Browse Forums Landscape & Garden Design Re: A bit of controversy here... 21Feb 17, 2011 8:01 pm Thank you for posting that article BK, however I am still unconvinced that setting fire to the landscape is in anyway comparable to the destruction we have caused since white settlement. Perhaps we are drifting off the topic. My apologys to the OP if we have Happy, Healthy Free Range Wessex Saddleback Pigs My doom and gloom paperwork nightmare viewtopic.php?f=31&t=32170 Construction viewtopic.php?f=31&t=43653 Re: A bit of controversy here... 22Feb 17, 2011 11:59 pm Quote: ..whether or not he thought that the more recent immigrants to Australia, like myself, were more aware and interested in protecting their local environment than Aussies whose families had been here for several generations. He said that Aussies still saw Australia has having infinite resources and found it difficult to except that the environment needing protecting. He also said that immigrants from Europe in particular were already more aware of the problems from the issues in their home countries and as such made an extra effort when coming to Australia. Absolutely agree. I encounter this almost on a daily basis. Perth is pretty well known for having an enormous UK population. Europeans are far more interested in our plants for their beauty than we are. Australians unfortunately are far less accepting of native plants. Many famous landscapes internationally are now using our plants and things like BottleBrush for example are blowing their minds we got way more impressive plants than that Australians really not only should open their eyes, but need to open their eyes to what has for millions of years in most cases adapted so well to what we have. In 200 years we have damaged this land to a severe extent and done a fair catch up on what has happened in Europe. Australians are among the worst in the world at creating soil. We have the highest extinction rate on the globe. Australia is ground zero for the current 2nd or 3rd (I think it is since the dinosaurs inclusive) mass extinction taking place. SW WA is the fastest drying climate anywhere in the world. Our soil resources are estimated to sustain Australian agriculture another 15 years (according to University of Newcastle study) to 65 years as also studied. That's if the severe weather doesn't continue to flush productive living soil out to sea. There is significant reason why I often suggest native plants for your landscapes. We have to. I love lush tropical gardens. Just not doable without significant investment in instant microclimates and soils. Re: A bit of controversy here... 23Feb 18, 2011 12:35 pm The indigenous people of this country have been here since the time of the Pharoahs, so '2000 years' doesn't cut it. These tribes understood the value of only taking what you need. That train of thought has eventually become, take what you can afford. On another track - Fu Man Chu, loved what you said about natives. the bottle brush is still one of my favourite natives. Especially the pink. Nothing can beat an amazing display of kangaroo paw. My council literally mows over the top of it's display and it is back with evengance the following year. Hows that for easy gardening? Fire to the landscape is not a environmental problem. It's only an issue when it takes houses...which where built by settlers. It's common knowledge some australian natives need fire to release their seeds. And finally - hasn't anyone seen avatar??? That comment should end this debate! Building with Life$tyle Homes in Perth SOR Key Dates on First Page of my Thread viewtopic.php?f=31&t=38761 Re: A bit of controversy here... 24Feb 18, 2011 1:50 pm topiarius I find it strange that everything that goes wrong in Australia is blamed on the Europeans. Before the euros arrived there were people here who arrived a couple of thousand years earlier. At that time there were not too many brain cells around so they did not know how to make traps to enable them to catch animals for food or even hunt them. So they would set light to vast areas of forest and bushland and stand on one leg waiting for injured animals to emerge,kill them and then think they were the greatest hunters on earth!! So why is there not one person on this thread going further back than white settlement and giving some of the blame for todays problems where it should be directed? Topiarius Okay, whilst willfully ignoring some of the points in your post Topiarius (best left for another discussion & forum, otherwise we'll get waaaaay OT), you seem to get that the problems Australia has ecologically are not just down to the mismanagement of land in recent (the past 200 years) times, or simply the advent of chemicals, but lay further back in history. When Australia separated from the original supercontinent, referred to these days as Gondwana, it drifted north and began to start 'drying out'. Until around about 5 million years ago, the cool, temperate, beech forests that were a remnant of Gondwana, were the dominant vegetation. These rainforests would expand and contract with the natural wet and dry cycles, but as the land continued to dry, bush fires began to increase in regularity and the beech forests found it difficult to recover. The pockets of beech forest became smaller and smaller. Over this same period, eucalypts & acacias, which prior to this had probably been just weeds on the fringes of the great rainforests, began to become more dominant. As most of us know, they're pretty efficient at finding water and are able to tolerate long periods of drought. We also know that they've got a peculiar relationship with fire - some can only release seed after fire. This triangular (oooh, menage-a-trois!) relationship between the weather, fire and the eucalypts and acacias, means that they came to dominate the Australian landscape. The drier the country became, the more fires there were, the more eucalypts in particular became to dominate and, being pretty flamable trees, the more fires there were. Lightning as a form of assisted reproduction!! This all occurred before the people we now know as the native Australians, or Aboriginal Australians, arrived here. The time when these first human residents of Australia arrived is still debated, but is thought to have been between 40,000 and 60,000 years ago. Before their arrival, Australia was populated by what is often termed 'megafauna' - huge marsupials, like the giant wombat Diprotodon (Can you imagine a 2m tall wombat wombling across the road in front of your car on a dark night?!) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_megafauna. Anyway, these creatures lived on the vegetation, their dung and bodies fertilized the soil and there was a pretty good balance. Humankinds' use of hunting to obtain food, fire to cook it and 'tame' the land, is now considered to be the main reason why the Australian megafauna greatly decreased in numbers. Subsequent extended periods of drought and ice ages then finished them off. Like most civilisations that have existed, gaining knowledge of the land and how to live in harmony with it took some time. The first Australians learnt how to manage fire to promote new growth and encourage fauna to multiply, they created pathways through the wilderness through burning and fire breaks to protect them and their food sources during dry seasons. And yes, some groups did use burning as a method of hunting. They used fire as a tool, as a way to 'manage' the land, to provide from it what they needed to survive. It's important when thinking of these original human residents of Australia that we remember they were disparate groups, who developed different cultures and practices over time. Not all of them used fire in these ways, but it is true that in the areas most of us now call home (Vic & NSW), both spontaneous and planned fires were an important part of their lives. Now, the tricky part is when it comes to fire and present times. Lots of us believe that bushfires are a natural part of our lives in Australia and that, besides from protecting human life, they should be left to burn their course. Just as many, if not more, of us believe that fires are too much of a risky destructive force, to both lives and our wallets, that fires should not be allowed under any circumstances. There are again those amongst us, particularly where I live, who choose to live in National Parks, but want the right to clear their small patch of land to protect them from fire (like that'll work) and petition the council constantly to clear areas of native vegetation that are near them, to reduce the risks. What most people don't realise however are that often those people who are so keen for a return to 'fire-stick' farming methods are in it for a profit. Those who want more fertile land to farm (read: 'clearing'), because they've wrecked the rest of it, or graze their cattle in areas where wildlife is threatened, or make money from thinning out fire prone areas (read 'logging') are just some of the lobbying groups involved in the current debate. However, what we're all getting tied up with is the past - as interesting as it is, all it is serving to do (on this thread for sure!) is to distract us from the present. We don't know for definite what methods or uses of fire the first Australians used, but regardless, the landscape has changed so drastically since then, that we wouldn't be able to reintroduce these methods in any case. What we need to be concentrating on, as a single group of people, as 'Australians', not Aboriginals, Europeans, Asians or Australians by birth, is what we need to do going forward to correct the mistakes of our ancestors: to stop the continuing damage, to develop the foresight to prevent new mistakes being made and to repair the mess we've already made. Ahem. My, that turned into a bit more of a history lecture than I expected... Re: A bit of controversy here... 25Feb 18, 2011 2:00 pm Fu Manchu Absolutely agree. I encounter this almost on a daily basis. Perth is pretty well known for having an enormous UK population. Europeans are far more interested in our plants for their beauty than we are. Australians unfortunately are far less accepting of native plants. Many famous landscapes internationally are now using our plants and things like BottleBrush for example are blowing their minds we got way more impressive plants than that Australians really not only should open their eyes, but need to open their eyes to what has for millions of years in most cases adapted so well to what we have. In 200 years we have damaged this land to a severe extent and done a fair catch up on what has happened in Europe. Australians are among the worst in the world at creating soil. We have the highest extinction rate on the globe. Australia is ground zero for the current 2nd or 3rd (I think it is since the dinosaurs inclusive) mass extinction taking place. SW WA is the fastest drying climate anywhere in the world. Our soil resources are estimated to sustain Australian agriculture another 15 years (according to University of Newcastle study) to 65 years as also studied. That's if the severe weather doesn't continue to flush productive living soil out to sea. There is significant reason why I often suggest native plants for your landscapes. We have to. I love lush tropical gardens. Just not doable without significant investment in instant microclimates and soils. It's like I said in pm Fu, people don't like change, yet at the same time we always think somewhere else has got to be better With the continued land clearing and search for fertile land, I can't help but think there won't be any productive soil left to flush out to sea. Stupidly, there's been consideration in the UK recently of selling of protected woodland for farming and building. I suspect that the same arguments will occur round Australia soon enough. There's already been attempts by developers to buy land near here which was once cattle land, but is now bordering national parks. The residents fought of this proposal and we all cheered them on. However, it seems that most of them had selfish reasons for doing so. It wasn't so much to protect the land, but rather to protect their own views and property prices. Made me angry that they could be so short sighted, yet, this is usually what motivates people to form groups in the first places and from this we influence each other and great wonders may occur! So, like I said before...go out and teach Fu Re: A bit of controversy here... 26Feb 18, 2011 2:45 pm Velouria topiarius I find it strange that everything that goes wrong in Australia is blamed on the Europeans. Before the euros arrived there were people here who arrived a couple of thousand years earlier. At that time there were not too many brain cells around so they did not know how to make traps to enable them to catch animals for food or even hunt them. So they would set light to vast areas of forest and bushland and stand on one leg waiting for injured animals to emerge,kill them and then think they were the greatest hunters on earth!! So why is there not one person on this thread going further back than white settlement and giving some of the blame for todays problems where it should be directed? If they had not burnt the forests at that time,which is documented,we may be in a better situation now. Topiarius Are you SERIOUS? This would have to rate as one of the most ludicrous things I have ever read on H1. Not only is it factually incorrect (look up some Austalian Archaelogy and you will find countless examples of finds of traps, spearheads, shell middens...even the boomerang for goodness sakes, as evidence of significant knowledge of trapping and hunting animals) To infer that the indigenous population are somehow responsible for the problems with the environment today, defys any form of common sense. Please explain how they could have possible done the damage that we have done in our 200+ years of settlement? It speaks volumes that from all the msgs. about damage done to Australia you did not once disagree until I gave my opinion on where it first started.If you carry on reading your books you will find these people came from Africa and yet the boomerang has never been found in any African country. This tells me that when they first came here they did not have any of the items you have named but that they were developed over time as they got used to conditions. When they do digs in Italy and find Roman chariots it does not mean that the Italian Neandertal had them so why use excavation finds as an excuse to try and bolster your opinion. Topiarius Re: A bit of controversy here... 27Feb 18, 2011 2:47 pm KerryF Okay, whilst willfully ignoring some of the points in your post Topiarius (best left for another discussion & forum, otherwise we'll get waaaaay OT), you seem to get that the problems Australia has ecologically are not just down to the mismanagement of land in recent (the past 200 years) times, or simply the advent of chemicals, but lay further back in history. When Australia separated from the original supercontinent, referred to these days as Gondwana, it drifted north and began to start 'drying out'. Until around about 5 million years ago, the cool, temperate, beech forests that were a remnant of Gondwana, were the dominant vegetation. These rainforests would expand and contract with the natural wet and dry cycles, but as the land continued to dry, bush fires began to increase in regularity and the beech forests found it difficult to recover. The pockets of beech forest became smaller and smaller. Over this same period, eucalypts & acacias, which prior to this had probably been just weeds on the fringes of the great rainforests, began to become more dominant. As most of us know, they're pretty efficient at finding water and are able to tolerate long periods of drought. We also know that they've got a peculiar relationship with fire - some can only release seed after fire. This triangular (oooh, menage-a-trois!) relationship between the weather, fire and the eucalypts and acacias, means that they came to dominate the Australian landscape. The drier the country became, the more fires there were, the more eucalypts in particular became to dominate and, being pretty flamable trees, the more fires there were. Lightning as a form of assisted reproduction!! This all occurred before the people we now know as the native Australians, or Aboriginal Australians, arrived here. The time when these first human residents of Australia arrived is still debated, but is thought to have been between 40,000 and 60,000 years ago. Before their arrival, Australia was populated by what is often termed 'megafauna' - huge marsupials, like the giant wombat Diprotodon (Can you imagine a 2m tall wombat wombling across the road in front of your car on a dark night?!) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_megafauna. Anyway, these creatures lived on the vegetation, their dung and bodies fertilized the soil and there was a pretty good balance. Humankinds' use of hunting to obtain food, fire to cook it and 'tame' the land, is now considered to be the main reason why the Australian megafauna greatly decreased in numbers. Subsequent extended periods of drought and ice ages then finished them off. Like most civilisations that have existed, gaining knowledge of the land and how to live in harmony with it took some time. The first Australians learnt how to manage fire to promote new growth and encourage fauna to multiply, they created pathways through the wilderness through burning and fire breaks to protect them and their food sources during dry seasons. And yes, some groups did use burning as a method of hunting. They used fire as a tool, as a way to 'manage' the land, to provide from it what they needed to survive. It's important when thinking of these original human residents of Australia that we remember they were disparate groups, who developed different cultures and practices over time. Not all of them used fire in these ways, but it is true that in the areas most of us now call home (Vic & NSW), both spontaneous and planned fires were an important part of their lives. Now, the tricky part is when it comes to fire and present times. Lots of us believe that bushfires are a natural part of our lives in Australia and that, besides from protecting human life, they should be left to burn their course. Just as many, if not more, of us believe that fires are too much of a risky destructive force, to both lives and our wallets, that fires should not be allowed under any circumstances. There are again those amongst us, particularly where I live, who choose to live in National Parks, but want the right to clear their small patch of land to protect them from fire (like that'll work) and petition the council constantly to clear areas of native vegetation that are near them, to reduce the risks. What most people don't realise however are that often those people who are so keen for a return to 'fire-stick' farming methods are in it for a profit. Those who want more fertile land to farm (read: 'clearing'), because they've wrecked the rest of it, or graze their cattle in areas where wildlife is threatened, or make money from thinning out fire prone areas (read 'logging') are just some of the lobbying groups involved in the current debate. However, what we're all getting tied up with is the past - as interesting as it is, all it is serving to do (on this thread for sure!) is to distract us from the present. We don't know for definite what methods or uses of fire the first Australians used, but regardless, the landscape has changed so drastically since then, that we wouldn't be able to reintroduce these methods in any case. What we need to be concentrating on, as a single group of people, as 'Australians', not Aboriginals, Europeans, Asians or Australians by birth, is what we need to do going forward to correct the mistakes of our ancestors: to stop the continuing damage, to develop the foresight to prevent new mistakes being made and to repair the mess we've already made. Ahem. My, that turned into a bit more of a history lecture than I expected... Thanks for the history lesson Kerry, any chance you could edit your post with more footnotes/links for further reading? Thanks Re: A bit of controversy here... 28Feb 18, 2011 2:50 pm BeatrixKiddo KerryF Okay, whilst willfully ignoring some of the points in your post Topiarius (best left for another discussion & forum, otherwise we'll get waaaaay OT), you seem to get that the problems Australia has ecologically are not just down to the mismanagement of land in recent (the past 200 years) times, or simply the advent of chemicals, but lay further back in history. When Australia separated from the original supercontinent, referred to these days as Gondwana, it drifted north and began to start 'drying out'. Until around about 5 million years ago, the cool, temperate, beech forests that were a remnant of Gondwana, were the dominant vegetation. These rainforests would expand and contract with the natural wet and dry cycles, but as the land continued to dry, bush fires began to increase in regularity and the beech forests found it difficult to recover. The pockets of beech forest became smaller and smaller. Over this same period, eucalypts & acacias, which prior to this had probably been just weeds on the fringes of the great rainforests, began to become more dominant. As most of us know, they're pretty efficient at finding water and are able to tolerate long periods of drought. We also know that they've got a peculiar relationship with fire - some can only release seed after fire. This triangular (oooh, menage-a-trois!) relationship between the weather, fire and the eucalypts and acacias, means that they came to dominate the Australian landscape. The drier the country became, the more fires there were, the more eucalypts in particular became to dominate and, being pretty flamable trees, the more fires there were. Lightning as a form of assisted reproduction!! This all occurred before the people we now know as the native Australians, or Aboriginal Australians, arrived here. The time when these first human residents of Australia arrived is still debated, but is thought to have been between 40,000 and 60,000 years ago. Before their arrival, Australia was populated by what is often termed 'megafauna' - huge marsupials, like the giant wombat Diprotodon (Can you imagine a 2m tall wombat wombling across the road in front of your car on a dark night?!) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_megafauna. Anyway, these creatures lived on the vegetation, their dung and bodies fertilized the soil and there was a pretty good balance. Humankinds' use of hunting to obtain food, fire to cook it and 'tame' the land, is now considered to be the main reason why the Australian megafauna greatly decreased in numbers. Subsequent extended periods of drought and ice ages then finished them off. Like most civilisations that have existed, gaining knowledge of the land and how to live in harmony with it took some time. The first Australians learnt how to manage fire to promote new growth and encourage fauna to multiply, they created pathways through the wilderness through burning and fire breaks to protect them and their food sources during dry seasons. And yes, some groups did use burning as a method of hunting. They used fire as a tool, as a way to 'manage' the land, to provide from it what they needed to survive. It's important when thinking of these original human residents of Australia that we remember they were disparate groups, who developed different cultures and practices over time. Not all of them used fire in these ways, but it is true that in the areas most of us now call home (Vic & NSW), both spontaneous and planned fires were an important part of their lives. Now, the tricky part is when it comes to fire and present times. Lots of us believe that bushfires are a natural part of our lives in Australia and that, besides from protecting human life, they should be left to burn their course. Just as many, if not more, of us believe that fires are too much of a risky destructive force, to both lives and our wallets, that fires should not be allowed under any circumstances. There are again those amongst us, particularly where I live, who choose to live in National Parks, but want the right to clear their small patch of land to protect them from fire (like that'll work) and petition the council constantly to clear areas of native vegetation that are near them, to reduce the risks. What most people don't realise however are that often those people who are so keen for a return to 'fire-stick' farming methods are in it for a profit. Those who want more fertile land to farm (read: 'clearing'), because they've wrecked the rest of it, or graze their cattle in areas where wildlife is threatened, or make money from thinning out fire prone areas (read 'logging') are just some of the lobbying groups involved in the current debate. However, what we're all getting tied up with is the past - as interesting as it is, all it is serving to do (on this thread for sure!) is to distract us from the present. We don't know for definite what methods or uses of fire the first Australians used, but regardless, the landscape has changed so drastically since then, that we wouldn't be able to reintroduce these methods in any case. What we need to be concentrating on, as a single group of people, as 'Australians', not Aboriginals, Europeans, Asians or Australians by birth, is what we need to do going forward to correct the mistakes of our ancestors: to stop the continuing damage, to develop the foresight to prevent new mistakes being made and to repair the mess we've already made. Ahem. My, that turned into a bit more of a history lecture than I expected... Thanks for the history lesson Kerry, any chance you could edit your post with footnotes/links for further reading? Thanks Taken on board Kerry,Thanks. Topiarius Re: A bit of controversy here... 29Feb 18, 2011 3:57 pm The problem is that humans don't have the wisdom to know what will happen in the future - foresight. We are all pretty good at making changes, seeing a problem and trying a solution however often the 'solution' creates it's own set of problems. Take the cane toad for example. Good in theory, but no one expected that they would thrive in their unnatural environment so much that they would become a plague. That also doesn't mean that doing nothing is the answer either. I'm sure most of us would know that there have been times where there have been roo or koala culls to try to halt their population numbers or they could/would eat themselves out of existence. I totally agree that we need to be aware of the impact we make on our environment, but at the end of the day we can only make the best choice we know how to at the time... who knows what impact that decision will have down the track. Diverting water from rooftops stops runoff which means more irrigation is necessary. You stop your water flowing into your next door neighbours property, so he has to water instead. Install solar panels to create your own "clean" energy and pollute the earth in the production process - and who knows what the implications will be in 20 years time when they all break and need to be thrown away. The perfect example of this is in Bangladesh with computer parts containing heavy metals that have leached into their waterways and soils. Now they are trying to extract the heavy metals but the likelihood of that happening to ALL the computers across the planet is slim. Stopping cattle farming is not exactly a great call. Yes, cows produce methane gases and trample/rip out vegetation but who is going to stop eating dairy products, beef, or buying leather so that this can happen? There's always a pay-off. As far as plant species, yes there are natives and there are indigenous plants for each locality, but just because they were first found there doesn't mean they are the best plant. We need a balanced approach and be ready to learn from our mistakes. I think we all have 20-20 hindsight vision, yet we will all still make mistakes - just hopefully not the same ones. Second Time 'Round Re: A bit of controversy here... 30Feb 18, 2011 5:17 pm I think we should really think also of the planet we are living on and not only the flora that we are using but also materials that are being used eg I am really anti merbu, the timber comes from forests which are inhabited by Orangatangs (maybe I have not spelt it correctly) and so there habitat is being ruined. I wish people would use plantation timbers eg spotted gum, this helps our ecomony as it is homegrown and also help keep the forests of the world intact. Re: A bit of controversy here... 31Feb 18, 2011 6:12 pm Sure BeatrixKiddo Initially, I read this book http://books.google.com.au/books?id=d11AdnuzhYoC, which peaked my interest. It cost around $50, but is available in the library. ISBN is 9781741750539, if you want to order it. However, you can sneak preview most of what I was talking about on google books, here: http://books.google.com.au/books?id=d11AdnuzhYoC I tend to read a book and, when it's something I'm particularly interested, scribble notes as I go (I need to keep my brain occupied and get quite studious, so get interested in a huge variety of subjects. Right now, it's sustainability, as you've probably guessed). Then, if there's anything that really catches my eye, I will find the sources and go to the library or a 2nd hand book store and pick it up. However, the best source for free info (other than wiki of course) is to make use of the preview functions on Amazon and Google Books where possible. Anyway, have a look at Chapter 9 and then go to the notes section for further reading. Some of these books are available on Google Books for preview, some you'll find in your library or in 2nd hand stores, but it can be tricky. Also check out: http://books.google.com.au/books?id=wlg8lX6dmM8C - take a look at the 'confronting hungry ground' section http://books.google.com.au/books?id=wlg8lX6dmM8C&printsec=frontcover&dq=Aboriginal+environmental+impacts&hl=en&ei=0CBeTfytCpC6vQP7kYHsDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CC4Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false - this is a good book for the arrival of the first humans in Australia and their impact on the flora and fauna http://books.google.com.au/books?id=dR59Eivg7yIC&pg=PA12&dq=Aboriginal+environmental+impacts&hl=en&ei=2CJeTbPwLYXGvQOs_-GiDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6&ved=0CEsQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=Aboriginal%20environmental%20impacts&f=false - this is effectively a collection of published essays, which I think would challenge a lot of people's concepts of what the lives and cultures of the first Australians were like I find it's best to read, read and read... as many different viewpoints as possible, take notes as I go, then form my own opinion of what I've learned. Julie R I think we should really think also of the planet we are living on and not only the flora that we are using but also materials that are being used eg I am really anti merbu, the timber comes from forests which are inhabited by Orangatangs (maybe I have not spelt it correctly) and so there habitat is being ruined. I wish people would use plantation timbers eg spotted gum, this helps our ecomony as it is homegrown and also help keep the forests of the world intact. You're right Julie - we need to be considering the entire ecosystem. Have you heard of the concept of 'biomass'? The total weight of living material in any given environment is termed it's biomass. The biomass of organic soils have loads of living organisms, so it's got a high biomass. Chemical fertiliser has no biomass - keep treating soil with it and you reduce the biomass of that soil. The biomass of the earth can be looked at in terms of a pyramid - soil at the bottom (below the surface of the ground), then everything above the surface (flora and fauna included), with man at the pinnacle of the pyramid. The biomass of the soil, from the surface downwards, greatly exceeds the biomass above it. Another way of looking at this, would be to explain that the total mass of the earthworms alone in the soil, outweighs the maximum amount of beef that all the cattle in the world produce, above the soil. The base of the pyramid, the soil, supports everything else on top. What we humans try to do is reverse this pyramid. We poison the microfauna and flora in the soils, clear the surface vegetation, destroy the habitats of orangutans etc etc and then grow crops that have short lives and don't give anything back to the soil. Even the stubble from our wheat fields is sold as animal feed, rather than being tilled back in to return some of the nutrients that are lost (this is why Fu always preaching that what comes out of the soil, should go back!). We like meat, so we try to get as much cattle etc as possible on the surface of the land, to feed as many people as we can. Effectively, as humans we try to reverse the whole pyramid and knock the planet out of balance. It's not just about the flora, or fauna, or people...it's about everything living that has ever existed or could exist in future. Plus, orungatans are pretty cute Re: A bit of controversy here... 32Feb 18, 2011 6:21 pm First_Timer_Ray The problem is that humans don't have the wisdom to know what will happen in the future - foresight. We are all pretty good at making changes, seeing a problem and trying a solution however often the 'solution' creates it's own set of problems. Take the cane toad for example..... Hey Ray Glad you bought up the cane toad! This was a prime example of not thinking things through. Quite literally, someone went to a conference in South America, saw that Cane Toads had been used succesfully in Hawaii to combat sugar cane pests there and, without much further thought on the matter, returned to Australia and decided to give it a go. It wasn't until after they'd been released that someone decided it might be a good idea to hold off on releasing anymore and think about it for a while... First_Timer_Ray We need a balanced approach and be ready to learn from our mistakes Though, we need to be prepared to admit that WE made them in the first place, and not blame other people. A bit of controversy here... 33Feb 18, 2011 8:10 pm My knowledge and connections with this particular topic go far deeper than many would be even close to aware. So far some serious misrepresentions and inacurate opinions are being spoken. The rich history and length of time the numerous indigenous nations inhabited this land speak very soundly of how and what it takes to live in absolute harmony with the environment. We must be a part of the environment, not apart from it as much of the industrial revolution has set out to achieve. No human is superior to it nor will we ever be superior to the environment. It's concerning that after just 200 years we are now reaching situation critical. Just 200 years! That is absolutely nothing in time compared to human existence let alone the earths life span. There is no way we as a civilization are going to see out a further 200 years at the exponential growth we are experiencing in both population and economies. As a species, we need to be able to live on for an indefinite time scale. Technology is what we need to achieve that. Out live the earth itself. As I said we can't even do 200 years. Useless. Yet a rich culture like that of the many indigenous nations that existed here for more than 60000 years in harmony to a greater extent with the environment can see out a future far beyond our European concept of time. I often think of humans being the plague, not insects or animals and the like. It takes everyone of us to do something. If it starts with a smarter landscape, then hopefully we cancontinue to evolve landscapes into the future. This really is the greatest adventure with Australian plants. There they have been infront of our faces for so long. Yet all we want to use with landscapes are materials and methods that are stagnating the development of urban and rural landscapes. We are not evolving them. We are lessening the richness of lifestyle a better landscape offers. We are shutting out healthier communities all because a small group run/control/influence the mechanisms we use to gain information, inspiration and the resources we need when deciding on how to construct new urban development, and domestic landscapes. Re: A bit of controversy here... 34Feb 18, 2011 10:22 pm Nice post Fu, it's so interesting that "man" has this in built psyche to always improve and invent better ways to do do things which is now becoming our very downfall. Even our earliest indigenous people sought to learn and better the way they hunt and grew their food. We are all the same, searching for more, doesn't matter what continent we came from. A bit of controversy here... 35Feb 19, 2011 12:12 am Well right now I'm looking at the relationship of urban landscapes now and how they used to be. It blends in town planning to a greater extent. Villages and towns developed with out the car are the ones that have a far more sustainable existence. Ok let's take Freo as an example. Homes and streets have evolved from a time (not long ago comparatively) when cars were not there as part of the plan. They have had room to fit but the city developed independent of them. So getting around is easy and enjoyable. Homes are full of character and overall the population are more in touch with their surroundings. That is the very essence of a good landscape anywhere in the world. Look at English seaside villages that have become almost at one with the environment surrounding them. Cars have had to fit in, not fit the village around the car. They have mostly been there for many 100's of years. Greek fishing villages are in harmony with what is around them. Your local subdivision is grossly out of touch with it's surroundings. Having assaulted the environment to create something habitable for superior humans. Modern urban McLandscapes in no way interact or enhance the livability of the spaces we inhabit. They are decorative and not interactive. An entire industry is based on this shallow concept. There is no lpng term future in that. 1000's of years ahead based on that rubbish? It is therefore imperative to the landscape industry both here and overseas to gear itself for something far more interactive. Something that gives home owners, garden lovers, new families, what ever interest in the landscape, a better choice. Both financially and environmentally as well as from a well being point of view for the local community. Landscapes need to bring communities closer. We need spaces that make us feel good and spaces where we can inadvertently learn about nature and therefore gain an awareness of our surroundings. From that comes a successful landscape from one home to the next. The issue of town planing is harder to address. The plants in them is easy and Australian natives offer an adventure not yet explored. We have 100's of years of breeding exotic plants. Look at what we have come up with. Australian plants have only really had a few selected species bred heavily for 30 years. Metaphorically we have made every shade of green but yet to explore anyother colour. It is almost inconceivable what will be able to be achieved with better landscape advice and inspiration. Re: A bit of controversy here... 36Feb 19, 2011 9:55 am It is wonderful having this forum where we can find others that think alike! It is a bit of a joke that people cannot see the advantage of living with our environment. How important our flora and fauna are to everything that enables us to exist - talking about the air we breathe, the weather and of course our sustance in food form. In China there are many parts of the country that do not have any insects - how bad is that! If they cannot live in that environment how bad it is for humans. We must take care of the planet we live in, especially for the next generations to come. Medicine has gone ahead in leaps and bounds but is of no use unless we can get our environment under control. Re: A bit of controversy here... 37Feb 19, 2011 10:25 am Fu Manchu We must be a part of the environment...No human is superior to it nor will we ever be superior to the environment Humans are slowly (very slowly in some cases) starting to realise this. The scientific, industrial and medical revolutions of the last few hundred years have seen mankind expand greatly in population. For some time now we have skewed the balance that once existed. We need to return to, and improve upon, organic farming methods etc and not continue this reliance we have on chemicals. We're destroying our own food sources! If we were a so called 'lower lifeform' we would have starved to death by now!! Mankind's greatest talent is the ability to adapt. It has started out pretty slowly, but the more people who realise that something needs to be done now, the more momentum the sustainability revolution will gather. Fu Manchu It takes everyone of us to do something. If it starts with a smarter landscape, then hopefully we cancontinue to evolve landscapes into the future. This really is the greatest adventure with Australian plants. There they have been infront of our faces for so long. Yet all we want to use with landscapes are materials and methods that are stagnating the development of urban and rural landscapes. We are not evolving them. We are lessening the richness of lifestyle a better landscape offers. We are shutting out healthier communities all because a small group run/control/influence the mechanisms we use to gain information, inspiration and the resources we need when deciding on how to construct new urban development, and domestic landscapes. That is so true! If you add up all the home gardens and small holdings in the world, they would no doubt cover billions of acres. If these were organically managed and in harmony with their local environments, their contribution to the stability of ecosystems would be vast. Choosing to not use chemical fertilisers or horticultural poisons on your land is your choice. If you make the right choice however, you are benefiting the trillions of other living things on the planet. If you make the wrong choice, you are potentially contributing to ecological disasters of great size. Fu Manchu Well right now I'm looking at the relationship of urban landscapes now and how they used to be. It blends in town planning to a greater extent. Villages and towns developed with out the car are the ones that have a far more sustainable existence. Most traditional styles of human settlements involved a place for the community to gather in the centre and then the living spaces radiated out from this. These settlements are much more in tune with the enviroment and far more sustainable than what we have today. The difficulty with town planning now, as you probably realised, is how to create the same type of settlement, whilst allowing for all the necessities that we now rely on: transport & shops just being two. I remember that we did a school project on this back in the early 90s, whereby we were required to each design a sustainable town and consider all the things that we now expect to find. Almost everyone came up with a circular design, or a circle with spokes. Every house had large garden areas. There were always large parks or small holdings on the 'spokes', and the town was almost always surrounded by huge swathes of native vegetation. Transport was almost always trams, or electric trains (someone wanted huge travellators for some reason - hardly sustainable!) and there were never supermarkets. All food was grown and produced locally, without the need for chemicals (human waste was recycled to remove pathogens and make it safe for the land). Fu Manchu Your local subdivision is grossly out of touch with it's surroundings. Having assaulted the environment to create something habitable for superior humans. Modern urban McLandscapes in no way interact or enhance the livability of the spaces we inhabit. They are decorative and not interactive...Landscapes need to bring communities closer. We need spaces that make us feel good and spaces where we can inadvertently learn about nature and therefore gain an awareness of our surroundings. From that comes a successful landscape from one home to the next. The issue of town planing is harder to address. The plants in them is easy and Australian natives offer an adventure not yet explored. We have 100's of years of breeding exotic plants. Look at what we have come up with. Australian plants have only really had a few selected species bred heavily for 30 years. Metaphorically we have made every shade of green but yet to explore anyother colour. It is almost inconceivable what will be able to be achieved with better landscape advice and inspiration. I think any town that doesn't have dedicated native parkland near it's heart, that doesn't provide space for the residents to grow their own produce, and spends their money on ensuring that they can fit more cars through than developing sustainable alternatives for public transport, that doesn't spend time and money educating us to treasure and protect the environment around us, are failing. They're failing the people who live there by not giving them the best that they deserve and they're failing in their duty of care towards the environment. Julie R In China there are many parts of the country that do not have any insects - how bad is that! If they cannot live in that environment how bad it is for humans. Insects live everywhere - they are as adaptable, if not more so, than humans. There'll be a cockroach or two, just waiting... Insects and humans both occupy positions on the highest branches of the 'tree of life'. Some see us as being in a constant battle for supremacy - who will inherit the earth? I know who I'd put my money on at the moment!! I know it's a big enough post already, but just found these links to sustainable eco-towns in Australia and NZ and wondered what you thought of the ideas behind them and their designs? http://www.illabundavillage.com.au/ http://www.earthsong.org.nz/ A bit of controversy here... 38Feb 19, 2011 1:05 pm I have said in other media that the greatest problem we have right now is not the argument of if climate change is happening or not. It's not about who's fault it is (although recognizing there is a problem is important) it is about the dulling down of the situation, suppressing our ability to adapt. We are not adapting. Just arguing about if we need to adapt. I guess we are like a train heading for a cliff. Full steam ahead. There are people on board who have researched the railway project and say "hey there is no bridge and the line isn't finished, we better stop." Then there are those who have blind faith and no research or are just ignorant to their situation and say, "no the train will be fine everything will workout, I trust the rail company" Re: A bit of controversy here... 39Feb 19, 2011 2:41 pm Those early towns and villages were created in that way so that people could walk no more than half an hour to work or to the markets. It has changed over time, when trains were invented, it was no more than half and hour in a train and then cars - should have been no more than half an hour travel time. But this has changed and likely not for the better. People are now travelling for more than half an hour to get to work. And this is to do with poor development. You can have the most ecologically sustainable development on the outskirts of a city but do you really expect professionals to work in a deli or local supermarket? So they commute to the city because there is no work for them nearby. I may be lucky as I am surrounded by many people who care about the environment and the direction we heading. In landscaping, it was always hard to get people to have native plants in their gardens. Always grass. And these were foreigners too so I believe it doesn't matter where you are from, there will always be uninformed people who go with what is "traditional". (Although there were times I snuck in native plants in traditionally English gardens! hehe) Re: A bit of controversy here... 40Feb 19, 2011 11:28 pm topiarius Velouria topiarius I find it strange that everything that goes wrong in Australia is blamed on the Europeans. Before the euros arrived there were people here who arrived a couple of thousand years earlier. At that time there were not too many brain cells around so they did not know how to make traps to enable them to catch animals for food or even hunt them. So they would set light to vast areas of forest and bushland and stand on one leg waiting for injured animals to emerge,kill them and then think they were the greatest hunters on earth!! So why is there not one person on this thread going further back than white settlement and giving some of the blame for todays problems where it should be directed? If they had not burnt the forests at that time,which is documented,we may be in a better situation now. Topiarius Are you SERIOUS? This would have to rate as one of the most ludicrous things I have ever read on H1. Not only is it factually incorrect (look up some Austalian Archaelogy and you will find countless examples of finds of traps, spearheads, shell middens...even the boomerang for goodness sakes, as evidence of significant knowledge of trapping and hunting animals) To infer that the indigenous population are somehow responsible for the problems with the environment today, defys any form of common sense. Please explain how they could have possible done the damage that we have done in our 200+ years of settlement? It speaks volumes that from all the msgs. about damage done to Australia you did not once disagree until I gave my opinion on where it first started.If you carry on reading your books you will find these people came from Africa and yet the boomerang has never been found in any African country. This tells me that when they first came here they did not have any of the items you have named but that they were developed over time as they got used to conditions. When they do digs in Italy and find Roman chariots it does not mean that the Italian Neandertal had them so why use excavation finds as an excuse to try and bolster your opinion. Topiarius Yes I do disagree with you that the first inhabitants were the catalysts for the environmental problems we face today. 100% in fact. I disagree (and find it slightly offensive) that you portray the first Aboriginals as backward and simple when the archaeology is tangible evidence that this is not the case (that is why I referenced archaeology, rather than paint a picture of a people who "stand on one leg and wait for injured animals to emerge"). I find your posts confusing because on the one hand you appear to say that they were simple and unsophisticated and yet your statement "This tells me that when they first came here they did not have any of the items you have named but that they were developed over time as they got used to conditions" contradicts this as it shows you believe they could adapt and learn. As to why there are no boomerangs in Africa...EVOLUTION. The people who emerged from Africa and spread through the continents of the world and arrived in Australia, were thousands of years apart, and hence when they left Africa they did not have the technology. By the time they reached Australia they did (or at least had the ability to develop it) As I stated in my previous post I feel that this is getting off the topic into an area which can be quite inflammatory and I don't believe it was the OP's original topic. **EDITED TO ADD*** I note that an extra line has been added to your post If they had not burnt the forests at that time,which is documented,we may be in a better situation now.---- Just to clarify, this was not included in the original post that I was responding to. Happy, Healthy Free Range Wessex Saddleback Pigs My doom and gloom paperwork nightmare viewtopic.php?f=31&t=32170 Construction viewtopic.php?f=31&t=43653 Hi, we live in an area where the black soil is prone to a lot of movement. 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