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REMEMBERING 9/11

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THE YEAR’S BEST NATURE PHOTOS

September-October 2021

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BILLION-DOLLAR FISH Big tuna makes a comeback

BACK ROADS The Great Inland Way 05

FR ASER ISLAND Beauty beyond the bushfires

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58 Billion-dollar fish

Issue 164

CONTENTS Australian Geographic September • October 2021

NT

p48

QLD

WA

p74 SA

p22

F E AT U R E S

p131

NSW

p106

40

POISON WITH PURPOSE

48

THE GREAT INLAND WAY

58

BILLION-DOLLAR FISH

74

OUT OF THE ASHES

84

GREEN HYDROGEN

p128

VIC

p58 p18

TAS

How 1080 is saving species.

Taking the slow road through outback Queensland.

Is big tuna bouncing back?

Fraser Island recovers from the fires.

Is it the answer to net-zero emissions?

48 Great Inland Way

92

NATURE PHOTOGRAPHER OF THE YEAR Enjoy the visual spectacle.

PHOTO CREDITS, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: RICHARD ROBINSON, DON FUCHS, PETER MEYER, CHRISSIE GOLDRICK, MANDY MCKEESICK

106

RAVENSTHORPE FESTIVAL The world’s largest wildflower celebration.

106 Ravensthorpe 74 Fraser Island

40 Poison with purpose

September . October 5

September • October 2021

Your Society

92 Nature Photographer of the Year

G EO B UZ Z A N D R EG U L A R S 9 12 14 17 18 19 21 22 24 29 30 31 34 36

From the Editor Your Say Big Picture Infographic: Southern Ocean Defining Moments: Fluoride in our water Tim the Yowie Man: Meteorites Birding basics with Peter Rowland Snapshot: Meckering earthquake Infographic: Long-term effects of 9/11 Book Club Dr Karl: Water bears Space: Spinning Universe Wild Australia: Mouse plague Your Society

113 127 128 130

Travel with us: Unique experiences with our trusted travel partners AusQuiz: Test your wits Aussie Towns: Walcha, NSW Traces: Dryandra Village

Find out where your donations are going in 2021 and get the latest news. p36

128 Aussie towns

Special note: Members of Aboriginal communities are warned that this edition of AUSTRALIAN GEOGRAPHIC may contain images and names of deceased people.

S U B S C R I B E A N D SAV E Receive our handy and informative Australian Geographic Weather Journal, plus save over $17 when you subscribe.

S E E PAG E 3 8 F O R M O R E D E TA I L S

6 Australian Geographic

O N T H E C OV E R This stunning forest dragon by Isaac Wishart of Queensland was shortlisted in the 2021 Australian Geographic Nature Photographer of the Year competition. See this year’s overall winner and many of the other winners on pages 92–105.

PHOTO CREDITS, FROM TOP: TIM WRATE; COURTESY WALCHA TOURISM

CONTENTS Australian Geographic

2020

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DANCE AT DAWN WALLABY (MACROPODIDAE)

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ANIMAL BEHAVIOUR SHORTLIST

Visit the exhibitions Until 16 January 2022 Adelaide & Sydney Don’t miss the chance to see the amazing images on display.

South Australian Museum, Adelaide 27 Aug–31 Oct 2021. Admission $10 adults, $7 concession, children under 13 free (accompanied by adult); FREE admission for Museum Members

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The 2022 Australian Geographic Nature Photographer of the Year will open for entries in early January next year. There are cash prizes to be won across nine categories and, of course, the prestigious title of Australian Geographic Nature Photographer of the Year.

Details of opening and closing dates and prizes will appear in the November/December edition of Australian Geographic. Start planning your entries now. In the meantime, visit the exhibitions for inspiration, or see the images on the website.

All exhibition dates are subject to last minute changes as a result of COVID-19 arrangements and restrictions. Check before setting out.

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From the Editor-in-chief

No borders

L

IFE-ALTERING, seismic

events that affect us all on a worldwide scale don’t come around very often. We hear the current pandemic referred to as a “once in a century” happening, or the biggest upheaval since World War II, and I’m sure we all hope and pray that’s true.

But this year marks the grim milestone of another era-defining event that none who witnessed the horrific scenes unfold in real time on our Aussie television screens late on the night of 11 September 2001 is ever likely to forget.

It’s now 20 years since the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York. That’s almost a generation, and yet the impact of that day continues to cast a long and deadly shadow, as our infographic on page 24 starkly demonstrates. It was perhaps the first truly global television moment – the start of many that have since united the world, even if only briefly, in collective acts of outrage, or compassion, in the face of natural disasters, deeds of unspeakable violence or, indeed, an indiscriminate and highly contagious disease that recognises no borders.

The 9/11 anniversary is a reminder that while most of us move on quickly,

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thousands continue to live with the consequences of such events. Maybe the best way to honour the victims of 9/11, and the countless thousands who have died or been harmed in its aftermath is to never forget what we learnt after the attacks about our role as part of an interconnected national and global community, and to apply these lessons as we deal with the current crisis and others undoubtedly to come.

In this issue, we feature a truly international story. We’ve collaborated with our esteemed colleagues at New Zealand Geographic to share resources to comprehensively cover the epic story of a highly prized fish. International scientific cooperation is beginning to turn the tide for those big tuna species that ply the great oceans, ignoring geopolitical jurisdictions and dividing nations. It’s been seven years since photographer Richard Robinson first stepped aboard a fishing trawler to begin brilliantly documenting the thrills and spills of an industry rife with corruption, danger and unforgettable characters. Enjoy just some of his many marvellous images from this long assignment. It starts on page 58.

Richard was also shortlisted in our annual photographic celebration of

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wilderness, the Australian Geographic Nature Photographer of the Year competition, and his photo will be among those on show during the next two months at two major exhibitions, at the South Australian Museum in Adelaide and the Australian Museum in Sydney. In the meantime, check out the overall winner, category winners and runners-up on page 92, and if you can’t get to those exhibitions in person, you can enjoy all the successful photographs, including Richard’s, on the web page listed in the story.

It’s looking increasingly likely that we won’t be going anywhere for a while. So, in the meantime, I recommend you immerse yourself in these photos that so deftly capture the wild beauty of our region, and travel in your imagination.

AUSTRALIAN GEOGRAPHIC acknowledges that its offices are located on land for which the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation are the traditional custodians.

We remember all Aboriginal ancestors with respect, and commit ourselves to working for reconciliation and justice for Indigenous people.

VIP access to Australian Geographic product sales throughout the year Discounts on travel and accommodation through Australian Geographic partners Free Paddy Pallin membership (10% off full-price items in-store and online, excludes Launceston and Katoomba stores)

September . October 9

Notes from the field MANAGING DIRECTOR Jo Runciman EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Chrissie Goldrick CREATIVE DIRECTOR Mike Ellott SCIENCE AND ENVIRONMENT EDITOR Karen McGhee CHIEF SUB-EDITOR Maggie Cooper SUB-EDITORS Elizabeth Ginis, Susan McCreery, Amy Russell DIRECTOR OF CARTOGRAPHY Will Pringle SENIOR DESIGNER Mel Tiyce PROOFREADER Susan McCreery ASSISTANT TO THE MANAGING DIRECTOR AND EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Beth Owen EDITORIAL ASSISTANT Chase Haslingden EDITORIAL CORRESPONDENCE TO Australian Geographic, 52–54 Turner Street, Redfern, NSW 2016, Australia.

Phone: 02 9136 7206 editorial@ausgeo.com.au

Richard Robinson gets cold and wet in the pursuit of his big tuna story.

AUSTRALIAN GEOGRAPHIC DIGITAL DIGITAL MANAGING EDITOR Elizabeth Ginis DIGITAL PRODUCER Angela Heathcote

SEVEN YEARS ago photojournalist Richard Robinson quit his day job at The New Zealand Herald to become a freelance photographer. At home, he stuck a note to his wall: Tuna. He’s been chasing the story ever since.

Richard’s specialty is the underwater realm, but tuna posed a unique challenge (see page 58). It took a year to negotiate his first trip on a New Zealand tuna vessel to document the commercial fishery based on this lucrative marine creature. “Essentially I was on call all summer trying to get on a boat,” he says. Finally, he joined a Sanford skipjack tuna crew.

Later, in Australia, he got in the water with a school of juvenile tuna.

“The ones in Australia aren’t adults, but they’re still bloody big fish. You could kind of feel the centrifugal force of them swimming around.”

Four days on a bluefin tuna vessel sailing out of Westport in New Zealand was like no other fishery he’d visited before – and Robinson has documented the industry all around New Zealand. “How hard those guys work

on that bluefin boat! I’ve never seen anything like it. I think that was one thing that really stood out. It’s such a physical job. These guys just don’t sleep.” Not only that, but each fish landed was an individual battle. “When they’re catching the big ones on the long line, they are ginormous. These fish are dwarfing these guys. It’s totally different from other fishing – there’s a real element of beauty in how the fish were treated, how they were wrapping them up in muslin and stacking them in the freezers in the best condition they could keep them.”

Tuna’s fortunes have changed during the seven years Richard spent shooting the story. “What’s really remarkable about how long it’s taken is that seven years ago they were in a pretty bad state, particularly the bluefin, and it’s one of those stories where, over time, you can be cautiously optimistic.” How often has he photographed a species where its fate has improved while he’s been documenting it? He laughs. “Never!”

REBEKAH WHITE

Regular columnists: Linda Brainwood, Glenn Dawes, Bruce Elder, Adam Jacot de Boinod, Dr Karl Kruszelnicki AM, John Pickrell, Kel Richards, Peter Rowland, Fred Watson AM, Tim the Yowie Man More contributors: Nick Cubbin, Denise Cullen, Kate Evans, Annette Griffin, Sue Leighton, Mandy McKeesick, Peter Meyer, Clare Watson

10 Australian Geographic

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AUSTRALIAN GEOGRAPHIC, journal of the Australian Geographic Society, is published six times a year (cover dates Jan–Feb, Mar–Apr, May–Jun, Jul–Aug, Sep–Oct, Nov–Dec) by Australian Geographic Holdings Pty Ltd (ABN 12 624 547 922), 52–54 Turner Street, Redfern NSW 2016. The trademark Australian Geographic is the property of Australian Geographic Holdings Pty Ltd. All material © 2021. All rights reserved. No part of the contents of this publication may be reproduced without the prior written consent of the editor-in-chief.

This issue went to press 10-08-2021

PHOTO CREDIT: COURTESY RICHARD ROBINSON

Long line of enquiry

AUSTRALIAN GEOGRAPHIC COMMERCIAL DIVISION COMMERCIAL MANAGER Simone Aquilina COMMISSIONING EDITOR Martine Allars SUB-EDITOR Serene Conneeley

New Zealand Geographic and Heritage Expeditions have co-designed an exclusive reader expedition to New Zealand’s marine wonderlands—the Hauraki Gulf and Bay of Islands. Join founding editor Kennedy Warne and an award-winning photographer for a trip like no other.

Now open to readers of Australian Geographic, departing January 7, 2022.

Join New Zealand Geographic’s first reader expedition to the Hauraki Gulf and Bay of Islands.

See nzgeo.com/bon-voyage

ALISTAIR GUTHRIE

THIS COULD BE YOU...

YOUR SAY

MAILBAG WELCOMES FEEDBACK

September . October 2021

FEATURED LETTER

WEATHER REPORT I am just reading AG 159, which I discovered under some papers during a clean-up. It’s very interesting and informative, as usual. The article on Australia’s climate history mentions the role of surveyors in some early weather observations. These were not necessarily recorded for meteorological reasons, but rather for more accurate positioning during a survey.

Barometers were used for finding heights up until the mid- to late-20th century because temperature and humidity affected many pieces of surveying equipment and these needed 12 Australian Geographic

Weathering over aeons has led to the striking colours and forms in the landscape that revealed Running Man to Ray Martin.

My interest in this area of Running Man was that I happen to be the geologist (along with two colleagues) who did the regional survey/mapping of this area in 1958 for the Commonwealth government.

We were camped for three months on a waterhole in the Georgina River at the then Roxborough Downs cattle station homestead.

We were surveying the area Boulia–Urandangie–Toko Range– Simpson Desert–Glenormiston–Mt Whelan. We used black-and-white aerial photos as control, taken from a height of 25,000ft and with no colour to bring out the striking Running Man. But the rocks were the same – not granite but

to be calibrated or compensated. When chaining (measuring distances with a steel chain or tape), for example, the length would be affected by variations in air temperature. This weather information all had to be recorded along with the positioning measurements in the documentation. In this day and age, digital measuring equipment is less affected by the weather, making surveying much easier.

STUART SYMONDS, MAIDEN GULLY, VIC

WATER OF LIFE It was great to read Chrissie Goldrick’s article in AG 162 about her completion

limestone. Your only minor error was in a photo caption.

Unfortunately, no chance of finding dinosaur bones below – they didn’t live until 200 million years later after the rocks of Running Man were formed.

I have been an interested and ardent reader of your excellent magazine for years. To include some brief mention of the geology that forms the startling landscapes in many of your accurate and educational articles would be the only suggestion I would make. But, of course, maybe not all readers would be as interested. Rocks are just rocks after all!

Keep up the inspiring magazine. It is a great read and so informative.

John Casey, Narrabeen, NSW

Nature Photographer of the Year Diary 2022

WRITE TO US! Send us a great letter about AG or a relevant topic. If it’s selected as our featured letter we’ll send you a copy of AG’s stunning 2022 hardcover desk diary.

of a one-day training course in off-road driving skills near Lithgow, NSW. Well done!

I noted your article also mentioned performing a series of vehicle checks, including “equipment under the bonnet, like the windscreen reservoir”. Many people are unaware, or forget, that most modern vehicles have a windscreen washer reservoir with a water capacity of up to about 1 gallon (several litres).

For decades, I have regularly kept my vehicle’s windscreen washer reservoir full of clean water (without any additives), which in the case of an

PHOTO CREDITS, THIS PAGE: KEN DUNCAN; OPPOSITE, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: COURTESY MITCHELL LIBRARY/STATE LIBRARY OF NEW SOUTH WALES; BARBARA KLUMP

Your article by Ray Martin on Running Man Rock (AG 159) was fascinating and eye-catching. It is located in an area of Australia not yet frequented by tourists but nevertheless has potential, as Ray so eloquently described.

These rocks are products of an ancient sea that covered large parts of Australia 490 million years ago (the end of the Cambrian Period).

The resulting rocks of limestone, dolomite, chert, shale and sandstone containing fossils produced the rock suite geologists call the Ninmaroo Formation.

The slightly harder dolomite layer formed that whitish extensive bench in outcrops to form the figure 8 and the Running Man. This layer contains, and is formed largely by, stromatolites – a type of Cambrian reef made by particle trapping and calcium carbonate-precipitating algae, or cyanobacteria. This is very similar, but much smaller in scale, to what is created by the organisms that form the modern-day stromatolites in Hamelin Pool in WA. It’s also similar to very early forms in the 2.6-billion-year-old rocks in the Pilbara and other similar areas of that age and older in Australia.

Send letters, including an address and phone number, to editorial@ ausgeo.com.au or to Australian Geographic, GPO Box 4088, Sydney NSW 2001. Letters will be edited for length and clarity.

Koala hunters in NSW in the late 19th century.

emergency, and as a last resort (after depletion of the 50-plus litres of water I always carry in my 4WD), could provide several additional days of rationed drinking water (via a short length of suitable clean hose as a makeshift straw).

In some cases in recent decades, such knowledge would have undoubtedly saved the lives of those who have died due to dehydration.

Prepare, Realise, Adapt, Improvise, Survive, Educate, Smile! (PRAISES.) BOB STOCKER, ADELAIDE, SA

ED:Thanks for the tip, Bob. The really important information to note here is that the water is pure and contained no chemical additives.

ECHIDNA LOVE The story of the Little Aussie diggers (AG 159) was a big hit with our family. Echidnas were part of our farm, as frequent visitors over many years.

During the 2006–07 bushfires, where smoke and haze and embers engulfed our farm, we witnessed an echidna amble down our front drive and waddle into a low-level fountain at our front porch. There it lay in the cool of the water, and seemed to enjoy its bath!

Some years later, I captured some photos of an echidna strolling across our front paddock and, at the fence line, standing up on its hind legs and using its beak to search for ants in the fence holes.

JOHN WOODS, DRYSDALE,VIC.

SAD STATS A short note that might stimulate debate. I read a small book about Australia a few years ago, the title eludes me, but the author was definitely Geoffrey Robertson. It discussed various Australian events, people, and happenings.

One of the memorable statistics revealed was that

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Talkb@ck 100 years ago this year, 1921, 1 million koala skins were exported to the fashion houses of Europe. There was no elaboration, just the statistic.

My assumption was that this must have been a post-war cottage industry for people living in the bush without money. Does anyone have any further concrete knowledge of these events, and how long it lasted?

My motives are consciencedriven. In the 1940s through to the 1970s, as a young person in northern Queensland, I shot everything that moved as a sport, and quite often for fresh meat for the ice chest, using a large variety of rifles. It just seemed to be the thing to do. At this stage of my life, I begrudge all that unnecessary slaughter.

RAY WRIGHT, TOWNSVILLE, QLD

In July, we reported on world-first research proving our cockies learn unique bin-opening behaviour by copying other cockies.

Here’s what you had to say LEE WHITTAKER

I watched the ones at school unzip school bags to get into lunch boxes.

VICTORIA NANCARROW

Maybe they can teach the humans.

MARGAUX AURORA

POSTSCRIPT In AG 163 (AusQuiz) we erroneously stated that the Cocos (Keeling) Islands were Australia’s westernmost territory at 96.8710° E. As a number of you have correctly pointed out, Heard Island in the subantarctic is indeed further west at 73.5042° E. We apologise for the geographical error.

Any way for them to train themselves to bring the bins back in?

NOELENE JENKINS

Have seen ravens do this and if the crust of bread they find is too hard they will find a nearby birdbath or dish of water and give it a good soaking.

LISA PHILIPPE

Fascinating, but just make sure they don’t teach the seagulls or else we’ll all be in big trouble!

LIZ SCARBOROUGH

Very smart, and they know food is in the red-lidded bin!

September . October 13

GEOBUZZ

SEPTEMBER – OCTOBER 2021 BIG PICTURE

A TITANIC DISCOVERY

P

have announced the discovery of Australia’s largest dinosaur. Named Australotitan cooperensis (nicknamed Cooper) and measuring a whopping 6.5m tall ground to hip, and up to 30m in length, the fossilised remains of the new genus and species of giant sauropod, which lived during the mid-Cretaceous Period (98–95 million years ago), were discovered in 2007 in Eromanga in south-western Queensland. It took the Eromanga Natural History Museum 14 years to excavate the bones. Initially, museum staff had little idea what had been unearthed. “The first bone that we prepared was the humerus [from a forelimb] and it was 1.5m long,” says Queensland Museum palaeontologist Dr Scott Hocknull.

“That’s enormous, so we knew it was bigger than the Winton guys, but we weren’t sure if it was a new species.”

Not only is it new, palaeontologists say it may be among the top five biggest dinosaurs the world has ever seen.

Previously, Australia was only known for its small to mid-sized dinosaurs.Titanosaur sauropods, of which Cooper is one, are known to be the biggest ever land-dwelling animals and these had only been unearthed in South America. Cooper’s large size, Scott says, compared with the sauropods found in Winton, 460km to the north, “paints the picture of quite a different dynamic 95mya”.

The remains of Cooper and Winton’s sauropods all come from the same rock formation, but scientists are uncertain if they coexisted. “They were either related to one another in time, and one evolved into the other,” Scott explains, “or perhaps they all evolved into different niches.” He believes Australia will yield exciting finds for years to come, especially in Eromanga.“Australia is the last frontier on the basis that we have such huge areas where dinosaurs could be found and zero effort has been made to go and look for them,” he says.The layer of rock known as the Winton Formation, in which the Eromanga and Winton dinosaurs have been found, is almost 1200m thick in places and stretches from central western Queensland to northern New South Wales, and down to South Australia and the region around Lake Eyre. “That whole area is potential dinosaur country,” Scott says. “The bones out here come to the surface, so you find what the ground wants to give you and you don’t know what it is, so you treat every site like it’s a new discovery.”

For more, see: enhm.com.au

IMAGE CREDIT: DIGITAL RECONSTRUCTION COURTESY EROMANGA NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM

ALAEONTOLOGISTS

14 Australian Geographic

September . October 15

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GEOBUZZ

DEFINING THE SOUTHERN OCEAN A degree of latitude goes a long way when it comes to charting oceans.

T

O COINCIDE with this year’s World Oceans Day (8 June), the National Geographic Society formally recognised the Southern Ocean as the world’s fifth ocean, adding it to the ranks of the Atlantic, Pacific, Indian and Arctic oceans.

In 2000 the International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) designated the waters within the Antarctic Convergence as a fifth ocean. They combined the southern regions of the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific oceans to delineate a Southern Ocean with the unique distinction of being a large circumpolar body of water totally encircling the Antarctic continent, between 60 degrees south latitude and the Antarctic coast, encompassing 360 degrees of longitude.

The IHO ensures the world’s seas, oceans and navigable waters are surveyed and charted, coordinates the activities of 95 national hydrographic

offices worldwide and sets standards to promote uniformity in nautical charts and documents.

Although not formally adopted by the US government at the time it was initially designated, the IHO Southern Ocean definition has since acquired de facto usage by many nations and organisations, including the CIA and US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

National Geographic will now add the feature to its maps.

So where does that leave Australia with our own definition of the Southern Ocean that sees it lap our southern coast?

According to the Hydrographer of Australia, Commodore Stewart Dunne, RAN, Australia maintains historically that the Southern Ocean washes the southern shores of Western Australia, the coast of South Australia, the west coasts of Tasmania and King Island, and the coasts of Heard and Macquarie islands, and how that

reflects the long-held position of the Australia and New Zealand Intergovernmental Committee on Surveying and Mapping and the Australian Hydrographic Office.

Historical references to the Southern Ocean can be found in the Letters Patent descriptions of the Australian colonies as early as 1831. In 1914 prime minister Andrew Fisher approved the name Southern Ocean for the sea area south of the Australian continent, stating that “the Indian Ocean did not extend easterly beyond Cape Leeuwin and that the ocean off the eastern coast of Australia was to be known as the South Pacific”.

In 1968 the National Mapping Council of Australia supported the description of the Southern Ocean.

Australia successfully included it in the fourth edition of the IHO’s Limits of Oceans and Seas Special Publication S-23 in 2002, but this remains an unpublished draft.

CHRISSIE GOLDRICK September . October 17

1953: FLUORIDE ADDED TO AUSSIE WATER Beaconsfield, in Tasmania, becomes the first Australian town to have its water supply treated with fluoride to combat tooth decay.

I

many residents of Beaconsfield, Tasmania, believed the water supply was responsible for dental issues in their children. After the town’s municipal chemist and water filtration officer, Frank Grey, read a 1948 article entitled Supplementing Water Supplies with Fluorine, in the Journal AWWA (American Water Works Association), the council investigated fluoride as an answer.

Grey provided a report that showed tooth decay in some US communities had decreased by 65 per cent after the introduction of fluoridated water. With the support of the council and permission from Tasmanian state health authorities, he oversaw a scheme to introduce fluoride into the town water supply beginning on 30 September 1953. On the basis of US studies, the safe fluoridation rate was deemed to be 1 part fluoride to 1 million parts water. Many residents on the outskirts of town relied on tank water rather than the municipal supply, which meant a useful comparison could be made of the effects of fluoridated versus unfluoridated water.

The first instance of adding fluoride to drinking water had been at Grand Rapids, Michigan, in the USA, in 1945.

Prior to this, American dentist Frederick McKay, who had a practice in Colorado Springs, Colorado, in the early 1900s, noticed many of his patients’ teeth were discoloured – a condition known as ‘Colorado Brown Stain’. McKay eventually concluded it must be due to the water supply and identified that patients with stained teeth generally had less tooth decay. In 1930 The Aluminum Company of America (now Alcoa) analysed the Colorado Springs water and found it contained a high fluoride level. This, along with McKay’s observations, led to fluoride being investigated as a way to reduce tooth decay.

Opposition arose to the addition of fluoride to drinking water when, in the 1960s, it was claimed to cause a diverse range of problems from acne, allergic rashes and boils to brittle bones, cancer and heart disease. Some 15 years after fluoride was first added to Beaconsfield’s water, a Tasmanian Royal Commission into the Fluoridation of Public Water Supplies was held. Bruce Howard Brown, a retired public servant, argued that the program was being used to brainwash N THE EARLY 1950s,

younger generations and undermine Christian values. The inquiry ultimately found in favour of fluoridation, which led to the Fluoridation Act 1968 and all Tasmania’s communal water supplies being fluoridated. Other regions soon followed. The Australian Capital Territory, New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria and Western Australia now also manage water fluoridation through acts of parliament.

South Australia and the Northern Territory administer it through government policies. In 2003, on the 50th anniversary of water fluoridation in Australia, the Australian Dental Association erected a monument (see detail above) to commemorate Frank Grey and the Beaconsfield community.

Debate about water fluoridation persists throughout the world, including in Australia. International anti-fluoridation group Fluoride Action Network claims adding fluoride to water is unethical because informed consent cannot be obtained, and also that the dosage can’t be controlled because water consumption varies widely between individuals. The Canada-based International Academy of Oral Medicine and Toxicology claims fluoridated water can cause medical issues such as acne, thyroid dysfunction and neurological problems.

A 2019 Canadian observational study published in JAMA Pediatrics argued against fluoridation, linking fluoridated water during pregnancy to lower IQ in children.

Despite such claims, scientific research supports water fluoridation as an effective way to reduce tooth decay and is the basis of current Australian legislation and policies.

Part of the Defining Moments in Australian History project To find out more: nma.gov.au/definingmoments

18 Australian Geographic

PHOTO CREDITS, MAIN: COURTESY NATIONAL MUSEUM OF AUSTRALIA; INSET, COURTESY MONUMENT AUSTRALIA/KAY PAMMENT

In 1953 Beaconsfield (pictured here in 1946) became the first Australian town to add fluoride to its water supply.

GEOBUZZ

Talking Australia

TIM THE YOWIE MAN tym@iinet.net.au

OUT OF THIS WORLD!

Subscribe and never miss an episode of our entertaining podcast.

W Ryan Campbell After becoming the youngest person to fly solo around the world, which identified him forever as one of Australia’s great adventurers, Ryan suddenly faced a far greater challenge. He had to learn to walk and fly again following a horrific plane crash.

Ryan now travels extensively as an inspirational speaker, motivating thousands by sharing his extraordinary story of survival and recovery.

PHOTO CREDITS, FROM LEFT: THOMAS WIELECKI; COURTESY GEOSCIENCE AUSTRALIA

Doug Gimesy This passionate wildlife photojournalist, zoologist and conservationist talks about his efforts to protect Australia’s wildlife by using his powerful imagery. Doug has most recently focused on the protection of platypuses in Victoria.

James Dorey James is an Adelaide-based native bee expert known for his beautiful images of bees and other insects. He’s the author of the book Bees of Australia and recently rediscovered the rare cloaked bee – thought to have been extinct after it hadn’t been seen for 100 years.

Other inspiring podcast guests include Valerie Taylor, Dr Glenn Singleman and Terri Irwin.

For a full list and how to subscribe for free to the AG podcast, see: australiangeographic.com.au/ series/talking_australia

E’VE ALL SPOTTED them in

action, usually at sunrise or sunset on a beach – a breed unto themselves. They’re amateur treasure hunters wielding metal detectors, hoping to find a dropped coin or lost piece of jewellery in the sand.

Meanwhile, more serious prospectors are usually inland, somewhere beyond the black stump, in search of valuable metals lying near the surface. For many of them, including Paul McRae of Narromine, New South Wales, and John Miller of Yeppoon, Queensland, fossicking is as much about lifestyle as striking paydirt – a chance to “go bush” with mates. So when, in July 2016, the pair discovered an unusuallooking 24.3kg rock while prospecting for gold nuggets near Georgetown in outback Queensland, they didn’t get overly excited – just the opposite, in fact. Despite knowing there was only a “slim chance it was a meteorite”, they hauled their find onto the back of Paul’s ute where it rolled around for a year.

It wasn’t until mid-2017, while visiting friends in Canberra, that Paul decided to pop into Geoscience Australia (GA), to see if a geologist could identify the unusual find. “It was far too heavy to carry in,” recalls octogenarian Paul, who asked the museum curator, Steven Petkovski, to check it out in the ute.

“We often get people telling us they have a meteorite,” Steven says, explaining that 99 times out of 100 they don’t.

“So when Paul turned up asking me to come out to the car park, I admit I had low expectations.”

But Steven and his fellow rock doctors soon realised this was one of those rare 1 per centers: “Looking at the unique textures, we immediately knew it was a meteorite.” He identified the rock as “a super-rare iron-nickel [4.5-billion-yearold] meteorite originating in the asteroid

Paul and John found the meteorite while gold-fossicking on cattle country in QLD.

belt and only [so far] found in six other locations on Earth.” Wow! The prospecting pair faced a dilemma – slice up their prized discovery and sell pieces to cashed-up private collectors, or accept a more modest (but still considerable) $200,000 offer from GA. Much to Steven’s delight, Paul and John chose the latter “in the interests of science and education”. The meteorite was recently put on display in GA’s foyer and has fast become a major visitor drawcard.

What did the prospectors do with their windfall? “We’ve kept some for a rainy day and invested the rest in new state-of-the-art metal detectors,” reveals Paul, who’s already teamed up with John for another prospecting outback tour. “Whether we find another meteorite or a lump of gold, we don’t mind,” he says.

Have you found buried treasure? Let me know via email, and if you think it may be a meteorite, there’s a checklist on the GA website that will be helpful.

See: ga.gov.au

AS A NATURALIST, author, broadcaster and tour guide, Tim has dedicated the past 25 years to documenting Australia’s unusual natural phenomena. He’s written several books, including Haunted and Mysterious Australia (New Holland, 2018). Follow him on Facebook and Twitter: @TimYowie

September . October 19

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events

NATURE BOOK WEEK

PICTURE CREDITS, TOP RIGHT: CHRISSIE GOLDRICK; BOTTOM RIGHT: PETER ROWLAND

6–12 September IF YOU LOVE reading about nature – be it in a field guide, science title or poetry collection – don’t miss the annual Nature Book Week presented by the Wilderness Society.

From 6 to 12 September, join science communicator Dr Jen Martin, this year’s Nature Book Week Ambassador, for virtual read-alouds, book chats, and a series of workshops featuring, for example, how to craft nature poetry and ecologists answering children’s questions.

The week culminates with the announcement of the winners of this year’s Environment Award for Children’s Literature.

Since 1994 the Wilderness Society has been recognising the talents of artists and authors whose creative writing and captivating illustrations can inspire the next generation. This year Matthew Evans, Sadie Chrestman, Hilary Bell, and Gavin Aung Than had the difficult job of picking the winners!

Visit:

wilderness.org.au/nbw2021

Dr Jen Martin.

F

IVE OR SIX colourful and raucous rainbow lorikeets caught my attention as I sat on my verandah with my morning coffee to begin this column. A European starling called from my neighbour’s television aerial and three common mynas flew past. A pair of spotted doves perched quietly nearby on a branch, and another one in an adjacent tree.

As an eastern spinebill appeared, busily feeding among tea-tree blossoms, a pair of red-whiskered bulbuls checked out one of the taller shrubs, perhaps for food or as a potential nest site. A little wattlebird followed, and shortly after, two European house sparrows settled on the side fence. A welcome swallow hunted overhead for flying insects.

A pied currawong landed in a neighbour’s tree, forcing a black-faced cuckoo-shrike I hadn’t noticed before to take flight. As I watched it depart, I spied a pair of magpie-larks feeding on my neighbour’s lawn. Two sulphurcrested cockatoos shrieked their presence as they flew overhead, their cry and flight pattern distinctly different from the little corellas that fly over regularly.

In the 20 minutes it took to drink my coffee I amassed a diverse list of 13 species. It’s an interesting and relaxing way to enjoy my morning coffee, and my list can vary markedly each day and season (see AG 156).

Usually, the species I see around my home go onto my own personal ongoing backyard list, which is now at 55, and ranges from wedge-tailed

The nation’s most reported bird species is the rainbow lorikeet.

FOLLOW Peter on Twitter: @_peterrowland and Instagram: @_peterrowland

eagles to yellow thornbills. But for one week each October these counts become part of a nationwide citizen science project run by BirdLife Australia (BA) – the Aussie Backyard Bird Count.

People Australia-wide are encouraged during this week to download the Aussie Bird Count app ( aussiebirdcount.org.au) and record the birds they see during any given 20-minute period. You can count as many times as you want during the week, as long as each count covers a 20-minute period. And your ‘backyard’ can be anywhere you happen to be at the time. The results are used by BA to understand what birds live where people live.

Since the count began in 2014, the most reported species nationwide has been the rainbow lorikeet. Different states and territories may have different species, but the nation’s top 10 counted species have remained almost unchanged during this period.

The Australian white ibis displacing the red wattlebird in the past two years has been the only noted change.

In 2014, 38,076 people submitted 21,239 checklists containing 853,218 birds from 557 different species. Last year a new record was set, with 108,207 people participating.

A whopping 155,917 checklists were submitted containing 4,654,239 birds from 610 different species. This year’s count runs from 18 to 24 October. Let’s see if we can break the record again, and maybe topple the rainbow lorikeet from its lofty perch.

GEOBUZZ The deep fissures in the earth and other physical evidence of the quake attracted sightseers.

SNAPSHOT

THE DAY THE EARTH SHOOK Five decades ago, a powerful earthquake buckled and folded a 37km stretch of WA’s wheatbelt landscape.

in Western Australia. Because it was a long weekend, the streets of Perth were almost empty, and people in country towns were either working on the land as usual or enjoying an extra day off.

Just before 11am, however, the earth literally moved.

The bells of St George’s Cathedral in Perth began ringing as pieces of masonry crashed to the streets. At the same time, 130km north-east of Perth, less than two hours drive away, the wheatbelt town of Meckering was flattened. Sitting almost above the epicentre of one of the strongest recorded earthquakes in Australian history, the small township in which about 600 people lived was almost completely destroyed.

The quake, measuring 6.9 on the Richter scale, lasted about 40 seconds, after which less than 20 per cent of the town’s buildings remained standing. Only an asbestos shed was undamaged. Margaret Robinson was preparing sandwiches in her farmhouse outside the town. “I grabbed the edge of the kitchen sink,” she said, “and clutched on to it as the house collapsed around me.”

Amazingly, nobody was killed, although about 20 people were injured.

In the months before the quake, tremors had begun to rock the region: only a week or so before, the local policeman had noticed he had difficulty standing and that the ground was “like jelly”.

When it struck, the shockwave was felt along a radius of about 700km from Meckering, across the southern half of WA. “Eight-foot high [2.4m] humps of ground” were reported to have risen up in front of cars on the road into Meckering. Dams emptied and rivers shifted course, railway tracks stretched and buckled and pipelines supplying water across the state were ruptured.

In the days following the quake, a geophysicist flew over the area tracing the huge crease in the land that had formed. Running for about 37km and up to 3m deep, it came to be known as the Meckering Fault scarp.

Now filled in, weathered and farmed over, only remnants of the scarp remain visible today.

LINDA BRAINWOOD

22 Australian Geographic

WESTERN AUSTRALIA

The Meckering Public Hall and more than 75 per cent of the town were reduced to rubble. Sixteen people were hospitalised with broken bones, concussion and cuts and bruises. There were no fatalities.

Meckering PERTH

Linda is a picture researcher and the editor of the Dictionary of Sydney website at the State Library of New South Wales.

PHOTO CREDITS, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: COURTESY STATE LIBRARY OF WESTERN AUSTRALIA B6379660_2; GETTY IMAGES/HULTON DEUTSCH; COURTESY STATE LIBRARY OF WESTERN AUSTRALIA 280846PD

M

ONDAY 14 OCTOBER 1968 began as a quiet day

The earthquake created a bump in the road between Meckering and York.

Graders were used to temporarily reopen the roadway for light local traffic.

September . October 23

GEOBUZZ

REMEMBERING After two passenger jets crashed into the World Trade Center on 11 September 2001, many rushed to the scene to help. Responders toiled around the clock to search for victims and then to clean up the dust and twisted steel aftermath of the disaster. New Yorkers were determined to revitalise their beloved city by returning to their homes or resuming work and school. Twenty years on, many of them are sick.

I

T’S ESTIMATED THAT more than 400,000 people were

CHRISSIE GOLDRICK 24 Australian Geographic

New Yorker Marcy Borders takes refuge in an office building after one of the World Trade Center towers collapses in New York on 11 September 2001.

WHAT DID THE TOXIC DUST CONSIST OF?

T

HE DUST WAS composed of non-fibrous material and construction debris, which contained highly alkaline cement particles, as well as glass and other fibres, which can lodge in the lungs and cause long-term damage. Also present was cellulose from disintegrated paper, which can irritate the lungs and trigger the immune system. One of the most toxic substances was asbestos.

In the week after the attack, some areas were found to have asbestos levels of more than 1 per cent, which is a significant health risk. Trace amounts of lead and mercury, potent neurotoxins, were found as well.

Some experts believe that out of all the contaminants, these may have posed the biggest public health risk.

The WTC toxic dust

50% non-fibrous material and construction debris 40% glass and other fibres 8% asbestos 2% cellulose + trace amounts of lead and mercury

PHOTO CREDITS, THIS PAGE: STAN HONDA/GETTY IMAGES; OPPOSITE PAGE: DOUG KANTER/GETTY IMAGES

exposed to toxic contaminants or at risk of traumatic injury and physically and emotionally stressful conditions in the days, weeks and months following the attacks. Common conditions post-9/11 include chronic cough, asthma, sinus congestion, various cancers, stressrelated disorders and depression, among many others.

On 2 January 2011, then US President Barack Obama signed the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act of 2010 into law. Detective James Zadroga died on 5 January 2006 as a result of various respiratory and digestive conditions that developed from exposure to the Ground Zero site. Zadroga was the first member of the New York Police Department whose post-event death was officially linked by a medical examiner to the attacks. The Zadroga Act created the World Trade Center (WTC) Health Program and reopened the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund (VCF). The WTC Health Program provides monitoring and treatment for specific health conditions determined to be 9/11-related. The VCF provides monetary compensation to individuals or surviving family members whose injuries, illnesses or deaths were 9/11-related.

The WTC Health Program is housed under the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and administered by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The program collects data related to 9/11 health impacts. In 2018 WTC Health Program medical director Dr Michael Crane told a news organisation that, before long, more people will have died from diseases caused by toxic exposure at Ground Zero than on 11 September 2001 itself. Almost 10,000 responders, and others who were present, have been diagnosed with cancer, and more than 2000 have so far died from 9/11-related illnesses.

Dr Crane said it takes years, sometimes decades, for cancers to develop, and so the toll is set to rise.

On the day of the terrorist attacks in New York, Washington (Pentagon), and at Shanksville in Pennsylvania where United Airlines flight 93 came down, 2996 people were killed, including 19 hijackers, with 10 Australians among the dead.

On 18 December 2015 President Obama signed further legislation that extends the WTC Health Program. It’s now due to end in 2092.

THE TOP 10 CANCERS MOST COMMONLY DIAGNOSED IN RESPONDERS AND SURVIVORS

3164 359

FIGURES FROM 31 MARCH 2021; DATA COURTESY THE WORLD TRADE CENTER HEALTH PROGRAM: CDC.GOV/WTC/ATAGLANCE.HTML#TOP10CONDITIONS

Kidney

349

1063 640

Lymphoma

625

583

WHAT IS THE MOST COMMON ONGOING HEALTH ISSUE CAUSED

BY THE 9/11 ATTACKS?

617

510

548

561

C

hronic rhinosinusitis, an inflammatory disease of the paranasal sinuses, is the most common health condition reported from the 9/11 event. Of the 105,855 people currently enrolled in the WTC Health Program, it affects 26,910 responders and 6015 survivors.

368

Leukaemia

454

359

Colon

432

300

THE TOP 10 CERTIFIED CONDITIONS AFFLICTING WTC HEALTH PROGRAM MEMBERS Chronic rhinosinusitis

26,910

Gastro-oesophageal reflux disease (GORD)

24,480

Cancers

13,850

Asthma

13,213

Sleep apnoea

14,309

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)

8653

Chronic respiratory disorder due to fumes WTC-exacerbated chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD)

1740

1362

Melanoma

Lung/Bronchus

Survivors

1063

Prostate

Thyroid

Responders

4981

Non-melanoma skin

Breast (female)

1=100 people

7524 3238

805

Anxiety disorder

2521

930

Major depressive disorder

2470

831

1=1000 people

Responders

Survivors

6015 5037

8687 4853 1363

TOTAL NUMBER WHO DIED ON THE DAY

TOTAL NUMBER WHO HAVE DIED SINCE

2996

>2000

3602 1194

EXPLANATORY NOTE Responders include emergency responders, recovery and clean-up workers, and volunteers who helped at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and the crash site near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Survivors are those present on the day of the attacks or who worked, lived, or went to school in the New York City disaster area on 11 September 2001 or the months that followed.

September . October 25

ARNHEM LAND

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See and taste the delights of South Australia on this unique Eyre Peninsula discovery tour. Highlights include the Southern Right whale migration, Clare Valley wine region & Boston Bay cruise.

Cross the world’s largest parallel sand dune desert in a convoy of specialized Mercedes Benz 4WD and 6WD vehicles. Camp in comfort with hot showers, flushing loos & exceptional catering!

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2022 SEASON

AUSTRALIA AWAITS HURRY, 2022 TOURS FILLING FAST Number of nights stay

13 Day Arnhem Land Wilderness Adventure Nhulunbuy – Darwin | $14,495 per person twin share Fully Accommodated | Departs May – Sep 2022 Discover a vast and mystical land on this exclusive adventure through the heart of Arnhem Land. Travelling from Nhulunbuy to Darwin, you’ll visit sacred areas that no other tour company can access, and that few outsiders have ever seen. Along the way, stay in our network of luxurious safari camps and wilderness lodges, including the iconic Seven Spirit Bay on the Cobourg Peninsula. As part of the adventure, you’ll also enjoy a host of authentic cultural activities with Indigenous guides, learning about this extraordinary region from those who know it best.

Call 1800 688 222 outbackspirittours.com.au

Highlights of the adventure include: • Spend 7 nights in our network of luxurious safari camps and wilderness lodges, including 3 nights at the iconic Seven Spirit Bay • Discover the vast and sacred Arafura Swamp on a 4WD safari and boat cruise, location for the acclaimed movie ‘Ten Canoes’ • View ancient rock art sites, cruise incredible wetlands and visit the 'catacombs' at Davidson’s Arnhem Land Safaris, Mount Borradaile • Enjoy a Welcome to Country performance at Yirrkala, followed by a special bush medicine and healing demonstration • Explore historic Victoria Settlement at Port Essington, Circa 1838 • Fish for barramundi and enjoy a range of breathtaking marine adventures in the pristine Cobourg Marine Park Sanctuary

NEW BOOK SERIES

aptations A nimal Ada Edited by Corey Tutt BOOK 1

AGQ1113 $24.99

ON SALE NOW

Australian Geographic, in partnership with Corey Tutt and Deadly Science, is proud to present its new, uniquely Australian book series, which is sure to excite children about the wonders and possibilities of science.

The eight-part series will cover topics that inspire primary-aged readers to ask questions, experiment and learn about how scientific principles impact the way we live. The first two books in the series are on sale now.

AUSTRALIANGEOGRAPHIC.COM.AU/DSCIENCE

AGQ1114 $24.99

NEXT IN THE SERIES

January 2022 release The Solar System, Earth’s Changing Surface and Life Cycles June 2022 release How Animals Survive, How Plants Thrive and Renewable Resources

1300 555 176 TO PLACE AN ORDER

Australian Geographic’s Privacy Notice can be viewed at australiangeographic.com.au/privacy-policy. If you do not want your information provided to any organisation not associated with this offer please indicate this clearly at time of offer or notify the promoter in writing. Available while stocks last. Price listed does not include any applicable postage and handling costs.

DE D

DI

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GEOBUZZ

OM M EN

RE

A

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THE AUSTRALIAN GEOGRAPHIC BOOK CLUB

NG

NEVER GIVE UP

By Bear Grylls Never Give Up is Bear Grylls’ motto and the title of his deeply personal autobiography, a page-turning follow-up to his bestselling Mud, Sweat and Tears. In it the global adventurer and TV star chronicles his extraordinary life and career since stepping in front of the camera more than a decade ago in Man vs.

Wild. Immersing readers in remarkable adventures and personal stories from his toughest expeditions, this inspiring read captures the exhilaration behind some of Grylls’ hairiest survival missions.

LIVING PLANET: THE WEB OF LIFE ON EARTH

By David Attenborough

AVAILABLE 19 OCTOBER RRP $35

UNDERWATER WILD

PHOTO CREDIT: AAP PHOTOS

By Craig Foster and Ross Frylinck SIR DAVID’S rich, iconic timbre rustles from the pages of Living Planet. His gentle, infectious enthusiasm causes the reader to sink joyfully into a sweeping narrative of life on Earth and its remarkable ability to adapt to the most extreme of circumstances.

Each chapter focuses on a particular environment – from the furnaces on land to the sky above, and from frozen tundras to the open ocean. It crosses many continents, detailing Earth’s ever-changing nature through fascinating case studies.

First released as a companion to the famous documentary series The Living Planet: Portrait of the Earth, Attenborough has worked closely with zoologist Matthew Cobb to ensure this new edition contains the most recent ecological and biological discoveries. It boasts a glorious 64 pages of photographs and is imbued with a crucial message: we must do everything we can to protect the complex biodiversity of our world in the face of climate change.

Living Planet is essential, immersive reading for all of those interested in the natural world.

AVAILABLE 29 SEPTEMBER RRP $34.99

It’s been rewarding to see that, amid all the devastation of the last year, there’s been strong interest from people to reconnect to the natural world.

This, together with the runaway success of documentaries such as the Academy Award-winning My Octopus Teacher, are evidence of our deep need to both connect with nature and find solace and regeneration there as well. In Underwater World, Craig Foster, whose story is at the centre of My Octopus Teacher, and Ross Frylinck, his long-term diving partner, have put together a narrative supported by stunning photography and text that dives into one of the world’s wildest

oceans to explore what we can learn from the creatures and environments of the deep sea.

Freediving daily in freezing waters, without wetsuits or gear, they discovered a world never before seen by humans. Theirs is a story of befriending sharks, playing with cuttlefish, facing long-held fears and healing scars within family relationships.

AVAILABLE 19 OCTOBER RRP $59.99

THE DEEP

By Kyle Perry From the breakout author of The Bluffs, Kyle Perry’s latest thriller, The Deep, is nothing short of brilliant. On the rugged coast of Tasmania against the moody backdrop of dark ocean waters, the Dempsey family has run the drug trade in Shacktown for generations, using the fishing industry as a cover. Things get complicated when 13-year-old Forest Dempsey walks out of the ocean…because Forest is meant to be dead. Meanwhile, Mackerel Dempsey is on bail trying to keep out of trouble, but is sucked back into the family’s schemes as they seek to unravel the mystery behind Forest’s reappearance. Perry is on his way to being recognised as one of Australia’s best crime writers; he will keep you on the edge of your seat with twists and turns.

AVAILABLE NOW RRP $22.99

ALL OF THESE titles are available to pre-order or purchase from your nearest QBD bookshop, or online at australiangeographic. com.au/shop or by calling 1300 555 176 (from within Australia only) or +61 2 8089 3953 (if calling from overseas).

September . October 29

GEOBUZZ Tiny tardigrades surviving in extreme environments could help improve human medical care.

NEED TO KNOW with Dr Karl Kruszelnicki

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ARTH HAS experienced five mass extinction events during the past halfbillion years, each one killing 80–95 per cent of the planet’s species. But “water bears” (also called tardigrades) easily made it through each of them.

These tiny creatures can survive hitting a solid target at 3000km/h.

They lived outside the International Space Station for 10 days in the harsh vacuum of space. They can endure radiation at levels thousands of times higher than would kill a human. They tolerate temperatures from +150°C down to –272°C, which is just one degree above absolute zero…and there’s nothing colder than absolute zero!

Tardigrades are about the size of a grain of sand, 0.2–1.5mm when

fully grown. They live practically everywhere on our planet, as long as there’s some water; that means from the Arctic to the Antarctic, and ocean depths to Himalayan peaks, as well as hot springs and parking lots.

There are about 1300 species of these critters. Their exterior is a hard cuticle, or exoskeleton, to protect their insides. They moult, or cast off, this cuticle as they grow. They have four sets of legs. Three sets can swing outwards and a hind set extends from the back end running in the same direction as the body.

When times get tough, they slow down their metabolic rate by about 10,000 times, get rid of 99 per cent of their body water, and create a type of “glass” in which they enclose their cells for protection.

Then, when the environment becomes more reasonable, they absorb lots of water and gradually re-form

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By Kel Richards

AUSTRALIANIST

30 Australian Geographic

HIS SEEMS to have been coined in January 1941 by a Sydney Morning Herald sub-editor in a headline for an article about Australia’s so-called Jindyworobak Movement poets, which included Ian Mudie and Rex Ingamells.

The Australian National Dictionary defines an Australianist as a “person who espouses Australian attitudes or values; an expert in…some aspect of Australia”, especially “its history or literature, or its Indigenous languages”. Lexicographer Bill

into their regular eight-legged body.

Imagine if we could do this, essentially freeze time for our body parts – such as after a massive trauma, heart attack or stroke. Right now these devastating events in humans set off rapid and massive local damage to our organs, and cause great harm.

But what if we could use the tardigrades’ clever tricks to stop this damage from spreading, by manufacturing our own bizarre “biological glass” inside each cell? Better medical care could be on the horizon.

For tardigrades, the glass is not half-full or half-empty – it’s all glass.

DR KARL is a prolific broadcaster, author and Julius Sumner Miller fellow in the School of Physics at the University of Sydney. His latest books are Dr Karl’s Little Book of Climate Change Science and Dr Karl’s Surfing Safari Through Science, published by HarperCollinsPublishers Australia. Follow him on Twitter: @DoctorKarl

Ramson used the word in his description in The Australian National Dictionary of Sidney J. Baker, who researched and wrote on the Australian language. The related word Australianism, which goes back to 1842, is defined as “pride in, or loyalty to, Australian nationalism; a character distinctively Australian”. This magazine is distinctly Australianist!

KEL RICHARDS can be contacted at ozwords.com.au

PHOTO CREDIT: NANOCLUSTERING/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY/GETTY IMAGES

TARDIGRADE TRICKS

GEOBUZZ The tendril-like strands of thousands of galaxies spin slowly in this artist’s impression of the ‘cosmic web’, from which our universe was built.

LOOKING UP with Glenn Dawes x1

Naked eye Four planets can be seen in the night sky. The brilliant beacon Venus can’t be missed early evening to the west. In September, Mercury has one of its best returns – look for it directly below Venus. Near twilight’s end, gaze north to find Saturn, with another outstanding luminary, Jupiter, to its right. x10

Binoculars Jupiter’s four largest moons are bright enough to see easily with binoculars, although because these satellites often appear very close to the planet, they can be swamped by its glare. Ganymede is easiest to see. It ranges furthest from the planet about every four days – so keep looking.

PICTURE CREDIT: AIP/ A. KHALATYAN/ J. FOHLMEISTER

x100

Small telescope Low in the north is the Milky Way’s big brother, the impressive Andromeda Galaxy M31. We see this spiral spectacle as almost edge-on: an ovalshaped glow extending across 2 degrees with a much brighter central core. The surface is mottled with dark lanes, and two main arms can be glimpsed.

Glenn Dawes is co-author of the yearbook Astronomy 2021 Australia (Quasar Publishing), which can be bought online from Australian Geographic. quasarastronomy.com.au

+ SPACE

SPACE IN A SPIN

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HAT DO YOU think are the biggest structures in the universe? Galaxies such as our Milky Way, containing billions of stars? Clusters of galaxies?

Perhaps clusters of galaxy clusters, known unsurprisingly as superclusters? The answer is, in fact, something much bigger – and of which you might not have heard.

On very large scales, the distribution of galaxies is far from uniform.

They form clusters and superclusters, which themselves are part of a bigger structure known as the ‘cosmic web’.

This is, indeed, web-like, although it can also be thought of as resembling honeycomb or foam, with sheets and thin tendrils of galaxies enclosing huge voids of empty space. Those voids can be more than 100 million light-years across.

We think the web was imprinted on the universe very early in its history, as it was expanding from the event during which it was created – the Big Bang. In fact, this cosmic scaffolding was originally sculpted in mysterious ‘dark matter’, which constitutes 85 per cent of the matter content in the universe. The raw material of stars and galaxies – hydrogen – was drawn to the sheets and tendrils of the web by the dark matter’s gravity, and the galaxies that formed there allow us to trace its structure today.

Because all objects we observe in the universe are rotating, astronomers

have wondered whether there is any spin in the components of the cosmic web. The answer is now known, courtesy of scientists in Germany, France, Estonia and China.

They have used tens of thousands of galaxy measurements to make the exciting discovery that the tendrils are indeed rotating around their long axes, like pencils being twisted between your fingers.

The measurements use the Doppler effect, which imprints the speed of a galaxy on the rainbow spectrum of its light, so it can be measured using a prism-like device known as a spectrograph.

The puzzle is to explain why this rotation occurs. The spin of most celestial objects is a fossil of the rotation of the clouds of gas and dust from which they formed. But the universe as a whole is thought to be non-rotating. So how did these enormous primordial structures get their spin? “There must be an as-yet unknown physical mechanism responsible for torquing these objects,” suggests one of the researchers. What that is remains to be seen.

FRED WATSON is Australia’s Astronomer-at-Large. Hear him on the weekly Space Nuts podcast and ABC Radio, and follow him on Twitter: @StargazerFred. His latest book is Cosmic Chronicles: A User’s Guide to the Universe.

September . October 31

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WILD AUSTRALIA

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Australia can hardly get a break. First, the south-east suffers many years of drought. Then the worst bushfires on record, followed by a once-in-a-century pandemic. And when it seemed like things couldn’t get worse, we’re hit with a mouse plague likely to have cost our farming industry $1 billion in lost crops and other damage. Similar to dry spells and bushfires, mouse plagues are nothing new in Australia. They’re linked to the natural boom-bust cycles of our environment. Several years of intense drought up to last year were followed by wet La Niña conditions, and a mild and moist summer, which led to bumper cereal crops and also allowed mice to breed through the year.

The house mouse (Mus musculus) is not native to Australia.

It likely arrived from Europe on British or Dutch vessels in the late 1700s. Severe plagues now occur every 5–10 years, and are largely an Australian phenomenon, driven by the favourable conditions that allow these rodents to breed during much more of the year here than in cooler regions. Within mammals, mice are among the most prolific breeders. Females can birth litters of up to 10 pups every 20 days and reproduce near continuously when conditions are good. This year, that led to millions of mice running riot across rural Queensland and New South Wales, with densities of the small mammals reaching more than 1400 per hectare.

Farmers reported scooping hundreds from swimming pools and having to put bed legs in buckets of water to stop the rodents from scampering across them at night. In Tottenham, Walgett and Gulargambone, hospital patients suffered minor bites, according to NSW Health. At Wellington Correctional Centre, near Dubbo, 420 prisoners were evacuated after mice gnawed through electrical infrastructure.

CSIRO mouse plague guru Steve Henry writes: “Imagine constantly living with mice. Every time you open a cupboard to get linen, clothes or food, mice have been or are still there.

When you go to sleep, they run across your bed, and in the 34 Australian Geographic

T SEEMS LIKE

morning your first job is to empty traps filled with dead mice.

And the stench of dead mice fills the streets. Even the cats and dogs get sick of mice and stop chasing them.”

Reports of mouse plagues appear in local newspapers as far back as the late 1800s, and evocative sepia photographs depict historical scenes of colonists standing beside vast mounds of dead mice. Recent notable plagues include that of 2011, which is reported to have cost farmers $200 million, and those centred on the Darling Downs in Queensland, in the 1980s and ’90s, were estimated to have wiped billions of dollars from agricultural profits.

When mice reach plague proportions, the options for effective control are limited. Farmers bait using wheat grains coated with zinc phosphide, a poison that can kill mice within hours and quickly dissipates in the environment – but when food is plentiful they may not eat this.

Farmers have lobbied for the use of bromadiolone, which thins the blood and kills mice slowly through internal bleeding. But this has not been approved for large-scale use because it’s likely to pass up the food chain, killing native species that feast on the abundant prey, such as snakes, quolls, goannas and wedge-tailed eagles. There were reports at the height of this year’s plague that mice might invade cities, including Sydney and Canberra. This is unlikely because mice typically only breed in great numbers near plentiful grain resources and rarely travel more than a few hundred metres.

Mouse plagues usually wrap up by themselves when winter begins to bite deeply and food becomes scarce. Dense mouse populations lead to the spread of disease and increased aggression and cannibalism between the rodents. Sick and hungry, mice can vanish en masse in a matter of days – until good times return and the cycle starts all over again.

JOHN PICKRELL is the author of Flames of Extinction, about the affect of the bushfire crisis on Australian wildlife (NewSouth, $29.99).

Follow him on Twitter: @john_pickrell

PHOTO CREDIT: RICK RYCROFT/ AAP PHOTOS SCIENTIFIC NAME: Mus musculus

WHEN RODENTS RUN WILD

WILD AUSTRALIA DIARY ENTRIES

ACT

NSW

PHOTO CREDITS, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: DREW HOPPER; DENNIS SMITH/OLIVER MARSHALL/AGAINST THE GRAIN; DENNIS SMITH/OLIVER MARSHALL/AGAINST THE GRAIN; HEIDI WILLIS/AG IMAGE COLLECTION

GEOBUZZ

Save the Koala Day, Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve

The Australian Koala Foundation’s Save the Koala Day is on 24 September. What better way to mark it than seeing these engaging marsupials in their natural environment? For ACT residents, try the Koala Path walking trail in Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve, 45 minutes drive from Canberra. See koalas, wallabies and potoroos in the wild, or look for koalas in the fenced sanctuary area.

More info: Call Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve on 02 6207 7921 or visit tidbinbilla.act.gov.au

Platypus breeding season, Nymboida River

Platypus breed in spring and are particularly active in NSW in September. One good place to find them is on the Nymboida River in Nymboi-Binderay National Park, part of the Gondwana Rainforests. Children kayaking near the Platypus Flat campsite have been lucky enough to spy these monotremes swimming around them in the water.

More info: Call NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service in Coffs Harbour on 02 6652 0900 or visit nationalparks. nsw.gov.au/visit-a-park/parks/ nymboibinderay-national-park

QLD

Nature Festival cultural ambassador Jack Buckskin closes out last year’s Nature Festival at Noise // Nature, a lightand-sound art experience in the Adelaide Botanic Gardens.

Wattles in bloom, Brisbane Botanic Gardens Mt Coot-tha

Golden wattle, our national floral emblem, is in full bloom in Australia heading into spring, as are many other wattles. On National Wattle Day –1 September – enjoy guided wattle walks at Mt Coot-tha, if COVID restrictions allow. Or go it alone to enjoy the blooms.

More info: Call Brisbane Botanic Gardens Mt Coot-tha on 07 3403 2535 or visit brisbane.qld. gov.au/things-to-see-and-do/ council-venues-andGolden wattle. precincts/parks

NATURE FESTIVAL, ADELAIDE Conservation charity Trees For Life celebrates its 40th birthday at a vibrant festival of nature to be held in Adelaide this spring.

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HE NATURE FESTIVAL will return to South Australia from 25 September to 4 October, offering a curated and open access program of workshops, tours, exhibitions and performances celebrating humankind’s intrinsic relationship with nature. Two of the program’s artistic highlights include Adelaide artist Louise Flaherty presenting a multidisciplinary sound-and-music performance at the Adelaide Botanic Gardens and a photographic exhibition by Rosina Possingham showcasing the community behind conservation charity Trees For Life, which is celebrating its 40th year.

Jack Buckskin returns as the festival’s cultural ambassador for the second year, offering the opportunity to engage and create a meaningful focus on the knowledge of South Australia’s Indigenous peoples, cultivating a deeper engagement with the land where we live.

An online invitation from Laura Wills, #TreePortrait, invites people to post images of their favourite tree to be incorporated into a large community tree portrait. There’s a public workshop with artist Oakey, inspired by her time with the forests and local community at Cudlee Creek two years after the devastating 2019–20 fires.

A young family takes a relaxed walk through Beaumont House gardens as part of a Nature Festival event last year.

Nature Festival will also host a wide range of other events inviting participants to enjoy and explore nature. These include cultural activities, guided walks, nature writings, music in the park and “weed dating”.

You’ll be able to go on a Wildlife Treasure Hunt in Belair National Park, birdwatch with the Nature Conservation Society of SA, discover the wonderful world of edible weeds, and experience the flying-fox colony in Adelaide Park Lands flying out at dusk.

Nature Festival, South Australia, 25 September–4 October naturefestival.org.au September . October 35

September . October 2021

Your Society Australian Geographic Society news and events

Once more onto the bridge

AG Spirit of Adventure Award winner and Nancy-Bird Walton grant recipient Lisa Blair is one of Australia’s most acclaimed sailors. She earned international recognition when she became the first woman in history to sail solo around Antarctica, and was on the way to surpassing the speed record of Fyodor Konyukhov when she suffered a dramatic dismasting. Lisa fought for her life at the time. Since returning safely to Australia, she’s dreamt of the day she’d set off to challenge this record again, and is now deep in preparation for it. Lisa, aboard her yacht Climate Action Now, will set off this December to attempt to become the fastest person to sail solo, nonstop, and unassisted around Antarctica below 45 degrees. This presents an opportunity for Lisa to collect scientific data on

SPONSORSHIP: Visit 36 Australian Geographic

Lisa Blair’s attempt at an Antarctic record was thwarted last time she sailed around the icy continent. Support her as she tries again.

ocean health and microplastics, and deploy weather buoys in the planet’s most unforgiving ocean (see page 17).

Lisa is still fundraising, and if you’re interested in getting involved and sponsoring a one-degree segment of her 360 degrees around the globe record attempt, visit her website now.

lisablairsailstheworld.com

AGS Gala Awards Night 2021 Unfortunately, due to COVID, we have postponed our awards ceremony until early next year. We will provide details in the next edition of AUSTRALIAN GEOGRAPHIC.

PHOTO CREDITS, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: COURTESY LISA BLAIR; DEAN KOOPMAN

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RAILBLAZER, EXPLORER,

We expect Gareth and Richard to look a little more fatigued than this if they complete their gruelling Antarctic mission.

Your subscription is essential to the Australian Geographic Society EVERY SUBSCRIBER to this journal

automatically becomes a member of the not-for-profit AG Society. Your subscription helps us fund Australia’s scientists, conservationists, adventurers and explorers.

A tough journey to the deep south

To subscribe, call 1300 555 176

A

PHOTO CREDIT, TOP: COURTESY GARTEH ANDREWS/RICHARD STEPHENSON SCIENTIFIC NAME: Aepyprymnus rufescens

LSO BOUND for the teeth-rattling deep south is The Last Great First team. Imagine traversing 2600km across snow and ice, up glaciers and through unexplored mountains. The temperature around you will average –10°C to –60°C, plus wind chill. Storms are frequent and dangerous, with wind speeds capable of exceeding 150km/h for days on end. The sled you drag weighs more than 200kg but it’s your life raft, packed full of everything needed to survive this 110-day expedition. To make it you must average 24km a day. There will be no rest days and no being held up by bad weather in case the food runs out.

That’s what Gareth Andrews and Richard Stephenson expect in their quest to make polar history by being the first to ski coast to coast across Antarctica.

Gareth and Richard, both doctors, have been COVID-response frontline workers.

Who are the Australian Geographic Society?

Gareth, an anaesthetist, has just returned from a year with the National Health Service in Cardiff, Wales. Richard is an emergency physician in Dunedin, New Zealand. They’ll start their expedition mid-October next year, from the outer edge of the Ross Ice Shelf, then explore a new route over the Transantarctic Mountains before turning towards the South Pole and onwards across the continent. Through their work with the Australian Antarctic Science Foundation and Scouts Australia, they’ll make a significant contribution to Antarctic climate change science and conservation.

To find out more: thelastgreatfirst.net

AG SOCIETY FUNDRAISER RUFOUS BETTONGS These marsupials are crucial to Australian ecosystems because they are natural engineers. But the species has suffered serious declines and faced several recent threats that have seen its distribution and populations drastically reduced, the most significant being the 2019–20 bushfires.

Aussie Ark aims to keep this species from extinction before the last remnant populations disappear.Individuals will be

protected inside large captive enclosures placed across all Aussie Ark’s sanctuaries. This project will see the rewilding of rufous bettongs throughout NSW, creating a robust insurance population for the endangered species. Its goal is to keep the species surviving in the wild.

MAKE A DIFFERENCE. PLEASE DONATE TODAY Funds raised will help save and support rufous bettongs in their native habitats.

Visit australiangeographic.com.au/fundraising

Patron: Dick Smith AC Chair: David Haslingden Secretary: Caroline Fitzgerald Directors: Peter Anderson, Nick Croydon, Page Henty, Jo Runciman Advisory Committees: Chrissie Goldrick (chair), Chris Bray, John Leece AM, Tim Jarvis AM, Robert Purves AM, Anna Rose, Heather Swan, Todd Tai THE SOCIETY runs sponsorship rounds in April and November, during which it considers applications and disburses grants that are funded by the Australian Geographic business.

The Society also awards the Nancy-Bird Walton sponsorship for female adventurers, and hosts annual awards for conservation and adventure. Each year it gives in excess of $100,000 to worthy projects.

Sponsorships open Our second round of Society sponsorships is still open, but be quick – it closes on 30 November.

The Society grants funds to projects in the fields of Australian adventure and exploration, plus science, community projects and conservation initiatives that lead to positive conservation outcomes. australiangeographic.com. au/society

September . October 37

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The European fox has been implicated in the extinction or decline of dozens of mammal species across mainland Australia. This specimen was photographed near Altona, VIC. 40 Australian Geographic

STORY BY KAREN MCGHEE

Poison with purpose The biggest saviour for many of Australia’s endangered native species is turning out to be a deadly toxin.

I

T IS SOMETIMES controversial

and sounds counterintuitive, but the poison 1080, developed in Europe in the 1940s to kill rodents, is proving to be one of the most effective tools available for biodiversity conservation in Australia and New Zealand.

Without 1080 it’s likely the extinction lists for both countries would be considerably longer – by dozens of species. To appreciate how this scenario has come about it’s important to understand some particular quirks about the nature of life on these two island nations, brought about to a large extent by their long geological isolation.

Significantly, the vertebrate fauna of both countries has evolved largely without much pressure from predators. Australia has a few marsupial carnivores but none

as voracious as the mammalian predators in many other countries. And New Zealand has only two native species of land-dwelling mammals. Both are bats.

This meant that when an introduced predator such as the European fox (Vulpes vulpes) landed in Australia – deliberately brought by early European settlers – many native mammals didn’t stand a chance. To make them even more vulnerable, a large proportion were the perfect size, at weights of between 50g and 5kg, to make them suitable fox prey. It’s a large part of the reason Australia has already lost 32 – 10 per cent – of the terrestrial mammal species that were here when Europeans first arrived on the east coast.

In New Zealand, where most of the notable vertebrate life forms are birds and many of those are flightless

September . October 41

Stoats are poisoned by 1080 when they eat the carcasses of rats killed by the poison. Stoats were introduced to NZ to control rabbits, but native bird species, including iconic kiwis (pictured), form a major part of their diet.

or live on or near the ground, the local fauna were similarly vulnerable to the arrival of rats, possums and wily stoats, which are all adept at taking eggs, nestlings and even adult birds. Our neighbour is now on target to rid its shores of these feral predators by mid-century, through its Predator Free 2050 program, launched in 2015.

And the careful, targeted use of 1080 is integral to that, says Dr Meg Rutledge, director of Biodiversity Threats at the NZ Department of Conservation (DOC).

In Australia, 1080 is now used in wildlife conservation in all states, to varying levels in different forms, but foxes and feral cats are the main targets. However three major conservation programs have had particular success with native species recovery through the targeted use of 1080.

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is Western Australia’s Western Shield, established in the mid-1990s following experiments in remnant natural habitat in the Wheatbelt by ecologists with the then Department of Conservation and Land Management, notably Drs Jack Kinnear and Tony Friend. They showed that reducing fox numbers, by laying out 1080-laced meat baits, led directly to increased numbers of certain native species for which populations had been plummeting. First the endangered black-footed rock-wallaby was shown to benefit.

HE MOST EXTENSIVE

42 Australian Geographic

But further trials showed similar recoveries of other declining species in the west, including Rothschild’s rock-wallaby, the numbat, woylie, western ringtail possum and chuditch.

Today, feral predators, which used to mean mainly foxes, but increasingly now also includes cats, are acknowledged as a leading cause of biodiversity loss in WA. That’s largely true also for much of mainland Australia. The lists of species threatened by these introduced interlopers – available on national threat abatement plans – are truly staggering. The future of about 80 native species – mostly mammals and birds but also reptiles – is threatened by foxes. For feral cats the list tops about 100.

These days, Western Shield is run through the WA Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions. It is a cornerstone of WA conservation and fundamental to species’ recovery statewide. Without it, Australia would have lost many more species than it already has, adding to our dubious status as the country with the highest rate of mammal extinctions. Notably, Western Shield continues to be integral to WA’s fight to rescue critically endangered species such as the numbat, Gilbert’s potoroo, western swamp tortoise and western ground parrot.

“There’s no doubt 1080 is pivotal to Western Shield. The program goal is about fauna conservation and 1080 happens to be one of the best tools we have available at the moment for that

PHOTO CREDIT, PREVIOUS PAGE: MARK DORO; THIS PAGE:©Rod Morris/www.rodmorris.co.nz SCIENTIFIC NAME: Mustela erminea

Our neighbour is now on target to rid its shores of these feral predators by mid-century.,

Predation by foxes was steering the long-footed potoroo, found only in eastern VIC’s forests, towards extinction. But 15 years of 1080 baiting of foxes has seen the little marsupial’s numbers recover.

Close to home Baiting feral animals with 1080 in Australia is tightly controlled in all states.

in the west,” says Ashley Millar, Western Shield’s coordinator, explaining that a list of about 30 endangered species drives the program’s operations across the state. “But there are many more species not listed as threatened that are benefiting as well.” The program covers 38,000sq.km from the Pilbara in the north, through forests of the south-west, to areas east of Esperance.

“We operate about 60 sites statewide, each protecting one to a dozen species,” Ashley explains. “These have been defined as key sites for us to be protecting native wildlife, and 1080 baiting is our primary control, or management, method at each of those sites.”

PHOTO CREDITS, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: BRUCE THOMSON; CHRISSIE GOLDRICK SCIENTIFIC NAME: Potorous longipes

N

OT LONG AFTER Western Shield began, South Australia’s

Bounceback program swung into action, motivated by the same evidence shown in WA about the impact of the fox. Bounceback is now more widely about controlling all threats to native species, but reducing feral predator impacts remains paramount to its success and the use of 1080 is critical to that.

Bounceback too was started in the early 1990s to arrest the alarming decline of one particular species – in this case the yellow-footed rock-wallaby in the Flinders Ranges. It succeeded in doing that by using 1080 baits against foxes. The program, which now operates across half the state in the SA Arid Lands Region, began aerial baiting with 1080 in 2007, which has reduced fox numbers to almost zero in treated areas.

“That’s allowed us to do reintroductions of western quolls and brushtail possums back into their former arid habitat and those have been quite successful since about 2014,” says Robert Brandle, a senior conservation ecologist working with the program. With foxes out of the picture the only threat to the introdcued quoll population was cats. So, since 2017, Bounceback has been using a product designed for feral cats in WA – Eradicat.

“For us in the Bounceback program, it would definitely have been a game-changer if we didn’t have access to 1080,” Robert says. “The amazing recovery of yellow-footed rock-wallabies we have had in the last 30 years has been enough to justify its use and now we’re seeing success very clearly with western quolls, possums, echidnas and larger reptiles such as goannas.”

The most recent large-scale Australian conservation program using 1080 to great effect is Southern Ark, a joint initiative of the Victorian Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning, and Parks Victoria. That began 15 years ago, works

I

N AUSTRALIA, the toxin sodium fluoroacetate, which is widely known as 1080 poison, is licensed for use in all its forms by the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority (APVMA). Each different application of the poison, whether it’s as a fox bait such as Foxoff or a feral cat bait like Eradicat, needs to be approved separately by the APVMA. The decision, however, to use 1080 in a particular area rests with various government departments. So that might mean it could be used in national parks, conservation reserves or even large urban

If you’re walking your dog and see a sign like this, put your pooch on a short lead and don’t let it pick up anything.

parks looked after by local councils. If it is being used in an area where people may come across it, there are legal requirements to clearly signpost its use. Although it’s highly unlikely that a person would ingest any sort of 1080 bait available in Australia, these products can be very attractive to domestic animals, particularly carnivores. So if you see the sort of warning sign shown above, keep your pet dog or cat far away.

HOW DOES IT WORK? If a lethal dose is eaten, 1080 will kill feral animals by starving their cells of energy. This disrupts the central nervous system and leads to unconsciousness. A bait containing 1080 must be digested or a liquid concentrate must be absorbed through the skin before it becomes toxic; in a fox, for example, toxicity occurs between 30 minutes and three hours after a bait is eaten.

September . October 43

Ecologist and passionate wildlife advocate Dr John Read, from Thylation and University of Adelaide has invented the Felixer, which sprays 1080 on feral cats – at 50km an hour – but not native wildlife.

across 10,000sq.km of East Gippsland forest, and its aim “is about fox control for the benefit of wildlife, especially those species being driven to extinction by fox predation,” says the project’s operations manager, Andy Murray. “When we started this work there were no guidelines about how to effectively control foxes with baits in the landscape. There were baits for sale but they were being bought generally by farmers to kill foxes to protect lambs.”

After trials, Andy and his colleagues settled on a product called Foxoff. “They’re manufactured baits containing 1080, and we bury them to a depth of about 15cm at about 1km intervals using the network of vehicle tracks running throughout the forest,” Andy says. “So we have about 5000 bait stations, which are checked and rebaited monthly, spread over that whole area. We’re quite specifically targeting foxes with the presentation of the baits, because it’s such a fundamental part of fox foraging ecology, that they cache food and will also steal food cached by another animal.

Baiting year-round ensures we keep the maximum pressure on any foxes trying to reoccupy the forest.”

That’s driven foxes down to exceptionally low levels in East Gippsland and one outcome has been a significant rise in numbers of the long-footed potoroo. “This species is confined to Victoria, and it’s the type of animal that’s disappeared right across the bottom half of Australia as a result of fox predation – a 2kg rat kangaroo-type animal,” Andy explains. When the Black Summer fires hit in 2019–20, there were concerns that animals that survived the fires would now become sitting ducks for foxes. But that didn’t happen in East Gippsland because, Andy explains proudly, targeted baiting by the Southern Ark team had already driven fox numbers to very low levels, providing native wildlife with its best chance to recover.

W

1080 particularly valuable as a conservation tool compared with other poisons? First, it breaks down in the landscape and doesn’t bioaccumulate – so it doesn’t build up in the food chain.

HAT MAKES

44 Australian Geographic

Second, it has the potential to be deployed on a large scale, particularly through air drops, which is valuable in both Australia and New Zealand, where feral predator control is needed across huge landscapes that are often rugged and hard to access.

When it comes to the effects of 1080 on native species in both Australia and New Zealand, there are certain unique traits in the general natural histories of both countries that support its use.

In Australia, many native plant species produce a compound that’s chemically identical to the active constituent in 1080 – sodium fluoroacetate. This toxin happens to occur naturally in a large number of WA plants in the genus Gastrolobium. Because WA’s native mammal, reptile and bird species have evolved in tandem with these plants, they are generally highly tolerant to 1080. But introduced feral predators – foxes and cats – aren’t, and that’s meant 1080 has been able to be used very effectively to manage them without harming local WA species.

Although this situation is most marked in the west, it does also occur, to a lesser extent, in the eastern states, where certain plants produce a toxin that’s chemically identical to 1080. These include gidgee, heart leaf poison bush and box poison bush.

New Zealand’s only native mammals – two bats – and most of its bird species haven’t shown any interest in taking 1080 baits when it’s been deployed in conservation areas. Nevertheless, the use of 1080 in both countries is highly regulated to reduce potential impacts on non-target animals.

The use of any poison is never a preferred option for anyone working in conservation, Meg Rutledge says. “But 1080 is the best tool we currently have available for large-scale operations.

The department is particularly conservative around its use. We’re very careful about the risks of exposure to unintended species and that means being very considered about the boundaries of where we do it and where we don’t – as well as when and how much we apply,” Meg says. In New Zealand, where aerial distribution of baits is done by helicopter, large waterways are avoided.

In SA the baits thrown out for feral cats are a little softer than those used for foxes, and to avoid any chance of large lizards being interested in taking them, they’re only distributed during winter when the lizards are less likely to be moving about.

Western Shield’s Ashley Millar’s perspective on 1080 is fairly standard among the ecologists and conservationist overseeing its use for species’ recovery. He’d prefer not to be using it, but not using it is not a realistic option.

“None of us are in this for the sake of killing animals,” he says. “If we could do it differently, we would. It’s really about the conservation of a unique fauna assemblage that we have got in WA – and each of the other states would be in the same boat.

We can’t let these declines and extinctions of native animals go further. It goes against not only our legislation, but our morals as well. We have a responsibility on a global scale to stop it.” AG

PHOTO CREDIT: LUCY MUNRO, GLENRAC INC.

“We can’t let these declines and extinctions of native animals go further.”

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MINI R O A D T R IP S NE A R C A IR N S Discover local specialties and hidden gems on a mini road trip through Tropical North Queensland.

Y O U R D R I V E Y O U R WAY C A I R N S T O E T T Y B AY Located 90mins south of Cairns

CAIRNS TO YUNGABURRA

near the art-deco town of Innisfail, Etty Bay is known as one of the

Brace yourself for a spot of scenic driving; this road trip is best explored via the Gillies Range, the famous stretch of tarmac packing 263 corners over 19kms with an 800m elevation gain.

region’s most scenic beaches. But what really makes this little cove so special is its inhabitants. Home to the PDJQLȴFHQW 6RXWKHUQ &DVVRZDU\ your chances of spotting these notoriously elusive birds roaming the beachfront here are pretty high.

Emerging from the rainforest, you’ll find yourself in the rolling hills of the Atherton Tablelands before arriving at the quaint, historic town of Yungaburra.

Be sure to stop at pristine swimming holes like Babinda Boulders or Josephine Falls, and stock up on picnic goods from the famous Babinda Bakery along the way.

From here you can explore volcanic crater lakes, discover giant ancient trees, enjoy a spot of shopping or some devonshire tea.

D I S C O V E R M O R E R O A D T R I P I N S P I R AT I O N AT C A I R N S G R E AT B A R R I E R R E E F. C O M / R O A D T R I P S

MISSION BEACH TO THE CARDWELL SPA POOL If you can tear yourself away from the 14kms of stunning sandy shores at Mission Beach, head south to

PORT DOUGLAS TO C A P E T R I B U L AT I O N From the moment you cross the Daintree River by ferry, you’ll be transported to a wonderland that’s 180 million years old.

Break up your road trip with stops at lookouts, beaches and boardwalks before you reach the most iconic attraction, Cape Tribulation, famous for the rainforest meeting the reef.

No trip to the Daintree is complete without a treat made from exotic locally-grown fruit at the famous Daintree Ice Cream Company or a swim in a crystalline rainforest pool.

find yourself at the vibrant blue Cardwell Spa Pool, located along the scenic Cardwell Forest Drive.

This short drive also features various lookouts and the beautiful Attie Creek Falls.

On your way, be sure to stop for a photo op at the Golden Gumboot in Tully, or take a detour to admire the impressive Murray Falls, tumbling over massive granite boulders.

Early morning light bathes the Hebel Hotel, a classic outback Aussie pub complete with a traditional hitching rail and a reputed connection to members of the Kelly Gang.

48 Australian Geographic

THE GREAT INLAND WAY Take your foot off the accelerator and explore outback Queensland on one of Australia’s great road trips.

STORY AND PHOTOGRAPHY BY MANDY MCKEESICK

September . October 49

AUSTR ALIANS

LOVE A ROAD TRIP, and with international travel plans shelved for the foreseeable future, we’re taking the opportunity to explore our own backyard. Tropical north Queensland will attract many, and the shortest road route there from major southern cities is along the Great Inland Way, from Orange in New South Wales to Cooktown. But rather than putting the foot down for the entire 2595km, the middle section – the 750km from Hebel on the border to Emerald in central Queensland – provides the perfect opportunity to slow down, stay a while somewhere, and get off the beaten track.

There is something for everyone on this section: the romance of expansive cattle stations with their attendant rodeo-riding, horse-loving lead characters; some of Australia’s best inland fishing, and plenty of paddling places to drop in a canoe; a secluded retreat where you can have your body pampered and soul revived; stunning ranges surrounding the world-famous Carnarvon Gorge; and classic outback pubs. You’ll discover all sides of the cotton story and find remote wineries and freshly brewed coffee in the least-expected corners.

The Great Inland Way is entirely sealed, but dirt-road sidetrips entice the adventurous along historic Cobb & Co. routes and tempt with the lure of precious gems. No matter what time of year you travel, there will be festivals, fishing competitions, traditional country shows and a plethora of horse events.

So let’s start exploring.

A LONG THE BALONNE With a road trip as hefty as the Great Inland Way, you may choose – although it would mean missing the delights of places such as Dubbo and Lightning Ridge – to knock off the first 550km through northern NSW in one go, by which time you’d be ready for a beer. Luckily Hebel, roughly 4km past the border into Queensland, can oblige. The Hebel Hotel, with its rickety hitching rail and colourful murals by legendary outback artist John Murray, has long been a welcome stop for travellers including, if rumour is believed, members of the Kelly Gang.

According to official history, Dan Kelly and Steve Hart were killed at the Glenrowan siege when bushranger Ned was captured. But another story goes that they fled to the relative obscurity of Hebel. Stranger things have happened.

The only commercial buildings in this hamlet with a population of about 70 are the General Store and the Hebel Hotel, which is managed by Kim York and Merv Pullen. They first came to Hebel last year when COVID strangled tourism and the police and army were present at the state border crossing.

Now, at the start of this year’s tourist season, Kim and Merv have returned and are flat out.

“Hebel’s like home,” Merv says. “I’ve made more friends here in one and a half years than I have in my previous 54 and it’s been good coming back. I know the area, I know the people and I know how this old building runs. It’s the quintessential Queensland pub.”

Hebel is on the Lower Balonne River Floodplain with the Bokhara River on its doorstep. From here it’s possible to follow 50 Australian Geographic

Hebel Hotel managers Merv Pullen and Kim York (above) are enjoying brisk trade this year after the restrictions and challenges brought on by COVID early last year. Nikki and Scott Pulfer (below) escort guests on a guided tour of the vast cotton-growing property Cubbie Station near Dirranbandi in QLD.

Customers enjoy a beer and a yarn on the verandah of the Hebel Hotel. The pub opened in 1894 as a Cobb & Co. changing station before later operating as a hotel. It was originally known as the Commercial Hotel.

the braided river system of the Upper Murray River Catchment north for another 270km. Along the way you’ll find the town of Dirranbandi (population about 600), a 40-minute drive from Hebel. Dirran, as it’s affectionately known, is home to Cubbie Station, the Southern Hemisphere’s largest irrigation property; 93,000ha, plus 220sq.km of irrigated cropping fields.

This vast producer of cotton, which receives flak elsewhere about its water use, is appreciated by the locals.

“Cubbie looks after Dirran really well. They source goods in town where they can and have a preference for employing locals,” says Nikki Pulfer, who runs the town’s only caravan park with her husband, Scott. “During the drought we got sick of people asking where Cubbie was hiding all the water so we worked with the company to develop guided tours,” she says. Now several times a week Nikki and Scott pile interested tourists into their minibus for a close-up view of this agricultural behemoth.

Until this year, Dirran could have been considered a drought epicentre, but much-prayed-for rains have made the “land of the croaking frogs” come alive again, as paddocks turned an almost-forgotten green and anglers danced in excitement.

Dirran is one of those well-kept fishing secrets, with free camping on the Balonne Minor River and a popular Easter weekend fishing competition and Carp Muster drawing crowds from across the region.

September . October 51

The setting sun is reflected in the waters of the Balonne River at St George, the fishing capital of inland QLD. The river supports a thriving local horticultural industry.

The most westerly QLD winery, Riversands Wines in St George, run by David (pictured) and Alison Blacket, is a popular stop with grey nomads and other tourists.

There’s a free campsite on the banks of the Balonne at Fishermans Park, Surat (above), offering drinking water, toilets and a dump point.

One of several secret camping spots on the Balonne Minor River at Dirranbandi (right).

Following the water upstream brings you to St George (population 3000) on the Balonne River, where weirs and dams enable a thriving horticultural hub. Among the carrots, garlic, blueberries, onions and ubiquitous cotton lies one of Queensland’s three main tablegrape-growing areas. It is also home to the state’s most western winery, Riversands, run by David and Alison Blacket. With a garden oasis, cafe and wine tasting, this is a popular stop on the tourist run.

“Grey nomads are our bread and butter,” David says.

“We produce red and white wine and sparklings, but fortifieds are our flagship.” Indeed, it is one particular fortified, with the memorable name of F#ing Good Port, which brings in the business. “It’s our biggest seller by far,” David says. With an eye for diversity, he runs winery, heritage and horticultural tours, working in collaboration with local producers to showcase the region.

The afternoon is well spent on the water after a lazy lunch and wine tasting at Riversands, and Brett Schweikert of Sandytown River Cruises is the bloke to see about that. He’ll take you along a 6km stretch of the river, past grand houses owned by cotton dynasties, and point out anything from whistling kites overhead to the best fishing spots for Murray cod and yellowbelly.

52 Australian Geographic

Brett has an encyclopaedic knowledge of the town’s history and natural environment. He grew up in St George, swimming in and skiing on the Balonne, with nights spent around campfires. “Give me the river any day,” he says. “It’s a great backyard.”

My journey along the Balonne next brings me to Surat (population 400), where there’s popular free riverbank camping at Fishermans Park and plenty of fish waiting to jump on your line. Want to identify those fish? A 25,000L freshwater aquarium is alongside the Cobb & Co. Changing Station Museum. “In August 1924 the last Cobb & Co. coach in Australia left from Surat to Yuleba,” Maranoa regional councillor Johanne Hancock says, explaining the historical connection to the town.

The complex offers a detailed insight to Cobb & Co. with a museum of permanent and temporary exhibitions and the showpiece working replica coach, named Tommy Thompson after one of the last coach drivers.

“Even though there is a romantic element to the Cobb & Co. story, I reckon it would Daraki Weatherall have been a very hard journey,” with a carp Johanne says, “and although you can caught in the take a trip back in time at Surat, you Dirranbandi fishing will also experience true modern competition. country hospitality.”

The TopX crew in action auctioning cattle at the Roma Saleyards.

Livestock from as far away as SA is brought here for trading.

“THE ROMA SALEYA R DS ARE THE MARKET INDICATOR FOR ALL CATTLE MARKETS ACROSS AUSTRALIA.” CATTLE AND COWBOYS The major rivers are left behind in Surat as the drive north enters fair-dinkum cattle country, and in Roma you can visit the largest cattle trading hub in Australia. Cyril Close is one of those fabled cattlemen you might be imagining. He’s worked on stations across Queensland, ridden the bulls and broncs in rodeos and is now co-owner of stock and station agency TopX. “The Roma Saleyards are the market indicator for all cattle markets across Australia, drawing cattle from as far away as South Australia and Northern Territory,” he says, between selling steers to his big-hatted, boot-wearing, jeans-clad audience.

Visitors, identified by their more urban attire, can wander through the newly opened Interpretive Centre at any time or, on Tuesdays, can join an organised tour of the sales. “Tours are a good thing because they showcase our industry,” Cyril says.

“I’ll have people pull up to talk and they are just gobsmacked by our way of life, but this is just what we do.”

Roma’s other big drawcard is natural gas, which was first found here in 1900. Not far past the saleyards you’ll find The Big Rig, where Australia’s oil-and-gas history comes alive. Self-guided tours are available, and most evenings the Night Show Sunset Experience (with some of that famous Riversands port) offers a sound-and-light exposé of the drama involved in developing today’s multimillion-dollar industry.

Roma has a population of almost 7000 and is a good place to stock up before again hitting the road for the hour-long drive northwards, often behind semitrailers carting gargantuan gasfield equipment, to the small town of Injune (population 450).

The people of Injune are horse and cow mad and you’re likely to have rocked up just as the races, gymkhana, cutting event or rodeo is on. If not on in Injune then there’s likely to be a similar event at Tooloombilla Station, about 45 minutes west through the Great Dividing Range.

If you’re especially lucky, you’ll hit town a couple of days before the campdraft and witness big mobs of cattle coming off the rangeland stations, being walked to town with a ring of stockriders in attendance.

On one organic rangeland station you’ll find Meraki Reach, a place to soothe body, mind and soul where Ellie Jackson is your host. “Meraki has a little bit of everything,” she says. “We’re a wellness retreat and a hideaway. We’ve got accommodation and a kitchen, a sauna and yoga swings. I can help you relax with a massage and nourish your body with fresh organic food.

“We host drum-making workshops and group sound healing, but if all you want to do is sit in the spa with a wine and watch the sunset, then that’s fine as well.” Among the crystal singing bowls and cushion-lined tipis, you will find “Ellie’s Range” hand-made cosmetics, but her goat’s milk soaps are so popular you’ll have to Continued page 56 shoulder the locals aside to get some.

September . October 53

FACT The Great Artesian Basin underlies 23 per cent of Australia, including most of Queensland.

54 Australian Geographic

T

HE GREAT INLAND WAY is a 2595km highway tourist route along fully sealed roads that travels inland from Orange to Cooktown. Some highlights along the way include Dubbo, Gilgandra, Coonamble, Walgett and Lightning Ridge in NSW, and Hebel, Dirranbandi, St George, Surat, Roma, Injune, Emerald, Charters Towers and Atherton in Queensland. A side-loop can be made from Atherton to Cairns, rejoining the Great Inland Way at Mareeba – a 143km detour. A range of accommodation can be found right along the route, in caravan parks, hotels and motels, host farms and backpackers’ quarters. Information on accommodation is available from local visitor information centres and tourist organisations. With Australians taking to the open road in droves these days, bookings are recommended.

THE GREAT INLAND WAY

Easter in the country.

TIMING YOUR TRIP As with any travel to inland Australia the best time of the year is March–October and this ensures you’ll find a special event on each month (and the coffee cart will be open in Rolleston!).

This list is a guide only; dates are subject to change because of COVID restrictions. Check local visitor centres for confirmation. .

The working replica coach at Surat’s Cobb & Co. Changing Station.

THE COBB & CO. WAY – SURAT TO YULEBA

A

RECOMMENDED side-trip is the 76km Cobb & Co. Way from Surat to Yuleba, following the route of Australia’s last horsedrawn stagecoach service. The delivery of passengers and mail along this route by coach was about an 11-hour trip with four changing stations along the way to swap tired horses. For creek crossings and boggy areas, saplings were cut and placed in the path of the coach to create a ‘corduroy road’, no doubt providing a thumping ride. Today the Cobb & Co. Way

March: Road to Roma Country Music Festival; Tooloombilla Rodeo and Campdraft (near Injune); St Patrick’s Day Races (Springsure) April (Easter): Easter in the Vines (St George); Easter in the Country (Roma); Central Highlands Easter Sunflower Festival (Emerald) May: Springsure Mountain Challenge (cross-country running); St George Show; Roma Show

is an easy drive along bitumen and well-maintained dirt roads with numerous signs indicating places of interest. Find flowering waterlilies on hidden lagoons, hear tales of highwaymen who became cattleduffers and rediscover the Beranga ghost. Halfway between Yuleba and Surat, camp for free at The Maryanne, a delightful spot with a small lake for canoeists, and agate and petrified wood for the rock hounds. It’s a 60km drive west along the Warrego Highway to rejoin the Great Inland Way at Roma.

June: Ag-Grow Emerald field days; Dirranbandi Fishing Competition; Injune Races

PHOTO CREDITS: COURTESY TOURISM AND EVENTS QUEENSLAND

July: Cotton Cup at St George Races; St George Yellowbelly Country Music and Poets Festival August: Gemfest on the Gemfields (Anakie); Cobb & Co. Festival (Surat – plan now for the next festival, which will be the 100-year anniversary in 2024) September: Surat Diggers’ Race Day October: Injune Rodeo Injune rodeo.

THE GEMFIELDS – EMERALD TO RUBYVALE

B

EFORE LEAVING Emerald, a recommended side-trip takes you 60km to the west, where you could strike it rich at the Sapphire Gemfields. You may think of sapphires as brilliant blue hues, and you’d be right; but they also come in a range of other colours, from golden yellows to marine greens and sunset pink-oranges. There are even ‘partis’, which are a combination of two or three colours.

Fossicking needs a licence, but offers the chance to find a rainbow.

Last year one couple, on their first

day of fossicking, found a 25-carat golden yellow sapphire on the surface. Taking it to the Brown family’s Rubyvale Gem Gallery for cutting, they walked away with a beautifully faceted gem. Those not wanting to get a fossicking licence can visit Pats Gems and have a coffee while washing and sieving for sapphires in her backyard complex. Pat has been mining for sapphires for most of the 47 years she’s been in the area.

“Once you’ve found your first sapphire, you’re hooked,” she says with a grin. “We call it gem fever.”

September . October 55

Back in Injune you’ll meet some of the friendliest locals on the whole trip volunteering at the visitor centre seven days a week. The pine-clad centre, reflecting the town’s cypress forestry industry, has a diverse collection of handmade goodies, a plethora of local information and a newly installed virtual reality experience. The volunteers love sharing stories of their area and will let you know which horse sport is on the weekend you’re in town, and then point you in the direction of the region’s prize jewel – Carnarvon Gorge.

The ethereal beauty of the Amphitheatre is accessed via a steep ladder and a cleft in the vertical white sandstone cliffs.

GORGEOUS Winding along the Great Inland Way as it enters the Carnarvon Range, it’s hard to imagine prettier country. Ancient cycads and eucalypts line the road as it dips and winds between the hills and mountains, following a creek here or an open grassy woodland there, guarded all the while by stark sandstone cliffs.

Through some of the steepest sections the roads are unfenced and cattle graze right up to and onto the bitumen. Be careful driving between sundown and sun-up – black cattle on a black road at night can be hard to see.

Side-trips can be made to the Arcadia Valley, renowned as some of the best cattle country in Australia, and Lake Nuga Nuga, an ideal spot to drop the canoe and connect with the birdlife. Nuga is particularly stunning when the water lilies are flowering, forming a purple carpet across the lake’s surface.

Back on the Great Inland Way you could make an overnight stop in the glamping tents of Wallaroo Outback Retreat, a 30,000ha working cattle station set among the wild ranges.

What sets Wallaroo apart is its collaboration with the ecologists of Boobook Ecotours, and a visit here is not complete without a tour with Boobook’s expert guides, who will give you an insight into not only the flora and fauna of the area, but also the Indigenous heritage.

56 Australian Geographic

But Carnarvon Gorge awaits, and it lives up to its spectacular reputation. Those feeling fit can walk the 9.7km along Carnarvon Creek to camp at Big Bend before continuing on the 87km Great Walk circuit. Those not quite as adventurous can spend several days walking the easier tracks, exploring exquisite Indigenous rock-art galleries, fern-clad grottoes and the ethereal majesty of the Amphitheatre, a cavernous hideaway accessed by a ladder and a cleft in the vertical white sandstone cliffs.

There are several accommodation options just outside the national park, each offering its own unique flavour. Sandstone Park is set high on a ridge; dogs and campfires are allowed and the views circle for 360 degrees.

CARNARVON GORGE AWAITS, AND IT LIVES UP TO ITS SPECTACULAR REPUTATION.

The sandstone ramparts of Carnarvon Gorge NP are a must-see stop-off along the Great Inland Way.

Takarakka Bush Resort on Carnarvon Creek has everything from unpowered campsites to cabins – and platypus in the creek’s clear waters. Carnarvon Gorge Wilderness Lodge, recently reopened after fire damage in 2018, is closest to the gorge and has 28 luxury safari cabins and an onsite restaurant. The biggest accommodation tip for Carnarvon Gorge is book early.

PHOTO CREDIT, ABOVE: COURTESY TOURISM AND EVENTS QUEENSLAND

HEADING NORTH On your last day at Carnarvon Gorge it’s recommended you climb up a series of ladders and 300 steps in the dark to witness sunrise at Boolimba Bluff. Then it’s back on the road and by mid-morning you’re going to need a coffee. If that’s the case, don’t bypass Rolleston (population 120), a 1.5km diversion off the Great Inland Way, just past the Springsure turn-off. Here a barista-trained local volunteer serves a brew from a mosaicadorned cart in a small park. The coffee cart is the brainchild of local grazier Bloss Hickson. “Bloss saw Rolleston looking pretty tired and ordinary with no reason for anyone to stop.

She could see the town disappearing and didn’t want that to happen,” Rolleston’s ex-publican Kay Becker relates. “So we started the coffee cart with assistance from the council and now we can’t stop. It’s just gone gangbusters.”

Money raised from this community venture was initially used to rejuvenate the park and the historic buildings within it.

“We paid for the cart and then we bought outdoor furniture, put down turf in the park, re-stumped the old post office and gave it a new verandah and steps,” Kay says. Now the volunteers are reaching out to fund other community organisations: the perfect small-town success story.

It’s another 71km along the Great Inland Way to Springsure (population 1000), driving past cropping country and turn-offs to coalmines. Springsure, sitting snugly surrounded by the volcanic peaks and ranges of Minerva Hills, is perhaps the most scenic

town on the route, and a must-see stop-off for those who chase the setting and rising of the sun. The Minerva Hills National Park shadows the town and a hairy bit of road ascends to the cliff tops. Leave the caravan behind and familiarise yourself with the area during the day – then you’ll know what you’re in for when you drive up to Eclipse Gap Lookout the next morning in the dark to take in another spectacular sunrise.

Head further north and another small diversion off the main route will bring you to Fairbairn Dam. This is the perfect place to launch a boat, catch a feed of fish and relax before crossing the dam wall and arriving in the largest town on this part of the Great Inland Way – Emerald. With a population of 14,000, it has all the amenities you’d expect from a large regional centre.

Kerri and Wayne Deakin opened the Emerald Central Palms Motel in 2007 and have created a welcoming haven for visitors. “It’s a home away from home, and as you can see, they keep coming in,” Kerri says. “We keep things simple but we’re open 24 hours and I’ll take phone calls all night. I believe we should look after all our visitors, and if I can’t fit them in, I’ll ring around till I can find them a bed.” Kerri is a one-woman walking advertisement for Emerald. “The three top things to do are: go to the visitor centre with the giant sunflower [a 25m-high easel in the likeness of Vincent Van Gogh’s Sunflowers], then the heritage-listed train station and our beautiful botanic gardens,” she says.

If Kerri lets you leave, there’s still another 1000km before you hit the Atherton Tableland. Having slowed down by now and got into the swing of this road trip, it would be a shame to miss the rest: Capella’s Pioneer Village; Theresa Creek Dam near Clermont; the isolated Belyando Crossing roadhouse; the gold town of Charters Towers; Undara Lava Tubes; and a wondrous soak in the waters of Innot Hot Springs. But those AG are tales for another day.

September . October 57

Billion-dollar fish

Researchers discovered in 2017 that tuna control the shape of their fins using a kind of pressurised biological hydraulic system, enabling them to manoeuvre accurately at speed while conserving energy. “They’re a pretty bloody impressive piece of equipment,” says NZ longline fisher Captain Michael ‘Smithy’ Smith.

58 Australian Geographic

Tuna are the gold of the ocean, and because certain species are so highly sought after, they’ve become synonymous with overfishing and modern slavery. But some populations that were teetering on the edge of total wipeout seem to be making a tentative comeback. Are things finally turning around for these fisheries?

STORY BY KATE EVANS PHOTOGRAPHY BY RICHARD ROBINSON .

September . October 59

HEY HAD STARTED paying out the line the previous after-

noon, steaming ahead at full speed while sending out mile after mile of 3mm-thick monofilament behind them into the Tasman Sea. Every 11 seconds or so, the crew clipped a snood, a 14m length of nylon, onto the main line. On the end of the snood dangled an arrow squid the size of a human hand, and a 60g lead weight. By the time they were done it was dark and the main line stretched for about 30 nautical miles, invisible beneath the surface of the water.

In the far distance, the Southern Alps glowed, a white line above the New Zealand west coast.

It was the first surface longline fishing trip for Michael Smith, the boat’s captain. Universally known as Smithy, he grew up in Greymouth, on the South Island’s West Coast, when there were only a couple of choices for a bloke looking for physical work. You could go down the mines or go to sea. Smithy was 15 when he chose the sea. Since then, he’d tried his hand at inshore trawling, deepwater trawling for orange roughy and hoki, and bottom longlining for ling, hapuku and bluenose. At 44, he wanted a new challenge. Trawling was mechanised, but longlining for tuna was hands-on – a personal fight with each individual fish.

When the crew started hauling the line in again, in the middle of the night, hook after hook had a fat tuna attached. Smithy grinned: they’d struck a school of the big, oily, delicious fish.

As the boat approached each tuna, one of the crew unclipped the snood from the main line and transferred it to a fight line.

The men’s attention turned to that one animal. Smithy took the fight line in gloved hands, feeling the pull of the fish below battling for freedom.

The line slackened and he knew the fish was winding up its strength. “Oh, he’s going to run!” Smithy yelled. Then twaaang, the line shot away from him, his hands burning as it slid through his grip. He let it slide. He needed to play the fish, let it run for a bit, then let it know who was boss. You couldn’t just chuck it in a hauler and bring it up using the brute force of a hydraulic lift – that would rip the hook out of its mouth.

Smithy fought the hefty bluefin to the side of the boat and the three other crew helped to hoist its glistening gunmetal body onto the deck. It weighed perhaps 150kg. One of the men shoved a stainless-steel spike into a dimple on its head, killing it instantly, then slipped the deck hose into its hot insides for 15 minutes to flush out the blood. Smithy went back to the wheel, gunned the engine, and moved the boat on to the next hook.

Soon, there were eight or 10 massive fish on the deck, blood trailing behind the boat, sharks circling. Smithy was surrounded by life and death. Wow, he thought, this is a frickin’ blast. It was 8am by the time they’d hauled in the final fish. Smithy had just worked 18 hours straight – but that was the nature of fishing.

You worked until the job was done. It was hard but it came with such an adrenaline rush. I dunno if I’ll ever grow out of this, Smithy thought.

60 Australian Geographic

Leading deckhand Tamati Te Au works quickly to prepare each tuna for storage. After the fish has bled out, he guts it and removes the tail and fins. The sodden carpet on the deck minimises damage to the flesh.

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UNA ARE SOME of the largest, fastest, most finely tuned

fish in the sea – schooling, torpedo-shaped, migratory hunters. Humans have hunted them in turn for thousands of years. We stamped their image onto coins in ancient times, and incorporated them into music and art from the Mediterranean Sea to the Pacific Ocean.

Today, tuna are among the world’s most lucrative fish, netting US$40.8 billion globally in 2018, according to a report by US-based policy research group the Pew Charitable Trusts. Tuna fisheries employ people in more than 70 countries, and sustain the economies of multiple Pacific Island nations.

But soaring demand for tuna during the past 50 years has decimated global populations of the fish. Forced labour and abusive working conditions are rife in some offshore fleets, and controversies abound over bycatch and damaging fishing methods.

The same six species of tuna fished commercially in New Zealand and Australian waters – southern bluefin, Pacific bluefin, yellowfin, bigeye, albacore and skipjack – are also caught by small-scale fishers in the coastal waters of Pacific nations, and by industrial purse seine fishing vessels and longliners operating in the island states’ exclusive economic zones and in the remote high seas.

The Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC), established in 2004 to conserve stocks of tuna and other highly migratory fish, is the organisation that manages the populations of tuna fished in the area: albacore, skipjack, yellowfin and bigeye. In 2019, the region’s catch of all four species totalled 3 million tonnes – the largest in history.

More tuna are caught in the waters off Kiribati each year than in the entire Atlantic Ocean. Even so, according to the latest stock assessments, all four tropical tuna populations are in the green.

According to Francisco Blaha, a fisheries consultant for Pacific Island nations who is based on Waiheke Island, off

In NZ waters, southern bluefin tuna are mostly caught by surface longlining. It’s hard, bloody and thrilling work. Each fish is fought from the ocean by hand, killed quickly, bled, gutted and trimmed, and treated with the utmost care until it is sold for several thousand dollars at a Japanese fish market.

September . October 61

Atlantic bluefin tuna

Southern bluefin tuna

Pacific bluefin tuna

Thunnus thynnus

Thunnus maccoyii

Thunnus orientalis

Bluefin distribution

T Auckland, when it comes to the sustainability of tuna catches, the western and central portion of the Pacific is doing better than anywhere else in the world.

The situation is different for two species fished in Australian and New Zealand waters: the most valuable tuna, southern bluefin and Pacific bluefin, which migrate south in winter. In New Zealand, they are targeted by a few dozen surface longliners, such as the one Smithy works on. Smithy’s crew mostly catch southern bluefin, but they’ll occasionally haul up a giant, even more lucrative, Pacific bluefin: “We refer to them as a lottery fish: it only takes one hook to turn your whole trip around,” Smithy says. “I’ve never had one of those really monster bluefins, but I might get one next week. That’s the beauty of it.”

The southern bluefin Smithy catches are mostly destined to become sashimi in Japan. Each fish will be laid out on the floor at fish markets and auctioned to the highest bidder. In 2019 a 278kg Pacific bluefin caught off Japan was bought at Toyosu Market in Tokyo for a record NZ$4.3 million by the attention-seeking owner of a Japanese sushi restaurant chain.

On a normal day, Pacific and southern bluefi n net about $38 and $35 per kilo respectively, according to Pew research, meaning each fish is still worth thousands of dollars.

On Smithy’s boat, the fish are treated accordingly. The deck is covered with carpet to minimise damage to their shiny skin.

On some longliners, tuna are carefully wrapped in muslin shrouds and placed in ice in the hold.

Smithy’s vessel has a refrigerated brine tank instead, fi lled with water chilled to below zero. After being bled, gutted and gilled, the fish are given unique tags to identify them, and immersed in the tank as soon as possible after leaving the sea, preventing deterioration. “Every fish is precious,” Smithy says. “We treat them like a baby, apart from the fact we’ve killed them.”

The animal itself is worthy of respect, Smithy says, but it’s his job to catch it, and he loves it. “In a perfect world, maybe we shouldn’t be hunting the apex predators…but it’s a good living, and it’s a good clean fishery. I certainly don’t want to drive any species to extinction. That’s not logical. You want them to survive.”

It’s hard to judge a fishery over just seven years, Smithy acknowledges, but it looks healthy enough to him. “From what I see, there’s no shortage of tuna around where we work.

But I don’t know what goes on overseas.”

62 Australian Geographic

HAT IS THE challenge

when it comes to globetrotting fish such as tuna. They might visit a country in some seasons, during some stages in their life cycle, but their peregrinations depend on climate and currents, and take them across oceans and borders. Managing tuna fisheries requires cooperation, diplomacy and negotiation between nations that don’t always see eye to eye. For the past 30 years or so, those negotiations have taken place within regional fisheries management organisations such as the WCPFC. The story of the southern bluefin tuna is both a cautionary tale and a cautiously hopeful example of success. Southern bluefin are powerful hunters, and their diet consists of fish, squid and crustaceans. Their warm blood supercharges their muscles, allowing them to accelerate at twice the rate of a Ferrari, and maintain a steady pace of 3km/h for weeks at a time. They live for much longer than other tuna species, up to 40 years, and the largest of them top 2.5m in length and 260kg in weight.

Unlike skipjack tuna, which are sexually mature at the age of one or two years, southern bluefin don’t reproduce until they are at least eight years old.

“It’s kind of the difference between rhinos and rabbits,” says Amanda Nickson, the director of international fisheries research and advocacy at Pew. Then again, a rhino has one calf every two to five years.

When a female southern bluefin spawns, she releases several million eggs into the warm seas south of Java, where the entire population of adult southern bluefin meets each summer to breed. It’s not known whether all female southern bluefins spawn every year, and only a fraction of those eggs will survive the terrors of the open ocean to become juveniles, but those that do follow the Leeuwin Current down Australia’s west coast.

In summer the juvenile fish hang out in the Great Australian Bight, where some are rounded up by South Australian vessels and towed to aquaculture pens in Port Lincoln to fatten up.

Adult bluefin tuna leave their tropical spawning grounds in autumn and migrate to the cool, deep waters of the southern Atlantic, Indian and Pacific oceans to feed.

Commercial vessels started fishing southern bluefin in the 1950s, and the global fishery peaked in the early 1960s with more than 80,000t taken in one year. Fisheries management aimed to maximise catches, not sustainability. In the late 1970s, the south-east Australian southern bluefin fishery collapsed, and by the early 1980s, it was clear the species as a whole was in trouble.

In 1989 Australia, Japan and New Zealand began discussing what to do. They set a global quota of 11,750t – about half of what the catch had been in previous years. (In 1989 New Zealand also voluntarily set its quota far below that of other countries, at 420t compared with Australia’s 5265t – apparently as a “grand green gesture”, says tuna governance expert Kate Barclay from the University of Technology Sydney.)

Managing tuna fisheries requires cooperation, diplomacy and negotiation between nations that don’t always see eye to eye.

The convention to which all parties agreed came into force in 1994, with the Commission for the Conservation of Southern Bluefin Tuna (CCSBT) formed to administer it. During the next few years, there were heated disagreements about how many southern bluefin were left – estimates were full of uncertainty and relied on logbook data from Japanese longline vessels. There were also disputes about what the total catch should be, how it should be divvied up between the nations as quota, and whether Japan should be given additional quota to allow for research.

Australia and New Zealand argued there were too few fish to allow some to be caught for scientific purposes, and no country wanted to give up any commercial quota for research. In 1998 Japan declared it would take a 1425t scientific quota anyway, and Australia and New Zealand responded by taking Japan to the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea. Tensions were high, and because countries couldn’t agree, the quota remained what it had been since 1989.

Seeking to reduce the conflict, in 2002 the CCSBT began working on a “management procedure” for southern bluefin tuna, meaning that the total catch would be determined in response to scientific research, rather than as a result of negotiation.

On board Brid Voyager, deckhand Nyrin Wills transfers a freshly caught southern bluefin into ice in the freezing hold. When the hold is full and the boat returns to port, the catch is unloaded by hoist.

But in 2006, a scandal erupted that undermined confidence in both science and international cooperation: an independent review of southern bluefin sold in major Japanese tuna markets revealed there had been substantial, continuous under-reporting of longline catches dating back 20 years. It equated to 178,000t in unreported catch – more than double Japan’s agreed quota for the period.

The report was never made public, and Japan did not accept its findings, but agreed to halve its quota for five years. Australian researchers say a significant proportion of the illegal catch was taken by Japanese fleets. Since much of the available information about the abundance of the stock relied on data collected by these fleets, the population estimates were probably also inaccurate.

A 2009 stock assessment revealed that two decades of international management had not been able to increase the numbers of fish. The global catch was 10,941t – the lowest in more than 50 years – and the numbers of breeding adults were estimated to be just 5 per cent of what they’d been before commercial fishing began. Southern bluefin numbers had declined so quickly that in 2011 the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) listed the species as critically endangered on its Red List of threatened species. Some scientists said the species was unlikely to recover.

The same year, after more than a decade of negotiation, the CCSBT finally agreed on a management procedure, a September . October 63

The CCSBT’s modelling estimates the tuna population has increased by about 5 per cent every year since 2011. set of science-based rules that would be used to determine catch limits. Its goal: build up southern bluefin tuna numbers to 20 per cent of the original, unfished spawning population by 2035 while allowing commercial fishing.

This system has really turned things around for the southern bluefin, says Pew’s Amanda Nickson. “It’s close to a world first, and it’s the reason you are starting to see some incremental improvements in that population. It means that science is at the very heart of the decision-making every time. The industry considers it one of the best things that was ever done.”

It was so successful, in fact, that the CCSBT’s modelling estimates the tuna population has increased by about 5 per cent every year since 2011. It reached the 20 per cent goal early, in 2020. In 2018 the total catch was increased to 17,647t per year, where it has remained. A new management procedure has been adopted, with the goal of reaching 30 per cent of the original tuna population by 2035. Non-profits such as WWF and Pew argue that 40 per cent is a safer target, providing a buffer against climate change or other shocks.

Then, dragging the cage behind them, they start the long, slow trip home to Port Lincoln, Australia’s tuna capital 245km west of Adelaide. Travelling at just 1 knot, the journey can take several weeks. Once a day, sometimes more, Miletic suits up with two colleagues and gets into the pen, checking for signs of illness in the tuna, or damage to the cage, such as a hole caused by a shark. By the time they arrive at Port Lincoln, the fish are so used to Miletic’s presence he can just about touch them.

The fish are transferred into large, circular farms floating in Boston Bay. They spend the next 4–6 months being fed sardines twice daily, eating as much as possible. “It’s just an ongoing smorgasbord from sun-up to sundown for these fish,” Miletic says.

Finally, in late winter, it’s all over. The fish have fattened up, reaching 18–50kg. A small purse seine is shot off inside the pen, capturing about 700 tuna, the number that can be processed in a day.

Miletic, wearing neoprene dive gloves, positions himself in the net near a conveyor belt that runs from the water’s surface up into the fishing boat. Then he grabs each fish with his hands as it swims past. “It’s all timing and precision,” he says. He HEN THE BAIT hits the water, grasps the tail first, then flips the heavy things are quiet for a mofish upside down and back-to-front – a ment, and then the feeding disorienting position that momentarily Skipjack distribution frenzy begins. Kris Miletic pulls on his stuns it. Then he puts his hand on its nose wetsuit as the crew encircles the school of and guides it into the conveyor belt. “I can do Katsuwonus pelamis juvenile southern bluefin tuna in a purse seine net that move every 10 seconds…but it’s taken me a the size of a football field. Another boat manoeuvres lot of years to get in tune with these fish and practise my techniques to be able to harvest them like that.” an even larger floating cage into position nearby.

Then it’s Miletic’s turn. Using just a mask and snorkel he On the boat, the fish is spiked, bled, gutted and placed in a jumps into the purse seine. At first all he can see is water, then tank full of ice, until it is transferred to a Japanese freezer ship, he’s surrounded by fish. One swims lightning-fast towards him flown directly to Japan’s fresh-fish markets or, increasingly, sold and turns, at the last millisecond, centimetres from his face. The to Australian restaurants and retailers.

“I don’t look at them as a piece of sashimi, I look at them as rest of the world disappears, and it’s just Miletic and the tuna.

Like them, he’s a potential part of the food chain. a species,” Miletic says. “I find them quite intelligent. I feel so comfortable with them. They are beautiful animals.”

Miletic’s job right now is to estimate the number of bluefin in the net, and how old they are. Last time the net was set, If he feels any discomfort over it, he says, it’s no different from he guessed that they numbered 4500, and he was pretty that of a farmer who loves his cows but turns them into beef. close – there were 4800. If too many are too small – juveniles aged two or three years – the crew might decide to open the HREE DECADES AGO, no-one thought voracious, minet and set them free. But these fish are mostly about 8–10 gratory tuna could thrive in a cage, but ranching has years, so Miletic connects the net to a sea gate that opens into been so successful that most of Australia’s 6165t quota the floating cage. of southern bluefin is now harvested from the pens off Port The captain operating the purse seine starts drawing up the Lincoln. The remote town of about 16,000 people lies near the net, and the tuna are channelled into the pen. Under water, tip of SA’s Eyre Peninsula. For two generations, tuna has been Miletic counts every tenth fish, and a video camera also records such big business that the place reputedly has more millionaires numbers. It takes just six minutes to transfer 400 fish. per capita than any other Australian locality.

In the 1950s, European immigrants began pole-and-line He climbs aboard. Already, spotter planes are searching the Great Australian Bight from above for other schools of tuna, fi shing for southern bluefi n in the area. They switched to and while the weather holds and the fish are abundant, Miletic purse seining in the 1970s, about the time Miletic’s boatbuilder and the crew repeat the process until the tow pen contains father arrived in SA from Croatia and got work building steel tuna boats.

13,000–15,000 southern bluefins.

W

T

64 Australian Geographic

The bluefin in Port Lincoln’s pontoons have to eat at least 9kg of sardines to put on 1kg of weight, making them one of the most feed-hungry species in aquaculture. But industry spokesman Brian Jeffriess says captive bluefins put on twice as much weight for the same amount of food as their wild counterparts, because they aren’t using as much energy avoiding predators, hunting and migrating. “All we are doing is relocating the same tuna and using half the sardines for much higher growth and lower mortality. It is the same tuna, and the same sardines.”

September . October 65

Albacore distribution Thunnus alalunga

The town endured tough times when the global catch limit was slashed by 70 per cent in the early 1990s. A new strategy was called for, and some local fishers pioneered the idea of tuna ranching. Now the practice has spread globally. According to Brian Jeffriess, chief executive of the Australian Southern Bluefin Tuna Industry Association, 70 per cent of the global market for premium sashimi (made up of southern, Atlantic and Pacific bluefin tuna) is now produced by farming, while the remaining 30 per cent is caught by longlining operations such as the one worked on by Smithy.

T

Smithy’s and Miletic’s jobs – the fact that fishing for southern bluefin looks so different in Australia than in New Zealand – has led to international tensions. Australia criticises New Zealand over its high levels of seabird bycatch, says Jeffriess, who attends the CCSBT’s annual meetings. “Bycatch is the skeleton in the cupboard in this fishery, and New Zealand’s performance on seabird bycatch is a very sore point with the other countries.”

New Zealand reported to the CCSBT that 167 albatrosses and 79 giant petrels were killed as a result of fishing for southern bluefin tuna in its waters in 2019. That means for every 10,000 hooks that hit the water, four albatrosses were killed – a much higher rate than for Australia’s small tuna longline fleet.

Dr Stephanie Borrelle, BirdLife International’s marine and Pacific coordinator, says the real number of deaths is likely higher. Bycatch numbers are either self-reported by fishers or recorded by independent fisheries observers, who are required by the CCSBT to be present on only 10 per cent of bluefin tuna fishing trips. (Pacific-wide, COVID disruptions have meant that observer coverage on tuna boats has dropped dramatically.)

Fisheries New Zealand’s own reports indicate that non-fish bycatch is significantly more likely to be reported when an observer is onboard.

By contrast, Australian tuna longliners are required to have cameras, and authorities randomly review about 10 per cent of the footage. Unreported seabird bycatch leads to the vessel being flagged and investigated, meaning compliance is high, Borrelle says. In New Zealand, although the addition of cameras to all fishing vessels is planned, it has been repeatedly delayed.

Surface longliners fishing for bluefin tuna in New Zealand waters have to use a tori line – a string running above the main longline with metre-long fluoro streamers flapping on it to deter birds. In addition, fishers must either set their line at night, when seabirds are less active, or add extra weights, so the line sinks quickly out of the birds’ reach.

HE CONTRAST BETWEEN

66 Australian Geographic

“I don’t look at them as a piece of sashimi, I look at them as a species. I find them quite intelligent. I feel so comfortable with them. They are beautiful animals.”

In Port Lincoln, divers Brandon Williams and Blake Staunton check the tuna for disease and the pens for damage. Feeding the captive southern bluefins requires about 97 per cent of SA’s 34,200t sardine catch. That fishery is Australia’s largest by volume, yet it remains healthy – last year’s stock assessment estimates there were more adult sardines than any year since 1990.

September . October 67

“The fact remains that southern bluefin tuna is still an endangered species.”

T

Not that these measures always work. If a big fish on the HE POPULATION OF SOUTHERN bluefi n tuna is bounchook fights its way to the surface, it might bring other empty, ing back: that’s something the negotiators mostly agree on. But governments and fishing industries have been baited hooks along with it, attracting birds.

These days Smithy almost always sets his line at night. If a wrong about such things before. How can they be sure now? hook comes up with bait still on it, the crew don’t throw it over New genetic sampling methods are giving scientists the the side, like they used to, but store it on board so birds aren’t most accurate picture yet of just how many southern bluefin are swimming around, and they don’t rely on reporting by encouraged to follow the boat. Smithy has even made his own seabird deterrent: lengths of bamboo strung over the part of the the commercial fishing industry. boat where the fish are hauled aboard.

Every two years, CSIRO researchers charter a commercial vessel and take tiny muscle tissue samples from about 5000 twoObservers come on his boat every year to check the procedures. But despite all these measures, there are times – especially year-old southern bluefin tuna. They do a DNA test on each, around the full moon, Smithy says – when catching a few birds which becomes an invisible, lifelong tag for that fish – and unlike traditional physical tags, can’t fall out. The tuna, meanwhile, is unavoidable. “On some trips, you might get half-a-dozen in are released and continue their normal migration. The one set,” he says. following summer, most of them meet up again Birds and fishing boats are drawn to the same in the waters of the Great Australian Bight, rich waters, and longline bait is irresistible to an albatross. “There are mitigation measures where Miletic and his colleagues scoop up that work, but you have to use all of them, some of the now three-year-olds and drag and you have to follow them diligently,” them into Port Lincoln.

Borrelle says.

A few months later, CSIRO researchers collect random tissue samples At last year’s CCSBT 2020 meeting, BirdLife International singled out from 10,000 to 15,000 of those fish as New Zealand (along with Japan) for its they’re processed on the factory line and “unacceptably high” numbers of seabird do another DNA test. Based on how deaths, and urged the country to adopt many matches they get – how many of Yellowfin distribution the tagged fish are caught the following year more stringent measures. “Until we have electronic monitoring of some kind – maybe – the scientists can estimate the total number Thunnus albacares not cameras, but some way of verifying that they’re of two-year-old fish in the population. using these mitigation measures correctly – then we can’t The first estimate of juvenile abundance using this method, in 2016, was 2.27 million two-year-olds, based on tell other countries to do the same thing,” Borrelle says.

Meanwhile, New Zealand is taking issue with the way finding 20 matching DNA fingerprints. In 2017, that numAustralia counts fish and estimates the weight of juvenile bluefin ber dropped to 1.15 million, and 1.14 million in 2018 – but entering the Port Lincoln pens. The weight determines whether CSIRO’s Ann Preece cautions that breeding success naturally Australia is sticking to its quota, but because the fish aren’t killed varies from year to year. until later, the ranchers can’t weigh them directly. Instead, they But it’s CSIRO’s second tool, Close-Kin Mark-Recapture rely on video footage of the fish entering the farms from the (CKMR), that has scientists and the industry most excited. towing pens and use algorithms to convert the estimated lengths The method has taken 15 years to fine-tune and gives researchof the fish into tonnes. ers the ability to estimate the population of breeding adults It’s not a perfect science, and negotiators from New Zealand – a crucial measure for assessing the sustainability of fishing. and some other countries think the Australians should try a Instead of counting how often the same fish is caught twice, different technique that’s used in Europe – stereo video, which CKMR assesses the probability of finding fish that are related they say is more accurate. Australia disagrees and is “dragging to each other. its feet” in improving its estimates, says Glen Holmes, a marine Each year, CSIRO scientists take tissue samples from threeecologist with Pew’s international fisheries program. year-old juvenile southern bluefin tuna harvested from the pens But New Zealand’s government negotiators feel so strongly in Port Lincoln and compare them with samples from breeding about the weight-estimation issue that in 2019 they said they adults wild-caught in Indonesia. Genetic tests reveal the numbers wouldn’t accept any changes to the total catch unless Australia of parent-offspring pairs among the sampled fish. could show it had improved its counting techniques. Non“We’re aiming to get in the order of 50 pairs out of 15,000 profits, including Pew, say that using quota as a bargaining chip samples, so it’s a needle in a haystack,” says CSIRO’s Dr Campbell sets a dangerous precedent. Decoupling catch limits from sciDavies, the lead scientist behind the research. ence-based rules could reintroduce long political negotiations, Complex formulae generate the final estimate of the numand therefore undermine the system credited with bringing ber of breeding adults, but the principle is simple, Davies says. southern bluefin back from the brink.

Imagine a small village. If you chose 20 random people from 68 Australian Geographic

Some of Smithy’s bluefin tuna end up at Lee Fish in Leigh, north of Auckland, where they are processed by Wayne Penman. He cuts small sections from each tuna’s tail and uses the colour (ideally bright, steaky) and fat content (ideally high) to assess its quality. The tail cut tells a lot about the rest of the fish. Photographs of the cuts are sent to Japan so buyers know what they are bidding on.

that village, it’s likely that some would be related, or that you’d find a mother and child, he explains. If you plucked 20 random people from the streets of Auckland, the chances would be much lower. Similarly, the number of parent-offspring pairs found tells them whether there’s a village or a city of fish out there.

CKMR was pioneered for southern bluefin tuna in 2012 and incorporated into the CCSBT’s stock assessment for the first time in 2013. It showed that the population was larger than previous stock assessments had predicted. “I’m sure that helped generate enthusiasm for the technique,” Davies says dryly.

New genetic techniques called SNPs (similar to those used for COVID tests) have also allowed Davies’ team to identify half-sibling pairs – fish born to one common parent in different years. That provides a separate measure of abundance, allows the scientists to check their working, and also tells them the parent has survived to breed again.

“If you do enough of those over enough years,” Davies says, “then you can estimate what the mortality rate of the adults is without ever having seen them.”

Last year the population of spawning southern bluefin tuna (not including the more numerous juveniles) was estimated to be between 1.4 million and 1.8 million individuals, using the CKMR technique. “We’ve demonstrated you can do this for an international fishery where there’s a lot of value, and a lot of political controversy and interest,” Davies says.

The method has since been adopted for estimating populations of New Zealand and Australian great white sharks.

CSIRO is working with other regional fisheries management organisations to trial CKMR for other tuna populations, including Pacific bluefin, Atlantic bluefin, the South Pacific albacore stock, and yellowfin tuna in the Indian Ocean.

All of those will be more complex than southern bluefin, Davies says, because the other species breed in multiple locations and are more numerous, meaning sample sizes need to be much larger to have a chance of finding a statistically significant number of matches. But those problems should be solvable. “It’s potentially quite applicable to a very broad range of fisheries, not just tuna,” he says, “but it comes down to political institutional will.”

The innovation “is about as good as it gets” for SA tuna industry spokesman Jeffriess. “If you’re investing heavily in value-adding and buying quota, you really need to be as sure as you can be about the future of the stock,” he says. “That’s the foundation of everything.”

There’s no doubt that the future of southern bluefin is looking a lot better than it was 10 years ago, says the manager of WWF’s Western and Central Pacific Tuna Programme, Bubba Cook, a ponytailed Texan now living in Wellington, New Zealand. But we shouldn’t forget how bad things were, he cautions.

“There is this tendency for fisheries managers and the industry to pop champagne corks and pat themselves on the back whenever they recover a collapsed fishery,” Cook says. “That’s great, but it should never have collapsed in the first place.

“The fact remains that southern bluefin tuna is still an endangered species.”

I

S THAT STILL TRUE? Is the southern bluefin still endangered?

Certainly, the most current IUCN Red List classifies southern bluefin as critically endangered, but that assessment was made in 2011, before the species’ recovery.

Dr Bruce Collette led the team responsible for that verdict a decade ago, and he’s recently completed another analysis of all 61 species of tuna, mackerel and billfish (which includes marlin and swordfish).

Collette is a veteran ichthyologist who spent most of his 60-year career at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington and he’s also the chair of the IUCN’s Tuna and Billfish Specialist Group.

The group has just recommended to the IUCN that southern bluefin tuna be moved from the worst-possible status of critically endangered up to endangered, but the IUCN has not yet made this official. IUCN ratings are derived in part September . October 69

In the Port of Suva, Fiji (above), a longliner rests on its side, one of dozens of wrecks of boats that have fished the waters of the 22 island nations of the central and western Pacific. This industrialised international fishery accounts for returns seven times greater than those of the Pacific Island nations themselves. Tuvalu fisher Faiva Makatui (below) heads into Sir Roberts Wharf in Alofi in the South Pacific nation of Niue.

70 Australian Geographic

There should be no technical barriers when it comes to tracing tuna from bait to plate. from how much a species’ population has declined over three This cuts close to home for WWF’s Bubba Cook. In 2015, generations. Long-lived, late-spawning southern bluefins have his good friend Keith Davis went missing while working as an lengthy generations spanning 12–20 years, meaning three genobserver on a tuna transshipment vessel in the eastern Pacific, erations would encompass between 36 and 60 years.

800km from the coast of Peru. Davis, an American, was the Due to overfishing, the species declined by 78 to 90 per cent fourth fisheries observer to disappear in mysterious circumover those decades, Collette explains. “It takes a long time to stances on the job in recent years. He is presumed murdered.

When Cook heard what happened, the first thing he did was recover from that.”

It also means the species must make consistent gains over to try to prevent the ship selling its haul of tuna, to hold the the next few decades to climb out of its endangered status, he companies involved accountable and “hurt them in the pocketbook”. He contacted everyone he could think of but was told it says. “Then it will probably be threatened, or near threatened, was impossible: the supply chain was “too diffuse and opaque”. or vulnerable. Everybody is doing the right thing for southern “Those fish ended up being offloaded in Panama,” Cook bluefin. But it’s gonna take a while.”

Collette says the Red List criteria were developed for land laments, “and so the product of a murder ultimately made it animals, and acknowledges that the benchmarks are not into people’s homes and onto their dinner plates.” perfectly suited to commercially fished marine In the years since, Cook has made it his mission species. His team has faced criticism from both to champion new technologies that promise conservationists “saying everything’s a disasto untangle those murky supply chains and make tuna traceable. ter” and fishers “saying there’s more fish Pilot studies show huge potential. than we’ve ever seen before”.

Satellites can be harnessed to show where A fish population numbering in the fishing is occurring in places it shouldn’t, millions doesn’t sound close to extincand artificial intelligence is starting to be tion, but ecosystems are complex, and we don’t yet know where tipping points used to review images, video footage and lie for species that are naturally numerradio communications for illegal activity. ous. There has also been little research “That will change the entire landscape,” Bigeye distribution into the role southern bluefin tuna play in Cook says. “We’ll no longer be in a situation the wider ocean. The species might be back where the sea keeps her secrets.”

Thunnus obesus up to 20 per cent of the unfished population, but Rapid genetic testing, too, will give authorities less than a century ago there were five times as many more power to crack down on rule breakers. In 2016 two swimming from the tropics to the Southern Ocean each year.

Chinese vessels, Da Yang 15 and Da Yang 16, were boarded by What other rhythms were lost as their numbers dwindled? officials on a New Zealand government high seas patrol operClimate change adds more uncertainty. Modelling predicts ation in international waters. Genetic samples taken from the the Pacific stocks of skipjack and yellowfin tuna will move catch and sequenced back in a New Zealand lab a few weeks eastwards as the globe warms, out of the jurisdictions of some later revealed that more than 100t of valuable southern bluefin Pacific nations. And all the southern bluefin in the world breed had been misreported as lower-value bigeye. in one location south of Indonesia, gathering together to release The following year, the Chinese government deregistered the their sperm and eggs at once. If something goes wrong – such as fishing company and fined it $850,000. “China had to concede the waters get too warm, or too many adults are taken from the that they were fishing southern bluefin illegally,” Cook says. population for there to be the necessary critical mass to trigger “Technology provided the smoking gun.”

Such genetic checks are about to get even easier, he says, with spawning – breeding could fail to happen at all. the recent development of a hand-held device that can confirm VEN IF THE SCIENCE shows a tuna stock is healthy, that the identity of a fish in two hours. doesn’t mean you can say the same about the people Likewise, there should be no technical barriers when it working on the fishing boats. comes to tracing tuna from bait to plate. Due to public health The complexity of tuna supply chains, and the difficulty and legal concerns over E. coli, it’s already possible to track of tracing fish back to where they were caught, has made it a bunch of spinach as it travels from the grower to a superhard to hold people accountable for poaching or human-rights market shelf. WWF has trialled blockchain technologies that abuses. In the wider Pacific, the tuna industry is still rife with will make it possible to do the same for fish, Cook says, and allegations of modern slavery – human trafficking, debt bondage, prevent fishing companies from falsifying information about physical and sexual abuse, extreme sleep deprivation, medical their catch, but it will take political will and economic imperatives to force the industry and nations to implement them. neglect and even murder. Meanwhile, tuna companies and reIn the meantime, Cook explains, the choice for consumers tailers, campaigners say, are making “startlingly little progress” over which tuna to eat isn’t clear-cut. in eliminating abuses from their supply chains.

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September . October 71

Is there a moral case for reframing tuna as a creature worthy of our protection, a being worth more than its flesh?

In 2021 four vessels targeted skipjack tuna in NZ waters (down from six in 2017). This one can hold 300t of tuna, which means that 100,000 individual fish can be caught on one trip.

“Until we can get that transparency in the supply chain where we can start to squeeze out the guys who aren’t doing the right thing and reward the guys who are,” he says, “it’s going to be a real challenge for consumers to make well-informed and well-intentioned choices.”

O

NE RADICAL OPTION for arresting the global tuna de-

cline was raised by American writer Paul Greenberg in his 2010 book Four Fish: The Future of the Last Wild Food, written when the Atlantic bluefin tuna was in dire straits.

(The eastern Atlantic stock has improved so much in the decade since that Collette recommended the IUCN classify the species as least concern.) Why do we empathise with and protect one sort of large apex ocean predator, Greenberg wondered, but see no problem with killing millions of another sort? “Whales have become wildlife,” he wrote, “but tuna remain food.”

A series of international conservation campaigns in the 1970s and ’80s changed the way many consumers thought about whales and dolphins – although, as Greenberg points out, that philosophical shift was made easier by the fact that demand for whale oil had already collapsed. “By the time the Greenpeace Zodiacs hit the waves, whales as objects of commerce had become more or less irrelevant,” he wrote. This is emphatically untrue for tuna. The huge sums of money tuna represent would make such a transformation economically and politically challenging. But is there a moral case for reframing tuna as a creature worthy of our protection, a being worth more than its flesh?

Cook suspects it may be an impossible dream: “It’s hard to hug a fish.” Whales, at least, show affection for their offspring and sing to each other. “[For tuna], it’s like getting someone to show affection for a locust,” Cook says. “It’s hard to get people to love a big slimy animal that sprays its gametes into the water column and would eat its own young given the opportunity. I don’t think you could get people to show the same kind of compassion.”

Australia might be in a position to turn tuna into wildlife, but tuna as food is a “matter of survival” for Pacific Island nations, says Pacific fisheries consultant Francisco Blaha. “It’s easy to reject a whole food system because your life doesn’t depend on it,” he says, then quotes German playwright and poet Bertolt Brecht.

“First comes food, then comes morality.”

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The industry directly employs more than 20,000 people in the region, and the governments of Tuvalu, Tokelau and Kiribati derive more than half their national income from tuna licences and access fees. “All food systems have impacts,” Blaha says, “so everything is a compromise.”

Tuna are culturally important worldwide and present across much of the world’s oceans. They provide jobs, renewable protein resources, and are an integral part of marine ecosystems we’re only beginning to understand. All that makes cautious management essential. “What we should not be doing is looking at the data and saying, ‘Let’s take the riskiest quota there is because then we can make a bit more money this year’,” says Pew’s Amanda Nickson. Her organisation’s report into tuna value chains, Netting Billions, showed bigger catches can result in less money. The collective end value of the seven most important commercial tuna species peaked in 2014, with 5 million tonnes fetching US$42.2 billion. In 2018 more were caught – 5.2 million tonnes – but the revenue dropped to US$40.8 billion.

“The overall value of tuna decreased, even though more tuna was taken out of the ocean,” Nickson says. “And it’s a really strong argument for why you want to manage for ocean health and sustainability.” Some tuna species, including southern bluefin, have been hauled back from the edge of extinction by governments and industries agreeing on and enforcing catch limits, backed by science and supported by citizens and environmental advocates. But the relative health of the fishery hasn’t solved other problems – human rights issues, political squabbling, subsidies, traceability.

With their wanderings, tuna trace threads of connection across the globe. Southern bluefin migrations tie New Zealand to Australia, Indonesia and the Pacific Islands. A fish born off Java is caught within sight of the Southern Alps and flown to Japan, while elaborate, murky supply chains link distant-water fleets owned by Taiwan and crewed by Indonesians to Thai canning factories and supermarket shelves worldwide.

These links, and the billions of dollars at stake, force nations to the negotiating table. To save tuna from extinction, to ensure tuna fisheries continue to exist, countries have to meet, cooperate and accept short-term compromise for long-term collective gain. The benefits of doing so – of letting tuna unite us rather than divide us – may surge beyond healthy fish populations.

If it’s possible to save a fishery, can we also expunge slavery from fishing boats? Can we stop albatrosses swallowing hooks?

Can we improve the health of the oceans more broadly?

The challenges are formidable, but perhaps tuna can show AG us the way.

From the purse seine the fish are transferred into the hold, which is filled with super-salty brine that is still liquid at –10°C, allowing the fish to be kept very cold but easily extracted at port.

Read more on this topic: AG 107 Heave away, haul away AG 101 Slippery subject AG 99 Innovation nation

September . October 73

A dingo sniffs the air to locate burnt prey a few days after fires swept through an area off the Northern Road near the Valley of the Giants on K’gari.

STORY BY DENISE CULLEN PHOTOGRAPHY BY PETER MEYER

From the ashes Life is being renewed on Fraser Island (K’gari), off the Queensland coast, after catastrophic bushfires razed more than half the World Heritage-listed island.

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September . October 75

Smoke shrouded the island at the height of the fires, at times reducing visibility to 2m.

Rain quells fire In mid-December, more than 40mm of rain fell on K’gari, hastening an end to firefighting efforts that had, during the two-month inferno, demanded the deployment of 376 firefighters, 144 vehicles and 30 different kinds of aircraft. By the time QFES deemed the fire contained and handed back control to QPWS, it had burnt about 85,000ha – more than half the World Heritage-listed island.

The UNESCO World Heritage Centre was among the parties who expressed concern at the scale of the damage. But against the backdrop of Australia’s devastating 2019–20 bushfire season, which killed 33 people, destroyed more than 3000 homes and burnt 16 million hectares, there was a sense among the island’s 76 Australian Geographic

residents that the K’gari fires could have been far worse. Noone lost their life. Except for a scorched picnic table at Happy Valley, buildings and infrastructure remained untouched. Most accommodation and camping grounds on the island reopened to visitors in mid-December. Natural attractions, including Lake McKenzie and Pile Valley, were unaffected.

Yet, just as fire burns through vegetation to expose what lies beneath, these fires had laid bare deeply embedded historical tensions about the broader management of the island. Even as the smell of smoke lingered, and a few isolated hotspots smouldered, people began assessing what had been lost, to count the costs and to search for those responsible.

Just before Christmas, police charged four of the five campers who sparked the blaze with unlawfully lighting a fire. The campers later pleaded guilty, were convicted and fined. But a handful of residents on the island told me they believed these men had been “scapegoated”. While the campers might have lit the match, they hadn’t contributed to the build-up of fuel loads caused by a lack of prescribed burning, and they weren’t the ones who’d adopted a “let it burn” approach when the fire first took hold.

A review of the K’gari bushfire event considered these allegations, along with other aspects of bushfire preparedness activities on the island and the bushfire response. Prepared by the office of the Inspector-General Emergency Management (IGEM), the final report was submitted to the Queensland government in March.

Two months later, the full 86-page document was made public.

It contained 38 recommendations, including that the Department of Environment and Science, in consultation with stakeholders, develop a prescribed burn program for the island, and review existing firelines (access points), tracks and trails. The Queensland government’s response indicated that all 38 of the report’s recommendations were supported or supported in principle.

With tourism having replaced sand mining and timber logging as the main industry on K’gari, the two months of bushfires capped by almost three weeks of closures took a toll. Martin Simons, CEO of Fraser Coast Tourism & Events Ltd, estimates the fires cost tourism businesses $3.7 million in revenue.

PHOTO CREDIT, THIS PAGE: AAP PHOTOS SCIENTIFIC NAME, OPPOSITE PAGE: Eucalyptus pilularis

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sliver of beach towards Sandy Cape (Woakoh) is like stepping back in time, to the start of the world. Here on the remote northern tip of Fraser Island (K’gari – the Butchulla word for paradise), endangered loggerhead turtles swim in the shallows. Massive wind-sculpted dunes, unsullied by footprints, overlook the ocean. Long-dead forests lie interred by sand, trees stretching their sun-bleached limbs to the sky.

Located off Queensland’s south-eastern coast, about 250km north of Brisbane by road, the 123km-long island is the world’s largest sand island. Home to vast stretches of rugged, untamed wilderness, it’s a popular camping and hiking destination.

On 14 October last year, a group of mates were chatting around a small fire they’d lit in the Duling camp zone, not far south of Sandy Cape, on the island’s sweeping east coast. When they retired for the night, one of them poured sand over the dying flames. The group left early the next morning, unaware an ember had escaped into the surrounding woodland. It set alight the neighbouring swamp, located between Orange Creek and the treacherous vehicular pass at Ngkala Rocks.

In the following weeks, fire spread across K’gari, forcing Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service (QPWS) rangers to close camping grounds, roads and properties.

On 27 November, the Queensland Fire and Emergency Service (QFES) took over management of the fire from QPWS. And at 5pm that day, they banned barges from bringing new visitors.

By early December, fire was burning near the west coast’s Kingfisher Bay Resort, which receives up to 145,000 guests each year. As the resort’s remaining guests and all but seven staff were evacuated, to be replaced by some 60 firefighters, the scene resembled a war zone.

The resort’s general manager, David Hay, remembers the sky filling with billowing smoke and water-bombing planes. “After 20 years on the island, I’ve never seen the place like it,” he says.

ALKING UP THE

A towering blackbutt displays distinctive post-fire epicormic growth on its trunk.

September . October 77

I saw delicate fronds of bracken fern unfurling…and bright-green shoots.

A Tourism and Events Queensland marketing campaign swung into action to promote the island’s reopening. When I visited for the first time in December, Queenslanders filled the tours and the bars of Kingfisher Bay Resort. But the fires had dented visitors’ confidence, and left them worried about issues such as erosion, says Hana Robinson, who owns and operates accommodation and tour company K’gari Fraser Island Adventures. “There were a lot of people calling me up asking, ‘Is the island going to blow away?’” Hana says.

The calls came at a time when she was grappling with her own emotional response to the fires, which ravaged the land she deeply loves. At the height of the fires, she breathed in smoke, photographed a beach littered with dead and dying insects, and wept. “It was emotionally devastating – there were days I just couldn’t get out of bed. It was just heartbreaking,” she says.

Rebirth and renewal Within three weeks of the fires’ end, fresh vegetation had begun to resprout amid the charred branches and ash-dusted sand.

By March, when I visited for the second time after the fires, I saw delicate fronds of bracken fern unfurling; 78 Australian Geographic

bright-green shoots erupting from the centres of burnt grass trees; and feathery epicormic growths bursting from hidden buds, stretching along the branches and trunks of scorched wallum banksia.

Elsewhere, fledgling stems and leaves were appearing at the bases of blackened snappy gums, thanks to underground lignotubers. Four months after the fires, Grahame Applegate, an associate professor in the Tropical Forests and People Research Centre at the University of the Sunshine Coast (USC), recorded wallum banksia seedlings emerging after their pods had burst open in response to heat, throwing seeds into sterilised ash beds where they sprouted with little competition for light or threat of pathogens.

This transformation highlights that much of the island’s vegetation is pyrophytic, meaning it isn’t just adapted to fire, but needs it to regenerate. Grahame, whose book Vegetation of Fraser Island/K’gari was published last year, says there is a history of fires on the island due to both anthropogenic causes and lightning strikes.

As a postgraduate student, he lived on K’gari for two years from 1979. His fascination with the island’s more than 850 species of plant – which range from towering hoop pine and kauri forests to low-slung sedges and grasses, all growing on a bed of siliceous sand – has never waned.

SCIENTIFIC NAME: Pteridium esculentum

The first tendrils of brightgreen bracken fern and grass emerge in a eucalypt forest near Happy Valley.

Fraser Island (K’gari)

T

he K’gari bushfires started on 14 October last year near Orange Creek in the island’s north-east. They burnt west into inaccessible swamp, lake and dune country, before spreading north and south as winds shifted. In mid-November, popular camping grounds at Cathedral Beach were evacuated as the fires burnt to the shoreline, leaving a trail of charred trees. Although other areas, including Happy Valley and Kingfisher Bay Resort, were also evacuated as fire approached, the central area, including Pile Valley, Central Station, Lake McKenzie and surrounding rainforest, were untouched. Eli Creek, the Maheno shipwreck, Indian Head, Champagne Pools and Lake Wabby on the eastern coastline were also unaffected. Fire activity was deemed contained by 16 December, but Sandy Cape continued to relight and burn until after Christmas, according to the Institute of Foresters of Australia. No camping grounds or areas remain closed as a result of last year’s fires.

The village of Happy Valley narrowly escaped the brunt of the bushfires that swept across the island.

GETTING THERE Travelling northbound via vehicle from Queensland’s capital, Brisbane, it’s a three- to four-hour drive to reach Hervey Bay. Once you’re in the city of Hervey Bay, you can take a 50-minute boat or vehicle ferry ride from the River Heads boat ramp. If you’re taking your four-wheel-drive over to K’gari you At 123km in length, can also leave from K’gari is the world’s Inskip Point, located largest sand island. at Rainbow Beach.

You don’t need a 4WD to access Kingfisher Bay Resort, but note that you cannot access any other parts of Fraser Island without a 4WD vehicle.

FACT

WHERE TO STAY Kingfisher Bay Resort, established in 1992 and its SeaLink Travel Group sister property the Eurong Beach Resort remain good starting points for first-time travellers to K’gari, with accommodation and guided tours available. For those wanting to get off the beaten track, K’gari Fraser Island Adventures on the east coast offers beach cabins and glamping safari tents, as well as 4WD hire and touring options. There are also 45 camping spots on the island, including at Lake Boomanjin, the largest perched lake in the world, and the Moon Point camping area accessible only by boat.

September . October 79

SCIENTIFIC NAME: Xanthorrhoea fulva / Trichoglossus moluccanus

As they did after the 2015 bushfires, grass trees are expected to flower in unison this year, attracting many nectar feeders.

“…they’re such remarkable ecosystems, and so adapted to their environment.”

Grahame notes that some of the island’s fire-adapted species are actually becoming inconspicuous in the absence of regular burns. “We’re losing numbers of some species, like Christmas bells and a ground orchid once abundant [on the island],” he says.

Rhonda Melzer, a QPWS ecologist, says regeneration can occur in fire-adapted communities within a few days, particularly following rain. In February, Rhonda encountered a proliferation of forked sundew – pink, insectivorous plants that have small white flowers and are covered in sticky droplets – in the swamps at Moon Point, on the island’s west coast.

“Seeing so many things already flowering and resprouting – they’re such remarkable ecosystems, and so adapted to their environment,” she says.

Most fire-sensitive ecosystems escaped the brunt of the fires, with only 0.6 per cent of the island’s rainforests, and 4 per cent of its mangroves impacted, Rhonda adds. However, QPWS is keeping a close eye on other areas, including foredunes with their coastal she-oaks.

“Unlike some of the other casuarinas, it doesn’t have en masse germination of seeds after fire, and the adults are killed as well, so we expect regeneration there will be very slow,” Rhonda says.

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Diversity of wildlife The biodiversity of K’gari also extends to its fauna, with an estimated 622 different species, including more than 71 mammals, 379 birds, and 17 frogs. Acoustic sensors and trail cameras have been deployed to evaluate the status and recovery of native animals. Surveys by rangers have not indicated major impacts on the island’s fauna.

Rhonda’s team reported sighting threatened frog species in sedgelands that had been burnt, a pair of black-breasted buttonquails amid scorched scrubby woodland, and crayfish endemic to coastal south-eastern Queensland in fire-affected areas.

Professor Jennifer Firn, a plant ecologist with the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) who specialises in restoration ecology, says the post-fire flush of new growth and recent rains had also attracted more insects to the island. “We need to see fire as that trickling water that goes across the landscape, breathes new life, and starts the successional dynamics again,” she says.

In the aftermath of the fires, some questioned the fate of the island’s estimated 200-strong protected dingo population. In its submission to the bushfire review, advocacy organisation Save Fraser Island Dingoes Inc. claimed to have received reports of dingoes sighted in malnourished or otherwise poor condition.

In January, Cheryl Bryant from the organisation joined a group searching the island for surviving dingoes, or wongari.

A forked sundew at Poyungan Creek near Valley of the Giants.

All in a day’s work It was a case of out of the frying pan and into the fire, for tourism professional Greg Slade.

PHOTO CREDIT, INSET: RUSSELL SHAKESPEARE SCIENTIFIC NAME: Drosera binata

A

On that particular day, they sighted only one, known as Yellow Tag – so named because of a tag affi xed to the dingo’s ear that signifies the animal has a history or likelihood of problematic behaviour.

In March, I spotted two dingoes – Yellow Tag at her favoured Eli Creek location and a young untagged male just north of The Pinnacles. But there was evidence of others. Early one morning near Yidney Rocks, we followed dingo tracks so fresh I could visualise their owner patrolling the perimeter of its territory, sniffing the air and surveying the beach from its vantage point high on the ridge.

Wildlife researcher Dr Ben Allen, who completed a review of the state government’s Fraser Island Dingo Conservation and Risk Management Strategy in 2013, says people’s concerns about the survival of the island’s dingoes are probably misplaced.

He points out that highly mobile generalist predators such as dingoes “do alright” in the face of fires as compared with other species. He says the fires occurred at a time when the annual cohort of young dingoes would have naturally begun to disperse and establish their own territories. “Skinny and emaciated dingoes at this time are entirely normal and expected,” he adds.

An eye to the future Professor Patrick Moss, a biogeographer in the School of Earth and Environmental Sciences at The University of Queensland (UQ), says the scale of the fi res on K’gari and their timing outside of the traditional fire season is concerning.

A bigger worry is that, with climate change, they may be a harbinger of things to come. “If it’s a one-off event, I think

S THE FLAMES bore down on Happy Valley, Greg Slade had an uncomfortable sense of déjà vu. In January last year, he’d been the acting manager of a retreat on Kangaroo Island, in South Australia, that was razed by bushfires.

Greg made it out with only his car and camping gear. The K’gari fire was just starting when he took up a job at Happy Valley’s Fraser Island Retreat. “It was just a little bit like, ‘Oh my God, again?’ Surely it wasn’t going to happen twice in a year,” he says.

Greg worked with other staff to prepare the resort, gathering up leaves, wetting down lawns and clearing out gutters. “We didn’t have to do a lot except for spot-fire watching on the day,” he says.

The K’gari fire was slower moving and less intense than the fire he’d witnessed on Kangaroo Island. Winston Williams, sector commander of the Happy Valley Rural Fire Brigade, and a firefighter with 50 years experience, says three different fire fronts were advancing on the town on 7 December. “The question was which one was going to get to us first,” he says.

Winston, with others, had developed a bushfire mitigation and hazard reduction plan after being told 12 months earlier that their town was undefendable.

They cleared vegetation, undertook hazard

Greg Slade.

reduction burns and constructed mulched breaks to mount a successful backburning operation. When the fire came close to town, Winston and about 50 others stayed, working alongside QFES to defend their homes.

QFES Deputy Commissioner Michael Wassing says the Happy Valley case was an example of how communities could leverage local knowledge and work effectively with firefighters. “They’d done that preparedness work, they understood shared responsibility, they understood their local environment, and they had a plan around that,” he explains. “They were able to integrate with our incident team and we were able to provide the necessary supporting resources.

“Our business is working with community… in terms of prevention, preparedness and mitigation, or in the case of Happy Valley, having community standing next to the firefighters protecting their homes…I’d like to see that more often.”

September . October 81

Read more on this topic: AG 136 Outcast; AG 107 Finding Fraser

82 Australian Geographic

Burnt swamp mahogany and paperbark at Bogimbah Creek.

SCIENTIFIC NAMES, LEFT: Eucalyptus robusta / Melaleuca quinquenervia ABOVE RIGHT: Banksia serrata

A saw-tooth banksia leaf contrasts sharply with the burnt trunk of a tree.

things can recover, but if this becomes the new normal, then that’s where it’s going to be a major issue,” he says.

Although the island’s post-fire regeneration is encouraging, new vegetation is particularly vulnerable to the disease myrtle rust, which is already “rife” on the island, Patrick adds. Spread by microscopic airborne spores, myrtle rust can have a “catastrophic” effect on plants in the Myrtaceae family, such as paperbarks and midgen berry. “One of the issues [associated with] killing that vegetation type is that it’s going to increase fuel loads as well,” Patrick says. Bare landscapes also boost the odds of invasive weeds and pests becoming established.

The fragile environment faces other existential threats, one of the biggest being mass tourism. There are no authoritative figures on the number of visitors to K’gari each year, but it’s believed to be somewhere between 400,000 and 600,000, and every single one of them churns up an average of one tonne of sand, according to the Fraser Island Defenders Organisation. The use of technologies such as automatic number plate recognition systems and mobile phone check-in applications to gain a more complete picture of visitor numbers and movement data is another recommendation contained within the K’gari (Fraser Island) Bushfire Review.

UQ fire ecologist Dr Philip Stewart has worked extensively in national parks and says the number of visitors to K’gari needs to be capped and their activities constrained to preserve the diversity and structure of the environment. “The environmental values that we have are astronomical here,” he says. “And we’re going to lose it very, very quickly if we don’t start to realise that the AG environment doesn’t owe us anything.”

September . October 83

PHOTO CREDIT: NICK CUBBIN

Sheep farmer Tom Warren has 55ha of solar panels on his property near Dubbo, NSW. Farmers such as Tom who run a mix of traditional agriculture with solar farming will be vital if Australia is to produce enough clean energy to fuel the green hydrogen revolution.

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STORY BY CLARE WATSON

T HE HY P E A BOU T H Y DR OG EN

Could the most abundant chemical element in the universe – hydrogen – be the answer to sustainable energy production in Australia?

September . October 85

CSIRO energy researchers, here at work in the hydrogen lab, hope to establish a sustainable hydrogen export industry for Australia.

holds surprising promise for Australia. It could ensure we meet our Paris Agreement commitments to reduce carbon emissions to zero by 2050 and provide us with a lucrative new export product. So, what is this remarkable stuff that makes up two-thirds of every water molecule? And if it’s so plentiful and a potential sustainable energy solution, why isn’t it already running our ships, cars and power stations?

There are two main reasons why. First, hydrogen rarely exists on its own in nature. To produce it, you have to cleave it away from the other elements with which it’s invariably associated, such as oxygen in water molecules (H2O) or the carbon in methane (CH4). Second, it’s highly flammable – 20 times more so than petroleum.

This means that even for sustainably created hydrogen, transportation and storage are huge problems.

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is sourced, as it has been for more than a century, from natural gas and coal – both unsustainable fossil fuels. Hydrogen from those sources is known as ‘brown’.

But it’s hydrogen with a more environmentally friendly adjective that all the fuss is about. This ‘green’ hydrogen is sourced from water and is possible via the process of electrolysis – also known as ‘water splitting’. It takes place in a device called an electrolyser, which uses an electrical current to split water molecules into oxygen and hydrogen gas. The reaction can be reversed – with nothing but water produced – in a gadget called a fuel cell, which generates electricity that can feed into an electric motor or the grid.

Deploying these two complementary technologies at scale could also help stabilise an electricity grid that is flush with intermittent renewables. Electrolysers can capture renewable electricity as hydrogen and fuel cells

86 Australian Geographic

OST HYDROGEN USED today

Dr David Viano in CSIRO’s hydrogen lab, where scientists are developing systems to enable hydrogen in the form of liquid ammonia to be transported economically and safely.

could release it back into the grid, with hydrogen itself capable of storing energy much longer than batteries.

Understandably, the hype around green hydrogen is huge.

But hydrogen has been talked up before and energy researcher Dr Daniel Roberts, who heads CSIRO’s Hydrogen Energy Systems Future Science Platform, which began in 2017, can’t shake the feeling of déjà vu. He and other hydrogen hopefuls have for years been pushing against resistance to change and the sense that green technologies, namely electrolysers, were not yet ready to compete with fossil fuels.

But this time around things feel decidedly different. Due to a range of factors, the price of renewable energy technologies has plummeted in recent years, putting green hydrogen within reach. At the same time, demand has risen: countries such as Japan, South Korea and Germany have set net-zero energy policies that hinge on importing hydrogen. Investors are also getting behind Australia’s own national strategy for a hydrogenfuelled economy.

“This time we’ve got global market pull, government and industry support and people demanding change,” Daniel says, “and those technologies that we worked on for decades – many are actually ready now.”

PHOTO CREDITS, FROM LEFT: JOHN NGUYEN PHOTOGRAPHY 2016/CSIRO; ADAM FINCH/CSIRO

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OR SOMETHING YOU can’t see or smell, hydrogen

T H E HY D R O G EN R AI N BOW RENEWABLE HYDROGEN

FOSSIL FUEL HYDROGEN

BLUE

G R EE N

Wind, solar and hydro

INFOGRAPHIC COURTESY THE CLIMATE COUNCIL

These colour codes are often used to differentiate the ways in which hydrogen is produced.

Blue, black, grey and brown hydrogen all result in significant greenhouse gas emissions and contribute to climate change when produced at scale. Only green hydrogen is generated from 100% renewable energy sources.

H H

A trio of renewable hydrogen projects has just been given the green light, with federal funding to put industrial-sized electrolysers to the test in local commercial manufacturing plants. As well, there are already a handful of hydrogen-fuelled cars cruising around Canberra and Melbourne.

The grand plan for hydrogen, however, goes way beyond zippy fuel-cell vehicles, and far beyond Australia.

“If we want to decarbonise not only electricity but the wider global energy system, we need hydrogen,” explains Dr Fiona Beck, a physicist who began her career studying how to make solar cells more efficient. Now she’s turned her attention to hydrogen, leading an Australian National University (ANU) hydrogen fuels project designed to position Australia as a major exporter of zero-carbon fuels.

Currently, the world trades energy mostly as coal, oil and natural gas, but hydrogen could replace these, and sun-soaked Australia has some of the best renewable energy resources in the world to ensure that hydrogen is green.

What’s more, green hydrogen could take carbon out of steelmaking, not only by replacing some of the fossil fuels currently used as a heat source but also by removing carbon as a chemical reactant during the refinement of iron ore. Green hydrogen used as a fuel could also decarbonise other energy-hungry industries, such as long-haul transport. But for all that to happen, scientists and engineers first need to figure out how to safely store hydrogen and move it around. As a gas, it’s volatile, though it can be compressed under pressure, or liquefied.

To solve the supply problem, at least temporarily, and get the industry moving, hydrogen suppliers could tap into existing natural gas pipelines. Some natural gas companies are also claiming they can kickstart large-scale production with ‘clean’ hydrogen sourced from fossil fuels. This involves capturing and storing all the carbon emissions produced in their manufacturing process – although current technologies remain largely ineffective, capturing only 80 per cent of carbon emissions at most.

The big question for green hydrogen is how to make enough of the stuff. It takes lots of energy to split water into hydrogen,

Any fossil fuel with partial carbon capture

BLACK Black coal

GR EY Gas

BROWN Brown coal

THE GRAND PLAN FOR HYDROGEN GOES WAY BEYOND ZIPPY FUEL-CELL VEHICLES. so the amount of wind and solar needed – the amount of land required – to make green hydrogen and export it to the world is mind-bogglingly big, even to energy experts such as Daniel. And for an industry in its infancy, what comes first – supply or demand? “No-one wants to go first doing something big and economically risky,” he says.

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HIS IS WHERE a project planned for Nyangumarta

Country, in north-west Western Australia, had looked set to – and may still – provide an answer.

In the language of the Nyangumarta, whose lands stretch across the Great Sandy Desert to the Indian Ocean, the word for wind is wangal. Their Country, like much of the Pilbara region of which it’s a part, is famed for its red earth, blue skies and sunshine. But on Nyangumarta Country, wangal is the other important natural feature at play and vast spinifex sandplains stretch out to the horizon as if smoothed out by the wind. When the Sun, janyja, goes down, wangal keeps blowing.

It’s hoped the wind and solar energy fuelling this natural landscape can be harnessed for what could be the world’s largest renewable hydrogen and ammonia plants, the 26-gigawatt Asian Renewable Energy Hub – a project based on the sort of clean energy future the world sorely needs. The project envisages millions of solar panels and some 1700 wind turbines would be needed, which would make it one of the world’s largest September . October 87

A hydrogen factory concept with production from renewable energy sources.

HY DRO GEN – OUR NEXT GREAT EXPORT?

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3

Water is purified.

Water split into hydrogen and oxygen using an electrolyser and electric current.

Electrolyser powered by solar, wind or tidal energy.

HYDROGEN OPPORTUNITIES

Hydrogen is the most common chemical element in the universe. It can be produced as a gas or liquid, or combined with other elements, and has many uses such as fuel for transport or heating, a way to store electricity, or a raw material in industrial processes. When produced using renewable energy or processes, hydrogen becomes a way of storing renewable energy for use at a later time when it’s needed. Hydrogen energy can be stored as a gas and delivered through existing natural gas pipelines. When converted to a liquid or another

Export

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Gas networks

4

5

Hydrogen compressed Compressed hydrogen, or converted into ammonia or SNG ammonia or synthetic shipped abroad to be natural gas (SNG) for used or reconverted to transport. hydrogen.

suitable material, hydrogen can also be transported on trucks and in ships. This means hydrogen can also be exported overseas, making it a tradeable energy commodity. According to research conducted for the Australian Renewable Energy Agency, demand for hydrogen exported from Australia could be more than 3 million tonnes a year by 2040, which could be worth up to $10 billion annually to the economy by that time.

But to become a major export commodity, problems of storing and transporting hydrogen need to first be overcome.

Transport

Electricity systems

Industrial process

PHOTO CREDIT: ALAMY; INFOGRAPHIC REPRODUCED COURTESY AUSTRALIAN RENEWABLE ENERGY AGENCY

As a nation, we’ve long shipped coal to the world.

But could renewable energy be our next great export industry?

PHOTO CREDIT: RALPH ALPHONSO

THE AMOUNT OF LAND REQUIRED TO MAKE GREEN HYDROGEN AND EXPORT IT TO THE WORLD IS MIND-BOGGLINGLY BIG.

wind and solar electricity plants, except it wouldn’t feed in to the electricity grid. Renewable energy captured here would be used for making hydrogen, day and night. Its proposed size is simply staggering. Its planned 26GW production from just one site would be almost half the capacity of the National Electricity Market, which spans Australia’s eastern states.

Earlier this year, however, Sussan Ley, federal minister for the environment, knocked back the proposal for the Hub in its current form because of potential ecological impacts to local wetlands. But the consortium behind the Hub hopes to continue the project and issued a statement saying: “We are now working to understand the minister’s concerns, and will engage further with the minister and her department as we continue to work on the detailed design and engineering aspects of the project.”

The first 15GW stage has state and federal environmental approval and the intention remains that, pending federal approval, the rest can go ahead, meaning thousands of wind turbines and solar panel arrays would be dotted across some 6500sq.km to power the conversion of desalinated sea water into hydrogen. “We have a massive challenge ahead of us,” says solar grid guru Andrew Dickson, development manager of the Hub, speaking generally about the planet’s energy future. “The world clearly needs to decarbonise quickly. But to decarbonise at the scale we need – to limit runaway climate change – we need much bigger projects and we need to start trading renewable energy between countries.”

Although the global market for trading renewable hydrogen doesn’t quite exist yet, the Hub sets a vision of a hydrogen-fuelled future. And with the permission of the Nyangumarta, who hold Native Title of the land, it plans to make hydrogen (to be shipped overseas in the form of ammonia) for three generations – 50 years.

Economic modeller Dr Stuart Walsh of Monash University says the project would certainly help build the hydrogen industry, but it’s a fraction of what’s needed to reach net-zero by 2050 and just a start of what could be. With green hydrogen, Australia has an opportunity to become a clean-energy superpower.

But that means transitioning away from, and ultimately replacing, its current energy export industries of coal, gas and iron ore. “There are huge challenges involved in going to net-zero,” Stuart says, “and also massive potential.”

No one project can go it alone, though. Smaller pilot projects are needed to test-drive technologies for production and storage, and establish supply chains. And researchers are still working at making hydrogen production more efficient, to squeeze as much hydrogen as possible out of every sunbeam and wind gust.

W

only about three-quarters of the electrical energy is converted into hydrogen. Tiny improvements in electrolysers and solar cells, made by tinkering with materials to make them more productive, can translate to big gains when such technologies are deployed at industrial scale.

“We need as much work done on this as possible,” says University of Newcastle chemical engineer Dr Jessica Allen. “If we’re talking about making hydrogen on a gigawatt scale, then even a 1 per cent change in efficiency will have massive implications for the amount of solar energy we need.” Producing hydrogen more efficiently might mean less land needs to be earmarked for solar farms in future projects, to meet the world’s hydrogen needs.

ITH COMMERCIAL ELECTROLYSERS,

September . October 89

CSIRO’s innovative membrane-based technology could transform the century-old Haber-Bosch ammonia process, requiring less energy and reducing CO2 emissions.

Aside from boosting production, increased efficiencies also reduces costs. Right now, the biggest hurdle for green hydrogen is the cost of electrolysers, which will get cheaper as the industry scales up. But it could be a decade until green hydrogen becomes cost-competitive against hydrogen made from fossil fuels, says Fiona: “That’s a problem because we don’t have that long to decarbonise.”

Knowing that, Fiona and team have designed solar cells to capture the Sun’s energy and split water into hydrogen – all in one device.

By cutting a step in the path from solar energy to hydrogen, less energy is lost and more hydrogen could potentially be made in a generator that also has fewer parts and pipes to install and maintain. The secret of such direct solar-to-hydrogen generators lies in the use of two semiconductor material layers that together capture more solar energy for converting into hydrogen. “You can get more of the energy out of the sunlight and much higher efficiencies,” Fiona explains.

Fiona says such emerging technologies – prototypes made in a lab, edging closer to commercial success – are as important to develop as off-the-shelf electrolysers.

One of these devices could break out and become a disruptive technology that dramatically changes the way we do things, she says.

Once production pays off, then transporting hydrogen is the next hurdle. Liquefying hydrogen is difficult, which is why ammonia is seen as more appealing. Made by combining hydrogen and nitrogen gas, ammonia is much easier to transport than liquid hydrogen, which has to be cooled to –253°C. Plus, the infrastructure for supplying ammonia exists, because it’s already traded globally and used widely, mostly as a fertiliser.

But every time energy is changed from one form to another – from solar energy to hydrogen, from hydrogen into ammonia and back again – some energy is lost. And the process of turning hydrogen into ammonia has its own huge energy footprint.

At CSIRO, the energy experts, agricultural scientists, manufacturing engineers and microbiologists in

Daniel’s team are working on this. Closest to commercialisation is a membrane-based technology that could transform the century-old Haber-Bosch process of making ammonia.

The new technology, which gets hydrogen from a renewables-fed electrolyser instead of from natural gas (CH4), also works at lower pressures. “Once you bring the pressures down, you save a whole lot of money and some of the energy requirements as well,” Daniel explains.

The team is also exploring ways to crack ammonia back into high-grade hydrogen, ready to use in fuel-cell cars, and how to use ammonia itself as a fuel in modified diesel engines.

But there are still plenty of technical and logistical challenges that need to be solved in order to be able to use either hydrogen or ammonia to power freight trains and cargo ships, which currently run on diesel or bunker fuels (petroleum-based fuel oils).

Nevertheless, plans are afoot to build one of the world’s largest green ammonia production plants on the South Australian coast near the steelmaking town of Whyalla. The state already boasts the country’s largest battery; now renewable energy will power massive electrolysers that are among the largest proposed worldwide to date. The global shipping industry is standing by, because replacing bunker fuels with green fuels would have a massive impact on emissions. Aviation could be next.

David Mailler with father Michael at Chillamurra Solar Farm – in Goondiwindi, QLD – which powers about 2500 homes in the area. In 2017 Michael, David and Michael’s other sons, Robert and Peter, developed the award-winning solar farm, then the largest optimised solar farm in Australia and one of the largest of its type in the world. They’ve now built three more, two in NSW and one in QLD and David is overseeing the construction of a fifth in SA.

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cropping up: where does the water for hydrogen come from? Australia is a droughtprone country, and to make bulk hydrogen, you need 9 litres of pure fresh water for every kilo of hydrogen.

Desalination is the obvious option; Australia has no shortage of sea water. But desalinising sea water leaves a lot of salt behind, and we’ve got to have a plan of what to do with it, explains Jessica, who believes solution-centric engineers have a responsibility to think about the environmental impacts of scaling up industrial processes that might be manageable on a local scale but could escalate when going global. Excess salt in Australia could be returned to the ocean but elsewhere, in the Persian Gulf’s Arab states for example, excess salt from mass desalination is already creating big environmental problems in super salty seas.

“We have to think very carefully about where that water is coming from, and make sure we don’t create another problem,” Jessica said recently in a public forum. Making use of recycled water could easily be done with a few processing steps, she says, and researchers are also advancing new electrolyser technologies that convert sea water and wastewater directly into hydrogen, without the need to purify it first.

If Australia is serious about scaling up hydrogen production, we also need to consider the materials used to manufacture parts and account for their carbon emissions. Steel, for example, is essential for wind turbines and building solar farms, but there are carbon emissions embedded in its production, Jessica explains. “We’re not going to have any zero-emission renewables, or zero-emission hydrogen, without zero-emission steels,” she explains. “We need to decarbonise not just the electricity, but the materials and equipment used to create it.”

Fortunately, steelmaking is another industry ripe for emissions reduction via green hydrogen. Making steel accounts for about 7 per cent of global carbon emissions. To cut this down, the industry needs a green chemical to displace some of the coking coal, which is burnt in blast furnaces to create heat and turn iron ore into metallic iron by removing the oxygen. This metallic NE QUESTION KEEPS

iron is then combined with tiny amounts of carbon and other hardening agents to make steel. Hydrogen, like coking coal, can strip the oxygen out of iron ore, but it generates water instead of emitting CO2. Green hydrogen could also replace up to 70 per cent of the methane-derived hydrogen currently used to process iron ore before it goes into another, less commonly used, steelmaking apparatus – without any drastic changes to that process, which is called direct iron reduction.

“This is the unique contribution hydrogen has as a chemical additive in manufacturing processes,” Jessica remarks. Even if green steel made wholly from renewables is a distant prospect, green hydrogen (plus green electricity) could help to downsize the industry’s carbon footprint, in a much shorter time frame.

With so much potential, it’s easy to see why governments and industry investors are throwing wads of cash at hydrogen. What’s needed now, researchers say, is for people to follow through on their proposals, to get big projects up and running. “If that doesn’t happen, there’s a risk that we stall,” Daniel explains. “But if we can get enough green or clean hydrogen produced to actually support supply contracts, then we’ll be away and there’ll be no stopping us.”

Others argue that our next move is critical, and that green hydrogen is the only way to create a sustainable industry. Fiona points out that fugitive methane emissions invariably leak out of the ground when extracting coal and natural gas. There is, she says, no way to completely remove or capture these, which accounted for about 10 per cent of Australia’s national greenhouse gas emissions last year. It means hydrogen sourced from fossil fuels is never truly ‘clean’ – another reason why green hydrogen is a surer way to decarbonise the world.

The world is now watching Australia to see how it AG can be done.

PHOTO CREDITS, MAIN: NICK CUBBIN; OPPOSITE PAGE: COURTESY CSIRO

IT’S EASY TO SEE WHY GOVERNMENTS AND INDUSTRY INVESTORS ARE THROWING WADS OF CASH AT HYDROGEN.

September . October 91

Nature Photographer of the Year Despite lockdowns and restrictions on travel wrought by the global pandemic, the talented and dedicated photographers who take part in this annual photographic celebration have, once again, captured the nature of our region in all its glory.

Overall Winner Leafy Night Leafy seadragon (Phycodurus eques) Scott Portelli, New South Wales In the temperate waters of the southern parts of Australia, a unique wonder lies hidden, camouflaged by nature, an evolutionary chameleon of the ocean. Leafy seadragons inhabit shallow reefs and seagrass meadows.

They use their environment to camouflage themselves and avoid predators and this is a key component to their survival.

Fleurieu Peninsula, South Australia

92 Australian Geographic

Judges’ comments:

A unique and striking image. The backlighting has transformed the seadragon from a tiny sea creature into the illusion of a mythical beast. Beautifully framed, the dragon emerges from the darkness, glowing with a sense of fire within.

September . October 93

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COTT PORTELLI FOUND himself trapped on

Principal Sponsor

94 Australian Geographic

Producer

Fully suited up and in his element, award-winning photographer Scott Portelli spends time getting acquainted with one of his beloved seadragon subjects.

Australia and New Zealand,” he says of the competition.

Scott’s work takes him all over the globe and there are some years when he hasn’t spent much time in Australia, but the pandemic has put a stop to that and this year he’s been exploring his own backyard more and moving beyond his specialty of underwater photography.

The pandemic has clipped the wings of many of the photographers in this year’s competition while also enabling them to discover subjects closer to home.

On the following pages we feature the category winners and runners-up and the portfolio prize collection. These winning photos and a further selection of the shortlisted images form two stunning photographic exhibitions at the South Australian Museum in Adelaide and the Australian Museum in Sydney.

If you can, immerse yourself in the beauty and wonder of our region of the world and be inspired to explore it for yourself at these major photographic displays. If you can’t get there in person, visit the website below to see the rest of the images.

CHRISSIE GOLDRICK

The exhibitions South Australian Museum, Adelaide 27 Aug–31 Oct 2021. Admission $10 adults, $7 concession, children under 13 free (accompanied by adult); unlimited FREE entry Museum Member

Australian Museum, Sydney 30 Oct 2021–16 Jan 2022. Admission free naturephotographeroftheyear.com.au/gallery

Touring Partner

Production Partner

Holiday Prize Sponsor

PHOTO CREDIT: COURTESY SCOTT PORTELLI

South Australia’s Fleurieu Peninsula as state borders slammed shut in March last year, in the face of the fast-moving global pandemic. Luckily for Scott and his wife, Rosie Leaney, the Second Valley Beach campsite stayed open in a bid to provide a haven where COVID refugees, unable to travel home, could safely wait it out.

Scott seized the opportunity to follow his passion for photographing leafy seadragons in the Gulf St Vincent (see Scott’s story Masters of disguise in AG 159). Now a special photo he took during one of his permitted daily scuba dives has taken out top prize in the prestigious 2021 Australian Geographic Nature Photographer of the Year competition.

“It was a strange, unplanned situation, but I thought I’d make the most of it,” Scott says. “We had all our equipment with us, and because I was there for six weeks, I could spend days going out and getting a feel for the underwater terrain and what sort of creatures were in the environment, but also specifically looking for leafy seadragons. I am a little obsessed with seadragons.”

With plenty of time in those shallow coastal waters, Scott became familiar to the resident dragons of Second Valley Beach, and this comfort level facilitated the close encounter that led to that prize-winning shot. “It gave me more time to plan and be a bit more creative with my shooting,” says Scott, who devotes much of his underwater time to collecting seadragon data and photos for Dragon Search. This citizen science seadragon monitoring project works with Australia’s diving community to grow the knowledge base on these mysterious creatures via the online platform iNaturalist. Since 1996 the project has revealed many unique insights into the biology of these beguiling fish.

“I dived with this particular leafy over a number of days,” Scott explains. “It got used to me being around and I was able to compose a shot that tightly captured its eyes, features and appendages front-on using a 60mm macro lens.” He shot it in late-afternoon light and used a double strobe to illuminate the eyes and the feathery edges of those leafy appendages, while leaving the background dark, allowing the creature to stand out.

Scott has been a regular entrant in the photo competition for 10 years, was a category winner in 2017 and 2019 and this year has also won the threatened species category. “I love that it’s orientated to our region of

Animal Portrait Animal Portrait Winner

A white-capped at sunset White-capped mollymawk (Thalassarche cauta) Doug Gimesy, Victoria White-capped mollymawks – aka white-capped albatrosses – mainly eat squid, fish, krill, salps, and offal from the ocean surface. They rarely dive for food.

Their largest threat is now longline and trawl fishing, especially in the seas off southern Africa. Please eat less fish and buy only MSC (Marine Stewardship Council) certified produce.

Foveaux Strait, Stewart Island/Rakiura, New Zealand Judges’ comments: There is a surreal quality to this albatross, flying sternly across the sky with anthropomorphic determination.

The sharpness highlights the bird’s facial features, colour and shape. The angles and lines of the bird caught mid-flight have been used to advantage, contrasting against the soft pastel background of clouds.

Animal Portrait Runner-up

Howling at the moon Eastern grey kangaroo (Macropus giganteus) Mike George, New South Wales I spotted some eastern grey kangaroos on the headland. I had to crawl through long grass downhill from them to try and get close enough to backlight one against the rising full moon. As I took a few shots my model tilted its head back and opened its mouth slightly.

Woolgoolga, New South Wales

September . October 95

Tracks

Mangrove Dieback

Portfolio Winner: Tim Wrate, New South Wales Judges’ comments:

The colours of Australia are celebrated in the shapes and forms caused by the incredible forces of nature. Viewed from above, the landscape has been abstracted into a painterly aesthetic. Demonstrating a keen eye for colour, structure and composition, the resulting portfolio creates curiosity and invites us to consider the landscape in a way that might not be possible from ground level.

Mangrove Dieback Northern grey mangrove (Avicennia marina subsp. eucalyptifolia) During the summer of 2015–16, one of the worst mangrove dieback events ever recorded devastated about 7400ha of mangrove forests along more than 1000km of Gulf of Carpentaria coastline: the unfortunate consequence of unseasonably high temperatures and dry wet seasons caused by climate change.

Southern Arnhem Land, Northern Territory

96 Australian Geographic

Ebb & Flow

Ebb & Flow

Tracks

“Ebb & Flow” was captured at 2500ft above Bynoe Harbour, where the tidal variations of 5.8m expose extensive seabeds and variations in sand banks that contrast wonderfully with the impossibly blue water of the Northern Territory.

Bynoe Harbour, Northern Territory

This picture was captured at 2000ft above the intertidal floodplains between the Roper and Limmen Bight rivers on the remote shores of the Gulf of Carpentaria. The floodplain is punctuated by water buffalo tracks meandering to and from the island. Look closer and you may find water buffaloes basking in mud wallows.

Southern Arnhem Land, Northern Territory

Balance

Fabrica

Rise

Rise

Balance

Fabrica

Captured above ephemeral floodplains, the electric colours and intricately textured patterns are where the waters of a standing swamp have seeped out on to the extensive floodplain network. The colours are primarily the result of a mix of high salinity levels, algae, and a long, hot dry season.

Southern Arnhem Land, Northern Territory

Low tide exposes the seabed and rock shelf of Bynoe Harbour. The patterns created by the receding water are really intriguing and the warmth in the bottom left balances the cool of the top right perfectly, giving the image a sense of rhythm.

Bynoe Harbour, Northern Territory

Flying over the remote Limmen Bight region of the far western Gulf of Carpentaria was one of the single most incredible experiences of my photographic career. What may be ordinary from the ground can be extraordinary from above – this image is the perfect example of that.

Southern Arnhem Land, Northern Territory

September . October 97

Monochrome Monochrome Winner

Incoming Jeff Freestone, Victoria Captured in Omeo, Victoria, looking out towards Ensay as the 2019–20 fires in East Gippsland began to develop.

The rising smoke cloud symbolised the impending doom these fires were to bring and the havoc they would cause as they ravaged this beautiful region.

Omeo, Victoria Judges’ comments: A classic Australian landscape that contains a contradiction of beauty and terror, with the spectacular form of what could be cumulus clouds, belying the impending destruction. The approaching firestorm dwarfs the tree as it looms over it: an ominous symbol of the overwhelming and devastating nature of a bushfire.

September . October 99

Monochrome Runner-up

King of the Cape Palm cockatoo (Probosciger aterrimus) Matt Wright, Queensland Palm cockatoos are undoubtedly one of the biggest drawcards for any nature lover wanting to visit Cape York Peninsula. They are naturally shy; to capture a glimpse of these declining birds is a magical experience. Recent fires and cyclones have destroyed valuable nesting trees, but education and awareness of the birds’ plight may save them in the long run.

Cape York Peninsula, Queensland

Animal Habitat Animal Habitat Winner

A Tree Dreaming Galah (Eolophus roseicapilla) Christian Spencer, Victoria In the Strzelecki Desert of Australia, a flock of galahs replenish on the only water available at the base of this lonely tree. It’s a rare photo opportunity to get such a clear and symmetrical shot of these beautiful birds in flight, in the middle of the desert.

Strzelecki Desert, South Australia Judges’ comments: Australia’s unique arid outback has been beautifully depicted, highlighting the importance of a lifegiving puddle. A simple, strong composition that has come to life with the flight of the galahs revealing a mirroring effect…the blue sky reflected in the water and the warmth of the land echoed in the flying birds.

Animal Habitat Runner-up

Stilted Reflections Pied stilt (Himantopus leucocephalus) Georgina Steytler, Western Australia I was at a location overlooking these pied stilts feeding in shallow waters when the wind died and the sunset cast incredible reflections. I changed to a 100–400mm lens and zoomed out to capture as much of the stilts “walking in the clouds” as I could.

Bremer Bay, Western Australia 100 Australian Geographic

Threatened Species

Our Impact

Our Impact Winner

Our Impact Runner-up

Threatened Species Winner

Threatened Species Runner-up

Bound, jammed inside, and posted

Single-use Drifter

Declining Species

In the shadows

Columbus crab (Planes minutus) Justin Gilligan, Lord Howe Island

Grey nurse shark (Carcharias taurus) Status: Vulnerable Scott Portelli, New South Wales

Tasmanian devil (Sarcophilus harrisii) Status: Endangered Tom Svensson, Sweden

Face masks arrived at Lord Howe Island from a cargo ship that lost 50 containers in rough seas off Sydney. More than 1100 masks were collected during lockdown. In this image, a Columbus crab finds shelter in a plastic bag of face masks. The environmental impact will never be fully quantified.

Lord Howe Island

Populations of grey nurse sharks along the Australian coast are under threat and have suffered a decline over recent years.

Current threats to the species are believed to be incidental catch from commercial fisheries, recreational fishing and, to a lesser extent, shark net programs run in New South Wales and Queensland.

Exmouth, Western Australia

I spent 14 days on Maria Island and one day I was lucky enough to see a devil running past. I could see him in the bushes and the sun shone directly on him. It was an amazing feeling to see one out during the day.

Maria Island, Tasmania

Bluetongue lizard (Tiliqua nigrolutea) Doug Gimesy, Victoria A wildlife officer measures one of two bluetongue lizards found bound and stuffed inside a DVD player. Posted to Asia, it was detected at a Melbourne postage sorting facility. Luckily, both were still alive. Wildlife smuggling is so brutally cruel, with many not surviving their long trip.

Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning (DELWP) facility, Victoria

Judges’ comments: Well-executed composition with great contrast between the manufactured forms and the natural shape of the bluetongue. This powerful image highlights the tragic plight of wildlife targeted by animal trafficking.

Judges’ comments: The shark is perfectly illuminated in its environment, captured in a beautifully balanced composition with great use of artificial and available light. The neighbouring schools of fish provide great texture and contrast.

September . October 101

Animal Behaviour Animal Behaviour Winner

Animal Behaviour Runner-up

Next generation

Dreaming

West Australian seahorse (Hippocampus subelongatus) Tammy Gibbs, Western Australia

Veined octopus (Amphioctopus marginatus) Franco Tulli, Italy

I’ve spent many hours under water at night photographing our West Australian seahorses giving birth.

It’s the male seahorse that “gets pregnant” and broods the babies in his pouch. Photographing them having their babies takes lots of patience, persistence, good timing and a hint of luck.

Perth, Western Australia

The animal inside the seashell is a tiny octopus about two inches (5cm) in diameter. This kind of animal can utilise the valves as a house and for protection, taking the house with it as it moves. This shot was taken during a quiet rest.

Lembeh Strait, Indonesia

Judges’ comments: Beautifully composed and technically difficult, this is an incredible capture of such an extraordinary moment. Subtle colour helps to achieve a mystical, magical quality, like something out of a dream. Dedication, patience and good timing have all come together to create a stunning image.

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Landscape Landscape Winner

Forest of Reflection Hayden Cannon, Western Australia A beautiful scene I came across one afternoon while scoping out a site for a photo shoot. I saw these paperbarks in the water creating stunning reflections, with some golden light emphasising the trees. I changed to my wide angle lens and took a few snaps before the light faded.

The Lakes, Dalyellup, Western Australia Landscape Runner-up Judges’ comments: There is a painterly quality in this landscape that evokes a glimpse at a lost world. The light catching on the paperbark is exquisite with the pattern of branches creating a tapestry of delicate colour.

Beneath the Surface Ashlee Karas, Western Australia For some, sunsets are a time for reflection and meditation.

For me, pairing a fiery sunset with the pristine coral gardens of the Ningaloo Reef under the glassy ocean surface brings a

whole new level of tranquillity.

Combining two worlds to create a perfect moment.

Ningaloo Reef, Coral Bay, Western Australia September . October 103

Junior Junior Winner

You Can’t See Me Lichen huntsman (Pandercetes gracilis) Georgia McGregor, Queensland 11 years old I spotted this lichen huntsman waiting in ambush, perfectly camouflaged on a tree trunk near our campsite in the Daintree National Park. This spider, most commonly found in northern Queensland rainforests, is one of the fastest moving of all known spiders, but harmless to humans.

Daintree National Park, Cape Tribulation, Queensland Judges’ comments: A great reminder that interesting subjects can be found anywhere – close observation can reveal extraordinary things if we take the time to be still.

Beautifully spotted by keen eyes, this spider reveals itself only after close study, hidden perfectly in the soft mossy colour and texture of its environment.

Junior Runner-up

Cockatoo Sulphur-crested cockatoo (Cacatua galerita) Aidan Cimarosti, New South Wales 16 years old In my front yard on the Northern Beaches of Sydney, a group of cockatoos were gathering for some food. With the late-afternoon sun on one particular cockatoo, I was able to photograph its crest in the golden light.

North Narrabeen, New South Wales

104 Australian Geographic

Botanical Botanical Winner

Botanical Runner-up

Ghost Mushrooms

Swamp Secrets

Ghost mushroom (Omphalotus nidiformis) Callie Chee, New South Wales

Paula McManus, South Australia

Nicknamed ‘ghost mushrooms’ due to their eerie glow, these fungi are only found in certain forests in Australia. They glow for only a few weeks in a year and are therefore quite hard to find and photograph.

Belanglo State Forest, New South Wales

Mullinger Swamp Conservation Park is a protected area just outside of Kybybolite, on the South Australian and Victorian border. On our final day in the area, we lucked out with clear skies, still water, no wind and low-lying fog.

Mullinger Swamp Conservation Park, South Australia

Judges’ comments: There is a magical fairytale feel to this image.

The fungi are like glowing jewels of the forest, nestled among the trees in the mist. A cinematic quality has been given to this otherworldly scene.

Keep every picture The best of the Nature Photographer of the Year for 2021 – all the award-winning and shortlisted images from the 18th annual competition – is showcased in this stunning hardcover book. Each image is accompanied by technical information and anecdotes from the photographers on how each photograph was taken.

There are also useful insights from the judges, which shed light on how they came to select the winning images.

Available at: australiangeographic.com/au/shop

AG

September . October 105

Starflower

Scarlet banksia

Showy honey-myrtle

Yellow mountain bell

Tallerack

Native bluebell

White spider orchid

Southern plains banksia

Royal hakea

Queen of Sheba orchid

Bushy Yate

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Nodding grevillea

Lambs’ tails

Eucalypt species

Fringed mantis orchid

Festivals & Events

Purple enamel orchid

The Ravensthorpe Wildf lower Show Delicate wild blooms in simple glass receptacles populate rows of white shelves with an otherworldly elegance. It’s one of the stunning displays in what’s arguably the biggest wildflower show of its kind in the world.

STORY BY WENDY BARRETT PHOTOGRAPHY BY SUE LEIGHTON AND WENDY BARRETT

Smoke bush

Donkey orchid

Qualup bell

September . October 107

Dancing orchid

108 Australian Geographic

PERTH Ravensthorpe

declared rare flora can be picked, nor can any specimens be collected from within the national park.

Now in its 39th year, the show is held each September. “It almost didn’t go ahead this year because of COVID,” says show president Jenny Biddulph of last year’s event. “But Sue had the courage to push ahead despite the fact that we were only just out of lockdown. All the community groups were behind us.

It’s something we all look forward to, and it’s a great focus for the town.”

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attendance figures would be lower than usual because of the lack of interstate and international tourists. “But in the end, visitor numbers have been much the same as usual, even though the event was three days shorter,” Jenny says. “Many of this year’s visitors were West Australians who hadn’t been to the area before and they also stayed longer to explore the region.”

Jenny says the show began in 1982 “with local resident and wildflower enthusiast Jim McCulloch displaying flowers from the area, and it grew from there”. Jim’s daughter, Enid Tink, now in her 80s, was still actively involved in the show until last year. Various tours and events get visitors radiating out into the HERE WERE CONCERNS

PHOTO CREDITS: PREVIOUS PAGES: SUE LEIGHTON; DENE BINGHAM; DON FUCHS; SHUTTERSTOCK; THIS PAGE: WENDY BARRETT

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to swell as the opening ceremony draws near. There’s a palpable buzz of excitement and awe as visitors first take in the carefully curated display of West Australian flora.

After a Welcome to Country by Harley Coyne, a Noongar man from Menang country near Albany, followed by a lovely rendition by the Ravensthorpe Choir of the Noongar welcome song “Kaya”, the annual Ravensthorpe Wildflower Show is officially declared open by journalist Will Yeoman and the show’s patron, ABC Radio presenter and horticulturalist Sabrina Hahn.

With a shire population of about 2500, including 500 town residents, the tiny Wheatbelt town of Ravensthorpe – located 510km south-east of Perth – plays host to this renowned botanical event due to its location in the heart of one of the world’s greatest wildflower regions. The botanically stunning Fitzgerald River National Park and Ravensthorpe Range are in this area, so it’s not surprising that the Shire of Ravensthorpe boasts a community of keen wildflower-loving volunteers who appreciate how very special their part of the planet is and know how to mobilise themselves to extraordinary effect.

Fitzgerald River NP is at the core of the UNESCO-listed Fitzgerald Biosphere, which covers 15,300sq.km. “It’s right up there with other species-rich biospheres like the Amazon and Galápagos Islands,” explains Sue Leighton, coordinator of the show. “There are still new species out there waiting to be found.

All the flowers that are on display are picked within the shire and can be seen growing in their natural habitat.” However, no TTENDEE NUMBERS BEGIN

Local botanist Dr Gillian Craig (centre, in blue hat) has attendees enthralled during the Ravensthorpe Flower Festival on her two-hour walk and talk about understanding plant recovery in the aftermath of bushfire.

Tesselaar Tulip Festival.

Each of the almost 600 locally collected flower species (top) is beautifully displayed and labelled for wildflower enthusiasts to enjoy.

The vibrant orange Chorizema aciculare (bottom) is just one of the many pretty pea flowers found in the region.

Springtime floral festivals around Australia RAVENSTHORPE WILDFLOWER SHOW 13–25 September Ravensthorpe Town Hall and Herbarium Ravensthorpe, WA Admission: $5 adults, children free wildflowersravensthorpe. org.au/wildflower-show/ TOOWOOMBA CARNIVAL OF FLOWERS 1–30 September Toowoomba, QLD tcof.com.au

PHOTO CREDITS, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: WENDY BARRETT; COURTESY TESSELAAR TULIP FESTIVAL AND TOURISM AUSTRALIA; WENDY BARRETT

FLORIADE 11 September–10 October Canberra, ACT floriadeaustralia.com

rugged landscape, where the flowers on display in the Town Hall can be seen growing in their natural habitats. With tagalong four-wheel-drive tours venturing into the Ravensthorpe Range to the north and park ranger walks into the national park to the south, the festival covers a vast area.

“We have science-based tours and events, and highly qualified locals who jump in and help us,” Sue says. “Each year we add more content. The WA Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions was great this year. They provided a ranger for a couple of hours each day at the wildflower show who also led two tours into the national park. Who doesn’t love talking to a ranger?”

The tag-along 4WD tours are extremely popular, involving convoys of up to 10 vehicles led through a variety of terrains and floral regions by the local SES. Visitors without 4WDs can

“It’s right up there with other species-rich biospheres like the Amazon and Galápagos Islands.”

COWRA CHERRY BLOSSOM FESTIVAL 25 September Cowra, NSW visitcowra.com.au/ sakura-matsuri-cherryblossom-festival TESSELAAR TULIP FESTIVAL 11 September–10 October Silvan, VIC tulipfestival.com.au BLOOM FESTIVAL 18 September– 17 October Great Southern region on the WA south coast greatsoutherntreasures. com.au/bloom/

hitch a ride in any vehicles that have a spare seat or two, and there’s also a 2WD tour.

Leaders such as landscape ecologist Nathan McQuoid and geologist David Groombridge provide insights into the plant life, geology and ancient topography of the region. At one stop on the Ravensthorpe Range, Nathan leads a group on foot into thick bush revealing a massive malleefowl nest mound, well hidden from the road.

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AVENSTHORPE SHIRE ATTRACTS more than its fair share

of resident expert botanists, citizen scientists, conservationists, writers and artists. The festival benefits hugely from the involvement of these passionate individuals who give freely of their time. They include botanist Dr Gillian Craig, who talks on the subject of post-bushfire plant recovery. She also leads fascinating walks into bushland near the farm property where she has lived for 30 years, giving valuable firsthand accounts of the negative effects of prescribed burning practices on the resilience of some local flora species.

In 1997 the Western Australian Herbarium invited the flower show committee to participate in its regional herbaria program with the aim of collecting specimens of every flowering plant in the 12,872sq.km Ravensthorpe Shire. The September . October 109

Ravensthorpe local Hayley Wisewould with her creation produced in a workshop run by Margaret River artist Megan Hodgson. Hopetoun local Adrian Fieting was able to get this perfect shot (bottom) of a tag-along tour from his drone during a stop along the route.

Newdegate botanist Anne Rick selects the correct identification labels for specimens as they are brought in by the wildflower show volunteers.

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Read more on this topic: AG 162 The wonder of wildflowers AG 157 Flower power: Toowoomba’s Carnival of Flowers AG 137 Rock of ages: Stirling Range and Porongurup national parks AG 109 Blooming brilliance

of months in advance. As a fencing contractor working alongside her husband, Devon, Dianne has to fit calls in as best she can around her workday. “I can often be found up a windmill or on a haystack trying to get phone coverage,” she says, laughing. “This year we exhibited 562 species, which is awesome for a drought year.” In a good year they average about 700 species.

The diversity of the display is something to behold, from delicate orchids to an impressive collection of eucalypt flowers and fruit. The Ravensthorpe Shire has more Eucalyptus species and subspecies than anywhere else in the world, and twelve of these are endemic to

PHOTO CREDITS, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: SUE LEIGHTON; SUE LEIGHTON; ADRIAN FIETING

collection was housed in various locations around town until a purpose-built herbarium adjoining the Town Hall was completed in 2017, and is now at the heart of the annual festival.

The modern, streamlined building has elevated the show to a whole new level, and its core collection has become an essential reference tool for identifying the plants on display. Plant identification workshops enable local wildflower enthusiasts to increase their knowledge.

Volunteer licensed flower pickers for the festival range in age from 28 to their early 90s. “There are about 150 volunteers who contribute to the show and 32 of these are licensed pickers,” says coordinator Dianne Burton. “Each picker has their own designated area and is armed with maps and a picking partner. I pick in the Ravensthorpe Range and at Mt Short with my friend Prized Liz Utting, a young local mum. Many of among orchid us travel at least 130km over the weekend; aficionados and some of us live 70km away before we amateurs alike even get started.” is the Queen of Sheba orchid.

Dianne begins organising volunteers by making countless phone calls a couple

Profuse flowering on the local heathland provides many photo opportunities. It’s just one of many locations visited on the wildflower hotspot bus tours run by volunteers throughout the show.

the area. “Ravensthorpe Shire is the home of the gum tree,” says Malcolm French, author and eucalypt expert, who is frequently in the area undertaking research.

It is very apparent it’s not only the region’s spectacular flowers that make this festival so special. The enthusiasm and involvement of the community is equally spectacular, with people of all ages and backgrounds involved. “We’re as diverse as the flora and geology,” says Sue about the people of the shire. “I have enormous respect for all of them. It’s not just older people getting involved, we have great successioning here, and it’s something unique to the Ravensthorpe Show.”

PHOTO CREDIT: WENDY BARRETT

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ILDFLOWER BUS TOURS run by volunteers are a great

way for people of all ages to get out into the bush.

Volunteers scout the area beforehand to find the best and current flowerings. On one such tour last year copious numbers of the eye-catching Qualup bell were flowering en masse in a reclaimed gravel pit and those on the tour had an opportunity to wander through the gorgeous flowering heathland.

The seaside town of Hopetoun, 50km to the south, collaborates in organising and hosting events during the festival.

“Hopetoun is the gateway to the national park, but the two towns work really well together and are particularly harmonious

at this time of year,” says Karrina Smallman, manager of the Hopetoun Community Resource Centre. “Everyone loves the vibe.” The tiny towns of Munglinup and Jerdacuttup also get on board, as do farmers throughout the shire.

As well as science-based tours and events, art features heavily too. “We include the arts because nature is art,” Sue says. “We have art and photographic competitions, exhibitions, workshops and displays.” Since 2013, creative welding classes have been hosted by visiting metal artists. Last year the Ravensthorpe Farm Gate Art Trail relaunched to coincide with the show and locals welded and fashioned quirky constructions to install at their front gates, with prizes offered for the best creations.

In between tours and events, visitors revisit the Town Hall display to identify what they have seen out in the bush, and the camaraderie of the show spills over into the wilds of the national park when visitors bump into each other. A great way to end each day is to gather at the local pub where convivial crowds of flower aficionados and miners from the nearby Galaxy Mt Cattlin lithium mine gather.

As the show grows, more people are awakening to how precious this region is and there’s a growing realisation the mother lode of WA’s wealth isn’t just in its mineral deposits, but in the AG natural beauty of its unique bush and wildflowers.

September . October 111

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Witness wonders of the dramatic Australian coastline at places like The Gap near Albany in Western Australia.

See page 120.

Travel with us

PHOTO CREDIT: COURTESY WESTERN AUSTRALIA TOURISM

Unique expeditions and experiences from Australian Geographic and our trusted travel partners

September . October 113

SEPT E MB ER • OCTOBER 2021

Why travel with us?

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ACCE SS

Travelling with Australian Geographic inspires people to care about the planet by providing meaningful opportunities to explore it.

Our travel experiences are rich in nature and adventure, and our travel partners specialise in hard-to-reach places and small group experiences.

You’ll join similarly inclined souls who share your taste for exploration and a burning desire to learn more about our phenomenal natural world.

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E XPERT ISE

Imagine exploring the Great Barrier Reef with a scientist who has dedicated his life to conserving this incredible natural wonder, or visiting stunning Lord Howe Island to conduct vital bird research in the company of top bird experts.

Australian Geographic’s adventurers, scientists, historians and photographers have brought the world to you for more than 36 years. Now, they invite you to join them in visiting the country’s most intriguing places and sharing their passion.

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S USTAINABILI T Y

Australian Geographic and its travel partners are committed to sustaining the environment, culture and heritage of each place we visit.

In doing so we strive to protect our precious environment, from addressing climate change and its far-reaching impacts, to promoting awareness of the world’s oldest living culture and revealing to you the countless treasures it cradles.

Whether on land or by small ship, we leave only footsteps in our wake.

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G IVIN G B ACK

All of the travel experiences offered by us raise funds for our Society. As our non-profit arm, it supports scientists and conservationists who work tirelessly to preserve and protect the planet, its species and ecosystems.

Australian Geographic also provides grants to explorers and adventurers who keep the Australian spirit of adventure alive and whose expeditions and endeavours expand the bounds of human knowledge.Your ongoing support is vital for us to continue this important work.

AUST RAL IAN G EOGRAPHIC S OCI ETY E XP EDITI ON REP O RT

Citizen science on the Great Barrier Reef STORY BY DEAN MILLER, PHOTOS BY WOOD SPARK

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S OUR GBR Legacy research team met on the wharf to board Coral Discoverer in Cairns, we knew this was going to be an expedition like no other!

In collaboration with the Australian Geographic Society and Coral Expeditions, we created a citizen science expedition on the Great Barrier Reef (GBR). The 10-day exploration of some of the more remote and beautiful parts of the GBR involved collecting live coral, undertaking a range of citizen science programs from reef health surveys to beach clean ups, and seeking out inquisitive dwarf minke whales.

Our first stop was Sudbury Cay, off Cairns, where we collected live corals.

With each additional bleaching event

The GBR Legacy team was able to add an additional 50 species to its Coral Biobank with the help of fellow passengers aboard Coral Discoverer.

we are losing the most vulnerable coral species and reefs. As such, the GBR Legacy Living Coral Biobank project aims to collect all 400 known GBR species and keep them alive in landbased facilities to protect biodiversity, and aid in reef research and restoration.

With the help of passengers we were thrilled to add an additional 50 species of coral to the collection, making a total of 85 species in the Biobank.

The work during the voyage was essential in helping us secure around 22 per cent of the GBR’s coral biodiversity. It also involved a scientifically significant event when Dr Charlie Veron identified a new species of coral – an amazing moment in science on the aptly named Coral Discoverer vessel!

Survey slate at the ready (above), a keen citizen scientist sets about recording coral species on the GBR.

September . October 115

Citizen science on the Great Barrier Reef.

We then headed north towards Lizard Island and the Ribbon Reefs of the GBR Marine Park after taking in the sights of historic Cooktown. These reefs flourish with the most beautiful coral gardens. It’s here that we immersed ourselves in citizen science surveys.

Paul Myers, Operations Manager for GBR Legacy, says the work our passengers did contributed to the expedition’s hugely successful research program.

With survey slates and cameras in hand, guests were instrumental in collecting valuable data that provide researchers and managers with an insight into reef health and integrity.

After this we went looking for dwarf minkes and were delighted at our first sighting of two very playful whales.

Everyone got suited up and we entered the water with snorkels to see these little mammals up close. Over the course of the day we spent nearly three

Coral monitoring and collection is key to protecting the many threatened species found on the GBR. Dwarf minke whale encounters are a vital and exhilarating part of the GBR Legacy research work.

hours in the water, and had four separate encounters with up to 10 animals!

The next day we experienced something very special indeed – a mother and calf minke whale, which is very rare to see. This curious duo stayed for more than four hours and our Minke Whale Project research team slipped very carefully into the water to get perfect imagery of both mum and calf as well as collect valuable skin samples to enable DNA testing. With the help of passengers, who were on deck, and the

research team, we collected more than 1000 individual data points.

We would like to send a very heartfelt thank you to Coral Expeditions and the Australian Geographic Society for hosting this incredible journey, and of course all the guests who became such fantastic researchers. It’s a fine example of ‘adventure with purpose’, and to top it all off we received a $30,000 donation, which will allow us to continue our vital work with the Living Coral Biobank Project.

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Passengers explore a remote sand cay during the GBR voyage.

116 Australian Geographic

Travel with us

Take a walk on the wild side

Keep your eyes peeled for lyrebirds during this East Gippsland wildlife and birding tour.

Birding and wildlife conservation in East Gippsland, Victoria.

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ELP WILDLIFE on

this incredible trip. Find koalas in magnificent stands of giant eucalypt forest, walk through rainforest listening for lyrebirds, watch sea eagles soar over untouched beaches and spot huge goannas beside secluded rivers and waterways. East Gippsland is famous for its forest wildlife, particularly big mammals, birds and reptiles. It’s a fabulous place for parrots and cockatoos – they are numerous, visible and noisy. Your wildlife guide will also show you where to look for wallabies, kangaroos, echidnas, parrots, cockatoos, black swans and many other animals.

Departures & fares 3 nights Dates: 8–11 Nov 2021 14–17 Feb 2022, 14–17 Nov 2022 Additional dates available, please contact us.

From $2135 per person twin share From $427 single supplement

Wildlife highlights Mammals: eastern grey kangaroo, rednecked and swamp wallaby, wombat, koala, brush-tailed possum, sugar glider, echidna, platypus, grey-headed flying-fox.

Reptiles: goanna, Jacky lizard, eastern water dragon, common

blue-tongue, southern water skink, and rock and grass skinks.

Birds: king parrot, turquoise parrot, eastern and crimson rosellas, gang-gang cockatoo, glossy black-cockatoo, top-knot pigeon, eastern whipbird, superb lyrebird and many more.

Itinerary

Help remove discarded fishing net from the beach at Cape Conran.

Join a journey with conservation at its heart Day 1: Melbourne to East Gippsland (pick ups commence at 8am) – travel past Ramsar wetlands of the Lakes District of East Gippsland before being ferried to an island sanctuary with a thriving colony of koalas.

We may also see echidnas, wallabies and kangaroos, plus many colourful parrots, honeyeaters and seabirds, which you can help record.

Day 2: Rugged mountain forests of East Gippsland –

today we visit both dry and wet mountain forests and the famous Snowy River, and walk beside a wilderness creek where the landscape changes dramatically from sunny, dry slopes to near-rainforest gullies.

Day 3: Explore secluded river estuary on the Wilderness Coast; search for sea eagles, cockatoos, kingfishers, swans and huge goannas. We visit a quiet beach with a complex dune system, and frequently see

Mungo NP

beach and ocean-going birds.

Day 4: Mouth of the Snowy River and Krowathunkooloong to Melbourne – visit the Krowathunkooloong Keeping Place, an informative Aboriginal Cultural Centre. We’ll also search for grey-headed flyingfoxes in their daytime roosts beside the river at Bairnsdale.

Contact us today travel@australiangeographic.com Call 0413 560 210 September . October 117

Explore the islands of Torres Strait and Cape York guided by local experts.

Torres Strait & Cape York Explore the remote wilderness and unparalleled beauty of the Top End YOU R E X P E R T GUIDES

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300 islands dotted across the narrow stretch of water between Cape York and Papua New Guinea, the people of the Torres Strait Islands have a distinct and vibrant culture. An expedition by small ship is the ideal way to access these remote regions, visiting uninhabited sandy cays, remote islands and pristine reef systems on an enriching journey. Guided by our expert expedition team and local elders where possible, you will discover the natural secrets and stories of this ancient country.

ITH ALMOST

Snap happy

Departures & fares 10 nights Horn Island to Cairns Dates: 13 November 2021 From $10,900 per person twin share

Expedition highlights Learn about the vibrant art and culture of the Torres Strait Islands.

Stand at Australia’s northernmost tip at Cape York for a sunrise toast.

Experience remote Osprey Reef, one of the world’s best dive sites.

Snorkel and birdwatch at vibrant

Davie Reef.

Explore beautiful Lizard Island and hike to Cook’s Look.

Marvel at contactperiod rock art at Stanley Island.

Itinerary

Art, culture and country collide in the Top End

Day 1: Board Coral Discoverer on Horn Island.

Days 2–10: Tour Thursday Island to learn about the pearling history and Torres Strait culture.

Local communities permitting, discover the art centres of Moa Island and Badu Island for workshops and traditional dancing.

At the tip of Cape York, make a sunrise toast.

Continue your journey down the coast to snorkel at remote Forbes Island.

Visit Restoration Island to meet ‘castaway’ David Glasheen and marvel at the rock-art gallery at Stanley Island with a traditional owner guide.

Dive beneath the surface at colourful Davie Reef, before exploring extraordinary Osprey Reef. Lizard Island offers spectacular natural beauty and historical stories, which continue in Cooktown.

Day 11: Disembark in Cairns at adventure’s end.

Contact us today coralexpeditions.com Phone 1800 079 545 118 Australian Geographic

Chris Bray is an Australian Geographic nature photographer who spends much of his year leading small-group photo tours to witness the most extraordinary wildlife experiences on Earth.

An adventurer at heart, Chris grew up sailing around the world then led various world-first Arctic expeditions including hauling an amphibious cart across Victoria Island and sailing a small, wooden, junk-rigged sailboat through the infamous Northwest Passage above Canada and Alaska. Chris sits on the advisory committee for the Australian Geographic Society, founded Conservation United and recently created the new, luxury eco-accommodation Swell Lodge on Christmas Island, where he lives.

Travel with us

Connect with an ancient culture and learn to lead with your heart in the NT.

Women’s cultural immersion, Arnhem Land The Yolŋu women open their hearts to visitors in this unique tour.

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often say the land is their mother.

It nurtures, heals and guides their lives. This is why the female visitor experience and connection to the Yolŋu people is often so profound. Our Gay’wu women’s tour provides female visitors with the opportunity to come together with their Yolŋu sisterhood and learn about their culture, history and country. Equally, it’s an opportunity to reconnect with every aspect of their own lives – environment, spirituality and philosophy.You will experience many extraordinary things on this tour, and time spent with the Yolŋu women is often described as “life changing”.

HE YOLŊU

NT

Departures & fares 4 nights Dates: 19–23 May 2022, 21–25 July 2022 Additional dates available, please contact us.

From $2399 per person twin share From $1999 child (4–14 years)

Expedition highlights This tour is for women and girls only. In the modern western world this could be seen as sexist, but in the Yolŋu world there are clearly defined roles and activities undertaken exclusively by women.

Depending on the homeland visited,

the tour may include a charter flight to remote homeland where you will be welcomed by the traditional owners, and given an overview of a woman’s role in Yolŋu society.

Visit the remarkable art centre in Yirrkala – Buku Larrnggay.

What to expect

Open your heart to the Yolŋu women

Become part of a small family community in East Arnhem Land! The aim of this tour is to participate in the unstructured and less regimented daily life of the Yolŋu. Each Yolngu homeland offers a slightly different experience, and every time we visit we may be hosted by different family members.

Your Yolŋu hosts will lead each day’s activities, so be prepared to be flexible and expect the unexpected. Specific activities

also vary depending on the season and availability of materials. The ladies may speak about Yolŋu philosophy and kinship, astrology, the healing ceremony and the crying ceremony (Nathi).

Activities could include traditional weaving, painting, cooking and bush medicine, dancing, gathering oysters or mud crabs and much more.

Specific activities will vary according to the homeland

Darwin

Nhulunbuy

Adelaide

visited as each is different.

Activities also vary depending on the season and availability of materials.

Note: The Yolŋu are regarded as the most culturally intact Aboriginal nation in Australia.

A major focus of activity in the region is cultural awareness and immersion experiences.

Contact us today travel@australiangeographic.com Phone 0413 560 210 September . October 119 117

Experience the grandeur of Australia’s southern coastline from land and sea on this immersive tour.

Australia’s Great Southern Coastline Explore the wild landscapes and unique food experiences from Melbourne to Fremantle

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state-of-the-art expedition ship Coral Geographer on this Australian Geographic partner voyage into the wild nature, rich history and unique food experiences of Australia’s southern coast. Here, sweeping beaches and idyllic seaside towns merge into remote national parks harbouring some of the world’s rarest species of flora and fauna. This immersive voyage will delight all your senses, as you embark on a once-in-a-lifetime crossing of the Great Australian Bight.

ET SAIL ABOARD

Departures & fares 14 nights Melbourne to Fremantle – Departs 1 March 2022 From $8920 per person twin share

Expedition highlights Shuck your own delicious oysters fresh from the waters of Coffin Bay. Taste locally harvested wild abalone at Streaky Bay. Visit Augusta’s Jewel Cave and learn about its formation over thousands of years.

Enjoy sunset drinks on the beach at Lucky

Bay, alongside friendly kangaroos.

Indulge in winetasting in Margaret River wine country.

Enjoy hikes in remote national parks.

Itinerary

From Victoria to WA – small ship expeditioning

Day 1: Board the ship in Melbourne.

Days 2–14: In Apollo Bay, taste locally crafted beer and gin and take a sunset cruise past the 12 Apostles. Discover the 19th century architecture and history of Port Fairy.

At Western River Cove on Kangaroo Island, hike through the landscape as it recovers from the 2019 fires. At beautiful Coffin Bay National Park, walk coastal trails and shuck fresh oysters at the Saltwater Pavilion. In Streaky Bay,

taste luxurious local greenlip abalone. Cross the Great Australian Bight and cruise to see the Bunda Cliffs (weather permitting). At Cape le Grand National Park, meet the friendly kangaroos of Lucky Bay. Enjoy free time in the city of Albany and visit Augusta to explore breathtaking Jewel Cave. Hike coastal trails at Cape Naturaliste and indulge in wine-tasting in the Margaret River region.

Day 15: Disembark in Fremantle, WA.

Contact us today coralexpeditions.com Phone 1800 079 545 120 Australian Geographic

YOU R E X P E R T GUIDES

Join the Jenners Australian Geographic Society Lifetime of Conservation Award winners Curt and Micheline Jenner head up the Centre for Whale Research in WA, and, between them, have studied everything about whales, from population biology and migratory pathways to the ecology and behaviours of whales. Their lifelong adventure, on board their hand-built vessel Whale Song, makes them the perfect hosts for this exploration of southern Australia’s coastline.

Travel with us

Larapinta trekking Hike the iconic desert track in comfort with expert guides

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N THIS FULLY SUPPORTED trek

you’ll walk with just a daypack to explore the best sections of this iconic desert trail: from the high ridge lines of the West MacDonnell Ranges you’ll see the vast floodplains that form this ancient land.You’ll be dwarfed by the immensity of Ormiston and Serpentine gorges and soothed by their idyllic waterholes.You’ll be amazed by dramatic colour changes in the rock formations at Simpsons Gap and Standley Chasm. And to top it all off, you’ll climb to the lofty peak of Mt Sonder (1380m) to watch the sunrise.

Darwin

Departures & fares 5 nights Dates: 6–11 May 2022 8–13 June 2022 (women’s only trek) Additional dates available, please contact us.

From $3285 per person

Expedition highlights Walk 5–7 hours each day over rugged terrain with some steep ascents and descents.

Gain a deeper understanding of the ancient Indigenous culture and Traditional Owners of the land.

View spectacular and abundant bird-life along

the whole trail.

At the end of each day, relax in architectdesigned camps that include hot showers, comfortable lounges and heated dining shelters, while guides prepare gourmet, three-course dinners around the campfire.

Alice Springs

Itinerary

Unsurpassed walk, passionate guides, delicious bush food

Day 1: Telegraph Station to Wallaby Gap (14km).

Day 2: Nick’s Camp to Simpson’s Gap (7km) then to Standley Chasm (2km).

Day 3: Serpentine Gorge to Charlie’s Camp (16.5km).

Day 4: Charlie’s Camp to Ochre pits (8km).

Day 5: Early morning sunrise walk up Mount Sonder 1380m (16km).

Day 6: Ormiston Pound Walk (8km), transfer to Alice Springs.

A typical day Mornings start with a hot drink call from your guides followed by a scrumptious breakfast.

The morning walk is usually 3-4 hours with numerous breaks along the way. A leisurely picnic lunch is served on the trail.

The afternoon walk is usually shorter than the morning walk, getting you to camp with time for a hot shower, exploring or just relaxing by the campfire with a drink and a chat.

Contact us today travel@australiangeographic.com Phone 0413 560 210 September . October 121

Travel with us K’gari Getaway, Fraser Island Experience Queensland’s brand new threeday, two-night bucket list tour! Enjoy time exploring both coasts of the world’s largest sand island, on one eco-adventure to suit all travellers. Start your getaway in style with a pre-night stay at Kingfisher Bay Resort.

Relax on island time and enjoy access to resort facilities in preparation for your twoday 4WD tour. Led by expert local guides, you’ll discover Fraser Island’s iconic locations, including crystal-clear Lake McKenzie and the towering rainforests of Pile Valley. Plus, uncover the hidden oasis of Lake Wabby.

Departures & fares 3 days Departs Mon, Wed and Fri from Hervey Bay, year-round.

From $699pp, twin share.

Triple and solo options are also available.

Contact us today fraserexplorertours.com.au reservations@fraserexplorertours.com.au Phone 1800 FRASER (1800 372 737)

Bremer Canyon Killer Whale Expedition Experience one of the world’s greatest full-day oceanic expeditions departing from Bremer Bay in Western Australia. Led by expert marine biologists, the tour includes encounters with killer whales, with behaviours likely to be witnessed ranging from hunting to socialising in family groups. Highlights also include spotting a spectacular mix of pelagic birds, Australian sea lions, dolphins and longfinned pilot whales.

Dates and prices 1 day 3 January–24 April 2022 $385pp

Contact us today info@whales-australia.com.au Phone 08 9750 5500

Bird research on island haven Departures & fares 6 nights September 2022 $4963pp twin share, excluding airfare.

The rate includes a $450 contribution to the Australian Geographic Society.

Contact us today pinetrees.com.au Phone 02 9262 6585 122 Australian Geographic

PHOTO CREDIT: ORCAS BY DR REBECCA WELLARD

A gem of the natural world, Lord Howe Island has dramatic scenery, lush subtopical forests, rare flora and fauna, pristine beaches and colourful marine life. Both breathtaking and unique, Lord Howe Island elicited this superlative from Sir David Attenborough: “so extraordinary it is almost unbelievable”.

Now you can join Australian Geographic on its 2022 citizen science expedition to work with experts to study populations of local and migratory birds, with additional surveys of marine life and invertebrates. Also includes opportunities to photograph wildlife.

SUBSCRIBE TO AUSTRALIAN GEOGRAPHIC at australiangeographic.com.au or call 1300 555 176

COMING SOON: Unseen Gallipoli photos QLD dinosaur country UFOs in Australia Could COVID mean the end for coins?

PHOTO CREDIT: TOURISM VICTORIA

A family enjoys the Otway Fly Treetop Walk.

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AVAILABLE ONLINE ON AUSTRALIANGEOGRAPHIC.COM.AU/SHOP AND AT QBD BOOKS

Q5

AusQuiz How much do you really know about Australia? Test yourself!

Questions 1 The Burnett salmon and barramunda are common names for what creature?

2 In which state or territory is there a Mt Despair, a Mt Abrupt and a Mt Difficult?

3 A Tjurunga, also spelt Churinga and Tjuringa, is an object of religious significance for which Central Australian Aboriginal people?

4 Which adventurer re-enacted the survival journeys of Douglas Mawson and Ernest Shackleton, two of the harshest and most extreme Antarctic adventures?

PHOTO CREDITS: SHUTTERSTOCK SCIENTIFIC NAMES, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: Anigozanthos manglesii; Setonix brachyurus

5 What is the official flower of Western Australia?

12 What is the collective noun for a group of wombats?

22 Which inselberg is also known as Ayers Rock?

13 What is the offspring of a gnat or a hornet called?

23 What is the offspring of a penguin or a pheasant called?

14 At 1611m what is Queensland’s highest point?

24 What date did the Sydney Harbour Bridge open to the public?

15 Which animal can be said to chortle?

16 Which wetland centre in the heart of the Riverland, South Australia, is home to more than 171 different types of bird, including the rare regent parrot?

17 Which animal has species called agile, dwarf and whiptail?

25 Which animal do you associate with the adjective ranine?

26 In which year was the first Test Match at Melbourne Cricket Ground?

27 Who wrote the book For the Term of His Natural Life, in the 1870s?

37 Schools Tree Day is held on the last Friday in July, but when is National Tree Day? 38 What is the largest Aboriginal language group in Australia?

39 At 1253m, what is the highest point in WA? 40 In NSW what geographic feature has the respective names: Wallaga, Wallis and Menindee?

41 Who was the inaugural leader of the UAP and the party’s first prime minister?

42 Where do the Gunggari people live?

28 In which decade did Melbourne football evolve various rule changes and become codified?

43 What are baby possums called?

7 In which Indigenous language is wawärini a man and imbalinja a woman?

29 Which river valley near Nannup is a wine region in Western Australia?

44 Which critically endangered swamp in NSW is at the terminus of Lachlan River?

8 Where is the northern-most point of Australia?

30 What is the oldest tree species in Australia?

6 Near which major city is the Yarra Ranges NP?

9 In which state do the Noongar people live?

10 What is the name of the largest and deepest freshwater basin in Australia (and the world)?

11 In which state or territory are rivers called Beardy, Swampy Plain and Strike-a-Light?

18 What animal is also known as the short-tailed scrub wallaby?

19 Which family completed a 350-day tandem bike ride around Australia in 2019?

20 In what region was the didgeridoo traditionally played by Aboriginal men?

21 In terms of population, which is the third-largest city in Australia?

SUBMIT a question Do you have a great Australian quiz question you’d like to share with us?

Submit your question to: editorial@ausgeo.com.au The reader whose question is chosen for the next AusQuiz will receive a copy of AG’s 2021 Nature Photographer of the Year.

31 Other than a tool, what is a mallet?

32 What are the three Aboriginal language groups beginning with the letter E? 33 Who addressed a rural audience in his 1889 Tenterfield Oration, stating that the time had come to form a national executive government?

34 Where is the largest natural freshwater lake in Australia?

35 What percentage of the Australian population is made up of Indigenous people today?

36 Disappointment Reference Area is a scientific reference area within the Wallaby Creek section of which national park?

45 Which nocturnal omnivorous animal has names that include dalgyte, pinkie, and rabbit-eared bandicoot?

46 What feral animal does Australia export to Saudi Arabia?

47 Who was the first Aboriginal published author?

48 In which state or territory is Iytwelepenty/Davenport Ranges National Park?

49 Who was the first person in modern times to follow Genghis Khan’s march from Mongolia to Hungary?

50 Who was the first woman elected to an Australian Parliament? (from reader Neil Gow, Batemans Bay, NSW)

FOR ANSWERS See page 130

September . October 127

AUSSIE TOWNS

Walcha, NSW Be enchanted by one of Australia’s most acclaimed outdoor art galleries in this picturesque rural town.

W

charming rural services town on the eastern slopes of the Great Dividing Range. Pronounced “wolka”, its surroundings boast beautiful, dramatic mountains and valleys, many of which are protected in Oxley Wild Rivers National Park, where you’ll find the particularly impressive Apsley Falls. The agriculture of the area includes sheep (an estimated 750,000 head) for meat and wool, cattle, timber and timber-processing. Walcha’s location en route from Port Macquarie to Tamworth and Armidale has ensured its continued importance as a stopping point for transport and travellers. Beginning in 1996, the town developed the impressive Open Air Gallery that now boasts more than 55 works, including sculptures by local and international artists. These are much more than vernacular works of art. The Sydney Morning Herald art critic, John McDonald, has written of the sculptures: “Walcha has found a way of signposting its continued vitality. For a modest investment of ratepayers’ funds, the council has given the town a special place on Australia’s cultural map. This has come about with the assistance of artists and supporters who have donated a great deal of time and expertise to create this unique facility. It is an example of many individuals working together for the good of the community in which they share strong family and sentimental ties.”

ALCHA IS A

VISITOR INFORMATION Walcha Visitor Information Centre, 29W Fitzroy Street.

Phone: 02 6774 2460. Open 9am–4.30pm Monday to Friday and 9am–4pm weekends.

Email: tourism@walcha.nsw.gov.au walchansw.com.au

This galvanised steel sculpture, called The Whale, was created by Tamworth artist Alan Hubble in 2010 for Walcha’s Open Air Gallery.

128 Australian Geographic

Walcha

NSW Walcha is 410km north of Sydney via the Pacific Highway and Thunderbolts Way. It’s 90km east of Tamworth via the Oxley Highway.

ORIGIN OF NAME The area’s first European settler, Hamilton Sempill, camped in 1832 at a place he called the Wolka run, perhaps because the word means sun, deep water, and water in the language of the local First Nations people.

AUSSIE TOWNS

Places of interest NAB bank.

WALCHA TIMELINE Dunghutti/Dhanggati First Nations people occupied the area before European settlement.

In 1818 explorer John Oxley camped beside the Apsley River near the present townsite.

Apsley Falls.

HISTORIC BUILDINGS OF WALCHA

APSLEY FALLS, OXLEY WILD RIVERS NP

To take a self-guided walking tour of the most significant buildings around town, such as the NAB bank building from 1909, download the brochure Tour Our Historic Buildings of Walcha (see below).

Located 19km east along the Oxley Highway is a turnoff to the Apsley Falls camping ground on the western edge of Oxley Wild Rivers National Park. Lions Lookout, on the way to the Apsley Falls Lookout, offers views across to the bluff s on the other side of Apsley Gorge.

At the park’s day-use area, Gorge Rim Walk is an easy 1.2km loop walking track. The 2.7km Oxley Walk to view the lower falls is well worth the effort.

Crossing the Apsley River footbridge, the walk follows the north edge of the gorge, offering magnificent views of the main and lower falls from four platforms.

1

PIONEER COTTAGE AND MUSEUM

PHOTO CREDTS: COURTESY WALCHA TOURISM, EXCEPT BLACKSMITH’S IMAGE, COURTESY WALCHA HISTORICAL SOCIETY

2

This 12-building complex at 111 Derby Street is open 10am–4pm weekends and by appointment. Highlights are Pioneer Cottage, built in 1862 by Constable James Buckland, the town’s first policeman, and the Museum Building, also from 1862, which boasts rooms of memorabilia from both world wars.

There are also displays of early medical equipment, Aboriginal artefacts, and historic sketches of the town.

3

OPEN AIR GALLERY

In 1996 local farmer and sculptor Stephen King approached the council about designing a fountain sculpture for McHattan Park in the centre of town.

It sparked a project that has since seen more than 55 pieces of public sculpture located around the town, turning this quiet rural services centre into an acclaimed open air gallery.

It’s not only another example of vernacular rural art, but a fine collection of works by local and international artists. Part of the pleasure of the gallery is finding sculptures in the most unlikely places, such as beautiful carved seats in the main street and impressive signs at the town’s entrances. It’s also about enjoying quirky sculptures such as And the Cow Jumped Over the Moon, which is located outside the preschool.

The first settler in the area was Hamilton Collins Sempill, who made his base at the Wolka run in 1832.

4

5

TIA FALLS

Further along the Oxley Highway, look for the turn-off to Tia Falls, 17km past the Apsley Gorge turn-off, and follow an unsealed road/trail for 6km to the Tia Falls lookout and picnic area. The Tia Falls walk offers the best views of the falls and Tia Gorge. It’s short, easy and good for walking with children.

To find downloadable brochures for Historic Buildings of Walcha, Pioneer Cottage and Museum, and Walcha’s Open Air Gallery go to: walchansw.com.au

The sculpture Black Cockatoo, created by artist Ross Laurie in 1999, stands at the southern entrance to Walcha.

A road to Port Macquarie was built in 1842 to transport wool from New England to the coast.

Walcha was gazetted as a village in 1852. At that time there was a

blacksmith’s forge (above), general store and flour mill.

In 1861 the population was recorded at 355.

By 1870 cedar-getters were active in the area’s rainforests.

Goldmining began in 1873 at Tia, Glen Morrison and Nowendoc.

In 1878 Walcha was gazetted as a town and a courthouse was built.

A rail link to Sydney and Uralla opened at Walcha Road in 1882.

The first aerial spraying of superphosphate in Australia occurred at a local property in 1950, increasing yields so successfully that the nearby railway station became the busiest non-metropolitan freight terminal in New South Wales.

In 1996 the first of the Open Air Gallery sculptures was installed in the town.

Since 1988 Bruce Elder has travelled to every town in Australia. He has written more than 10 travel books including the Globetrotter Guides to Australia, Sydney and Queensland; 1015 Things to See and Do in Australia; Explore Queensland and Explore NSW. He worked as a full-time travel writer with The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age from 1996 to 2012. aussietowns.com.au September . October 129

TRACES

Dryandra Village

WA DRYANDRA

T

Work on a mallet plantation (left) began in earnest in the mid-1930s at Dryandra. Cottages (above) for workers and their families, built about the same time, are almost unchanged today, save for a lick of paint.

“This pic of me and my friend Jonica symbolises for me my enchanted childhood at Dryandra,” Lee Boyett says. horsedrawn plough,” Greg says. “There were wooden houses for workers, stables, a garage, a store and a school. Dams were built for water, and a motorised power plant provided electricity.” Some buildings were constructed elsewhere and transported to the site.

After World War II, demand for bark tannins declined significantly. The school had closed when Lee Boyett moved there, aged four, with his family in 1951, and his father began working with the Forests Department.

“I had an idyllic childhood in the settlement,” Lee, now in his 70s, recalls, “and I shared a

few years with my best friend at the time, Jonica (Currie) Foss. Her father, Jack Currie, was the boss – a wonderful man. We were close friends with the Curries and I’m still friends with Jonica.” The only drawback was the lengthy bus ride to school in Narrogin, with multiple stops to collect farm kids.

Perth is now a short drive away on the busy Albany Highway, but back then travelling to and from the state capital was a day-long journey in the back of the Curries’ ute. Jonica and Lee would choose instead to stay back in the forest with the malleefowl, echidnas, numbats and wallabies, building cubby houses. “I’m still in love with Dryandra and I travel there from Perth regularly to sleep in the forest,” Lee says.

The village eventually wound down in the mid-1960s, and in the early 1970s a nearby Lions Club was granted a lease to maintain the few surviving buildings as holiday accommodation for underprivileged children.

Today, Lions Dryandra Woodland Village continues to provide budget holiday accommodation for people wanting to reconnect with nature and escape city life.

KAREN MCGHEE

FOR MORE INFORMATION:

dryandravillage.org.au

AUSQUIZ ANSWERS 1) The Australian lungfish 2) Victoria 3) The Arrernte (Aranda, Arunta) groups 4) Tim Jarvis 5) Red and green kangaroo paw 6) Melbourne 7) The Tiwi language 8) Bramble Cay, Torres Strait Islands 9) WA 10) The Great Artesian Basin 11) NSW 12) A wisdom 13) A larva 14) Bartle Frere (South Peak) 15) A kangaroo 16) Banrock Station 17) The wallaby 18) The quokka 19) The Swag family 20) Arnhem Land 21) Brisbane 22) Uluru 23) A chick 24) 19 March 1932 25) A frog 26) 1877 27) Marcus Clarke 28) 1850s 29) Blackwood Valley 30) The Wollemi pine 31) A mallet is a tree with a single thin trunk with a steeply branching habit 32) Eora, Erawirung and Ewamin 33) Sir Henry Parkes 34) Great Lake, Tasmania 35) 3.3 per cent 36) Kinglake National Park 37) The first Sunday in August 38) The Wiradjuri 39) Mt Meharry 40) They are all lakes 41) Joseph Lyons 42) South-western QLD 43) Joeys 44) Great Cumbung Swamp 45) The bilby or greater bilby 46) Camel (dromedary) 47) David Unaipon 48) NT 49) Tim Cope 50) Edith Cowan, WA Legislative Assembly in 1921 Adam Jacot de Boinod, who compiled the quiz, was a researcher for the BBC series QI and is the author of three books, including The Meaning of Tingo.

130 Australian Geographic

PHOTO CREDITS, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: COURTESY LEE BOYETT; COURTESY LEE BOYETT; COURTESY DEPARTMENT OF BIODIVERSITY, CONSERVATION AND ATTRACTIONS ARCHIVES

HE TINY DRYANDRA Woodland Settlement, 160km south-east of Perth, was established in the 1930s to support a burgeoning tannin-production industry. Remnant woodlands at the Western Australian Wheatbelt’s edge were seen as the perfect location for a plantation of brown mallet (Eucalyptus astringens), a eucalypt species endemic to south-western WA, valuable because its bark contains a high level of tannin.

At that time, tannin was in demand in Europe for leather production. And mallet growing naturally throughout south-western WA had been heavily exploited to take advantage of this, but because extracting tannin from trees requires stripping their bark, which kills them, it was proving unsustainable.

“From the early 1900s to the 1920s, mallet bark had been contributing significantly to the WA GDP. In 1906, for example, WA mallet bark exports yielded £106 000,” explains Greg Durell, regional manager for the Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions, Wheatbelt Region. “Being such an earner for the state, the then Forests Department decided to develop brown mallet stands in new State Forest reservations at Dryandra, 25km north-west of Narrogin as the crow flies, to provide an ongoing resource for this flourishing commercial business.”

The industry needed regulation to stop over-exploitation. A 15-mile moratorium was placed either side of the Great Southern Railway to stop bark-stripping, and significant fines were imposed for illegally harvesting mallet bark. In the mid-1920s, forest at Dryandra was earmarked for a mallet plantation. “Work started then and continued in earnest in about 1935, with some 243ha of land cleared and an area nearby where a number of buildings were constructed – the head forester’s house, overseer’s house and one for a ploughman, who created firebreaks with a

Discover the remarkable stories of ordinary Australians in this exhibition celebrating the bush, the outback, the coast and the people who live there.

EXHIBITION ON SHOW GRIFFITH REGIONAL ART GALLERY | GRIFFITH, NSW 3 September – 3 October 2021 A travelling exhibition from the National Museum of Australia developed in collaboration with Australian Geographic. Photograph by Colin Beard.

nma.gov.au/portrait-of-australia