... because we humans can only work for a future we can imagine.

Gaye Hamilton
Director, Werribee Zoo

as told to Merrill Findlay, Werribee, 24 May 1996


Being raised on dairy farm in South Gippsland gave me an early understanding of the way everything in nature is interrelated and, I think, led to my later interest in the biological sciences. Rather than follow a straight science career, I went into teaching which I found both very challenging, as most teachers do, and very rewarding -- because I felt I was making a difference to the way young people understood the world around them. In the mid 70s, I joined the Melbourne Zoo education service where I was able to indulge my passion for environmental education and think about more creative ways to communicate environmental messages. In time, this led to my 'defection' from mainstream education into zoo administration.

This last decade has been a time of incredibly exciting change in zoos, a watershed even, because we've had to decide whether zoos should remain the menageries or taxonomic displays they have been in the past, or grow into genuine conservation centres. This process has involved a lot of navel gazing, a lot of discussion and planning, and a lot of change management as we have reassessed why we're here and how we're going to achieve our new goals. I've been lucky, I guess, because, having come into zoos from an environmental education perspective, I've not suffered the constraints of being tied to any particular discipline. I've been able to work with a whole range of colleagues both locally and internationally, to discuss the conservation role of zoos, and have been begun to implement those conservation goals here at the Werribee Zoo.

I guess the most important thing for me now is to communicate that the conservation goals of zoos are primarily achieved through education. That's not to say education is the only way conservation goals are achieved, but education is the primary role of zoos, and has to be. Zoos have access to a huge proportion of society who come through our gates every year, and by providing these people with very positive recreational experiences we have the capacity to change personal attitudes, and more importantly, to change personal actions. And education is the key to that.

Digital composite based on the Painting the future real interviews and created by Csaba Szamosy from images contributed by project partners, Imagine The Future Inc, 1996. One of the skins in ITF's re-interpreted possum skin cloak.

The other way zoos can contribute to conservation is by working together to choose which species we maintain in our care. In many cases, we can maintain a display collection of animals that are genuinely endangered, although this is not appropriate in all cases, nor is it desirable. But certainly zoos can make a contribution by maintaining genetic diversity as an insurance policy for the future. With that goes an enormous responsibility to ensure that we maintain maximum diversity and don't select for captivity which is something we know so little about yet. We also have a responsibility to work in partnership with other conservation organisations such as the Victorian Department of Conservation, to contribute our expertise in small population management to captive breeding and re-introduction programs.

There are many problems associated with re-introduction of endangered species into the wild and we can use the Eastern Barred Bandicoot program to illustrate these. Five years ago, we could find less than 100 of these animals in the wild and their future seemed desperate. The only hope for their survival was a captive breeding program to increase the numbers and then release the progeny back to the wild. It sounds very simple and certainly the captive breeding component is relatively simple in most cases, once you've committed the necessary resources and you have access to enough animals from which to start the captive breeding program in the first place. But the difficulty with bandicoots is finding or creating safe and appropriate habitat to release them into.

Captive breeding for reintroduction is something zoos have probably hung their hat on a little dishonestly at times, because they've not accurately addressed the realities of the future availability of habitat for re-introduction. So with the Eastern Barred Bandicoot program, our role was not only to ensure that the captive management side of it worked well, but equally importantly to be a part of the education program that mobilised communities into thinking about predator control and the availability of suitable safe habitat.

With the bandicoots, the re-introduction process has turned out to be reasonably successful. There are still some difficulties but we now have second and third generation reproduction in the wild from animals bred in captivity at Werribee, Melbourne Zoo, Healesville Sanctuary and from a couple of other sites, including one at Gellibrand Hill, and sites in South Australia and in New South Wales. Animals have been released at Gellibrand Hill, at Mooramong out of Bendigo and down at Hamilton Community Park Lands. It has not all been plain sailing however. There are still predator control issues that need to be addressed, and quite frankly, there are still issues of individual human sabotage. But the animals are now reproducing and there are multiple hundreds in the wild compared to the 50 or 100 there may have been five years ago. So that's been a very good model by which zoos can accurately assess their conservation contribution.

ISSUES THAT CONCERN ME MOST

I guess there are probably three major issues that concern me most. One is the sustainability of biodiversity into the future, which I see as a challenge for all of us. We will all have to do more, there's no doubt about that! In the nearer future rather than longer term future, we'll have to start taking some very hard decisions as a society, and this means adopting the principles of ecological rationalism rather than economic rationalism. There is no point in saying that what we need is more jobs or a higher standard of living because if we don't change our perspective, the whole system will just grind to a sickening and very rapid halt.

Population growth and the poverty that occurs in some overpopulated areas is one of the major threats to biodiversity and one that we simply must address both locally and globally. There are alternative views, but the poverty associated with overpopulation is one of the major causes of habitat loss and habitat destruction because it leads to conversion of land to basic agriculture of one sort or another. Urban sprawl is another problem, whether a shanty town or suburban Melbourne crawling out further and further across the landscape, it still has the same destructive effect on habitat, and therefore contributes to species loss. But halting population growth and all that it encompasses comes back to the political process which comes back to educating people so that we can make a difference via the political process!

Zoos have a part to play in all of this, albeit a small one. I think at the last count which was in 1993/94, there were 600 million visitors to zoos every year worldwide and 6 million of those were visitors to Australian zoos alone. If you could actually mobilise that into a political voice, it's beginning to sound a bit more positive and constructive isn't it!

The second issue that concerns me is a local one, and that is the great responsibility we have here at the Werribee Zoo site, to concentrate on the indigenous grasslands and encourage the indigenous species to return, particularly the invertebrates that support all the other life forms. In our region, there are some very hard decisions that have to be made if we are going to sustain local biodiversity into the future. On this basalt plain, we have less than one percent of the original ground cover left. It is critical therefore, that ALL of this must be immediately protected. We can no longer allow local or state authorities to crib areas of remnant native vegetation along the ring road, for example, for another Mobil or MacDonalds. And once we've protected all remaining native habitat, then we need to start encouraging all our businesses and industry groups and all our local communities to consider replacing their rose bushes and rhododendrons, and replace them with indigenous vegetation.

We can never recreate natural ecosystems and I don't think we can afford to be purist about this. Here at the zoo, for example, we have to take a much more horticultural approach because on this site, we no longer have access to indigenous vegetation in a total ecosystem sense. It is all artificial pasture. But with careful planting we can establish something that is a little more representative of what was here before Europeans arrived and at least provide food sources for all the invertebrates that sustain all the other species that are native to this region. If communities in every different habitat type throughout this continent did this, Australia would be transformed.

Right:Digital composite based on the Painting the future real interviews and created by Csaba Szamosy from images contributed by project partners, Imagine The Future Inc, 1996. One of the skins in ITF's re-interpreted possum skin cloak.

I'd also like to think that by introducing people to the hidden treasures of the grasslands such as the orchids and herbs and wild flowers, we can encourage them to value these ecosystems. Such an approach is probably compromising true biodiversity to some degree, but there is such a big chasm between those few people who understand and appreciate the biodiversity of the grasslands and those who don't, that I feel we need to provide some easy stepping stones. If this slightly more manicured and ornamental approach means that people will plant natives in their backyards, then to me, that's a good thing. Those same people might even come to see a back yard full of kangaroo grass as being as beautiful as a bed of roses! It's all about changing perspectives.

While our primary commitment here at Werribee Zoo must be to plants and animals of the Australian basalt plain, we have also included species from the grasslands of South East Africa. There are so many wonderful parallels between the plants of Africa and Australia due to the Gwondanaland phenomenon. Our kangaroo grass, or Themeda triandra , is almost identical to the Themeda that covers the African savannahs, for example. Africa also has many acacias that are similar to our own but much less 'user-friendly' because of their huge thorns. How often do you ask yourself though, well, why have huge thorns evolved in African acacias and not in Australian ones? And the answer has something to do the eating habits of antelopes and giraffes of course! But why are there antelopes and giraffes in Africa and not in Australia?

I've just had a fantastic time reading Tim Flannery's book The Future Eaters , and for the first time I really understood why those differences occur. Flannery's argument is that Australia is a very resource-poor continent in terms of its mineral base. It's hard to believe this when you think of the mining industry, but Australian soils have never been able to support, nor will they ever support the range of large animals that thrive on the African grasslands. Australian soils just can't grow that much vegetation.

Over and above the issues of biodiversity, over-population and the future of our grasslands, the other issue that really concerns me is the equitable distribution of what some people call wealth , but to me is just the capacity to live reasonably comfortably on a daily basis. And that is a big issue!

I also get a little concerned about society's view that science or technology will continue to fix everything, although certainly in this century we've had many good examples of scientists coming up with ever more sophisticated solutions to problems. But I wonder at our capacity to sustain that approach, or to be able to rely on science indefinitely, because scientific and technological solutions are very resource dependent and often these resources are non-renewable resources. So eventually, we have to come to terms with that. I'm not advocating that we stop developing new technologies but I do wonder about it

But if we don't come to terms with the population issue from a human point of view, the rest of the issues probably aren't worth worrying about! In our local area as well as globally. And that comes back to getting accurate information on the holding capacity of our continent. There are theories about a sustainable population for Australia that range from 10 million to 200 million! Well, somewhere along the line, we've got to start addressing that in slightly more definitive terms and work out what our maximum carrying capacity is and then logically work out where we are going to draw the limits to our urban sprawl and conversion of land.

If we continue on the way we are going now, soon we'll have solid urbanisation along our entire coastline and if that happens, think of natural habitats that will be lost for ever. Just think of the habitats that could be lost around Victoria: the coastal wetlands that are internationally significant because of the migratory birds they support, for example, or the estuaries and mangroves where many species of fish spawn. We don't know how much damage we can do before the whole system collapses. It's like flying along in an aeroplane I suppose. There are thousands of bolts keeping the aeroplane together and you can lose a certain number of them before it matters too much. But how do you know which is the critical bolt that causes the plane to fall apart? It is the same with biodiversity. How do you know which species it is that is going to make the whole system metaphorically grind to a halt?

The last issue I would like to mention is personal responsibility. Here at Werribee Zoo, we've set ourselves a mission to demonstrate and inspire actions for conservation. That puts the onus on us to consider our own work and personal practices, and to nurture in visitors to the zoo, a passion to make a difference and then equip them with a range of realistic things they can do as soon as they get home like recycling. While many people might think 'oh no, not more recycling!', the reality is that recycling is one of many personal actions that can really make a difference. I would never suggest that recycling in itself is going to save the world. We have to look far more closely at production processes and packaging and individual choice of goods and all of those things. But mobilising individual personal actions is one important aspect of how we are trying to encourage people to open their eyes and think about where they're going.

MY VISION OF THE FUTURE

Knowing your past is always a very good way of planning for the future, so in my imagined future, places like Werribee Park mansion with its European style gardens that remind us of the impact of the pastoral era, will be maintained as important historic sites. But beyond the historic sites, the landscape will look very different from what it is now, because we will have replanted the roadsides and railway verges, and all the back and front yards (where they continue to exist) with indigenous species and all those tiny little orchids and other species that are on the brink of extinction now, will be safe. We'll at last be confident that they will be there next year whereas now, we never know. We will also be seeing more and more native birds and butterflies and bandicoots and all of those other fantastic creatures that belong to the grasslands, and large flocks of the now-endangered orange bellied parrots rather than just an occasional very very fortunate sighting. That would be spectacular. And all the rabbits and foxes and feral cats that are now so destructive in the Australian environment, will have long gone.

We'll also have linked the remnant corridors of native vegetation that remain along some of the creeks and sewage lines and along some of the railway verges, so our wildlife can move from coastal areas through the basalt plains, either to other coastal areas or into the woodlands or rangelands. We'll be able to take it for granted that urban planners consider ecological corridors just as important as transport or housing or industry.

We'll also be operating within very energy efficient systems; we'll be using far less packaging in our daily resource requirements; and we'll all be wearing hemp hats and shirts and things that can be produced in very ecologically sustainable ways. We'll also have fantastic public transport systems that effectively comes as far as Werribee! Such a future would be great!

To get to this future, we need to convince individual human beings to change their lifestyles so they are less resource dependent. That is a challenge, but I don't believe it is impossible. A more sustainable lifestyle can be 'sold' as something very positive. To me, it's about not constantly striving to have more of everything which I guess comes down to the old "needs" versus "wants" arguments. Getting more of a balance of the things we need as opposed to the things we want.

I'm not suggesting that we should deprive ourselves of aesthetic pleasures, but for me, those pleasures must include being able to watch a sunset or sunrise over undisturbed wetlands, or a flock of orange-bellied parrots flying by. At the end of the day, those sorts of pleasures are much more important than having a new BMW in the drive!

Gaye Hamilton
Director, Werribee Zoo
PO Box 460 Werribee Victoria 3030 Australia
Ph +61 (0)3 9742 7933
Fax +61 (0)3 9742 6339

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[Page history: created and first published on www.ecoversity.org.au as part of Painting the future real (1995-97), the prototype for Redreaming the plain (1998-2002); taken off-line in 1998 and re-posted in a slightly modified form in July 2004 as a web archive. For more information contact redreaming@rmit.edu.au.]