Biological Invasion
Non-native Invasive Pests Cost Billions: Non-Aboriginal Land Management And Non-Indigenous Environmental Abuse
Apr 21, 2006
Eradicating The Native In The Landscape
In my article Romantic Invaders, I touched upon the insane Western mentality that drives invaders to continually clear the native and spread the exotic. This is a great source of stress in my life. At every new place I stay I begin a desperate struggle against foreign weeds, eradicating them and replacing them with native trees. It's always heartbreaking to return to these places later and find my work has been destroyed nine times out of ten. For example, over Christmas I found a bushfood plot I had planted back home had been bulldozed and built upon. In another place it was even worse - they slashed and poisoned for no reason, leaving nothing but a patch of dry dirt, unused and blowing away in the wind.
Fighting The Weeds
This new place where I'm staying for a month or two is infested with privet. It was imported to build English-style hedges, despite the abundance of equally effective native hedge plants like the lilly pilly, which also bears edible fruit. The privet is fruiting right now, but is inedible for humans. The birds love it, though, as is evidenced by the profusion of privet seedlings multiplying beneath the gum trees where the birds roost and forage for gum nuts at this time, sowing privet seeds in their droppings as they do so. In places, there must be about a hundred privet plants sprouting per square foot. This grows to become an inpenetrable hedge that covers and chokes all life. It has destroyed the creek at the bottom of the ridge where I am staying, and that is what I am currently trying to clear. The native plants need to have a chance to re-establish themselves.
A Metaphor For Invasion And Sovereignty
This is the same with Australian native peoples. No treaty was ever signed, nobody ever agreed to hand over this land. Because of this, Aboriginal sovereignty still exists, and as such we have the right to reestablish ourselves in our rightful places. This should not threaten foreign interests here - it should be seen as an opportunity to protect the cultural and environmental capital that keeps the tourist industry and the economy afloat. If we continue to allow our land and culture to be choked out by the weeds of neo-colonialism, the invaders' economy will die just as surely as the creek down at the bottom of my hill. To use a European metaphor, it will be like killing the goose that laid the golden eggs.
Part of our rights as a sovereign people is Native Quarantine Law, which traditionally gives the power to quarantine biological threats to our land. This was done successfully here in partnership with Asian people long before the arrival of Europeans. You can read about the Indigenous quarantine process undertaken with the carefully managed introduction of the Tamarind tree in my article Macassan Traders. It is in the best interests of the dominant culture to ensure our land rights in this domain are enabled in the future, as it was then.
Fear Of Aboriginal Rights A Barrier
But Australians are afraid of land rights. They think it means everybody's barbecue area will be declared a sacred site and taken back. But this is not so. Land rights mostly involve the right to hunt, protect sacred sites, perform ceremonies and carry out a stewardship role on the land. The continent and the economy both need this. Without it, the "bush" that tourists world-wide come to see will die, and with it the Australian economy.
Tourism aside, the predation of foreign pests (non-human) currently costs Australia four billion dollars a year, and this is growing. Time to make a treaty with the locals. Time to enlist Indigenous support in cleaning up the mess, before it is too late for all of us.
