CONTEMPORARY INDIGENOUS ART
On 2 February 2000, Brenda L Croft, Curator of Indigenous Art at the Art Gallery of Western Australia, spoke to the Kimberley Society about the Gallery’s collection of contemporary indigenous art. Rather than have the Society’s newsletter carry a summary of her talk, Brenda submitted an essay titled ‘Beyond the pale: empires built on the bones of the dispossessed’. That essay was published in Boab Bulletin, No. 38, June 2000, pp. 6–11.

OUTBACK KID: GROWING UP WITH MISSIONARY PARENTS IN THE KIMBERLEY

Joel Smoker, our speaker on 1 March 2000, is both an artist and a musician. He works in many mediums and much of his inspiration comes from the Kimberley Region. His grew up in Fitzroy Crossing and Halls Creek. His music and songs reflect both his experience of growing up there and his travels around Australia, where he has recorded sites of significance and the interesting people he has met, both with camera and in pastel drawings. He has exhibited in many galleries around the country. Joel has also put together a multi-media presentation ("North of the Tropic of Capricorn") which incorporates a slide show, story telling and songs about two journeys. The first is the story of the Smoker family in the Kimberley from the 1950s to the 1970s and the second is the story of Joel's time in the Kimberley during the 1980s. These two journeys are used to tell other stories, including the story of the changing face of European and Aboriginal relations and the role that faith can play in determining life's course and where art comes from. The presentation we enjoyed—a variation on "North of the Tropic of Capricorn"—is a new one that Joel is developing for school children.

Joel's parents, Bruce and Pearl Smoker, moved to the Kimberley in 1952 to work for the United Aborigines Mission. They were there for 21 years and in that time raised a family of four boys and one girl. Joel is the eldest of those children and he tells, in fascinating detail, the story of their time in the Kimberley. We heard a little about his parents' early years in the south of Western Australia and how they moved to a mission at Fitzroy Crossing to work with Aboriginal people in 1952. Later that year Joel was born in Derby. It was a hard life and Bruce helped build his home, the school and the church. Later they moved to Halls Creek and the story was repeated. Pearl was a teacher and helped in the school until her family grew too large to permit the time for this work.

In 1965 Joel was sent to South Perth to board and continue his education at High School. He trained as a teacher and then, after completing further studies in art and education, he returned to Kununurra in the 1980s. He worked first as an art consultant with the Education Department, travelling to the schools of the Kimberley, and then as the Arts Coordinator of the Waringarri Aboriginal Arts Centre in Kununurra.

Joel finished his talk with his arrival in Perth in 1965 and we thanked him for sharing his interesting childhood with us and showing how the two cultures interacted in the mission. His slides of his mother's beautiful photographs of this historical time were especially appreciated as were his stories of the toys and games that entertained the self-sufficient outback kids.

Daphne Choules Edinger

 Editor's note:  People interested in Joel Smoker's work can visit his web site at www.joelsmoker.com

GEOLOGICAL SURVEY ACTIVITIES IN THE KIMBERLEY

In his talk on 5 April 2000, Rick Rogerson of the Geological Survey of Western Australia (GSWA — a Division of the WA Department of Minerals and Energy) gave us a potted history of mineral exploration and mining in the Kimberley. He weighed up the contributions made by industry and Government to the discovery of mineral resources. He also touched on the discovery and development of groundwater resources by Government geologists, and their contribution to the establishment of major infrastructure projects such as dams.

Rick also took the opportunity—whilst discussing ‘116 Years Service to the Kimberley’—to mention both a new product that draws geological maps “on demand” and the recent GSWA discovery of what is thought to be the World’s fourth largest meteorite impact crater (the Woodleigh impact structure near Shark Bay).

Kimberley mineral industry

From 1884 to 1920, there was hope for a bright future for mining in the Kimberley. Gold was first discovered in the Kimberley (and WA) in 1882, and in 1884, Government Geologist Edward Hardman was sent to the area to report. His geological map and report, published in 1886, the same year that the Kimberley Gold Field was proclaimed, helped to promote the prospectivity of the Kimberley. Today, 116 years later, the GSWA, whose main role remains the promotion of WA’s prospectivity, continues its involvement in the Kimberley.

Pioneering geological survey work was also carried in the period 1908 to 1910 by H Talbot, another government geologist, who accompanied Mines Department employee, A Canning, on a survey of a newly discovered route, now known as the Canning Stock Route, between Wiluna and Halls Creek. During Talbot’s 426-day field trip, many fundamental geological observations were made, including the first discovery of gold at Larranganni Bluff in the Tanami desert region of WA. This discovery was followed up by Glengarry Resources in the middle 1990s and is now known as the Cuckoo prospect.

Unfortunately, early hope for the Kimberley as a gold mining centre was not fulfilled and the last major gold mine in the Kimberley, the Ruby Queen, closed in 1908.

 Between 1921 and 1959, little mineral exploration was carried out in the Kimberley and the Geological Survey did little systematic work. GSWA Annual Progress Reports during the period described occurrences of tin, lead, silver, fluorite, iron ore, tantalum, niobium, gold, uranium and ground water.

This situation changed in the 1960s, when modern mineral exploration began in the Kimberley and the pace of Geological Survey work increased. Pickands Mather and other companies carried out regional exploration, focussing on base metals (copper, lead, zinc), chromite and nickel. The Commonwealth Bureau of Mineral Resources and GSWA began systematic 1:250 000 geological mapping in the Kimberley and discovered some base metal and platinum-bearing chromite occurrences. In the period 1960 to 1974, GSWA published many reports on ground water and the engineering geology of dam sites (eg Ord and Fitzroy).

The Kimberley’s modern mining period began in 1975 and continues to the present. GSWA began systematic 1:100 000 geological mapping in 1990 and currently, a major survey of over 1330 mineral occurrences in the Halls Creek region is nearing completion.

In 1998, the Kimberley produced 8% by value of the State’s mineral product. The main commodities were lead ($17.3 million), zinc ($99.9 million), silver ($0.8 million), and diamond ($610.4 million) for a total of $728.4 million. Although direct mineral industry employment in the Kimberley is about 1500, a total of over 3000 for both direct and indirect employment is likely given the multiplier used to calculate indirect employment in the mineral industry.

The Woodleigh impact structure

In 1998, but only publicized in April 2000, Robert Iasky and Arthur Mory, senior GSWA geoscientists, discovered the largest proven impact crater in Australia hidden beneath the red sand country east of Shark Bay. The crater has been estimated to be 120 km in diameter and therefore the fourth largest in the world. The extraterrestrial body that caused it was probably about 5 km in diameter.

An impact of this size is probably related to a significant extinction in the fossil record, similar to Chicxulub (Gulf of Mexico), which has been linked to the extinction of the dinosaurs at the end of the Cretaceous period, 65 million years ago. The Woodleigh crater, however, lies buried below more than 100 m of Cretaceous and Jurassic (100–200 million years old) sedimentary rock, and so predates that event. The youngest possible age for the impact is about 200 million years ago in the Lower Jurassic, based on the age of the crater in-fill sediments. The oldest possible age for the impact is constrained by isotopic analysis of crater floor samples, which indicate a Late Devonian age (about 364 million years ago).

Geophysical data, and to a lesser extent surface drainage, were used to detect the crater, and to estimate its size. The central part of the crater, where the force of the impact caused the rock to “rebound” to form a dome of highly fractured rock, is about 20 km in diameter. This process is similar to the central peak that forms when a pebble is dropped into a pond.

Rick’s informative talk was well received and more than one member of the audience was seen to drool over the speed, efficiency and capacity of the new technology for producing geological maps “on demand”. This work, which has not yet been extended to the Kimberley, is no doubt a great boon to prospectors and mining companies operating further south.

MAPPING BENTHIC FAUNA OF INTERTIDAL KIMBERLEY MUDFLATS

Grant Pearson of the CALM Wildlife Research Centre at Woodvale spoke to the meeting on 3 May 2000 about major projects on the fauna of mudflats of Roebuck Bay, King Sound and 80 Mile Beach. The projects are connected with studies of migratory wading birds, which nest in Siberia and then spend the Austral summer feeding on Australian coastal mudflats and inland lakes.

Wader studies started in Broome in 1981 with trapping, counting and banding. Observations of birds feeding, and some idea of what they were feeding on, followed. The realisation that about 150,000 fed on the mudflats from August to April each year led to the establishment of the Broome Bird Observatory by Birds Australia (formerly RAOU). Roebuck Bay is now recognised as one of the foremost internationally important sites for shorebirds in the Asia-Pacific flyway system and one of the five best wader sites in the world. 

The fact that the shorebirds fly 30,000 km per year (18 days of continuous flight) suggests that Roebuck Bay has much to offer. A desire to find out how so many birds make a living in the mud at Roebuck Bay led to the planning of a detailed survey in 1997 with collaboration between CALM, the Netherlands Institute of Sea Research (NIOZ), Curtin University and the Broome Bird Observatory. The Lotteries Commission of WA provided a grant to build an air-conditioned wet laboratory and to buy a small hovercraft. The survey would not have been possible without the skills of five Dutch scientists who organised the sampling regime, counted, measured, identified the specimens (all 17,000 of them) and entered the data in a computer each day.  Grant coordinated CALM’s input and logistics of the expedition. It also would not have been possible without many volunteers who slogged through the sometimes thigh deep mud to cover a grid of 537 stations over 45 km2.

Grant gave a light-hearted account of the techniques tested to cope with the mud (skis, mud-sled and the somewhat erratic hovercraft). In the end most work was done on foot, with vehicles used on the beach to reach the more distant transects. With a nine-metre tide at springs exposing 190 km2 of mudflat, sampling could only take place at low tide and the penalty of trying to do just one more station was being caught by the rushing incoming tide.  The samples were sieved, bagged and labelled at each site then sorted in the lab and identified by the experts. Any that could not be identified were preserved for museum identification.  About 200 different taxa were recognised, some identified to species, some to family or even phylum. Ultimately, representatives of all will be lodged in the Western Australian Museum.  The majority of animals found were molluscs (85 species) while polychaete worms made up 70% of the individual species and 45% of the biomass. The results of the Roebuck Bay Expedition have now been published in a 212 page NIOZ Report. 

Since Roebuck Bay may be threatened by pollution from tourist developments and the new Broome airport it was decided to look at alternative feeding sites for the waders.

In 1998 a small survey of mudflats in King Sound was made but yielded only 16 species of animals and few birds. There is much greater input of freshwater and terrigenous mud from the Fitzroy River making it a less suitable habitat for marine animals.

Another known congregating place for waders is 80 Mile Beach so in 1999 a large expedition was based at Anna Plains Station, a few kilometres from the coast, to sample the mud flats which extend 4 km beyond the sandy beach. Cannon netting in 1982 had shown that about 450,000 waders used the area in summer. The survey covered 80 km of the 220 km of 80 Mile Beach with blocks of sampling stations every 15 km giving a total of 900 stations from which 18600 animals of 112 taxa were collected.  The expedition had the luxury of a larger hovercraft, a portable laboratory and a delightful tree shaded grassy camping area at Anna Plains Station. Over a two-week period 80 people, of whom 72 were volunteers, took part in the survey.

Within a couple of weeks of the end of the expedition a preliminary report with distribution maps of the commonest species was distributed, a tribute to the industry of scientists involved.

Mandora wetlands are another area that supports about half a million birds, 35 species on the plain and 65 on the beach.

Plans for the future include further taxonomic work, ongoing monitoring of sites in Roebuck Bay and analysis of the benthos as food for the birds.  Most of these projects will depend on the success of grant applications to Australian and Dutch funding bodies.

Altogether this was a most stimulating talk giving an insight into the little known riches of the coastal waters off the Kimberley coast.

Loisette Marsh

NEW ZEALAND PROSPECTORS AND THE KIMBERLEY GOLD RUSH

At our meeting of 7 June 2000, before the launch of the book Old Halls Creek: a town remembered, Dr Cathie Clement spoke on the topic of ‘New Zealand prospectors and the Kimberley gold rush’. Cathie has been undertaking research into the gold rush, when spare time permits, for many years. During that time, with the objective of eventually writing a book on the rush, she has pooled research material with Peter Bridge of Hesperian Press. More recently, Kimberley Society member Athol Farrant has been helping with the huge task of searching for information in the 1886 newspapers from all over Australia and New Zealand.

The research has shown that the most eager of the New Zealand prospectors were in the Kimberley months before June 1886, when the rush began. The general public, on the other hand, only started to read news items about the Kimberley in the second week of April. With unemployment levels high throughout the islands, hints of the existence of an extensive new field caused considerable excitement. It was clear, however, that this was not a poor man's field. With a big rush anticipated and supplies scarce, intending prospectors were urged to take provisions sufficient for six months. Many ignored this advice and paid heavily for their folly.

On 21 April the Otago Daily Times (Dunedin) summarised items of Australian news relating to the Kimberley. The Age (Melbourne) had published a telegram in which the Government Resident at Derby stated that professional diggers were predicting one of the biggest rushes in years. They were also said to be predicting a definite future in reefing. When the telegram was sent, five parties were down from the fields. With each one having brought some gold, more than 400 ounces were in Derby. No one mentioned the time taken to win the gold.

Within weeks, hundreds of people were preparing to leave New Zealand. In Wellington, where saddlers were hurriedly filling orders for money belts and diggers' bags, it was noted that the great expense involved in any large number of prospectors reaching Kimberley would have a serious affect on New Zealand’s economy. People also pointed out that plenty of good ground remained untried in New Zealand, and that it would be much cheaper to prospect there.

On 3 May, at Dunedin, where several keen prospectors waited to board the Waihora for Melbourne, a Perth telegram confirmed that the goldfield lay three hundred miles inland. Undaunted, or perhaps unable to visualise country so different to their own, the prospectors sailed. Their names and their fate remain unknown.

The day before the Waihora left Dunedin, the first notices for direct passages from New Zealand ports to Kimberley appeared in Auckland. Thomas J Allen advised that a vessel would leave for Derby on or about 11 May. Captain A L Edgar offered freight and passage on a fast steamer sailing for Cambridge Gulf and Derby on or about 20 May. Such notices were speculative and often disappeared without the vessel concerned having sailed. Captain Edgar did eventually sail the barque Rapido to Cambridge Gulf, landing 70 men and 6 horses there on 10 September 1886. By that time the rush was almost over and, on attempting to leave the Gulf for Fremantle, he ran the barque aground.

In the meantime, people had continued to leave for the Kimberley. First hand information was rare, and, when it did arrive, it was stale. A balanced but positive letter written at Derby on 1 April reached Donald Sutherland’s brother-in-law in Dunedin a month later and was published on 6 May. Another second hand report told of a Derby storekeeper buying 84 ounces of gold from a party of two. Readers were also advised that the heat was intense, water scarce and the difficulties of reaching the place enormous.

Any rationality that might have come from the cautions was likely to have been dispelled by a Perth report that began circulating on 17 May. It told of John Slattery having found a 29-ounce nugget and, more importantly, of 2000 ounces of gold having reached Derby prior to the s.s. Otway, the ship that brought this amazing news, leaving King Sound.

Realism and romance were inextricably interwoven. Because of this, even in the sixth week of publicity, accurate visualisation of the Kimberley was impossible. Diggers with Californian experience, and to a lesser degree those who had worked in New South Wales and Victoria, may have read between the lines of the more graphic reports. If so, they surely had an edge on those who had never been to or beyond the New Zealand fields. With "Kimberley fever" raging, facts were prized less than visions of the wealth that reputedly lay in the red soil of that distant land. Hundreds of New Zealand people, mindful of the 2000 ounces of gold said to have reached Derby, were still anxious to secure passages to the Kimberley.

The research to date indicates that around 800 would-be prospectors left New Zealand for the Kimberley. More than 200 of these men arrived off Derby on the s.s. Triumph on 23 July 1886, causing a great commotion because the vessel had a suspected case of scarlet fever aboard. Other came in via Wyndham. Most of these diggers joined the procession of people making their way to Halls Creek with their wagons, drays, wheelbarrows and swags. Some just took one look at the port and opted to return with the ship on which they had arrived.

The Kimberley gold rush turned out to be a “storekeeper’s rush” and, because the shipping companies promoted it so heavily in New Zealand, it cost the people from there dearly. Their experience was summed up by George Hales, a Triumph passenger, who went to the rush with friends named Partridge, Delamain, Stack and Blake. The last of these men, Blake, lost his hand in a gun accident at Halls Creek. In summing up the rush, Hales wrote:

I don't think I have yet told you my opinion of the fields. I will do so. There are no alluvial fields worth the name. There is a certain amount of alluvial gold, but even if there was a sufficient constant supply of water (which there is not) not more than £3 a week could be obtained & that is too little for such an out of the way place where provisions must always be very dear. There are a few rich reefs but they are very thin & faulty. A man named Carr Boyd took 1100 pounds of stone to Ballarat to be tested. This may possibly be very rich but it is picked stone. A reef would have to be very rich to return good profit. The cartage of crushing machinery to the ground would be very expensive, it would be very difficult to provide a constant supply of water & firewood would have to be carted some miles over very rough country. The locus in quo is composed of very rough hills of loose friable granite & quartzites. There is no formation & the ground is very faulty. The most of the quartz from the reefs is rotten. To make a gold field will require a large amount of capital & I am thinking that capitalists will be very chary about investing their money in a place 300 miles from nowhere, & Carr Boyd (to put it mildly) is more likely to set Melbourne men against the field than otherwise. The storekeepers (who created the first rush) will endeavour to create another after the wet season. They have very large stocks & a very small market & will naturally wish to promote business. I don't suppose it will be necessary to warn fellows against a second rush. [Mitchell Library, MSS 688]

Hales and other New Zealand prospectors regretted their participation in the rush. Mr D N Hunter returned to Wellington after four months convinced that the so-called goldfields were ‘a delusion and a snare’. He and three experienced West Coast diggers had succeeded in obtaining only 11/2 ounces of gold after three weeks’ diligent search. Others like Edward Browne (founder of Browne’s Dairy) and William Edward Routledge did well for themselves. But their good fortune came from leaving the Kimberley and settling in Perth.

No doubt, as the research continues, many other fascinating stories will be unearthed.

KIMBERLEY ARCHITECTURE - A PERSONAL VIEW

At the meeting of 5 July 2000, Finn Pedersen spoke about Kimberley architecture as he saw it and contributed to it. In 1992, as a recent graduate, Finn was appointed as a consultant for housing with the NBC Aboriginal Corporation, an Aboriginal owned architectural firm based in Broome. He was also a founding committee member of Environs Kimberley, which formed to prevent a dam being built at Dimond Gorge. The group’s goal is to preserve the nature of the Kimberley and provide a voice for Aboriginal communities on environmental matters.

Finn formed his own partnership, Iredale Pedersen Hook Architects, in June 1999 and has recently completed six houses for the Budulah and Djimund Nguda Aboriginal Corporations in Stanley Street, Derby. He has also worked with the staff of the Broome Bird Observatory to produce a mission statement, long term plan and sketch designs of a new observatory building on Roebuck Bay. Iredale Pedersen Hook Architects are consulting to the Perth Zoological Gardens and are designing the new home for the orang-outangs at the Perth Zoo. This last project certainly ties in with the partnership’s specialisation in innovative solutions for unusual projects in the areas of landscape, environmental design, urban planning, remote residential design, interiors, education and corporate design.

Finn sees architecture as a background or prop for community events and started his talk with slides of the Derby jetty, an icon of the Kimberley with its forest of columns and new ore-loading conveyor belt. He saw the Derby Historical Museum (formerly the Wharfinger's House), with concrete piles, shutters, an inner core and verandahs, as typifying the basic style of old houses built to suit the climate of the north west. He also commented on shed architecture, galvanised walls and double skillion roof, allowing scope for light and ventilation in the gap between the two halves of the roof. Another very basic style is the bough shelter with an iron roof supported on wooden posts, with walls of chicken wire stuffed with spinifex, which can be kept wet to provide evaporative cooling.

Finn was shocked at the third world conditions he saw at Kalumburu in 1993. The community was housed in small, verandahless houses, built in the 1980s without consultation with the people, each housing up to 15 people. Overflowing septic systems resulted, transmitting hookworm and other diseases through faecal contamination of the ground. These problems have since been rectified.

In Broome Finn was impressed by the simple austere buildings of the 1950s and 1960s and earlier buildings in Chinatown—of which one of the most authentic remaining examples is Streeter’s Store which retains the functional air scoops on the west side of the roof. He thought that recent attempts at a so-called “Broome style” house had overworked the superficial decoration at the expense of the functionality of old Broome houses. The Broome Courthouse (formerly the old cable building) was Broome's first prefabricated building, built in 1889, with a cast iron frame, galvanised iron walls and a double iron roof allowing air circulation between the two layers with hot air escaping through a roof vent at the top. Decorative cast iron balustrades surround the verandah. Another style of architecture seen in Broome is a roof without walls, exemplified by the Uniting Church (circa 1930s) where the walls slide away and curtains behind the altar cover louvred glass windows giving a luminous effect. Verandahs are a mixed blessing in the Broome climate, they are pleasant in summer (except in driving rain) but in the dry season they can be cold and dusty. A compromise is to enclose them with windows above the rail and shutters or louvres below. McDaniel’s house is a fine example of an old Broome residence. It has not been greatly altered and consists of cubical rooms surrounded by wide verandahs that provide the living space. These are enclosed by huge shutters on the ends with small shutters on other windows and a high roof.

Turning to his own contribution Finn described some of the buildings he had designed while employed with NBC Aboriginal Corporation. One is a house for the Chairman of the Wah community at Mount Elizabeth Station and another is the Karrayili Adult Education Centre at Fitzroy Crossing. He also designed new buildings for the Junjuwa community in the same town. These are in six styles, some are high set, some low, they have shutters and timber walls below then galvanised iron upper walls and roof with sections of polycarbonate sheeting on the high walls to let extra light in. Ventilation and breeze catching is an essential aspect of the houses. Finn also designed the Kimberley Language Resource Centre in Halls Creek. This has walls of rammed earth and termite resistant western red cedar, with shade screens on windows and high windows for light and ventilation. However air conditioning is used during the wet season.

Finn concluded his talk by saying that his was a very personal view of Kimberley architecture derived from his own experience, hence he didn’t discuss station architecture or towns he had not visited.

Loisette Marsh

At the meeting of 2 August 2000, the full title for the talk presented by Dr Andrew Radomiljac was “Tropical tree farming including Kimberley Sandalwood production”.  Andrew spoke from a background of six years spent in the Kimberley, mostly in the Ord Valley, working for CALM researching the growing of Indian Sandalwood, Santalum Album. In May 2000, he left CALM and went into private employment with a forest production company.

Andrew showed slides throughout to illustrate his talk. He mentioned 16 species of Santalum (sandalwood) existing throughout the world, with four of them occurring in WA. Santalum is a root hemi-parasite that grows with a range of vegetation types, including many wattle (Acacia) species. Santalum spicatum, which grows in all areas of the State apart from the Kimberley and the South West, was more important than gold, wheat or wool in the early days of the colony. In the 1840s they exported four tons to China and, by the 1920s, this had increased to 14,000 tons. The proceeds from this lucrative trade helped to fund the building of our road and rail networks. Initially, the majority of sandalwood was obtained from areas close to Perth, eg Northam, York and Beverley, but, as supplies diminished, harvesting moved further inland to the wheatbelt and then into the semi-arid regions of the Goldfields and Midwest. Today, the industry is much smaller and harvesting occurs mainly in the pastoral regions.

Sandalwood grows throughout Asia and the Pacific Rim. Within Asia, sandalwood powder is still extensively used to make incense (joss) sticks. Sandalwood oil, contained in the heartwood, is also a desirable product in the perfume industry. There is a global decline in sandalwood supply and this is causing an increase in pressure to over-harvest the remaining stocks. The result is loss of industrial opportunities and sandalwood substitution.

In 1994, CALM started putting sandalwood back into production in the tropical Kimberley using irrigation and the faster growing Indian species Santalum album. They mostly used the host Sesbania Formosa, the large white flowered Dragon Tree, a good host since it also releases nitrogen back into the soil by way of its nitrogen-fixing bacteria. A plantation format was developed often using a small herb called Alternanthera nana as a pot host. The fine feeder roots of the sandalwood search for suitable host roots and, when successful, form cup-like connections, called haustoria. From these the parasite draws water and nutrients.

During the course of the research programme the plantation was visited by a group of growers from India looking for ways to improve their sandalwood production. Andrew was also sent to East Timor, Mysore in India, Papua New Guinea and New Caledonia to provide assistance to producers.

In the search for suitable hosts some Acacia and Eucalyptus species were tried such as A. Trachycarpa and A. ampliceps and Eucalyptus camaldulensis along with teak and Pterocarpus.  The acacia and eucalyptus species proved to be unsuitable. In India the preferred hosts are local trees such as Cassias and Desmanthus etc. The trees are sexually mature at age three or four years and are usually pollinated by ants.

Indian Sandalwood is harvested at age 15 years, depending on growth, and is worth up to $15,000 per ton. Our own species is worth approximately $5,000 per ton. Another point made by Andrew is that our species of sandalwood, Santalum Spicatum, is pulled up roots and all since one third of the tree is underground and the oldest part of the tree, the base of the root, is where the most oil is found.  The quality is affected by rate of growth, which in turn depends on the climate. Steam distillation is used to extract the oil and some of the larger trunks are retained for carving.

Kununurra has 13,000 hectares of arable land under cultivation, mainly to cotton and sugar but also to sorghum, vegetables, fruit and nut trees. Forty hectares of the land is devoted to tropical forestry, mainly Indian Sandalwood, Santalum Alba, with Sesbania Formosa as host.  The soils are mainly light clays and cockatoo sands.

Our own northern variety of sandalwood, Santalum lanceolatum, has no oil or aroma but produces a sweet fruit very rich in Vitamin C. Some Santalums are being planted in the wheatbelt for salinity control. Santalum Spicatum, much reduced in its natural state, is now being supplemented by trees grown in plantations on two pastoral leases, Burnerbinmah and Goongarrie, recently acquired by CALM. These experimental plantations, together with those being developed in the Kimberley, may help to safeguard the survival of sandalwood species and provide a viable commercial industry at the same time.

Daphne Choules Edinger

BOVINE TB ERADICATION IN THE KIMBERLEY

On 6 September 2000, our speaker was John Creeper, a veterinary pathologist who worked with the Agriculture Department in Derby from 1985 until the end of 1992. An edited transcript of his superbly illustrated talk follows. It was too informative to warrant a summary.

Bovine TB is caused by a bacteria called Mycobacterium bovis. It has a predilection for lymph nodes of the respiratory system. Infected notes can contain multiple circular yellow lesions or tubercles holding custard‑like material. As the disease progresses, the infection spreads to the lungs and can affect not only other cattle but also humans.

Cattle with generalised TB lose condition, become weak and die. The vast majority of infected cattle appear normal – the disease can't be diagnosed on the basis on clinical signs. It can infect any organ of the body including the brain but most commonly there is liver involvement in generalised infections. In dairy cattle TB often spreads to the udder. Mycobacterium are very robust bacteria and can survive for months in chilled milk. This meant that, prior to pasteurisation, infected milk represented a public health risk.

Back in the 1940s, a survey of dairy cows in Victoria (predominantly Jersey cows) showed that 30% of dairy herds were infected. On individual farms up to 10% of cows were infected. The public health risk of so many infected cattle resulted in the beginning of TB eradication in Australia. The then Bureau of Animal Health has left us with three legacies from the original campaign:

• They put in place an identification system so infected cattle detected at slaughtered could be traced back to the property of origin;
• To assure accurate diagnosis of TB at abattoirs they created what has evolved into the AQIS—trained meat inspectors—and gave them regulatory power to condemn infected carcases as not fit for human consumption; and,
• They were able to get farmers to agree to form the cattle industry compensation funds whereby a small percentage of the proceeds from the sale of each animal slaughtered went into a trust for the purpose of compensating farmers for the destruction of infected or condemned animals.

As a result of these measures TB eradication in the dairy herds was extremely successful – properties identified by abattoir monitoring as infected were repeatedly tested using an intra‑dermal skin test or by selective destocking of heavily infected herds. Then, as the dairy campaign neared completion, attention focussed on the 12,000,000 beef cattle in southern Australia. This involved about 20,000,000 individual TB tests, which meant a lot of work for vets. In fact, most veterinary practises in non‑dairy rural towns in Australia came to be during this period because the enormous amounts of testing gave a steady income flow.

TB eradication in the south was given a boost during the 1975 beef crash when many farmers got out of beef and into sheep. It also helped that the average southern beef farm had 100 quiet cows running under control on 1000 acres. When authorities accustomed to this type of beef enterprise looked to the north of Australia and saw 6,000,000 wild animals almost out of control they were overwhelmed. They concluded that TB eradication was impossible and that the best they could do was quarantine the north from the south.

A fleet of AQIS inspectors ensured that the meat coming out of northern abattoirs was safe to eat but little Kimberley beef found its way to Australian dinner tables. It was low quality lean beef, which was frozen and shipped to the USA in cardboard cartons. We had a symbiotic relationship with US feedlot beef producers. The huge volume of fat produced by the USA feedlot beef industry – a typical feedlot steer has 20kg of fat around the kidneys – would normally have gone to waste had the lean meat not been coming out of northern Australia. It was added at the rate of 28% USA fat to 72% Australian lean beef to make beef patties.

Problems arose in 1979 when a delegation from the USDA let it be known that their TB program nearly finished and that, when it was, they wouldn't be taking beef from infected areas. Veterinary administrators immediately sent vets and stock inspectors to the Kimberley, Northern Territory and north Queensland to see if eradication was feasible. In the Kimberley they found approximately one million cattle mainly of semi‑feral British shorthorn type. Herds of up to 30,000 head were common and one spread of leases had 120,000.

The 1975 beef crash had really hit the marginal beef producers in the north very hard. They didn’t bother mustering for 2 to 3 years until prices recovered. Things were out of hand on the smaller properties. Cattle control was poor; bulls ran with the cows all year round; and there was a large proportion of unbranded cattle in every herd. In some places large numbers of uncontrolled cattle had overgrazed areas and caused soil degradation. Reliance on natural waters—rivers and billabongs—led to large cattle losses in times of drought. Man-made waters such as artesian bores and windmills were often poorly equipped.

One pastoralist told of worrying all season until his 5000 bullocks (each worth $400–$500) had been slaughtered because they paid for his running costs. His profit only came with the cows that he sold. The scant reserves for capital improvements, coupled with the attitude that pastoral stations were only leasehold, resulted in poor quality improvements on many stations. The majority of yards were timber and would be totally unsuitable for safely testing large numbers of cattle if a TB Testing program was to go ahead.

A picture of the distribution of the TB infected cattle was built up by relating the daily sheet of cattle killed by earmark at the local abattoir to the records kept by the stations, trucking companies and AQIS meat inspectors. Mapping the infected populations showed that TB was mainly on the better stations – those with large numbers of cattle and usually with access to river systems. Herds could be evenly distributed along the rivers during much of the year but, as water holes dried up, thousands of cattle became concentrated within a small area. All the factors that encourage the spread of an infectious disease were present – overcrowding, immune suppression and, coupled with this, the cows were either late pregnant or just calved. Around man-made watering points in the dry season there might be no grass for a distance of about five kilometres. The cattle had to walk across this desert (where radiant heat has been recorded at 60° in the NT), graze beyond the bare areas and come back at night for a drink. We found that periods of stress were greatest in the late dry season and that with TB the well walled off lesions seem to break down when animals are under greatest stress.

After several years of quite intense epidemiological appraisal across Australia it was felt that TB was present in low concentrations within the northern Australian cattle herd, with pockets where infection rates were high and probably the source of persistence of the infection. The BTEC Campaign was launched and, fortunately, a lot of factors were in our favour. Main Roads started to upgrade the road system. BTEC low interest loans and generous capital depreciation allowances assisted cash strapped stations to build steel yards. Stations were paid to hold cattle for TB testing and received generous compensation for cattle destroyed for the purposes of TB eradication. An influx of rangeland agriculture scientists seeded large areas of degraded land to newly developed plant species such as Buffel grass on the cracking black soil loams – these are the soils that run very high cattle densities. In coastal plains, Birdwood Grass became established on stations such as Anna Plains and allowed similar stocking rates to the black soil pastures.

Emphasis was on spreading cattle out and getting them away from the river systems. Stations used BTEC loans to build additional watering points and cheap poly piping allowed extra watering troughs to be fed off these new bores. Similarly the use of dams was developed to allow water storage in areas where there was no underground water available so that cattle could spread out. These extra waters reduced the spread of infection through cattle being breathed on. They also spread out the grazing areas so that the problem of five kilometre bare zones didn’t occur and, consequently, cattle condition improved.

BTEC coincided with the use of helicopters for mustering, thus allowing large areas to be mustered quickly but much more efficiently than previously. The TB program also coincided with the universal use of road trains to carry cattle – the three trailer 6 deck units which could carry 150 cows long distances in short space of time.

Brahman cattle were on several properties for some time prior to 1980 but these were nasty examples of the breed. Pastoralists then had access to the newer Brahmans developed in Queensland. Those beasts were placid, tolerant to heat and the cattle tick, had much lower modality rates than the Shorthorns and made much better use of the poor quality feed available in the end of the year.

With cattle control being the key requirement for the eradication of TB, fencing was critical. Most stations could be fenced into paddocks. The size wasn’t terribly important initially so long as we could test all the cattle within that paddock and stop mobs of cattle mixing. One infected property – Pantijan – couldn’t realistically be fenced. It was decided to remove all cattle by conventional means over a five-year period, or until the owners or contract musterers could not economically muster any more, and then shoot any remaining cattle.

The traditional Kimberley fence used posts 10 metres apart with 4 barbed wires along the bottom panels and a single 8-gauge wire along the top. This is prohibitively expensive in both time to erect and in the cost of materials. BHP invented barbed wire that behaved like an elastic band which allowed steel posts to be placed 30 metres apart with 2 droppers in between. As a result a team could erect a fence at a rate of 10 kilometres per day.

The typical scenario for paddocked cattle in the BTEC campaign was fairly simple. Cattle in the paddock were mustered – usually by a combination of horse and helicopter. They were then yarded and drafted into fat cattle, which were sent to slaughter. Calves were branded and the remaining adult population was TB Tested.

TB Testing is the human equivalent of the mantoux test. It makes use of the fact that cattle infected with TB will react with a delayed hypersensitivity immune reaction if they are injected with a purified protein derivative of the mycobacterium cell wall. This derivative called tuberculin is injected beneath the skin in the hairless part of the tail fold. Four days later the injection site is felt and a positive result occurs when there is fluid swelling The test is 60-80% sensitive and sometimes a fair bit of acrobatic ability was required to reach over and read the tails.

If an animal reacted positively to the test it was identified in some way – spray cans being the usual method – and kept with the other cattle tested until all of them had been read. The reactors were then shot and post mortemed by the vet. A specific set on lymph nodes were sampled and sent to the laboratories in Perth for culture and Histopathology.

The basics of eradication sound pretty straightforward but we did encounter quite a few problems. Every cattle tested was ear tagged, and we had assumed that the mustering efficiency of helicopters was almost 100%, but we continued to turn up cattle at TB tests that had not been previously tested before. These were usually old bulls and bullocks that evaded mustering – and it was these cattle that invariably were infected.

To overcome this problem we decided to get the station to muster as best they could then we would send up stock inspectors with rifles to shoot any remaining cattle that refused to be mustered. Whilst this made me universally unpopular, shooting of these unmusterable cattle was the single most important factor in eradicating TB from the Kimberley.

The stock inspectors often had to make several passes of the country before they were confident they had all the cattle that had evaded the muster. This applied particularly in the thick river country and we found that the only way to clean up parts of the Fitzroy River was to have men on horseback on the ground in addition to helicopters. So many semi-automatic rifles in such a close area meant that firearm safety became an issue. We employed the army to train the stock inspectors in firearm safety and to pass on experience in planning these operations involving a lot of shooting.

One of the troubles using the intradermal skin test is that cattle become anergic or unresponsive if they are heavily infected. In heavily infected groups the most cost-effective way to eradicate the disease is to send the entire mob of cattle to the meatworks. Pastoralists were particularly opposed to depopulating of infected mobs so, if the owner of the cattle wished to retain the breeder group, we introduced requirements such as weaning – which involves removing calves at 6 months of age and growing them out in a separate paddock. There are many other benefits of weaning and on the majority of the stations, given the benefits seen in these infected groups, applied this approach to the rest of the herd.

The last resort for heavily infected breeder groups was the gamma interferon blood test. This was developed by CSL and it measures a chemical which is released by macrophages when they are infected with an intracellular organism which they cannot kill. Run in tandem with the skin test the sensitivity increases to around 80%. The test did have some application but being an ELISA test required some expertise, which wasn’t readily available. The sensitivity of the test was only marginally better than the intra-dermal test. Every animal needed to be individually identified through the allocation of a number and when positives were found the animals had to be removed. The schooling level of the ringers wasn’t very high and on one occasion we had to run all the cattle around again because we couldn’t find the reactor.

Unfortunately there were some cattle populations in which the rate of spread of the disease exceeded the rate in which our TB tests could remove infected animals. Fairfield, the station near Tunnel Creek, was one and we ultimately depopulated this station by mustering all cattle and sending them to the meatworks. All destocked cattle were painted with a yellow stipe along their backs so that, in the event of a cattle truck roll-over, we could identify any escapees and shoot then from the air.

The two infected properties that couldn’t be fenced were mustered by the owners as best they could before we came in and shot them free of stock. After a few years of shooting cattle became hard to find and the costs in helicopter hire were prohibitive. We overcame this by introducing cattle with radio collars into these areas. The theory was that cattle will tend to find each other and form mobs and this is exactly what happened. We picked up the radio signals using a receiver attached to the helicopter and monitored the collared cattle for any additions.

The Kimberley is now free of TB and cattle are free to go anywhere in Australia. The BTEC program was the largest animal disease eradication program ever completed in the world. The USA, by comparison, is no better off than it was in 1979. Mexico has an intractable TB problem and the UK has a major problem with badgers harbouring TB and spreading it to cattle. NZ has a similar problem with Australian Ringtail possums and in some areas they have given up on control efforts. Donkeys and horses don’t carry TB but pigs can.

To wrap up the talk, it is interesting to see where the Kimberley cattle industry is now. On Friday, the Danni F II sails from Wyndham with 15,000 Brahman cattle heading for Libya. These cattle are worth $100 a head more than the same weight southern cattle—the reason being our trading partners prefer Kimberley cattle. So, rather than being considered the poor cousin, they are now regarded with envy by southern producers.

 Editor’s Note:  The Danni F II rescued 25 crew from a Liberian-registered bulk carrier sinking in the Indian Ocean, about 200 nautical miles north of Cocos Islands, whilst sailing between the Kimberley and Libya.

FIRE MANAGEMENT OF CONSERVATION RESERVES IN THE KIMBERLEY

On 4 October 2000 our speaker was Chris Done, Regional Manager in Kimberley for the Department of Conservation and Land Management WA. Chris generously stood in for Rick Sneeuwjagt, who was unable to attend, and we reproduce the talk he presented below (with some editing for reasons involving space).

 Introduction

The Kimberley region is internationally renowned for its spectacular scenery, and the richness of its biological, cultural and economic resources. The region has an area of about 423,000 square kilometres, or approximately 16 precent of the area of the state of Western Australia.

The Department of Conservation and Land Management is responsible for the management of about 2.5 million hectares of conservation reserves including national parks, nature reserves, conservation parks and marine reserves. Other categories of land within the Region include pastoral leases, reserves for the Use and Benefit of Aborigines, and Vacant Crown Lands.

Pastoralism has been a major land use in the region for the past century and mining, irrigated agriculture, horticulture, tourism and conservation have been increasing in scope and importance in recent years. A major land use change has been the result of increasing number of Aboriginal groups wishing to establish rural communities and living away from existing towns. The tourism industry continues to expand.

Like other parts of northern Australia, the climate is a dry monsoonal climate with three distinct seasons and several transition periods. Generally the “wet” season falls between November and March, the moderate “early dry” season occurs from April to June/July; and the hot “late dry” season from July/August to November. Aboriginal groups from the region recognise five seasons or more. For example, local Aboriginals from the Kimberley coast (Karrajari people) describe fire seasons of varying length. These are Mankala (wet, January to mid‑March); Marrul (transition at end of rains); Parrkara (onset of cooler weather from May to August); Wirralpuru (transition to hotter weather) and Laja (extremely hot).

The Kimberley Region has in excess of 2000 species of vascular plants, many of which have closer affinities with plants of the Northern Territory and Queensland, than with the rest of Western Australia. The dominant vegetation types consist of tropical woodland savanna which are dominated by tall Sorghum grasses and Hummock grasses beneath scattered eucalypt tree species (eg: E. tectifica, E. grandiflora, E. microtheca) are three of more than 60 species of Eucalypts.

Like the rest of northern Australia, fire is a natural phenomenon in the Kimberley. Prior to Aboriginal presence, lightning was the main cause of extensive fires that frequented the region. Fire was used extensively by Aboriginal people before European settlement as a land management tool for hunting as well as to facilitate movement throughout the area. Whilst much of the burning would have taken place in the dry seasons, there is clear evidence that fire was used throughout the year. This constant activity led to a patchwork of areas, which had been burnt at various times across much of the country. Potentially damaging fires, which occurred, either from lightning strikes or from deliberate lighting late in the dry season, did not become catastrophic because they ran into previously burnt areas.

It is generally agreed that since arrival of Europeans there has been a shift in the frequency of fires towards the late dry season resulting in large hot fires, which are of great concern because of their damaging impact on the flora and fauna of the region. Part of this change to late season fires has been due to the adoption of fire management techniques associated with stock grazing practices. In the main, pastoralists restricted the extent and frequency of fires which inevitably led to late season fires burning through those areas that had been missed by the limited early season burns.

 Damage From Late Season Fires

An indication of the damage being incurred on the natural tree cover by late season fires can be observed from the study of impacts of “early dry” and “late dry” fires on the tree survival in a tropical woodland savanna in the Kakadu National Park. (Williams et al, 1999) (1).

A study of the effects of three different fire regimes on tree survival of different tree species has shown that, in general, about 98% of evergreen eucalypt woodland species survived low intensity “early dry season” burns that were applied each year over 5 seasons from 1990 to 1994. About 88% survived five annual treatments of moderate intense late‑dry season fires, whilst about 85% survived a hot wildfire. The impacts on stem survival (as opposed to species survival) for these three fire treatments are more severe with 81% survival for early‑dry season burns, 40% for late‑dry season fires, and 47% for the wildfire. Thus it is clear that the high incidence of late dry season burns and wildfires will eventually lead to a severe decline in the presence of most of the tree species.

Cypress pine (Callitrus intratropics) is an important tree species found across the northern Kimberley, often as a component of Eucalypt dominated woodlands. Cypress pines were more common early in this century, but have declined over much of their range in northern Australia. Because they are relatively sensitive to fire; this decline has been attributed to changed fire regimes, in particular the occurrence of frequent, relatively intensive fires, which increase the mortality of adults and prevent successful survival of juveniles to the adult stage. Cypress pine may be a useful indicator of the more general response of local ecosystems to contemporary fire regimes. For example, if the interval between intense fires is too short to allow replenishment of the seed banks of fire sensitive species, local extinctions of these species can be expected.

Although small in extent, rainforest patches (or vine thickets) have important conservation and cultural significance. Previous studies in WA and NT have suggested that patches can be damaged and reduced in size when their use by cattle makes it easier for intense fires to enter from the surrounding savanna.

 Fire Management Responsibilities And Objectives

CALM as a land manager has specific fire management responsibilities under the WA Bushfires Act (1954). In particular there exists a legal and moral obligation to comply with those provisions relating to the prevention and control of wildfires on or near CALM managed lands, and the protection of life and property. CALM works closely with the Bush Fires Services (BFS) of the Fire and Emergency Services Authorities (FESA) in the region. The BFS has responsibility for liaising with pastoralists, land holders and local authorities as well as coordinating the fire prevention, prescribed burning, and fire suppression operations activities on other crown lands and private property.

On CALM managed lands, the broad fire management objectives for the Kimberley reserves are:

• To restrict the incidence and spread of late‑dry season wildfires into and out of these conservation reserves for protection of life, property and natural values.
• To use fire appropriately to promote and sustain natural ecosystems.
• To assist Bushfire Services, local government and land holders/pastoralists/ aboriginal communities in achieving satisfactory fire management outcomes for adjoining lands.

 The former Forests Department has had an administrative presence in the Kimberley from 1979 to 1984. Since 1985 with the formation of the Department of CALM, staff numbers and fire management capability increased sufficiently to enable managers to become more pro active in the implementation of strategic buffer burns within key conservation reserves. Very little strategic fire protection occurred on other lands in the region until the late 1980s when the Bushfires Board began posting staff to the area. CALM began applying aerial burns in the Kimberley in 1986 within the Purnululu National Park (Bungle Bungle). The aerial ignition technology used was similar to that developed by the previous WA Forest Department for the southwest forest.

The use of aerial ignition to establish relatively narrow burn buffers within other lands in the region was taken up by the Bushfires Board and pastoralists in the late 1980s (Again I think that was the idea right from the start in 1986 or so). This was based on a cooperative arrangement between interested pastoralists, the Bushfires Board and CALM whereby the costs of the aerial ignition program are shared. Those pastoralists who wished to burn some sections of their pastoral land would contribute to the cost of the aircraft hire.

Whilst this arrangement was an improvement on a previously unmanaged situation, the outcomes in most areas were still not satisfactory. Only a few pastoralists were interested and/or financially placed to participate the burn program, and as a result the locations of burn buffers were not always of strategic value in terms of preventing large areas of late dry season fires.

Insufficient funds meant that it was not possible to make more than one ignition run over the large distances involved. This meant that most ignition lines were only partly burnt and therefore were often not effective in restricting late dry season fires. CALM has been able to mostly overcome this deficiency by maintaining a close monitor on the grass curing and its readiness to burn. In some years two separate ignitions were applied in the early dry season months in some reserves to ensure these ignition fire lines were effectively burnt out. (To a certain extent this was more the intention than the fact as we too were severely limited by lack of resources). Extra ignitions have also been applied to achieve a patchwork of burnt and unburnt in order to promote the biodiversity of these conservation reserves. A general lack of response has limited the capacity for more detailed ignitions to achieve a fine scale mosaic of vegetation structural diversity. Marked differences occur in the patchwork of early dry season burns on several CALM conservation reserves and the predominantly late dry season fires that have occurred extensively on the adjoining pastoral and other crown lands.

Some Current Issues

The following are some key Fire Management issues that need to be addressed.

1.     Variability in Grass Curing and Fire Behaviour: There is a relatively high degree of variability in grassy fuel loads and grass curing rates throughout the regions. Such variability can be a serious constraint in the application of broad scale fire management such as aerial prescribed burning programs. There is an urgent need to develop and utilise remote sensed data from satellite imagery to predict fuel conditions within major vegetation types. There is also a need to undertake studies to ground­-truth the satellite data on grass curing, burn areas, and fire histories.

2.     The Tyranny of Distance and Remoteness: The vast distances and sparse populations, and the variability of the highly flammable fuel types provide a major challenge to the effective application of economical and strategic fire management programs. There is no effective bushfire brigade structure and few large landholders who can provide significant ground support to regional fire managed programs.

3.     Tourists critical of the use of fire in the Kimberley: Tourists and tour operators are often very critical of the presence of fire and smoke during the peak tourist season. Many visitors demonstrate no real understanding of the role of fire in the region, and its use as a land management tool and for the maintenance of biodiversity. The often negative attitudes to fire by these visitors poses a real threat to the future in the region, and it is obvious that land managers in Northern Australia must devote greater efforts in promoting the use of fire as a land management tool, and to inform and educate the public of the importance of fire in the ecology of the region.

4.     Pastoralists: Most pastoralists understand the need for appropriate fires to achieve desired outcomes for stock grazing and for the protection of built assets. However, many pastoralists tend to apply fire strategies in isolation of each other, and other land managers. Consequently there is very little coordination in the development of strategically located burn buffers that would prevent the spread of damaging late dry season fires. It is important that fire prevention strategies should be managed at a regional level, which will involve several land managers working together to achieve agreed outcomes and in so doing, achieve maximum efficiency of the limited resources available in the region.

5.     Traditional Owners: At Fire Management Workshop held at Kalumburu in June 1997, Aboriginal elders expressed concerns about the decline in knowledge of and changes in traditional burning practices, and at the deleterious impacts that the large, intense wildfires were having on their traditional food sources, and cultural values. Similar to the pastoralists, the traditional owners felt isolated from current fire management practices, and indicated a strong desire to become involved not only in regional burning practices but also in actively managing fire on Aboriginal reserves. The elders are keen for fire training programs to be made available for young Aboriginal people and that they be able to pass on the knowledge of traditional burning practices to younger people. For this reason WA fire and land management authorities are looking at ways to involve Aboriginal people in fire training programs including prescribed burning and basic fire fighting.

 Strategies and Action Items

The following is a list of strategies and actions that are being implemented by CALM staff in order to achieve protection and biodiversity objectives both on CALM managed reserves and on neighbouring lands.

1.     Working closely with other agencies, traditional owners, pastoralists and other interested groups to develop a better understanding on the issues, solutions for better fire management in the Kimberley. CALM co‑hosted two workshops on fire in northern Australia in 1992 and in 1997 that involved a diverse range of land managers, traditional owners and fire management specialists, and which focused on the important contemporary fire issues in the North Kimberley.

2.     Work with BFS(FESA) to improve the development and maintenance of broad scale strategic burn buffers throughout the region, including the use of helicopters to achieve more effective burn outcomes.

3.     On the basis of research findings increase the use of fire to achieve ecological objectives such as biodiversity and habitat enhancement.

4.     Increase variation in seasonality and timing of burns to provide greater variation in burn patterns and vegetation responses to fire.

5.     Maintain contact with NT and Qld fire managers (through the North Australian Fire Managers Forum) to enable the exchange and sharing of fire research and development formation and applications.

6.     Continue research and development in fire ecology, fire management and remote sensing information systems that will lead to improvement in the understanding in the requirement and application of effective fire management in the Kimberley region ecosystems.

7.     Provide information and education materials for land managers, tour operators, tourists and other members of the public on the roles and uses of fire in Kimberley conservation reserves, pastoral leases and other land use types.

8.     Provide training for Aboriginal trainees in fire control operations and traditional and contemporary burning practices.

 References

(1)  Williams R.J., Cook G.D., Gill A.M., Moore P.H.R. (1999) 'Fire regime, fire intensity and tree survival in a tropical savanna in northern Australia, Australian J. of Ecology (1999) 24, 50‑59.

(2)  Saint P and Russell‑Smith J (1997) Malgarra: Burning the Bush. Fourth North Australian Fire Management Workshop Kalumburu, North Kimberley, Western Australia June 1997.

 PIRATES, PATHOGENS AND POTABLE WATER

Our speaker on 1 November 2000 was Dr Tim Inglis, a medical microbiologist from PathCentre in Perth. Tim presented slides as he spoke and he mentioned his involvement with the microbiological aspects of several cases of melioidosis that occurred in recent years in an unidentified Aboriginal community in the Kimberley. The core part of his delivery comprised a paper entitled ‘About Melioidosis’ that is published at www.e-tiology.com/melioid1 (with the last character in the string being the numeral one). The paper is reproduced below with Tim Inglis’s permission. Copyright remains with the author.

 About Melioidosis

Melioidosis is an enigmatic disease found in the tropics, particularly in Southeast Asia and Northern Australia. Infection ranges from rapidly fatal septicaemia, with or without pneumonia, to more chronic soft tissue involvement involving almost any part of the body. A notable feature of melioidosis is recurrence months or even years after the initial acute infection. Cases have been reported in which acute infection occurred after a disease-free interval of decades after presumed environmental exposure.

Exposure

Infection occurs as a result of environmental exposure to the Gram negative bacillus, Burkholderia pseudomallei. This species is found in soil and surface water throughout the main endemic area. Occupational or recreational exposure to soil or muddy water is thought to increase the risk of infection. But the condition of the exposed person is also a major determinant factor in the development of disease, since diabetes and chronic renal failure result in a higher risk of severe infection. Direct person-to-person disease is extremely rare. Outbreaks also seem to be unusual.

 Bacterial ecology

B.pseudomallei is able to survive in water for prolonged periods without any form of nutrient and is tolerant of a range of adverse environmental conditions such as low pH. B.pseudomallei also has a notable ability to survive inside the phagocytic cells that normally clear up residual infection. The bacillus produces a variety of toxins but the details of how important they are in the process of infection have yet to be worked out. An arabinose utilising variant was described recently which is only very rarely isolated from clinical specimens but is much more commonly isolated from the environment. This less pathogenic variant has been named B.thailandensis by some authorities.

Laboratory diagnosis

Infection is diagnosed by culture of B.pseudomallei from blood, sputum or other focal site, as indicated by the clinical presentation, or by rising antibody titre. A rapid immunodiagnostic test is available. Confirming the identity of a suspected B.pseudomallei culture isolate can be difficult. Some commercial culture identification systems are prone to misidentify B.pseudomallei as other species such as Chromobacter violaceum, Burkholderia cepacia or Pseudomonas aeruginosa. A PCR protocol can be used to confirm the identity genotypically. Alternatively, agglutinating antisera can be used to test suspect colonies. Many laboratories in the endemic zone use a selective agar (Ashdown’s selective agar, or ASA) to isolate B.pseudomallei from non-sterile sites. If so, care should be taken since ASA inhibits the growth of some strains, particularly the more mucoid variants that lack the characteristic rugose colony appearance (Fig).

 Antibiotic therapy

Severe infection is treated with intravenous Ceftazidime or a carbapenem (Imipenem or Meropenem). There is debate over the best approach to convalescent and maintenance therapy to prevent recurrent acute infection. The results of conventional susceptibility testing are only poorly predictive of eventual outcome, perhaps due to the importance of host factors and the ability of B.pseudomallei to survive inside human cells where antibiotics may be less effective.

 Prevention

There is work under way on several vaccine candidates but as yet no vaccine for human use. Environmental control of melioidosis may be possible in specific circumstances, but would be unworkable in the main endemic area owing to the extent of contamination of soil and water.

 Veterinary aspects

Epizootics have been described in a variety of animals, both domestic and wild, terrestrial and aquatic. However, there is little evidence for a major animal source for human B.pseudomallei infection. In some locations, animal infection may provide early warning of potential human melioidosis risk.

Some unanswered questions:

Is melioidosis commoner in other parts of the tropics, or in temperate climates?

What precipitates delayed onset and late-recurring acute infection?

How, exactly, does exposure to B.pseudomallei usually occur?

Why does B.pseudomallei cause such a spectrum of disease when other closely related Burkholderia species don’t?

Can laboratory diagnosis be made more reliable, more sensitive and quicker?

Can in vitro antibiotic susceptibility testing be more predictive of clinical outcome?

Can the mortality rate of acute septicaemic infection be reduced?

What is the best combination and duration of antibiotic therapy for preventing recurrence or relapse?

Can a vaccine prevent disease and mortality in the main endemic area?

What lessons can be learnt from animal melioidosis?

T J J Inglis, May 2000

Editor’s note: The figure and the selected reading list that form part of the above paper are available on the Web site identified at the top of this article.

VISUAL DELIGHTS