ABSTRACT
Towards the end of the 19th century, after a mere hundred years of white settlement, Australia’s human residents were quite tightly concentrated into its temperate and ‘Mediterranean’ fringe. The Australian experience abounds in water marks: they afford a peculiarly reliable warranty of authenticity. Until recently, developments in forest, soil and water conservation have attracted more interest in Australia’s under-subscribed history of resource appraisal and environmental management. A similarly anthropocentric preservationist impulse fed upon scientific and historical associations which voiced well-informed fears about the destruction of the natural environment and threats to cherished features in the built environment. The stories of enriched environmental and historical sensibilities caution us against reducing the complexities of the Australian experience to wallets and wickets. Outraged, the crusading pioneer geographer Griffith Taylor declared that severe environmental constraints would limit the total to approximately 20 million by the end of the 20th century.
