declared a National Park from 1979, changing the playing field for wilderness campaigns, and moving away from the Romantic notion of anthropocentric wilderness values to a more biocentric understanding. Terania Creek The Terania Creek Basin shelters a precious remnant of the Big Scrub, located about 25 km north of the major centre of Lismore in the heart of north­-​­eastern NSW. The forest blockade to save Terania Creek demonstrates how the evolution of wilderness campaigning has included the strengthening of community participation and civil disobedience. At the same time that the Border Ranges campaign was receiving attention and support from across the State, another stand of significant ancient rainforest was under threat just a few dozen kilometres away. At Terania Creek, new settlers had discovered the NSW Forestry Commission’s plan to grant logging rights for the clearing of the last remaining rainforest in the Basin at the end of Terania Creek Road. The Border Ranges conservationists were reluctant to divert energy away from their campaign for the sake of what they considered to be a relatively unimportant patch of forest (The Colong Committee 1983). However, a new community of people, who had moved to the area specifically for the forest, disagreed. With no choice but to take the issue on themselves, local residents mobilised to wage a campaign to save Terania Creek, and the Terania Native Forest Action Group (TNFAG) was formed in 1974.

Evolving values of wilderness  39 From the start of the campaign, the motivations expressed by TNFAG marked a contrast with most previous campaigns. While aesthetics certainly played a major role, there was also an expression of biocentric values from the outset, including the ‘ethical or spiritual’ notion that flora and fauna have an inherent right to exist (Webb 1987, 11). Campaigners also shared an often undefinable emotional connection to place (Webb 1987, 11). Indefatigable environmentalist Dailan Pugh (2012) explains his desire to protect the rainforest: Why? Because it’s magnificent and complex and has a right to exist and we need to protect it for its own sake. And to try and provide it [with] a viable future. I have an attraction to the natural environment that is in part inspired by aesthetics, but it’s also inspired by – I dunno, it’s just a feeling, I think, but I just love it. What unfolded at Terania Creek changed the way that environmentalists fight for wild places; after five years of traditional campaigning had failed to prevent the logging, in August 1979 a spontaneous, organic blockade erupted at the end of Terania Creek Road, marking the first known mass­-​­blockade in defence of forests (Bible 2018). The desire to protect this ancient remnant was so strong that the very nature of campaigning stepped up and responded in an unprecedented and effective way. Forest blockades have since become a staple within the wide range of activist repertoire. Terania Creek changed the way that activists campaign for wilderness. North East Forest Alliance Dailan Pugh established the North East Forest Alliance (NEFA) with John Corkill in 1989 as a direct result of the Terania Creek success. Their motivation was to continue the campaign for rainforest and old growth forests, many of which would ultimately be protected as wilderness and World ­Heritage areas.4 A highly successful strategy emerged, whereby forest logging was blockaded while NEFA legal teams took the battle to the NSW Land and Environment Court. Campaigns were typified by the long periods activists spent living in the forests. The blockades nearly always occurred in an isolated location, and activists would dedicate their lives to the cause, spending weeks and sometimes months living in the forest through extremes of heat, cold, snow and rain (Branagan 2013, 92; Mathieson 2008). NEFA activist and academic Aidan Ricketts (2003) has argued that these blockades cultivated a forest sub­-​­culture, born of the environment, based on a sense of belonging, and strengthening communities. He argues that the feral lifestyle in the old­-​­growth forest involved a symbiosis between the forest itself (which was threatened with destruction) and the

40  Vanessa Bible and Tanya Howard inhabitant (who was there to protect it). This symbiosis provided a real intellectual and spiritual sense of belonging. (145) With a fashion sense that emulated the forests themselves, drawing on leather, ‘road­-​­kill’, wood, leaves, feathers, mohawks and dreadlocks, the ‘ferals’ of the forest used the notion of ‘wild’ nature to cultivate a unique identity that was very much of the environments they sought to protect.5 Arguably reflecting the philosophical musings of the Romantics, the ferals knew, as Thoreau (1862, 224) famously stated, that ‘in wildness is the preservation of the world.’ The notion of the wild feral can also be seen in the activists’ willingness to transgress the boundary between the ‘civilised’ (law­-​­abiding, status­-​­quo­-​ maintaining) and the ‘uncivilised’ (law­ ­ -​­ breaking, protesting radicals). This wild identity that erases the nature/culture divide is still a core feature in environmental protest movements, encapsulated in the frequently­ -​­ cited expression: ‘We are not fighting FOR nature, we ARE nature defending itself !’ Water as wilderness The north­-​­eastern NSW region was now able to celebrate its wilderness victories. The campaigns had achieved declarations of National Parks and contributed to a growing national awareness of the intrinsic values of biodiversity that nature held in trust for the public good. However, over time the resource extraction pressures of the modern economy once again began to lay claim to the natural values of the region. This time, the expanding industry of coal seam gas development began to target the region, where substantial gas fields, low density population and access to abundant artesian water seemed to offer opportunities for prospectors. Despite the economic benefits that these new developments offered, the heightened environmental awareness of the local community and the strong socio­-cultural ​­ identification with values of resource protection and wilderness activism directed the attention to the likely impacts on another, less commonly considered wilderness frontier – groundwater. Despite the issues associated with the concepts of ‘pristine’ environments uninhabited by humans, it is this basic concept that underpins historical notions of wilderness and wild place values. Groundwater, then, as a place beyond the realms of human habitation (although not Aboriginal management, imagination, story or spirit), may be a type of wilderness that is often overlooked yet is just as important in terms of biological function and ecological value. Groundwater as a frontier shares similar characteristics with rainforests 40 years ago, when these forests were still largely misunderstood, and their ecological value underestimated. As Tomlinson and Boulton (2010, 944) argue, groundwater systems possess ‘substantial ecological values’, however there are ‘extensive knowledge gaps’, and only a ‘rudimentary level of … understanding of the drivers of sub­-surface ​­ ecological processes in Australia and overseas’.

Evolving values of wilderness  41 From 2011, Gasfield Free Northern Rivers (GFNR) conducted extensive door­-​­knocking surveys throughout the region to determine the percentage of locals opposed to CSG; percentages range from 87 per cent in Lismore to 99 per cent at The Channon, averaging 95 per cent across the region (Alcorn 2015). Despite overwhelming community opposition, gas companies proceeded with unconventional gas drilling projects. In 2012 and 2013, residents mounted blockades against the drilling of gas wells at Doubtful Creek and Glenugie, both in areas of mixed forest and farmland on the fringes of the region. Numbers at these protests were relatively small, however, and the protesters were ultimately unsuccessful. Metgasco’s audacious decision to attempt to drill for gas right in the heart of the region resulted in a very different outcome. The threat to the region evoked a strong, passionate and collaborative response from Bundjalung Elders, local farmers, environmentalists and the mainstream community alike. In early 2014, Metgasco was preparing to drill for unconventional gas on farmland at Bentley, just 14 kilometres from Lismore. A protest presence was quickly established, and after months of tense blockading and multiple threats by the state government to send in 800 riot police, Metgasco’s licence was suspended pending an inquiry into the company’s seemingly inadequate community consultation process. More than 18 months later, after argument, court appeals, threatening rhetoric from Metgasco and the fall of the strong Nationals (conservative party) seat of Ballina to the Greens, the NSW Government bought back the company’s petroleum exploration licence (PEL) in November 2015 (Jeffery 2015). The success of the Bentley Blockade led to the eventual withdrawal of every gas company in the region and the government buyback of every PEL. The region is now, indeed, gasfield free, as a consequence of the local community’s campaign to protect the expansive wilds of ancient groundwater reservoirs. While the history of the region up until the Bentley campaign has demonstrated increasing collaborations between traditionally opposed groups of people, Bentley added something new to the common ground – a deep and self­ -​­ aware cultivation of community. A seemingly strange yet common sentiment at the blockade was an expression of gratitude towards Metgasco. Meg Nielsen (2014) explains: I think it’s good that Metgasco is trying to drill, because it makes us all come together and evolve and say that’s enough … [W]hen something happens like this, it gives people the opportunity to bring out of themselves what they didn’t know was in there. Ted Hodinott (2014) concurs, adding that despite the ‘agony’ of the situation, the blockaders shared ‘so much joy as well because [they had] become so close’. Soon after the suspension of the company’s licence, well­-​­known deep ecologist Ruth Rosenhek (2014) thanked Metgasco and the politicians who approved the project for creating such a terrible crisis that united the

42  Vanessa Bible and Tanya Howard community, ‘heads and hearts and hands’. It was the shared experience that shaped the blockaders’ identity as a community under siege, campaigning together to protect a landscape that did not fit with traditional notions of wilderness. Redefining wilderness Throughout this exploration of north­-​­eastern NSW, we have examined multiple examples of a community actively redefining wilderness through a focus on common values and a shared sense of place. The wilderness campaigns of north­-​­eastern NSW were significant not just for the experiences shared by those on the blockades but also for the inroads made in environmental protection through legislative recognition of the Border Ranges National Park, as well as for the networks this forged and the connections to land they fostered. This legal recognition seemed to herald a new era of wilderness conservation, as human interactions were restricted to specific walking trails or camping areas. It seemed that the contest between environmental protection and exploitation had been resolved in favour of ‘unspoilt landscapes’, where wilderness would be allowed to exist with only limited opportunities for ‘nature appreciation’ (NSW NPWS 2019). Following this model of wilderness campaigning, subsequent efforts to define and protect wilderness have utilised legal mechanisms to challenge development approvals or land use changes that threaten environmental values. Environmental non­-​­government organisations have creatively engaged with state and federal legislation to draw attention to the impacts of development on endangered species, water security and the global climate. Ironically, these legal avenues require participants to work within the boundaries of the law, an exercise in ‘bounded rationality’ that reinforces the hegemonic Western world view that emerged during the Enlightenment. The ontological consequence is the artificial parsing of wilderness values that move us further away from ecological and Indigenous knowledges of interconnectedness and holistic management, to create discrete resources managed in a piecemeal fashion. This encourages segregation of issues and impacts, denying the holistic consideration necessary for high quality environmental decision­-​­making. At the same time, legal challenges can take the form of civil disobedience, which seeks to literally challenge the law by way of defying laws for the perceived greater good of protecting the environment. The legal system often then changes to either accommodate or accept such acts, but more often, through political and corporate pressure, the system criminalises such action further. The law is a product of the society that it regulates, through which legal forms it then creates and entrenches the structural conditions that shape how decisions are made, and who they advantage. The inherent dualism of the Western legal system echoes other conceptual binaries that encourage separation of the mind and body, of nature and culture, reinforcing the sense of distance between human and nature. This includes the legal rules that

Evolving values of wilderness  43 define who are able to take legal action for environmental values, and on what grounds they can challenge. Recent developments in Australia have been described as ‘decisive attempt[s] to assert power and control by reducing the capacity of dissentients to oppose economic development’ (Murphy and McGee 2018, 131). These definitional issues are becoming increasingly prominent in the Age of Extinction as Western liberal democracies attempt to constrain community action through harsher legal penalties for protest actions, extinguishment of native title where it threatens development, and tightening of procedural loopholes such as which parties have ‘standing’ in disputing environmental decisions (Ricketts 2015).6 A significant feature of the wilderness campaigns in north­-​­eastern NSW was the use of civil disobedience. Individuals participated in collective efforts to break the law in nonviolent but direct fashion, developing a suite of now familiar protest tactics such as obstruction, trespass and occupation. Erection of tree platforms, tripods and resistance to removal slowed down vehicle access and resulted in mass arrests, drawing public attention to the campaign. Civil disobedience requires individuals to reconcile their personal values with the objective limitations of the legal regime. Physical removal, arrest, detainment, criminal charges or fines are routine legal responses to civil disobedience actions, where the collective is broken down into individuals, and each act is then subject to the glare of the legal system. For community members, this is a challenging exercise of personal negotiation. Taking this form of legal action increases the personal burden, raising the stakes, but it also creates the possibility of radical change to established notions of what is valued by society. The question of whether the environment should have legal rights that could be invoked in instances of threat or abuse has been explored for decades (Stone 1996). However, it is only recently that these intrinsic rights have become realised in certain jurisdictions, and have yet to be fully implemented and tested through the legal system. In response to the deepening urgency of climate change, there are growing calls for recognition of rights for nature, rights that move beyond a focus on human interests to entertain notions of wilderness as distinct and valuable in itself. These re­-​­imaginings rely on a close coupling of humans and nature, and in recent examples from New Zealand, draw legitimacy from First Peoples’ worldviews that challenge the anthropocentric drive of the colonial powers (Iorns Magallanes 2015). If law is understood as inherently contextual, these examples reveal how a unique interaction of cultural worldviews, political ideology and economic conditions can lead to new ways of viewing the wild world. Recent experiments such as the Wild Law Judgement Project have highlighted the cultural construction of who and what is accorded ‘rights’ in contemporary law and policy; through a playful subversion of legal decisions, scholars have rewritten legal decisions to present alternative visions of ‘wilderness’ and nature, showing how redefinition can create new visions around shared values of the wild place (Rogers 2017). However, the call for rights to nature is not without critique, as conferring rights is essentially an act of interpretation, an

44  Vanessa Bible and Tanya Howard exercise in subjectivity that is embedded in the powerful norms of individual nations and cultures. For example, environmental law experts in Australia have called for an attachment of the rights of a ‘legal person’ to ‘natural places or objects’ (APEEL 2017) in a similar fashion as corporations. This approach has potential, but unpacking exactly what these rights might be, and the limitations and potentialities that are embedded in this use of a legal remedy for broad, interrelated issues where economy, society, politics and power all interact, is questionable. For some activists and scholars, these calls raise a painful awareness of the limitations of the law as a tool for social change. As a result, it is useful to examine the legal context of environmental campaigns which allow us to investigate how ideas of ‘wilderness’ are defined by the wider social and economic conditions of the specific time and place. Disputes over natural resource use or conservation values can reveal both philosophical and pragmatic dimensions of an issue; the extent to which economic, emotional, scientific or other motivations dominate; and the prevailing power dynamics that find expression through the tussle. Whether the environmental issue is forest logging or gas extraction, or threats to clean air, land and water, each conflict or campaign will inevitably become engaged in a contest between legal rules and values. The illusion of law as a rational, objective and therefore neutral arena for arbitration or regulation is repeatedly challenged, as decisions fail to satisfy the growing concerns of communities who heed the science that is now providing evidence underpinning what is commonly regarded as the Age of Extinction.

Conclusion As we progress deeper into the Anthropocene and stare into the existential chasm of the Age of Extinction, the debate about rights for human and more­-​ ­than­-​­human species becomes ever more intertwined. The wild place of the future is now a landscape of potentially apocalyptic unknowns. In this context, we suggest that the imaginative power of wilderness can once again become an animating force for environmental activists who recognise the threat posed by the Age of Extinction, inspiring a civic response based on the human drive to survive, but to also think in more biocentric terms as well. The Red Rebel brigades of Extinction Rebellion for example, embody compassion for all species. At the same time, dramatic civil disobedience, mass arrest strategies, cyber­-​­organising and mobilising are now at the frontline of responses to the Anthropocene. The experience of successful actions such as those experienced in north­-​­eastern NSW gives hope that a global response to the threat of climate change is possible. This chapter considered a history of environmental campaigns for wilderness areas in north­-eastern ​­ NSW which created a culture of community activism that has since been extended to encompass protection of subterranean systems, in the context of coal seam gas development in the region. Recent efforts to regulate and restrict natural resource extraction in

Evolving values of wilderness  45 the coal seams of Australia have seen the emergence of new environmental values, both in north­ -​­ eastern NSW and beyond, as the wild and uncontaminated sources of artesian water are threatened by this resource development. Water contamination and exploitation have raised environmental awareness in farmers whose agricultural values are now at risk and this has seen a rise in farmers engaging in direct action tactics, previously the realm of environmentalists alone. A rural newspaper reports: [w]hen conservative rural people take law­-​­breaking lessons from seasoned environmental activists, some ancient order of things has been overturned … Non­-​­violent direct action isn’t new, Mr Phillips observed, pointing to the examples of Jesus and Gandhi. But it’s a concept that’s very fresh to Australian farming communities. (Cawood 2013) Despite a long­ -​­ held assumption in Australia that environmentalists are in opposition to farmers, loggers and others whose livelihoods are tied to the land, it is critically important to acknowledge that expressions of belonging and place attachment can vary widely, and often, those perceived to be at odds with environmental concerns are not necessarily the ‘enemy’. As wilderness is reshaped and redefined, calls to protect agricultural landscapes and groundwater resources may reflect the same desire to reconnect with natural systems that animated Thoreau. The environment movement in Australia has become inclusive of a much broader social base than in the past; today it is not uncommon to see dreadlocks next to Akubras (the iconic Australian hat of choice for the country farmer) and the Aboriginal flag at environmental protests. This reinforces our central point, that understanding how environmental activism creates community is an essential ingredient in understanding the value of wilderness in the Age of Extinction. The evolving nature of wilderness values demonstrates the differing perspectives and inherent contradictions within the concept. At the same time, cultivating environmentally­-​­minded communities has not necessarily been an anthropocentric pursuit, and perhaps wilderness was never necessarily intended to be a place separate from humanity. Aldo Leopold (1966 [1949], xviii–xix) wrote in his Sand County Almanac: We abuse land because we see it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect. Community need not be an anthropocentric concept, encompassing people only. To confront the Age of Extinction we must acknowledge that the community of humans is wholly dependent on wider biotic and abiotic communities of plants, animals, water and soil. There is no such thing as a community of people distinct and separate from the biosphere, and this has

46  Vanessa Bible and Tanya Howard always been known, on some level, to those campaigning for ‘wilderness’. In the Age of Extinction, wilderness retains all of its imaginative and animating force as a concept for environmental protection and community formation. Our challenge, as scholars and activists, is to harness this creative potential even as we face the possibility of our own extinction.

Notes 1 Terra nullius is defined as ‘land belonging to no one’, a justification which formed the basis of British settlement of Australia. This doctrine was overturned by the High Court in 1992 in Mabo v Queensland (No 2) (1992) 175 CLR. 2 During the writing of this chapter, the activist movement ‘Extinction Rebellion’ grew in profile and began staging international protests calling on governments to act on the ‘climate and ecological emergency’. In 2018, the Secretary­-​­General of the United Nations declared that humanity ‘face[s] a direct existential threat’, warning of increasing extinction rates. In 2019, this was confirmed by the IPBES. 3 There can be no doubt that problems of sexism, racism and other forms of exclusion have plagued the environment movement from the start, but this is beyond the scope of the chapter. Most recently, these issues of exclusion have been highlighted by activist movements The Leap Manifesto and Extinction Rebellion as crucial roadblocks to achieving a truly global climate action movement. 4 In 2003, Pugh and Corkill deservedly received Order of Australia Medals for their services to the Australian environment. The NEFA women involved, however, went largely unrecognised. 5 It must be acknowledged that ecologically­-​­minded subcultures need to be more conscious of cultural appropriation, as mohawks and dreadlocks have cultural significance. The playing of the yidaki (didgeridoo) is a similar issue. 6 Campaigns such as ‘Lock the Gate’ in Australia have seen unlikely alliances develop between environmental activists, traditional owners and farmers in response to threats to land and water security by unconventional gas development. ‘Lock the Gate’ has been successful in stopping developments in north­-​­eastern NSW.

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Evolving values of wilderness  47 Bible, Vanessa. 2016. ‘On Common Ground. Cultivating Environmental Peace: A History of the Rainbow Region’. PhD diss., University of New England, Australia. Bible, Vanessa. 2018. Terania Creek and the Forging of Modern Environmental Activism. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan. Bonyhady, Tim. 2000. The Colonial Earth. Carlton: Miegunyah Press. Branagan, Marty. 2013. Global Warming, Militarism and Nonviolence: The Art of Active Resistance. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Campbell, W. S. 1922. ‘Discovery of, and Later Developments in, the North­-​­Eastern Portion of New South Wales’. Royal Australian Historical Society Journals and Proceedings 8 (6): 311–312. Cawood, Matthew. 2013. ‘Rural Activism Rising’. The Land, 7 September. www. theland.com.au/news/agriculture/general/news/rural­-​­activism­-​­r ising/2670203. aspx. Chick, Bruce. 1976. ‘Campaign after Campaign’. Habitat 4 (3): 15–16. Christoff, Peter. 2016. ‘Renegotiating Mature in the Anthropocene: Australia’s Environment Movement in a Time of Crisis’. Environmental Politics 25 (6): 1034–1057. Colong Committee, The. 1983. How the Rainforest was Saved: The Inside Story of the 10 Year Battle. Sydney: The Colong Committee. Dasmann, Raymond. 1975. The Conservation Alternative. New York: Wiley. Everts, Jonathon. 2015. ‘Invasive Life, Communities of Practice, and Communities of Fate’. Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography 97 (2): 195–208. Gammage, Bill. 2012. The Biggest Estate on Earth. Sydney: Allen & Unwin. Hall, Colin Michael. 1992. From Wasteland to World Heritage: Preserving Australia’s Wilderness. Carlton: Melbourne University Press. Haynes, Roslynn. 2003. ‘From Habitat to Wilderness: Tasmania’s Role in the Politicizing of Place’. In Disputed Territories: Land, Culture and Identity in Settler Societies, edited by David Trigger and Gareth Griffiths, 81–108. Aberdeen: Hong Kong University Press. Helman, P. M., A. D. Jones, J. J. Pigram and J. M. B. Smith. 1976. Wilderness in Australia: Eastern New South Wales and South Eastern Queensland. Armidale: University of New England, Department of Geography. Henderson, David. n.d. ‘American Wilderness Philosophy’. Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (peer­-​­reviewed). www.iep.utm.edu/am­-​­wild/. Hodinott, Ted. 2014. Interview by Vanessa Bible, digital recording, Bentley, 19 April, in author’s possession. Hoff, Jennifer. 2006. Bundjalung Jugun: Bundjalung Country. Lismore: Richmond River Historical Society. Hopkins, M. S., J. Kikkawa, A. W. Graham, J. G. Tracey, and L. Webb. 1976. ‘An Ecological Basis for the Management of Rain Forest’. In The Border Ranges: A Land Use Conflict in Regional Perspective, edited by Ronald Monroe and N. C. Stephens, 57–66. St Lucia: Royal Society of Queensland. Intergovernmental Science­-​­Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). 2019. Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. www. ipbes.net/global­-​­assessment­-​­report­-​­biodiversity­-​­ecosystem­-​­services. Iorns Magallanes, J. Catherine. 2015. ‘Maori Cultural Rights in Aotearoa New Zealand: Protecting the Cosmology That Protects the Environment’. Widener Law Review 21 (2): 327. Jeffery, Eve. 2015. ‘CSG Fighters Celebrate – Metgasgone?’ Northern Rivers Echo, 3 November. www.echo.net.au/2015/11/csg­-​­fighters­-​­celebrate­-​­metgasgone/.

48  Vanessa Bible and Tanya Howard Kelly, Russell. 2003. ‘The Mediated Forest: Who Speaks For The Trees?’ In Belonging in the Rainbow Region: Cultural Perspectives on the NSW North Coast, edited by Helen Wilson, 101–120. Lismore: Southern Cross University Press. Kendell, Jenny and Eddie Buivids. 1987. Earth First. Sydney: ABC Enterprises. Kijas, Johanna. 2003. ‘From Obscurity into the Fierce Light of Amazing Popularity’. In Belonging in the Rainbow Region: Cultural Perspectives on the NSW North Coast, edited by Helen Wilson, 21–40. Lismore: Southern Cross University Press. Leopold, Aldo. 1966 [1949]. A Sand County Almanac. New York: Ballantine Books. Martin, Stephen. 1993. A New Land: Perceptions of Australia, 1788–1850. St Leonards: Allen & Unwin. Mathieson, Louise. 2008. Interview by Vanessa Bible, digital recording, Toonumbar, 21 December, in author’s possession. Merchant, Carolyn. 1996. ‘Reinventing Eden: Western Culture as a Recovery Narrative’. In Uncommon Ground: Rethinking the Human Place in Nature, edited by William Cronon, 132–159. New York: Norton. Meredith, Peter. 1999. Myles and Milo. St Leonards: Allen & Unwin. Monroe, Ronald. 1976. ‘The Border Ranges – A Land Use Conflict’. In The Border Ranges: A Land Use Conflict in Regional Perspective, edited by Ronald Monroe and N. C. Stephens, 79–81. St Lucia: Royal Society of Queensland. Murphy, B. and J. McGee. 2018. ‘Lawfare, Standing and Environmental Discourse: A Phronetic Analysis’. The University of Tasmania Law Review 37 (2): 131–168. Nash, Roderick. 1976. ‘The Value of Wilderness’. Environmental Review 1 (3): 12–25. Nielsen, Meg. 2014. Interview by Vanessa Bible, digital recording, Bentley, 18 April, in author’s possession. NSW NPWS. 1997. Big Scrub Nature Reserves: Plan of Management. Lismore: National Parks and Wildlife Service. NSW NPWS 2019. ‘National parks’. URL: www.nationalparks.nsw.gov.au/conser vation­-​­and­-​­heritage/national­-​­parks. Oelschlaeger, Max. 1991. The Idea of Wilderness: From Prehistory to the Age of Ecology. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Parkes, T., M. Delaney, M. Dunphy, R. Woodford, H. Bower, S. Bower, D. Bailey, R. Joseph, J. Nagle, T. Roberts, S. Lymburner, and T. McDonald. 2012. ‘Big Scrub: A Cleared Landscape in Transition Back to Forest?’ Ecological Restoration & Management 13 (3): 212–223. Pascoe, Bruce. 2014. Dark Emu: Black Seeds: Agriculture or Accident? Broome: Magabala Books. Pugh, Dailan. 2012. Interview by Vanessa Bible, digital recording, Byron Bay, 10 May, in author’s possession. Read, Peter. 1996. Returning to Nothing: The Meaning of Lost Places. Melbourne: Cambridge University Press. Ricketts, Aidan. 2003. ‘Om Gaia Dudes: The North East Forest Alliance’s Old­-​ ­Growth Forest Campaigns’. In Belonging in the Rainbow Region, edited by Helen Wilson, 121–148. Lismore: Southern Cross University Press. Ricketts, Aidan. 2015. ‘Freedom from Political Communication: The Rhetoric behind Anti­-​­Protest Laws’. Alternative Law Journal 40 (4): 234–238. Rogers, Nicole. 2017. Performance and pedagogy in the wild law judgment project. Legal Education Review 27 (1): 1–19. Rosenhek, Ruth. 2014. ‘Go Forth Gently (Reflections on the Aftermath of Bentley)’. Ruth Rosenhek Counselling (blog), 19 May 2014. http://freefall23.wordpress.com/​2014/​ 05/19/go­-​­forth­-​­gently­-​­the­-​­aftermath­-​­of­-​­bentley/.

Evolving values of wilderness  49 Saarinen, Jarkko. 2019. ‘What Are Wilderness Areas For? Tourism and Political Ecologies of Wilderness Uses and Management in the Anthropocene’. Journal of Sustainable Tourism 27 (4): 472–487. Stone, Christopher. 1996. Should Trees Have Standing? And Other Essays on Law, Morals, and the Environment. Dobbs Ferry: Oceana Publications. Strider. 1984. ‘Kakadu in context’. In Fighting for Wilderness: Papers from The Australian Conservation Foundation’s Third National Wilderness Conference, 1983, edited by J. G. Mosley and J. Messer, 96–106. Melbourne: Fontana. The Echo. ‘ “Doug Digs his Rainforest Trees” ’. The Echo, 17 February 2016, www. echo.net.au/2016/02/doug­-​­digs­-​­his­-​­rainforest­-​­trees/. Thoreau, Henry David. 1862. Walking. Reproduced online. www.gutenberg.org/ ebooks/1022. Tomlinson, Moya and A. J. Boulton. 2010. ‘Ecology and Management of Subsurface Groundwater Dependent Ecosystems in Australia – A Review’. Marine and Freshwater Research 61: 936–949. Tourism Research Australia. 2011. The Economic Importance of Tourism in Australia’s Regions. Canberra: Tourism Research Australia. Turnbull, Samantha. 2016. ‘A 20­-​­year Labour of Love Transforms Weed­-​­infested Farm Back to Native Rainforest in Northern NSW’. ABC North Coast NSW, 15 January. www.abc.net.au/news/2016­-​­01­-​­13/rainforest­-​­regeneration/7085690. Valcuende del Río, J. M. and E. Ruiz­ -​­ Ballesteros. 2019. ‘Trapped in Nature: Discourses on Humanity in Processes of Environmental Naturalization’. Journal of Political Ecology 26 (1): 184–201. Webb, Len. 1987. ‘Foreword’. In Earth First: The Struggle to Save Australia’s Rainforest, edited by Jeni Kendell and Eddie Buivids, 9–14. Sydney: ABC Enterprises. White, Lynn, Jr 1967. ‘The Historical Roots of Our Ecological Crisis’. Science, 10 March: 1203–1207. Worster, Donald. 1993. The Wealth of Nature: Environmental History and the Ecological Imagination. New York: Oxford University Press. Ziegler, Susy Svatek. 2019. ‘The Anthropocene in Geography’. Geographical Review 109 (2): 271–280.

3 Collaborative wilderness preservation and the Franklin River campaign Environmentalists, Aboriginal people and the creative arts Marty Branagan Introduction An important aspect of the study of wilderness is how to preserve its values, particularly against inappropriate development and destructive human impact. This chapter tells a story about the Franklin River campaign, a highly­-​­relevant case study in wilderness preservation due to its size, international nature, ramifications, its success despite massive institutional opposition, and the radical nature of its blockade. It was led by the Tasmanian Wilderness Society (TWS), formed in 1976 to oppose the Gordon­-​­below­-​­Franklin hydroelectric scheme and its plan to inundate one of the world’s few remaining temperate wilderness areas (Kendell and Buivids 1987, 79). The campaign involved nonviolent action and civil disobedience on a scale never previously experienced in Australia, being the ‘first organised mass blockade in Australia’ (Starbridge 2013, 43), and one of the world’s largest, most successful nonviolent actions until then (Summy 1993, 119), preserving almost 800,000 hectares of ‘wilderness’ in the south­-​­west of the island state of Tasmania. The campaign was remarkable for its participatory­-​ ­democratic nature and the significant involvement of women in leadership roles (Branagan forthcoming, 16–17). It involved a record­ -​­ breaking informal vote in a referendum, while a Hobart rally on 4 February 1983 was ‘one of largest per capita rallies ever held in Australia’ (Buckman 2008, 56). Politically, the campaign aided the election to the federal parliament of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) (Summy 1997, 31), where it remained for 13 years (unprecedented before or since for the ALP), after decades of mainly conservative governments. The ALP government stopped the dam and successfully defeated a High Court challenge by Tasmania, resulting in major legal ramifications (Coper 1988). The decision generated a more centralised Australian federation, and reinterpreted the conventional demarcation of responsibility for environmental matters under the Constitution, allowing the federal government to preserve wilderness areas of international significance,

Collaborative wilderness preservation  51 and leading to a national system of reserves under Commonwealth control, with additional international support through World Heritage agreements: From being dirty words, environment and conservation became part of the mainstream. The federal government had a new department of Environment, with a senior minister. … Threatened areas and species were registered. It also legitimised nonviolent direct action. (Alice Hungerford cited in Starbridge 2013, 45) State ALP governments, such as Bob Carr’s in New South Wales (NSW), rode this wave of government environmental action, enacted wilderness legislation and declared numerous wilderness areas (Lines 2006, 246–247, 335). It was a ‘landmark in the evolution of Australian wilderness preservation’ (Hall 1992, 154) and a ‘seminal political event in late twentieth century Tasmanian, indeed Australian, history … [with] some nominating Tasmania as the birthplace of a modern global green political movement’ (Terry 2013, 48). Although there are still divisions in Tasmania over the issue, ‘[t]ens of thousands of tourists now flock to Tasmania’s wild rivers areas each year, providing investment, jobs and pride of place for the locals’, with one US magazine declaring the Franklin to be the world’s best white­-water ​­ rafting destination (Brown 2012/13, 22). The Franklin campaign made seminal contributions to present activism and eco­-​­arts, and its story continues to inspire environmental activists globally. It is important, therefore, to understand the dynamics of the campaign, in order to replicate and, where necessary, improve them. Those dynamics included early collaboration between Aboriginal people and environmentalists, and artistic activism, involving sophisticated media campaigning using creative, highly­ -​ ­professional visual and performance arts, while ubiquitous music helped convert opponents, bond, inspire and fortify the activists, and minimise violence. This chapter focuses on these dynamics, and the impacts of the campaign on later activism. The chapter adds to the small body of histories about the Franklin River campaign – unusual themselves in primarily being subaltern or history­-​ ­from­-​­below. It utilises an emic research methodology of literature review of the participants’ analyses, along with this author’s participant­-​­observation insights, situated within a framework of peace studies theory, relying primarily on nonviolence theory. The Franklin campaign has particular relevance for nonviolence praxis because of its effectiveness, and because it is rare among blockades in that virtually all of the 3,000­-plus ​­ participants had comprehensive nonviolence training. Additionally, the campaign utilised all three main categories of nonviolent tactics: protest and persuasion; noncooperation; and nonviolent intervention – such as blockades (Merriman 2009, 24–25). The chapter begins with a background to the campaign, and some elucidatory peace and nonviolence theory, and then focuses on the blockade of the dam construction, examining: 1

issues relating to Aboriginal people, land rights and cultural heritage; 2 the role of the arts in the campaign;

52  Marty Branagan 3 the personal and activist impacts of engagement in the campaign; and 4 the relevance of the Franklin campaign for contemporary and future wilderness preservation.

Background The proposed dam was the main plank in a $1.3 billion scheme to encourage more heavy industry to Tasmania (Thornton et al. 1997, 81); it would supposedly also help reduce the highest unemployment rate in the country. TWS’s extensive research queried the economic argument, claiming that this vast sum would create a mere 32 long­-​­term jobs (Beatty, Perinotto and Tarlo 1982, 1), while campaign leader Dr Bob Brown considers that ‘the debt burden would have crippled Tasmania’ (in Milsom 2000, 35). TWS argued that Tasmania already had sufficient hydroelectricity to supply needs for the next two decades (TWS 1982 1; Geoff Lambert, quoted in Green 1984, 206), and in 1987 the Hydro­-​­Electric Commission (HEC) itself admitted that the dam had been unnecessary (Law 2008, 278). The TWS argument was not just a ‘preservationist’1 one, as Hall (1992, 146) puts it: that they purely wanted to protect a wild river, regardless of the cost to the community. Taking a global conservation approach, TWS argued that many of the products of Tasmanian heavy industry – such as the disposable cans2 produced by Comalco – were luxury items rather than necessities, and they demonstrated that this industry was contributing little to the state’s revenue and causing Tasmania to have the world’s second highest per capita consumption of electricity (Skinner 1981, 253). It was considered that it was time to draw the line on rampant consumerism, especially if its cost was decimating the last wild places, and that a relatively rich country like Australia should set a good example (Fight for the Franklin 2001). Another reason for opposition to the dam was that an important cave system – Kutikina – would be flooded by it. Kutikina has great spiritual and cultural significance for Tasmanian Aboriginal people (McQueen 1983, 41–43). Its ancient paintings are of global archaeological importance (Terry 2013, 59), equal to the more famous paintings in south­ -​­ west France and Spain, and proving that 30,000 years ago Aboriginal people (Palawa or Pakana) were the world’s southernmost people. When Bass Strait formed after the last Ice Age, they also became the most isolated people on Earth, spending 500 generations without encountering another human group (Green 1984, 219–227). The 1979 HEC report on the proposed dam gave only 16 lines to Aboriginal people and their history (Green 1984, 222). Positive peace and revolutionary nonviolence Peace Studies pioneer Johan Galtung (1969) has identified various, inter­ -​ ­related types of violence. Structural violence, such as oppressive political­-​ ­economic systems, can create poverty and injustice, which in turn can lead to

Collaborative wilderness preservation  53 direct violence such as riots, or ecological violence, such as razing a forest for firewood. Ecological violence, in turn, may exacerbate poverty through reducing water quality, biodiversity and rainfall. Galtung identified long­-​­term peacebuilding as aiming for ‘positive peace’ (1969, 2), where these factors underlying direct violence are minimised or eliminated. This requires holistic analyses and solutions, such as environmentalists supporting social justice struggles and using gender­-​­inclusive language. It is something which revolutionary, deep­-​­seated – as opposed to merely reformist – nonviolence aims for, as advocated by Robert Burrowes (1996), one of the Franklin campaign’s main nonviolence trainers.

Discussion Aboriginal activism Where the blockade was not holistic there were obvious problems. For example, although there was some evidence of support for Aboriginal issues, there was little consultation by TWS with Tasmanian Aboriginal people, who had their own campaign, and a small but charismatic presence. They felt that ‘the broader Green movement still did not understand, and that they were pinning us on to them … but … we didn’t like to be trivialised’ (Jim Everett in Hungerford 2013, 21). Michael Mansell (who, along with Ros Langford, was arrested during the campaign) complains that no Aboriginal sovereignty was acknowledged nor approval sought for the Franklin campaign, and that TWS’s 1984 submission for a National Park mentioned Aboriginal people only with a tokenistic plan for managing sites – regarded in the past tense as having archaeological significance but no present­-​­day spiritual importance for living Tasmanian Aboriginal people (1990, 103–104). Some resented what they regarded as the appropriation of Aboriginal culture and sites by archaeologists to advance their own careers (Terry 2013, 60). In this chapter I use the TWS definition of wilderness as a ‘tract of land substantially unmodified by modern technological society or capable of being restored to that state, and of sufficient size and remoteness to make practical the long­-​­term protection of its natural ecosystems’ (cited in Hall 1992, 4), while also noting the observations in Bartel and Branagan, this volume, that pre­-​­colonisation Aboriginal people were both modern and technological, and that they modified and maintained ‘natural’ ecosystems. Many Aboriginal people found – and continue to find – the term ‘wilderness’ offensive (see Langton 1998; Grossman 2003, 13), because its implications of terra nullius (the idea underlying the British occupation, that Australia was unoccupied in 1788), ignored the long­ -​­ term Aboriginal occupation of the Franklin area. Mansell felt that TWS’s then categorisation of wilderness as ‘primitive country remote from the ambit of civilisation’ denigrated that Aboriginal occupation, situating Aboriginal people as primitive and

54  Marty Branagan white people as civilised (1990, 103–104). This seemed clear evidence of TWS perpetuating neo­-​­colonialist attitudes and prioritising the environment ahead of social justice issues. As a result of these criticisms, TWS would later modify this definition and accord greater recognition to Indigenous peoples (see also Bartel and Branagan, this volume). At the time, there was also cooperation which had positive aspects, advancing both environmentalist and Aboriginal causes: There was a divide there [as well as] a lot of mutual understanding of what we were fighting for. (Wren Fraser in Hungerford 2013, 22) From being ignored and demonised on the fringes of society, support from the green movement and others broke the ice … put us right under the noses of white Tasmania, and they just weren’t able to argue out of that one. (Everett in Hungerford 2013, 23) The global significance of Kutikina Cave aided the campaign’s internationalisation and the Franklin’s listing as World Heritage (ICOMOS 1982). The nomination and subsequent listing recognised the area’s natural and cultural values, although the advice provided at the time by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature was also offensive: ‘the Tasmanians are now an extinct race of humans’ (IUCN 1982, 1). Australia was (and remains) a party to the International Convention for the Protection of World Cultural and Natural Heritage. Under the Convention, each signatory is encouraged to ensure the protection of World Heritage listings. To implement the treaty, the Commonwealth Parliament passed the World Heritage Properties Conservation Act 1983 (Cth). The Commonwealth also passed Regulations under another Act, the National Parks and Wildlife Conservation Act 1975 (Cth). These laws provided that it was unlawful to carry out specified activities without the Federal Minister’s consent. The ultimate success of the campaign relied on the High Court decision in the Tasmanian Dam Case, which itself rested not only on a literal interpretation of the Constitution, but also on the fact that the Commonwealth was a party to a treaty which recognised and preserved, inter alia, Aboriginal cultural heritage (Commonwealth v Tasmania [1983] HCA 21). Thus, the Franklin wilderness was simultaneously and paradoxically considered both untainted by humans and containing globally­ -​ ­significant human artefacts created by a people erroneously thought to be extinct. Hungerford believes that Kutikina was ‘perhaps the major factor, in the saving of the River’ (2013, 277). A 2016 exhibition at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery similarly argued that: The Franklin protests succeeded for two reasons: the discovery of evidence of 20,000 years of Aboriginal occupation and the overwhelming

Collaborative wilderness preservation  55 public response to Peter Dombrovskis’ photograph Rock Island Bend, which influenced the outcome of the 1983 federal elections … (TMAG 2016) While this oversimplifies a campaign which was complex, many­-​­faceted, strategic, comprehensive, wide­ -​­ ranging and popular, it does raise another important issue – the important role of the arts – both ancient Aboriginal and contemporary – in the campaign. As Sorenson and Vinthagen (2012, 463) argue, ‘For nonviolent movements working for social change, there is no possibility of ignoring culture.’ Artistic activism How we tell stories is important. Returning to Galtung (1990), another key type of violence is cultural violence, which can support structural, direct and ecological violence, such as racist songs which demonise some ethnicities and lead to violent confrontations. Conversely, aspects of cultures can support nonviolent actions aiming to reduce ecological violence, such as the Franklin campaign. Nonviolent action generally succeeds through one of four mechanisms: conversion of opponents to the movement’s paradigms; accommodation, where opponents voluntarily accede to the movement’s demands; coercion, where opponents are forced into accepting the movement’s demands; and disintegration, where an opponent (such as a regime) falls apart as a result of the movement (Merriman 2009, 22–23). Advocates of revolutionary nonviolence, such as Gandhi and Burrowes, emphasise the primacy of conversion (Burrowes 1996, 119–122), and artistic activism and story­ -based ​­ strategies for campaigning (Reinsborough and Canning 2010) can be important elements of conversion. This section examines the use of the arts by Franklin blockaders to tell stories about the river to wide audiences with the aim of converting them; to bolster their activism; and to minimise violence and maintain nonviolent discipline. Artists were integral to the campaign from its beginning, involving deliberate, purposive engagement in the issue: Concerned artists came to Tasmania and with local artists contributed to a period of rigorous debate and cultural activity, responding to the fraught politics and history of the colonised landscape. (TMAG 2016) The artistic media used included photography, banners, street­ -​­ theatre and music – much of it inspired by the wilderness the activists sought to protect – in a living, dynamic and creative symbiotic relationship. Photographs and video footage taken by the activists were used to great advantage in showing the unique beauty of the river to national audiences. High­-​­quality photographic publications, documentaries and slideshows with inspirational speakers, such as

56  Marty Branagan Bob Brown, drew in adherents early (Thompson 1984, 105; Terry 2013, 51–52). Peter Dombrovskis’s unforgettable photograph of Rock Island Bend on the lower Franklin was reproduced more than a million times (Lines 2006, 216). It was used by TWS in ‘the first­-ever ​­ full­-​­colour advertisements in the Age and Sydney Morning Herald’ (Buckman 2008, 56) to urge people not to vote for a party that would allow it to be destroyed (i.e., the Liberal Party); it may have been worth thousands of votes. Its success lay in ‘the hope it engendered [and] its spiritual power to heal alienated urban populations by recalling, in its wilderness imagery, the universal sublime space of creation’ (McLean 2002, 5). Direct action as theatre Direct action as theatre – and vice­-​­versa – informed TWS media­-​­framing strategies. Theatre is not just a technique of protest but is almost inseparable from it, and theatrical devices combined with bold physical acts of disobedience produce a powerful paradigmatic medium for asserting dissent with ‘the capacity not only to magnify the political message, but also to empower protestors and more subtly to decentre “protestees” ’ (Ricketts 2006, 77). Media was ferried to civil disobedience upriver, because it was an effective publicity tool, more sincere and cheaper than advertising: ‘while you can get hundreds of people to an area if you’ve got time in a campaign, you can get that same area to millions of people through film’ (Brown cited in Thompson 1984, 60). Using the bond that many people have with nature, ‘[f]ilm of beautiful places allows those places to speak for themselves – and it is a speech which the exploiters cannot match’ (60). The direct actions’ theatricality attracted media attention and utilised the outstanding natural beauty: With the backdrop of river and ocean, police blue and forest green, gaudy boat and technicolour bulldozer, one has an exceptional setting for theatre. Theatre of the environment uses the vulture of the media (usually a tool of the establishment) to present the story; we dangle and perform, often in precarious circumstances, making ourselves and our act irresistible to the press. It is a play, an irreverent game, yet at the same time it provides a vital conduit for messages otherwise unable to be transmitted into a monopolistic realm. Lacking financial resources, we penetrate this powerful field as if by magic and in doing so create an alchemy for change. (Cohen 1997, 29) Banners, symbols and cartoons Banners displaying a wide variety of messages such as ‘Think Globally, Act Locally’ were prominent in the media images of the campaign. These were often poetic and professionally executed, bringing a ‘high art’ quality and association to the campaign, such as ‘Arts support World Heritage’ and one in

Collaborative wilderness preservation  57 the shape of a paintbrush reading ‘Artists Love Wilderness’. No chance to espouse an environmental message was missed, with some blockaders erecting sails on their boats, festooned with slogans such as ‘Earth First!’ and ‘No Dams’. The most prolific banner­ -​­ maker was Benny ‘Bubbles’ Zable, who had abandoned a promising career in commercial and fine arts to play a large role in the movement of ‘new settlers’ to Nimbin, NSW, initiating visionary murals above shops in the then dying town, and helping to establish the region as ‘the largest concentration of countercultural communities in the Southern hemisphere at the time’ (Bible 2018, 9). These murals feature in many photographic and video images of the town, and have contributed to the mystique of the ‘Rainbow Region’, now a successful ‘alternative’ and tourist centre. Benny travelled with the Nightcap Action Group (NAG) who had initiated in 1979 perhaps the world’s first direct action in defence of rainforests (Bible 2018, 4). This had inspired TWS to plan their blockade and enlist NAG help, although tensions emerged between NAG’s counterculture and TWS’ more conservative values (Runciman et al. 1986, 7). Zable lived at the Franklin River camp with no income and, rarely eating, produced a stream of thought­-​­provoking banners over more than two months, sharing his expertise, paints, materials, make­ -up, ​­ and sewing machines. He often worked until so exhausted he could not even crawl into his sleeping bag. One morning he was found wrapped in the unpainted section of a banner which quoted Thoreau: ‘IN WILDERNESS IS THE PRESERVATION OF THE WORLD’ (Cohen 1997, 68). This dedicated banner production was a new element of nonviolent action: Benny really introduced banners to say what you want on sites, and at direct actions. It had not really been in our action culture until those images of the crowds with banners around the communication barge, and decorating the sides of the River, and all the flags on Butler Island. (Yeates in Hungerford 2013, 57) This artistic communication created a climate of art­ -​­ fuelled defiance and influenced those who saw the banners and performances, including through the media attracted by the spectacle: ‘the visuals … are the things that people remember! It’s what got it on the television’ (Laurie Fraser, cited in Hungerford 2013, 59). It was also positive messaging to contrast the destruction: When the first dozer arrived by barge it broke a line of yellow [rafts] and passed by a riot of colour which proclaimed life in the face of advancing destruction. (Cohen 1997, 67) A wide variety of visual symbols maintained media interest as well as aiding movement growth. These included Land Rights flags, further indication of nascent support for Aboriginal issues. More common was the ubiquitous

58  Marty Branagan ‘No Dams’ logo on a green triangle, reproduced on banners and sails. When made into badges and car stickers it allowed people to express their support nationally. This deceptively simple but unifying symbol, designed by rarely­-​ acknowledged graphic artist Gordon Harrison­ ­ -​­ Williams, would prove enduring, as later movements, such as ‘Lock the Gate’ and the Australian Greens, adapted it (Terry 2013, 59). It is one aspect of the ongoing story of the Franklin, whose success led later movements to adapt the logo for their own purposes. Meanwhile, mainland newspapers carried supportive cartoons by Ron Tandberg and Patrick Cook, inspired by the protests. The direct action had elevated the issue to newsworthy status, making it suitable for cartoonists to feature, which in turn publicised the campaign further. Dissent events Zable also gave uncomplicated but eerily fascinating performances, standing precariously in rafts, dressed in his now­-​­famous gas mask and black robes emblazoned with the sobering message: ‘CONSUME, BE SILENT, DIE. I RELY ON YOUR APATHY’. He comments that his environmental theatre helps ‘communicate our message visually in a strong and clear way’ (in Kendell and Buivids 1987, 115). An indication of his effectiveness is that virtually every book or documentary on the blockade features an image of him and his banners (see, Blockaders 1983; Cohen 1997; Fight for the Franklin 2001; Kendell and Buivids 1987). In addition to Zable’s performances, street­-theatre ​­ or ‘dissent events’ (see Scalmer 2002) were used widely. For example, in Hobart on ‘G­ -​­ Day’3 a doorless cage with three prisoners was deposited outside the HEC building to signify the 1100 protester already arrested. Elsewhere, people dressed as animals threatened by the dam, such as the platypus (Ornithorhynchus anatinus). The TWS koala would later become a widespread phenomenon used for fundraising and as a recognisable protest symbol. Street­-​­theatre during a royal visit to Launceston saw protestors dancing around the Tasmanian Premier, whom they chanced upon alone, then shaking the hand of Prince Charles and asking him to ‘Remember the wilderness’. They finally found themselves accidentally leading the royal motorcade in a: clapped out old four wheel drive … covered in ‘No Dam’ stickers’. … We had only met three people during our visit to the city – the Tasmanian Premier and the royal couple. (Gary Opit in Hungerford 2013, 53–54) Music Another unforgettable aspect of demonstrations in Strahan and upriver was ubiquitous singing, which elevated the mood from a protest (which this author had

Collaborative wilderness preservation  59 previously associated with angry chanting, having witnessed labour movement marches in Sydney) to extraordinary gatherings where inhibitions were cast aside and people bonded. The singing produced a memorable atmosphere and conveyed the impression of passionate but gentle people. Music assisted in ‘breaking the ice’ amongst protestors, and this process extended outwards to media, police and HEC workers, creating a liminal atmosphere conducive to conversion. Police danced, socialised and wept with blockaders, wore ‘No Dams’ stickers inside their hats, resisted orders, and one even broke down and confessed to deep alienation from his peers (Branagan 2008, 162–163; Cohen 1997, 73). Campaign songs featured in much of the media’s coverage (Fight for the Franklin 2001). Ian Paulin’s ‘The Face of Things to Come’ so affected James McQueen that he named his 1983 book about the blockade after a line in it. A benefit tour by the Australian folk group Redgum helped spread the message, as did airplay of ‘Let the Franklin Flow’ by Gordon Franklin and the Wilderness Ensemble (aka Goanna, an Australian rock group), which reached number four on Melbourne’s music charts, and 12 nationally (Hungerford 2012). So many songs were written in the campaign that two volumes of a Franklin songbook were produced, with the second alone (Bock et al. 1983) containing 104 original or adapted songs. Some were moving depictions of the river and people’s determination to save it, such as ‘The Mist on the River’. Others were defiant yet humorous, like ‘Lurk, Loiter, Hide and Secrete’. The music was not always environmental, with songs such as Judy Small’s ‘Festival of Light’ breaking down prejudices, and converting protestors towards revolutionary nonviolence principles, such as eschewing homophobia. Similarly, the singing when activists were in police custody holding camps, ‘paddy wagons’ and jail, fortified, lifted spirits, and, perhaps, inspired others to act: The music was incredibly important … making the message getting out variable and interesting. [It] had a whole spiritual, romantic aspect that was a crucial factor in generating good energy. (Laurie Goldsworthy in Hungerford 2013, 60) NAG’s Lisa Yeates had learnt at the Terania Creek protests (see Bible and Howard, this volume) the usefulness of song for holding groups together, harnessing the energy of the group, and lifting or changing moods, which others grew to appreciate: I loved the camaraderie of singing. … Down the long years when I’m in despair about the state of the world, I’ll sing one of those songs – ‘Helicopters on the River’, ‘For a Walk in the Forest’. We should never forget to sing. Song was a very important part of the action on the River – it was a powerful mood controller. (Wren Fraser in Hungerford 2013, 60)

60  Marty Branagan It empowered people. It gave us an extra bit of hope. (Phil Cushing in Hungerford 2013, 60) TWS media liaison Geoff Law similarly noted how musician Ian Paulin transformed a scene of pandemonium and fear on the Strahan dock into one imbued with a sense of heroism, of being on the verge of making history (Law 2008, 152–153). Music thus played vital roles in encouraging, fortifying and creating solidarity, and as a vehicle to express emotions in a deep, satisfying way. This reduced burnout, with Brown, Zable, Law, Waud and many others working seven­-​­day weeks from dawn until late at night (Thompson 1984, 104), sometimes not sleeping at all. Exhaustion and emotional distress tend to be poorly addressed in social movements (Barker, Martin and Zournazi 2008), so music and the arts generally could provide useful antidotes and preventive measures. Another role of music was in preventing tense situations from becoming violent, as when 40 protestors, confronted on ‘G­-​­Day’ by 200 aggressive rock­-​ ­throwing pro­-dammers ​­ in Strahan, spontaneously formed a choir and sang non­-​­threatening music, accompanied by a lone woman guitarist (Waud in Blockaders 1983, 104–110) We went through every song we knew until they calmed down. We just faced off this ready­-​­to­-​­riot angry mob, … held hands and sang. And they didn’t attack – it was like they couldn’t attack singing people. After a while they dissipated. (Jami Bladel in Hungerford 2013, 60)4 The importance of avoiding injury to people and preventing bad publicity four days before the federal election cannot be underestimated. Further benefits of the arts The arts also expanded the scope for protest, from mere chanting and waving placards to situations where people could engage in a range of meaningful practices. These included peaceful but challenging activities like banner­ -​ ­making, requiring thought, teamwork and skill. Many engaged in photography, which during tense actions or when ‘trespassing’, could be nerve­-​­wracking, particularly if film had to be smuggled past police. Music occurred both during demonstrations and around campfires, and anyone could join in. The arts therefore increased the inclusivity of the campaign, a key element of growing nonviolent campaigns. To summarise this section, the arts helped attract and maintain media attention, and impart the blockaders’ messages in a multi­-​­media way, acting on many levels – aural, visual, emotional, intellectual – adding further texture to a diverse campaign. They were vital in achieving TWS’ stated aims of generating public awareness and support (TWS 1982, 3).

Collaborative wilderness preservation  61 Music in particular helped convert police and media audiences, and prevent violence; within the movement, it aided nonviolent action by bonding, creating community cohesion, inspiring, empowering, and encouraging. Contemporaneous photographs clearly indicate the joyful nature of groups of blockaders, despite being under arrest. All of this helped the activists tell stories: directly to opponents, allies and onlookers, and indirectly to wide audiences through commercial and activist media. These stories spoke of the desire to preserve the river, and the need for solidarity, including between non­ -​­ Indigenous conservationists and Tasmanian Aboriginal people. Artistic activism played a significant role in the success of the campaign.

The personal and activist impacts of engagement in the campaign For many participants, including this author, the Franklin campaign was a profound and life­-​­changing experience, involving emancipatory learning in social and deep ecology, experiences of a sense of belonging and creativity rarely felt before, and the forging of deep connections with wilderness (Hungerford 2013). They also learnt skills that would prove useful in other campaigns, such as facilitating meetings, public speaking, movement organising, operating radios, repairing boats and operating them in fraught circumstances (Branagan and Boughton 2003). The success of the blockade convinced many of the blockaders of the efficacy of nonviolent direct action. The Franklin success empowered activists, gave them hope, and showed that their actions were worthwhile. This was an important lesson in an age where many felt deep despair about the environmental crisis, and paralysing fears that the mutually­ -​­ assured destruction (MAD) doctrine of the USA and the (then) USSR would lead to nuclear war. The campaign inspired further activism in Australia, with numerous participants, including Ian Cohen, Benny Zable, Lee Pregnell and this author, travelling to Roxby Downs (South Australia) anti­-​­uranium blockades in 1983 and 1984; protest leader Nadine Williams estimated that one­-​­quarter of the 1983 protest’s participants were Franklin veterans (Buckley 1983, 3). Some of these led a 1986 anti­-​­nuclear push­-​­bike ride from Adelaide to Alice Springs, helping build an Australian anti­-​­nuclear movement which in 1998 succeeded in stopping a uranium mine at Jabiluka in the Northern Territory. Franklin veterans such as Zable and this author attended the latter, which included a bike ride from Melbourne to Jabiluka. Franklin campaign leader Bob Brown was voted 1983 Australian of the Year and went from jail to state parliament, beginning almost three decades of political life in state and federal politics, leading and popularising a rising new party, the Australian Greens (Buckman 2008, 55). Ian Cohen became a NSW parliamentarian, participated in North East Forest Alliance (NEFA) blockades of old­-​­growth forest logging adjacent to declared Wilderness areas,

62  Marty Branagan and mentored those who would lead the successful 2014 Bentley campaign against unconventional gas extraction (see Bible and Howard, this volume).

The relevance of the Franklin campaign for contemporary and future wilderness preservation The Franklin’s success has led to it being constantly referenced as an inspiration, such as in Scott Ludlam’s stirring (2019) call­-to­ ​­ -action, ​­ or ‘Our Story’ on the TWS website, which claims that the Franklin ‘rocked the political orthodoxy and defined a generation’ (2020). Next generation activist Oliver Cassidy, whose late father Mike was a TWS convener and arrestee, is crowd­-​­funding a new documentary about the campaign, as it provides ‘a great case study’ for those waging contemporary environmental campaigns, such as against the Adani coal mine (Bennett 2020). Producer Chris Kamen, despite feeling ‘overwhelmed by climate change and the environmental crises we’re facing’, believes that ‘this is a story that gives us hope’ because it shows how, against the odds, nonviolent action can effectively catalyse change: The campaigners … took action even though they felt like they were probably going to lose and I find that incredibly powerful. (in Bennett 2020) In late 1983 TWS changed its name to The Wilderness Society as it expanded its focus from Tasmania and began to campaign on other issues in Australia and internationally (Hall 1992, 154). Accusations of racism continued to haunt TWS until it adopted, after considerable debate, land rights policies in the 1990s, established designated Aboriginal positions and engaged in fruitful collaborations in north Queensland (Kailis 1993). Elsewhere, the Roxby campaigns established closer, respectful relationships with the Kokatha Traditional Owners, while significant change occurred at Jabiluka where, despite some dissent, the Mirrar Traditional Owners were acknowledged by TWS and others as the leaders of this national campaign (Branagan 2014, 6). Nineteen­-​ nineties forest activism increasingly involved collaboration, such as in the ­ Bundjalung Alliance, which held a festival and assembled a tent embassy outside NSW Parliament House that succeeded in quashing a planned legislative package to weaken environmental protection in NSW (Ricketts 2003, 128–130). This collaboration was more visible than ever at the Bentley blockade. The continuity of artistic activism from the Franklin to Roxby Downs, the old­-​­growth forests, Jabiluka and the 2014 Leard Forest anti­-coal ​­ blockade can be seen through the banners, costumes and performances of Zable (some now part of the National Museum of Australia’s collections), and, to a lesser extent, the various art forms of this author, and no doubt others in different campaigns. Cultural tensions between the TWS ideal of looking conservative for the media and the NAG desire for freedom of expression were partly resolved in favour of the latter in the NEFA blockades, which spawned a symbiotic

Collaborative wilderness preservation  63 ‘feral’ sub­-​­culture – deeply influenced by elements of the forests it sought to preserve (Ricketts 2003, 141; see also Bible and Howard, this volume) – which ‘fed an entire regional movement of social and cultural renewal’ (Hawley 2003, 23). Building on the success stories and movement­ -​­ building of the Nightcap, Franklin and NEFA campaigns, the Bentley campaign also used Franklin­ -​­ style intentional targeting of the media with theatrical, colourful, musical actions and clever framing. New developments included the use of social media and online platforms such as YouTube, with videos challenging stereotypes by framing activists as ‘protectors’ rather than ‘protestors’. Rather than pleading for help or using guilt as a motivator, they asked ‘Will you be part of history?’ (CSG Free Northern Rivers 2014), thereby creating a positive mood of excitement and engagement rather than duty and trepidation. Protest cultures in Australia have continued to develop, with improvements in organisational dynamics (Kia and Ricketts 2018), consensus decision­-​­making, acceptance of Aboriginal leadership (Branagan 2014), corporate campaigning (Ricketts 2013), artistic activism, ‘active resistance’ techniques, and information and communication technologies (Branagan 2013). The widespread, diverse and effective resistance to gas extraction at James Price Point (Western Australia), Bentley, and elsewhere, indicates that nonviolent direct action remains a powerful force. The arts, both within activist movements and in wider society, have played a major role in this protest culture development, telling the story of the intrinsic value of wilderness, challenging anthropocentricity, racism, instrumentalism, consumerism and capitalism, and helping to build strong, resilient activist cultures. The stories told about the Franklin River campaign endure – that large areas of ecological importance, relatively untouched by industrialisation, are rare and under threat, requiring sacrifice and diverse nonviolent strategies and tactics, including radical, artistic, direct action. The elements of drama, music, colour, humour and play that the Franklin’s artistic activism popularised, moving protest from the activities of the committed few to mass civil disobedience, have since been a strong factor in the growth of other mass campaigns, such as the School Strikes for Climate, with their clever, humorous signs, and the Extinction Rebellion protests, with their dramatic ‘Red Rebels’ theatrical performances. This dynamic is aided by a growing body of research into ‘eco­-​­arts’ – art forms used in the service of environmentalism – revolving in Australia around Eco­ -Arts ​­ Australis’s conferences, projects and publications (such as Curtis 2017). Eco­-​­arts is a form of cultural peacebuilding, in which environmental movements – and individual artists and collectives who support the movements’ aims – use the arts not merely for aesthetic or commercial reasons, but to build positive peace through challenging ecological violence in an assertive but nonviolent manner.

Conclusion The Franklin campaign used nonviolent action based on the holistic ideals of revolutionary nonviolence and positive peace, which included early

64  Marty Branagan collaboration between Aboriginal people and TWS. Its artistic activism aided TWS’ media strategy, generated public awareness and support, prevented violence, and aided internal movement dynamics. The Franklin campaign preserved a river and its forests, maintaining biodiversity and an important carbon sink, encouraging its participants to continue activism, and informing later movements. However, increasing droughts, lightning and fires as a result of global warming mean that Tasmania’s wilderness is ‘now just a wind change away from eternity’ (Mathieson 2016). Caring in perpetuity for Tasmania’s – and the world’s – wilderness areas requires greater understanding of and support for Indigenous worldviews and practices, along the lines suggested by Mathews in this volume. It also requires strong, nonviolent, climate action, and the story of the Franklin campaign can provide inspiration for such action, as well as useful lessons on the value of purposive, diligent, artistic activism.

Notes 1 Hall argues that the HEC were ‘progressive’ or ‘wise use’ conservationists in their advocacy of hydroelectricity (1992, 146–147), a view echoed by some HEC workers, who believed that hydroelectricity was preferable to coal­-​­fired energy, supposedly being clean renewable energy (Terry 2013, 57). However, the rotting vegetation of drowned forests releases methane, a potent greenhouse gas (Weiser 2016). The workers were distressed to find under question their once­-​­lauded value systems of building a wealthy, modern Tasmania (Terry 2013, 58). 2 This was before the advent of widespread recycling. 3 Green Day – 1 March, 1983 – was a day of state­-​­wide action. 4 Afterwards some pro­-​­dammers returned and young women activists confronted them, speaking with them at length. It was a turning point for both groups, with one man giving his pro­-​­dam t­-​­shirt to a woman as a goodwill gesture.

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66  Marty Branagan Kendell, Jenny and Eddie Buivids. 1987. Earth First: The Struggle to Save Australia’s Rainforest. Sydney: ABC Enterprises. Kia, Annie and Aidan Ricketts. 2018. ‘Enabling Emergence: The Bentley Blockade and the Struggle for a Gasfield in the Northern Rivers’. Southern Cross University Law Review 19: 49–74. Langton, Marcia. 1998. Burning Questions: Emerging Environmental Issues for Indigenous Peoples in Northern Australia. Darwin: Northern Territory University. Law, Geoff. 2008. The River Runs Free. Camberwell: Penguin. Lines, William J. 2006. Patriots: Defending Australia’s natural heritage. Saint Lucia: University of Queensland Press. Ludlam, Scott. 2019. ‘The Extinction Rebels’. The Monthly July. www.themonthly. com.au/issue/2019/july/1561989600/scott­-​­ludlam/extinction­-​­rebels. McLean, Ian. 2002. ‘Sublime Futures: Eco­-​­Art and the Return of the Real in Peter Dombrovskis, John Wolseley and Andy Goldsworthy’. Transformations 5: 1–11. McQueen, James. 1983. The Franklin: Not Just A River. Ringwood: Penguin. Mansell, Michael. 1990. ‘Comrades or Trespassers on Aboriginal Land?’ In The Rest of the World is Watching, edited by Cassandra Pybus and Richard Flanagan, 101–106. Chippendale: Pan Macmillan. Mathieson, Karl. 2016. ‘World Heritage Forests Burn as Global Tragedy Unfolds in Tasmania’. Guardian 27 January. www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/ jan/27/world­-​­heritage­-​­forests­-​­burn­-​­as­-​­global­-​­tragedy­-​­unfolds­-​­in­-​­tasmania. Merriman, Hardy. 2009. ‘Theory and Dynamics of Nonviolent Action’. In Civilian Jihad: Nonviolent Struggle, Democratization, and Governance in the Middle East, edited by Maria J. Stephan, 25. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Milsom, Rosemarie. 2000. ‘I Was There’. Sunday Life, 16 July: 35. National Museum of Australia. und. The Benny Zable Collections. http:// collectionsearch.nma.gov.au/collections/Benny%20Zable. Reinsborough, Patrick and Doyle Canning. 2010. Re:Imagining Change: How To Use Story­ -​­ Based Strategy To Win Campaigns, Build Movements, and Change The World. Oakland, CA: PM Press. Ricketts, Aidan. 2003. ‘ “Om Gaia Dudes”: The North East Forest Alliance’s Old– Growth Forest Campaign’. In Belonging in the Rainbow Region: Cultural Perspectives on the NSW North Coast, edited by Helen Wilson, 121–148. Lismore: Southern Cross University Press. Ricketts, Aidan. 2006. ‘Theatre of Protest: The Magnifying Effects of Theatre in Direct Action’. Journal of Australian Studies 89: 77–79. Ricketts, Aidan. 2013. ‘Investment Risk: An Amplification Tool for Social Movement Campaigns Globally and Locally’. Journal of Economic and Social Policy 15 (3): Article 4. http://epubs.scu.edu.au/jesp/vol.15/iss3/4. Runciman, Claire, Harry Barber, Linda Parlane, Gill Shaw, and John Stone. 1986. Effective Action for Social Change: The Campaign to Save the Franklin River. Limited edition. Melbourne: [The authors]. Scalmer, Sean. 2002. Dissent Events: Protest, the Media and the Political Gimmick in Australia. Sydney: UNSW Press. Skinner, Ian. 1981. ‘South West Tasmania – The Dying Wilderness?’ Landscape Australia 3: 247–257. Sorenson, Majken and Stellan Vinthagen. 2012. ‘Nonviolent Resistance and Culture’. Peace and Change 37 (3): 444–470.

Collaborative wilderness preservation  67 Starbridge, S. 2013. ‘Campaigns of Consequence: Saving an Island, a Forest, a River’. Wildlife Australia 50 (3): 41–45. Summy, Ralph. 1993. ‘Nonviolent Action in Australia’. Unpublished paper, Department of Government, University of Queensland. Summy, Ralph. 1997. ‘Australia: A History of Nonviolent Action’. In Protest, Power and Change, edited by Roger Powers and William Vogele, 25–32. New York: Garland. Tasmanian Museum and Gallery. 2016. ‘The Power of Change’. Permanent exhibition. Hobart. Tasmanian Wilderness Society. 1982. Franklin River Wilderness: World Heritage Threatened. pamphlet. Hobart: TWS. The Wilderness Society. 2020. ‘Our Story’. www.wilderness.org.au/about/story. Terry, Ian. 2013. ‘A Matter of Values: Stories from the Franklin River Blockade, 1982–83’. Papers and Proceedings: Tasmanian Historical Research Association 60 (1): 48–60. Thompson, Peter. 1984. Bob Brown of the Franklin River. Sydney: Allen and Unwin. Thornton, Phil, Liam Phelan and Bill McKeown. 1997. I Protest. Annandale: Pluto Press. Weiser, Matt. 2016. ‘The Hydropower Paradox: Is this Energy as Clean as it Seems?’ Guardian, 7 November. www.theguardian.com/sustainable­-​­business/2016/nov/06/ hydropower­-​­hydroelectricity­-​­methane­-​­clean­-​­climate­-​­change­-​­study.

4 The wilderness experience in national parks A case study of Boonoo Boonoo National Park Johanna Garnett Introduction This chapter aims to contribute to new understandings of how people, around the world, experience wilderness in the early twenty­-​­first century. A formal definition of wilderness is offered as ‘large, natural areas of land which, together with their native plant and animal communities, remain essentially unchanged by modern human activity’ (NSW, OEH 2019). Wilderness, for this author, evokes ‘quiet country’ (Rose 1996, 19) of relatively intact, large, natural areas, that are and have been home to Indigenous peoples, one of which is presented in the case study at the heart of this chapter. In Australia, these areas form part of what is, colloquially (and affectionately) referred to as ‘the bush’.1 However, as Don Watson (2014, 72) notes: In the modern sense the bush means everything and therefore almost nothing. It is nine­ -​­ tenths nonsense. As it did in the beginning, the looseness of the term speaks not only for the difficulty of defining something so various and changeable, but for the way the landscape often overwhelmed both our ability and desire to understand it. This chapter sits within the cultural paradigm (see Washington 2006, 3) that argues that wilderness areas are cultural constructs, in that the concepts that humans have in regard to this world do not reflect the world directly but rather a particular culture. The notion of wilderness, like other concepts, is constructed within the framework of a specific cultural history (Cronon 1995, 78; Guha 1989, 4; Rose 1996). Wilderness exists on all continents of the world, irrespective of the residing culture, but its perception, and the values ascribed to it, are culturally created (Hall 1992, 50; Mackey et al. 1998, 2). Over time, new understandings of wilderness and its role in conservation of nature have developed, and there has been a general, global call for the preservation of wilderness (as discussed by Watson et al. 2016), together with conversations surrounding management of these valuable areas (Harmon 1987, 2004, 9; IUCN 2019; West, Igoe, and Brockington 2006, 265).

The wilderness experience  69 For visitors to these places, access to, and experience of, wilderness is primarily mediated and controlled through the processes and practices of national parks and nature reserves (see Cole and Young 2010; Hwang, Lee and Chen 2005; Kim, Lee and Klenosky 2003; Manning 2007). A national park is a mediated public space defined as: Large natural or near natural areas set aside to protect large­-​­scale ecological processes, along with the complement of species and ecosystems characteristic of the area, which also provide a foundation for environmentally and culturally compatible spiritual, scientific, educational, recreational and visitor opportunities. (IUCN 2020) National parks incorporate wilderness areas and support important biological, cultural, scientific and recreational values; they also offer spatial and temporal opportunities for a variety of nature experiences and activities, as well as protection of cultural heritage (Mackey and Rogers 2015; Weiler, Moore and Moyle 2013). As a cultural institution within a developed and industrialised society, national parks occur in settings that provide opportunities for a variety of multi­-​­layered recreational and wilderness experiences (Sax 1980, 41). It is important to note, however, that these two pursuits may be considered incompatible (even antithetical). Using Boonoo Boonoo National Park (pronounced bunna­ -bunnoo) ​­ in New South Wales (NSW), Australia as a case study, and taking an auto­ -​ ethnographic approach, this chapter discusses opportunities for wilderness ­ experiences within the managed landscapes of national parks. A ‘nature’ or ‘wilderness’ experience is knowledge gained through immersion in the natural environment or wilderness (McDonald, Wearing and Ponting 2009, 4). The term ‘wilderness experience’ was formalised in the US Wilderness Act of 1964, s 2(c) of which states that wilderness should provide ‘outstanding opportunities for solitude or a primitive and unconfined type of recreation’. Boonoo Boonoo National Park was chosen because it is representative of a rugged Australian national park enabling access to a wilderness experience, and is familiar to the author, and accessible. In response to repeated visits to this particular park, the reflection presented in this chapter aims to contribute to understandings of how people around the world experience wilderness in the early twenty­-​­first century, noting the value of national parks for wilderness experiences, but also the constraints attending such experiences. The theoretical premise is that, the more opportunities provided for wilderness experiences, the more people are likely to want to protect wilderness areas; in turn the stories we subsequently tell about these experiences will enhance popular understandings and inform policy. The chapter concludes by offering suggestions as to how national parks around the world could facilitate more immersive opportunities, and how these wilderness experiences might contribute to raising ecological consciousness and a preservation ethos.

70  Johanna Garnett

Background Nature and wilderness experiences Going alone ‘into the wilderness’ has been a practice for spiritual rejuvenation, religious purposes and clarity throughout human history (Hall 1992, 64; Oelschlaeger 1991, 45–47). Wilderness areas appear to stimulate reflection due to their ‘grandeur, complexity and unfamiliarity’ (Sax 1980, 46). Research (predominately from the US) has attempted to define the quality of the wilderness experience, and understand visitor use and user characteristics. Borrie and Birzell (2001, 30) outline four lines of research that have attempted to measure wilderness experiences: satisfaction approaches, benefits­ -​­ based approaches, experience­-​­based approaches and meaning­-​­based approaches. Champ, Williams and Lundy (2013, 134) note three key conceptual models for studying wilderness experience: wilderness as an object of motivation and expectancy (i.e. what did users expect prior to their experience?); wilderness as lived experience (i.e. what did it actually feel like (emphasis in original) while in wilderness?); and wilderness as long­-term ​­ relationship (i.e. how do people develop a connection to wilderness over time and in reflection?). Borrie and Birzell (2001, 36) believe the meanings­-based ​­ approach to be well suited for capturing the unique elements of the wilderness experience, because it reflects the idea that wilderness experiences are special merely because they occur in wilderness. Wilderness as experience is self­ -​­ defining, incomparable to any other experience, due to its unique challenges and the opportunities it provides for immersion and solitude. It is known that entering into wilderness adds to experience (new knowledge and skills gained in a particular timeframe and setting), and a sense of place in the world (Brooks, Wallace and Williams 2006, 336–342; Kaplan and Talbot 1983, 187). Wilderness also offers ‘peak’ experiences, defined as ‘moments of highest happiness and fulfilment, carrying with them some important meaning or insight for the individual’ (McDonald,Wearing and Ponting 2009, 3). Immersion in wilderness facilitates spiritual growth and development (see Foster and Borrie 2011, 1; Frederickson and Anderson 1999; Heintzman 2009, 2007; Marsh 2007, 27), although, as Foster and Borrie (2011, 2) found, wilderness and spirituality have highly variable meanings to visitors. Visiting wilderness generally improves physical and mental health (Frumkin 2001; Kaplan 1995, 169; Kaplan and Talbot 1983, 192), and results in a heightened sense of empowerment and change in perspective (Foster, and Borrie 2011, 9; Pohl, Borrie and Patterson 2000). There are also gendered aspects to the wilderness experience, with research finding that successfully facing challenges presented in the wilderness may help women shed self­-​­and societally­-​­imposed limitations, leading to higher self­-​­esteem and self­-​­reliance, leading in turn, to a greater sense of personal empowerment (LaRush 2017, 36–42, 71–73; Pohl, Borrie and Patterson 2000, 417). Wilderness experiences hold emotional and social significance (Raadik et al. 2010, 238) and have a noteworthy influence on people (Kaplan and

The wilderness experience  71 Talbot 1983, 186). Some research suggests that long­ -​­ term impacts of wilderness experiences appear to take the form of positive memories and reflections, rather than concrete lifestyle or behavioural changes (see Foster and Borrie 2011), but others have found that physical (and social) interaction in, and with, the setting allows meanings to accumulate (Brooks, Wallace and Williams 2006, 341; Heintzman 2009, 337–342). This may result in place attachment (see Halpenny 2010), which has ramifications for environmentally responsible behaviour (see Bartel, Hine and Morgan, this volume). Place attachment and place affect, an individual’s emotions and feelings for a place, can predict place­-​­related pro­-​­environment intentions and pro­-​­environment behavioural intentions related to everyday life (Ramkissoon, Smith and Weiler 2012, 434). Early research into wilderness experiences tended to be descriptive in nature (see Borrie and Birzell 2001, 29), but more recent research into how wilderness is experienced in the twenty­-​­first century has focused on gathering the stories that people tell in order to more fully understand the factors that contribute to wilderness experiences (Heintzman 2009; Marsh 2007; Pohl, Borrie and Patterson 2000). For example, Champ, Williams and Lundy (2013, 132) looked at online trip reports, where wilderness visitors have posted their descriptions and photos, sharing their knowledge and expertise with others. The auto­-​­ethnographic account at the core of this chapter seeks to add to stories that have been captured via interviews and focus groups. Auto­ -​ ­ethnography values the personal and experiential, and the ‘thick description’ of a case study assists insiders and outsiders in deepening their understanding of a particular culture (Ellis, Adams and Bochner 2011, 277). Researchers are interested in wilderness experiences for myriad reasons, but increasingly for management – of the parks themselves, but also the people that visit them, particularly in relation to providing recreational opportunities (see Raadik et al. 2010; Weiler, Moore and Moyle 2013). The researchers’ desire to inform management of national parks is embedded in the notion that it is important that opportunities for wilderness experiences are encouraged and facilitated, not only for individual physical and mental health, but also because immersion in wilderness has been found to foster pro­-​­environmental behaviour. That is, shifts in personal behaviour that consciously seek to minimise the negative impact of one’s actions on the natural and built world, as well as influencing policy in the form of environmentalism. National parks It is generally agreed that the first national park to be declared in the world was Yellowstone National Park in the US in 1872 (Nash 1982, 46). There are 26 tribes that claim a connection to the Park, including Blackfeet, Shoshone and Crow people (among others) (see United States National Park Service, 2019). Yosemite, home of the Ahwaneehchee (Miwuk) people, was being established even earlier, in 1859 (Nash 1982, 106), but it was not dedicated as

72  Johanna Garnett a ‘national’ park until 1890. These two American parks were followed closely by the first park in Australia, the Royal National Park, home to an Aboriginal community, the Gweagal people, a Dharawal­-speaking ​­ clan, established in 1879 just south of Sydney (Hall 1992, 92).2 In the nearly 150 years since the establishment of Yellowstone, national parks have become a global phenomenon. The US model has been the dominant template, leading many countries to also adopt laws similar to the US Wilderness Act of 1964. The creation of national parks has been broadly criticised due to the erasure of the presence of Indigenous peoples (Guha 1989, 3; Harmon 1987, 150–151; Langton 1995; Rose 1996; West, Igoe and Brockington 2006, 256). As Cronon (1995, 78) notes in relation to the US, ‘[t]he myth of the wilderness as “virgin” uninhabited land is especially cruel when seen from the perspective of First Nations people who once called that land home’. In Australia, mythologies of wilderness as pristine land have played a role in removing and over­ -​­ writing historical traces in the physical environment of long­ -​­ standing Aboriginal inhabitation (Langton 1995; Rose 1996). Now, in the early twenty­ -first ​­ century, the world’s rapidly shrinking areas of high wilderness quality, including formally declared wilderness areas, are largely the customary land of Indigenous peoples, whether or not this is legally recognised (Mackey and Rogers 2015; West, Igoe and Brockington 2006, 256–260). Among the various understandings of national parks, they have around the world been recognised as important tourism and recreational resources, providing visitors with scenic, archaeological, historical or scientific value (see Eagles et al. 2002; Hwang, Lee and Chen 2005; Kim, Lee and Klenosky 2003). National park services around the globe act as caretakers, juggling dual roles of facilitating recreation, whilst protecting from degradation the very resources that define the parks (Cole and Young 2010; Miles 2009, 8; Raadik et al. 2010). In Korea, for example, 20 national parks have been developed since 1967, primarily protecting mountainous regions as well as historical and cultural resources (Kim, Lee and Klenosky 2003, 170). Taiwan’s national parks also play an important role in mountain­ -​­ related recreation (Hwang, Lee and Chen 2005, 143), as they do in Sweden (Raadik et al. 2010) and Japan (Hayashi 2002). In China, tourism is a large part of each park’s mission, but the main goal since 2008 has been habitat and ecosystem preservation (Zhou and Grumbine 2011, 1315). Balancing sustainable tourism with biodiversity protection is also an issue in Australia (Mackey and Rogers 2015), as Gaynor (2017, 83–85) discusses in her case study of the Stirling Range National Park in Western Australia. Since their instigation, national parks have been designed and managed in order to educate visitors, keep people safe, and inspire a stewardship ethic for the continued protection of the parks (Carr 1999; Eagles et al. 2002, 27–50; Runte 1979, 111); these messages are conveyed through ‘interpretation’. There are two channels of interpretation: attended and unattended. Attended includes personal communication, conducted activities, lectures and living interpretation (provided by a park ranger or volunteer in person), while

The wilderness experience  73 unattended incorporates signs and labels, self­ -guided ​­ tours, publications, exhibits and visitors centres. As Hwang, Lee and Chen (2005, 143) tell us: Interpretation serves as a management tool, since it plays an important communication role between park resources, park administration and visitors, informing them of park regulations and policies, but also offering insights into the cultural and natural resources of the area, providing a more meaningful experience. National parks in Australia Australia has one of the largest national park systems in the world, covering around 11 per cent of the country, and is the result of decades of activism and agitation for the preservation of diverse wilderness areas (ACF 1975, 11; Mosley 1999, see Bible and Howard, also Branagan, this volume). The first published review of national parks in Australia was undertaken by National Parks, Victoria, in 1949. At that time there were nearly 50 parks throughout the country. Now, thousands of national parks and conservation reserves protect a variety of environments – from deserts to rainforests, and coral reefs to eucalypt woodlands – and offer myriad wilderness experiences, attracting millions of both domestic and international visitors annually (NSW NPWS, 2019a). Under the Australian Constitution, the creation and management of national parks and other nature conservation areas is primarily the responsibility of state governments.3 Social and environmental policies informed by neo­-​­liberal ideology at both federal and state levels in Australia are resulting in a lack of commitment to national parks (Davies 2018). The legal protection of these areas is therefore somewhat tenuous, and there have been continuing calls to log and mine within their boundaries, such as recently proposed by the NSW Deputy Premier, who has vowed to introduce legislation to open up one of the state’s national parks to logging (Cox 2019). As in the US, during the late 1800s urban Australians were beginning to develop an appreciation for Antipodean environments. However, wilderness preservation grew primarily from the bushwalking movement in the 1920s and 1930s and followed the footsteps of the father of ‘bush trailing’ Myles Dunphy (Mosley 1999, 15, 26). Dunphy’s primary justification for wilderness protection was ‘for the recreational purposes of mankind, where he [sic] can rid himself of the shackles of ordered existence … to escape his civilization [sic]’ (Dunphy 1934, 202, cited in Mackey et al. 1998, 5; also Dunphy 1980). The history of park management can be traced back to 1933 when Myles Dunphy initiated the National Parks and Primitive [sic] Areas Council (Mosley 1999, 26–30). Demand for the recognition and preservation of wilderness gathered impetus during the 1970s and 1980s in Australia, as in other parts of the world (Mosley 1999). In Australia, this was partly due to a number of landmark events, including the flooding of Lake Pedder in 1972, and the

74  Johanna Garnett successful campaign to prevent damming of the Franklin River in 1983 (Mosley 1999; see Branagan, this volume). Legislative provisions specifically for wilderness protection appeared in a number of states in response, together with inventory surveys and land evaluation programs around Australia to identify wilderness resources such as Helman, Jones, Pigram and Smith (1976). The Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) formed in 1964–1965, and from the 1970s was instrumental in the establishment of a nationwide series of World Heritage areas4 and the beginnings of a national wilderness system (Mosley 1999, 12, 78). Federal and state national parks and wildlife services’ objectives are to conserve, preserve and encourage appropriate usage of the areas and features conserved, as outlined in the NSW Wilderness Act 1987. However, the country is also facing a species extinction crisis due to deforestation and habitat loss, invasive species and human impacts. Whilst there is continuing debate surrounding the need for preservation, funding has been slashed at both the state and federal levels and the creation of new national parks has stalled (Davies 2018). In NSW, where I live, national park support is waning under a conservative state government (Nature Conservation Council, 2019). However, the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) (which is, in turn, part of the NSW Office of Environment and Heritage (OEH)) currently manages more than 870 NSW national parks and reserves, covering over 7 million hectares of land (9 per cent of the state and larger than the state of Tasmania) (NSW NPWS, 2019). One of these is Boonoo Boonoo National Park.

Discussion Boonoo Boonoo National Park is located in the New England Region of northern NSW and is Jukembal Aboriginal country.5 The park was established in 1982, 20 years after the Tenterfield Tourist Group began agitating for a dedicated protected area around the waterfalls due to their aesthetic appeal. It has been attracting visitors for over 100 years (Tenterfield Star, 2018). It covers an area of 4,037 ha and has an abundance of striking scenery and opportunities for immersive experiences (NSW NPWS 2002). The park sits to the east of Girraween and Bald Rock National Parks and forms part of the eastern escarpment of the Great Dividing Range. The expanse is referred to geologically as an ‘inselberg landscape’, with spectacular isolated rock hills, granite domes, tors and balancing rocks (NSW NPWS 2002). Boonoo Boonoo is not legally designated as wilderness; however, there are areas largely ecologically intact due to inaccessibility. This elevated region of 800 to 1200m altitude is floristically rich, home to a range of plant communities from tall open­-​­forests through under­-​­storeys to mallee­-​ heaths, sclerophyll scrubs, heaths and sedge swamps. The name Boonoo ­ Boonoo is reportedly a Jukembal phrase meaning ‘poor country with no animals to provide food’ (NSW NPWS 2019b), although the park is home

The wilderness experience  75 to an abundance of wildlife including the threatened brush­ -​­ tailed rock wallaby, spotted­ -tailed ​­ quolls and platypus. The park also protects the environment around one of the park’s most spectacular features, the Boonoo Boonoo River, which winds its way through the high granite country, and flows through the park in its upper reaches, creating majestic rock pools before sliding over the 210­-metre­ ​­ -​­high Boonoo Boonoo Falls that plunges into the gorge below. This setting is a domain large in scope, promising opportunities to anticipate, explore and contemplate – it provides a vivid instance of another world (Kaplan and Talbot 1983, 189). I have been a visitor to Boonoo Boonoo multiple times over a number of years; it is only a two­-​­and­-​­a­-​­half­-​­hour drive from where I live (which, by Australian standards, is relatively close), and I usually spend two to three nights there at any time, either alone or with a friend. I am fortunate to have access to a variety of national parks because, as Weiler, Moor and Moyle (2013, 111) note, for many people, access to wilderness areas is limited or difficult. The park is reached along a gravel road off the Mount Lindsay Highway; I lose mobile phone reception at this point and will be out of range for the duration of my visit – virtually cut off from the world. There was formerly a small wooden bridge over a crystal­ -​­ clear creek but this has recently been upgraded to a concrete two­-​­lane structure strong enough to cater to caravans and 4WDs. I see this as an intrusive but welcome development; the well­-​­graded fire trails enable me to explore deeper into the park, first by vehicle and then on foot. On most occasions, although I might have disturbed them by my presence, I feel as if I am being greeted by a pair of wedge­-​­tailed eagles, who are wheeling high in the sky above their home in the hill to the east, and I seek them out as I round the corner into the park. There is a sense of anticipation as I pull into the camping area, hoping to claim my usual spot overlooking the track to the platypus pool. This land is harsh and dry; it is rocky and rough, dry and crackling, nibbled and gnawed. However, the grey green of the rocks gives a softness to the bush and the park is aesthetically pleasing – it is beautiful. The climate is moist sub­-​ ­humid (NSW NPWS 2091b), fairly temperate in summer and, although the winter nights are often frosty and the summers hot and dry, the area is relatively sheltered by the tall trees. The landscape along the river includes bare, smooth stretches of granite dotted with tea tree, large pools with sandy banks lined with cypress­-​­pine, massive boulder­-​­strewn stretches, and secluded rocky pools. The Cypress­-​­pine Campground, where I set up camp, is full of wildlife; birdlife is abundant and provides much entertainment, in the evening possums come to the campsite seeking food, and at dusk, or if you rise just before dawn in the mist and quiet, you can watch the platypus going about its daily routine. All this requires effortless (or little) attention, enabling relaxation and reflection, and resulting in a sense of peace. It is this solitude that I seek and which, for me, is central to my experience in the park, but which is always at risk of disturbance by other people. Crowding in parks has been identified as having a negative impact on experience (Weiler, Moore and Moyle 2013, 114) and I tend to become

76  Johanna Garnett anxious as to who will be sharing this experience with me. There are 14 sites at the Cypress­ -pine ​­ Campground but it is rarely full, which, for me, is a positive. On a few occasions I have felt, gratifyingly, as I have been the only camper in the park. At other times I have had a variety of neighbours, in tents, car­-​­camping, motorhomes and caravans, some of whom have exhibited negative behaviours. Most campers are unobtrusive, tucking themselves away under the trees and co­ -​­ existing quietly, leaving no trace on their leaving. Others produce excessive noise and light pollution; running generators, playing loud music or keeping their campsites flood­-lit ​­ late into the night. One frosty winter evening, a large group dragged a small dead tree behind a 4WD for their campfire – it was still smouldering when they left the next day. It is not unusual to have to put fires out after people, and to pick up their rubbish. Brooks, Wallace and Williams (2006, 343) might classify these visitors as ‘being at an earlier stage in their relationship with the place, having no relationship or at best a dysfunctional relationship’. There are a number of designated walks, including one approximately 7 kilometres long that connects the campground with a picnic area. Another graded walking trail descends to a viewing platform, with impressive views of the falls. Many day­-​­trippers, locals from the area and passers through, come here and the car parks are often full, particularly in the summer when people flock to the rock pools at the top of the falls. The park, as with many in NSW, has a user­-​­pays system and requires the purchase of a day visitor ticket or camping permit to stay overnight. The area is well signposted with park guidelines and displays describing the geology, flora and fauna and walking tracks. Despite the rules and regulations, I have seen dogs here (ignored by a park ranger who was clearing the path with a leaf­-​­blower) and have picked up cigarette butts and beer cans. I have seen people jumping the fence and sitting at the top of the falls (a local teenager died years ago doing this); people are pushing the limits in their own ways. It is argued that the more familiar the place, the more we test the boundaries of ‘our’ place in that space (Foster and Borrie 2011; Heintzmann 2007). I would certainly agree with this as, over time, I have explored the complexities and embraced the novel challenges of Boonoo Boonoo, observing and discovering its special attributes and phenomena, which have shaped my knowledge and memories of this place. On one occasion my friend and I noticed two young male hikers climbing over the fence by the viewing platform; we assumed that they had been camping down on the river and had hiked in. We decided to go that way one day, hopping over the fence to navigate our way to the bottom of the falls. A Boonoo Boonoo experience Cognisant of direction and informal signposts so as not to lose the path back, our senses are hyper­-​­alert; we smell the velvety cream bush orchids before we spot them, creep past the rock wallabies, step over the tiny snakes nestled in

The wilderness experience  77 the leaf litter, feel the rough bark of the trees and the cool of the dirt as we scramble down. As we go, we are very careful not to disturb the rocks and branches and earth mounds that we know are home to thousands of tiny, even microbial, lifeforms, but we are naturally big and clumsy in our hiking boots. When we get to the bottom of the waterfall the boulders are expansive, warm in the morning sun, slippery at the water’s edge. We strip off and plunge into one of the quieter pools of the river at the base of the falls – it is deep and the water is freezing. It takes ages to warm up, lying on the rock like the skinks eyeing us from the periphery. The gorge stretches before us, green and cool and inviting, but there is no obvious path down and it looks risky – that is for another day and will require equipment, camping gear and personal safety equipment, such as an emergency position­-​­indicating radio­-​­beacon. As we wind our way back up the steep incline we reflect on the beauty and possibilities for exploration of this wilderness area. At times it has been difficult having to navigate our way through the terrain, finding our own paths, aware that we could get lost without sufficiently paying attention and noting where we are at all times in the larger landscape. We are feeling our muscles burn as we climb and twist and turn, cognizant of the fact that we could twist an ankle, or break an arm, and that such an impairment can have serious ramifications if you are far off­-track. ​­ The challenge has been exciting and I feel a frisson of excitement because I feel that we have pushed the limits of this park by jumping the barrier, and it is this adventure and the revelations of the bush, new understandings and my capabilities that I will take home as an enduring memory. This deeper, closer immersion has provided us with a sensory experience of different sights, sounds, textures and smells, and introduced us to new flora and fauna. Enter at own risk: a mediated experience Brooks, Wallace and Williams (2006, 336) note that some visitors build relationships with a wilderness place over time by making return visits, and I have certainly done this, resulting in strong place attachment. It has become a significant place for me, offering the peak experiences discussed by McDonald, Wearing and Ponting (2009). The material experience of the physical situation and practices in the bush results in intimate awareness of light, weather patterns, temperature differences, and the sky at night. These are what Kaplan (1995, 172) calls ‘soft fascinations’: clouds, sunsets, the motion of the leaves in the breeze, all of which instil enduring memories. Further, extended periods of camping and hiking (often alone) have enabled me to develop different ‘bush’ skills which have contributed to feelings of agency, of self­-​­sufficiency and the building of confidence (as discussed by Pohl, Borrie and Patterson 2000, 422). Having a relationship to a place, such as Boonoo Boonoo, means that the place, and memories and experiences of it, are incorporated into one’s broader life or culture (Brooks, Wallace and Williams 2006, 342). For, as Ashley (2017, 35) tells us, ‘[w]hen we are in wilderness we

78  Johanna Garnett embark on two journeys – the outer and the inner’. I leave dirty, sometimes bruised, physically tired and quite hungry, but inside I am beaming. The experiences I have in Boonoo Boonoo counterpose my everyday urban, very sedentary lifestyle, and I realise that I am capable and resilient with a growing knowledge of the geology, weather patterns and life cycles in this particular part of the Australian bush. The values of national parks, include the economic, material and tangible (Hall, 1992, 51–57), as well as intangible (Harmon 2004, 9). One of the prized values of wilderness is because it offers a chance to escape the everyday world, to immerse oneself in a peaceful environment that is aesthetically pleasing and whose beauty generates intrigue and enquiry, resulting in a space of quiet reflection. Indeed, it is argued that ‘a world with wilderness is a richer and potentially more stimulating place’ (ACF 1975, 6). There are millions of visitors to national parks annually around the globe that would appear to attest to this.6 As this Boonoo Boonoo case study illustrates, there are layers of experiences available in these protected places. However, many of these experiences are mediated experiences, due to the rules and regulations of the national parks, and these are primarily implemented through interpretation, signage and barriers. As noted by Hwang, Lee and Chen (2005, 145), interpretation does ‘instil understanding and appreciation to develop a strong sense of place, offering heightened appreciation, deeper understanding and new ways of seeing the world’. However, it can also be constraining if that is all that is offered, and particularly if it is presented as the only way to interpret an area. As some have found, going ‘off the beaten path’ increases the wilderness experience (Brooks, Wallace and Williams 2006, 340; Foster and Borrie 2011, 6): jumping the barriers can result in deeper understandings. It is argued that by keeping visitors to marked trails the full scope of such experiences is inhibited. Barriers are installed for good reasons: because of the unpredictable reality of being in wilderness and the risks involved. The conflict between recreation and the conservation and protection of wilderness from incompatible activity (such as over­ -​­ development, in the form of eco­ -​­ tourism, infrastructure and roads) is a key tension at the heart of the ‘national park idea’ (Mackey and Rogers, 2015; Manning, 2007; Weiler, Moore and Moyle, 2013, 115). Many would argue that my intrusion into the wilderness was damaging and that I should stay behind the barriers. Parks agencies throughout Australia are responding to such claims, encouraging low­ -​­ impact bushwalking practices, temporarily restricting access to the whole or part of a wilderness and implementing new regulations such as restricting camping in parks to only those areas specifically set aside for camping (NSW OEH 2019). However, this notion of locking people out of these places is problematic, when considering the benefits of wilderness experiences, because it is deep immersion and time spent in places that are important for ecological behaviour (Brooks, Wallace and Williams 2006, 336; Foster and Borrie 2011, 7; Halpenny 2010, 411). The relationships that visitors share with national parks

The wilderness experience  79 are recognised as playing an important role in influencing their environmental behaviour (Ramkissoon, Smith and Weiler 2012). It appears that, as visitors to wilderness, people feel more at home the more they visit a place (Ashley 2017, 35; 2007, 64–65; Pohl, Borrie and Patterson, 2000; Ramkissoon, Smith and Weiler, 2013;Vaske and Kobrin 2001, 20–21). Place attachment, the emotional bond between people and their local environments, is known to influence pro­ -​­ environmental behaviour across a range of settings and contexts (Ramkissoon, Smith and Weiler 2013, 436), but repeated and deep immersion is required for long­-​­term behavioural change. Globally, some countries are facing unique environmental and social problems relating to preservation, such as in Ethiopia, where local communities possess a limited awareness of environmental issues, population growth is putting pressure on land usage, and there is growing conflict over resources (Abebe and Bekele 2018, 53–56). Many countries are facing similar issues of access, whilst also seeking to balance the need to protect particularly vulnerable and/or unique places, and there is a growing body of literature on a range of management challenges and potential solutions (see Eagles et al. 2002; Hwang, Lee and Chen 2005; Kim, Lee and Klenosky 2003; Raadik et al. 2010; Weiler, Moore and Moyle 2013; Zhou and Grumbine, 2011). Some see the need to close up areas (see Watson et al. 2016, 2933). Others argue that, whilst it is vital that we protect biodiversity, we should not shut people out (Hobbs et al. 2010). It is these, often conflicting, theories and assumptions that inform national park management in the twenty­ -first ​­ century, and which play a central role in the human relationship with wilderness. I would like to see greater investment in more diverse wilderness opportunities and national park experiences, through limiting restrictions and over­ -​­ regulation (see Weiler, Moore and Moyle 2013). Recommendations for future investment in national parks As they are state­-provided ​­ cultural artefacts, we need to provide more funding for national parks, encouraging and facilitating access, whilst, at the same time, considering opportunities for deeper immersion in wilderness areas. Of course, not everyone enjoys being in the bush, confronting wildlife or being in sometimes difficult situations (Pohl, Borrie and Patterson 2000, 431), but for those who do, and are capable, this should be facilitated. Many parks are constrained by limited budgets, as Raadik et al. (2010, 242) have found in Sweden and Davies (2018) similarly in Australia. Harmon (1987, 158) has suggested that the conventional national park idea is potentially dangerous because it is context­-​­sensitive – it is not universally applicable, and there are possibly more suitable, protected­-​­area categories (other than those defined by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), that take into account resident human populations and respect cultural diversity.

80  Johanna Garnett There is a need to create more opportunities for wilderness experiences, and particularly for fostering the conditions conducive to positive interactions, as well as those that support and encourage solitude (Ashley 2017, 35). All this requires a commitment from the state (and therefore the public) in the form of research, development and investment, together with education – broadly conceived. More research is required into understanding place attachment to provide a framework for assisting managers in the planning and marketing of environmentally responsible behaviours within parks (Ramkissoon, Smith and Weiler 2013, 451). This needs to involve a diversity of cultural viewpoints, particularly of First Nations peoples, and key stakeholders. Brooks, Wallace and Williams (2006, 345–346) recommend incorporating visitors’ stories into education and stewardship programs. This could include interviewing long­-time ​­ committed visitors to gain their insights and opinions related to park management (see Brooks, Wallace and Williams 2006, 346). Heintzman (2007) suggests that we consider participant’s reflections, documenting and broadcasting their stories in order to learn more about how these relate to visitors’ lives and to better understand visitors’ place relationships. Development of the national parks system is required in order to expand environmental protection, as well as visitor opportunities. As Gaynor (2017, 88) notes in her discussion of the Stirling Range National Park, ‘the challenge is to mobilise sufficient people and resources’. Suggestions have been outlined in campaigns by the National Parks Australia Council (2019) and the National Parks Association of NSW (2018). In Australia, these include ‘reviewing legislative frameworks for protected areas, recognising the cultural importance of protected areas for all Australians, and the aspirations of Aboriginal people in land management restoration’ (National Parks Association of NSW 2018, 2). This will require the commitment of funding and investment, which sits with both state and federal governments in Australia, and therefore also a need to review budgets for these culturally significant and nationally important institutions. We know that wilderness experiences have many personal benefits, but the challenge, for people generally, is how to expand the personal to the collective – building transferable skills (see Pohl, Borrie and Patterson 2000, 432). We can encourage better preservation practices through education and collective action such as volunteering and joining preservation organisations such as the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF). Creation and maintenance of parks is political and requires concerted and ongoing advocacy. We need approaches that respect and conserve nature while benefiting human health and prosperity (IUCN 2019) and, as discussed in this chapter, national parks are at the centre of this protective impulse.

Conclusion National park systems around the world have the potential to bring together landscapes, places, and a diverse range of people and events that contribute to

The wilderness experience  81 unique wilderness experiences. As a mediated experience, however, we are limited in our agency and ability to truly immerse ourselves in wilderness, with the nature, flora and fauna that exists in these wild environments. This chapter has argued for greater immersion in wilderness, noting the benefits of wilderness experiences, in particular as opportunities for enhancing awareness, greater understanding and appreciation. Preservation requires broad­ -​­ scale education aimed at the development of a collective ecological consciousness, along with mass behaviour change towards long­-​­term ecologically sustainable and protective practices. This is increasingly important in light of the now­-​ ­agreed upon view that humans have commenced living through a socio­-​ ­ecological catastrophe, in significant part provoked by human mismanagement and abuse of ecosystems. National parks, properly managed, can facilitate these experiences.

Notes 1 This is also anything rural/outside cities, and it is in the suburban ‘bush’ that the author played as a child and it is these experiences that shaped many of her memories and identity growing up. 2 The term ‘national park’ was not, at the time, used in Australia in the American sense of being a federally administered reserve, because federation did not occur in Australia until 1901. 3 Australia has six Commonwealth National Parks which are managed by the federal agency, Parks Australia, which sits within the auspices of the Department of the Environment and Energy (Australian Government, Parks Australia 2019). 4 World Heritage areas are places on earth that have been designated as being of outstanding universal value to humanity and, as such, have been inscribed on the World Heritage List to be protected for future generations to appreciate and enjoy (UNESCO 2019). 5 According to the Bald Rock and Boonoo Boonoo Management Plan the Moombahlene and Muli Muli Aboriginal Land Councils and other relevant Aboriginal organisations were to be invited to be involved in all aspects of identification, management and interpretation of Aboriginal cultural values in the planning area (NPWS 2002). In addition to being home to the Jukembal people the Bandjalung and Kamilaroi peoples may also have connections to this area. 6 In the US alone, in 2017, nearly 331 million people visited national parks (NPS 2018).

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5 Aboriginal owned and jointly managed national parks Caring for cultural imperatives and conservation outcomes Julie Collins and Warlpa Kutjika Thompson Introduction In Australia, much of the land classified as ‘wilderness’ has been inhabited and managed by Indigenous Australians for millennia (Langton, 1996). A nature­-​ ­culture dualism lies at the crux of colonialism which ensures that ‘concepts of wilderness all involve the peculiar notion that if one cannot see traces or signs of one’s own culture (or something similar) in the land, then the land must be ‘natural’ or empty of culture’ (Rose 1996, 17). This idea is at the heart of terra nullius, the legal fiction that Australian was without people or a system of law at the time of colonisation, was not overturned until the 1992 Mabo decision (Mabo v Queensland (No 2) (1992) 175 CLR). The legitimacy of the entire nation rested on a failure to recognise the pre­-​­existing land tenure of Indigenous Australians. The subsequent unpeopling and de­-​­storying of the landscape, through the spread of disease, conflict and the removal of the land’s inhabitants to missions and reserves, left those areas that the coloniser did not want to farm, or otherwise develop, as environments uninhabited by humans. They then became, in a paradoxical consequence of colonialism, and its underpinning and enabling nature­-​­culture dualism, ideal locations to escape to for recreation and contemplation; to have a ‘wilderness experience’. To Aboriginal people, country that non­-Indigenous ​­ people define as ‘wilderness’ may be country ‘in which all the care of generations of people is evident to those who know how to see it’ (Rose 1996, 19). Properly cared for country is ‘quiet’ (Rose 1996, 19), it ‘is a place that gives and receives life … it is a nourishing terrain’ (Rose 1996, 7). The relationship between Indigenous people and their land is one of reciprocity; the health of the land is maintained through ceremonial and land management practices, in return for which the land sustains and nourishes the people. ‘Caring for country’ is a lived relationship, sustained by cultural practice. If this relationship breaks down, it is believed to bring sickness to the land and the people, resulting in environmental degradation and the fragmentation and destruction of Aboriginal societies (Burgess et al. 2009; Weir 2011). A perception of wilderness areas as places that are pristine and undisturbed by humans, not only perpetuates a social injustice to Indigenous peoples (Moorcroft 2016), but also proves to be

88  Julie Collins and Warlpa Kutjika Thompson the least effective way to protect key environmental concerns that often lie at the heart of wilderness protection. For example, it has been found that Indigenous managed lands have lower rates of weed infestation and healthier fire regimes when compared to adjacent protected areas (Hill et al. 2013). Climate change in the twentieth century is an existential threat to humans and the millions of other species with which we share this planet. Recent bushfires in Australia have led to an increased recognition that Aboriginal burning practices could be crucial in alleviating future large conflagrations (see Bardsley, Prowse and Siegfried 2019; Fache and Moizo, 2015; also Barker; Bartel and Branagan, this volume). Renowned ecologist E. O. Wilson, who popularised the term ‘biophilia’, a love of living things (Wilson 1984), contends that even if humanity is able to respond to and avert the worst excesses of climate change, the mass extinction of Earth’s biota is more problematic, as ‘once species are gone, they’re gone forever’ (Wilson 2018, para 3). Habitat destruction continues to accelerate as forested areas are cleared to make way for human activities. Wilson (2018) argues that ‘Even if the climate is stabilised, the extinction of species will remove Earth’s foundational, billion­-​­year­-​­old environmental support system’ (para 3). To mitigate this, in Wilson’s opinion, humans will have to drastically increase the amount of land and sea that is protected from most human development and intervention. In Half­-​­Earth Wilson (2016) advocates the inclusion of half the earth and half of the seas in a protected area system. Conservation areas would be selected for the degree of biodiversity, species and bioregions that they contain. Wilson (2018) acknowledges that these areas would need to be supported by the people living within and around them. Specifically, he writes, ‘The cultures and economies of indigenous peoples … should be protected and supported’ (Wilson 2018, para 12). Critics of the Half­-​ ­Earth idea see it as exclusionary and argue for a more holistic approach, where natural resources and ecosystems become global public goods that are governed in local or ‘bioregional’ economies, focused on socio­ -​­ ecological justice; conservation strategies must also address inequality (Büscher et al. 2017; see also Bartel and Branagan, this volume). Whatever the approach, biodiversity conservation is an essential priority if humans are to thrive and survive, and Indigenous peoples globally should have a role to play in that process. Since the 1970s in Australia, both State (the nation is a federation of six states and several territories) and Commonwealth land rights legislation, including native title, has facilitated Indigenous ownership of large areas of Australia. Nearly a third of the land mass (31 per cent) is under Indigenous land ownership, with registered claims of native title or land rights over an additional 39 per cent (Altman 2013). This is a dynamic situation, as land claims are lodged and processed (see National Native Title Tribunal 2020a). Indigenous access to land is not evenly distributed across Australia, and in New South Wales is extremely limited and very fragmented (National Native Title Tribunal 2020b). Not all of the tenure entails exclusive possession, and the land is rarely considered valuable in an agricultural sense, but is often rich in minerals and biodiversity, as well as cultural connections. Vast bioregions of

Caring for cultural imperatives  89 central Australia occur only on Aboriginal land, thus the incorporation of Indigenous land and sea country into the reserve system is essential if all bioregions of Australia are to be conserved (Birckhead et al. 2001; Porter 2004). This was the catalyst for the Indigenous Protected Areas (IPAs) scheme in 1997, allowing Indigenous owners of land and sea country of high conservation value to enter into voluntary conservation partnerships with the Australian Government. Increasingly, Aboriginal people are also involved in the conservation estate in Australia. In 2018, the National Reserve System covered 19.74 per cent of the Australian land mass (Australian Government 2019). Indigenous Protected Areas (IPAs) comprised the largest component of the National Reserve System at 44.06 per cent (8.7 per cent of the Australian land mass), with 75 areas of community owned and managed land. These protected areas are classified as Category VI of the IUCN Guidelines, as ‘Protected areas with sustainable use of natural resources’ (Borrini­-​­Feyerabend et al. 2013). The extent of the IPA reserve system is set to increase further in 2020, with the addition of 12 IPAs, encompassing over 30 million ha, an almost 20 per cent increase to the National Reserve System (Australian Government 2019). Aboriginal owned and jointly managed national parks also make a significant, if more modest contribution (approximately 1.6 per cent) to the National Reserve System (Australian Government n.d.). This chapter focuses on Warlpa Thomson’s story, and his relationship with traditional lands in the far west of New South Wales (NSW). The story is one of dispossession, and a long struggle by Aboriginal owners, including Warlpa, to regain rights to their land. Many positive changes have occurred in the last 20 years since the park was handed ‘back’ to its Aboriginal owners. Many obstacles and problems have also had to be overcome, and continue to be tackled. Mutawintji has suffered from colonial rule. It is a land degraded by pastoralism and the introduction of feral species. It is now managed as far as possible to safeguard culture, to promote environmental restoration and to provide opportunities for community development, with respect to employment, education and tourism.

Background A history of national parks and protected areas During the late nineteenth century state­ -owned ​­ national parks became a global phenomenon and remain today the primary tool in preserving endangered species, habitats and ecosystems worldwide (see Stevens 1997). The first national parks were founded on premises of strict nature preservation, often resulting in the eviction of Indigenous peoples from their homelands, and this philosophy persisted with the spread of national parks internationally, well into the twentieth century. The first national park, established in 1872, was Yellowstone in the United States of America; the Indigenous inhabitants, mainly Crow and Shoshone Indians, were forced to leave their lands at gun point (Ghimire and Pimbert 1997; see Orion, this volume). The first Australian

90  Julie Collins and Warlpa Kutjika Thompson park, Royal National Park was established in 1879 in NSW (Veal and Lynch 2001; see Garnett, this volume). Historically, national parks have promoted the doctrine of pristine, human­-​ ­free ‘wilderness’. However, recently ‘cultural landscapes’ has emerged as a more appropriate protected area category for the vast majority of socio­-ecological ​­ contexts which inform and renew nature’s diversity (Ghimere and Pimbert 1997). This has been facilitated by growing international and national recognition of the rights of Indigenous peoples (United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People 2007). The International Union for the Conservation of Nature advocates accounting for the needs of Indigenous peoples, including subsistence resource use as a specific objective of the creation of national parks (Borrini­-​ Feyerabend 2007). The Australian Conservation Foundation (1998) redefined ­ their original definition of ‘wilderness’, which referred to land uncorrupted by human influence, to include an acknowledgement of a pre­-​­colonial Indigenous presence, recognising that Indigenous people were an ‘integral and necessary part of the workings of wilderness’ (Levitus 2016, 200; see also Bartel and Branagan, this volume for a similar correction of The Wilderness Society’s definition). However, there remains much uneasiness amongst conservationists about aspects of contemporary Indigenous presence in conservation areas. The approach most often adhered to has been the authorisation of only ‘traditional’ land uses, but questions of authenticity arise in determining what is ‘traditional’. The Australian Law Reform Commission (ALRC 1986) maintained that the purpose of the activity should determine whether an activity is traditional or not, not the technology involved (for example, vehicles, boats and weapons). This issue not only has implications for conservation, but also for the self­-​­determination of Indigenous peoples. Access to land for Indigenous people is a cultural imperative and goes some way to redress the dispossession that occurred with colonisation. It is also controversially an opportunity for commercial and economic development. Conservationist­-​­Aboriginal relationships are complex and not without conflict (see Branagan, this volume). Economic benefits and access agreements for resource development, particularly mining on traditional land, may be very attractive, particularly when compared to the restrictions of private landholdings, and especially when perceived as the only way out of grinding poverty by traditional owners (see Vincent and Neale 2016). Joint management of protected areas in Australia Aboriginal land which is just national park is like a table with one leg or like a bird. It’s not very stable. Shove it and it will fall over. Just one leg is not enough for Aboriginal land. It has to have other legs there: the leg that Aboriginal law and ownership provides; that Aboriginal involvement in running the park provides; that an Aboriginal majority on the board of management provides. (Tony Tjamiwa, Traditional owner, Uluru­-​­Kata Tjuta National Park 1992, 9)

Caring for cultural imperatives  91 Adopting an Indigenous understanding, linking ‘natural’ and ‘cultural’ values across landforms and land tenures, can promote more holistic conceptions about Australian landscapes and waterways, regardless of tenure and land use. Linking various national parks to each other and the surrounding landscapes through story, enhances understanding of the ecological impact of habitat fragmentation through land clearing and agriculture, because Indigenous concepts of connectivity work against environmental and social fragmentation. To quote from Phil Sullivan, Ngiyampaa man (Rose, James and Watson 2003, 66): ‘The “natural” and “cultural” heritage of national parks is not separate. This is an artificial white­-​­fella separation. They are still boxing the whole into sections, we need to integrate management into a holistic view of the landscape’. Indigenous knowledge of country is relational and embedded in culture; managing country for cultural imperatives, therefore, is not distinct from looking after the ecological values of country. The cultural knowledge base is not abstract; it cannot be dissected out and used without reference to traditional owners and their culture. Joint management of national parks in Australia began in the Northern Territory in response to land claims over existing parks under the Aboriginal Land Rights Act (Northern Territory) 1976 (Cth). The Commonwealth Government established joint management models for Uluru­-​­Kata Tjuta and Kakadu in the Northern Territory, and Booderee at Jervis Bay, nearly 200 km south of Sydney, NSW. These parks are all leased back to Parks Australia and are each managed by a Board with majority Aboriginal Owner membership. In addition, most States of Australia have developed their own models of Indigenous involvement in national park management. Mutawintji National Park Mutawintji lies 130 km north­-​­east of Broken Hill, in far western NSW. The Mutawintji lands are part of the traditional country of Wiimpatja (the Pantjikali, Malyankapa and Wilyakali), and a ceremonial centre for Wiimpatja from a wide regional area. Wimpatja is the local or regional word for ‘human’ and has become the word commonly used to refer to an Aboriginal person from this area. This was the place where initiation, rainmaking and other ceremonies were held. The park landscape contains the Bynguano Range, the key to the deep time of Aboriginal occupation and the shorter European history of this landscape (Plumb 1999). Deep rock waterholes provide near permanent water. The broad creek floors provided a gathering place for many Aboriginal tribes and clans when the seasons were favourable. Mutawintji translates as ‘grass and waterholes’; this area could sustain large numbers of people, with dramatic increases in plant and animal life after a wet season. The lands are of special cultural significance to many Wiimpatja and contain important features including creation places, rock engravings, paintings and evidence of past occupation. The pastoralists displaced the Aboriginal owners during the 1870s. Bullets, disease and dispersal greatly diminished the Aboriginal population of the area

92  Julie Collins and Warlpa Kutjika Thompson (Beckett 1978). Those descendants of the original inhabitants who survived remained in contact with their ancestral country by adopting an uneasy but necessary co­-​­existence with the pastoral industry. By the 1960s, the last of the Aboriginal owners born in the first years of dispossession were dying and their descendants had largely moved to live in nearby towns as a result of economic changes to the pastoral industry. The first government recognition of the cultural significance of Mutawintji was the reservation in 1927 of an area of 468 ha at the instigation of the Broken Hill Field Naturalists Club (Mutawintji Board of Management and NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service 2013, 11). This was for the ‘Preservation of Caves, Native Fauna and Flora and Aboriginal Carvings and Drawings’. Initially 300 (but now many more) archaeological sites were recorded, including Aboriginal art sites, camp sites, artefact scatters, scarred trees, stone arrangements and quarries. In 1967, the newly created NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service assumed management of the now 486 ha area and it was declared the ‘Mootwingee Historic Site’ (Mutawintji Board of Management and NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service 2013). In 1979, the biodiversity value of the area was recognised with the establishment of the Coturaundee Nature Reserve of 6,688 ha, primarily for the conservation and protection of Wangarru, the Yellow­-​­footed Rock Wallaby (Petrogale xanthopus). In 1982, a 68,912 ha Mootwingee National Park was established (Mutawintji Board of Management and NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service 2013). Up until this point, no consultation had occurred with Aboriginal owners. In reaction to a lack of recognition of Mutawintji’s cultural significance to living Wiimpatja, and to the unrestricted access to sacred sites such as Mushroom Rock (women only) and Snake Cave (Men only), the Aboriginal owners and their supporters blockaded the entrance to the Historic Site on 4 September 1983. The Aboriginal owners asserted their desire to regain ownership, control and management of their sacred lands. Between 1983 and 1991, the Mutawintji Local Aboriginal Land Council, representing the Aboriginal owners and other Wiimpatja with a cultural association, sustained a campaign to persuade the New South Wales government to recognise their rights and interests at Mutawintji. In 1991, the first Bill was tabled in the parliament to enable recognition of Aboriginal ownership of certain national parks and reserves in New South Wales. In 1992, 47,600 ha of Mootwingee National Park were declared as wilderness under Section 8 (1A) of the Wilderness Act 1987 (NSW). The Declaration of a Wilderness Area was a compromise to facilitate the Green Party’s support for the ownership legislation through the parliament, highlighting the at times distrustful relationship between conservationists and Aboriginal people (Pickerill 2018). In December 1996 the national parks and Wildlife Amendment (Aboriginal Ownership) Act (NSW) was passed unanimously by both Houses of Parliament. The Act provided for a lease between the Land Council and the Minister for the Environment. The lease aimed to resolve historical conflicts and to recognise the special cultural significance to Aboriginal

Caring for cultural imperatives  93 owners, whilst at the same time reserving the status of the Mutawintji lands as part of the conservation estate. The ‘handback’ of Mootwingee National Park and Historic Site, and Coturaundee Nature Reserve to Aboriginal owners occurred in September, 1998. The three protected areas were collectively renamed Mutawintji National Park, and an Aboriginal majority Board of Management appointed. Under the joint management agreement, the park was leased back to the NSW Government for 30 years, with a proviso for renegotiation if park boundaries were ever extended. To Aboriginal owners, Mutawintji is a sacred landscape created by Ancestral Beings, in particular, Kulawirru. Many Dreaming tracks intersect at Mutawintji and are are commemorated in rock art.The Marnpi, Eaglehawk and Crow, Seven Sisters and Ngatjingulu Dreaming track connects Mutawintji to the Flinders Ranges, and to the Manara Hills and other sites across Ngiyampaa and Paakantji country (Rose, James and Watson 2003, 61). The Kulawirru Dreaming, related by Aboriginal owners Badger Bates and Maureen O’Donnell (see Yip, Pryor and Hawley 2002), describes why Mutawintji was so significant. In severe drought, Mutawintji provided ‘the last of the waters’, but in floods, it provided refuge in caves in the hills, where ‘the people left their hand stencils to show their relationship to this land’. This Dreaming story demonstrates how Aboriginal people over millennia have survived climatic fluctuations in a harsh environment. The appropriation of Indigenous land, as at Mutawintji, led to the destruction of local ecological systems. This is not a conflict located in the past; the impacts of pastoralism still endure today. Mutawintji was comprised of grazing properties until the 1970s; as a result, the land has been seriously degraded. Heavy sheep grazing produced major changes to the landscape; due to overgrazing much of the topsoil has blown or washed away in the past 150 years, and plant communities are greatly altered as native grasses were lost and woody weeds (grazing­-​­resistant native plants) began to dominate.

Discussion The collaborative approach the authors have developed for writing together (see Collins and Thompson 2018) is that of yarning, ‘a culturally appropriate conversational process of sharing stories to develop knowledge’ (Mooney, Riley and Blacklock 2018, 1). Thus Warlpa’s input into the chapter comes from a yarn or conversation between the two authors, which was recorded, then transcribed, initially using voice recognition software and then manually. The conversation was recorded in January 2020 and thus experiences of the drought and 2019–2020 bushfires were foremost in our minds. The Millennium Drought is also referred to, which lasted from 1997 to 2016, and later in some areas. This is Warlpa’s story. I have been involved with Mutawintji and with our country, learning language and culture, all of my life. My family is one of the six families that are

94  Julie Collins and Warlpa Kutjika Thompson recognised as Aboriginal owners. Mutawintji is the central focus for our cultural activity; it was such an important place for our people to fight to get recognition of our ownership of. I’m one of the people of my generation that got to learn a lot of language and culture, and most of that came about through trips out on country, especially to Mutawintji. Over the years, I’ve worked out at Mutawintji as a guide and for the last two terms of the National Park’s Board of Management, I’ve been sitting as our family’s elected representative. In 2018, I was elected the Chair of the new Board, previously I was the Deputy Chair. I think that happened because, even though I’m the youngest Board member, the amount of knowledge I have about the place and culture of Mutawintji, our people and language, has granted me a certain level of respect. Community, our mob at Mutawintji The number of community members spending time at Mutawintji, ebbs and flows, but it’s been a constant ongoing movement to get more and more people out on country. The Land Council, who operate the tours out to Mutawintji, are training the next group of guides coming through and it’s not a regular tour guide training program. It’s allowing people to bring the experiences that they’ve had in their home communities, mostly in Wilcannia, Broken Hill and Menindee, but in other places as well, bringing their lived experiences of modern culture. They are able to retell those personal experiences to the visitors that we have out at Mutawintji. It’s such an empowering thing for me to see the next generation take that up, and the empowerment they experience in sharing their story, especially when it relates to country. What you see is the day­-​­to­-day ​­ mundane things fading into the background, while the internal beliefs and culture of a person comes to the forefront and shines through; you can see people taking a lot of heart from that. Being on country has a powerful healing role; even this year one of the guides, who used to work out at Mutawintji, is now running healing programs, designed around local cultural beliefs, using tested methods, but putting those methods into a cultural framework, that is being delivered in places like Mutawintji, as well as other national parks, taking people out on country. Some people have never been out to the place before, but many have been out there as children, but haven’t been back since. You can see the effect and impact that it has on them, being submerged in this cultural landscape, whilst learning about methods to process thoughts and feelings, it’s such a great setting to be in. One of the schools in Wilcannia brings kids out to Mutawintji once every year, so they are learning a cultural framework, a connection to country. They already know about these places, but it’s being reinforced through those trips out on country. And because so many stories connect through Mutawintji, it helps our people have that landscape understanding of story and connection.

Caring for cultural imperatives  95 Aboriginal inmates from the local correctional centre used to spend time out at Mutawintji and we are looking at resuming this. The Mutawintji Board have had discussions with the local correctional centre based in Broken Hill, and there is a lot of enthusiasm from the inmates, but also from the staff in the corrections centre. It allows people to be out on country, whilst they process things. The inmates are in isolation away from the day­ -​­ to­ -​­ day, but at Mutawintji, they’re still being connected to country, connected to everyone, it’s sitting in a cultural context. I think that’s why there is a positive reaction to it. There is now accommodation for the community members to stay at Mutawintji. This is used constantly; large and small groups of community members are staying out there for a couple of days at a time frequently, and if the Board of Management or the Land Council is having a meeting, usually those rooms are booked out. There will be a need for greater staff housing, and also facilities that provide more training opportunities when we get to the point of bringing on more staff, which we are looking at doing by 1 July 2020. Employment at Mutawintji National Park The Mutawintji Board at its last meeting, passed an employment strategy that we’ve been working on for a long time. What we’ve come up with is something that creates a flatter structure. It has more people in a fieldworker’s role, as well as a Park Manager and a Joint Management Coordinator. When we open these positions up, we hope that every person that comes onboard will undertake further training, based around some specific skills. We’ll have a list of certain skills that we require, and of course there will be more skills needed, than there will be positions, so people will have a lot of choice. Then if people want to take on a trade skill, they can; if they want to take on some technical skill, like biology or botany they can do that, and archaeology hopefully. It means that people aren’t limited to just staying in those fieldwork positions, but it gives our people a way to get their foot in the door, it gives them cultural grounding, while they learn those skills and how to be in the workforce. Then, as their skills grow, they may want to move on from those fieldworker jobs and apply for positions in other areas, and then we can take on the next recruit into that fieldworker role. There will be gender equity, as well as fair representation from across the families, and a couple of extra positions, to recognise people that aren’t a part of those families, but that are connected to Mutawintji in a broader sense. At the moment the Joint Management Coordinator and the Park Manager are Aboriginal. It is extremely rare to not only have an Aboriginal Park Manager, but also for that person to be a local. Currently there are four fieldworkers and every single position at Mutawintji is filled by a Wiimpatja, and most of those roles are filled by Aboriginal owners of Mutawintji. Mostly the tourism at Mutawintji is run by the Mutawintji Land Council, but there is also a non­-​­Aboriginal commercial operator that has access to Mutawintji as well. Most of the income that is generated from Mutawintji doesn’t come

96  Julie Collins and Warlpa Kutjika Thompson from tourism. Tourism generates a little bit with camping fees, but that is such a small amount, especially when you compare it to the amount that’s earned by harvesting goats. Environmental concerns: the impacts of feral goats Because Mutawintji has permanent water, the neighbour’s goats come into our park, so controlling their numbers is an ongoing management problem. The goats have a terrible impact on the landscape, especially when there is a drought on. They come to drink in the small permanent water holes. Because they are so deprived of water, they drink more than they need, become bloated and are too weak to get back out of the waterhole, so they die there. This impacts on the other wildlife, because they have to drink from contaminated water sources, and it makes some of the swimming holes unswimmable. The area where the goats are at their most visible and numerous, is at the front of the park, as we don’t allow the use of motorbikes or helicopters there to muster them. So visitors get this distorted view of just how many goats are in the rest of the park and overestimate their numbers; we get quite a lot of comments on that. We’ve tried a few different methods over the years to remove the goats without the noise pollution of motorbikes and helicopters. We put a stop to aerial shooting within Mutawintji, because the shotgun pellets were hitting the back of the caves and destroying the artwork. Now we are just using helicopters to muster the goats out of the hills, to get them down on the flat and then round them up with motorbikes. But I think the most environmentally effective way to do this is with people and dogs; it doesn’t require an engine and so there is no noise pollution. The dogs are working dogs, so they are well trained and not barking. They are soft padded animals, they don’t have hooves like goats, they’re more like the rest of the wildlife that belongs in Mutawintji, with the soft pads, so they are not impacting on the engravings or on the soil crust. You can see the effect of the breaking of that crust, through dust storms that allow the wind to carry soil away. Up until recently we were we were selling the goats at a flat rate at a minimal amount, but we have now established a 40/60 split between the goat contractors and the Mutawintji Board of Management. In the first 18 months that we were able to take 40 per cent of the total contract for goats, we were able to make $480,000. That was a lot of goats and the money sits within the yellow­-​­footed rock wallaby conservation account. We’ve got a couple of test stock exclusion plots up where the rock wallabies are, which allow the vegetation to regenerate, and we’re currently looking at putting in a couple of goat proof fences around some wild limes in the front of the park, not too far from the camping ground. This will allow people to be able to see what the country would look like with the removal of stock. Although we’ve got high numbers of goats in Mutawintji, when you’re driving along the fence line, even in the drought, you can see that on one side of the boundary fence, where there are sheep and goats, there is still a

Caring for cultural imperatives  97 substantial difference to the other side of the boundary fence, where there are just goats. So, we can’t really blame the loss of vegetation totally on the goats, because sheep are moving in such large numbers, destroying the bush, and it’s getting to a point where there aren’t many areas where young trees are growing. Mulga trees (Acacia aneura) are probably going to start becoming very rare out here, because there’s only a few places, where a patch of young Mulga is growing. There are other areas, where you can see lots of older Mulga trees that have been eaten to a certain height by stock. It would be interesting to track the change over the next 60 or 70 years, because I think the big die off will be in that period for those older Mulga trees. Drought and climate change It is still drought declared out here, although we’ve had a reasonable amount of rain, but in patches, so it’s probably not enough for farmers to be all that excited about. In the height of the drought, at the start of the year (2019) through summer, we heard reports from each of the national parks in the western region, that there was an average of 95 per cent die off of all kangaroos; I think the highest was Sturt National Park, which was at about a 97 or 98 per cent. I guess we are still drought affected, but the kangaroo numbers have started to bounce back. Emus have started to breed, just off a few smaller rains that we’ve had in the area. The environment is getting drier; there’s a couple of waterholes that we use for swimming out at Mutawintji, and one of them is quite a large waterhole that no one had ever seen go dry, and then in that last big (Millenium) drought that lasted for 10 years, it finally went dry and I mean dry dry. You could walk into this place that, before the drought. we were jumping off the side of the gorge and straight into the waterhole. It was that deep. And now it’s just this sandy bottom. And then when the rains finally came, it came in such a huge deluge, that it basically ripped out all the sediment on one side of the waterhole, and in it were growing three or four trees, that were helping hold all that soil together, as well as a couple of older trees that had died, but were still just sitting on the edge, and all of them just got ripped out of the ground. That whole landscape is totally different to what it was before the last drought and it’s dry again, so the fact that it’s dried out in two droughts in a row, shows us that we are in conditions that no one can remember. Everybody remembers this waterhole as having water in it. The gullies on the creeks coming out of the gorges are artificially created. There used to be shallow ponds, which water trickled out of, dispersing over a wider area, but then, after the loss of vegetation and topsoil from grazing, the water started to channel off the hills a lot faster. It wasn’t being slowed down by vegetation. This allowed huge erosion gullies to form. These gullies are so deep, in some places about 2 m to 3 m deep, and because the water table has to sit below the lowest point in the landscape, the loss of soil in those gullies, means the water is sitting below that lowest point. Then the water is

98  Julie Collins and Warlpa Kutjika Thompson channelling out, not flooding an area and slowly seeping into the ground. It flows straight down to end of the watercourse, collecting in a concentrated area, rather than being dispersed to help maintain local ecosystems. Trees, including River Red gums, are dying along those creek lines because their roots aren’t deep enough to get down to the ground water. The importance of story for the survival of people and the environment Nuntherungie is a pastoral property that was bought in 2015, from the part of the rent that’s allocated towards land purchase. The rent that’s paid by the State to the Aboriginal Owners of Mawintjis is paid into three accounts; one of them is land purchase; the other one is for seeding (funding to support new initiatives) and the third for community development. We got to a position, where we had enough money to buy another property. We were unable to move on this property very quickly the first time it was offered for sale, because it had never been done before in the State, but at least we got to work out a few of the bugs in the system that prevented the purchase the first time. The second time it came up for sale, we were able to move a lot faster and purchase the property. The property touches on the north­ -western ​­ border of Mutawintji lands. It takes in the western edge of Kutawanti (Coturaundee), a range that has yellow­-​­footed rock wallaby, the only area that has got yellow­-​­footed rock wallaby in New South Wales. It takes in the western side of their habitat. About 97 per cent of the rock wallaby habitat sits within the Mutawintji lands. In total there are 29 threatened species that live at Nuntherungie. It is an important place that has a number of stories going through it, that connect to Mutawintji, but also over to the Darling River, the Paroo River, down to Broken Hill, and on to Meninndee. Nuntherungie is an essential part of the Darling (Paaka) River dreaming story. So, it is a fairly significant place. It’s also got a connection to these bigger stories, like the Bronzewing pigeon which goes across to South Australia and up in the Queensland, so it’s an important site. We got to see that first hand, when one particular site was rediscovered in Nuntherungie. Nuntherungie is connected to the story of the two rainbow serpents, Ngatji, in our country. One of the stories is that, they start off in Nocoleche, just south of Wanaaring, travel down the Paroo River to Piri (Peery Lake), where they lay a couple of eggs, then go down a bit further south, get into Bunker Creek and cut across to White Cliffs, defecate there and that’s the opal. It is the two Ngatji kurna, to us that’s sacred poo, a sacred stone. No one touches it. And then they come across to Nuntherungie and this site that was rediscovered in Nuntherungie, since we bought it back, is hard to put into words. Basically, you’ve got one of the rainbow serpents made out of ochre and another one made out of iron, and they are magnificent. This is one of those sites that is connected to this story and this story goes across to South Australia,

Caring for cultural imperatives  99 as well as coming back into our country and ending up north of White Cliffs. Each of my four children as well as myself and nieces has a name from off this dreaming track as did my great grandfather. It’s this huge looping story, that probably covers 1,500 km all up, and it’s such an important site for us. Basically, every time someone has visited that site in this drought, we’ve had big rain, two days afterwards. It’s been great seeing that happen. This site connects to the site of the Kulawirru footprints at the Mutawintji Heritage Centre. The two steps that Kulawirru takes, he calls out kakurru, which means waterhole and out of each of those waterholes the two Ngatji (rainbow serpents) come out and so their journey begins. So that that’s how they came to be. At Nuntherungie that’s one of the treks they make. They don’t go straight away from there to this other place. They have got several adventures, that take them all over Wiimpatja country. In that Corner country, you get a lot of these bigger stories that connect people to each other, so that when it is hard times in your country, you have got bigger, broader connections and everyone is sharing the available resources. The future of Mutawintji lands The lease was originally negotiated for 30 years. The purchase and addition of any lands to the Mutawintji lands, automatically triggers a lease review. It has to be renegotiated so the rent that will be paid will be renegotiated. The bigger the rent, the more people we can employ and the bigger the employment strategy gets, the more work we can do on country, to look after country, it’s pretty exciting. Also, the more land we can purchase. Although, at some point I would imagine the State will perhaps try and limit that in some way. The Nuntherungie Sation was gazetted as an addition to the Mutawintji State Conservation Area by the NSW Energy and Environment Minister, Matt Keen, on 4 September 2019. This adds 56, 954 hectares, almost doubling the size of the park to 125,000 hectares (see Volkofsky and Tomeskva 2019). The Minister’s visit coincided with an even more significant milestone – the biggest gathering of Aboriginal owners, or Wiimpatja, on Nuntherungie since colonisation. Sixty Aboriginal owners gathered at an ochre pit on the property, to welcome the Minister and bear witness to the signing of a commitment to protect the area. A State conservation area, is basically a national park that allows mining; however, Minister Kean was reported as saying that ‘despite the property rich gold deposits, he thinks mining will be unlikely’ (ABC 2019). It was a dilemma to determine how much to gazette as a State conservation area and how much as a Nature Reserve. If it’s gazetted as Nature Reserve, it doesn’t have any attachment to National Parks. That’s just a private agreement between the landholder and the State. We showed a willingness to work with the mining exploration companies and the people that hold exploration licences, allowing the area to be gazetted as a State conservation area, but we did have some limitations, especially around the Ngatji site and there’s a couple of other fairly important sites that are on the place.

100  Julie Collins and Warlpa Kutjika Thompson ‘The money means nothing compared to country’ We’ve got the State conservation area gazetted, which everybody is really happy and positive about. But to get Nuntherungie gazetted, we had all this really hard work put in by older members of our Board, and a lot of those people have passed away now, and this is such an important part of their legacy, through the effort and fight that they’ve had. This sacred place has been re­-​­recognised as belonging to our mob. It’s been gazetted, added to the Mutawintji lands, given back to the Aboriginal owners, to be managed by the Aboriginal owners. I can’t express how important that is. The delay in purchasing the Nuntherungie property, from the first time it was for sale, to purchasing it second time around, cost us $1.1 million, and when we were shown the Ngatji site by the Elder that found it, the rest of us looked at each other and I said ‘what do you reckon about the 1.1 million now?’ And everyone said, ‘who cares we could have given them another 20 million, if we had known this was on here’. It was so significant that the money meant nothing; the money means nothing compared to country. Money comes and money goes, but the connection to country lasts forever, because we got it back. Each of my kids has a name that comes off this Ngatji dreaming track that comes through Nuntherungie. So, the significance is not just for me, but for them – continuing that connection and continuing that story and that memory.

A concluding yarn: Julie Collins and Warlpa Kutjika Thompson For Aboriginal owners, concepts of wilderness in the Western non­ -​ ­indigenous sense are not meaningful; cultural and environmental management are two interconnected domains, the presence of Aboriginal owners is integral to the sustainable management of country. The area designated as ‘wilderness’ at Mutawintji is confronted by the same environmental challenges as other parts of the park, but its designation means that visitor numbers are reduced as visitors must enter on foot. Aboriginal owners, however, can maintain their connection to spiritually and culturally significant places therein. The Aboriginal owners are grateful for the designation of the Mutawintji lands as a protected area, as they have the support of the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service to manage their lands sustainably. It is not currently feasible to restore the landscape to what it was it was in pre­-​­colonial times; the settler heritage of Mutawintji, with its legacy of environmental degradation, and numerous feral animals and plants, means that all environmental management needs to be a ‘collaborative two­-​­way knowledge engagement’ (Hill et al. 2013, 2), using both Aboriginal and scientific ‘tool­-​­boxes’. The best outcome for the Mutawintji lands would be to exclude all feral pest species, allow the return of dingo populations to pre­-​­colonial levels, and to eliminate artificial watering points; this would allow populations of herbivorous animals to be maintained at the carrying capacity of the country, reversing some of the degradation that

Caring for cultural imperatives  101 has occurred. Unfortunately, current Australian land management regimes constrain what is achievable. The theme for the 2015 National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Day of Celebration (NAIDOC) was ‘We all Stand on Sacred Ground: Learn, Respect and Celebrate’. It was both universal and singular: it reflected the sacredness of landscape: rivers, lakes, coastal areas, deserts, forests and mountain ranges (Collins 2018). The Aboriginal owners clearly believe in the pervasive presence of spiritual entities in the Mutawintji lands. This is a place where non­-​­Indigenous concepts of wilderness and Indigenous concepts of country converge: a belief in an ‘inspirited’ landscape (Read 2003, 20). Much research in the field of wilderness recreation points to spirituality as a significant aspect of this experience, eliciting both emotional and spiritual transformation (Naor and Mayseless 2019). Spirituality, inherent in both philosophical concepts, ‘country’ and ‘wilderness’, promotes an intrinsic valuing of our environment, going beyond a purely utilitarian perspective. The title of the paper, ‘Dreaming on wilderness’, is indicative of the juxtaposition of two philosophical perspectives and the inherent possibilities therein.

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104  Julie Collins and Warlpa Kutjika Thompson Wilson, Edward O. 2016. Half­-​­Earth. Our Planet’s Fight for Life. London: Liferight Publishing. Wilson, Edward O. 2018. ‘The 8 Million Species We Don’t Know’. Indigenous Policy Journal 29 (1). www.indigenouspolicy.org/index.php/ipj/article/view/543/532. Yip, Sarah, Rosemary Pryor, Marion Hawley and NPWS. 2002. ‘Cover Story – Year of the Outback: Back o’ Bourke and Beyond’. National Parks Journal 46 (3) June.

6 Changing attitudes towards wilderness in Aotearoa/New Zealand From disappointment to glorification and guardianship Tom Brooking

Introduction The notion of wilderness as a special, ‘untouched’ place far from civilisation, where humans can reconnect with nature and the divine, was carried all around the globe by white, European settlers. Being an essentially European construct shaped by the ‘Scientific Revolution’ of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries as well as the ‘Enlightenment’ and the triumph of reason, it differed greatly from any Indigenous understandings of human relations with nature wherever Europeans attempted to settle in the so­-​­called ‘new world.’ It also differed more subtly between each major wave of European settlement according to timing and the ethnic, religious and class composition of settlers. The European settlers, notwithstanding their own inherent heterogeneity, shared a common emphasis on transforming and altering the natural order in whichever land they encountered. Ideals concerning conservation and preservation of so­-​­called ‘first nature’ (Cronon 1983 and 1991; White 1995) emerged relatively slowly, and varied across space and time. New Zealanders of European origin and their descendants, often referred to by Māori as Pākehā, were slower than their American and Australian peers to glorify wilderness, holding on rather longer to its condemnation as ‘waste land’ and ‘waste howling wilderness’ (Holland et al. 2011, 46; Holland 2013). This chapter is divided into three main parts. The first provides a background to Māori relationships with land and understandings of its central place in their lives. The second and third parts comprise the discussion and show how the notion and preservation of ‘wilderness’ has changed since the arrival of predominantly British settlers in Aotearoa/New Zealand. The sub­-​­section titled, ‘Reducing and Transforming Wilderness’, attempts to explain why Aoteoroa/New Zealand’s white settlers seemed so intent on converting wilderness to productive farm land, while highlighting how that objective differed from Māori understandings of how apparently ‘waste’ and ‘empty’ land should be treated. It also explains why approaches to wilderness have shifted

106  Tom Brooking across time by paying particular attention to context: to environments, the timing of settlement, the immigrant mix, and the pattern of race relations. The sub­ -​­ section titled, ‘Saving Wilderness’, shows how notions of wilderness protection emerged erratically in Aoteoroa/New Zealand despite the contribution of a few exceptional individuals, and contained all kinds of ambiguities and contradictions down to the 1970s, which still persist today. It will also suggest that Māori resistance to on­-​­going colonisation helped save significantly large areas from narrow productivist uses, whether through the gifting of areas for preservation, active insistence on treating the environment more sustainably, or attaching legal personhood to major rivers. Differing Māori perceptions of human relations with nature and land thereby assisted the cause of conservation and preservation as well as supporting self­-determination, ​­ through encouraging alternative ways of sustainably using land and water in the European sense, even if Māori themselves may have been more interested in guarding the land (Te Whenua) against damage and degradation.

Background European settler understandings of the human­ -nature ​­ relationship differed starkly from those of the Indigenous Māori. Māori did not adhere to anything like European notions of wilderness as either a special spiritual place removed from humanity, or barren waste. Nor are Māori appreciations homogenous; rather they are tied to the natural world in different ways according to tribal or ‘iwi’ experience of a land that was new to them when they arrived, in about 1280 (Anderson 2013 and 2014). Māori viewed every part of their new land as containing useful resources, being aware of the many edible plants, birds and fish (‘mahinga kai’ or traditional food sources, see Anderson 2013) of which Europeans were ignorant. Nowhere is this clearer than in the recent Ngāi Tahu or southern iwi cultural naming project where some 6,500 names have been attached to locations across their entire large territory or ‘rohe’. Each name not only reveals much about the human history of the location and its inhabitants, but also alerts viewers to the resources that existed in each place and the tracks that criss­-​­crossed the mountainous areas, often declared ‘tapu’ or sacred (Cultural Naming Project 2020). This is not to argue that Māori were some kind of ‘green indigenes’. As eminent pre­-historian ​­ and archaeologist Atholl Anderson, who shares Ngāi Tahu and Scottish ancestry, points out, such an idea is no more than a ‘new age fantasy’ (Anderson 2013). Like all new colonisers in all places and at all times, they too managed a fair degree of transformation, some of it destructive – such as deforestation of about a quarter of the forest they found upon arrival (Anderson 2013; Wynn 2013). They also brought about ‘the extinction of 35 species of birds … a bat, three to five species of frogs, an unknown number of lizard taxa, and doubtless many invertebrates adapted to dry forest habitats’ (Anderson 2013, 45). On the other hand, the work of Jim Williams and Anderson shows that the Eastern Polynesians who became ‘Māori’ had begun to learn from their

Changing attitudes towards wilderness  107 mistakes by the 1500s and were working toward the development of an ‘environmental ethos’. From that time on they instituted ‘rahui’ or prohibition of harvesting of fish, shell­-​­fish and various plants to restore the specified food source to health. Resource management improved markedly after the extinction of the flightless birds – Moa – that proved to be a very accessible food source (Anderson 2013; Williams 2012). Māori views of the natural world were embedded in ‘whakapapa’ (genealogy) and ancestry which ‘bound’ them ‘to the land’ (Keenan 2002, 246), a much more personal and powerful link than any kind of property right. As Eric Pawson (2013, 160–161) points out, in the Māori world ‘prominent features of the land anchor people to place’. Connections to land, thereby, played a key role in determining identity. This close link also demanded intergenerational responsibility (‘Kaitiakitanga’ or guardianship; see Roberts 2012) to maintain the environmental quality of tribal, clan (‘Hapu’), and extended family (‘Whanau’)­-controlled ​­ land. These attitudes and adaptability helped Māori assist Pākehā in saving ‘wilderness’ areas from desecration in the twentieth century.

Discussion Reducing and transforming wilderness Neither Lieutenant James Cook nor the botanist Joseph Banks had much to say about wilderness, but both believed that New Zealand had a bright farming future when they ‘rediscovered’ the country in 1769, about 500 years after Māori. Both navigator and scientist believed that the swamps ‘might doubtless easily be drained’ (even if Cook judged the larger South Island to be ‘barren’ and apparently ‘devoid of inhabitants’ because of its lack of trees compared with the North Island, see Cook 1770). Cook and Banks got their wish as white settlers (often assisted by Māori labour), drained between 85 and 90 per cent of New Zealand’s wetlands (Park 2013; Hunt 2007). Banks’s estate­-​­owning father had brought about rapid improvement in the fenlands of Lincolnshire that led to the triumph of order and modernity over the ancient wildness of swamp land. Banks hoped, therefore, that Britons would likewise convert the Pacific region into ‘an arcadia of which we were going to be kings’ (Park 2013, 176). Owing to the limitations in the scientific understanding of soil fertility at the time, both navigator and scientist over­-estimated ​­ New Zealand’s farming potential. According to the ‘humus theory’ current in the mid­ -​­ eighteenth century, as expressed by such eminent botanists as Count Buffon and Linnaeus, and reinforced by the Pilgrim Fathers’ experience in New England, large biomass and tall trees indicated that the soil was fertile because the humus and leaf mould ‘hoarded up’ richness. This belief became what Vaughan Wood has labelled ‘the biometric fallacy’, which won the support of every scientist on all of Cook’s voyages, underpinning the over­ -​­ promotion of New Zealand’s abundance by the likes of the New Zealand Company in the 1830s and, later,

108  Tom Brooking the New Zealand Government (Wood 2003). In fact, the huge Kauri tree was an indicator of leached and exhausted soils while the fenland was not sour as in England but relatively fertile, once fired and grubbed out (Wood 2003). The more sophisticated understanding induced by advancements in geology, and the key role associated with soil scientists such as Justus van Liebig in the early 1800s, arrived too late to challenge such a misreading of Aoteoroa/New Zealand’s soils, even if the missionaries had figured out by the 1830s that Kauri made for exhausted soils, while growth of the tall Totara indicated fertility (Wood 2003). Liebig’s favourite pupil, Ernst Dieffenbach, visited New Zealand in the early 1840s and warned that the country lacked large river systems and rich flood plains like the Danube and Rhine. He feared that it would be prone to erosion if hilltops were deforested (Dieffenbach 1843), but his cautions came too late to moderate the rampant optimism. Christian missionaries were also intent on ‘improving’ the new country and reducing wilderness. A major method of reducing and taming wilderness was to build churches in ‘wild places’ to demonstrate the transformative capabilities of Christianity and European culture (Thornton 2003). Samuel Marsden, head of the Church Mission Society operation in New Zealand, linked the history of this new outpost with Australia. Arguably he was more important as a farmer than as an evangelist (in both nations, see Robin 2007) and seemed determined to turn ‘spears into ploughshares’, even if the wilderness he aimed to convert into productive farm land had been purchased in dubious ways. He considered the Bay of Islands as ideal country for growing wheat and encouraged the Ngā Puhi Ariki (Supreme Chief), Hongi Hika, to follow his example. This combined enterprise proved so successful that Ngā Puhi soon began exporting wheat to Australia (Yarwood 1968; Stokes 2013, 58–63). Vegetable and flower gardens were established by missionaries at the Waimate North settlement (Hargreaves 1963, 101–117; Owens 1981, 35–36), creating the only place in New Zealand where Charles Darwin felt comfortable. On visiting the Bay of Islands in 1835, he enthused that ‘the conjuror’s wand’ had created a haven of English bucolic bliss on the other side of the world from what had only a few years before been ‘wild’, untamed and frightening (Darwin in Stenhouse 1985, 11). Wilderness areas were mainly viewed with fear by Europeans in the nineteenth century, and not entirely without reason. In New Zealand the lack of roads and bridges forced travellers to cross rivers prone to flash floods and by 1870 1,115 had drowned. Drowning remained the largest cause of accidental death until the 1920s and settlers referred to such misadventure as ‘the New Zealand death’ (Graham 1981, 119). Religious leaders after the missionaries tended to espouse a decidedly biblical view of wilderness, not unlike that of the Pilgrim Fathers in North America’s New England (Cronon 1983). The Reverend Thomas Burns, Free Church Presbyterian head of the Otago settlement from 1848 and himself a successful farmer, reinforced the understanding of the wilderness as being of most use to prophets and wise men for contemplation of God’s work, by insisting that settlers convert the ‘waste howling wilderness’ they found into

Changing attitudes towards wilderness  109 ‘smiling’ farm land as quickly as possible, because such action would ‘improve God’s creation’ (West 2017, 159). Burns referred here to surveyor John Turnbull Thomson’s descriptor of the rough, hilly country to the north west of Dunedin as ‘waste howling wilderness’ (‘howling’ because of the wild winds that blow across the South Island high country, Sinclair 1985; and see Bible and Howard, this volume for its biblical derivation). Fifty years later, during celebrations of the founding of the colony in 1898, Charles Rule (1898, 42) outdid even Burns in a poem entitled ‘Otago’s Pioneers’. The Wilderness with savage strength of limb Opposed the struggling settlers everywhere, And near at hand a range of mountains grim Looked down from their wind stricken lair! Impenetrable forest, ever green, Deep swamps and rushing rivers barred the way Then, after expressing delight at ‘the fertility of the soil’, Rule declared triumphantly: When Maoriland gazed idly at the sea, Her heathen mind with darkness overcast Today, the march of progress shakes the land The wilderness is trampled underfoot. Here, two interesting metaphors can be equated with the process of colonisation. It was no coincidence that the notions of ‘progress’ and ‘improvement’ that propelled the extraordinarily extensive and rapid transformation of the New Zealand environment and drove the so­-​­called ‘second agricultural revolution’, including both the ‘Lowland’ and ‘Highland Clearances’ in Scotland, was at its most influential when New Zealand was systematically settled in the mid­-nineteenth ​­ century (Drayton 2000; Devine 2005; Richards 1982, 1985). As Miles Fairburn (1988) has shown, such energetic conversion of landscape was further promoted by the idea that New Zealand was ‘abundant’ in rich resources and a land ‘flowing with milk and honey’. Even the forbidding and dense so­-​­called ‘bush’ – really a substantial rainforest full of understory plants and entangling vines – was supposedly a ‘cornucopia’. Burns and his followers shared with the Liberal politicians of the 1890s the idea that Māori land was ‘wilderness’, ‘useless’ and ‘unproductive’. Supposedly its potential could only be brought into ‘utility’ by European farmers (Brooking 1996a, 147–159). Under Burns’ direction, the Otago settlers set about removing most of the Peninsula’s forest in a mere 20 years – a forest so dense that it took three or four days to traverse about 30 kilometres. Much the same thing happened a mere 360 kilometres further north, on the Banks Peninsula, lying to the south of Christchurch.

110  Tom Brooking Just as disillusionment threatened, once the initial flush of fertility disappeared after the first burning of either tussock land or forested country, technology came to the ‘rescue’, with the first successful shipment of refrigerated meat and butter in 1882, providing a new impetus to the development of the sheep, meat and dairy industries (Gardner 1981, 80–83; McAloon 2009, 214–216). Settlers had become acutely aware, however, of falling stocking capacity in the South Island high country as early as the late 1860s (Buchanan 1868, 181; Beattie 2005), while Canterbury Plains wheat farmers realised by the 1870s that the early record yields of the 1850s had been temporary (Holland, Williams and Wood 2011, 46; Holland 2013, 138–145). Falling prices for wheat from the mid­-​­1880s further reduced interest in expanding arable farming (Gardner 1981, 79; Brooking 1989). But once reliable refrigeration became available, the older yeoman ideal of a land of middle­-​­sized, family­-​ ­operated farms became possible once more. Such farms came to replace the giant sheep runs based on the leasehold and large, freehold, grain growing estates by the early 1900s. The cessation of military hostilities with Māori in the North Island by the early 1870s, and the emergence of non­-​­violent Māori protest and greater utilisation of constitutional channels of influence, such as petitioning, also made it easier to convert New Zealand into a land of British style farms, as large areas of cheap Māori land became available for purchase or lease by white settlers interested in smaller scales of production (Brooking 1996a). The ‘long depression’ from 1878–1896 moderated expectations from the 1880s, as many farmers on smaller properties struggled to cope with the low prices for wool, meat and grain. This long downturn made the possibility of converting wilderness to pasture less attractive. Settlers battling with the challenges of bush country in areas like the Catlins south of Dunedin learnt that bush properties could be difficult to farm profitably (Muirhead 1978). Floods and droughts linked to the La Niña/El Niño oscillation in the late 1870s and early 1880s made it even clearer that New Zealand bush farms were far from cornucopias (Garden 2009). By the 1880s many settlers realised that the country’s productive capacity had been seriously over­ -​­ sold by government immigration propaganda (Fairburn 1988, 29–41). Even areas where the future seemed bright in the 1870s, such as Canterbury, Taranaki and the Hawke’s Bay, began to produce their doubters (Arnold 1997, 131–151). In Otago, supposedly tough Scots started to write letters home warning their relatives not to come, and migration to New Zealand dried up until around 1904 (Brooking 2006). Rather than giving up, however, the solution pursued by government and farmers was to extend the frontier as far as possible and use every potentially arable acre. What Richard White calls ‘second nature’ came to win precedence over romantic engagement with unsullied ‘first nature’ (White 1995). The major exception was in nineteenth­-century ​­ landscape painting where those working in either the ‘picturesque’ style such as the Frenchman Nicholas Chevalier and Alfred Sharpe from Cheshire, or painters of the ‘sublime’ such as Dutchman Petrus van der Velden, tended to glorify New Zealand’s scenery as magnificent

Changing attitudes towards wilderness  111 and awe inspiring (Beattie 2011). These artists underscored the point by usually painting such scenes on clear, sunlit days. Such painters captured on canvas an ancient world before it changed irrevocably. Dunedin­ -​­ based naturalist and proto­-​­ecologist George Malcolm Thomson (1899) evoked this sense of loss when he lamented that: If Rip Van Winkle among naturalists could arise here, one who had known the natural conditions in 1849, and if he could be dropped down in Dunedin now, he would be astounded at the changes which had taken place during the interval in the aspect of Nature. A very large proportion of the indigenous flora and fauna has disappeared. The ferns and other delicate plants which formally filled up the bush are nearly all gone, dried up and exterminated. The big trees have disappeared long ago. The undergrowth consists very largely of European plants, the birds are those of the old land, the whole face of Nature is altered. (cited in West 2017, 249) The settlers who attempted to tame and transform the wilderness most enthusiastically were farmers, the great majority of whom were ‘improvers in trousers’ (Brooking and Wood 2013). There were a few early conservationists from each of the major ethnic groups – English, Scots and Irish – amongst the settlers, who spoke with relatively loud voices, but they were a tiny minority. Most would­ -​­ be farmers, who had made the longest immigrant voyage in history to New Zealand, were determined to own and develop farmland so as to improve their economic wellbeing and increase their status. From the start, the majority supported the yeoman ideal of rough equality and widespread land ownership (Arnold 1981; Brooking 2019), but it took until 1900 for family farmers operating middle­-​­sized units to become politically dominant (Brooking, 1996a; 2014, 106–191, 349–399). So­-​­called ‘small farmers’ along with the great estate owners and high­ -country ​­ run­ -​­ holders sowed over 4.17 million ha of English­-style ​­ grasses by 1900 and, along with timber fellers, removed one and a quarter million ha of forest, 90 per cent of it via fire (Wynn 2013, 122–140). Once farmers operating small and middle­-​­sized units had seized political control, New Zealand committed itself to farming as the main element of development. Once ensconced as the leading industry, farming (wool, meat and butter) earned 90 per cent of New Zealand’s export income by the 1920s. By then the area sown under English grasses had risen to 6.66 million ha – an area greater than in England itself – while a further 405,000 ha of forest were removed. Wilderness was in serious retreat by the arrival of the Great Depression of the 1930s. However, neither New Zealand’s forest, nor its farming potential, was limitless, because the country’s mountainous terrain ensured that only about 16.6 million ha could ever be farmed. Expansion efforts had to be supplemented by producing more from less, through increased dependency on fertilisers and chemicals (Brooking and Wood 2013).

112  Tom Brooking The settlers continued to justify this intensification on land they had confiscated, or purchased for little money, on the grounds that Māori had not ‘used’ it effectively or left it ‘empty’. The settlers continued to make little effort to understand Māori relationship with land. Supposedly only Europeans knew how to utilise the land’s productive potential effectively (Brooking 1996b). Attempts at expansion continued into the 1970s with isolated backcountry farms covered in secondary growth shrubs and bush dominated by Mānuka (Leptosperum scoparium) and Kānuka (Kunzea ericoides) being brought back into production. Forest clearance again escalated during the early 2000s dairy boom. Only since the 2017 election has a concerted government effort been made to reforest Aoteoroa/New Zealand on a significant scale with native trees as well as the fast­-​­growing Pinus radiata from California (present since its introduction in the 1920s to support paper milling and timber exports). However, this approach to regional development has also been much criticised due to fears of unemployment and rural depopulation as a result of changing land use (Roche 2013; Ruapehu Bulletin 2019). Saving wilderness There were hints from Dieffenbach, Buchanan and Lindsay in the 1840s, 1850s and 1860s that environmental costs must be considered when attempting to transform New Zealand into a giant farm. Some Dunedin residents expressed regret at losing so much forest and so many native birds so quickly (Beattie 2000). However, the first serious debate did not occur until the 1870s, when Premier Julius Vogel, backed by Member of the House of Representatives (MHR) and leading naturalist Thomas Potts, and fellow MHR from Northern Island, Charles O’Neill, tried to reserve 6 million acres of native forest for future use (Wynn 2013). However, they lost out to a parliament set upon development. In the early 1880s Sir William Fox expressed an interest in establishing national parks following the US model. The Ariki (supreme chief ) Te Heuheu Tukino IV of Tuwharetoa gifted New Zealand’s first National Park (Tongariro) to the nation in 1887 (it became a government­-​­supported park in 1894). The gift was not to protect its wilderness status, but rather to ensure that the three volcanoes in the centre of the North Island were protected for the future enjoyment of all the chief’s Tuwharetoa iwi’s descendants (tipuna or tupuna). However, the Minister of Lands John McKenzie felt that more was required to attract European tourists. While failing in an attempt to introduce deer he was successful in planting heather, Calluna vulgaris. Botanist and proto­-​­ecologist, Leonard Cockayne, eventually had the heather removed, but not until after it was well­-​­established (Potton 1987; Brooking 1996a). About the same time, a series of Amenities Societies started to emerge in the main population centres to encourage the establishment of peri­ -urban ​­ reserves. Starting with Dunedin in 1888, the Reserves Conservation Society was formed under the direction of the naturalist and progressive, even utopian, reformer Alexander Bathgate (Henderson 2007). Similar organisations appeared

Changing attitudes towards wilderness  113 throughout the 1890s in Taranaki, Nelson, Wellington, Christchurch and Birkenhead. Assisted by the Scenery Preservation Act, passed in 1903 by Premier Richard Seddon, some 363 scenic reserves covering 866,000 ha had been established by 1914 (Star and Lochhead 2013, 145–149). Seddon was worried that something precious and distinctive about New Zealand was being lost and should be ‘preserved for all time’. He realised that what made New Zealand distinctive was not so much its British heritage but its unique biophysical features. From the 1890s his Liberal Government began to promote New Zealand as a tourist destination because it was both ‘Maoriland’ and a ‘wonder country’ (McClure 2004; Park 2006; Stafford and Williams 2006; Brooking 2014). This shift coincided with increasing urbanisation and leisure time from the 1880s onwards, which enabled urbanites to engage with both the bush and backcountry on a more regular basis (Olssen 1992). A slowly improving rail and road network helped make the wilderness more accessible and this in turn supported the growth of tramping and mountaineering clubs (Davidson 2002; Barnett and Maclean 2019). Potts, along with the naturalist Richard Henry and, from the 1880s, the photographer Henry Charles Clark Wright, developed more of a preservationist sentiment, and were successful in establishing bird sanctuaries on off­ -​­ shore islands in the 1890s (Galbreath 1989; Star and Lochhead 2013). At the same time surveyor, seed merchant, explorer and politician Thomas Mackenzie advocated the establishment of the large 3 million acre Fiordland National Park in 1902 (see Figure 6.1). Yet despite Mackenzie’s best efforts, this park was not completed until 1953 because some politicians and developers insisted that farming was still possible, in one of the wettest and wildest corners of the world (Star and Lochhead 2013, 153). Harry Ell of Christchurch, who had earlier championed scenic reserves, set up the Summit Road Association in 1909 to begin restoration of Banks Peninsula (Star and Lochhead 2013, 148). Between the three national parks and the scenic reserves, some 1.2 million ha had been protected from intensive development by the outbreak of the First World War. By 1909, 833,333 ha of state forest had been gazetted (Star and Lochhead 2013, 153). The possibility that the forest was far from limitless had been ignored up until then, but the Royal Commission on Forestry in 1913 revealed that the country faced an imminent timber shortage and that the highly prized Kauri had been virtually cut out. Deforestation was attacked as a national tragedy. Guy Scholefield (1909) lamented that the assault on the forest was a ‘pitiful war’ and the rights given saw­-​­millers were ‘simply and solely … executioner’s warrant[s]’ (Scholefield cited in Wynn 2013, 122). In the same year the imposter ‘Professor’ Joseph Penfound Grossmann published The Evils of Deforestation (see Grossmann 1909; Sinclair 1983). These sentiments attracted important support, especially from the big landowner and powerful politician Sir James Wilson, who went on to direct reforestation from 1920. Wilson believed in planting trees for the enjoyment of future generations. He joined forces with the naturalist, sheep farmer and pioneer conservationist Herbert Guthrie­-Smith ​­ to found the first

114  Tom Brooking

Figure 6.1 Wilderness abuts against productive land at Te Anau Downs on the edge of Fiordland. Source: author’s collection.

Forest and Bird Conservation Society in 1914, an effort supported by Dunedin naturalist G. M. Thomson, who went on to contribute in 1922 a severe critique of careless acclimatisation of both plants and animals and Darwin’s dangerous notion of ‘displacement’ (Thomson 1922; Galbreath 2002; Young 2004). The second version of the Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society, initially known as the Native Bird Protection Society, formed in 1923 by Captain Val Sanderson, Herbert Guthrie­-​­Smith and ornithologist Perrine Moncrieff (who also established Abel Tasman National Park in the South Island in 1942), pushed hard to have Waipoua Forest established as a special park to protect the last remnant of the Kauri Forest (Wynn 2013, 130–134). Botanist Leonard Cockayne had suggested such a reserve as early as 1906 on ecological grounds, arguing that the Kauri was unique to New Zealand and must therefore be preserved. Novelists such as Jane Mander utilised a more romantic approach in her Story of a New Zealand River by condemning the central character for

Changing attitudes towards wilderness  115 glorying in his destruction of the iconic tree (Star and Lochhead 2013; Jones 1991). Guthrie­-​­Smith, alarmed by the large amount of erosion that became highly visible in 1938, had also become much more critical by the time the third edition of Tutira was published in 1940, lamenting ‘Have I for sixty years desecrated God’s earth and dubbed it improvement?’ A few years earlier, in 1936, he had also complained of ‘the ruin of a Fauna and flora unique in the world – a sad, bad, mad, incomprehensible business’ (Guthrie­-​­Smith 1999, xxiii). Poets, novelists and literati were generally ambivalent about the development project. Politician, historian, diplomat and sometime poet William Pember Reeves (1973, 302) caught the ambiguity in his 1998 poem ‘The Passing of The Forest’, when he concluded: … Ah, bitter price to pay For Man’s dominion – beauty swept away. From the 1920s, a full blown ‘anti­-​­myth’ developed amongst women writers including Jane Mander and Robin Hyde, and the newly emergent ‘Masculinist Nationalists’, led by poet Allen Curnow (Jones 1998; Kuzma 2003). In his 1941 poem ‘House and Land’ Curnow rejected the whole colonial dream of transforming an ancient land into some kind of ‘better Britain’, instead lamenting ‘a land of settlers/With never a soul at home’. In ‘The Unhistoric Story’ (1941) Curnow compared the development of New Zealand with Christ’s crucifixion: The Pilgrim dream pricked by a cold dawn died Among the chemical farmers, the fresh towns, among, Miners, not husbandman, who piercing the side Let the land’s life … (Curnow in Jones 1998, 12 and 33) Many writers felt alienated from the strange, old rather than ‘new’ land they found themselves living in, and rejected the earlier Imperial aim of converting forest, swamp and tussock areas into English­-​­style farmland, rather than leaving such areas free of stock. They wanted a more ‘natural’ landscape and also hoped to forge a new sense of the remote country’s history that reflected New Zealand rather than British traditions and mythologies – an awkward intention that involved a degree of appropriation of Māori tradition and belief systems relating to the environment (Star and Lochhead 2013, 155–156). Such views contrast dramatically with those of the Governor­ -​ ­General Lord Bledisloe’s preface to Alan Mulgan’s A Pilgrim’s Way, published in 1935, in which this Vice­-​­Regal personage, best known as an agricultural improver, enthused that ‘a community of hard working, comfortable living, intelligent farmers has taken the place of the forest’ (Mulgan 1935, v). Science also followed two rather different paths at this point as the mainstream continued to insist on growth and material development, while the

116  Tom Brooking relatively new sub­ -​­ discipline of ecology began to query the impact of intensive land use on the environment. Aldo Leopold’s A Sand County Almanac (1949) helped inspire John Salmon to publish his critical clarion call, Heritage Destroyed, in 1960 (Salmon 1960). New Zealand’s first large conservation protest was sparked in 1969 by the proposal to raise the level of Lake Manapouri to generate more hydroelectricity (Wheen 2013). It was ultimately successful, and in 1973 Labour Prime Minister Norman Kirk established an independent statutory body, which continues to this day, of ‘guardians’ to care for this and other waterbodies; the Guardians of Lakes Manapouri, Monowai and Te Anau. A new category of ‘wild’ river was created by legislation (the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act 1981), and this was subsequently used to protect rivers like the Kawerau from impoundment (Knight 2018, 47–48). A new Ministry and separate Department of Conservation was established in 1986, along with the independent Office of the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, which were all able to exercise more control over the development of wild areas (Wheen 2013). A large area of southern Westland, covering 2.6 million ha and including Fiordland, became the Te Wahipounamu­-​­South Westland World Heritage Area in 1986, and the whole of Stewart Island was declared a National Park in 2000 (Cravens 2008). These areas supported a marked growth in nature­ -​­ based tourism and recreational pursuits that had already expanded as better roads improved access, and led to further valorisation of ‘wilderness’ areas (Pawson 2013, 171–173). With the appearance of the New Zealand Wilderness magazine in 2003, advocating walking in wilderness areas both on and off track, it seemed that a coalition of lovers of the great outdoors, who advocated conservation of the wonders of ancient Aotearoa/New Zealand, had won the battle of ideas. However, as the tourist industry promoted ‘beautiful’ and ‘100 per cent pure’ New Zealand, conservationists worried about the environmental impacts (Pawson 2018, 137–156). The New Zealand dairy industry compounded the hypocrisy by turning its already highly modified grazing landscape intensively industrial through the widespread installation of pivot irrigation. The decision of the John Key­-​­led National Government, elected in 2008, to allow mining in national parks, was perhaps the most extreme example of regression. By the time of the 2017 election, the cumulative effects of landscape modification were becoming evident with declining water quality in the country’s river systems, and in 2018 the Coalition Government of Labour, the Greens and New Zealand First commenced negotiations with farmers regarding more sustainable production. The mainstream environmental movement had mainly involved Pākehā. Since the 1980s, Māori protest has shifted from reclaiming their own land to insisting that it be better looked after for future generations. Māori agriculture, some of it employing land won back via Waitangi Tribunal claims, has also placed much greater emphasis upon Kaitiakitanga, and away from monocultures and over­-​­dependence on limited staples. This shift, along with greater

Changing attitudes towards wilderness  117 emphasis upon soil health and tailoring farming activity to local biophysical characteristics, has pushed it towards achieving greater sustainability (Brooking 2019). Sometimes Pākehā conservationists’ agenda were resisted by Māori, due to feared constraints on iwi ability to utilise land and forest resources (Stevens 2013). The most innovative recent development has been the 2017 decision, under pressure from the Ngāti Te Atihaunui­-​­a­-​­Paparangi iwi, to grant the Whanganui (Te Awa Tupua) River the status of legal personhood (Charpleix 2018). Under the Te Awa Tupua (Whanganui River Claims Settlement) Act 2017 local iwi access and control has been recognised and this iconic river and its spectacular scenery is protected from degradation, for the enjoyment of future generations of all New Zealanders. The protection is similar to that provided by national parks and to wilderness areas, but with the important distinction of including Indigenous people’s ‘Kotahitanga’, or self­-government, ​­ promised under clause II of the Treaty of Waitangi but never delivered in law until now (Charpleix 2018). So, finally, older Māori practices developed to secure community connection to special places and protect the natural world from despoliation began to triumph over Imperialist ambition to transform and change that natural world into something quite different. This very recent shift, of course, has depended upon growing settler acceptance that areas not used for any economic purpose have a different kind of value seldom acknowledged in the history of capitalism. How long this very different approach to conservation and the preservation of wilderness areas lasts into the future depends heavily upon other related developments, especially mitigation of the adverse effects of climate change.

Conclusion This chapter has demonstrated that there has been conflict over conservation of wilderness areas since European settlement began. Originally it was essentially colonial and racial in that British settlers, supported by the government, set about securing as much of the land area as possible. The intention of the great majority of British settlers was to transform New Zealand into a far­ -​­ flung southern version of English­ -​­ style farmland, right down to the pasture grasses they sowed. Most of the larger South Island and Stewart Island had been purchased (for very little) by 1863, and all but 1.25 million ha remained in Māori hands by the 1890s, after the wars of the 1860s, and confiscation of over 1.25 million ha, in the North Island. This draconian land grab was followed by active land purchase thereafter to 1900 (Brooking 1996a). Despite the herculean efforts of a small but growing group of settler conservationists, artists and writers, as well as pioneer ecologists and some biological scientists, the development ethos remained dominant among the Pākehā down to the late 1960s. Many, but by no means all farmers, agricultural scientists and business leaders generally remained committed to

118  Tom Brooking growth. The real turning point came with the widespread public protest to Save Manapouri. While many conservationists are city­-​­dwellers (and 87 per cent of the nation’s population is now urban), a growing number of farmers and business leaders have also became much more concerned about sustainability. Māori have pursued their own path, from 1887 with the gift of the country’s first National Park (Tongariro), to working innovatively within Western legal systems to develop new models of environmental guardianship that reflect both cultural tradition and colonial history.

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122  Tom Brooking White, Richard. 1995. The Organic Machine: The Remaking of the Columbia River. New York: Hill and Wang. Williams, Jim. 2012. ‘Ngai Tahu Kaitiakitanga’. MAI Journal 1 (2): 89–102. Wood, Vaughan. 2003. ‘Appraising Soil Fertility in Early Colonial New Zealand: The Biometric Fallacy and Beyond’. Environment and History 9 (4): 393–406. Wynn, Graeme. 2013. ‘Destruction under the Guise of Improvement? The Forest 1840–1940’. In Making a New Land: Environmental Histories of New Zealand, edited by Eric Pawson and Tom Brooking, 122–140. 2nd ed. Dunedin: University of Otago Press. Yarwood, A. T. 1968. Samuel Marsden. Melbourne: Oxford University Press. Young, David. 2004. Our Islands Our Selves: A History of Conservation in New Zealand. Dunedin: University of Otago Press.

Part II

The how of wilderness Relationships and reciprocity

7 Reimagining wilderness and the wild in Australia in the wake of bushfires Robyn Bartel and Marty Branagan

Introduction The Australian Bushfire season of 2019–2020 consumed nearly 13 million hectares, including large areas of preserved wilderness across the continent (Hughes et al. 2020). It captured global attention and came hot on the heels of a series of extreme fire events around the world: over 1 million hectares burnt in the Amazon rainforest in August 2019 (Borunda 2019), the Arctic Wildfires cut a swathe across northern Europe and Scandinavia (Fresco 2019), and ‘vast areas of the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area’ were consumed by fire in early 2019 (Wood 2019). While some of these bushfires (labelled ‘wildfires’ in North American English) may be considered a natural part of life in some latitudes, fires in the Arctic have previously been rare, and in rainforest areas are most unusual. All of these fires have been described as anthropogenic. Some directly so, having been deliberately lit, most notably in the Amazon by ranchers and farmers encouraged by Brazil’s President Bolsonaro to clear the rainforest for agriculture (Arruda et al. 2019). The anthropogenic cause of many of the other fires has been more indirect, in the form of climate change. Anthropogenic climate change has contributed to ideal fire conditions through higher temperatures and prolonged drought, leading to very dry and hence highly combustible fuel loads, insufficient water for firefighting and suppression, and reduced opportunities for preventative burn­ -​­ offs (called hazard reduction burning in Australia) due to high temperature conditions, and an extended fire season commencing in late Winter (see Hughes et al. 2020). In Australia, as in some areas of north America, there is a certain predictability and regularity of bushfire occurrence each summer, with some seasons being more serious and volatile than others (Pyne 2020; Sharples et al. 2016). However, the season of 2019–2020 has been aptly described as unprecedented (Morton et al. 2019). It was not the most fatal (the Victorian Black Saturday Bushfires of 2009 killed 173), but it was the most devastating, in terms of area and scale, extending from August 2019 to January 2020, and encompassing a vast stretch from Kangaroo Island, in South Australia, to sub­-​­tropical Queensland. The frequency of catastrophic danger ratings (a level only introduced relatively

126  Robyn Bartel and Marty Branagan recently, in response to the Black Saturday event) increased during the period and more extreme and volatile fire behaviours were experienced. The fires released an estimated 650 million to 1.2 billion tonnes of CO2 into the air; more than twice Australia’s average annual emissions (Hughes et al. 2020). The smoke choked entire regions, and resulted in pollution as far away as Aoteoroa/New Zealand (Salinger 2020). Global media coverage was extensive, attracting international donations, via the formal and social media, and assistance via the deployment of firefighters and aid workers from around the world. The direct human death toll of 33 souls included three firefighters from the US. The conflagration also ended the lives of an estimated one billion non­-human ​­ mammals, birds and reptiles, as well as innumerable other creatures (Hughes et al. 2020). Media reporting of the Intergovernmental Science­ -​­ Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services’ (IPBES) dire global assessment of declining biodiversity (IPBES 2019) suggested that Australia was largely to blame for the accelerated rate of species extinctions (Metherell 2019). This conclusion was based on the situation prior to the 2019–2020 bushfires, and is therefore already an underestimate, given the associated acute spike in mortality as well as chronic longer­-​­term impact through habitat loss (Hughes et al. 2020). Over one­-​­fifth of all temperate broadleaf and mixed forests have been burnt (Hughes et al. 2020). The chances of survival for many endangered, threatened and vulnerable species – already slim – has been severely reduced, including for the Kangaroo Island Dunnart, the Glossy Black Cockatoo (also from Kangaroo Island, South Australia), and, from eastern Australia, the Long footed Potoroo, the Brush­-​­tailed Wallaby, the Bellinger River Snapping Turtle and the Nightcap Oak (Hughes et al. 2020). The impact on human health and wellbeing has also been immense, including physical and psychological harm, homes and livelihoods lost, and economic impacts (now compounded by the coronavirus disease pandemic, the latter also exhibiting links with habitat destruction, see Vidal 2020). The influence on policy and scholarly discourse is still emergent and evolving. During and after the fire season, the attention of media and political commentators repeatedly turned to climate change, and whether it was anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, arson or poor land management, particularly increased fuel loads, that had contributed most to the fire conditions. The arson argument, although widely promulgated by some media outlets, and amplified by social media, was extinguished almost immediately by recourse to the facts (Hughes et al. 2020). The climate change argument, while still maturing in Australia due to a denialist­-​­orientated splintering on the issue amongst the national leadership, appeared by the middle of summer to be slowly evolving into an uneven consensus that anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions were a contributing factor and cause, if not to the occurrence of fire itself, then at least to the severity of drought and fire behaviour (Fernando, 2019). The land management argument in particular became especially contentious, and media coverage amplified already polarised debates: had fuel

Reimagining wilderness and the wild  127 load management been stymied by lack of resources and reduced windows of opportunity to conduct burns (climate change having contracted the periods of cool and calm weather available)? Or had management been stifled by conservationists’ success in imposing regulatory ‘green tape’ and ‘locking up’ areas in national parks (see Hughes et al. 2020)? The latter position appears to be a descendant of earlier variants (see Devine 2003) that national parks and similar reserves are the cause of many environmental problems, including weeds and pests, as well as fires (the National Parks and Wildlife Service is sometimes colloquially known by the derogatory term National Sparks and Wildfire Service, see Low 2002, 256). Such arguments have even older ­antecedents – that nature is harmful and therefore needs to be subdued, and that its best possible use is to benefit humanity, narrowly considered as a resource to be consumed and profited by. Such arguments therefore, even when ostensibly focused on on­-​­ground and practical considerations of fuel load management, reflect more fundamental questions of human and (non­-​­human) nature interactions and relationships – in particular, the appropriate role of humans in managing landscapes for certain ends. There has been renewed interest in Indigenous land management and calls made for the reinstatement of cultural burning, previously known as fire­-​­stick farming, which feature cool or trickle burns, that are supportive of, rather than destructive to, ecosystem health (see Bardsley, Prowse and Siegfriedt 2019; Marsden­-​­Smedley and Kirkpatrick 2000; Steffensen 2020; also Orion this volume, for comparable examples from the Americas). It has been argued that wilderness management may be enhanced through a greater understanding and respectful, collaborative adoption of traditional Indigenous practices, including but not limited to cultural burns (Hill et al. 2013; Pascoe 2020; see also Collins and Thompson, this volume). While sharing some similarities to hazard reduction burning conducted by public land management services, cultural burning, in using fire to manage fuel loads, is undertaken according to local knowledge, custom and law, and is part of a system of land management which has cultural and spiritual significance, involving kinship, country and language, and informed by epistemologies and ontologies that are different from those that underpin hazard reduction burning (Steffensen 2020). Aboriginal cultures integrate epistemologies with ontologies through systems which connect people and place in immutable relationships of care (Poelina 2017 cited in Wooltorton et al. 2019a, 7). Critically, such approaches see human and nature as inseparable, and ensure that humans have obligations to care for country: land that is not cared for properly may be described as ‘wild’ country, or ‘wilderness’ (see Rose 1988, 1996, 2004; Orion, this volume; and further discussion in Bartel et al., this volume). It may seem radical to suggest that it is more, not less, human intervention that is required to achieve what is commonly referred to as wilderness preservation, given the legacy of anthropogenic environmental harm. However, it is widely accepted that some human intervention is inevitable, and will be required, in order to address anthropogenic environmental degradation. It is

128  Robyn Bartel and Marty Branagan less commonly agreed what form this intervention should take, particularly if it is to be minimal, in order to preserve a certain wilderness status: for the definition of ‘wilderness’ that is being managed in public lands is very different from the ‘wild’ status of uncared­-for ​­ country. Wilderness areas destroyed by the fires include many of those originally afforded protection by the application of definitions similar to those discussed and developed by Peter Helman, Alan Jones, John Pigram and Jeremy Smith (1976): ‘Wilderness is land that still retains its natural character, and is without improvement or human habitation’ (40) where ‘genetic diversity and natural cycles remain essentially unaltered’ (129). Designated wilderness areas affected by the 2019–2020 bushfires in New South Wales (NSW) include significant areas within the World Heritage listed Gondwanan Rainforests (54 per cent burnt, extending also into Queensland and including areas of the Oxley Wild Rivers National Park referred to in Ryan, this volume) and the Blue Mountains World Heritage Area (81 per cent burnt) (Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment 2020). To qualify as wilderness such areas must not have been ‘substantially modified by humans’ (s 6 Wilderness Act 1987 (NSW)). The Wilderness Act 1987 (NSW) affords these areas the highest level of protection, requiring management that will maintain their pristine (i.e. unmodified by humans) condition (s 9). Such definitions exclude, and are designed to exclude, humans (see Rogers and Mackey 2015). As Libby Robin (2014, 725) has succinctly stated: ‘Because national parks were established to save ecosystems, Australian legislation excluded people.’ Legal categories compound the error since the law adds a veil of certitude and institutional weight that works to eclipse alternative constructions (see Bartel 2020; Jones, 2009; see also Bible and Howard, this volume). As Jessica Weir (2012, 4) says: ‘Wilderness thinking has been replicated in western land tenure systems that separate nature into definable people­-​­free spaces, including national parks, reserved lands and protected areas.’ Unfortunately, this has not meant that these areas have been preserved from the detrimental impacts of human activity; on the contrary, as the bushfires – anthropogenic at least in part – have demonstrated. Most importantly, given the human co­ -​­ creation responsible for the natural values existing in these areas, Indigenous peoples and their land management practices and philosophies have been excluded. This chapter will explore the potential for rethinking wilderness and the wild, in particular through renewed interest in traditional Indigenous land management practices and philosophies in Australia, a continent that has significant natural features, extensive reserve areas, and the oldest living cultures on Earth, with at least 65,000 years of continuous human habitation, as part of a wider and more fundamental discussion of the role and place of humans in nature.

Discussion Australian definitions and theorisations of wilderness emerged partly from movements to protect, conserve and preserve1 it (see Bible and Howard, this

Reimagining wilderness and the wild  129 volume). The Wilderness Society (TWS – originally the Tasmanian Wilderness Society) has been a prime influence on Australian and international wilderness conservation movements since the 1976–1983 campaign to save Tasmania’s Franklin River from being dammed (see Branagan, this volume). The TWS Code of Management for Wilderness Areas drew on similar antecedents to the NSW legislation and initially described wilderness as a ‘tract of land substantially unmodified by modern technological society or capable of being restored to that state, and of sufficient size and remoteness to make practical the long­-​­term protection of its natural ecosystems’. This definition was formally adopted by the Wilderness Taskforce at the Australian Conservation Foundation’s ‘Taking Stock and Looking Ahead’ National Conference in 1988 (Hall 1992, 4). This definition, however, is problematic, for it excludes human habitation and erases Aboriginality and Indigeneity. As Deborah Bird Rose has observed (1996, 18): A definition of wilderness which excludes the active presence of humanity may suit contemporary people’s longing for places of peace, natural beauty, and spiritual presence, uncontaminated by their own culture. But definitions which claim that these landscapes are ‘natural’ miss the whole point of the nourishing Aboriginal terrains. Libby Robin (2014, 724) describes these terrains as ‘places that care for people and where people reciprocate that care’. According to Deborah Bird Rose’s Aboriginal teacher, Daly Pulkara (see Rose 1988, 1996, 2004), land requires humans to care for it and it becomes ‘wild’ in the absence of care: ‘Wild country’ is land that has been degraded, through lack of (proper) care (Rose 2004). And wilderness is not country remote from humans, or devoid of people, rather it is uncared­-​­for­-​­country. Wilderness therefore needs people, which overturns dominant definitions, as Deborah Bird Rose (1988, 386) observes: ‘The distinction between wilderness and degraded land opposes European concepts of natural or untouched country to damaged or spoilt country.’ The only ‘wilderness’ or ‘wild’ country in Australia are those areas where European invasion has extinguished Indigenous practices of management, through theft of land, marginalisation and genocide (Watson 2018). ‘Quiet country’ is unspoilt, cared­-​­for country (Rose 1988, 386). A return to quiet country would require a broader responsibility to be borne by non­-Indigenous ​­ people, recognising and respecting Indigenous peoples’ perspectives, practices and sovereignty (see Russell and Jambrecina 2002). While ‘pristine’ environments are considered the pinnacle of wilderness, an attitude still widespread today (Scherrer et al. 2016), ironically, archaeological evidence of prior Aboriginal occupation proved to be central in preserving the ‘wilderness’ of the Franklin River region (see Branagan, this volume). The early TWS definition implied that human activity was necessarily harmful to these areas, and was racist – or at least ignorant – in its assumption that Aboriginal

130  Robyn Bartel and Marty Branagan people were neither ‘modern’ nor ‘technological’, when in fact the numerous Aboriginal nations pre­-​­invasion could be viewed as sophisticated, multi­-​­lingual and culturally­-​­rich, and had long employed the small­-​­scale society and ‘appropriate technology’ suited to their needs (Schumacher 1973). For example, they demonstrated early aerodynamic expertise in the woomera and different types of boomerang; engaged in ritual burial 40,000 years bp ; produced elaborate cave art, having the world’s oldest known use of reflective pigment (Clarkson et al. 2017); and conducted detailed astronomical observations 30,000 years bp (Knox 2016), including representations in rock carvings (Branagan and Cairns 1994). They created one of the world’s first musical instruments, the yidaki (commonly but incorrectly known as the ‘didgeridu’). Responsible for possibly the earliest seed grinding stones (Clarkson et al. 2017), they were the first to bake bread, 36,000 bp, ‘well ahead of other civilisations that started baking early on, like the Egyptians, who began making bread around 17,000 bc’ (Wood 2016, para 1). They were the first to make edge­-ground ​­ axes, nearly 50,000 years ago (Young 2016), and perhaps 15,000 years earlier than that (Clarkson et al. 2017). They completed the first open ocean crossing in human history, and made the earliest maps (Dean 2013). Although Aboriginal people were popularly regarded as wandering savages, Bruce Pascoe (2018) cites evidence that an Aboriginal settlement in western NSW was the world’s first town. (Similarly, First Nations people in the current US state of Missouri had a permanent town of 20,000 named Cahokia, and there was perhaps a similar town in the less hospitable region of Kansas, see Cossins 2018). A Captain Perry wrote, in 1839, about his observations of two villages on the Clarence River, NSW, describing the nets, baskets, water vessels and cooking utensils as having been ‘constructed with particular care and neatness’ (cited in Belshaw 2017, 6). Pascoe (2014) argues that Aboriginal people sowed, harvested and domesticated plants, undertook irrigation and stored food – behaviours inconsistent with the hunter­-​­gatherer label (see also Gerritsen 2008). One of the largest aquaculture systems in the world was constructed at Brewarrina, NSW (Belshaw 2017, 6), which some scientists believe is the oldest human construction on earth (Marlow and Mandybur 2017). First Australian oral history practices were globally unique, accurately communicating information dating back 13,400  bp, far longer than the supposedly superior written word (Reid, Nunn and Sharpe 2014; Nunn 2018). Further comparisons are also stark – particularly regarding environmental impact. As Aboriginal activist and musician Kev Carmody (1988) sings in Thou Shalt Not Steal: You talk of conservation, keep the forests pristine green But in 200 years your materialism has stripped the country clean. As the oldest continuing society on Earth, Aboriginal people demonstrated environmental sustainability over tens of thousands of years and practised knowledge­-​­rich food systems akin to large­-scale ​­ permaculture (Foley 2014).

Reimagining wilderness and the wild  131 European explorers’ detailed accounts of ‘packed piles of hay, grain surpluses and 3­-​­metre wells contrast with the widely held, skewed view of Aboriginal people as “mere wanderers across the soil” ’ (Wood 2016, para 2). Skilful land management created a park­-​­like environment and enabled plentiful time for recreation and socialisation, a lifestyle enjoyed elsewhere only by the ‘free gentry’ of Great Britain and similar colonisers (Gammage 2012). Steady­-​­state, rather than growth­ -based, ​­ economies were supported by systems of governance, education, and trade that spanned the continent and connected the nations (Sveiby and Skuthorpe 2006). Similar systems are advocated by contemporary environmentalists and post­-growth ​­ theorists. The significant levels of dissatisfaction by Aboriginal people over TWS’s definitions of wilderness and their actions during the Franklin and later campaigns were taken into account by TWS members. A revised and expanded definition was included in a 1992 discussion paper, written for the Commonwealth Government under the auspices of the National Wilderness Inventory Steering Committee (Robertson,Vang and Brown 1992). This definition recognised that ‘Aboriginal custodianship and customary practices have been, and in many places continue to be, a significant factor in creating what non­-​­Aboriginal people describe as wilderness’ (Robertson, Vang and Brown 1992, 26). By the mid­-​­1990s, the TWS had developed a policy of explicit support for Aboriginal Land Rights, which included employment of Aboriginal officers. TWS also supported Aboriginal­-​­led campaigns such as the Mirrar people’s successful 1998 blockade against a proposed uranium mine at Jabiluka in the Northern Territory (Branagan 2014), and Gomeroi campaigns against coal mining and destruction of sacred sites at Leard Forest, NSW, from 2012 to the present. The current TWS definition retains the questionable phrase ‘substantially undisturbed by colonial and modern technological society’, but also acknowledges that: [W]ilderness has always been a cultural landscape – [M]any contemporary conservation groups, including The Wilderness Society share a recognition that wilderness in Australia is, by definition, traditional Aboriginal or Islander land. With regard to Aboriginal and Islander impacts, they discriminate between the impacts of indigenous people practising ecologically sustainable land management, and the very different impacts of colonial and modern technological society. The crucial issue in the identification of wilderness is not whether an area has been modified by humans, but the extent and nature of the modification.   Given the high correlation between remaining wilderness areas and land which retains cultural importance for indigenous people, wilderness protection in Australia may not be properly achievable unless prior ownership and current Aboriginal and Islander aspirations are comprehensively addressed. TWS is working closely with a number of indigenous communities to meet our joint expectations of ‘caring for country’. (McGuiness 2015)

132  Robyn Bartel and Marty Branagan Caring for country is a dynamic, spiritual and relational engagement between humans and nature which recognises that each are inseparable across space and time. Such recognition marks a significant shift for TWS, and acknowledges human habitation and co­-​­creation of landscapes, particularly First Nations’ presence and enduring connections of reciprocal responsibility (see Rose 1996) and ownership (Pleshet 2018). The concept applies to waters as well as lands, and includes marine areas, particularly important for Torres Strait Islander peoples. That natural ecosystems are as much cultural as they are natural is hardly a novel view but appears to be only recently gaining wider traction. Conservation programs worldwide have begun to recognise and promote the participation and ‘coexistence’ of human and nature. There is now growing recognition that the exclusion of Indigenous peoples in particular, via so­-​­called ‘fortress nature’ or ‘fortress conservation’ approaches (see Kabra 2019; Siurua 2006), are not only deficient on equity grounds (see Burnett and Kang’ethe 1994) but may also be sabotaging environmental aims (Pretty and Pimbert 1995). According to Wallach and others (2018, 4, citing Moore and Nelson 2011), ‘Achieving enduring conservation success requires a fundamental reorganization of the ways in which human beings view and interact with nonhuman nature.’ However, the duality of human and (non­-human) ​­ nature continues to be vital in the conservation movement (see Siurua 2006). Indeed, policy­-​­orientated conservation scholarship appears to have developed into a somewhat simplistic contest between the ‘fortress nature’ and ‘co­-​­existence’ schools of thought (see Daugstad et al. 2006; Mace 2014). The ‘fortress nature’ school is represented perhaps most notably by eminent biologist E. O. Wilson who advocates that half the earth should be corralled into reserves accessible only by scientists (Wilson 2016). Such a demarcation reflects a ‘human bad, nature good’ prism (Pretty and Pimbert 1995) that has demonstrated reversed normative polarity several times in the West, with the opposite position (i.e. ‘human good, nature bad’) also often prevalent (see Robin 2014, 721; Rose 1996, 17). Both positive and negative approaches toward (non­-​­human) nature may be thought of as perfectly reasonable, the latter due to the vulnerability of humanity to famine, disease and natural disasters, including fire, with such threats attributed to nature, and the former due to the history of anthropogenic harm to the environment which has accelerated since the 1950s (Steffen et al. 2015). These seemingly contrasting views, of nature as threat, as something wild and untamed, or as victim, as something fragile and precious, may seem oppositional but each share a common pre­ -​­ requisite and foundation in a human/(non­ -​­ human) nature duality (also known as the nature/culture divide, see Bible and Howard, this volume, and nature­-​­culture dualism, see Collins and Thompson this volume; see also Johnson and Murton 2007). This is fundamental to several worldviews, including some Judeo­ -​­ Christian approaches (see Bible and Howard, this volume), that are normalised throughout many Westernised cultures, and particularly in traditional reductionist science (see Orion, this volume), where it is buttressed

Reimagining wilderness and the wild  133 by other dualities, including subject/object, mind/body, self/other, us/them, inside/outside and private/public (see also Gerber 1997; Weir 2012) and ultimately life/death (see Utley, this volume). The world is considered to be a subject that is knowable to the mind of the objective human observer and which renders the observed as ‘other’; nature becomes ‘other’ even to ecologists. Neither humanism nor the humanities are immune, for each privilege the human (see Figdor 2019; Stanley 1995). Assumptions of human exceptionalism and essentialism are common to worldviews which adopt a human/(non­-​­human) nature duality as the latter is often also interpreted and applied as a hierarchical positioning, with anthroparchy frequently the result (see Rose 1996). Examples of this include scholarly endeavours to appreciate and understand nature through privileging human capacity to know (see Hamilton 2010); practical engagements (through entitlement to own and manage, including via stewardship, see Bartel and Graham 2019; Stanley 1995); as well as in social and cultural institutions such as property and capitalism, where entitlement reigns supreme and nature is rendered a resource, and often also, an ‘externality’ hidden from the balance sheet and thus removed from human concern. The best that can be hoped for under systems of commodification and commensuration is for nature to be assigned an economic value, notwithstanding the incommensurability of natural capital (Williams and McNeill 2005). Much environmental harm is attributed to conceiving of non­-​­human nature in such a fashion (see Bartel, McFarland and Hearfield 2014). There are also examples where nature is interpreted as dominant, or central, as in some biocentric and ecocentric approaches, and also in the romantic tradition, where nature is numinous and wilderness sublime: the exotic ‘other’. The latter has also been interpreted as a variation of the resourcist perspective, as wild nature here is still primarily valued for what it can provide humans (see Rogers and Mackey 2015). Even while intrinsic values are increasingly appreciated (see McGuiness 2015) the subject­ -object ​­ separation may still prevail. Nature is still being observed, and is at a distance from the observer. And the view is often gendered – for the observer is presumed male and nature female (see Ryan, this volume), a type feminised as simultaneously weak and powerful – although the latter is often limited to captivating the male gaze, inciting – and thereby authorising – mastery, or inviting rescue (see Lynch and Norris, this volume). Dominant modes of research have objectified nature – through description, definition, categorisation – and have been complicit in re­ -​­ defining natural values as economic benefits to humans (a variant of resourcism is ecosystem services which is contested even within IPBES, see Masood 2018; although see Jackson and Palmer 2014 for a potential rehabilitation). Such values are also increasingly sought to be recognised via emerging movements for ‘environmental jurisprudence’, ‘earth­-​­centred’ or ‘wild law’ (see Rogers and Mackay 2015) however, it is questionable whether such approaches really move away from amthropocentrism, given that they retain legal personhood and other nature­-​­denying apparatus of the law (see Charpleix 2018).

134  Robyn Bartel and Marty Branagan The duality thus underpins and enables both resource exploitation as well as conservation (see Bartel 2005; Bartel et al. 2014; also Washington 2015, 51). The former is underpinned by the arrogance of humanism and the assumption that humans have the capacity and entitlement to subdue and manage nature, the latter by the idea that humans have the capacity and entitlement to ‘save’ nature (see Suchet 2002). Even in the Anthropocene we have a normative split – the ‘good’ Anthropocene is reliant upon, and exultant in, human ingenuity and capacity for technofixes for which the ‘bad’ Anthropocene blames rather than credits humanity (Dalby 2016). It is indeed due to the latter that wilderness preservation, biodiversity conservation and human activities more generally have been thought of as mutually exclusive in order to attain environmental objectives. However, environmental harm may also be done by excluding humans. There are deficiencies in the idea that humans should be kept out of nature for their own good, as well as for the ‘saving’ of (non­-​­human) nature, and the progenitor mindset of duality more fundamentally. Many worldviews do not have categories of human and (non­-​­human) nature as separate, but rather they are inextricably interrelated (see Charpleix 2018; Yunkaporta 2019). As Sandra Wooltorton and others (2019b, 9) have observed for the Kimberley, in Western Australia, ‘there is no word for “nature” or “environment” in the Indigenous languages our extended research groups work with … [instead] we are all related as family with our places’. According to these worldviews, human activity is not antithetical to conservation, nor are humans separate from nature, but nor are they the same. Rather each have agency and are interacting in mutually constitutive forms of ongoing and continual co­-​­becoming (see Suchet­-​­Pearson et al. 2013). Thus differences are categorised differently (or not at all) rather than erased (see Head and Gibson 2012; Plumwood 2006). To borrow from Deborah Bird Rose (1988, 383) there is a need to consider ‘The implications of living in a sentient cosmos inhabited by many different categories of moral agents, whose moral agency has as a basic element the taking of responsibility for those portions of the system in which they operate.’ Wilson (2016, 77ff) recognises that the ‘essential character’ of wilderness may remain intact notwithstanding that areas may be home to Indigenous peoples, however, there is little acknowledgement that First Nations may have co­-​­created this very character (see Yonk et al. 2018). The only impact of Indigenous peoples on nature explored in any detail in Half­-​­Earth is the extinction of the Pleistocene megafauna and other impacts of the first wave of human habitation in Australia, the Americas and elsewhere (Wilson 2016, 40ff.). All humans, irrespective of culture or background, appear to be lumped in with a universal humanity over­ -​­ consuming the Earth (Wilson 2016, 53ff.). By contrast, Aboriginal people are believed to have had a minimal impact on Australian ecosystems in the last 5,000 years (Markus 2009). And although blamed for the extinction of Australia’s megafauna, new evidence suggests that they co­-​­existed for 20,000 years (Clarkson et al. 2017), making climate change a more likely culprit. There are also other interpretations, for example that the

Reimagining wilderness and the wild  135 deployment of a learning cycle led to improved and more sustainable practice, as in Aoteoroa/New Zealand (see Brooking, this volume). There is some dispute over the extent of prior human influence in wilderness areas and therefore the degree and form of human activity which may be conducive to, for example, biodiversity conservation. Areas currently designated as wilderness are often marginal for industrial agriculture (Scherrer et al. 2016), and were therefore less impacted by colonisation. Some areas may have also been less frequently visited by Aboriginal people, due to harsh conditions or inaccessibility. However, places that currently experience inclement weather may have had a very different climate in the past. The Franklin River region, for example, was drier and relatively more hospitable than eastern Tasmania during the last Ice Age (Resture 2012). Furthermore, there is evidence that areas considered inhospitable, such as the high country on the mainland, may also have been habitable, and indeed been inhabited (Argue 1995; Theden­-​­Ringl 2016). It is unlikely, therefore (and as earlier mentioned in Bible and Howard, this volume), that any place in Australia was unknown to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people (Bayet­ -​­ Charlton 2003; Strider 1984; see also Collins and Thomson this volume). As Akarre traditional owner Margaret Kemarre Turner (2010, 115) says: ‘And still now, there is no piece of land, anywhere in Australia, that doesn’t have someone [Indigenous] to speak on its behalf.’ As Deborah Bird Rose has also observed (1996, 18): Here on this continent, there is no place where the feet of Aboriginal humanity have not preceded those of the settler. Nor is there any place where the country was not once fashioned and kept productive by Aboriginal people’s land management practices. Wilson’s (2016) argument is at once compelling and depauperate. It is compelling due to the weight of evidence that a response is needed commensurate with the scale of the problem; in the face of accelerating biodiversity loss, and increasingly anthropogenically compromised Earth systems, business­ -​­ as­ -​­ usual solutions will be insufficient. However, the Half­ -​ ­Earth proposal has weaknesses in the inconsistency of its philosophical underpinning. Wilson’s argument appears to be reliant on assumed human supremacy, notwithstanding his acceptance of interdependency and that humans should not rule over (Wilson 2016, 71), but rather belong to, nature (16). While critical of those who see themselves as ‘rulers of the biosphere’ (Wilson 2016, 12), humans are at the same time also described as ‘stewards of the living world’ (Wilson 2016, 212) in ‘a race to save the living environment’ (Wilson 2016, 205). This race is forecast as being won by scientists working in artificial intelligence ‘who are certain that they know better’ than those with more critical visions of reliance on technical solutions and engineering might have imagined (Wilson 2016, 199). As Head (2016, 56) has observed: ‘when we preserve nature, we preserve it “out there” ’. Having earlier advanced the biophilia hypothesis (Wilson 1984), a position which could have supported human care for

136  Robyn Bartel and Marty Branagan the Earth, Wilson’s (2016) new cure is a Half­-Earth ​­ of preserved wilderness populated not by people but by scientists, and remotely controlled surveillance cameras devoted to monitoring and data collection. It is difficult to imagine a more binarising project than ‘Half ’ Earth; half for ourselves and half for the other, nature. Deborah Bird Rose and colleagues (Rose et al. 2012, 2) have written of the need to rethink ‘the ontological exceptionality of the human’. Alternative paradigms are meeting greater acceptance, particularly relationist ontologies and new materialism (see Bartel 2017) and there is growing recognition also of non­-​­human agency (see Plumwood 2006), including the sentience and agency of plants (Gagliano 2015; see also Ryan, this volume), rivers (Charpleix 2018) and mountains (Leopold 1949). Leopold’s (1949) thinking like a mountain has inspired a revolution in the management of Yellowstone National Park in the US (the first national park in the world, see Garnett, this volume), resulting in a transformed land­-​­and river­-​­scape (Ripple and Beschta 2005). Care must be taken, however, that Indigenous land management knowledge and practice are not adopted in a piecemeal fashion, or appropriated and misused, or become yet another thing stolen by the colonists (see Grantani et al. 2011; Rose 1988, 378; Rubis and Theriault 2019; Barker, this volume). Nor should people or practices be framed as uniform or static, in part because the land itself is heterogeneous and cultures dynamic. No culture is or should be kept as a museum piece. The environment is also inherently dynamic, and there are (growing) legacy issues of less productive, polluted and degraded land and water, and ongoing climate change and other consequences as a result of intensified land use. Romanticisation too must be avoided (see Pleshet 2018) as it would be equally racist. As Robyn Davidson (2008) has reminded us: ‘The point is not that Aboriginal culture was superior or inferior to any other, but that it was a great culture.’ However, detractors still assert that ‘no assurances exist that traditional ecological knowledge will result in positive resource outcomes’ (as described in Ross and Pickering 2002, 196) to which Ross and Pickering (2002, 196) offer a persuasive rebuttal: ‘We argue that, if the basis for retaining a management paradigm is successful resource outcomes, then certainly the scientific paradigm would have to be eliminated from consideration at this point.’ Historic ecological evidence confirms that the most dramatic habitat destruction, species decline, and extinctions consistently accompanied the spread of colonialism and the European enlightenment (Berkes 1999, 163). Colonising societies consciously implemented the scientific method to the exclusion of Indigenous knowledge, yet failed to locate a sustainable balance between consumptive uses and conservation of natural resources (see also Challenger 2013). At the same time, academics, policy makers and activists need to be cautious when framing new definitions, narratives and policies about wilderness, to avoid new problems arising (see Hawes et al. 2018). There are critical questions around human population numbers as well as practices and paradigms. Indigenous people and their relationships with the land have been

Reimagining wilderness and the wild  137 profoundly impacted by colonisation and contemporary challenges include ongoing poverty and marginalisation, intergenerational trauma and dysfunction, harassment by government and corporations, and systemic racism. Westernised non­-​­Indigenous peoples remain largely tied to a growth agenda and for many in society, especially since the great acceleration of consumption and population growth since the 1950s (Steffen et al. 2015), contemporary footprints are vastly different from those of the past, particularly due to modern technology and the weight of sheer numbers. There are, furthermore, risks that caring approaches may be manipulated and exploited by anthropocentric, capitalist and instrumentalist tendencies and forces, and power imbalances already rampant. There may be immense pressure to accede to requests for resource extraction, often under conditions which may be socially divisive and environmentally detrimental, notwithstanding that mining agreements may ostensibly provide more economic benefit, as well as access, than previous private landholdings (see Neale and Vincent 2017). However, as Irene Watson (2018, 125) counsels: … from a First Nation’s ontological standpoint, we could not consent to the destruction of our territories, because we know, without the lands we are without food and water, and the future of humanity, along with other species, is threatened. Supporting collaborative approaches to decision­-​­making that include all stakeholders and which further the rights of local people is another potentially worthy ideal. As Libby Robin (2014, 725) has observed, the ‘hyper­-​­separation of nature and culture denied settler history as well as their long history of Aboriginal land management’. However, some practices may be incompatible. This is already evident in pressures to ‘open up’ areas that are already ‘quiet’ (or ‘quieter’). For example, there are growing demands to allow more intensive tourism and recreation facilities (Coulter 2018), as well as hunting (Howden 2014), logging (Cox 2019) and mining (see Bible and Howard, also Brooking, this volume) in national parks, activities that are anathema to many (see Rogers and Mackey 2015). Resolving such issues requires careful analysis of the interrelated complexities of place­-​­care and will include consideration of how contemporary risks may be ameliorated to ensure that all can co­-​­exist and co­-​­become in a mutually beneficial environment. Critically, this will need to include all Australians, as Pleshet (2018, 15) describes: Land unpeopled and therefore unknown becomes a dangerous space, to be avoided. It might then languish with no people to learn its stories, no one to ‘look after’ its places, abandoned, remote from the ordering powers of human social life. In this context, an inter­-​­culture of ‘country’ may open a way for land to be worked on and worked over, for places to be revisited, a path to ensuring the renewal of land in the present and future.

138  Robyn Bartel and Marty Branagan

Conclusion Foundational to many of the dominant approaches to wilderness are normative human/(non­-​­human) nature binaries that view nature as a resource, a victim, a threat, or source of the sublime. Wild nature is framed as both vulnerable and savage; it is something that, in the former case, and due to its vulnerability to relative human supremacy, is able to be harnessed easily or is required to be saved, or in the latter is recognised as having some more potent agency, and alternatively has power over us, including to incite awe and to harm. The bushfires experienced in Australia in 2019–2020 have caused harm to both nature and human. And here perhaps is the most salient lesson. The 2019–2020 bushfires have destroyed much but ascribing blame to nature for such events is problematic, given human complicity, particularly in anthropogenic climate change. There is also responsibility in having breached our duty to take more active care of such landscapes in Australia – in our having destroyed country. It is critical that we are able to move beyond the human/(non­-​­human) nature binary, for its dominance has resulted in the flattening of debates and silencing and concealment of alternative perspectives and hindered the pursuit of more productive lines of enquiry. Under­-​­examined has been the role of First Peoples, and this recognition must transform how wilderness is conceptualised in the Anthropocene, particularly for wilderness in Australia. According to Neimanis and others (2015, 68): ‘In the context of the Anthropocene, we no longer have the luxury of imagining humanness and culture as distinctly separate from nature, matter, and worldliness.’ Of course, wilderness and nature are themselves always social constructs and in their material forms, too, are cultural in origin. As Deborah Bird Rose (1988, 384–385) has observed, ‘it is through moral and ontological systems that Aboriginal people have achieved and sustained their skilled ecological management strategies’. Perhaps it is time for a fresh look at a very ancient approach to wilderness, and the wild, in which humans shoulder responsibilities due to interdependency rather than as a result of supremacy, for ‘we can’t write ourselves out of the system any more than we can define ourselves as its ultimate focus’ (Rose 1988, 387). To do otherwise, it is not overstating it to say, will ensure not only further extinctions of our fellow lifeforms, but potentially our own as well.

Note 1 See endnote 1 of the Introduction.

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Reimagining wilderness and the wild  141 Hawes, Martin, Grant Dixon and Chris Bell. 2018. Refining the Definition of Wilderness: Safeguarding the Experiential and Ecological Values of Remote Natural Land. Hobart, Tasmania: Bob Brown Foundation Inc. Head, Lesley. 2016. Hope and Grief in the Anthropocene: Reconceptualising human­-​­nature relations. London and New York: Routledge. Head, Lesley and Chris Gibson. 2012. ‘Becoming Differently Modern: Geographic Contributions to Generative Climate Politics’. Progress in Human Geography 36: 699–714. Helman, Peter, Alan Jones, John Pigram and Jeremy Smith. 1976. Wilderness in Australia. Armidale Australia: Geography Department, University of New England. Hill, Rosemary, Petina L Pert, Jocelyn Davies, Catherine J Robinson, Fiona Walsh and Fay Falco­-​­Mammone. 2013. Indigenous land management in Australia: Extent, Scope, Diversity, Barriers and Success Factors. Cairns: CSIRO Ecosystem Sciences. Howden, Saffron. 2014. ‘NSW National Parks Ppen to Amateur Shooters’. Sydney Morning Herald, February 15. www.smh.com.au/nsw/nsw­-​­national­-​­parks­-​­open­-​­to­-​ ­amateur­-​­shooters­-​­20140214­-​­32rb5.html. Hughes, Lesley, Will Steffen, Greg Mullins, Annika Dean, Ella Weisbrot and Martin Rice 2020. Summer of Crisis. Climate Council of Australia. www.climatecouncil. org.au/wp­-​­content/uploads/2020/03/Crisis­-​­Summer­-​­Report­-​­200311.pdf. IPBES. 2019. Intergovernmental Science­-​­Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. https://ipbes.net/ global­-​­assessment. Jackson, Sue and Lisa Palmer. 2014. ‘Reconceptualizing Ecosystem Services: Possibilities for Cultivating and Valuing the Ethics and Practices of Care’. Progress in Human Geography 39 (2): 122–145. Johnson, Jay T. and Brian Murton. 2007. ‘Replacing Native Science: Indigenous Voices in Contemporary Constructions of Nature’. Geographical Research 45 (2): 121–129. Jones, Reece. 2009. ‘Categories, Borders and Boundaries’. Progress in Human Geography 33 (2): 174–189. Kabra, Asmita. 2019. ‘Ecological Critiques of Exclusionary Conservation’. Ecology, Economy and Society – the INSEE Journal 2 (1): 9–26. Knox, Judy Kaye. 2016. Untitled Presentation. Beyond Coal and Gas conference, April 10. Myuna Bay. Leopold, Aldo. 1949. A Sand Country Almanac and Sketches Here and There. New York: Oxford University Press. Low, Tim. 2002. The New Nature. Viking. McGuiness, Julie. 2015. ‘What is Wilderness?’ The Wilderness Society www.wilderness. org.au/articles/what­-​­wilderness. Mace, Georgina. 2014. ‘Whose Conservation?’ Science 345 (6204): 1558–1560. Markus, Nicola. 2009. On Our Watch: The Race to Save Australia’s Environment. Carlton: Melbourne University Press. Marlow, Karina and Jerico Mandybur. 2017. ‘Not Hunter­-​­Gatherers: Bruce Pascoe on Storytelling, History and Cultural Pride’. NITV, 12 August. www.sbs.com.au/ nitv/article/2016/05/17/bruce­-​­pascoe­-​­storytelling­-​­history­-​­and­-​­cultural­-​­pride. Marsden­ -​­ Smedley, Jon B. and Jamie B. Kirkpatrick. 2000. ‘Fire Management in Tasmania’s Wilderness World Heritage Area: Ecosystem Restoration Using ­Indigenous – Style Fire Regimes?’ Ecological Management & Restoration 1 (3): 195–203. Masood, Ehsan. 2018. ‘Battle over Biodiversity’. Nature 560 (7719): 423–425.

142  Robyn Bartel and Marty Branagan Metherell, Lexi. 2019. ‘One Million Species at Risk of Extinction, UN Report Warns, and We Are Mostly to Blame’. ABC News, 6 May. www.abc.net.au/news/2019­-​­05­-​ ­06/biggest­-​­global­-​­assessment­-​­of­-​­biodiversity­-​­sounds­-​­dire­-​­warnings/11082940. Moore Kathleen Dean, and Michael P. Nelson. 2011. Moral Ground: Ethical Action for a Planet in Peril. San Antonio, Texas: Trinity University Press. Morton, Adam, Nick Evershed and Graham Readfearn. 2019. Sat 23 Nov 2019 ‘Australia Bushfires Factcheck: Are This Year’s Fires Unprecedented?’ Guardian, 23 November. www.theguardian.com/australia­-​­news/2019/nov/22/australia­-​­bushfires­-​ ­factcheck­-​­are­-​­this­-​­years­-​­fires­-​­unprecedented. Neale, Timothy and Eve Vincent. 2017. ‘Mining, Indigeneity, Alterity: or, Mining Indigenous Alterity?’ Cultural Studies 31 (2–3): 417–439. Neimanis, Astrida, Cecilia Åsberg and Johan Hedrén. 2015. ‘Four Problems, Four Directions for Environmental Humanities: Toward Critical Posthumanities for the Anthropocene’. Ethics and the Environment 20 (1): 67–97. Nunn, Patrick. 2018. The Edge of Memory: Ancient Stories, Oral Tradition and the Post Glacial World. London: Bloomsbury. Pascoe, Bruce. 2014. Dark Emu: Black Seeds: Agriculture or Accident? Broome: Magabala Books. Pascoe, Bruce. 2018. ‘Historical and National Significance of Myall Creek Massacre’. Keynote Address, Myall Creek and Beyond symposium. June 8. UNE: Oorala Aboriginal Centre. Pascoe, Jack. 2020. ‘Our First Peoples Already Have a Blueprint to Remake the Fire­-​ Ravaged Land, It’s in Our Country’s Bones’. Guardian, 21 January. www. ­ theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jan/21/our­-​­first­-​­peoples­-​­already­-​­have­-​­a­-​ ­blueprint­-​­to­-​­remake­-​­the­-​­fire­-​­ravaged­-​­land­-​­its­-​­in­-​­our­-​­countrys­-​­bones. Pleshet, Noah. 2018. ‘Caring for Country: History and Alchemy in the Making and Management of Indigenous Australian Land’. Oceania 88 (2): 183–201. Plumwood, Val. 2006. ‘The Concept of a Cultural Landscape: Nature, Culture and Agency of the Land’. Ethics & the Environmen, 11 (2) Autumn: 115–150. Pretty, Jules N. and Michel P. Pimbert. 1995. ‘Beyond Conservation Ideology and the Wilderness Myth’. Natural Resources Forum 19 (1): 5–14. Reid, Nicholas, Patrick D. Nunn and Margaret Sharpe. 2014. ‘Indigenous Australian Stories and Sea­-​­Level Change’. Indigenous Languages: Their Value to the Community. Proceedings of the 18th FEL Conference, Foundation for Endangered Languages, 82–87. Resture, Jane. 2012. ‘An Ice­-​­Age Walk to Tasmania’. Oceania. www.janesoceania. com/australia_aboriginal_iceage_walktotasmania/index1.htm Ripple, William J. and Robert L. Beschta. 2005. ‘Linking Wolves and Plants: Aldo Leopold on Trophic Cascades’. BioScience 55 (7): 613–621. Robertson, Margaret, Kevintheun Vang and A .J. Brown. 1992. Wilderness in Australia: Issues and Options: A Discussion Paper. Prepared under the auspices of the National Wilderness Inventory Steering Committee for the Minister for the Arts, Sport, the Environment and Territories. Canberra: Australian Heritage Commission. Robin, Libby. 2014. ‘Wilderness in a Global Age, Fifty Years On’. Environmental History 19 (October): 721–727. Rogers, Nicole and Brendan Mackey. 2015. ‘A Wild Law Perspective on Wilderness Management: Managing the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area’. Australasian Journal of Natural Resources Law and Policy 18 (2): 145–165. Rose, Deborah Bird. 1988. ‘Exploring an Aboriginal Land Ethic’. Meanjin 47 (3): 378–386.

Reimagining wilderness and the wild  143 Rose, Deborah Bird. 1996. Nourishing Terrains. Canberra: Australian Heritage Commission. Rose, Deborah Bird. 2004. Reports from a Wild Country: Ethics for Decolonisation. Sydney: UNSW Press. Rose, Deborah Bird, Thom Van Dooren, Matthew Chrulew, Stuart Cooke, Matthew Kearnes and Emily O’Gorman. 2012. ‘Thinking Through the Environment, Unsettling the Humanities’. Environmental Humanities 1: 1–5. Ross, Anne and Kathleen Pickering. 2002. ‘The Politics of Reintegrating Australian Aboriginal and American Indian Indigenous Knowledge into Resource Management: The Dynamics of Resource Appropriation and Cultural Revival’. Human Ecology 30 (2): 187–214. Russell, Jim and Mirjana Jambrecina. 2002. ‘Wilderness and Cultural Landscapes: Shifting Management Emphases in the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area‘. Australian Geographer 33 (2): 125–139. Salinger, Jim. 2020. ‘Australia’s Bushfires Mean New Zealand has Become the Land of the Long Pink Cloud’. Guardian, 8 January. www.theguardian.com/ world/2020/jan/08/australia­- ​­ b ushfires­- ​­ a otearoa­- ​­ n ew­- ​­ z ealand­- ​­ h as­- ​­ b ecome­-​ ­kikorangi­-​­mawhero­-​­land­-​­of­-​­the­-​­long­-​­pink­-​­cloud. Scherrer, Pascal, Emily O’Gorman, Hannah Power, Matthew Kearnes, Sandie Suchet­-​ ­Pearson, and Tanya Latty. 2016. ‘Reimagining NSW: Going Beyond “Wilderness” and Finding Fresh Ways to Relate to Our Environment’. The Conversation, 3 August. https://theconversation.com/reimagining­-​­nsw­-​­going­-​­beyond­-​­wilderness­-​­and­-​ ­finding­-​­fresh­-​­ways­-​­to­-​­relate­-​­to­-​­our­-​­environment­-​­62978. Schumacher, E. F. 1973. Small is Beautiful: A Study of Economics as if People Matter. London: Blonde and Briggs. Sherwood, Steven, Tord Kjellstrom, and Donna Green. 2010. ‘Heat Stress in a Warming World’. Australasian Science, December. www.australasianscience.com.au/ article/issue­-​­december­-​­2010/heat­-​­stress­-​­warming­-​­world.html. Siurua, Hanna. 2006. ‘Nature Above People: Rolston and “Fortress” Conservation in the South’. Ethics and the Environment 11 (1): 71–96. Stanley, Thomas. R. 1995. ‘Ecosystem Management and the Arrogance of Humanism’. Conservation Biology, 9 (2): 255–262. Steffen, Will, Wendy Broadgate, Lisa Deutsch, Owen Gaffney and Cornelia Ludwig. 2015. ‘The Trajectory of the Anthropocene: The Great Acceleration’. The Anthropocene Review 2 (1): 81–98. Steffensen, Victor. 2020 Fire Country. Richmond, Victoria: Hardie Grant Publishing. Strider. 1984. ‘Kakadu in Context’. In Fighting For Wilderness: Papers from The Australian Conservation Foundation’s Third National Wilderness Conference, 1983, edited by J. G. Mosley & J. Messer, 96–106. Sydney: Fontana/ACF. Suchet, Sandie. 2002. ‘  “Totally Wild”? Colonising Discourses, Indigenous Knowledges and Managing Wildlife’. Australian Geographer 33 (2): 141–157. Suchet­-​­Pearson, Sandie, Kate Wright, Kate Lloyd, Laklak Burarrwanga. 2013. ‘Caring as Country: Towards an Ontology of Co­ -​­ becoming in Natural Resource Management’. Asia Pacific Viewpoint 54 (2): 185–197. Sveiby, Karl­-Eric ​­ and Tex Skuthorpe. 2006. Treading Lightly: The Hidden Wisdom of the World’s Oldest People. Crows Nest: Allen & Unwin. Theden­-​­Ringl, Fenja. 2016. ‘Aboriginal Presence in the High Country: New Dates from the Namadgi Ranges in the Australian Capital Territory’. Australian Archaeology 82 (1): 25–42.

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8 Human engagement in place­-​­care Back from the wilderness Robyn Bartel, Donald W. Hine and Methuen Morgan Introduction In Aboriginal Australia, country that is not cared for may be defined as ‘wild country’; it is the true ‘wilderness’ when compared with the ‘quiet’ country that is actively cared for by its Indigenous custodians (Rose 2004, 4). Colonisation has severely damaged these relationships, and therefore also the land. The idea of supporting a return to ‘quiet’ country would mean confronting ‘the inescapable irony and the hurt for many Aboriginal people’ according to Deborah Bird Rose (1988, 386) that: the country Europeans would want to see as ‘untouched wilderness’ is the country that [Aboriginal Elder and Teacher] Daly Pulkara and others regard as properly cared for. Quiet country is country in which those who know how to read the signs see human action of the most responsible sort. According to this framing, the wild is not that which is set apart from humanity, as in the widely­-used ​­ Eurocentric definition, rather it is land that has not been looked after properly by its people (see also Bartel and Branagan, this volume). It requires healing to bring it back into ecological and cultural health, referred to as ‘caring for country’ (Rose 1996). Human­ -​­ free framings of the wilderness continue to be promoted for conservation purposes, predicated on a definition of nature that is separate from humans (see Mace 2014; Pretty and Pimbert 1995; also Bartel and Branagan, this volume). However, this position is challenged by the evidence that many so­-​­called ‘wilderness’ areas are cultural landscapes co­-​­created and cared for by First Nations’ peoples, as in the United States (see Orion, this volume), Aotoeroa/New Zealand (Brooking, this volume) and Australia (Collins and Thompson, see also Bartel and Branagan, both in this volume). There is emerging a wider recognition of beneficial co­-existence, ​­ and that human and nature are inter­-​­related and co­-​­created (see Bartel and Branagan, this volume). More pragmatically, the need to address environmental degradation both within and outside reserves requires greater human engagement, particularly as the human population grows and urbanises (DESA 2018).

146  Robyn Bartel et al. Nevertheless, human involvement is still often viewed with equivocation, primarily because of anthropogenic causes of environmental harm (Berkes 2003; Gill et al. 2009; Sarkar and Montoya 2011). Since biodiversity decline and environmental degradation are mainly anthropogenic, human presence is largely considered antithetical to environmental objectives, whether these be framed as protection, conservation or preservation.1 However, human responsibility for environmental problems is not universal, and colonisation and industrialisation are caused by, and over­ -​­ consumption is concentrated in, wealthier countries, with the consequences disproportionately impacting the poor and marginalised, including colonised and First Nations peoples (see Srinivisan et al. 2008; Steffen et al. 2015). The spur for this chapter is how a de­-​­binarising (re­-​­)conceptualisation of the ‘wild’ might assist in transforming the human­-​­nature duality and therefore also address environmental and social harm by encouraging new approaches to place­-​­care. To be successful, such approaches will have to address several additional barriers to promoting human participation in caring for degraded places; as well as distrust for human involvement in conservation, and wider systemic institutional and economic forces favouring exploitation, there are behavioural and attitudinal factors of concern. While humans may love nature, this does not guarantee positive behaviours for the environment, as the litany of degradation to the planet amply demonstrates. Further, ostensibly environmentally friendly attitudes, like place attachment and landscape preference, may operate in perverse ways and operate as barriers. Place attachment describes the connection between humans and place (Vorkinn and Riese 2001). It is usually considered to be positive in terms of environmental protection, but if people are attached to degraded places, then there may be resistance to change irrespective of whether this change may be considered (by others as) beneficial. Similarly, people may have developed a preference for landscapes with which they are familiar and be disinclined to make modifications, even if these are improvements. Caring for degraded places often includes practices which change the environment for the better; however, such changes also mean that the landscape is altered and this may be actively resisted due to place attachment to, and preference for, the previous (albeit degraded) landscape (Bonaiuto et al. 2002; Corcoran 2002; Devine­-​­Wright 2005, 2009, 2011; Drenthen 2009; Lewicka 2011). As with the shifting baseline syndrome in ecological research, if people have not experienced or are unaware of degradation, they are unable to appreciate that it has occurred. It is important that such aspects are appreciated more fully, particularly as the human population grows, and to inform consideration of whether wider public participation in caring for places is to be embraced and supported. Caring for country is a phrase most often used to describe practices developed and used by Indigenous Australians (see Rose 1996) but it is also increasingly adopted by non­-​­Indigenous Australians (Lennon 2018). This may constitute cultural appropriation and for this reason is used sparingly here.

Human engagement in place-care  147 Instead, ‘place­ -care’ ​­ and similar terms are adopted when referring to the practices of non­ -​­ Indigenous, as well as Indigenous, peoples. Further, as Deborah Bird Rose (1988, 386–387) has counselled: if an acentred land ethic is to be developed in the west, it will not be developed in wilderness, but in our own back yards, farms and stations … we do not so much need to understand the seemingly exotic as to learn to know and care for the ecosystems with which we interact on a daily basis. It is here that we can develop an ethic that encompasses both theory and praxis. The case study reported here sought to interrogate these aspects further in Australia, a country of unique biodiversity and the highest rates of extinction in the world, and in an urban regional landscape2 that has been significantly modified and degraded since the earliest days of European colonisation, and the endemic biodiversity has declined significantly: truly ‘wild’ country. The investigation focused on contributing to scholarship regarding the role of humans in place­-​­care, and particularly whether place attachment and landscape preference may be antagonistic to environmental objectives. Oppositional behaviours may hamper place­-​­care efforts, and also serve to reinforce both aversion to human participation in protection and the human/(non­ -human) ​­ nature binary in conservation. Associations specifically investigated were between place attachment, landscape preferences, and engagement in behaviours, including active place­ -​­ caring (and landscape­-​­altering) activities such as tree­-​­planting. Dominant conservation and preservation approaches have often overlooked the import and value of human attitudes, behaviours and participation in place­-care ​­ (Gill et al. 2009, 185, 188; Fischer and Young 2007, 271).

Background The extent of ‘wild’ country The extent of ‘wild’ country, defined as uncared for or degraded lands (Rose 1988, 2004), is expanding across the Earth due to desertification, degradation, pollution and declining biodiversity. There is growing evidence that the planetary boundary for biodiversity decline has been exceeded and that humans are creating a mass ‘sixth’ great extinction event (Barnosky et al. 2011; Steffen et al. 2015; Wilson, 2012). Australia has very high rates of extinction, due to the impacts of colonisation on its rich biodiversity, including habitat loss, introduced species, disease, pollution, resource exploitation, and poor land and water management (Evans et al. 2011). Damage must be arrested and ameliorated to ensure environmental sustainability and security (Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity 2010, 9).3 This involves one of the most conflict­-​­ridden areas of environmental management,

148  Robyn Bartel et al. particularly in industrialised Western countries; that of land use change. Kyle and others (2004, 452) have concluded: … it is the bonds that humans share with places and meanings they ascribe to these places that are the root of many of the issues confronting resource management (e.g. conflict between stakeholders over the appropriate use and management of settings). Place attachment Place attachment describes ‘human bonding to a specific physical environment’ (Vorkinn and Riese 2001, 249). It refers to the emotional bonding, as well as biophysical and social linkages, between people and place (Manzo and Perkins 2006; Mesch and Manor 1998). Place attachment research has yielded a diversity of conceptualisations (Stedman 2002); it may describe a process as well as an outcome (Devine­-​­Wright, 2009); and it exhibits some similarities with concepts of belonging (Vorkinn and Riese 2001), topophilia (Tuan 1974), biophilia (Beatley 2009; Wilson 1984) and sense of place (Relph 1976), which has been described as ‘a natural condition of human existence’ (Lewicka 2010, 209). Place attachment has been viewed as a construct variously comprising place identity, place dependence, place satisfaction, sense of place and community (Low and Altman 1992; Manzo 2003; Manzo and Perkins 2006; Ramkissoon et al. 2012). For Rollero and De Piccoli (2010) it is correlated but distinct from place identity (see also Hernández et al. 2010). Raymond, Brown, and Weber (2010) have described place attachment as overlapping domains of place identity and dependence, nature bonding, and social bonding, and have developed a five­-pronged ​­ model for place attachment, building on Williams and Vaske’s (2003) measures for place identity and place dependence. Conceptually similar to Raymond, Brown, and Weber’s (2010) treatment, Scannell and Gifford’s (2010a) framework of place attachment comprises the complex constructs of person, place and the psychological processes of attachment. Place attachment appears to be retaining its importance, despite (and perhaps because of) time­ -space ​­ compression and acceleration in human mobility and development, which involve increasing rates of change to the physical and social fabric of places, including declining propinquity of community (Corcoran 2002; Lewicka 2010; Mesch and Manor 1998). Forms of place attachment, however, may vary as a result of modernity and globalisation, including the emergence of conscious and active, rather than passive or ‘background’, place attachment (Lewicka 2010). The threatened or actual loss or disruption of place attachment, through mobility, marginalisation, dramatic disturbance or modification of the landscape, may lead to alienation, solastalgia and psychoterratic grief (Corcoran 2002; McManus et al. 2014). Fillilove’s (1996, 1516, in Manzo 2003, 47) definition of place attachment, as a ‘mutual caretaking bond between a person and a beloved place’, describes how the connection between people and place may manifest in behaviours, and have

Human engagement in place-care  149 consequences for environmental and human well­-​­being. Although other factors are important, and the relationship between attitude and behaviour is complex (Lewicka 2011; Uzzell et al. 2002), previous research suggests that strong place attachment can motivate people to become more socially and politically active (Mesch and Manor 1998, 505; Manzo and Perkins 2006; Lewicka 2010; 2011), and more likely to support environmentally sustainable attitudes and behaviours (Halpenny 2010; Raymond et al. 2011; Scannell and Gifford 2010b; Stedman 2002; Uzzell et al. 2002; Vorkinn and Riese 2001; see also Bartel and Graham 2016; Davis et al. 2009). Place attachment has been associated with care for place, but this has generally only been interpreted as positive when manifest in environmentally friendly actions (Davis et al. 2009; Halpenny 2010; Lewicka 2010, 2011; Manzo and Perkins 2006; Mesch and Manor 1998, 505; Raymond et al. 2011; Scannell and Gifford 2010b; Stedman 2002; Uzzell et al. 2002). Issues may arise where people have become attached to degraded places and prefer to maintain nature in a heavily modified or damaged stage irrespective of the (objective) merits of change (Corcoran 2002; Devine­-​­Wright 2009, 2011; Lewicka 2011; Manzo and Perkins 2006, 337; Monbiot 2013; Stedman 2002). Place attachment may therefore generate NIMBYism or ‘Not In My Backyard’ aversion and resistance to change (see Devine­-Wright ​­ 2005, 2009, 2011, 2013). Such behaviours may be characterised as ‘place­-​­protective’ (Devine­-​­Wright 2009, 426) but may also be perceived as narrow­-​­minded, parochial, reactionary and obstructionist (Devine­-Wright ​­ 2005, 2009, 2011; Lewicka 2010; Vorkinn and Riese 2001). Landscape preference Some landscapes are deemed more attractive to humans than others (Falk and Balling 2010). Given the power of humans in realising their preferences, the implication for non­-​­preferred landscapes is that they will not be preserved. As Nassauer (1997, 69) observes: ‘Landscapes that attract the admiring attention of human beings may be more likely to survive than landscapes that do not attract care or admiration.’ Favoured landscapes will not only be preferentially maintained, but also created. Landscape preference studies, typically involving respondents’ assessment of a range of environments recorded in photographic images (Williams and Cary 2002), have indicated that humans have an overall preference for scenes in which natural elements such as vegetation, open ground and water are present, and a particular preference for savanna, which has notable similarities to parkland (Falk and Balling 2010). The savanna preference may be universal due to this ecotype bearing many features favourable for human survival and/or its resemblance to the environments in which Homo sapiens evolved (Falk and Balling 2010; Kurz and Baudains 2012; Lewicka 2010; cf. Hägerhäll et al. 2018). Landscape preferences also appear to align with the provision of basic human needs, including safety and comfort (Corcoran 2002), amenity factors such as landscape diversity (Lokocz, Ryan and Sadler 2011), and

150  Robyn Bartel et al. ‘legibility’ – landscapes unfamiliar to the viewer may be considered negatively (Drenthen 2009; Nassauer 1995). Natural areas within urban confines may be resisted for ‘looking too unkempt’ (Gobster 2007, 105). Landscapes which exhibit elements of human management appear to be favoured (Gobster 2007). Nassauer (1995, 161) contends that, unless there is some human management evident in nature conservation areas, they may be ignored and disregarded, since they violate ‘cultural norms for the neat appearance of landscapes’. Research has also found that people who prefer landscapes of greater natural value also hold more nature­-friendly ​­ attitudes and practise more environmentally positive behaviours (Gosling and Williams 2010; Kaltenborn and Bjerke 2002; Kurz and Baudains 2012; Lokocz et al. 2011; Soliva and Hunziker 2009, 2483; Walker and Ryan 2008). Human­-​­nature separation Humans who have active interactions with nature are more likely to value it more highly (Turner et al. 2004). However dominant environmental protection approaches seek to keep nature apart from humans, as a safeguard against deleterious anthropogenic impacts (see Sarkar and Montoya 2011). Biodiversity managers may view humans as a disturbance, and the source of either potential or actual negative impacts, rather than as having the capacity to have beneficial influence (Gill et al. 2009, 188). Indeed, it is often considered necessary to restrict or forbid human access (Gill et al. 2009, 184, 188; Hull and Gobster 2000, 33). Such ‘fortress nature’ or ‘fortress conservation’ approaches have been critiqued for a number of reasons, including the alienation of local people, and especially First Nations and Indigenous peoples, for whom so­-​­called ‘pristine wilderness’ environments are homelands, and actively managed and cultural landscapes (see Kabra 2019; see Collins and Thompson, also Bartel and Branagan, both in this volume). Nevertheless, the ideal of pristine and museum­-piece ​­ wilderness persists (see Berkes 2003). These approaches of ‘sparing’, interpreted as saving nature from humanity, may be compared with the ‘sharing’ approaches of co­-existence ​­ and multi­-​­functionality, which seek to blur and overlap the boundaries of land uses previously considered mutually exclusive and antagonistic (Cooper, 2000; Crespin and Simonetti 2019; Kremen 2015; Russell and Jambrecina 2002), and are also adopted by necessity in urban areas where exclusion is impractical. It has also been observed that, even in urban areas, biodiversity management is often based upon exclusionary frameworks that create bounded, inflexible strategies and narrow scientific and managerial approaches to ecological conservation (Gobster, 2007, 96; Gill et al. 2009, 184). As a result, people may be dissuaded from participation in place­-care. ​­ There can also be backlash from those who are less engaged, since any external imposition may be resisted by more conservative parties. Even where people are included, they may be assumed to be deficient in their knowledge and skills (Gill et al. 2009, 188; also Fischer and Young 2007, 271).

Human engagement in place-care  151 There can be a tendency to prefer the participation of experts and scientists rather than lay people, and traditional ecological knowledge, experiential knowledge, local or vernacular knowledge is often overlooked or dismissed (Poelina 2020; Pretty and Pimbert 1995; Bartel 2014). Community efforts may be ‘crowded out’ (Gill et al. 2009, 189; Fischer and Young 2007, 271); which is not to say that projects to protect and enhance biodiversity cannot also be educative for participants, or be designed to engage and engender behavioural change (see McKinney 2002), but that existing knowledge and relationships must also be accorded greater recognition. The physical proximity of people with urban environments suggests that they may already have significant connections with the environment (Gobster 2010, 228). Perfunctory commitments to public participation may also be counter­-​­productive. Drenthen (2009, 289) has criticised plans which fail to ‘address considerations of place attachment directly’ (Drenthen 2009, 289, emphasis in original). However, and as Drenthen (2009, 289) further observes, ‘ “Sense of place” is usually seen as a subjective feeling to such an extent that it will be hard to take it into account in government policies.’ Drenthen (2009, 287) has recommended that more attention be paid to the fact that ‘the meaning of these relationships could help prevent ecological restoration projects unwittingly destroying the fabric connecting people to their places’.

Methodology A case study was undertaken of the urban centres of Armidale, Uralla, Guyra and Walcha, in the New England region of New South Wales (NSW), Australia (see Figure 8.1). The town councils collaborated in an environmental restoration program known as the High Country Urban Biodiversity Project funded by the NSW Government. The region was selected due to its unique biodiversity, as well as a relatively long period of European colonisation (dating from the 1830s), and hence also extensive history of intense landscape modification, ecosystem destruction and fragmentation (NPWS 1991; 2003), ecocide and genocide (Blomfield 1992; Clayton­-​­Dixon 2019). The region is home to 30 endangered and 38 vulnerable plant species, and 18 endangered and 72 vulnerable animal species. Several species of plants and animals have been driven to extinction through habitat modification (NPWS 2003). About a third of the 70 species of Eucalyptus occurring in the region are endemic and ‘dieback’, a complex phenomenon causing widespread death of mature trees, has been particularly severe since the 1970s (Nadolny 2008). Valorisation of European cultural landscapes, including introduced agricultural and ornamental species, is high and clearly evidenced in promotional branding for each of the towns. Walcha is described as a ‘Pasture Wonderland’ on its town welcome sign and Guyra’s ‘Lamb and Potato Festival’ is the highlight of its social calendar. Armidale’s elm­-​­tree lined streets have NSW heritage status and the annual ‘Autumn Festival’, celebrating the seasonal colouring of deciduous trees, is a major tourist attraction. Large pictorial representations of autumn leaves decorate the Town Hall. The

152  Robyn Bartel et al. Virginia Creeper­-​­clad (introduced species Parthenocissus quinquefolia) Gostwyk Church is a major scenic drawcard near Uralla. Surveys of the town residents, recruited via media releases, newspaper articles, postcard drops and newsletters to reach every household in Armidale,

Figure 8.1 Case Study Towns in New England Region, NSW.

Human engagement in place-care  153 Uralla, Guyra and Walcha, were conducted via questionnaires administered online and in hardcopy. Items within the questionnaire were selected based on tested and validated performance in previous surveys and comprised questions about attitudes and behaviours, specific items for place attachment and landscape preference, and for self­ -reporting ​­ of participation in tree­ -​­ planting, picking up litter, or volunteering to help an environmental group. These three behaviours are identified as ‘place­-care’ ​­ behaviours, with the first, tree­-​­planting, being a directly place­-​­changing behaviour commonly undertaken to address the legacy of past human activities that have caused degradation, the second, picking up litter, which is considered to be maintenance of existing conditions, and the third, volunteering to help an environmental group, also registering social involvement. The place attachment measure comprised three domains of place attachment: place identity, place dependence, social and nature bonding. The place identity and place dependence items were developed and validated by Williams and Vaske (2003) (also Williams, 2000) and a nature bonding item developed and validated by Raymond, Brown and Weber (2010) and Kals, Schumacher and Montada (1999) was modified for inclusion in this study. Nature bonding is defined as ‘implicit or explicit connection to some part of the non­-​­human natural environment, based on history, emotional response or cognitive representation (e.g. knowledge generation)’, or, more simply: ‘connections to the natural environment without human beings’ (Raymond, Brown and Weber 2010, 424, 426). This measure had a high internal reliability, Cronbach’s alpha, of 0.94. A social bonding item, also from Raymond, Brown and Weber (2010), was included in the questionnaire but excluded from the later analysis due to lack of internal consistency. Each aspect comprised 5–6 statements (see Table 8.1) inviting responses according to a 5­-​­point Likert scale (strongly disagree, disagree, neither agree nor disagree, agree, strongly agree). The landscape preference item comprised images, taken by the first author, of three types of urban park landscapes: predominantly native species, mixed (native and introduced species) vegetation, and mainly introduced (majority European) species. The presence and absence of obviously introduced species in the over­-​­storeys of the mixed and introduced scenes clearly distinguished these from the native landscape scenes. In Australia the native/non­-​­native distinction between species is commonly understood and strongly influential in environmental projects (Trigger and Head 2010). Images in each category also included technologically modified elements in their composition, such as outdoor seating and formed paths. Maintained lawns were intentionally included in both the mixed and introduced images, with native grasses in the remaining images. Some, but not all, photos were of local landscapes, to address potential biases about particular places. There were four photos for each of the three types and the preference scores (a 5­-​­point Likert scale of strongly dislike, dislike, neither like nor dislike, like, strongly like) were averaged for the three categories. Analysis of the quantitative data was performed using statistics software SPSS 19.0. The usual caveats for self­-​­reporting of attitudes and behaviours

154  Robyn Bartel et al. Table 8.1  Scale items for place attachment Place attachment

Item

Place identity

Living in my city/town says a lot about who I am. I identify with my city/town. My city/town means a lot to me. I have a lot of fond memories about my city/town. I feel my city/town is a part of me. My city/town is very special to me. Doing my activities here in city/town is more important to me than doing them in any other place. I would not substitute any other area for the activities I do in my city/town. I get more satisfaction out of living in my city/town than any other place. No other place can compare to my city/town. My city/town is the best place for the activities I like to do. I have a special connection to my city/town and the people who live within it. Without my relationships with family here in city/town I would probably move. The friendships developed through sporting activities in my city/town are very important to me. The friendships developed through volunteer activities here in my city/town are very important to me. When I spend time in the areas of biodiversity in my city/ town, I feel at peace with myself. When I spend time in my city/town, I feel a deep feeling of oneness with the areas’ biodiversity. I learn a lot about myself when spending time in the areas of biodiversity in my city/town. I would feel less attached to my city/town if the native plants and animals that live here disappeared. I am very attached to the areas of biodiversity in my city/ town.

Place dependence

Social bonding

Nature bonding

Source: after Williams and Vaske, 2003 and Raymond et al., 2010.

apply. The translation of attachment to other attitudes as well as behaviour is complex, and maybe somewhat circular, including feedback relationships. People who are attached to place may care and interact more with place, and/ or if they care more they may become more attached (Lewicka 2010). The situation is similar for landscape preference (see Kalivoda et al. 2014). People may hold different landscape preferences over time (Gobster 2001), and preferences may also change with the surroundings. Case study results are also not generalisable but rather transferable, and provide insights into the situation existing in this particular context, which may be used for comparison purposes and to inform similar cases.

Human engagement in place-care  155

Results The majority of the total of 396 respondents were Armidale residents (66 per cent). Ten per cent of respondents resided in Uralla, and the remainder split equally between Walcha and Guyra. The Armidale bias in the main reflects its relative size. The population census of 2011 records Armidale’s population as 19,818, compared to Uralla, 2,388, Guyra, 1,947, and Walcha, 1,482 (ABS 2011). Place attachment and place­-​­care behaviours The respondents had high place attachment and were particularly strongly connected to the natural elements of their local areas (see Figure 8.2). Those who expressed higher place attachment, and in particular nature bonding, place dependence and place identity, had significantly higher reported engagement in all activities: tree­ -​­ planting, picking up litter and volunteering to help an environment group (Table 8.2). Mean differences for domains of sense of place

4 3.5 3 2.5 2 1.5 1 0.5 0

Place attachment

Place identity

Place dependence

Nature bonding

Social bonding

Figure 8.2 Place attachment and domains (averaged responses for values 5 = strongly agree, 4 = agree, 3 = neither agree nor disagree, 2 = disagree, 1 = strongly disagree). Table 8.2  Associations between place attachment and place­-​­care behaviours Variable

Place attachment Place identity Place dependence Nature bonding

Participate in tree .24*** planting projects Pick up litter that was .38*** not my own Volunteer time to an .21** environmental group

.16*

.20**

.25***

.31***

.33***

.42***

.11

.15*

.32***

Note n = 248. The numbers in the table indicate the strengths of the correlations between the two variables and from least to highest are: *p