Journal articles on the topic 'Tourism Victoria Alpine National Park'

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1

Getzner, Michael. "Impacts of national parks on tourism: a case study from a prominent alpine national park." ECONOMICS AND POLICY OF ENERGY AND THE ENVIRONMENT, no. 3 (July 2009): 103–20. http://dx.doi.org/10.3280/efe2008-003005.

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-National parks and other categories of protected areas are often assumed to enhance regional economic development due to park tourism. The current study attempts to estimate the impact of the Hohe Tauern national park (Austria) on tourism by exploring whether and to what extent the national park may have had an influence on tourism development. For most national park communities, the results suggest that the establishment of the national park had some impact by enforcing an already positive trend or by weakening or reversing a negative trend of tourism. However, breakpoint tests exhibit turning points up to several years after the establishment of the park, indicating that taking a national park as the basis for tourism development is a medium to long term development strategy. In the short term, the impact of a national park on tourism is not measurable. Tourism increased by 1 to 3% annually after the breakpoint, indicating that the establishment of a national park has to be incorporated into the tourism and development strategy of a region right from the start. The causal relationship between the establishment of the national park and tourism development may be weak, in particular in communities where the difference between the actual and the forecast numbers of overnight stays is small. Marketing national park tourism and building up a brand or distinctive label may therefore contribute to regional development particularly in the long term.Key words: Tourism, national park, protected area, time series, stationarity, breakpoint test, ARIMA.JEL classifications: R110, L830, C220.Parole chiave: Turismo, parco nazionale, area protetta, serie temporale, stazionarietŕ, test di breakpoint, ARIMA.
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2

Fraser, Iain, and Tony Chisholm. "Conservation or cultural heritage? Cattle grazing in the Victoria Alpine National Park." Ecological Economics 33, no. 1 (April 2000): 63–75. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/s0921-8009(99)00127-5.

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3

Čerpes, Ilka, Nina Pandol, and Alenka Fikfak. "Upgrading the Network of High Mountain Shelter as A Method of Restoring of Demographically Endangered Settlements in the Slovenian Alps." European Countryside 6, no. 3 (September 1, 2014): 225–42. http://dx.doi.org/10.2478/euco-2014-0012.

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Abstract The paper focuses on the interdependence between the development of demographically endangered settlements and the frequency of mountain accidents in the Triglav National Park in the Slovenian Alps. Using statistical data analyses of the Mountain Rescue Association of Slovenia, field surveys and spatial information of the Surveying and Mapping Authority of the Republic of Slovenia, conclusions were reached, which redefined the existing settlement pattern of alpine shelters and mountain pastures, to encourage safe mountaineering and the development of tourism. The upgraded network of Alpine posts is designed as an upgrade of the existing system of providing safety for the visitors to the high mountain regions of the Triglav National Park. At the same time, it offers a new format of tourist services as an opportunity to develop local economies in demographically endangered environments. The dual function (rescue services and tourism) reduces investment and maintenance costs and increases the efficiency in the exploitation of the network of paths and Alpine posts, hence it is feasible also in demographically endangered areas. It is one of the operational tools for stopping further decline in population.
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Petrova, O. V. "Evaluation of ecotourism potential of protected areasin the Murmansk region." Herald of Kola Science Centre of the RAS 12, no. 4/2020 (December 28, 2020): 5–13. http://dx.doi.org/10.37614/2307-5228.2020.12.4.001.

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The methodology of ecotourism potential evaluation in protected areas has been presented, the Mur-mansk region as a case study.The attractive protected areas for tourismtrade have been defined at the first stage. Among areas with the maximal scores are: National Park«Khibiny», Polar-Alpine Botanical Garden-Institute, Nature Parks «Poluostrova Rybachy i Sredny» and «Korablekk», Zakaznik «Kutsa», the Lapland State Nature Reserve and Nature Monuments «AstrophyllityGoryEveslogchorr», «Kriptogram-movoyeUshchelye», «Ushchelye Aikuaivenchorr», «Vodopad na Reke Shuoniyoki » and «Amethysts of Ship Cape». Whether it’s possibleto combine the tourism and nature conservation, we have evaluated at the next stage. National Park «Khibiny», Nature Park «Poluostrova Rybachy i Sredny», Polar-Alpine Botanical Garden-Instituteand Zakaznik «Kutsa» have got the highest scores. The recommendations for tourist trade have been offered for each group of protected areas.
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5

Richardson, Robert B., and John B. Loomis. "Climate Change and Recreation Benefits in an Alpine National Park." Journal of Leisure Research 37, no. 3 (September 2005): 307–20. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00222216.2005.11950055.

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6

Behrens, Doris A., Birgit Bednar-Friedl, and Michael Getzner. "Sustainable management of an alpine national park: handling the two-edged effect of tourism." Central European Journal of Operations Research 17, no. 3 (July 7, 2009): 233–53. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10100-009-0087-1.

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7

Senetra, Adam, Piotr Dynowski, Iwona Cieślak, and Anna Źróbek-Sokolnik. "An Evaluation of the Impact of Hiking Tourism on the Ecological Status of Alpine Lakes—A Case Study of the Valley of Dolina Pięciu Stawów Polskich in the Tatra Mountains." Sustainability 12, no. 7 (April 8, 2020): 2963. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/su12072963.

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Eutrophication is one of the major threats to the quality of water in high mountain lakes. The inflow of elements having biological origin may significantly aggravate the ecological status of those ecosystems. For this reason, the aim of this study was to map and assess the impact of anthropogenic pressure on alpine lakes in the valley of Dolina Pięciu Stawów Polskich (known in English as the Valley of Five Polish Lakes) in the Tatra National Park in Poland. The effects of tourism and easy access to alpine lakes on changes in their ecological status were determined. Tourist trails were evaluated based on the difficulty of access to the water surface of analyzed alpine lakes, with a method developed for assessing anthropogenic pressure on aquatic ecosystems. The method, deployed for the first time in 2019, was modified and adapted to the local environmental conditions in the research area. The results of this study indicate that tourism pressure contributes to the growth of submerged vegetation in alpine lakes. The presence of aquatic plants (including vascular plants) shows ecosystem response to water enrichment with biogenic substances. The present findings were used to formulate practical recommendations and propose modifications to the evaluated hiking trails. The research method developed in the study can support analysis and control of tourist traffic, thus reducing anthropogenic pressure on alpine lakes in national parks located in mountain areas.
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8

Fidelus-Orzechowska, Joanna, Elżbieta Gorczyca, Marcin Bukowski, and Kazimierz Krzemień. "Degradation of a protected mountain area by tourist traffic: case study of the Tatra National Park, Poland." Journal of Mountain Science 18, no. 10 (October 2021): 2503–19. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11629-020-6611-4.

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AbstractMountain protected areas are characterized by high biodiversity, which makes it a great challenge for managers to maintain a balance between their use and the stability of natural ecosystems. Maintaining that balance is particularly difficult in areas with high tourism pressure. The expected volume of tourist traffic should be considered at the planning stage of the tourist infrastructure development process. Insufficient capacity of tourist infrastructure can lead to environmental degradation, which is hard, or at times impossible, to repair. In our research, we identified patterns of tourist footpath and road functioning in an environmentally protected area with high volumes of tourist traffic. Data from geomorphologic mapping was analyzed in order to identify tourist footpath and road structures in the Tatra National Park (TNP). Fieldwork was conducted in several stages between 1995 and 2019. Orthophotomaps from the years 1977, 2009, 2017 and 2019 were used to identify and compare degraded zones along selected tourist footpaths. Degraded zones were defined as areas surrounding a footpath or tourist road with a mean width larger than or equal to 10 meters, with heavily damaged or completely removed vegetation and exposed, weathered cover, where geomorphic processes that would not take place under normal conditions are readily observable. The examined tourist footpaths and roads vary in terms of their morphometric parameters. Research has shown important differences between mean and maximum footpath width as well as maximum incision depth for the forest zone versus the subalpine and alpine zones. A lack of differences in these parameters was noted between the alpine and subalpine zones. Research has shown that an increase in the surface area of degraded zones found adjacent to tourist footpaths occurred in all the studied geo-ecological zones in the study period. However, the largest increase occurred atop wide ridgelines found in the alpine zone. Degraded zones may be an indication of exceeding the tourist carrying capacity of a mountain tourist area. Mass tourism in TNP contributes to the formation of degraded zones adjacent to footpaths, whose continuous evolution may lead to irreversible changes in local relief.
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Bassett, Owen D., Lynda D. Prior, Carolyn M. Slijkerman, Daniel Jamieson, and David M. J. S. Bowman. "Aerial sowing stopped the loss of alpine ash (Eucalyptus delegatensis) forests burnt by three short-interval fires in the Alpine National Park, Victoria, Australia." Forest Ecology and Management 342 (April 2015): 39–48. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.foreco.2015.01.008.

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10

Hronček, Pavel, Peter Urban, Bohuslava Gregorová, Vladimír Čech, and Dana Tometzová. "Anthropogenically Created Alpine Pastures as Landscape Resources for the Alpine Chamois Population in the Western Carpathians Mountain Range: Ďumbier Tatras Case Study." Land 11, no. 12 (December 1, 2022): 2177. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/land11122177.

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This study analysed the history of anthropogenically created alpine pastures from the 15th century to the present, as landscape resources for the chamois reintroduction in the second half of the 20th century in the Western Carpathians mountain arc (Slovakia), using the example of the Ďumbier Tatras (the second highest mountain range of the arc). Analysis and reconstructions were carried out on the basis of detailed archival and field research, which showed that grazing herds in the mountain peaks from the Middle Ages to the 20th century created anthropogenically suitable and sufficiently extensive grassy habitats for the chamois reintroduction and the survival of its population. The native chamois population became extinct in the Ďumbier Tatras at the end of the last ice age (about 10,000 years ago). However, anthropogenic deforestation has once again created suitable conditions for its distribution. In the 20th century, a new factor emerged, namely nature conservation and the proclamation of a national park, which meant the end of grazing in the alpine environment and the onset of succession. In the second half of the 20th century, modern tourism became another negative factor for the relocated Alpine chamois population, from the High Tatras back to its quasi-original environment. Tourism development was related to the construction of extensive infrastructure and superstructure in the chamois habitats in the Chopok and Ďumbier massifs. At present, therefore, the preservation of these ‘anthropogenic’ habitats requires active conservation and landscape management.
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11

Dynowski, Piotr, Adam Senetra, Anna Źróbek-Sokolnik, and Jacek Kozłowski. "The Impact of Recreational Activities on Aquatic Vegetation in Alpine Lakes." Water 11, no. 1 (January 18, 2019): 173. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/w11010173.

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Tourism pressure on protected areas with attractive landscapes leads to environmental modifications. Eutrophication poses the main threat to the quality of water in alpine lakes. Even small inflows of biogenic elements can disrupt the ecological balance of these ecosystems. The aim of this study was to verify the hypothesis that recreational activities and easy access to alpine lakes contribute to changes in their ecological status. This hypothesis was verified by analyzing the presence of hydromacrophytes in two lakes of the Tatra National Park (Poland). The analysis was carried out along segments of hiking trails which were evaluated for accessibility to the studied lakes. Underwater surveys were carried out during scuba diving expeditions in 2012–2016. Submerged vegetation was evaluated in both lakes. This is the first study in Poland and one of the few projects in the world to have relied on such extensive support from scuba divers to generate highly accurate measurements. The study demonstrated that lake bottoms were extensively covered by Potamogeton friesii in the vicinity of trail segments with easy access to lakes. Our results show that tourism pressure contributes to the growth of aquatic vegetation in some areas of alpine lakes. We relied on our findings to propose several modifications to the routes of the evaluated tourist trails to minimize the impact of anthropogenic pressure on the studied lakes.
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12

Dawson, Michelle J., and Cameron Miller. "Aerial mark - recapture estimates of wild horses using natural markings." Wildlife Research 35, no. 4 (2008): 365. http://dx.doi.org/10.1071/wr07075.

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Aerial mark–recapture population estimates utilising the natural markings of wild horses to identify individuals was applied in the Bogong High Plains, Alpine National Park, Victoria. A discrete population of wild horses occupying an area of 180 km2 was sampled over two days in 2005. This study explored the feasibility of a technique that aimed to enable managers to estimate the size of the horse population and monitor it over time. Four observers (including the pilot) searched for horses from a helicopter. Once horses were sighted, photographic and written observations were used to ‘mark’ each animal. The survey was repeated the following day with observations ‘recapturing’ individuals. Data were analysed using several mark–recapture estimators, and the derived population estimates ranged from 89 (±5.3, s.e.) horses to 94.7 (±7.9, s.e.) horses. We found that the method gave a level of precision relevant to management, but needs refinement. The technique and its assumptions should be tested further by increasing the number of samples and video should be used to improve identification of individuals. We believe that this is a novel application for aerial surveys, which are typically unsuitable for estimating the size of small populations. This technique was developed for horses but may be used on other conspicuous species with unique natural markings.
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13

Kaisová, Dominika, and Ivan Laco. "Capacity and flow of selected cultural ecosystem services: Case study of microregion Terchovská valley." Ekológia (Bratislava) 40, no. 3 (September 1, 2021): 276–85. http://dx.doi.org/10.2478/eko-2021-0030.

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Abstract Cultural ecosystem services (ESs) are assessed less often than other ES; however, their importance for human well-being is crucial. In this article, we focused on an assessment of capacity and flow of three selected cultural ES – Recreation and tourism, Natural and cultural heritage and Aesthetics and landscape character. The capacity in terms of cultural ES focuses on the potential of landscape features to provide cultural ES, while flow provides us with data about areas where these cultural ES are consumed by people. We can assume that in areas with higher capacity to provide cultural ES, there is also a higher flow of these services. The areas with the highest capacity to provide selected cultural ES are natural areas, such as natural and semi-natural meadows, pastures, alpine areas and wetlands, and cultural-historical sites. Such areas in our study area are the Malá Fatra National Park and areas with dispersed settlement, which we rank as the most valuable parts of the microregion Terchovská Valley. There are also areas with the highest flow of cultural ES. To know the relationship between the capacity of the landscape to provide cultural ES and the flow of cultural ES in this study area could be useful in terms of landscape protection and management.
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14

"ADVENTURE TOURISM IN SUTJESKA NATIONAL PARK." JOURNAL OF TOURSIM AND HOSPITALITY MANAGEMENT, 2020, 59–65. http://dx.doi.org/10.35666/25662880.2020.6.59.

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The subject of the research is Sutjeska National Park, with special attention on the possibilities of establishing and developing adventure tourism. Sutjeska National Park is one of the four national parks in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It was founded in 1962, which makes it the oldest National Park. It was declared a protected area due to the famous Battle of Sutjeska during the Second World War, but also due to the existence of a significant natural geographical basis. A large number of cultural and historical monuments, Perućica rainforest, Maglić and Zelengora mountains, the mountain lakes, Sutjeska, and Hrčavka rivers are just some of the tourist potentials of the protected natural area. Until 1992, tourist activities in this area were based mainly on the achievements of the national struggle for liberation. After 1995, the interest of tourists in this type of tourism decreased to a large extent, so complementary tourist activities began to develop. To complete the tourist offer in Sutjeska national park, adventure tourism is being developed (hiking, mountaineering, alpine climbing, cycling, rafting, etc.). Given the natural geographical and cultural-historical elements, the Sutjeska national park is an ideal area for the development of this type of tourism, which contributes to the completion of the tourist offer.
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15

Pröbstl-Haider, Ulrike, and Wolfgang Haider. "The role of protected areas in destination choice in the European Alps." Zeitschrift für Wirtschaftsgeographie 58, no. 1 (January 1, 2014). http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/zfw.2014.0010.

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AbstractThis paper investigates the role of protected areas (PA) for destination choice in the European Alps. It is based on the analysis of the most relevant types of PA (national park, nature park, biosphere reserve), constituting part of the supply of tourism development, and a representative survey of the German population interested in holidays in the alpine area, representing the demand. Our analysis of the legal framework showed that all three types of PA facilitate tourism development, albeit in different ways. The survey included a generic choice experiment of alpine destinations with 17 attributes. Its location in or close to a PA was included as one variable. This destination demand study in an area of origin provided a different perspective on the preference for PA compared to other studies, and revealed significant differences between respondents with and without previous experiences in the Alps. The alpine experienced tourist is more likely to distinguish between the various types of PA such as national park and nature park. For the inexperienced alpine tourist, representing latent demand, the branding effect of PA is rather limited. For nearly all tourists, experienced and inexperienced, and across all segments, offers that include a nature experience are important. Nature experience, which is offered by all types of PA, is of high relevance within the destination choice and should therefore be used more intensely in destination marketing based on PA. Overall, this study shows that the role of PA for destination choice is not as strong as is reported by most of the published literature, as most of these studies are based on surveys in the destination and use single item scaling questions, which overvalue the role of PA.
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Sumner, Joanna, Margaret L. Haines, Peter Lawrence, Jenny Lawrence, and Nick Clemann. "Phylogenetic placement of a recently discovered population of the threatened alpine she-oak skink Cyclodomorphus praealtus (Squamata: Scincidae) in Victoria." Memoirs of Museum Victoria, November 1, 2021, 153–57. http://dx.doi.org/10.24199/j.mmv.2021.80.07.

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The alpine she-oak skink Cyclodomorphus praealtus is a threatened alpine endemic lizard from the mainland of Australia. The species is previously known from disjunct populations in Kosciuszko National Park in New South Wales and three isolated localities in the Victorian Alps. The New South Wales and Victorian populations represent separate evolutionarily significant units. In 2011, a fourth Victorian population was discovered. We conducted a phylogenetic analysis and determined that the newly discovered population is discrete and may have been separated from other populations since the end of the last glacial maxima. This population requires separate management.
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17

Olenych, I. "RECREATIONAL RELIEF ASSESSMENT OF THE CARPATHIAN NATIONAL PARK RELIEF (IVANO-FRANKIV REGION)." ΛΌГOΣ МИСТЕЦТВО НАУКОВОЇ ДУМКИ, January 10, 2020. http://dx.doi.org/10.36074/2663-4139.05.02.

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The Carpathian National Nature Park is described as a multi-structural unit. The purpose of the park is not only to preserve the natural, historical and cultural heritage of the people, but also to manage recreational (tourist) activities, including visiting the territory. It is a conservation, recreational, cultural, educational, research institution of national importance, created with the purpose of preserving, reproducing and efficient use of natural complexes and objects that have special nature conservation, wellness, historical, cultural, scientific, educational and aesthetic. value. Literary and stock materials on geological structure and geomorphological features of the territory of the Carpathian NNP and the main features of its relief are presented. Using the functionality ArcGis applications, by digitizing topographic maps of scale 1: 100,000, a three-dimensional terrain model and a series of morphometric maps are concluded (vertical and horizontal dismemberment of terrain, terrain steepness surface), which characterized the features of the relief of the conservation institution. Using the methodology of relief assessment Functional recreational assessment of KNPP terrain was performed by A. Bredikhin. According to the method, for each the score is assigned a point scale based on morphometric values metrics. The points received are added to the pivot table and the points are predominant, the suitability of the territory for an appropriate type of recreational activity is determined. According to the results of the assessment, the landscapes of the middle and low mountains are suitable for the needs of health tourism, and the high mountains are the least suitable. The most suitable for sports tourism are the alpine, subalpine and subalpine highlands; these are areas that are suitable for skiing and snowboarding.
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18

Salukvadze, Elene. "PROTECTED AREAS AND NATURAL LANDSCAPES – AN ESSENTIAL FACTOR FOR SUSTANABLE DEVELOPMENT OF ECOTURISM IN MOUNTAINOUS REGIONS." GEORGIAN GEOGRAPHICAL JOURNAL, February 6, 2021. http://dx.doi.org/10.52340/ggj.2021.259.

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Development of ecotourism requires providing conditions for creating reserves, national parks and other protected areas, which are the main objects of ecotourism of nowadays in Georgia. At present the country counts 90 different statuses of protected areas. Preserving them in their natural form and using their potential for ecotourism is of high significance nowadays. There is a tight relation between tourism and environment. Unaffected nature provides adequate quality of life for local tourists, whereas for foreign travelers it is an incentive to visit Georgia to see the natural monuments of the country. The paper shows the significance of protected areas in the development of ecotourism in Georgia on the example of two mountainous regions – Guria and Racha. The work considers a scientifically corroborated hypothesis that there is a great potential of transforming the first newly formed protected area in Guria – Pontine Oak Reserve and the high quality landscapes (mixed and dark-coniferous forests and sub-alpine meadows) on the territory of adjacent (4 km distance) resort Bakhmaro and its vicinities into national park in the future. The work shows that against the background of planned protected areas, there is a resource potential in Racha, which will enable to create a category of protected areas in the near future in the region. It, in its turn, will provide improvement of social-economic conditions of the region. For the fulfillment of the work we used the material of field expeditions and observations carried out in 2009-2016 in resort Bakhmaro and its vicinities and in 2019 in Racha.
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"Environmental Impact of Ecotourism in Kibale National Park, Uganda. J. Obua and D. M. Harding. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, vol. 5, no. 3, 1997, pp. 213-23. Channel View Books/Multilingual Matters Ltd., Frankfurt Lodge, Clevedon Hall, Victoria Road, Clevedon BS21 7HH, United Kingdom. $73 annual subscription." Journal of Travel Research 36, no. 4 (April 1998): 86. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/004728759803600462.

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20

Hair, Margaret. "Invisible Country." M/C Journal 8, no. 6 (December 1, 2005). http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/mcj.2460.

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The following article is in response to a research project that took the form of a road trip from Perth to Lombadina re-enacting the journey undertaken by the characters in the play Bran Nue Dae by playwright Jimmy Chi and Broome band Kuckles. This project was facilitated by the assistance of a Creative and Research Publication Grant from the Faculty of Communications and Creative Industries, Edith Cowan University, Western Australia. The project was carried out by researchers Kara Jacob and Margaret Hair. One thing is plainly clear. Aboriginal art expresses the possibility of human intimacy with landscapes. This is the key to its power: it makes available a rich tradition of human ethics and relationships with place and other species to a worldwide audience. For the settler Australian audience, caught ambiguously between old and new lands, their appreciation of this art embodies at least a striving for the kind of citizenship that republicans wanted: to belong to this place rather than to another (Marcia Langton in Watson 191). Marcia Langton is talking here about painting. My question is whether this “kind of citizenship” can also be accessed through appreciation of indigenous theatre, and specifically through the play Bran Nue Dae, by playwright Jimmy Chi and Broome band Kuckles, a play closely linked to the Western Australian landscape through its appropriation of the road trip genre. The physical journey taken by the characters metaphorically takes them also through the contact history of black and white Australians in Western Australia. Significantly, the non-indigenous characters experience the redemptive power of “human intimacy with landscapes” through travelling to the traditional country of their road trip companions. The road trip genre typically places its characters on a quest for knowledge. American poet Gary Snyder says that the two sources of human knowledge are symbols and sense-impressions (vii). Bran Nue Dae abounds with symbols, from the priest’s cassock and mitre to Roebourne prison; however, the sense impressions, which are so strong in the performance of the play, are missing from the written text, apart from ironic comments on the weather. In my efforts to understand Bran Nue Dae, I undertook the road trip from Perth to the Kimberley myself in order to discover those missing sense-impressions, as they form part of the “back story” of the play. In the play there is a void between the time the characters leave Perth and reach first Roebourne, where they are locked up, and then Roebuck Plains, not far from Broome, yet in the “real world” they would have travelled more than two thousand kilometres. What would they have seen and experienced on this journey? I took note of Krim Benterrak, Paddy Roe and Stephen Muecke’s Reading the Country, a cross-cultural and cross-textual study on Roebuck Plains, near Broome. Muecke talks about “stories being contingent upon place … Aboriginal storytellers have a similar policy. If one is not prepared to take the trouble to go to the place, then its story can only be given as a short version” (72). In preparing for the trip, I collected tourist brochures and maps. The use of maps, seemingly essential on any road trip as guides to “having a look at” country (Muecke ibid.), was instantly problematic in itself, in that maps represent country as colonised space. In Saltwater People, Nonie Sharp discusses the “distinction between mapping and personal journeying”: Maps and mapping describe space in a way that depersonalises it. Mapping removes the footprints of named creatures – animal, human, ancestral – who belong to this place or that place. A map can be anywhere. ‘Itineraries’, however, are actions and movements within a named and footprinted land (Sharp 199-200). The country journeyed through in Bran Nue Dae, which privileges indigenous experience, could be designated as the potentially dangerous liminal space between the “map” and the “itinerary”. This “space between” resonates with untold stories, with invisibilities. One of the most telling discoveries on the research trip was the thoroughness with which indigenous people have been made to disappear from the “mapped” zones through various colonial policies. It was very evident that indigenous people are still relegated to the fringes of town, as in Onslow and Port Hedland, in housing situations closely resembling the old missions and reserves. Although my travelling companion and I made an effort in every place we visited to pay our respects by at least finding out the language group of the traditional owners, it became clear that a major challenge in travelling through post-colonial space is in avoiding becoming complicit in the disappearance of indigenous people. We wanted our focus to be “on the people whose bodies, territories, beliefs and values have been travelled though” (Tuhiwai Smith 78) but our experience was that finding even written guides into the “footprinted land” is not easy when few tourist pamphlets acknowledge the traditional owners of the country. Even when “local Aboriginal” words are quoted, as in the CALM brochure for Nambung National Park (i.e., the Pinnacles), the actual language or language group is not mentioned. In many interpretive brochures and facilities, traditional owners are represented as absent, as victims or as prisoners. The fate of the “original inhabitants of the Greenough Flats”, the Yabbaroo people, is alluded to in the Greenough River Nature Walk Trail Guide, under the title, “A short history of Greenough River from the Rivermouth to Westbank Road”: The Gregory brothers, exploring for pastoral land in 1848, peacefully met with a large group of Aborigines camped beside a freshwater spring in a dense Melaleuca thicket. They named the spring Bootenal, from the Nyungar word Boolungal, meaning pelican. Gregory’s glowing reports of good grazing prompted pastoralists to move their flocks to Greenough, and by 1852 William Criddle was watering cattle for the Cattle Company at the Bootenal Spring. The Aborigines soon resented this intrusion and in 1854, large numbers with many from surrounding tribes, gathered in the relative safety of the Bootenal thicket. Making forays at night, they killed cattle and sheep and attacked homesteads. The pastoralists retaliated by forming a posse at Glengarry under the command of the Resident Magistrate. On the night of the 4th/5th July they rode to Bootenal and drove the Aborigines from the thicket. No arrests were made and no official report given of casualties. Aboriginal resistance in the area was finished. The fact that the extract actually describes a massacre while purporting to be a “history of Greenough River” subverts the notion that the land can ever really be “depersonalised”. At the very heart of the difference lie different ways of being human: in Aboriginal classical tradition the person dwells within a personified landscape which is alive, named, inscribed by spiritual and human agents. It is a ‘Thou’ not an ‘It’, and I and Thou belong together (Sharp 199-200). Peter Read’s book Belonging: Australians, Place and Aboriginal Ownership contains a section titled “The Past Embedded in the Landscape” in which Read discusses whether the land holds the memory of events enacted upon it, so forming a tangible link between the dispossessed and the possessors. While discussing Judith Wright’s poem Bora Ring, Read states: “The unlaid violence of dispossession lingers at the sites of evil or old magic”, bringing to mind Wright’s notion of Australia as “a haunted country” (14). It is not surprising that the “unlaid violence of dispossession lingers” at the sites of old prisons and lock-ups, since it is built into the very architecture. The visitor pamphlet states that the 1890s design by George Temple Poole of the third Roebourne gaol, further up the great Northern Highway from Greenough and beautifully constructed from stone, “represents a way in which the state ideology of control of a remote and potentially dangerous population could be expressed in buildings”. The current Roebourne prison, still holding a majority of Aboriginal inmates, does away with any pretence of architectural elegance but expresses the same state ideology with its fence topped with razor wire. Without a guide like Bran Nue Dae’s Uncle Tadpole to keep us “off the track”, non-indigenous visitors to these old gaols, now largely museums, may be quickly led by the interpretation into the “mapped zone” – the narrative of imperialist expansion. However, we can follow Paul Carter’s injunction to “deepen grooves” and start with John Pat’s story at the Roebourne police lock-up, or the story of any indigenous inmate of the present Roebuck prison, spiralling back a century to the first Roebuck prison in settler John Withnell’s woolshed (Weightman 4). Then we gain a sense of the contact experience of the local indigenous peoples. John Withnell and his wife Emma are represented as particularly resourceful by the interpretation at the old Roebourne gaol (now Roebourne Visitors Centre and Museum). The museum has a replica of a whalebone armchair that John Withnell built for his wife with vertebrae as the seat and other bones as the back and armrests. The family also invented the canvas waterbag. The interpretation fails to mention that the same John Withnell beat an Aboriginal woman named Talarong so severely for refusing to care for sheep at Withnell’s Hillside Station that “she retreated into the bush and died of her injuries two days later”. No charges were brought against Withnell because, according to the Acting Government Resident, of the “great provocation” by Talarong in the incident (Hunt 99-100). Such omissions and silences in the official record force indigenous people into a parallel “invisible country” and leave us stranded on the highways of the “mapped zone”, bereft of our rights and responsibilities to connect either to the country or to its traditional owners. Roebourne, and its coastal port Cossack, stand on the hauntingly beautiful country of the Ngarluma and seaside Yapurarra peoples. Settlers first arrived in the 1860s and Aboriginal people began to be officially imprisoned soon after, primarily as a result of their resistance to being “blackbirded” and exploited as labour for the pearling and pastoral industries. Prisoners were chained by the neck, day and night, and forced to build roads and tramlines, ostensibly a “civilising” practice. As the history pamphlet for The Old Roebourne Gaol reads: “It was widely believed that the Roebourne Gaol was where the ‘benefit’ of white civilisation could be shown to the ‘savage’ Aboriginal” (Weightman 2). The “back story” I discovered on this research trip was one of disappearance – indigenous people being made to disappear from their countries, from non-indigenous view and from the written record. The symbols I surprisingly most engaged with and which most affected me were the gaols and prisons which the imperialists used as tools of their trade in disappearance. The sense impressions I experienced – extreme beauty, isolation, heat and sandflies – reinforced the complexity of Western Australian contact history. I began to see the central achievement of Bran Nue Dae as being the return of indigenous people to country and to story. This return, so beautifully realised in when the characters finally reach Lombadina and a state of acceptance, is critical to healing the country and to the attainment of an equitable “kind of citizenship” that denotes belonging for all. References Aboriginal Tourism Australia. Welcome to Country: Respecting Indigenous Culture for Travellers in Australia. 2004. Benterrak, Krim, Stephen Muecke, and Paddy Roe. Reading the Country. Perth: Fremantle Arts Centre Press, 1984. Carter, Paul. The Lie of the Land. London: Faber & Faber, 1996. Dalton, Peter. “Broome: A Multiracial Community. A Study of Social and Cultural Relationships in a Town in the West Kimberleys, Western Australia”. Thesis for Master of Arts in Anthropology. Perth: University of Western Australia, 1964. Hunt, Susan Jane. Spinifex and Hessian: Women’s Lives in North-Western Australia 1860–1900. Nedlands, WA: U of Western Australia P, 1986. Read, Peter. Belonging: Australians, Place and Aboriginal Ownership. UK: Cambridge UP, 2000. Reynolds, Henry. North of Capricorn: The Untold History of Australia’s North. Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 2003. Reynolds, Henry. Why Weren’t We Told? Ringwood, Victoria: Penguin Books Australia, 1999. Sharp, Nonie. Saltwater People: The Waves of Memory. Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 2002. Shire of Greenough. Greenough River Nature Walk Trail Guide. 2005. Tuhiwai Smith, Linda. Decolonizing Methodologies. Dunedin, New Zealand: U of Otago P, 1999. Watson, Christine. Piercing the Ground. Perth: Fremantle Arts Centre P, 2003. Weightman, Llyrus. The Old Roebourne Gaol: A History. Pilbara Classies & Printing Service. Wright, Judith. The Cry for the Dead. 1981. 277-80. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Hair, Margaret. "Invisible Country." M/C Journal 8.6 (2005). echo date('d M. Y'); ?> <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0512/09-hair.php>. APA Style Hair, M. (Dec. 2005) "Invisible Country," M/C Journal, 8(6). Retrieved echo date('d M. Y'); ?> from <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0512/09-hair.php>.
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