Congratulations Professor Anya Reading!
RST Apology to Tasmanian Aboriginal people 2021.
RST Apology to Tasmanian Aboriginal people 2021.
The past geographical positions and climates of the high latitude Southern Hemisphere land masses (New Zealand and the southern parts of South America and Australia) are crucial to an understanding of plant evolution and migration in the region.
A review of the macrofossil record reveals many examples of taxa which are present as fossils on one or two of these land masses but now occur elsewhere in the Southern Hemisphere. The main examples include Austrocedrus, Libocedrus (Cupressaceae), Araucaria sectionColumbea (Araucariaceae) and Nothofagus subgenera Nothofagus and Fuscaspora in Australia, Eucalyptus (Myrtaceae) and mn-Gymnostoma Casuarinaceae in New Zealand and probably South America, Araucaria section Intermedia in New Zealand and Akania (Akaniaceae) and Dacrycarpus (Podocarpaceae) in South America. The local extinction of these taxa is probably due to a variety of factors, including climatic change, microsite changes due to the northward movement of land masses, and changes in the frequency of catastrophic disturbance.
Royal Society of Tasmania, RST, Van Diemens Land, natural history, science, ecology, taxonomy, botany, zoology, geology, geography, papers & proceedings, Australia, UTAS Library
Published Papers
The Royal Society of Tasmania acknowledges, with deep respect, the traditional owners of this land, and the ongoing custodianship of the Aboriginal people of Tasmania. The Society pays respect to Elders past, present and emerging. We acknowledge that Tasmanian Aboriginal Peoples have survived severe and unjust impacts resulting from invasion and dispossession of their Country. As an institution dedicated to the advancement of knowledge, the Royal Society of Tasmania recognises Aboriginal cultural knowledge and practices and seeks to respect and honour these traditions and the deep understanding they represent.
On 15 February 2021, the Royal Society of Tasmania offered a formal Apology to the Tasmanian Aboriginal people.
