Innholdsfortegnelse for May - June 2024 i Australian Geographic

THIS IS THE first moment in more than 70 years that a woylie (brush-tailed bettong) has leapt free into Central Australia’s desert country. Once prevalent across much of the mainland, the woylie is now extinct or critically endangered in most of its former range – one of many species to have declined dramatically in numbers since European colonisation and the introduction of predators such as cats and foxes. More than 10 per cent of Australian land mammal species are now extinct. A further 20 per cent are threatened with extinction. Woylies are small relatives of kangaroos and this individual was the first of 44 released in 2021 into Australian Wildlife Conservancy’s Newhaven Wildlife Sanctuary on Ngalia-Warlpiri/Luritja Country in the Northern Territory, a 2615sq.km property that is so large it can…

FOR MORE THAN 20 years, the jawbone of a whale lay on the grass just behind the golden sands of Long Beach, near Batemans Bay on the South Coast of New South Wales. In summer, swimmers dried off on it after a dip, while in the cooler months, families gathered around it to picnic. The fact that the out-of-place bone was used as a bench from the mid-1940s is remarkable. But wait till you hear how the bone got there in the first place. The timing of its arrival provides a big clue: during World War II, RAAF pilots were stationed along the NSW South Coast, on the lookout for Japanese submarines. A dive into our Defence archives comes up with two documented cases, in 1942 and 1945, of whales…

THE CATCHCRY OF COP14 – the meeting of parties to the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals that was held in Uzbekistan in February 2024 – was “Nature Knows No Borders”. It might seem obvious, but the fact that nature does not, and cannot, align itself with national and international jurisdictions proves a huge challenge for migratory species conservation. A world-first report into the State of the World’s Migratory Species, launched at COP14, reveals the extent of these challenges. Populations are declining in close to half (44 per cent) of the almost 1200 species tracked by the convention. The problem is much worse underwater: fish species listed under the convention have declined, on average, 90 per cent since 1970. A further challenge is that not all…

WHEN A ZOOS Victoria team had difficulties breeding some of their critically endangered mountain pygmy-possums, they decided to investigate the animals’ hormone levels. A lot is known about hormones in humans and domestic animals, but it was the first time anyone had looked at pygmy-possum hormones – and, in fact, one of the first times a non-invasive hormone approach had been used in any marsupial conservation program. It was a serendipitous moment that ultimately fuelled a revolutionary new Melbourne-based program now helping to save some of Australia’s most endangered creatures from extinction, by applying the scientific discipline of wildlife endocrinology. At the program’s helm are two reproductive biologists who were on that original team: Dr Marissa Parrott, Senior Conservation Biologist in the Wildlife Conservation and Science team at Zoos Victoria,…

AT THE BOWEN Orbital Spaceport facility, in northern Queensland, the first all-Australian orbital rocket is preparing for lift-off. Eris is a three-stage rocket designed and built by Aussie startup Gilmour Space Technologies. Now fully assembled, Eris is awaiting a green light from the Australian Space Agency (ASA) to begin its maiden launch. There’s a lot hinging on the success of this 23m-tall, 30-tonne spacecraft; if all goes as planned, Australia will become the 12th country to have created and launched its own rocket into orbit. In many ways, it’s surprising the country hasn’t reached this milestone sooner. Australia was once a major player in the early days of the Space Race, partnering with the USA to build radio telescopes and tracking stations to support NASA’s Apollo programs during the Cold…

WHY TRAVEL WITH US? ACCESS Travelling with Australian Geographic inspires people to care about the planet by providing meaningful opportunities to explore it. Our experiences are rich in nature and adventure, and our travel partners specialise in small-group experiences. EXPERTISE Australian Geographic’s adventurers, scientists, historians and photographers have brought the world to you for almost 40 years. Now you’re invited to join them in the country’s most intriguing places, from the Great Barrier Reef to the red heart. SUSTAINABILITY Australian Geographic is committed to sustaining the environment, culture and heritage of each place we visit, from addressing climate change to promoting awareness of the world’s oldest continuing cultures and revealing the country’s countless treasures. GIVING BACK All the travel experiences offered raise funds for our Society. As our not-for-profit arm,…

Ancient fire histories sealed inside sediment core NORTHERN AUSTRALIA’S First Nations people have been practising fire management for at least 11,000 years, confirms new research published in Nature Geoscience by scientists from Queensland’s James Cook University (JCU). Researchers studied an 18m-long sediment core extracted from Girraween Lagoon in the Northern Territory and developed detailed pollen records of vegetation and charcoal. These data were examined alongside geochemical records of climate and fire, offering a window into changing fire patterns during the past 150,000 years. “The Girraween record is one of the few long-term climate records that cover the period before people arrived in Australia 65,000 years ago, as well as after,” said lead author Professor Michael Bird. “This unique coverage provides us with the hard data indicating when the natural fire…

AGRICULTURE AND ENERGY have been essential to humanity for at least 10,000 years. Recently we’ve begun “farming” them together. However, the protestors at the “Rally Against Reckless Renewables” (held outside Federal Parliament House in February 2024) claimed that we couldn’t have both renewables and agriculture. They may have based their concerns on a media release from the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) claiming that about one-third of Australia’s “prime agricultural land” would have to be “taken over” to accommodate these renewables. Actually, the real figure is closer to 0.027 per cent, rather than 33 per cent! That’s the estimate by the Clean Energy Council on the specific assumption of replacing all the coal electricity in Australia with solar farms. It takes very “creative” assumptions to get such a wild discrepancy,…

Adventure nominations open now! It’s that time of year when we ask you to nominate your heroes. AUSTRALIAN GEOGRAPHIC’S ANNUAL Awards for adventure are the longest running and most prestigious accolades for the adventure community in Australia. With the launch of our new Australian Geographic Awards for Nature earlier in 2024 (see opposite page for an update), we have taken out the conservation categories of our annual merit awards and will focus solely on awarding achievements in adventure and exploration. The four adventure categories are listed here, and we invite you to submit your nominations by emailing the Society at society@ausgeo.com.au to request a link to the nomination form, or apply online at australiangeographic.com.au/category/society/awardsNominations close 30 June 2024. We have also replaced the annual awards gala dinner in Sydney with…

For competition balloonists, it’s a game of fierce concentration and razor-sharp precision. IT’S JUST AFTER 4am when hot-air balloon pilot Nicola Scaife trundles out of bed and pulls on thick, rainbow-coloured socks to brace against the pre-dawn chill. The two-time women’s world champion pads around in the inky darkness, brewing a cup of tea and steeling her mind for the day ahead. Nicola, a 38-year-old mother of two from Newcastle, New South Wales, has travelled across Australia’s wide expanse to plant herself in Northam, about an hour and a half north-east of Perth, in the Ballardong Noongar region. She is one of 30 of the best women balloon pilots on the planet, here to float through Western Australia’s giant skies, vying for the title of world champion, in the fifth…

DOZENS OF BLACK, wide-open eyes are staring down at us, curious and intelligent, as ears twitch and bodies hang upside-down. “This is their second chance at life,” Tamsyn Hogarth says quietly of this batch of grey-headed flying-fox pups orphaned in a starvation crisis facing the species during its 2023–24 breeding season along Australia’a south-east coast. Wildlife carer Tamsyn is head of the Melbourne-based Fly By Night Bat Clinic, and these pups in her care are just a few of the many hundreds of orphans left vulnerable by a wildlife crisis that has astounded Australia’s bat rescue and carer community. When I visited her in February 2024, Tamsyn was caring for 86 pups and the number was climbing. “It all began to unfold,” she says, “in September 2023 in south-eastern Queensland…

WALHALLA, KNOWN AFFECTIONATELY as “Australia’s Valley of the Gods”, is a beautifully restored historic goldmining town, perfectly located in a narrow valley between hills that are now verdant, but were once almost totally denuded of trees. The mining companies that occupied the area cut down the trees to fuel their machinery and laid 30km of tram tracks out into the woods to collect timber. Walhalla can reasonably lay claim to being the best historical goldmining-era experience in the country. The buildings are well maintained and have clear and detailed signposting. The experiences on offer include a tour of Long Tunnel Extended Gold Mine, an intriguing cemetery that clings to the steep sides of the valley, the cricket oval perched above the town, and a delightful journey down the valley on…

THE 2000 BRIDGE Walk for Reconciliation was a landmark event that sparked similar actions around the nation during the weeks that followed. But it grew out of actions that ocurred almost a decade earlier in 1991, when the Federal Parliament created the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation, which promoted this vision for “A united Australia which respects this land of ours; values the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander heritage; and provides justice and equity for all.” Creation of the council came in response to the findings of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, which highlighted an urgent need for “a formal process of reconciliation between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and non-Indigenous peoples”. A series of critical events relating to Indigenous rights, respect and recognition followed throughout the 1990s.…

“Get out there and find this wetland jewel. You never know where it might turn up.” THERE WERE NO Australian painted-snipe the morning I searched the drainage ditches near Brisbane Airport in November 2023. Although one had been photographed there days earlier, the wily wader eluded me. I’m not the only one who hasn’t seen this endangered shorebird; according to BirdLife Australia, the painted-snipe is one of the 10 most difficult-to-find bird species in Australia. That not only means it’s difficult for birdwatchers to find but, more importantly, it’s also a challenge for researchers. For most of the 20th century – up until the 1990s, when DNA testing confirmed the Australian painted-snipe has been isolated on mainland Australia for millions of years – the bird was considered a subspecies of…

THE EORA PEOPLE of the area now called Sydney faced profound change when the First Fleet arrived in 1788 carrying nearly 1500 people, limited food supplies, a cargo of foreign animals, sophisticated firearms and a firm belief in their superiority. Within two years, First Nations warrior Pemulwuy had mounted strong resistance to the incursion of white settlers onto his people’s traditional lands. Governor Phillip initially maintained cordial relations with the local people, having been instructed to treat the “Indians” well, and “conciliate their affections…[and] maintain friendly relations”. Conflict, however, was inevitable. The Eora had a complex system of laws that governed social relations, behaviour and resource use. The European invaders had no appreciation of this, and considered the Eora to be savages. A 1789 outbreak of smallpox, introduced by the…

LOCATED 345KM SOUTH-EAST of Adelaide, on South Australia’s Limestone Coast, is a World Heritage-listed fossil site that offers a glimpse of how life was long before humans arrived on the continent. Welcome to Naracoorte Caves, which for 500,000 years have acted as natural pitfall traps and predator dens, ensnaring everything from Ice Age megafauna to modern-day species. Thousands of animals have met their end after tumbling into the caves’ concealed entrances and becoming trapped. Unable to climb out, they perished and their skeletons have mingled with those of cave-dwelling animals dead from natural causes, and bones picked clean by predators and scavengers. “The caves at Naracoorte have been accumulating animal remains for the best part of the last 500,000 years, more or less continually, so you’ve got a record for…

IT WAS THE early 2000s, and Trevor Barry had just enrolled in a graduate certificate of science in astronomy at Swinburne University of Technology. The fact he hadn’t completed high school, let alone a university degree, proved only a minor impediment to enrolment for the already accomplished amateur astronomer. The only caveat the university imposed was that he had to achieve at least credits in all subjects. No problem. “I’m an enthusiastic person,” Trevor explains. It’s an understatement that’s clearly evident after only an hour’s conversation with the lifelong resident of Broken Hill. That trademark enthusiasm did waver slightly, however, at the beginning of the course, when he had to introduce himself to his fellow students from around the world. “There was a guy in the USA and he commissioned…

Less than 1 per cent of Australia’s population lives on the small islands dotted around our continent. This number is growing as more people head across the water after the onset of COVID, rejecting costly city living and office-based work. But is “island paradise” a myth, fuelled by a desperate search for escapism? Or have these far-flung residents truly found the key to happiness? This is the second instalment in a series exploring the realities of island life. RACHEL BURTON-KRINKS ACKNOWLEDGES she was once a “big-city girl”. When she traded Sydney for Brisbane, she had no idea the Queensland capital had islands. But when a friend brought Coochiemudlo to her attention, the timing couldn’t have been more felicitous. Before Rachel signed the papers on a $500,000 city property where “you…

A GROUP OF STUDENTS, rugged up in beanies and puffer jackets and carrying clipboards, scurries into the Engineering Building at the Australian National University (ANU), in Canberra. Deep in the bowels of the drab building is a mechanical workshop, its walls plastered with mission statements, mathematical equations and shelves of tools. Taking centre stage on the floor is what appears to be the fibreglass shell of a spaceship. Or is it a catamaran? Turns out, it’s neither. It’s the chassis of Solar Spirit, a solar-powered car being constructed by the ANU Solar Racing team. It’s a frigid June evening in the nation’s capital, and this workshop seems an unlikely place to find a group of 40 students attempting to build a state-of-the-art vehicle that runs purely on energy from the…