Day 64 – at sea

Australia

Australia is the sixth largest country in the world with a land area of 2,968,464 square miles. It is the world’s flattest and driest inhabited continent and is also a mega-diverse country. Its territory encompasses a wide variety of landscapes and climates from tropical rainforest to barren deserts. The population is approximately 28 million. Canberra is the capital city, whilst the biggest cities are Melbourne and Sydney, both with populations of over 5 million. Australia has a highly developed economy and has one of the highest per capita incomes globally. It ranks highly for quality of life, health and education as well as economic, civil and political freedoms.

History

Ancestors of Aboriginal Australians began arriving from Southeast Asia between 50,000 and 60,000 years ago. The Dutch explored the coast during the 1600s and British colonisation began in 1788 with the establishment of a penal colony in New South Wales. By the mid 19th century, five additional self governing British colonies had been established and these federated in 1901 to form the Commonwealth of Australia. The Australia Acts of 1986 between the governments of Australia and the United Kingdom formally severed all legal and political ties between the two countries.

Australian wildlife

Australia is one of the world’s 17 mega-diverse nations. Furthermore, most of its wildlife is not found anywhere else in the world. 87% of its mammals, 93% of its reptiles, 94% of its frogs and 45% of its birds are only found in Australia. One of its most well-known mammals is the Koala bear which is now sadly endangered. Koalas inhabit eucalyptus forests in eastern Australia from Northern Queensland to Southeast Australia. There are numerous sanctuaries dedicated to the conservation of koalas and other Australian wildlife.

Aboriginal Culture

Aboriginal culture is one of the oldest on earth. Estimates of aboriginal population numbers prior to British settlement range from 300,000 to 3,000,000. The population declined for 150 years following European settlement largely due to aboriginal people’s lack of resistance to European diseases such as measles and tuberculosis. Massacres, armed conflicts and competition over resources also contributed to the decline of the aboriginal people. By 1934 the indigenous population had declined to around 70,000 before starting to recover. The 2010 census recorded approximately 563,000 in indigenous Australians.

From 1871 until 1969 many aboriginal children were forcibly removed from their families and placed into institutions for the purposes of assimilating them into Anglo-Australian society. These children are known as the ‘Stolen Generation’. The exact number of children removed from their families is unknown but according to the ‘Bringing Them Home’ report of 1987, at least 100,000 children were taken from their families by a system which caused catastrophic long-term trauma to generations of aboriginal people, the effects of which are still felt to this day.

The 1960s and 70s demonstrated at least some recognition of aboriginal rights. In 1962 aboriginals were given the right to vote in Commonwealth elections and in 1976 The Aboriginal Land Rights Bill was enacted which recognised the Aboriginal Australians’ system of land rights in the Northern Territory and established the system through which aboriginal people could claim rights to land based on traditional occupation. Then in 1985 the government returned ownership of Uluru (formally known as Ayers Rock) to the aboriginal people.

Indigenous people continue to face many issues however compared with the non-indigenous population. These include lower life expectancy, lower levels of education, lower wages, fewer employment opportunities, inter-generational trauma particularly in relationship to the Stolen Generation, high levels of substance abuse and crime and lack of political representation. Aboriginal people represent 28% of the Australian adult prisoner population whilst only accounting for 3.3% of the country’s population.

Aboriginal culture is deeply connected to the earth and the environment. There is no written language for aboriginal people so their stories are passed from generation to generation through art, storytelling and music. Paintings were traditionally placed on rock faces or the body, or drawn in the dirt/ground. In 1971 a school teacher named Jeffrey Bardon was working with aboriginal people near Alice Springs. He encouraged the men to illustrate their stories on canvas or board instead of in the dirt and this started the modern day aboriginal art movement.