Outdoor and Environmental Studies Unit 3

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Outdoor and Environmental Studies Unit 3

• 3.1.3
• Non Indigenous relationships with Australian
  environments

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Key points

• Arrived in 1788 from a continent that had seen
  nature controlled for centuries. Europe had high
  rainfall, predictable seasons and fertile soils
• Believed that god had created the world for
  humans to use and control
• Contempt all things British were superior
• Australian trees, landscapes, animals were harsh,
  ugly, strange and inferior and thus replaced with
  British species and landscapes.
• Harnessed natural resources without restraint
  causing huge impacts such as deforestation,
  animal extinction and pollution.

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The First Settlers

• The first fleet sailed into Australia in 1788,
  landing in Botany Bay, Sydney. At first they
  found this land somewhat strange, after sighting
  kangaroos and koalas. They met with some
  aborigines who seemed to object to their arrival,
  however they were quickly scattered with their
  fire-sticks (muskets). Had those Aborigines known
  what their future would hold, they may have put
  up a more substantial fight. Within 100 years
  their population would dwindle from approximately
  4 million to less than 200 thousand, through
  murderous slaughter and introduced disease.

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• PerceptionsMost of the first settlers were
  convicts who longed to return to England. They
  were unsure if they would survive in this
  desperate and hard place. They believed the land
  was now owned, by them! However they saw
  Australia as a threat that had to be defeated,
  they wanted to tame this wild land and turn in
  into Ye-old England. They cared none for the way
  the indigenous people looked after the land and
  managed it. They wanted to clear forests, put up
  fences, introduce European animals, and valued
  the land only on its commercial yield (logging,
  sheep and agricultural farming etc).

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• Interactions and impacts
• Sheep production was the dominant farming
  practice of the day with 10,000,000 sheep in
  Victoria by 1870 (worlds largest wool supplier).
• Sheep are hard hoofed and aggressive grazers and
  which in combination with land clearing caused
  extensive soil erosion and loss of quality
  pasture with deep rooted perennial grasses
  disappearing from many areas.
• Logging forests was necessary to build houses for
  Australias increasing population. It also meant
  native trees could be replaced with more familiar
  English gardens.
• Settlers introduced many foreign speicies of
  animal and plants such as rabbits, foxes, pigs
  prickly pear, blackberries etc, most often for
  food and sport.
• Settlers build close to waterways, thus causing
  serious water pollution, aboriginal people never
  have allowed this.

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• Early industries at the Prom and their impacts
• Sealing and Whaling
• Forestry
• Mining
• Cattle grazing

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Work task 4

• Research one introduced/feral plant and animal
  species. (refer to worksheet).

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Increasing population

• The settlers population expanded to 400,000
  people by 1850 and they still saw the environment
  as a resource. The land was devastated by their
  practices, after the gold rush the land was left
  in a disastrous state, as native habitats were
  destroyed causing the land to resemble Europeans
  environment. Development started by 1880 with
  export businesses expanding (extended grazing
  areas, irrigation, orchard development, market
  gardens and grain plantations).

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• Gold rush in the high country

http//www.youtube.com/watch?vA3oAZcpX4GQ
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