Land of Sweeping Plains: Managing and Restoring the Native Grasslands of South-eastern Australia

By John W. Morgan

Native temperate grasslands are Australia’s most threatened ecosystems. Grasslands have been eliminated from across much of their former extent and continue to be threatened by urban expansion, agricultural intensification, weed invasion and the uncertain impacts of climate change. Research, however, is showing us new ways to manage grasslands, and techniques for restoration are advancing. The importance of ongoing stewardship also means it is vital to develop new strategies to encourage a broader cross-section of society to understand and appreciate native grasslands and their ecology.

Land of Sweeping Plains synthesises the scientific literature in a readily accessible manner and includes a wealth of practical experience held by policy makers, farmers, community activists and on-ground grassland managers. It aims to provide all involved in grassland management and restoration with the technical information necessary to conserve and enhance native grasslands. For readers without the responsibility of management, such as students and those interested in biodiversity conservation, it provides a detailed understanding of native grassland ecology, management challenges and solutions and, importantly, inspiration to engage with this critically endangered ecosystem.

Practical, easy to read and richly illustrated, this book brings together the grassland knowledge of experts in ethnobotany, ecology, monitoring, planning, environmental psychology, community engagement, flora and fauna management, environmental restoration, agronomy, landscape architecture and urban design.

• Language: English
• Publisher: CSIRO PUBLISHING
• Release date: Apr 22, 2015
• ISBN: 9781486300839

Book preview

Introduction

Nicholas S.G. Williams and Adrian Marshall

It is 35 years since Richard Groves (1979), and Neville Scarlett and Bob Parsons (1981), alerted the scientific community to the gross depletion of the temperate native grasslands of south-eastern Australia and the increasing rarity of many grassland species. They galvanised the scientific community into action, and a period of intense botanical survey followed (e.g. Stuwe 1986; McDougall 1987; Fensham 1989; McDougall & Kirkpatrick 1994). This increased government, scientific and public awareness of the ecosystem’s imperilled conservation status (Department of Conservation and Environment 1990; Frawley & Falconer 1991; Kirkpatrick et al . 1995), and spurred a diverse range of scientific studies and, more recently, the trialling of different restoration approaches (McDougall 1989; Morgan 1999; Gibson-Roy 2004; Prober & Thiele 2005; Prober et al . 2005; Gibson-Roy 2008). Consequently, native grasslands are now one of the most studied ecosystems in Australia.

Conservation gains have been significant, but the destruction of native grasslands by agriculture and urban development continues, and many remnants are threatened by land use change, weed invasion, lack of management resources and inappropriate disturbance regimes (Kirkpatrick et al. 1995; Barlow & Ross 2001; Williams et al. 2005). To minimise further loss and degradation, those working to conserve and manage these ecosystems need access to the latest research so they can make decisions based on scientific evidence. However, to secure a future for Australia’s endangered temperate native grasslands in the face of urban expansion, agricultural intensification and the uncertain impacts of climate change, a broader cross-section of society needs to gain a greater appreciation and understanding of native grasslands and their ecology.

This book is one of three complementary resources funded by the Myer Foundation that aim to build this appreciation, understanding and capacity to manage native grasslands; the others being a revised and expanded second edition of the popular field guide Plains wandering (Lunt et al. 1998) and a smart phone app, both which seek to introduce people to grasslands and to help them identify grassland flora and fauna.

From its inception, the goal of this book has been to communicate to as broad an audience as possible the knowledge essential to valuing, enhancing and managing south-eastern Australia’s endangered native grasslands. Knowledge needs to be accessible. The results of grassland research have typically only been available in scientific journals or difficult-to-source reports, while the outreach materials that cover management have often been of limited distribution or regionally specific. Projects such as the Grassy Groundcover Research Project, which features prominently in Chapters 11 and 12, have developed innovative techniques for grassland restoration, but relatively little of that experience has been captured in the literature to date. This book synthesises the published scientific research, and adds a wealth of practical experience held by policy makers, landholders, community activists, on-ground staff and grassland managers.

For most of the year native grasslands appear as drab paddocks, making them a ‘hard sell’ compared to more familiar conservation causes such as the tall forests that are, ironically, much better represented in Australia’s national reserve system. It is only during spring and early summer that the diversity and small-scale beauty of native grasslands becomes apparent. We have sought in this book to capture and highlight that hidden, fleeting beauty. Hence this publication is not a black and white academic reference book. We have included as many striking grassland photos as we can, and reproduce here, as a foldout, Inherit Earth’s stunning Volcano dreaming artwork. We also include many case studies, in part to expand on the detail of the main text, but also to bring into focus the connection between grasslands and the people that manage, utilise and enjoy them every day. Australia appears set to embrace a new direction for grassland conservation – one where people are central to the story of their protection, restoration, management and use. This is logical and necessary, particularly given that the grasslands of south-eastern Australia sit largely within populated landscapes.

Williams N.S.G., Marshall A. & Morgan J.W. (eds.) (2015). Land of sweeping plains: managing and restoring the native grasslands of south-eastern Australia. CSIRO Publishing, Melbourne.

As a nation, we have failed to recognise that much of our prosperity is linked to our native grasslands. For a long time Australia’s economy rode on the sheep’s back and the consequence was the almost complete loss of the grassy ecosystems that were being grazed. Our lack of recognition has made us blind to the changes we have wrought and how the original ecology of our land of sweeping plains is irreversibly altered. Chapter 1 explains the importance of native grasslands to both the Aboriginal people and early European inhabitants. The tall grass prairie of the Midwest in the United States, a grassy ecosystem which has suffered an even greater contraction than our own native grasslands, is celebrated now as an explicit link to a pioneer past and the men and women who ‘settled’ the prairie (Packard & Mutel 1997). Perhaps one day Australians will similarly recognise the contribution that native grasslands made to the settlement of Tasmania, the Port Phillip Colony and the Southern Tablelands of New South Wales.

This book focuses on the natural and derived grassland communities of temperate south-eastern Australia listed under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999. The distribution, environmental drivers and botanical composition of these communities is described in Chapter 2. We note however that in some areas the current and pre-European distribution, species composition and even presence of native grasslands are still being determined. Recent investigations, for example, have found grassland occurred in areas not previously thought to have supported the community; just north of Adelaide (Shackley et al. 2014) and the edge of Westernport Bay in Victoria (Cook & Yugovic 2003; Yugovic & Mitchell 2006). Clearly, there is still much to learn. Grassland communities excluded from the book’s scope include those of alpine areas, coastal bluffs, arid areas and grassy woodlands. Although grassy woodlands have similar ground-layer vegetation composition to native grasslands and a similar pastoral legacy, the dominant role trees play in these ecosystems make them ecologically distinct.

We now know that native grasslands are temporally and spatially dynamic. Rainfall and temperature drive biomass production, which has an overwhelming influence on flora and fauna populations through a variety of ecosystem processes. Chapter 3 discusses these processes in detail and Chapter 4 focuses on the role fauna plays within grassland ecosystems.

There are many things that we need to do to better value, enhance and manage our native temperate grasslands. Careful planning of management actions and monitoring of their effects are essential if we are to learn from both our successes and our mistakes (Chapter 5). We need to bring the community on board our seas of waving grass: understanding the social context within which grassland management takes place (Chapter 6) is essential, as is inspiring the next generation of grassland champions to ensure ongoing commitment and a strong voice against further destruction (Chapter 7).

Grasslands are distinctive in that they require active management. To not act is to fail. Lest the sward suffocate itself, we must burn, graze or cut grasslands to keep them open and receptive to the sporadic plant recruitment produced from short-lived seeds responding to biomass and climate (Chapter 8). Many of the weeds we have introduced must be controlled to maintain ecosystem integrity and function (Chapter 9). And on our farms, we must embrace the possibilities native grasslands and native pastures offer and seek to integrate them into productive enterprises (Chapter 10).

We have a greater ambition than management. Restoration can return a degraded landscape to something of its former beauty and function. Native seed supply is critical to such an enterprise and a lack of assured-quality seed has historically held-back restoration efforts. Chapters 11 and 12 discuss ways to efficiently source seed and to then reintroduce plant diversity into either degraded species-poor grassland or agricultural land that, generally, has both high weed and nutrient levels. The application of agronomy to the production of seed from a diverse selection of native species is a new step now being taken. One innovative restoration technique, which has produced quite inspiring results, is the scalp and sow method, in which topsoil, with its burden of weed seed, and its nutrients that favour the growth of exotic species over native species, is removed prior to seeding.

The challenge for our grasslands is perhaps greatest in cities, where development of the land that grasslands occupy is especially profitable. However, by looking to urban design and landscape architecture to shape the context in which grasslands sit, by designing with management needs in mind, and by showing care and aiming to engage with people, we can ensure remnant grasslands are better integrated into our residential suburbs and industrial areas (Chapter 13).

We hope this book provides local and state government conservation officers, farmers, friends groups and all those involved in grassland management and restoration the technical information required to conserve and enhance the native grasslands that they are custodians of. The examples of community engagement and management activities presented may also stimulate ideas that could be applied in local community or form the basis of funding applications. For those readers without the responsibility of management, such as students and those interested more generally in biodiversity conservation, the book will provide a detailed understanding of native grassland ecology, its management challenges and solutions and, importantly, inspiration to engage with this critically endangered ecosystem.

References

Barlow T.J. & Ross J.R. (2001). Vegetation of the Victorian Volcanic Plain. Proceedings of the Royal Society of Victoria, 113, 25–28.

Cook D. & Yugovic J.V. (2003). Clyde-Tooradin grassland re-discovered. Victorian Naturalist, 120, 140–146.

Department of Conservation and Environment (1990). Remnant native grasslands and grassy woodlands of the Melbourne area: an action plan for conservation based on biological values. Department of Conservation and Environment, Melbourne.

Fensham R.J. (1989). The pre-European vegetation of the Midlands, Tasmania: a floristic and historical analysis of vegetation patterns. Journal of Biogeography, 16, 29–45.

Frawley K. & Falconer R. (1991). The 1990s – a crucial decade for ACT native grasslands. In: The ACT’s native grasslands (ed. Falconer R). Conservation Council of the South-East Region & Canberra (Inc.) National Museum of Australia, Canberra, pp. 24–30.

Gibson-Roy P. (2004). The restoration of indigenous grassland communities from direct sown seed mixtures. PhD thesis, Institute of Land and Food Resources, The University of Melbourne, p. 291.

Gibson-Roy P. (2008). Reconstructing complex grassland on agricultural sites by direct seeding: learnings from a 3 year, field scale experimental study. Australasian Plant Conservation, 16, 22–23.

Groves R.H. (1979). The status and future of Australian grasslands. New Zealand Journal of Ecology, 2, 76–81.

Kirkpatrick J., McDougall K. & Hyde M. (1995). Australia’s most threatened ecosystem: the southeastern lowland native grasslands. Surrey Beatty & Sons in association with the World Wide Fund for Nature Australia, Chipping Norton, NSW.

Lunt I., Barlow T. & Ross J. (1998). Plains wandering: exploring the grassy plains of south-eastern Australia. Victorian National Parks Association and the Trust for Nature (Victoria), Melbourne.

McDougall K. (1987). Sites of botanical significance in the western region of Melbourne. Department of Conservation, Forests and Lands, Melbourne.

McDougall K. & Kirkpatrick J.B. (eds.) (1994). Conservation of lowland native grasslands in south-eastern Australia. World Wide Fund for Nature, Melbourne.

McDougall K.L. (1989). The re-establishment of Themeda triandra (Kangaroo Grass): implications for the restoration of grassland. Technical report 89. Arthur Rylah Institute for Environmental Research, East Melbourne, p. 53.

Morgan J.W. (1999). Have tubestock plantings successfully established populations of rare grassland species into reintroduction sites in western Victoria? Biological Conservation, 89, 235–243.

Packard S. & Mutel C.F. (1997). The tallgrass restoration handbook: for prairies, savannas and woodlands. Island Press, Washington.

Prober S.M. & Thiele K.R. (2005). Restoring Australia’s temperate grasslands and grassy woodlands: integrating function and diversity. Ecological Management & Restoration, 6, 16–27.

Prober S.M., Thiele K.R., Lunt I.D. & Koen T.B. (2005). Restoring ecological function in temperate grassy woodlands: manipulating soil nutrients, exotic annuals and native perennial grasses through carbon supplements and spring burns. Journal of Applied Ecology, 42, 1073–1085.

Scarlett N.H. & Parsons R.F. (1981). Rare plants of the Victorian Plains. In: Species at risk: research in Australia (eds. Groves RH & Ride WDL). Australian Academy of Science, Canberra, pp. 89–105.

Shackley A., Allanson A. & Kuys J. (2014). A biological survey of lower north grasslands of South Australia. Irongrass Environmental Rehabilitation Services & Gawler Environmental Heritage Association.

Stuwe J. (1986). An assessment of the conservation status of native grasslands on the Western Plains, Victoria and sites of botanical significance. Technical report 48. Arthur Rylah Institute for Environmental Research, Heidelberg, p. 274.

Williams N.S.G., McDonnell M.J. & Seager E.J. (2005). Factors influencing the loss of an endangered ecosystem in an urbanising landscape: a case study of native grasslands from Melbourne, Australia. Landscape and Urban Planning, 71, 35–49.

Yugovic J. & Mitchell S. (2006). Ecological review of the Koo-Wee-Rup Swamp and associated grasslands. The Victorian Naturalist, 123, 323–334.

RECONNECTION: Grasslands can be a place for traditional owners to engage in cultural practices; here, digging to trial traditional means of increasing Chocolate-lilies (Arthropodium sp.), a traditional food plant. Photo: MCMC CC BY-NC-ND.

Humans and grasslands – a social history

Beth Gott, Nicholas S.G. Williams and Mark Antos

The story of Australia’s grasslands begins when the vast rainforests of Nothofagus (Southern Beech) that covered much of the continent retreated with the cooling and drying of the climate (Hill 2004; Martin 2006). Fossilised pollen from the late Miocene (11–5 million years ago) suggests that in the place of those rainforests came more open forests and woodlands of Eucalypts and Casuarinas, accompanied by grasses and daisies. Fire became common (as evidenced by charcoal deposits), perhaps because of the shift to a climate with seasons, especially a marked dry season (Martin 2006). Repeated large changes in climate drove the trend from closed rainforest to more open vegetation throughout the Pliocene (5–2.5 million years ago) (Hill 2004).

By the beginning of the Pleistocene (2.5 million years ago), the fossil pollen records show that the plant families Asteraceae and Poaceae had increased significantly – suggesting substantial woodlands and grasslands were present by this time, and rainforest was confined to coastal and highland areas (Martin 2006). Megafauna, including now-extinct species of kangaroos and the large herbivore Diprotodon, grazed along the Murray River (Hill & Brodribb 2006). The Pleistocene climate swung repeatedly from cold and glacial to warm and wet. During the coldest periods, the snowline lowered 1000 m in altitude, glaciers formed in the Snowy Mountains and Tasmanian highlands, and temperatures were 6–7 °C cooler than today (Hill & Brodribb 2006). It was also much drier, with mean annual rainfall 100–200 mm lower than today, because moisture was locked in ice caps and glaciers. These conditions allowed extensive areas of cold, dry, open grasslands, termed steppe, to prosper. Some plants developed underground storage roots to survive the harsh seasonal conditions and across south-eastern Australia, drought-adapted deciduous shrubs came to prominence (Hope 1994). Pollen records show that between the cold, dry times, trees increased in abundance and extent.

Humans arrived in Australia in the late Pleistocene 50 000 years ago (Williams 2013), a period that coincides with the extinction of the continent’s megafauna. There is continuing scientific debate about the relative importance of a drying environment versus human hunting pressure in the extinction of the megafauna, but what is increasingly clear is that substantial changes in the vegetation occurred from that time onward. The loss of huge numbers of large herbivorous marsupials is thought to have allowed a build-up of vegetation that led to more frequent fires, recorded by traces of dust and smoke in sediment cores (Lopes Dos Santos et al. 2013), which in turn shifted the vegetation of much of the Murray–Darling Basin towards Eucalypt woodlands and grasslands, the species of which, in turn, are more fire-prone. The relative proportion of spring-growing and summer-growing plants (C3 and C4 plants), inferred from the chemical composition of plant leaf waxes and fossil eggshells of emus and the extinct giant flightless bird Genyornis newtonii, shifted dramatically towards C3 species (Miller et al. 2005; Lopes Dos Santos et al. 2013).

HUNTED HERBIVORE: ‘The West Victorian Aborigines had stories of the Mihirung – the big flightless birds. The one that survived longest and was most widespread was the plant eater Genyornis newtoni, looking like a big robust emu; the Aborigines preserved the story of how it was hunted.’ (Dawson, 1881) Drawing by Nobu Tamura CC BY 3.0.

At the peak of the last ice age, 22 000–18 000 years ago, treeless vegetation, grassland and heathland covered most of south-eastern Australia, in places reaching to the coast, with Eucalypts restricted to sheltered areas (Hill 2004). Sea levels were 120 m lower than today and Tasmania was connected to Victoria by a broad expanse of grasslands and open woodlands known as the Bassian Plain that today lies drowned beneath Bass Strait (Petherick et al. 2013). The Victorian Volcanic Plain was a steppe dominated by Poaceae and Asteraceae that has no modern analogues and which varied in composition across the region (Kershaw et al. 2004).

Williams N.S.G., Marshall A. & Morgan J.W. (eds.) (2015). Land of sweeping plains: managing and restoring the native grasslands of south-eastern Australia. CSIRO Publishing, Melbourne.

THE BASSIAN PLAIN: Map showing the 50 fathom (91 m) and 100 fathom (183 m) depths in south-eastern Australia. The mainland extended across a substantial land bridge, of grasslands and woodlands called the Bassian Plain, to Tasmania during the last ice-age. From: Alfred William Howitt: The native tribes of south-east Australia, 1904.

When the last glacial maximum ended 18 000 years ago, temperatures and rainfall increased, sea levels rose, and changes in vegetation were rapid. Pollen records indicate that chenopods and daisies decreased in abundance and grasses became more dominant, signifying a shift from steppe vegetation to grassland vegetation similar to that found today (Kershaw et al. 2004). As the climate warmed, Eucalypts and Casuarinas expanded into areas previously dominated by grassland, and for the last 12 000 years (Petherick et al. 2013) grasslands have been restricted to those areas that Eucalyptus, the most ubiquitous of Australian genera, do not colonise due to seasonal drought, cold, heavy soils or animal and human intervention. These areas are the Victorian Volcanic Plain, the Gippsland Plains, the Murray Valley Plains, the Southern Tablelands of New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory, the Tasmanian Midlands and South Australia’s mid-north. Chapter 2, The native temperate grasslands of south-eastern Australia, details their composition and characteristics.

The Aboriginal People

We do not know for sure when the Aboriginal People first entered the Australian continent from New Guinea and Indonesia, but it was likely that a small founder population, of perhaps 1000–2000 people, were in Australia 50 000 years ago (Williams 2013). It has been suggested that the population remained small across much of Australia until the Holocene (Williams 2013). From 12 000 years ago, when climate stability increased, it is likely that the Aboriginal population increased markedly; Williams (2013) estimates that the population would have been 1.2 million people 500 years ago. They lived in tribal groups which were further divided into land-owning clans bearing the responsibility of ensuring the yield and survival of the resources essential to survival (Presland 2010). Although their way of life has been described as ‘hunter-gatherer’, there was active management of the landscape, depending on oral transmission of the deep knowledge of the country and its flora and fauna which they had accumulated over thousands of years. Their management of the landscape relied largely on the skilled use of fire (Gott 2005).

MYRNONG: Mitchell’s 1839 journal where he mentions the species believed to be Microseris lanceolata.

Grasslands as food source

The open grasslands were attractive to grazing by kangaroos and other animals that provided meat, but amongst the grass were also many non-grass plant species known as forbs that provided food to Aboriginal people. The life histories of these species consist of leafy growth during the cool wet part of the year, autumn and winter, during which the energy-rich carbohydrates produced by photosynthesis are stored in underground organs such as tubers, bulbs, corms and rhizomes. As the summer becomes hot and dry, the above-ground parts of the plant die back and the plant avoids the unfavorable dry summer by remaining buried in the soil as storage organs. These underground organs were an important food source for Aboriginal people (Gott 1982; Clarke 1985). Plant food, gathered by women and children, was estimated to make up at least 50 per cent of Aboriginal people’s diet (Winter in Bride 1898; Latz & Green 1995). When hunting was unsuccessful, these storage organs and roots were the fallback food. ‘They depend for food almost entirely on animals and roots’ (Dawson 1881); ‘their natural food consists of the meat of the country when they can kill it, but chiefly roots’ (Winter in Bride 1898).

Taking either the general checklist for the whole of the Victorian Volcanic Plain, containing 550 species (Willis 1964), or the list for the grasslands of the Keilor Plains area (Sutton 1916), 20 per cent of the plants are recorded as being used by the Aboriginal people for food, and half of these food sources are underground storage organs. Notable among the species used were the many perennial lilies and orchids (Gott 1982, 1983, 1993).

Some species were very abundant. George Augustus Robinson, the Protector of Aborigines from 1839 until 1849, noted in 1840 that the basalt plain known as Spring Plains was covered with ‘millions of Murnong [Microseris lanceolata]’ (Clark 1998), a dandelion-like native daisy, the tubers of which were a major staple food (Gott 1983). In 1841 he described women ‘spread over the plain as far as I could see them, collecting [roots] – each had a load as much as she could carry’ (Clark 1998). Major Thomas Mitchell in 1836 described the view south and east from the Grampians as ‘a vast extent of open downs’, ‘quite yellow with the flowers of the cichoraceous plant tao [Microseris lanceolata] whose root, small as it is, constitutes the food of the native women and children. The cattle are very fond of the leaves of this plant and seemed to thrive upon it’ and ‘we observed them [natives] digging in the ground for roots’ (Mitchell 1839).

Grass seeds were hardly eaten at all in temperate grassland regions, although they were staples in the more arid regions of Australia (Dawson 1881). Storage roots have the advantage of being available year-round, unlike the seasonal seeds and fruits. Roots often provided more than starch: ‘Many of them, including the popular Murnong, have a storage carbohydrate made from fructose units (fructan), which does not raise the level of glucose in the blood, as starch does. Its equivalent in our diets is in Jerusalem Artichoke (Helianthus tuberosus)’ (Incoll et al. 1989). When the Aboriginal people’s traditional diet, high in fructans, was replaced by the starch in European flour, it contributed to the development of the Type 2 diabetes which continues to be a serious disease of Aboriginal populations (O’Dea 1983).

ROOTS AND SEEDS: The proportion of seeds eaten by Aboriginal people diminished as rainfall increased across all New South Wales regions. Data from 2010, Beth Gott NSWUSE database (unpublished, lodged with AIATSIS).

Storage roots have the advantage of being available year-round, unlike the seasonal seeds and fruits.

PERMANENT SETTLEMENT: One of the few close to contemporary accounts of the Lake Condah villages in southwest Victoria. The text reads: ‘Blacks, about 50 miles N.E. of Port Fairy, by what is termed the Scrubby Creek, before settlers came among them had a regular Village. My informant who drew this states that there were between 20–30 evidently some of them big enough to hold a dozen people, their shape as under an aperture at top to let out smoke, which in rainy weather they covered with large sod, The form like a Bee Hive about 6 feet high + or – and about 10 feet in diameter. An opening about 3 feet for a door way which they could close at night with piece of bark. There, blacks made regular dams in creeks to catch fish. They could make straw nets and their baskets were different. About 1839 settlers first began to settle in this area. About May 1842 a station was formed on the opposite side of the creek to this Aboriginal settlement...’ Image from the State Library of Victoria’s manuscripts collection: Brough Smythe Papers, c 1840. Accession number: MS 8781. Transcription accompanies digital image.

Cyclical and permanent use

Due to cold temperatures and possibly a lack of game, it is likely that Aboriginal people did not occupy the high parts of the Monaro grasslands year round (Benson 1994); but they did visit in the summer to feast on Bogong Moths (Flood 1980). On the semi-arid Northern Plains of Victoria, and probably South Australia, Aboriginal people moved throughout the landscape to take advantage of the resources of a variable climate, and spent time along rivers in summer and inland in winter (Ballinger 2011).

Grassland contained large amounts of game, varied salt and fresh water lake foods, a variety of edible plants and permanent fresh water containing aquatic foods, making it a very favourable area for Aboriginal habitation. Mulvaney (1964) suggests grassland would have supported a population density of 6.5–9.0 persons per square mile (2.5–3.5 persons per square kilometre), similar to northern Australia.

Permanent or seasonal settlements may have been common in the grassland areas of western Victoria. Major Mitchell (1839) describes large huts at White Lake on the western edge of the Grampians, and William Thomas reported that on the banks of Mustons and Scrubby Creek, about 50 miles north-east of Port Fairy, the first European settlers found a settlement of 20 to 30 beehive-shaped huts, some of them large enough to hold a dozen people (Smyth 1878) (see illustration previous page).

Further evidence of more permanent settlement and sophisticated resource utilisation has been provided by archaeological investigations around Lake Condah in western Victoria. This area has numerous lakes, streams and swamps interspersed among grassland. The Short-finned Eel (Anguilla australis) that lives in these water bodies provided a rich, year-round source of protein for the Aboriginal people. Migrating eels were caught in dams built across streams and directed through channels constructed of volcanic boulders or earth to storage ponds (Presland & Robinson 1980; Builth 2006). They were probably then caught when needed, but were also preserved by smoking in hollow trees and traded with neighbouring tribes. This ‘farming’ of eels enabled a more sedentary life and the establishment of what the Europeans called ‘villages’ of large, cupola-shaped Aboriginal houses which were each constructed on a base of boulders (Builth 2004; Builth et al. 2008).

SMOKING TREE: Gas chromatographic analysis of sediment from this culturally modified Eucalyptus viminalis (Manna Gum) close to an eel trap in the Lake Condah region of western Victoria proved it to have been used as a smoking chamber for eels (Builth 2002). This tree was probably used as a smoking house for intense periods of activity during the eel migration season. The Gunditjmara people smoked food for preservation, storage and trade. Photo by Heather Builth.

Use of fire

Burning was used by the Aboriginal people to maintain a supply of the required food plants which grew in grassland. Although the post-fire grass growth attracted herbivorous animals such as kangaroos, which could be hunted, the most important effect of fire on the landscape was to clear dead grass to provide unshaded areas where the food-bearing forbs could thrive, as well as returning ash to the soil (Gott 2005). In grassy woodland, fire was similarly used to prevent the shrub layer from shading the food plants which grew at ground level. There are numerous early reports of Aboriginal people burning grassland. Edward Curr, a keen observer of Aboriginal life, noticed the purposeful use of fire: ‘The aborigines would set fire to the grass and trees both accidentally and systematically for hunting purposes. Living principally on wild roots and animals, he tilled his land and cultivated his pastures with fire’ (Curr 1898). Gammage (2011) has listed early reports of Aboriginal burning of grassland. He suggests that the aim of the Aboriginal people was the maintenance and formation of belts of grassland alternating with woodland and forest, a landscape well-fitted for both hunting and plant food.

Bowman (1998), in a comprehensive review of the effects of Aboriginal burning on the Australian biota, stated ‘fire was a powerful tool that Aborigines used systematically and purposefully over the landscape… [there is] little doubt that Aboriginal burning was skillful and was central to the maintenance of the landscapes colonised by Europeans in the 19th century.’ Fire maintained the much-reported open nature of the woodland, which disappeared when Aboriginal burning ceased.

The time of the year for burning was important. The best time in southern Australia was late autumn, just before the rains, when the plants were still underground as storage roots. Burning in winter is more easily controlled, but damages the green, growing plants. Aboriginal tribes were made up of smaller groups, named by anthropologists as ‘clans’, the people of which were regarded as owners of designated areas of the tribal land. The elders of the clan groups, drawing on their traditional knowledge, would make the decisions when to burn the clan lands. Thomson (1949) in Arnhemland, northern Australia, said burning ‘is not a random business… [it is] carried out in a restricted and controlled manner… directed by the old men of the tribe, or by others who have an hereditary right.’

RECONSTRUCTION: The village huts at Lake Condah were constructed around a stone foundation, and used a wooden frame and thatch. Illustration by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, based on material by Heather Builth.

LIFE CYCLE OF A PERENNIAL LILY:

A Spring and early summer.

B Mid and late summer.

C Autumn.

D Winter.

The effect of digging

The collection of roots as staple foods meant there was continual digging by Aboriginal women. Over their yearly rounds, the women would work over the soil of most areas that produced tuberous species. Since most of these species are found growing in locally abundant patches, gathering had the effect of thinning-out the plants and making room for further growth (Gott 1982, 1993). In an experimental plot cleared of the common tuberous food plant Pterostylis nutans (Nodding Greenhood), 75 per cent of the pre-clearing density was restored within 14 months (Gott, unpublished data), with Greenhoods mostly recolonising the cleared areas from adjacent soil, but regrowth from root fragments is also a possibility. The benefits of such cultivation are that the soil is aerated, and litter and ash turned into it. Early settlers remarked on the loose, absorbent nature of the soils, contrasting them with the compaction produced by the hard hooves of sheep and cattle (Batey undated).

There is one report from Victoria of what appears to be deliberate cultivation:

The soil [on a sloping ridge] is rich basaltic clay, evidently well fitted for the production of myrnongs [Microseris lanceolata]. On the spot are numerous mounds with short spaces between each, and as all these are at right angles to the ridge’s slope, it is conclusive evidence that they were the work of human hands extending over a long series of years. This uprooting of the soil, to apply the best term, was accidental gardening, still it is reasonable to assume that the Aboriginals were quite aware of the fact that turning the earth over in search of yams, instead of diminishing that form of food supply, would have a tendency to increase it. (Batey undated)

There was a method of harvesting the roots which allowed individual plants to survive:

Root foods were never, so we were told, dug indiscriminately: no known patch was completely denuded. In the case of the Moronggoni (potato) [probably a Lily such as Arthropodium sp.] and Tuwaiki (radish) [Microseris lanceolata], the young plants were left… only the two-year-old plants which could flower were carefully dug and their roots or bulbs uncovered. For the Moronggoni, the large old seed bulb, along with the small new season’s bulbs, remained untouched; only the large new season’s ones were taken. The old seed bulb was termed Pakali (grandmother), smaller ones were the ‘grandchildren’; only the ‘parent’ ones would be collected. After digging, the earth would be pushed back and the plants made firm so that their natural cycle was not radically interfered with and their increase was ensured. The same was the case with Tuwaiki. (Berndt et al. 1993)

BELOW-GROUND FOOD:

1. Arthropodium sp. 1 (Tall Vanilla-lily)

2. Arthropodium strictum (Chocolate-lily)

3. Arthropodium milleflorum (Pale Vanilla-lily)

4. Caesia calliantha (Blue Grass-lily)

5. Triglochin procera (Water Ribbons)

6. Pelargonium australe (Austral Stork’s-bill)

7. Gastrodia sesamoides (Bell Orchid)

8. Typha domingensis (Bullrush)

9. Diuris pardina (Leopard Orchid)

10. Bulbine bulbosa (Bulbine Lily)

11. Wurmbea dioica (Early Nancy)

12. Bolboschoenus caldwellii (Marsh Club-rush)

13. Pterostylis nutans (Nodding Greenhood)

Photos by Beth Gott.

GRANDMOTHER, PARENT AND GRANDCHILD: Aboriginal people only collected the ‘parent’ tubers of the Myrnong (C). The ‘grandparent’ (A) and ‘grandchildren’ (B) were left. Photo by Beth Gott.

AWAY on the Bundian Way

AILEEN BLACKBURN AND JOHN BLAY

Bundian AWAY

ANNABEL DORROUGH

Natural Regeneration Australia and Bundian AWAY

THE BUNDIAN WAY IS AN ANCIENT ABORIGINAL PATHWAY that connects Targangal (Kosciuszko), the highest part of the Australian continent, to the coast at Bilgalera (Fisheries Beach). It has long been championed by the Eden Local Aboriginal Land Council (ELALC) and it is now listed on the New South Wales State Heritage Register for its cultural and shared history values.

The route of the Bundian Way was determined after a process of historical research, walking, consultation and physical survey. The physical survey revealed Yam Daisies (Microseris lanceolata, locally known as Garngeg or Nyamin, and known in Victoria as Myrnong), at the edge of a small remnant grassy woodland in the far south-eastern corner of the region. Yam Daisies are now rare in the extensive grasslands of the Monaro. Investigations revealed that there was more to the place than met the eye. Numerous other food species were found nearby, including regionally rare or endangered species, suggesting Aboriginal habitation over time. Then a scar tree and large numbers of artifacts were found. Further research indicated that the location marks the beginning of the old Bundian Pass, with many connections to other sites along the Bundian Way. Known as Bondi (or Bundian) Springs, it is a place clearly much used by the old Aboriginal people.

This is a special place that can be used for the future education of young people and in particular for women’s business, where the community might bring schoolchildren and demonstrate care for country. So it was decided that scientific research was necessary to establish management procedures to ensure the place’s sustainability. The project team today includes Monero woman and knowledge holder Aileen Blackburn, ELALC project officer John Blay and local ecologists. The research will examine the value of decompacting the soil, how and when to dig the Yam plants, and the use of Aboriginal burning techniques.

Soon after beginning the project it was clear that more involvement of young Indigenous women was required. To the project team, implementing the research treatments, restoration and replanting of Yam species seemed inappropriate without proper cultural context. As a result, a women’s business project began that incorporates cultural procedures, and which is called the Bundian AWAY (Aboriginal Women And Yamfields) program. This program aims to provide opportunities for women not only to pass on cultural knowledge and practice in country, but also to enable training in Western science and ecological restoration. Although only just beginning, the possibilities for the Bundian AWAY project are exciting. The project has considerable and enthusiastic local support, including involvement from all local high schools.

KNOWLEDGE HOLDER: Pictured opposite, with yams and yamstick, Aileen Blackburn of the Monero people is helping young women reconnect with their heritage. Photo by John Blay.

NOTE: ‘Yam’ is used locally to refer to tuber-forming plants generally (including Arthropodium spp., Bulbine bulbosa, Diuris spp., Pterostylis spp., Caesia calliantha and Wurmbea dioica), but it is often used more specifically to refer to Microseris lanceolata.

‘Despite the demise of the once abundant crops of Yam, the Aboriginal women of the Monero plains and tablelands connect strongly to the customary cultural protocols surrounding Yam ceremony, oral stories, harvesting and sharing. We cultivated with knowledge of traditional burning, germinating, select gathering and complex multi-seasonal patterns. Whilst the men hosted the Bogong festivities during the summer months, we carried out Yam ceremonies. The many hidden waterholes gave easy access to prevalent yields of Yams, ferns, berries, eggs, fowl and indeed grass fibres ideal for basket, container and artifact making. Women made their digging sticks which also doubled as a weapon, essential for fending off the notorious and lethal brown snakes.

‘We embrace the healing and well-being properties connected to the Yam, and the ongoing women’s business obligations. Stories recall the trauma and sadness surrounding the advent of fences, cattle, sheep, trespass signs and loss of traditional hunting, camping, fishing holes, waterways and mountains. The Yam has special significance, it transcends the landscape like a warm blanket. The importance of bringing back the cultural integrity of the Yam relies heavily on revitalising the Yam fields, retelling the stories, so that grandmothers, mothers, aunties, daughters, nieces and granddaughters can strengthen their ties and connection to country.’

Aileen Blackburn

European settlement

Aboriginal people had lived in Australia for 50 000 years when European observers, in their first reports of the landscape, described large areas of grassland, sometimes widespread, or existing as clear patches within woodland and forest (Gammage 2011). The native grassland with widely scattered trees was compared by many British settlers to the ‘gentlemen’s parks’ of their home country and proved immediately attractive as grazing land for sheep and cattle. Mitchell, the first explorer of far-western Victoria, described the land as:

Available in its present state for all the purposes of civilised man... an open grassy country, extending as far as we could see – hills round and green as a carpet, meadows broad and either green as an emerald or of a rich golden colour, from the abundance… of a little ranunculus-like flower… the earth being covered with a thick matted turf… resembling a nobleman’s park on a gigantic scale. (Mitchell 1839)

Grasslands and grassy woodlands were a valuable resource to European colonists and were noted by explorers and government surveyors whenever they were encountered (Hyde 1995). Coming from Sydney, Captain Mark Currie crossed the Limestone Plains of the Canberra region in June 1823 noting they ‘passed through a chain of clear downs to some very extensive ones’ (Hancock 1972). The grassland plains around what is now Goulburn, Lake George and Canberra were recorded by botanist Alan Cunningham in 1824, and zoologist John Lhotsky in 1834 described the Monaro grasslands near Cooma as ‘undulating downs, long projected hills among them, covered with very few trees’ (Benson 1994). The grasslands of South Australia were discovered at a similar time, with Charles Sturt recording in 1829 that he encountered ‘immense tracts of lands… rich in soil, abundant in pasture with scarcely a tree upon them… and covered with a profusion of orchidaceous plants’ (Sturt 1963).

When the European settlers arrived, the transformations of the landscape would be as great as those of the great climactic shifts of the Pliocene. What was, to European eyes, unoccupied, prime, sheep-grazing land quickly enticed settlers to grassland regions and in so doing replaced the management practices of the Aboriginal First Peoples.

Pastoralism

The rapid expansion of settlement in south-eastern Australia between 1830 and 1845 was both a response to, and driver of, the huge demand for Australian wool. Industrialisation of the British textile industry produced new spinning and combing machines that favoured the long, strong fibres of Australian wools over the shorter fibres of the German wools which had previously dominated the industry (Pearson & Lennon 2010).

The grasslands of the Tasmanian Midlands between Hobart and Launceston were the second rural settlement in Australia and by 1825, most of the area had been occupied by European farmers (Fensham & Kirkpatrick 1989). Driven by the shortage of available land in Tasmania, John Batman travelled to Port Phillip in 1835 in search of new grazing lands. Describing what is now known as the Keilor and Werribee Plains, he wrote:

I think I can safely swear that I can see every way over plains, twenty miles distance, with scarcely any timber and covered with Kangaroo grass eight and ten inches high. This, I think is the average. Most beautiful sheep pasturage I ever saw in my life. (Batman 1985)

By early 1837, the plains around Melbourne were stocked with as many sheep as they could carry, to a distance of 25 miles from the coast (Bonwick 1883), and at the end of that year the Port Phillip colony had 300 000 sheep, most originating from Tasmania (Pearson & Lennon 2010). By the end of the 1830s, the grasslands of western Victoria were being occupied from the south along the coast, from the east from Port Phillip and from the north-east along the ‘Major’s Line’ from New South Wales, and all available good sheep pasture had been appropriated from the Aboriginal peoples who were either pushed into more marginal lands or moved to government reservations. By 1842 there were more than one million sheep in the Port Phillip District and by 1851, six million (Pearson & Lennon 2010).

Similar patterns of settlement occurred in other grassland regions. Prime grazing land in the New South Wales Southern Tablelands around Goulburn, Yass and Canberra was settled by the mid-1820s (Pearson & Lennon 2010) and the Monaro region from 1830. Grasslands in South Australia supported extensive pastoral activities and a flock of 200 000 sheep just four years after settlement of the colony in 1836, and by the 1850s the colony’s sheep flock numbered three million (Hyde 1995; Pearson & Lennon 2010). Squatters arrived in the Wimmera and Northern Plains of Victoria in 1841 and, within a decade, had established extensive pastoral holdings (runs) on all but the poorest land. These runs at first supported relatively low-intensity sheep grazing, but after property improvements, including the drilling of wells in the 1860s and fencing, sheep numbers greatly increased (Morcom & Westbrooke 1998).

THE SPREAD OF PASTORALISM: Map showing the rapid expansion of pastoral runs in south-eastern Australia in the decades after European settlement. Redrawn from: Massy, C. (1990). The Australian Merino. Viking O’Neil.

Heavy continuous stock grazing drove a degradation sequence that shifted the botanical composition of native grasslands from an ecosystem regulated by large, perennial tussock grasses such as Themeda triandra (Kangaroo Grass), to one containing abundant disturbance-tolerant native grasses such as Rytidosperma spp. (Wallaby Grasses) and Austrostipa spp. (Spear Grasses) and finally a system dominated by nutrient loving exotic annuals.

Changes in flora

The settler George Russell, writing in 1881, described the original 1839 condition of the grassland near Camperdown, in south-western Victoria, thus:

We were struck with the great extent of deep rich soil, many hundred acres being almost without a tree on them and ready to be turned over by the plough. They were covered with a rich sward of Kangaroo-grass. The country around had been all burnt by bush fires during the previous summer, and the grass that was now growing on the ground was as green and luxuriant as if it had been a field of grain. The Kangaroo here were very numerous; I saw more than I had ever seen before. They came down from the wooded hills near Mount Leura in the afternoon to feed on the green grass. (Brown 1935)

In 1840, George Augustus Robinson described the area around Smeaton, in central Victoria:

The meadow looked beautiful near to Mt Korertanger being thickly covered with a yellow bloomed flower. Patches of the white everlasting flower being intermixed, these with the blue flowers give a beautiful appearance to the furlop... This valley through which we have travelled was open and tolerable well grassed, kangaroo kind and extremely pleasant. (Presland & Robinson 1980)

The effect of massive numbers of sheep on the grassland was dramatic and was noted by settlers in the grassland regions. The original soil of the grasslands was soft and absorbed rain readily, but ‘no sooner had the rich native pastures been well fed down, and as a consequence, every square inch of land continually impressed with the weight of thousands upon thousands of the sharp little hoofs of sheep, that the whole of the occupied country began to assume a totally different aspect’ (Lloyd 1862). Heavy continuous stock grazing drove a degradation sequence that shifted the botanical composition of native grasslands from an ecosystem regulated by large, perennial tussock grasses such as Themeda triandra (Kangaroo Grass) to one containing abundant disturbance tolerant native grasses such as Rytidosperma spp. (Wallaby Grasses) and Austrostipa spp. (Spear Grasses) and finally a system dominated by nutrient-loving exotic annuals (Moore & Biddiscombe 1964) (See Chapter 3, The ecology and dynamics of native temperate grasslands). Herbaceous plants and deep-rooted native grasses gave way to European species such as clovers and rye-grass, which were imported deliberately, or in the case of species such as the undesirable Vulpia bromoides (Brome Fescue), imported accidentally. In the drier grasslands, such as those on the Murray Valley Plains, formerly common fields of annual native daisies such as Myriocephalus rhizocephalus (Woolly Heads), Actinobole uliginosum (Camel Dung) and Leptorhynchos tenuifolius (Wiry Buttons) have disappeared after being outcompeted by Lolium rigidum (Annual Rye-grass) (Morcom & Westbrooke 1998).

NO IDYLL: Much grassland was lost or degraded because of pastoralism. Early settlers has little time to record the full scope of the vanishing beauty. Von Guerard presented a romantic vision that belied much of the reality of the day. Image: [Stoneleigh, Beaufort near Ararat, Victoria] by Eugene von Guerard, 1866, from State Library of New South Wales.

The forbs on which the Aboriginal people had depended for plant food virtually disappeared under grazing.

Moonin Moonin, a Daung Wurrung Aboriginal man, complained to James Dredge, Assistant Protector of the Aborigines, in 1839: ‘Too many jumbuck [sheep] and Bulgana [cattle] plenty eat it Murnong [Microseris lanceolata] – all gone Murnong’ (Clark 1998). The species has not recovered and is now rarely encountered in native grasslands in south-eastern Australia. Other once common species, such as Rutidosis leptorrhynchoides (Button Wrinklewort), which is now critically endangered, shared a similar fate. Not only forbs were lost. Banksia marginata (Silver Banksia) trees, which according to evidence from early survey maps that recorded the species as honeysuckle, were once locally common in parts of Werribee and Keilor Plains near Melbourne (McDougall 1987; Sinclair & Atchison 2012) and the Northern Plains of Victoria but are now rare (Foreman 1996) (See Sydenham Park, Part 2, page 344). Timber cutting and sheep grazing probably led to its almost complete disappearance.

Loss of the deep-rooted tussock grasses and trees led to salinisation and erosion.

Australia was said to ride on the sheep’s back, but it was the exploitation of the native grassland beneath the sheep’s hooves that drove that prosperity and established the fortunes of many of Australia’s most influential families.

This is from J.G. Robertson, Wando Vale, near Casterton, in 1854:

A rather strange thing is going on now. Once all the creeks and little watercourses were covered with large tussocky grass, with other grasses and plants, to the middle of every watercourse but the Glenelg and Wannon, and in many places of these rivers; now that the only soil is getting trodden with stock, springs of salt water are bursting out in every hollow or watercourse, and as it trickles down the watercourse in summer, the strong tussocky grasses die before it, with all others. The clay is left perfectly bare in summer. The strong clay cracks; the winter rain washes out the clay; now mostly every little gully has a deep rut; when rain falls it runs off the hard ground... and is carrying earth, trees and all before it... Ruts seven eight and ten feet deep, and as wide, are found for miles, where two years ago it was covered with tussocky grass like a land marsh. (Bride 1898)

Robertson adds: ‘for pastoral purposes the lands here are getting of less value every day, with the kind of grass that is growing in them, and will carry less sheep and far less cattle. I now look forward to fencing my run in with wire.’ For the Aboriginal people, accustomed to moving freely over the grasslands to collect and hunt food, fencing and the property rights it represented could not be understood, and led to conflict with the settlers. Eventually it led to Aboriginal confinement to reservations or ‘missions’ where there was, if nothing else, food.

Changes in fauna

European settlement and the expansion of agriculture also had a profound effect on grassland fauna. Loss and modification of habitat, the introduction of competitors, such as stock and rabbits, and predators, such as foxes and cats, along with direct persecution, have all had major impacts. Many species, particularly mammals, are now missing from our grasslands, due either to total extinction or to massive range contractions to more remote areas in marginal habitats.

Many macropods are now extinct, including the Toolache Wallaby of the Victorian–South Australian borderlands, and the Eastern Hare Wallaby of the grassy plains of the Murray–Darling Basin. Other species, such as the Rufous, Brush-tailed and Southern Bettongs and the Bridled Nailtail Wallaby have been banished to small patches of often sub-optimal habitat far beyond south-eastern mainland Australia. Also lost from our grassy landscapes is the Pig-footed Bandicoot, first collected from the grassy plains of the Riverina by Thomas Mitchell in 1836. The Eastern Barred Bandicoot is now functionally extinct on the mainland but manages to persist in Tasmania (See Extinct in the wild, but not lost, page 94), and the Bilby has vanished from the south-eastern portion of its range and is now only found in the arid regions of Australia (Menkhorst 1995; Menkhorst & Knight 2004).

Temperate grasslands have also lost their larger, predatory mammals: Dingoes are no longer present in settled agricultural districts, and the Eastern Quoll is extinct on the mainland. Another extinct predator, the Thylacine, may also have utilised the grassy margins of wooded country in Tasmania.

EXTINCT FROM HUNTING, FOXES AND HABITAT LOSS: The Toolache Wallaby, common until 1910, extinct by the 1940s. Drawing by John Gould, from John Gould, F.R.S., Mammals of Australia, Vol. II Plate 19, London, 1863.

THE PIG-FOOTED BANDICOOT: Major Mitchell collected the first specimen in 1836. Once quite-common, it was last sighted in the 1950s in remote Western Australia. At that time, neither the fox nor the rabbit had arrived there, though feral cats were common. Consequently, its decline may have been due to habitat change resulting from the end of Aboriginal burning practices following European settlement, and the introduction of stock. Drawing by John Gould, from John Gould, F.R.S., Mammals of Australia, Vol. I Plate 6, London, 1863.

Formerly widespread bird species, such as the Plains-wanderer and Bush Stone-curlew, are now locally extinct from many smaller grassland and grassy woodland remnants (Maher & Baker-Gabb 1993; Marchant & Higgins 1993). The groups of birds that are most conspicuously absent from many of our south-eastern grasslands tend to be larger species which were historically regarded as ‘game’. These include the Australian Bustard, Magpie Goose and Brolga (Wilson 1991). As well as suffering from heavy hunting pressure in the past, many of these species relied on numerous shallow ephemeral freshwater meadows and marshes that once occurred across the grasslands but which are now one of the most depleted wetland types in south-eastern Australia (Robertson & Fitzsimons 2005). Emus are also extinct from grasslands in areas of intensive agricultural land use. They still remain in the drier grasslands of New South Wales and South Australia.

The long list of extinct grassland fauna species represents an important part of our natural heritage that has been lost. Many of these species performed important ecological functions such as seed dispersal, soil disturbance and predation. Notably, many of our missing mammals were burrow diggers. They helped create habitats that could be used by a range of other animals while the soil disturbance brought nutrients to the surface and provided germination opportunities for a range of plants (Pyrke 1994).

There have also been many species that have directly benefited as the result of the opening up of wooded country, the provision of watering points and other changes brought about by European settlement. Eastern Grey Kangaroos, for example, are now commonplace where they are no longer persecuted. Many birds, such as the Long-billed Corella, Galah, Stubble Quail, Willie Wagtail and the Australian Magpie have clearly benefited since settlement and are now ubiquitous throughout grassy landscapes (Blakers et al. 1984; Barrett et al. 2003).

Agricultural intensification and urban development

The rapid expansion of the sheep industry stalled in the 1840s due to sheep diseases, economic depression and bank collapses, and many of the squatters who took-up land after 1835 went bankrupt. To get some value from sheep that could not otherwise be sold, between 1843 and 1851 an estimated 45 million sheep were boiled-down to produce over 30 000 tons of tallow that was exported to Great Britain. The pastoralists that survived the 1840s depression were able to take financial advantage of the gold rushes and the need to feed a rapidly growing population (Pearson & Lennon 2010). This led to investment in fencing and developing artificial water sources. Successful pastoralists were often able to convert their leases to freehold and create larger consolidated properties by buying the runs forfeited to the banks by less-successful owners. A wool boom between 1875 and 1890 further entrenched the economic and political power of pastoralists and helped develop Australia’s finance and manufacturing industries. By 1893, 17 families owned a total of 810 000 ha of the best freehold land in Victoria while, in New South Wales in 1883, a total of 3.2 million ha was owned by 96 squatters (Pearson & Lennon 2010).

Australia was said to ride on the sheep’s back, but it was the exploitation of the native grassland beneath the sheep’s hooves that drove that prosperity and established the fortunes of many of Australia’s most influential families.

In the first decade of the twentieth century, legislation was enacted to promote denser settlement in Victoria and New South Wales, which led to the subdivision of large pastoral stations in grassland areas. The Soldier Settlement programs following the First World War continued the exploitation and degradation of the native grasslands that had survived excessive stocking rates, rabbit plagues and the extreme drought of the 1890s (Whalley et al. 2005). Many of the new farmers lacked the skill and capital to succeed and, in response, state governments began to educate farmers and promote the use of new techniques and technology that would ultimately result in the loss of most of south-eastern Australia’s remaining temperate native grasslands.

Superphosphate was first used to increase pasture and crop productivity in the 1890s but became more common as the price dropped and mechanisation of agriculture enabled cost-effective spreading (Whalley et al. 2005). Pasture improvement programs combining superphosphate and introduced clover species began in South Australia in the 1920s and had extended into other grassland regions by the 1930s (Lane et al. 1997; Whalley et al. 2005). The widespread application of fertilisers, the sowing of introduced species for pasture improvement and the use of heavy machinery associated with the intensification of farming activities after the Second World War probably led to the destruction of more native grassland than ploughing and excessive grazing in the nineteenth century (Kirkpatrick et al. 1995).

DE-ROCKING: A roadside grassland in Winchelsea on the Victorian Volcanic Plain, with de-rocked paddocks adjacent. Photo by Nicholas Williams.

Large areas of lower-quality, species-poor native grassland remain on private farmland across south-eastern Australia. On the Victorian Volcanic Plain, higher-quality grassland is mostly confined to small remnants in areas unsuitable for intensive agriculture, such as rocky outcrops or seasonally inundated paddocks (Williams et al. 2005). High-quality grassland remains on farmland in Tasmania, the Southern Tablelands, the Monaro and the Murray Valley Plains, only in restricted areas that have experienced little grazing. Since the 1990s some of these sites have succumbed to agricultural intensification. Wetter grassland areas have been destroyed by the introduction of raised bed cropping and, on the Victorian Volcanic Plain, the utilisation of rock-crushing machinery that can remove basalt rocks has allowed formerly rocky grassland paddocks to be ploughed. In the Southern Tablelands and particularly in the Monaro region, there are still extensive areas of native pasture.

The exception to this pattern of destruction by agriculture is on the edge of cities and towns where planned urban expansion has provided little incentive for agricultural investment. On the outskirts of Melbourne and Canberra, relatively large areas of high-quality, remnant grassland persisted up until the 1980s (Stuwe 1986; Lunt 1990; Benson 1994; ACT Government 1997). Since then, Melbourne has experienced a period of sustained development characterised by high rates of population growth and accompanying new residential and industrial development (State of Victoria Department of Infrastructure 2000). This has led to the destruction of large areas of native grassland, particularly following the completion of large road projects that significantly changed the demand for industrial land (Williams et al. 2005). Urban development has also led to the destruction of grassland in Canberra and Queenbeyan, where rates of destruction were similar to Melbourne until 1997, after which, at least in Canberra, the destruction diminished due to improved urban planning (Williams and Sharp unpublished data).

LONG PADDOCK: Droved sheep on roadside grassland on the Victorian Volcanic Plain. Many of the best-preserved grassland remants are to be found on roadsides and rail reserves, and in cemeteries and airports. Photo by Nicholas Williams.

Conservation and restoration

As a result of these cumulative impacts, the best-quality patches of