Australia

How have Aborigines interacted with the environment of the outback?

Aborigines take from the land what they need to survive without destroying it.

Introduction

Australia is both a continent and a country. In area, it is the world's sixth largest country and the smallest, flattest, and—except for Antarctica—driest continent. About 19 million people live in Australia. That's only about 1 million more than live in New York. Yet, Australia is nearly as large in area as the entire United States. Why is such a vast land so under-populated? To answer this question, you must look at Australia's climate, natural vegetation, and the patterns of settlement and land use.

Major Cities

Australia's population clusters in and around the eight largest cities. These cities include the capitals of Australia's seven states, plus Canberra, the national capital. Each city derives its own distinct flavor from its location, its landscapes, and its varied people. Perth and Adelaide The huge state of Western Australia sits astride the Great Sandy, Gibson, and Great Victoria deserts. This region is very sparsely populated, with less than two persons per square mile (less than one person per sq km). In this vast, empty area, Perth stands out as one of the world's most remote cities. Located on the western coast of Australia, Perth is more than 1,400 miles (2,300 km) from the next major city. If you flew east from Perth along Australia's southern coast, you would spend hours looking at barren land and small, isolated towns—until you reached Adelaide. A city of 1 million people, Adelaide is the capital and major city of the state of South Australia. Australia's Urban Rim Three of Australia's most important cities—Sydney, Melbourne, and Canberra—lie within the Urban Rim. Moist winds from the Pacific Ocean and the Tasman Sea rise and cool as they approach the highlands, depositing their moisture in frequent rains. This weather pattern makes the Urban Rim one of Australia's best-watered and most fertile regions. Sydney is the capital of the state of New South Wales and is Australia's oldest and largest city. Sydney's splendid harbor is laced with small coves and crowned by the Sydney Opera House, which looks from the water like sails billowing in the wind. Melbourne, the capital of Victoria and Australia's second-largest city, has a long-standing rivalry with Sydney. In the late 1800s Melbourne overtook Sydney as the nation's largest city. Although Sydney regained this status in the 1900s, the two cities continue to compete for trade and commerce. Melbourne's south-facing harbor is not as conveniently located for world markets as Sydney's. Still, the factories of the Melbourne area make it a major source of goods for Australia. Canberra Australia's capital, Canberra, is the country's only major planned city. It lies in federal territory within New South Wales, about 100 miles (160 km) from the coast. Like Washington, D.C., and Ottawa, Ontario, Canberra's location was selected to balance competing political interests in different states. The government of Australia, like Australian culture in general, is dominated by the models it inherited from the British. Australia has a parliament led by a prime minister and a cabinet. Unlike Great Britain, however, Australia has a written constitution that divides power between the federal government and the states. Across the Bass Strait Hobart is the capital of the island state of Tasmania. This island hangs off the southeastern coast of Australia like a geographic punctuation mark. Tasmania was not always an island. About 12 thousand years ago, rising ocean levels covered the land that connected it to the mainland and created the Bass Strait. The island of Tasmania is mountainous and heavily forested; Hobart is cradled in deep blue peaks. With only about 190,000 inhabitants, Hobart is much smaller than the mainland cities of Sydney or Melbourne. The Sunshine Coast Showered with frequent rains from moist trade winds, the east coast of Queensland is Australia's wettest region. This region, which includes Queensland's capital city, Brisbane, is in the heart of Australia's vacation land. Known as the Sunshine Coast, its humid subtropical climate and many lovely beaches attract millions of tourists to the region each year. North of Brisbane and the Sunshine Coast is the Great Barrier Reef, the largest coral reef in the world. The reef forms a lagoon, a shallow body of water with an outlet to the ocean, between itself and the mainland. The reef extends for 1,250 miles (2,010 km)—just about the length of the United States coast from Maine to North Carolina. The Tropical North The sparsely populated Northern Territory is mostly too hot and dry to support human activities. The state's capital, Darwin, however, lies on the northern coast, where the climate is tropical, with wet and dry seasons. Darwin is the closest Australian city to Asia. As flights to other cities become more frequent, it continues to grow. Darwin's location has some disadvantages, however. The city was bombed by the Japanese in World War II. Moreover, it has twice been leveled by cyclones, the Australian term for hurricanes. The threat of cyclones has influenced architecture in the area, with few buildings in Darwin rising higher than one or two stories.

Australia's largest cities are relatively close together on the east and southeast coasts because those areas have __________.

Comfortable weather patterns.

Ranchers have changed the environment of the outback by ___________.

Drilling artesian wells.

How have European settlers changed the environment of the outback?

Europeans have used the interior for mining and for sheep and cattle ranches.

Europeans changed the environment of Australia when they began to __________.

Extract mineral resources.

How did the increase in European settles in Australia affect the Aborigine population?

It caused tremendous losses.

Brisbane has become a major Australian city because __________.

It is located on the Sunshine coast.

How did European migration affect the lives of the Aborigines?

Many Aborigines were killed by European diseases or weapons.

One disadvantage that Darwine faces today is ____________.

Natural Disasters.

Environmental Change

Nearly all of Australia west of the Great Dividing Range is arid plain or dry plateau. Australians often refer to the harsh wilderness region of the central and western plains and plateaus as the outback. The Aborigines were the first humans to live in the outback. They learned over time how fragile their environment was and felt a sacred obligation to protect it. Aborigines and the Land The Aborigines had few material possessions. However, they did have a rich oral tradition that preserved their religious beliefs and explained how their ancestors created the world. Aboriginal creation stories teach that in a time long ago, known as the Dreamtime, the ancestors of all living things moved across the formless earth and created the natural world. The Dreamtime ancestors were usually in the form of animals, but sometimes they took the form of human beings. Big Bill Neidjie (NAY jee), an Aborigine elder, says that when humans were created, the ancestors gave them responsibility for taking care of the earth: "Now we have done these things, you make sure they remain like this for all time. You must not change anything." Over countless generations, the Aborigines took this responsibility to heart. They handed down ancient knowledge about the sacred sites of each ancestor from parent to child as a priceless gift. Aboriginal artists left records of these and other stories on rock paintings and carvings. The Aborigines learned to take from the land what they needed to survive without destroying their precious earth. European Land Use The European settlers who came to Australia had a different view. They wanted to make the land produce something that could be sold for money. In 1851 gold was discovered in the outback of New South Wales and Victoria. In the gold rush that followed, Australians and new immigrants swarmed out of the cities, eager to join the search. Today, gold is only one of many mineral resources that are mined in various locations throughout Australia. Other resources include coal, iron ore, copper, zinc, uranium, and lead. Australia is the leading exporter of bauxite, which is used to make aluminum. The area also has fairly large deposits of oil and natural gas both in the interior and offshore. Many gold seekers stayed on in Australia to build farms and sheep ranches. Today, huge sheep and cattle ranches, called stations, account for most of the economic activity in the outback. Many of these stations are enormous in area. For example, the Anna Creek cattle station in South Australia covers 12,000 square miles (31,000 square km), which is larger than many of the New England states. Ranchers round up livestock on the enormous stations by using helicopters to locate strays and then chasing them down with pickup trucks. Life on a station in the Australian outback can be difficult. Ranchers face dangerous working conditions, including high risk of heat exhaustion and dehydration in the hot, dry land. Sheep, or "jumbucks," are raised in the cooler plains regions of southeastern and southwestern Australia. Some sheep and lambs are raised primarily for their meat, but the fine, curly wool of merino (muh REE noh) sheep is the most important product. Australia is one of the world leaders in wool production. Cattle are raised in the hotter northern and central regions of Australia, where the native grasses and shrubs provide enough food. Water for these stations comes mainly from artesian wells. These wells are bored deep into the earth to tap a layer of porous material filled with groundwater. Growth in the Australian cattle industry reflects changes in both the supply and demand for beef. New breeds of cattle that thrive better in hot, dry weather have increased beef yields, making Australia one of the world's leading producers of cattle.

The first Europeans were sent to Australia to solve the problem of __________.

Overcrowding in British prisons.

What is the major economic activity in the outback?

Raising of livestock in the dry region.

The population of Darwine has increased because of its __________.

Relative location.

A History of Migration

Scientists think that the first Australians, known as Aborigines (ab uh RIJ uh neez), crossed a land bridge from Southeast Asia to Australia about 50 thousand years ago. The Aborigines were nomadic hunters and gatherers. They lived in small groups and spoke as many as 250 distinct languages. While customs varied from one group to another, they shared some things in common, including a deep respect for nature and the land. At some point the land bridge connecting Australia to Southeast Asia sank under the sea, leaving the Aborigines isolated from the rest of the world for thousands of years. Australia's isolation ended in 1770, however, when Captain James Cook landed on the east coast of Australia and claimed it for Great Britain. European Settlement The European settlement of Australia began in earnest 18 years after Cook arrived. Britain quickly came to see Australia as a solution to the problem of its prisons, which were overcrowded with the poor. In 1787 the first group of prisoners boarded ships for the long journey to the southern continent. Many of them still wore leg irons when they arrived in Sydney Harbor. During the next 80 years, more than 160,000 men, women, and children were transported from Britain to Australia's distant shores. After their sentences ended, many prisoners stayed in Australia. Other settlers from Britain joined them, looking for land on which to raise sheep and grow wheat. Meanwhile, the Aborigines suffered tremendous losses, killed by European diseases or weapons. The number of Australians who are completely Aborigine in ancestry sank from 300,000 in the 1700s to only about 50,000 today. Even while the Aborigine population was dwindling, the European population continued to grow, especially since the early 1900s. Until the end of World War II, most of Australia's immigrants came from Great Britain. After the war ended, large numbers of immigrants came from Greece, Italy, and other countries in southern and eastern Europe. Today, many immigrants come from the nearby countries of Southeast Asia. They come because of Australia's location in the Pacific Ocean and because of its high standard of living. Patterns of Settlement Australia's hot, dry climate and forbidding interior have greatly affected the country's settlement and land use patterns. As immigrants entered Australia, they sought out the areas that had the mildest climates. Look for the regions with the mildest climate on this climate map. Notice that the moist and mild climates are along the eastern and southeastern coasts, while the interior of the continent is extremely hot and dry. The vast majority of Australians live in cities located along the eastern and southeastern coasts—the so-called Urban Rim. In fact, 90 percent of Australia's population live within 100 miles (160 km) of the ocean. Commenting on the pattern of settlement in Australia, one author has noted: "In shape, Australia resembles a ragged square, but the real Australia where people live and work is a ribbon." This, then, is the answer to the question about Australia's population. The population is small because relatively few people moved to the remote continent from other nations. Also, Australia's harsh climate discourages widespread settlement in the interior.

The first Australians migrated from ____________.

Southeast Asia.

What did the groups of Aboriginees who crossed a land bridge from Southeast Asia to Australia have in common?

They honored the natural world around them.

How did Europeans change the outback beginning in the mid-1800's?

They used the land for mining and ranching.

Why was Australia's capital city, Canberra, established between the country's largest cities?

To give equal access to all political and economic concerns.

How is the Australian constitution different from the one in Great Britain?

Unlike Great Britain, Australia has a written constitution that divides power between the federal government and the states.