Australian Environmental History: Essays & Cases

This book explores past interactions between humans and the Australian environment - 'more a new planet than a new continent', as Eric Rolls says in his contribution - and offers insights into current environmental debates. Environmental history asks two simple questions: how did our present landscapes become what they are today, and what can we learn from this history? It draws on many disciplines and ways of investigating the world: ecology, history, geography, political science, philosophy, and others. Three overview essays explore the nature of Australian landscapes, the ways in which we have used and abused them, and our attitudes and perceptions about them. Seven case studies then explore, in further detail, human-environment interaction across a variety of scales of time (decades, centuries, millennia) and space. Included are analyses of small districts, large regions, and national resource centers, from the Reef and the Brigalow domain, through the high country and the arid center. The conclusion argues that the critical question facing us does not concern sustainable development, but rather how much damage the environment can sustain and still survive.