Reconciling Nature and Culture in a Global Context? - Rainforest ...

Sandra Pannelltogether, “they co-evolve” (Dove 1992: 246). This last point is particularly evident when welook again at the Wet Tropics nomination document.The view of nature presented in the nomination document and in the supporting reports as‘fragile’ (see also Figure 2), and certain cultures as ‘destructive’, invites and encouragessocial intervention and environmental preservation. As Cindi Katz points out, “‘preservation’is most commonly accomplished by a physical and textual exclusion of sedimented layers ofsocial activity and actors, past and present” (1998: 54). In defining and cordoning off natureas patches of protected spaces, science often overlooks historical changes in the way natureis perceived and influenced by other ideas 8 . While the nomination document provides ashort statement on European use of the general region, from the ‘pioneering graziers’ andcedar cutters of the late nineteenth century to the more intensive agricultural pursuits andtourist endeavours of the twentieth century, there is no discussion of the cultural processeswhereby the forests of the region were transformed from ‘vile’ and ‘useless scrub’ into a‘pristine’ and rainforested ‘wilderness’, as now depicted on the World Heritage List. As JaneLennon observes, “many of today’s natural areas in Australia were largely ‘wastelands’remaining from nineteenth century imperial land settlement schemes” (2000: 182).Science and scientists played an important role in effecting this transformation in perceptionand values. Scientific exploration contributed to the identification of economically valuablefloral species in the region in the early years of Anglo-Australian settlement, while in thetwentieth century science helped shape the Queensland Government’s management of thevast tracts of ‘State Forest’, now part of the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area. In morerecent times, scientific knowledge and the principles of scientific management have beenapplied to the development of the region’s agricultural and tourism industries. While the WetTropics today are viewed through the lens of science as one of the remaining vestiges of‘pure nature’, in more popular readings of the environment, the grassy, rolling contours of theAtherton Tableland, once covered by the pristine rainforests today valorised by science, arecommonly seen as ‘natural’ spaces as well. Notwithstanding these contrasting visions, bothviews ultimately deny the social history of the landscapes they behold. As these commentssuggest, our reading of the environment is a cultural practice, informed by specific socialentailments and motivated by certain economic and political agendas.A poignant example of how ideas about nature and culture mediate (and at times are theproduct of) the interface of scientific concepts and political pressure is provided by a briefexamination of the names ascribed to the World Heritage Area. The original nominationdocument refers to the approximately 11,000 square kilometres as ‘wet tropical rainforests’, adesignation based upon scientific classification of the region’s vegetation. While this labelsuggests that the entirety of the area in question is covered in ‘rainforest’, the key supportdocument for the nomination states that only 6,300 square kilometres of this area is actually‘rainforest’ (RCSQ 1986: 11). The remaining area consists of “wet sclerophyll, mangrove,dune and swale formations” (IUCN 1988: 11), among other things. Aware that less than 60%of the nominated region constituted actual ‘rainforest’, in their consideration of the nominationthe World Heritage Bureau recommended that the “name of [the] property be reconsidered toreflect the nature of the area” (WHC 1988: 2). The resulting name, ‘Wet Tropics’, is thus theproduct of ‘sexing up’ science and political spin. As this example suggests, the concept ofnature as a scientific category is also crucial to political discourse, and vice versa.8 For example, in the latter part of the nineteenth century and throughout much of the twentiethcentury, the forests of the regions were commonly described as useless ‘scrub’ or impenetrable‘jungle’ by the Anglo-Australian settlers. As Michael Dove points out, ‘jungle’ is an English borrowingof the Urdu word jongal, which in its original linguistic context and usage referred to a “savannavegetation suited to the keeping of livestock” (cited in Ellen 1996: 8).8