Congratulations Professor Anya Reading!
RST Apology to Tasmanian Aboriginal people 2021.
RST Apology to Tasmanian Aboriginal people 2021.
The vegetation of Tasmania is complex and much of it is in a state of disclimax. At the time of European settlement, the proportion of non-forest open vegetation was 370/0, about 5% of this at high altitudes. In the present interglacial climate, in regions ofhigh rainfall, where rainforest dominance might be expected, approximately 45% carries sedgeland, grassland, shrub communities and wet sclerophyll forest.
Similarly, drier areas carry extensive grassland, sedgeland and heath, instead of dry eucalypt forest. This complexity of distribution and disclimax can be attributed to fire disturbance. Fire not only produces a successional mosaic but, through Ecological Drift, causes extinction of communities. This level of displacement appears to demand a timespan of human-induced fire sufficiently long to affect soil fertility. A palaeontological record of the last five glacial cycles has been analysed from the Darwin Crater in western Tasmania and
compared with that from the Chatham Rise, New Zealand. These show parallel behaviour in the proportions of forest and non-forest
communities in the earlier cycles. However, the Tasmanian record shows a marked divergence during the Last Glacial cycle, with a twofold
increase in open vegetation relative to closed forest. Eucalypt forest increases relative to rainforest, and charcoal increases relative to
woody vegetation. These changes occur through a variety of climates, including full glacial and optimum interglacial, but are not apparent
in the New Zealand core, making it difficult to attribute them to a climatic cause. In the Tasmanian vegetation, they can be explained
by an increase in fire frequency, due to human activity. Since their onset occurs in isotopic oxygen stage 4 and continues in the differing
climates thereafter, it may be inferred that the 14C dates of the earliest evidence of occupation by the Aborigines are gross underestimates.
A date of about 70 000 yrs BP is more likely. It appears that, when using 14C methodology, such underestimation for dates beyond30 000
yrs BP is to be expected in palaeosamples from western Tasmania.
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.
