SOC254 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: King Island Emu, Environmental History, Traditional Ecological Knowledge
11 Sep 2018
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This week"s le(cid:272)ture started (cid:271)(cid:455) looki(cid:374)g at the pre-colonial australia, specifically the. Indigenous peoples who inhabited the land somewhere between 50 and 60 thousand years ago. The aboriginal australians had a deep connection to the land, which enabled them to appreciate the importance of the land. With them showing an understanding of the importance of conservation and management of resource. Indigenous australians knew how to manipulate fire frequency, intensity and timing to fit the ecosystem: a traditional knowledge that we are only now beginning to properly recognise. We then looked at the environmental impacts of colonialism. When european settlers came into australia there was a change in belief-systems about the environment and the way to control it. New ways of farming and new type of fertilizers were introduced. As a consequence, appro(cid:454)i(cid:373)atel(cid:455) 38% of australia"s forests had been severely modified by clearing by the end of the 20th century. This further resulted in detrimental effects in biodiversity and climate.
