Fortress Farming in Western Australia? The Problematic History of Separating Native Wildlife from Agricultural Land through the State Barrier Fence

IF 0.3 Q4 ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES Global Environment Pub Date : 2020-06-15 DOI:10.3197/ge.2020.130206
A. Vlachos
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Abstract

The Western Australia (WA) State Barrier Fence stretches 2,023 miles (3,256 kilometres) and divides Australia's largest state. The original 'Rabbit Proof Fence' fence was built from 1901–1907 to stop the westbound expansion of rabbits into the existing and potential agricultural zone of Western Australia. Starting as a seemingly straightforward, albeit costly, solution to protect what was considered a productive landscape, the fence failed to keep out the rabbits. It was subsequently amended, upgraded, re-named and used to serve different purposes: as Vermin Fence and State Barrier Fence (unofficially also Emu Fence or Dog Fence) the fence was designed to exclude native Australian animals such as emus, kangaroos and dingoes. In the Australian 'boom and bust' environment, characterised by extreme temperatures and unpredictable rainfall, interrupting species movement has severe negative impacts on biodiversity – an issue aggravated by the fact that Australia leads in global extinction rates (Woinarski, Burbidge and Harrison, 2015). The twentieth century history of the fence demonstrates the agrarian settlers' struggle with the novelty and otherness of Western Australia's ecological conditions – and severe lack of knowledge thereof. While the strenuous construction, expensive maintenance and doubtful performance of the fence provided useful and early environmental lessons, they seem largely forgotten in contemporary Australia. The WA government recently commenced a controversial $11 million project to extend the State Barrier Fence for another 660 kilometres to reach the Esperance coast, targeting dingoes, emus and kangaroos – once again jeopardising habitat connectivity. This paper examines the environmental history, purposes and impacts of the State Barrier fence, critically discusses the problems associated with European farming and pastoralism in WA, and touches on alternative land-use perspectives and futures.
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西澳大利亚的堡垒农场?通过州栅栏将本土野生动物与农业用地分开的问题历史
西澳大利亚州栅栏绵延2023英里(3256公里),将澳大利亚最大的州分隔开来。最初的“防兔围栏”建于1901-1907年,目的是阻止兔子向西扩张,进入西澳大利亚州现有的和潜在的农业区。起初,这是一个看似简单,但代价高昂的解决方案,旨在保护被认为是多产的景观,但栅栏未能阻止兔子进入。随后,它被修改、升级、重新命名,并用于不同的目的:作为害虫围栏和国家屏障围栏(非正式地也称为鸸鹋围栏或狗围栏),围栏的设计是为了排除澳大利亚本土动物,如鸸鹋、袋鼠和野狗。在以极端温度和不可预测的降雨为特征的澳大利亚“盛衰”环境中,中断物种运动对生物多样性产生了严重的负面影响——澳大利亚在全球灭绝率中处于领先地位,这一事实加剧了这一问题(Woinarski, Burbidge和Harrison, 2015)。栅栏的20世纪历史展示了农业移民与西澳大利亚州生态条件的新颖性和差异性的斗争,以及对其严重缺乏了解。尽管费力的建造、昂贵的维护和令人怀疑的围栏性能提供了有用的早期环境教训,但它们似乎在当代澳大利亚基本上被遗忘了。西澳政府最近启动了一项有争议的项目,耗资1100万美元,将国家栅栏再延长660公里,到达埃斯佩兰斯海岸,目标是野狗、鸸鹋和袋鼠——这再次危及栖息地的连通性。本文考察了环境历史、国家屏障的目的和影响,批判性地讨论了与西澳欧洲农业和畜牧业相关的问题,并触及了其他土地利用前景和未来。
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来源期刊
Global Environment
Global Environment ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES-
CiteScore
0.50
自引率
25.00%
发文量
25
期刊介绍: The half-yearly journal Global Environment: A Journal of History and Natural and Social Sciences acts as a forum and echo chamber for ongoing studies on the environment and world history, with special focus on modern and contemporary topics. Our intent is to gather and stimulate scholarship that, despite a diversity of approaches and themes, shares an environmental perspective on world history in its various facets, including economic development, social relations, production government, and international relations. One of the journal’s main commitments is to bring together different areas of expertise in both the natural and the social sciences to facilitate a common language and a common perspective in the study of history. This commitment is fulfilled by way of peer-reviewed research articles and also by interviews and other special features. Global Environment strives to transcend the western-centric and ‘developist’ bias that has dominated international environmental historiography so far and to favour the emergence of spatially and culturally diversified points of view. It seeks to replace the notion of ‘hierarchy’ with those of ‘relationship’ and ‘exchange’ – between continents, states, regions, cities, central zones and peripheral areas – in studying the construction or destruction of environments and ecosystems.
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