Main Points from The Future Eaters, by Tim Flannery

1. Australians were accustomed to denigrate their own natural history.

Ozzies of a previous generation thought their foliage aesthetically inferior to that of Britain, their animals useless oddities. Considered the Aborigines a doomed race who had no impact on the continent. Now, however, "Australians have overcome their cultural cringe."

2. Australian natural history shows that cooperation or "co-adaptation" may be a better way of viewing evolution than is Darwinian competition.

"This is because harsh conditions force individuals to cooperate to minimise the loss of nutrients, and to keep them cycling through the ecosystem as rapidly as possible." This realization is itself part of adapting European thought to the Australian situation!

3. Australia (along with New Zealand, New Guinea, and New Caledonia) was once part of Gondwana.

The phenomenon of continental drift, and the early existence of the great southern continent of Gondwana, began to be accepted in the 1960s. Some 82-86 million years ago New Zealand and New Caledonia and a few other islands split off to form what geologists call Tasmantis. At this time Australia was about over the southern pole. Some 40 million years ago Australia split off Antarctica. Australia began drifting north simultaneous to a general trend of global cooling, these two phenomena offsetting. Some 25 million years ago Australia struck the Asian plate, bringing about the uplift of New Guinea.

4. New Zealand has developed under unique conditions.

These include cool climate, youthful and substantial soils, and long isolation. This resulted in a lack of mammals, a paucity of reptiles, and a bird-dominant fauna, with the moa at the top of the system.

5. Australia, too, has developed under unique conditions.

These include geological quietude (no major uplifts or volcanic activity), poor soils, isolation, and El Nino. (El Nino: Warm waters from the South Pacific move to the South American cost, causing rains in Chile, while cool waters settle in along the Australian coast, causing drought and often wildfires for 2-8 years, a multi-year phenomenon that makes the annual cycle irrelevant.) Results of these conditions included the presence of the oldest rocks in the world (presence of life detected in Australian rocks 3.8 million years old), great carnivorous reptiles, mammalia dominated by marsupials, a slow pace of nutrient exchange, and a lack of fisheries.

6. Australian plants and animals have evolved some interesting strategies for dealing with these harsh conditions.

The most prominent is schleromorphy (small rigid leaves, short internodes, and small overall size) of plants, evident, for instance, in eucalypts and banksias. Animals adapt to minimize energy use, the koala, for instance—slow movements, small brain, selective and limited feeding. Many animals have a low rate of reproduction.

7. Contrary to common wisdom, it is poor environments, not rich ones, that produce a diversity of species.

In nutrient-rich areas, super-species or exterminator species take over and drive out others. (Man is the extreme example.) In poor areas, diversity flourishes. (The Great Barrier Reef is an example.)

8. New Guinea and Australia were peopled through migration from southeast Asia at least 40,000 years ago.

The migrant Australoid peoples may have been driven south by Mongoloid peoples from the north. They also may have arrived much earlier than is commonly thought, perhaps 60,000 years ago or more. "I believe that the peopling of Australasia was an event of major importance for all of humanity. This is because it altered the course of evolution for our species." Here people were able first "to escape the straightjacket of coevolution." This permitted a "great leap forward" not equaled by humanity again until the colonization of the Americas.

9. The Maori arrived in New Zealand 1000 to 800 years ago—making human history there brief indeed.

The Polynesians who became the Maori were themselves of Lapita descent, experienced colonizers of previously unpopulated islands across the Pacific for millennia.

10. The extinction of megafauna in both Australia and New Zealand came because of human invasion--hence "the future eaters."

This is part of a worldwide reinterpretation as to the effects of humans on other species, with particular parallel for the mammoth in North America. This happened because humans encountered species that had evolved without the presence of human predation, and had neither fear nor defenses.

11. Of the megafaunal extinctions, "none was so striking or is so well-documented as that of New Zealand's moas."

The Maori gave up their own domesticates ("moa" means "chicken") and enjoyed wonderful prosperity by hunting. Destruction of the moa species was swift, and it was wasteful. Following this, scarcity of resources was responsible for the development of aggressive and warlike Maori societies.

12. Human predation in Australia (and other places) created "time dwarfs" in certain species.

The size of kangaroos, koalas, and others became smaller through the selection of human predation.

13. Fire assumed great importance in Australia following the extinction of the megafauna.

The large animals, through browsing, kept foliage in check. When they were wiped out, combustible matter accumulated, resulting in catastrophic wildfires, causing more extinctions, climatic change, and also human want. So humans adopted a fire regimen for maintenance of the environment. The Australian landscape as we know it requires fire—or the reintroduction of great browsing species and predators.

14. It has been a mistake for Europeans to consider the lack of agriculture a sign of aboriginal backwardness.

In the first place, the burning regimen was a form of "firestick farming." In the second place, under the influence of an El Nino climate, nomadism and limited population made sense. "It makes an enormous amount of sense to me to see the lack of agriculture by Australian Aborigines as a fine-tuned adaptation to a unique set of environmental problems, rather than a sign of primitiveness." Including social mores that provided for migration, sharing of resources, and exchange of mates.

15. Turning the tables, Europe may be termed a "backwater country."

Europe was peopled relatively recently by Cro-Magnon people, following the last Ice Age. Its plant dominant species were invasive weeds colonizing rich soils, its animals adapted to disturbed environments. "The Europeans were lucky in that their large mammal fauna had had long contact with members of the genus Homo and so had avoided massive extinction."

16. European colonization was disastrous for the populations of Australia and New Zealand, both because of wars and because of disease.

Long isolation meant a lack of disease resistance. The Maori, however, were less seriously plagued, because their genetic isolation was not so long or so complete.

17. European occupation of Australia has also been an environmental disaster.

Europeans, first, sought to introduce all the species they liked, with unforeseen results. They also adapted their technologies to make agriculture successful, at least for the short term.

18. Australians need to decide how many of them there should be.

The sustainable resource base is limited, and a conservative approach is best.

19. Australians also need to adapt their culture to "biological reality."

Australians have a "problem of cultural maladaptation" and "have long struggled with the issue of national identity." Roast beef and pudding for Christmas, for instance. The stockman as the national type. Beach culture. Failure to use fire for environmental maintenance.

20. "The critical values that a truly adapted Australian culture must enshrine are dictated by the impoverished nature of Australian ecosystems."

Desirable values: small population; flexibility in decisions relating to the environment, including painful choices; and efforts to get Australians into "intimate contact" with their ecosystems, because they are hard to understand.

Home Page HIST 381