In 1972, George Seddon wrote Sense of Place, documenting his experience and research into the Swan Coastal Plain, which has since become a landmark Australian environmental publication. Among its claims to influence is having given modern currency to the term sense of place. Although Seddon did not coin the phrase, it was this book that introduced the phrase into the fields of landscape and environmental design. The book includes information on landforms, climate, geology, soils, flora, the Swan River, the coast, (...) offshore islands, wetlands, and urban areas. Mr. Warner in his Adirondack story, shot a bear by aiming, not at his eye or heart, but at him 'generally'. But we cannot aim 'generally' at the universe, or if we do, we will miss our game. So said William James, the philosopher, and it is good advice on how to take aim at environmental problems. Sense of Place is a topographic essay, not on the universe, but the environs of Perth, Western Australia. It is in three parts: The Land - The Plants - Man. The landforms, climate, drainage geology and plant-cover are discussed in detail, to construct a picture of the region before European settlement. The last third deals with the land use by Aboriginal and European, and the major environmental resources of the region. (shrink)

The land and the people of the Pilbara in north-western Australia have been perceived, and the landscape conceptualized, used or abused (depending on one's perception), in a variety of ways through time. Differing perceptions have been reflected and modified by linguistic use, especially the metaphors applied, including the search for `a key to the country'; by conditions of observation, including the means of transport; by changing economic and utilitarian values; by images generated by painters and photographers; by the commodifications of (...) the tourist industry and by scientific research, especially in anthropology, archaeology, geology and ecology. Changing perceptions of the Pilbara play a significant part, not only in Australia's economic performance, but also in its sense of global positioning. Yet awareness of the Pilbara itself by contemporary Australians lacks the intimacy that its indigenous inhabitants once had: it has been premature to remove the words `Terra Incognita' from much of the map. (shrink)

The saying that `Australia rode to prosperity on the sheep's back' never had more than a small measure of truth; it is better rephrased as `Australia has enjoyed limited periods of modest prosperity through the near-destruction by sheep of a fragile native vegetation'. Sheep, however, have had a cultural role in Australia that needs to be understood if the failures of the wool industry leadership are to be grasped. This role has had a long history, in part Biblical (the Good (...) Shepherd, the episcopal crosier, pastoral care), greatly reinforced by the Enclosures of the 18th century in Britain, promoting an idealized landscape of trees and grass. Settlers found Arcady in eastern Australia, often prepared for them by Aboriginal land use; in came the sheep, the lawn-mowers of the day, and up went the place names, from Camden Park on. `Parks' had social status. Landscapes of trees and grass were much admired, but lacking an understorey, essentially rather sterile from an ecological point of view. The grassy open woodlands were painted by the likes of Hans Heysen, while Tom Roberts painted the shearers. They became the very image of Australia, but the landscapes are dying, and the isolated trees are not regenerating. Many of the images remain potent. But sentiment will not pay the bills of the new century, so it is farewell to Arcady. The nymphs are long departed. This essay, like Gaul, is divided into three parts, the first of which considers sheep and the pastoral industry as a land use: the second is about the politics of wool; the third, about Arcady in Australia, is a theme that helps to explain the first two. (shrink)