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"northern Australia"
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Beyond the North-South culture wars : reconciling Northern Australia's recent past with its future
Increasingly, Australia's agriculturalists are looking to the nation's north to escape the decline in southern Australia's water and soil resources. Booming mineral and gas development is also helping to drive the nation's economic success. At the same time, the south's conservation sector would like to see much of the north preserved as iconic wilderness. Both conservation and resource development interests alike are often at odds with the interests of the north's traditional owners, many of whom remain trapped in welfare dependency and poverty. Indeed, to the ire of north Australians, the past four decades of north Australian history have indeed been characterized by these national-scale conflicts being played out in regional and local communities. This book explores these conflicts as well as the many emerging opportunities facing the development of the north, suggesting that a strong cultural divide between northern and southern Australia exists; one that needs to be reconciled if the nation as a whole is to benefit from northern development. The author first explores where these historical conflicts could take us without a clear forward agenda. A story-based personal narrative from my long and diverse experience in the north gives life to these themes. Finally, the book then draws on these stories to help shape a cohesive agenda for the north's future.
Book
Leading from the North
Leading from the North aims to improve public dialogue around the future of Northern Australia to underpin robust and flexible planning and policy frameworks.
eBook
Birds and animals of Australia's Top End : Darwin, Kakadu, Katherine, and Kununurra
One of the most amazing and accessible wildlife-watching destinations on earth, the Top End of Australia's Northern Territory is home to incredible birds and animals--from gaudy Red-collared Lorikeets to sinister Estuarine Crocodiles and raucous Black Flying-foxes. With this lavishly illustrated photographic field guide, you will be able to identify the most common creatures and learn about their fascinating biology--from how Agile Wallaby mothers can pause their pregnancies to why Giant Frogs spend half the year buried underground in waterproof cocoons. The Top End stretches from the tropical city of Darwin in the north, to the savannas of Mataranka in the south, and southwest across the vast Victoria River escarpments to the Western Australian border. The region includes some of Australia's most popular and impressive tourist destinations, such as Kakadu, Litchfield, Nitmiluk, and Gregory national parks, and is visited by more than two hundred thousand tourists every year. An essential field guide for anyone visiting the Top End, this book will vastly enhance your appreciation of the region's remarkable wildlife. Features hundreds of stunning color photographs Includes concise information on identification and preferred habitat for each species Provides a summary of each species' life history, including interesting habits, and suggestions on where to see it Offers valuable tips on searching for wildlife in the Top End An essential guide for visitors to the Top End, from Darwin south to Katherine and Kununurra, including Kakadu, Litchfield, Nitmiluk and Gregory national parks-- Source other than the Library of Congress.
Book
Human occupation of northern Australia by 65,000 years ago
The time of arrival of people in Australia is an unresolved question. It is relevant to debates about when modern humans first dispersed out of Africa and when their descendants incorporated genetic material from Neanderthals, Denisovans and possibly other hominins. Humans have also been implicated in the extinction of Australia’s megafauna. Here we report the results of new excavations conducted at Madjedbebe, a rock shelter in northern Australia. Artefacts in primary depositional context are concentrated in three dense bands, with the stratigraphic integrity of the deposit demonstrated by artefact refits and by optical dating and other analyses of the sediments. Human occupation began around 65,000 years ago, with a distinctive stone tool assemblage including grinding stones, ground ochres, reflective additives and ground-edge hatchet heads. This evidence sets a new minimum age for the arrival of humans in Australia, the dispersal of modern humans out of Africa, and the subsequent interactions of modern humans with Neanderthals and Denisovans.
Optical dating of sediments containing stone artefacts newly excavated at Madjedbebe, Australia, indicate that human occupation began around 65,000 years ago, thereby setting a new minimum age for the arrival of people in Australia.
First Australian foray pushed further into the past
When did humans first colonize Australia? The date of the initial landing on the continent that is now associated with cold lager and 'Waltzing Matilda' has been highly controversial. Dates from a site called Madjedbebe in northern Australia had put the presence of modern humans in Australia at between 60,000 and 50,000 years ago, but these results have since been hotly contested. Here, the results from a comprehensive program of dating of new excavations at the site confirm that people first arrived there around 65,000 years ago. The results show that humans reached Australia well before the extinction of the Australian megafauna and the disappearance of
Homo floresiensis
in neighbouring Indonesia.
Journal Article
Tropical ecosystems in Australia : responses to a changing world
\"Over the last century, the world has lived through changes more rapid than those experienced at any other time in human history, leading to pressing environmental problems and demands on the world's finite resources. Nowhere is this more evident than across the world's warm belt; a region likely to have the greatest problems and which is home to some of the world's most disadvantaged people. This book reviews aspects of the biology of tropical ecosystems of northern Australia, as they have been affected by climatic, social and land-use changes. Tropical Australia can be regarded as a microcosm of the world's tropics and as such, shares with other tropical regions many of the conflicts between various forms of development and environmental considerations\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
The Pearl Frontier
Remarkable for its meticulous archival research and moving life stories, The Pearl Frontier offers a new way of imagining Australian historical connections with Indonesia. This compelling view of maritime mobility demonstrates how, in the colonial quest for the valuable pearl-shell, Australians came to rely on the skill and labor of Indonesian islanders, drawing them into their northern pearling trade empire. From the 1860s onwards the pearl-shell industry developed alongside British colonial conquests across Australia’s northern coast and prompted the Dutch to consolidate their hold over the Netherlands East Indies. Inspired by tales of pirates and priceless pearls, the pearl frontier witnessed the maritime equivalent of a gold rush; with traders, entrepreneurs, and willing workers coming from across the globe. But like so many other frontier zones it soon became notorious for its reliance on slave-like conditions for indigenous and Indonesian workers. These allegations prompted the imposition of a strict regime of indentured labor migration that was to last for almost a century before giving way to international criticism in the era of decolonization. The Pearl Frontier reveals how Asian migration and the struggle against the restrictive White Australia policy left a rich legacy of mixed Asian-Indigenous heritage that lives on along Australia’s northern coastline.
Instead of the mythologies of racial purity, propagated by settler colonies and European empires, the authors dissect the social and economic life of the port cities around the Australian- Indonesian maritime zone and lay open the complex, cosmopolitan relationships that shaped their histories and their present situations.
eBook
Wild dog dreaming : love and extinction
We are living in the midst of the Earth's sixth great extinction event, the first one caused by a single species: our own. In Wild Dog Dreaming, Deborah Bird Rose explores what constitutes an ethical relationship with nonhuman others in this era of loss. She asks, Who are we, as a species? How do we fit into the Earth's systems? Amidst so much change, how do we find our way into new stories to guide us? Rose explores these questions in the form of a dialogue between science and the humanities. Drawing on her conversations with Aboriginal people, for whom questions of extinction are up-close and very personal, Rose develops a mode of exposition that is dialogical, philosophical, and open-ended.
An inspiration for Rose—and a touchstone throughout her book—is the endangered dingo of Australia. The dingo is not the first animal to face extinction, but its story is particularly disturbing because the threat to its future is being actively engineered by humans. The brazenness with which the dingo is being wiped out sheds valuable, and chilling, light on the likely fate of countless other animal and plant species.
\"People save what they love,\" observed Michael Soulé, the great conservation biologist. We must ask whether we, as humans, are capable of loving—and therefore capable of caring for—the animals and plants that are disappearing in a cascade of extinctions. Wild Dog Dreaming engages this question, and the result is a bold account of the entangled ethics of love, contingency, and desire.
eBook
Outback Australia : road trips
Discover the freedom of open roads with Lonely Planet Outback Australia Road Trips, your passport to uniquely encountering Australia's Outback by car. Featuring four amazing road trips, plus up-to-date advice on the destinations you'll visit along the way, experience Australia's iconic wide-open spaces and unforgettable landmarks, all with your trusted travel companion. Get to the Outback, rent a car, and hit the road!
Book
