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Journal of the History of Biology (2011) 44:125145 Springer 2010 DOI 10.1007/s10739-010-9243-7
SPECIAL ISSUE: ENVIRONMENTAL HISTORY
A Global History of Australian Trees
BRETT M. BENNETT
School of Humanities and Languages
The University of Western Sydney Sydney, NSWAustraliaE-mail: [email protected]
Abstract. Scholars studying the globalization of Australian trees have previously emphasized the rapid natural propagation of Australian trees outside of their native habitats, believing their success to be a reversal of ecological imperialism from the new world to the old world. This article argues that the expansion of Australian trees should not be viewed as a biological phenomenon, but as the result of a long-term attempt by powerful states and state-sponsored scientists to select and breed Australian species that could grow in a variety of climates and ecological conditions. Five non-biological factors largely determined the success of these attempts to grow Australian trees: the abundance or paucity of natural forests, state power, the amount of scientic research directed to planting Australian trees, the cost of labor, and the ability to utilize hardwood timbers and bark. This paper compares the use of Australian trees in Australia, India, and South Africa to demonstrate that biology was not the determining factor in the long-term success of many Australian genera and species.
Keywords: Acacia, ecological imperialism, Eucalyptus, forestry, globalization, invasive species, plantation, silviculture
Introduction
When the rst British settlers arrived in Australia in 1788, they would have been surprised if they were told that Australias native trees would become amongst the continents most famous exports in the next two centuries. The Australian-born historian W.K. Hancock famously summarized the attitudes of these rst settlers: [t]he invaders hated trees.1 They hated them, he argued, because most Australian tree
1 Hancock, 1930, p. 33. Also see the chapter, The Settlers Hated Trees in Bolton, 1981.
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species were perceived as blocking the path to a pastoral and agricultural economy. Australias forests made land clearance dicult and settlers found hardwood eucalyptus species dicult to chop with an ax. The tall Norfolk Pine (Araucaria heterophylla), the softwood that the British hoped to construct into masts for ships, had interiors that were often rotten and could not be easily transported the thousand miles (1600 km) from Norfolk Island to Port Jackson (later Sydney)...