Playbook for Urban Biodiversity



4. Nature will look after itself

Myth

Country needs care. Victorian ecosystems have been evolving, adapting and living under the guidance and management by Traditional Owners for thousands of years. European colonisation brought an abrupt and violent end to much of that management. Species and ecosystems that had come to rely on humans and their activities, for example digging for tubers, burning and hunting, are now often threatened or over-abundant due to this lack of management. It is imperative that we invest in appropriate management of biodiversity with deliberate objectives, including in cities.



Counter arguments

Mismanagement of nature

Current land management techniques in Australia continue to perpetuate Western ideas that humans are different from nature. This perspective is prevalent in Australia, a country that has witnessed a rapid loss of biodiversity and ecosystem function.

Present day land management practices in Australia are informed by European and colonial systems that were enforced since the British invasion. This has manifested into the mismanagement of nature and culminated in landscape changes, including the over-irrigation of soil resulting in increased soil salinity, heightened soil erosion and loss of topsoil, incontrollable fires, and increased rates of biodiversity and species loss. These resulting consequences and environmental concerns indicate that Westernised land management practices are rather a mismanagement of nature. This begs the question – how was land managed and not destroyed prior to colonisation?

Land management practices of Aboriginal Australians

Many Australian landscapes have undergone Aboriginal land management practices for tens of thousands of years, including planned, low-intensity burning, also known as fire-stick farming. This was evidenced by Aboriginal communities in Australia’s Wet Tropics, and was utilised to alter flora and fauna communities and enhance biodiversity, control weeds and facilitate hunting.

These landscapes have sustained for generations, without environmental or ecological destruction. Indigenous land management practices highlight the wealth of knowledge held by Aboriginal and Torres Strait peoples and the imperative to legally recognise and support Aboriginal conservation areas and land management practices. There is much to be learnt, including Indigenous cultural values and views, which hold equal importance alongside tangible actions

Green infrastructure to enhance connectivity

Motivations to care for nature are shaped by people’s emotions, experiences and relationships with nature. Holistic perceptions that humans are a component of and not separate from nature is recently becoming recognised in Western society. In comparison, the concept of totemic species enables Australian Aboriginal people to recognise and relate to a chosen species, forming a mutually beneficial relationship where one looks after the other. A person shows respect for their totem and in return the totem is their protector.

Similar concepts and ideologies have been expressed through the Western lens. Species have been explicitly considered in the design stage of projects, serving as active stakeholders. Stewardship encourages people to actively protect and care for nature, as nature benefits people. These actions enable a sense of connectedness that can begin to alleviate current mainstream perceptions that humans are unlike nature.



A tinted image of a house with an older pickup truck out the front.