I am Western Australian The Story of Your Place: South-west

Australia

Australian biodiversity is in crisis, largely due to habitat destruction brought about by European-style agriculture. CSIRO researchers are calling for big changes to the way farmers do things, including commercially driven native tree and animal production systems.

If consumer demand in the cities is for native Australian foods, then that is what farmers will grow. Imagine if we ate quandongs, acacia seeds (see the photo on the left), desert raisins and kangaroo meat, used locally produced eucalyptus oil, grew native plants in our gardens, perhaps even had chuditch as pets. All this would put a commercial incentive behind the conservation of nature. Farmers would have a commercial reason to supply native products. They wouldn’t have to replace the bush with European crops and pasture for imported animals. This approach is called conservation through sustainable use.

Australians have for a long time, perhaps up until the 1960s, and for

some people even today, seen themselves as a people of British

descent living on a southern continent. Today we must know this land and become a people unlike any

other.

•I eat kangaroo. •I use emu oil as a moisturizer. •I find Sandalwood oil from our native sandalwood tree to have the most beautiful scent in the world. •I have white and red-tipped black Cockatoo tail feathers near my writing desk as talismans of the wild in Perth. •I have learned the names of many of the native plants and trees where I live. •I grow native plants in my garden for honey eaters to come and drink from. •I know I can eat native pigface (right), especially the fruits in summer. •I know I can pick and grind the seeds of Acacia cyclops, and I know the beautiful smell of this seed roasting in my kitchen. •When I give flowers to someone I care about, I make sure that they are native, like for example a glowing red and purple Banksia menziessi.

When I say that I'm from south-western Australia it really means something to me.

Most of all, I know this land. I know what the soils are like under my house. I know the ancient geological and biological history of this place. I know the Nyoongar history of the land where I was

born and the places where I tread each day.

I take the time to be with the natural world on the Swan coastal plain… To sit quietly and listen to the morning song of a New Holland Honey eater…. To stand under a wandoo tree in Walyunga National Park and watch the black eyes of a yongka (western grey kangaroo) through binoculars watching me back with suspicious eyes... To see a Western Spinebill bird feed and then look at me as it clings to a giant, orange flower spike from a Banksia prionates tree...

To feel the padded paper rags of a leaning paperbark trunk under my feet as I balance above the shadowy waters of Manning Lake...

I’m from this land, this sandy, spiky, colourful and warm part of the planet. If I don’t come to a bit of real, natural Australia at least once a week and pause and look around myself and see the ancient and constantly renewed colours and shapes of my home, then I become a product of globalization... just another metro-centric city slicker.

And who wants that?NOT ME.

I come from emu country, banksia country, sand-groper country, blue

sky country.

I am a Western Australian.

All photos copyright Tom M. Wilson.

Suggested further reading:

Daisy Bates, The Passing of the Aborigine (any edition).

Brad Daw, Trevor Walley and Greg Keighery. Bush Tucker Plants of the South-West. Kensington: Department of Environment and Conservation, 2007.

Reg Morrison, Australia: The Four Billion Year Journey of a Continent (any edition).

Simon Nevill. Guide to the Wildlife of the Perth Region. Perth: Simon Nevill Publications, 2005.

Jan Rampage Tuart Dwellers DEC, Illustrations by Ellen Hickman.

Salvado, Dom Rosendo. Historical Memoirs of Australia and Particularly of the Benedictine Mission of New Norcia and of the Habits and Customs of the Australian Natives. E. J. Stormon (edited and translated by), Nedlands: University of Western Australia Press, 1978.

My Place - Western AustraliaYour assessment task is to:

Produce a multimedia ‘document’ that expresses what a natural environment in Western Australia means to you.It must include:Pictures taken by you of a natural place or area near to where you live or that you feel a particular connection with. Your written perceptions of this place. This could be prose or poetry; however you want to record it.Written reflection on your attitude to and what has led to your attitude to the natural environment around you.Your hopes for the future of the natural environment in WA. How the natural environment of WA shapes your identity as a West Australian.

It would be good to also include:Sound Recordings.Interviews or reflections from people of different ages about the area you describe. These could be other members of your family or people who live in the area. They might be able to tell you more about what it was like in the past.Imaginative and creative presentation.Any history or stories that you can find out about the area you have chosen.