The beginning of this period is clear and its termination no less so. I have chosen the date of the establishment of the Australian Federation as a significant watershed because it began the path towards nationhood and the establishment of the tiered system of government in operation today. The implications of the respective policy reach of state and national governments are important. It can be argued that
significant strands of the subsequent policy path developed that were contingent on federation. This will be discussed in Chapter 5. The year of federation also falls more or less midway between the two markers of the rise of professional forestry. These were the establishment of a Conservator of Forests in 1885 on the one hand, and the report to the Legislative Council on the status of Callitris forests in 1911 on the other. During the period from 1750 to 1901, the vegetation policy landscape in Australia was sparse and its development has paralleled the changing perceptions of the mostly European population since 1788. There were government policies
requiring vegetation clearance and conversion. These policies were enacted through conditions on land grants or leases, and through encouragement in taxation system measures. Initially, grasslands were sought for pasture and prized timber species sought for construction, furniture and other purposes. This underpinned two of the important primary industries that were to develop over the next two hundred years. Pastoralism initially relied on the maintenance of native pastures, principally grasslands dominated by Themeda australis and Poa spp. This industry influenced Australia‘s landscape, social perceptions and political economy. The impetus for what might be construed as vegetation policy issues arose from the perceived needs of pastoralists and the keen wish by polity to ensure that the once most profitable sector of the economy was kept happy. Weed invasion was seen as an early threat to agriculture. For example, there was an Act to prevent the spread of Californian
thistle in 1878 (42, Victoria, No.2) that compelled private and public land managers to cut down these thistles. An early biosecurity initiative was the proclamation of The Vegetation Diseases Act 1898 (62, Victoria, No. 21). This was ―an Act to prevent the introduction into Tasmania of Diseases, Insects, Fungi, and other Pests affecting Vegetation‖. It is clear that the early parliament of Van Diemen‘s Land was concerned about conservation, however this related primarily to animals rather than flora or vegetation. Hence there were Acts to restrain kangaroo hunting in 1846 (10, Victoria, No. 6), in 1860 to protect native game during the breeding season (24, Victoria, No. 19) and also to protect black swans (24, Victoria, No. 20).
Timber-getting has been an important sector of the economy in eastern and south- western Australia from earliest settlement and has had a profound effect on vegetation policy. While the Waste Lands Act of 1858 encouraged the clearing of forests, the power to set aside Crown land for forestry purposes, including
conservation, was initiated in 1881. The next major policy instrument was an Act to ―provide for the Care, Management, and Control of State Forests, Timber Reserves, and other Crown Lands, and for other purposes‖ (in year 1885:49, Victoria, 36). This allowed for the making of regulations. The Conservator of Forests was charged with:
the management and control of all Waste Lands of the Crown which may be reserved to Her Majesty for the preservation and growth of timber, or for places of public recreation. (Section 2, 49, Victoria, 36)
A principal purpose of the regulations was to be:
[F]or the care, protection, and management of all state forests and public reserves and of all places of public recreation of which the care and control are not by Law vested in some local authority, and for the preservation of good order and decency therein. (Section 3(1) ii)
The growth of the timber industry was rapid and instigated a succession of appointments of forest conservators who were charged with the husbanding of forest resources. The changing public perceptions of the timber industry have led to rapid adjustments in the vegetation policy landscape. The development of forest policy, in conjunction with the development of the timber industry, has been widely documented (Carron 1985, Dargavel 1995, Gee 2001).
The scientific value of native Australian plants was also appreciated by early settlers with many European scientific expeditions charged mainly with the aim of collecting, cataloguing and discovering. Looking for influential premonitions in the writings of these explorers is unproductive. Only much later in the nineteenth century and early twentieth century did some expeditions result in recommendations that would require government or public action. The suggestion that land for the purposes of vegetation conservation needed to be set aside was one such concern. Research and conservation-oriented recommendations were only sporadically taken up. In the nineteenth century there were no systematic vegetation or botanical surveys—only very general ones in the course of searching for sheep pasturage (for example, Brown 1887). Collectors of native seed were known to be active from time to time in the Tasmanian hinterland in the early half of the nineteenth century. The colonies developed botanical gardens and public domains but the focus was on economic values and public recreation. There is scant evidence of flora and
vegetation conservation at the policy and legislative level; although Bonyhardy (2000) has argued for well-developed public perceptions about the value of native vegetation from the earliest days of settlement. The Royal Botanical Gardens (RTBG) was established adjacent to Government House in 1818 with Ronald Campbell Gunn as its first Superintendent. He was active in collecting plants and dispatching them to taxonomists at Kew in London. A collection of locally
maintained specimens was housed in the RTBG. The Tasmanian Governor in 1820 requested the botanical explorer Allan Cunningham to bring back some seedlings of Huon Pine from his excursion to Macquarie Harbour. These were to be planted in public places in accessible gardens (Harris and Ranson, in prep). This was an informal vice-regal administrative instruction and the first record of a translocation of a native species deliberately carried out in Australia.
The establishment of botanical gardens in each of the colonies was to prove an important step. They were initially founded to grow exotic plants and distribute exotic seed and cuttings of potentially commercial or useful species. They were also the origin of plant species that escaped into the wild and subsequently became pests. They became centres of botanical expertise and the seat of men and women who began a sustained taxonomic exploration and cataloguing of the native and
naturalised flora of Australia. There were few champions of vegetation and flora who were in paid positions that allowed them to advocate for flora management or protection. One who was in such a position was Baron Ferdinand von Mueller in Melbourne, who made recommendations and public statements aimed at protection of particular sites, species or local stands.
The data gathered by plant collectors provided the basis for a spatial dataset. While some economic exploration of the native flora went hand-in-hand with these activities, it was to prove only a backdrop. An interest in the toxicity of native plants was considered important because of its implications for the pastoral industry (Everist 1974), as was the potential fodder value of various native species—
considered important as a bulwark against the depredation of drought on introduced pasture grasses.
This period is marked by production of the earliest policy instruments related to vegetation. They were commercially oriented Acts that established a forestry
industry authority, and dealt with weed and plant disease threats. During this period, particularly from the 1850s onwards, there was a growing appreciation of the value of undeveloped areas of bush, at least for recreational value, and the protection of fern gullies. There was even advocacy for the cessation of ringbarking (Bonyhardy, 2000). In retrospect, it was during this period that the pattern of settlement was established. Farms were taken up after bush was cleared and pastures were sown. Large areas of timber were destroyed by fires, both wilfully and accidentally lit. The legacy of this period is not to be found in contemporary policy or management initiatives, but rather in the problems and benefits created at the time. The policy and management initiatives are now being realised much later, after the effects on the land were long evident. The benefits are the productive farms and the revenue from timber and farming. However, the problems are the legacy of selective clearing of particular vegetation types, soil degradation such as salinity, inappropriate fire regimes and the introduction of weeds.
No evaluation mechanisms appeared in any public policy processes and the reports to the colonial parliament were likely to have been output or outcome-oriented, without addressing any specified targets. The effectiveness of the various Acts described above is not known and there is no easily discovered record of actions
carried out by government or commissioned officers under these Acts. It is known that, despite the Act to prevent the spread of Californian thistle, the weed is still a problem 150 years later. The Act to prevent the introduction of diseases, insects, fungi and other pests affecting vegetation has not prevented many such organisms being introduced. There is no record of monitoring or interceptions that can allow an evaluation of the Act. There must have been a dawning realisation, however, that as the landscape was changing and the impacts of man becoming more widespread and marked, whatever values lay in native vegetation were not necessarily of any great concern to the government or the community.
The lessons learned from pre-1750 are difficult to isolate and they must be inferred from behaviour and attitudes. It is suggested that early settlers in some areas may have continued Aboriginal vegetation burning strategies. Early settlers may have exploited some bush foods in a limited way, under some circumstances. The lineage from Aboriginal exploitation of native flora to modern agricultural-scale use of those bush foods and other products cannot be clearly demonstrated. Many other products not known to have been used by Aboriginals have been developed in Australia and overseas into commercial and industrial-scale uses with land use and economic consequences. Any of this traditional knowledge across all these
activities that might have been transferred to Europeans appeared to decline with the evolving European imprint on the land.
Minimal lesson learning was transferred from the earliest period to the colonial development and exploratory period, although Boyce (2009) touches on the nexus between Aboriginal land management and early shepherding and settler land management in Van Diemen‘s Land. At least the end of this period marked the finish of reporting to Great Britain, a process that was lengthy, cumbersome and reduced the incentives for policy innovation. Lesson learning was dampened because there was not only a lack of evaluation processes but also the ever-present threat of admonition from the Colonial Office for any failures.