ECOTOURISM

The first meeting since the official launch of Kimberley Society in December 1993 was held at the Old Observatory in West Perth on 16 February 1994. The guest speaker was Pat Barblett who is Convenor of the Cultural and Eco-tourism Focus Group. She was formerly a Physical Education teacher who graduated from the University of Melbourne, and has since obtained post-graduate qualifications in recreation, environmental interpretation and public history. She is the immediate past chairman of the WA Recreation Council, an advisory body to the minister, and has just retired from the Rottnest Island Authority after 15 years with last three as chairman. Pat is now chairman of the Advisory Council to the Environmental Protection Authority and a member of both the Nature Based Advisory Committee and the Whiteman Park Board.

Pat began her talk by bringing to our attention the recent article in the West Australian newspaper (in "Earth 2000") entitled "Tourism turning into a monster" by C.F.H. Jenkins, biologist and former Government Entomologist. He began by saying that:

"Tourism is one of the fastest growing but most destructive industries in Australia. One of the tourist industry's latest offshoots is eco-tourism. Ecotourists are supposed to be environmentally sensitive, leaving the landscape and the wild life unaffected by their presence. This is of course an impossibility. Every true environmentalist knows that beauty spots and tourist attractions can be loved to death. The problems associated with over-use and tourist control have been recognised by conservationists for many years, but not by the general public. The answer is to educate people to appreciate and protect their unique natural inheritance and it must be carefully managed in order to survive. We call it sustainable development. Eventually the numbers of people visiting particularly fragile areas will have to be restricted."

Pat told us about the IBIS Aerial Highway being developed in the Kimberley, where small planes are being used instead of vehicles to carry tourists, with less impact on the land. We also heard about the Aboriginal people running their own tours at Karijini, previously called Hamersley Range National Park, and educating people about their own customs and culture, all helping towards a better understanding between races.

It was a very interesting and informative talk and much discussion ensued.

Daphne Choules Edinger

PROFESSOR GEOFF BOLTON "FORTY YEARS ON …."

On 18 May 1994 Geoff Bolton, Professor of History at Edith Cowan University (WA), spoke to the Society. Professor Bolton has also held positions at University of Queensland and at UWA where, in 1953, he wrote his Masters thesis on the History of the Kimberley Pastoral Industry since 1885. His frequent publications since then include a contribution to a new book entitled Being White Fella.

In opening his talk, Professor Bolton remarked that his interest in the Kimberley began with a statue as, while waiting to catch a tram on many occasions, he stood under the statue of the celebrated explorer Alexander Forrestùa well known land mark in Perth city. The story of Forrest inspired him and eventually he wrote his biography.

For his Masters research, Professor Alexander allowed him 100 pounds only and he was to carry out his own field work! So he took the train as far as Meekatharra, the end of the line, and cadged lifts on trucks to Marble Bar and Port Hedland. Flying to Broome was a luxury and here he met Mary Durack. Her famous father, M.P. Durack had died at 85 and left his excellent diaries covering the history of the pastoral industry and settlement of the Kimberley. These formed the core for his thesis.

Four facts became evident to him during his research in the area:

* If you were genuine, and not just an idle university student, many doors opened and an informal networking became important.

* It was a fortunate time to be in the Kimberley since there was an overlap between two distinct eras, the days of traditional droving as opposed to the introduction of the road train.

* Oral history wasn't yet in vogue; the Aboriginals were still living the good life in the north, and simplifications re class and race had yet to be modified.

* Unexpected treasures were still being discovered in the way of historical archives, e.g. the old records of the MacDonald family on Fossil Downs, which proved so useful.

Professor Bolton was 21 at this time and he camped out with the old drovers to get the feel of things and drink in the atmosphere. It was a period of hope, this post-war era, when more and more young pastoralists were being trained in agriculture. And 1952 saw the introduction of the hardier Brahman-cross cattle. They were actually first imported in 1911, but were not accepted until 40 years later.

People realised there could be diversification, e.g. 1951 saw the rice-growing experiment at Camballin by Kim Durack, and that this could enrich the pastoral industry. There were improvements for Aboriginal people: in living standards, sanitation, schooling, and so on.

In the 1990s there are very few of the original pastoral families left on Kimberley land. Their leases are being bought by syndicates and foreign investors. Professor Bolton was last in the Kimberley in 1992 at a conference. On his retirement, he intends to write a book on the whole of the northern area of Australia including the Northern Territory and Queensland. We look forward with interest to this production.

Daphne Choules Edinger

DIAMONDS IN THE KIMBERLEY

A very interesting talk was given at the fourth meeting of the Society on 20 July 1994 by Mr Andrew Murray, Manager – Corporate Services, Argyle Diamonds, Australia.

He said that diamonds are formed of pure carbon with a Specific Gravity of 3.5 and a Moh's Hardness of 10, making them the hardest known naturally occurring substance. They have a high Refractive Index and dispersion. The latter is responsible for the brilliance of diamonds, with perfect diamonds dispersing virtually 100% of the light entering them.

With some trepidation (there were at least two geologists in the audience!) he gave some background on the formation and occurrence of diamonds. They are formed under intense heat and pressure at a depth of about 200 km deep in the earth's Mantle, there being two types of magma, kimberlite and lamproite. These magmas are transported to the surface by volcanic processes, forming pipes. Up to 1979, the only occurrences of diamonds in the world were in kimberlites, however, in that year they were discovered in lamproites in WA.

Andrew Murray pointed out that diamonds had been known in Australia since at least 1851, with a few being found in WA at Nullagine in 1985. The first diamond indicator minerals were found in the West Kimberley in 1973 and later in the same year the first actual diamonds were discovered at Ellendale in the West Kimberley.

Although research has shown that there were possibly as many as 13 pipes at Argyle, weathering of the Kimberley block over many millions of years has reduced them to only one lamproite pipe, known as AK1. This pipe was discovered in 1979 by following alluvial diamonds up a creek bed. It took a further 6 years for production to commence from an open pit in the AK1 pipe, yielding 5 to 8 carats per tonne, which is very high by world standards. Alluvial diamonds were also mined at Argyle in 1983-85, recommencing in 1989. Andrew gave interesting statistics, 40 million tonnes of earth and rock are removed to give 8 million tonnes of ore from which 40 million carats of diamonds are obtained. He said that some of the unweathered lamproite at the AK1 pipe was up to five times as hard as granite.

The ore is crushed to an 18mm size and a gravity separation (flotation) process is used to separate the diamonds with a final screening by an x-ray technique. Some diamonds are acid-cleaned. Their shape and quality determine their value: the better diamonds being in the classic crystal form of an octahedron. Half of the production is white, the other half being coloured (champagne, cognac and the highly prized pink-red range). Some 78% of the Argyle production is sold in the rough form to the Central Selling Organisation (de Beers); the remainder being sold by Argyle on the open world market through Antwerp. Some cutting and polishing of the best diamonds is carried out in West Perth, but the majority of Argyle stones are cut and polished in India with some being done in Thailand and China.

Andrew Murray dealt with personnel issues. The ordinary work force is flown direct from Perth to the mine site by Ansett-WA where they work for 14 days straight. They are then flown back to Perth for a 14 day break. The success of this 'fly-in fly-out' strategy is shown by the fact that about 50% of the original work force is still with the Company, there being only a 3-4% annual turnover! About 10% of the Argyle work force is made up of local Aborigines.

The company is very conscious of environmental matters. With alluvial mining, the soils are carefully removed and stockpiled so that they can be put back in the same profile order with the area then being revegetated from the company's plant nursery. Because boab trees are considered difficult to re-establish they are left in situ with the Company foregoing any alluvial diamonds underneath them.

The talk was followed by an animated discussion and many questions from the audience.
Lindsay Peet

A PERSONAL PERSPECTIVE ON NATIONAL PARKS IN THE KIMBERLEY
Noel Nannup, who worked for six years as a ranger in Geikie Gorge National Park, spoke to Kimberley Society members on 21 September 1994 about his involvement with the Kimberley and its National Parks. He spoke of his formative years and how, in 1978, after 14 months' training with the National Parks Authority at Yanchep, he became the State's first Aboriginal Ranger. Work at Nambung followed, with a transfer to Geikie Gorge in 1981. Tony Start, based at Karratha, was Noel's boss and his only warning was that it would be hot and dusty!

Recalling his first trip to the Kimberley, Noel has vivid memories of the boabs, vast watercourses and tall river red gums of the Fitzroy River. His accommodation (the Sergeant's Quarters at old Fitzroy Crossing) left much to be desired, and his wife was horrified by the dirt and spiders that had accumulated since the previous tenants' departure. But Geikie Gorge made up for everything - it was magnificent with tall paper-barks lining the river, the immense cliffs ranging from grey to orange, and superb reflections in the still, mirror-like water.

As well as Geikie Gorge, Noel was also in charge of Tunnel Creek, Windjana Gorge and Wolfe Creek Crater, 9 hours driving away! What a challenge. He devoted his time to the tourists who came to view all this beauty, working an 18 hour day (with only 6 days off in the first 6 months) and learning to drive the boats before Vern Vagg, the boatman, arrived. A mobile ranger also arrived to help.

When the tourist numbers fell off, Noel went exploring and found that the local Aboriginal people were using the land as they always had, lighting fires where the National Park regulations stated no ground fires. So what to do? Tony Start was appealed to and said "You sort it out." So Noel approached these people, who said they'd keep the area clean and move out when the tourists came back in the dry - which they did - thus giving him their total support.

Tourism grew dramatically after Noel's arrival. In 1980, there were 13,000 boat passengers, and in 1981 there were 26,000. When he left in 1987 the numbers were up to 48,000 and the previous year's taking were $105,000. By then, another mobile ranger helped with work load and a local station owner had been made an honorary warden to look after Wolfe Creek Crater.

A typical day went: up at 4 a.m., travel to Brooking Springs station to collect firewood for the camping area; check with other rangers that all was well; sell boat tickets and load passengers onto the pontoon every two hours for trips up the Gorge; clean showers and toilets; empty bins; clean out the BBQs; meet the returning boat and refuel it; grab lunch before the next tour; go in to town for mail and to bank money collected; maintain the power generator for the house; and so on ....

Once the national parks were taken over by CALM, accountability led to the unannounced arrival of an auditor and the makings of a story that left the audience laughing heartily.

Noel's empathy with the local Aboriginal people induced him to suggest that they should be running the boat tours, and this year they have taken over that business. A question from the audience also drew the information that the Aboriginal Ranger Training Programme has resulted in individual rangers working at Purnululu (Bungle Bungle Range), Millstream and Karijini (Hamersley Range).

On a personal level, Noel told how the impact of the Kimberley enhanced his awareness of his Aboriginality and that he and his family subsequently sold all their assets so he could spend two and a half years in Canberra earning a diploma in Cultural Heritage Management. He has worked for the same length of time as CALM's Aboriginal Liaison Officer in Narrogin, and has recently been elected to the Town Council. These commitments, coupled with study of the Nyungar language, keep him very busy and the audience, in applauding his talk, was particularly appreciative of the effort he made in making the round trip from his Narrogin home to speak to the Society.

Daphne Choules Edinger

His talk about the maritime museum covered more than the last 20 years because it all started with Ian Crawford (a Kimberley Society member) who got his Ph.D from London University. This concerned the early Macassan and Indonesian visits to our northern shores and was completed in 1969. Ian also founded the shipwreck legislation under which they all work and he insisted that they work with Aboriginal people.

After Ian came Scott Sledge, who did a tour of all known sites in a pearling lugger and published his findings in a paper entitled "Wreck Inspection of the North Coast". Mike travelled with Scott and visited places like Llangi, an Aboriginal spiritual site. They had Aboriginal guides with them who explained things like sitting boats in mud at low tide.

Camden Harbour was the most important place they visited. This was settled in 1864/65 with three ships and the Aboriginals welcomed them. One ship, the Calliance ran aground and was abandoned. Her ballast is still there. Mud helps to preserve structures as it is anaerobic. Scott and Co. recorded all the existing remains. It was terrible country and the early explorers had given the people wrong impressions of its potential. Robert Sholl and others kept diaries of this period and place. The settlement was abandoned in a couple of years and, in the meantime, the shipwrecks provided a source of timber for building etc.

The Wreck Inspection party visited the Prince Regent River then Careening Bay and the famous Mermaid Boab of 1820 commemorating Phillip Parker King and Alan Cunningham's visit during one of their hydrographic surveys of the Kimberley coast. This area is of definite heritage value and should be carefully preserved. Next they landed on Bigge Island to examine excellent Aboriginal cave paintings close to the beach. These have deteriorated over the years unfortunately.

The Rowley Shoals were visited. They are 150 miles west of Broome and are the remains of three volcanoes rising out of the ocean. Their tops became colonised by coral to form an atoll. These cays are much used by the Indonesians for collection of trochus shells and trepang or beche-de-mer, an Asian delicacy. These Indonesian sailors could find these tiny islets with no navigational skills or aids. The ship Lively was lost here and Peter Sartori found two of her anchors dated 1800. The Macassans had denuded the wrecks. They are allowed to fish by traditional means and they use wooden goggles and an unusual egg-beater kick when diving.

The SS Koombana was lost between Port Hedland and Broome off the Eighty Mile Beach. Mike also told us about the clipper steamship Sunbeam wrecked on Osborne Island. She was run aground after wearing out and is visible at low water spring tides. This wreck has now become part of Aboriginal folk lore and was an example of frontier ship ownership. The guano trade resulted in many ship wrecks being left behind; at Cassini Island, Browse Island and the Lacepedes, the latter being used as a USA gaol during World War II. The film "Flight into Hell" publicised the plight of two German fliers and their brave efforts to save themselves after they crashed their plane in the Kimberley.

Sally May is the curator of the museum and is writing the history of shipbuilding, 1829-1979. She has acquired two pearling luggers built by Kimberley residents D'Antoine and Hunter and has them displayed in the museum grounds. Since 1980 the staff have been mapping the wreck sites, excavating a wreck on the Rowley Shoals, aircraft wrecks in Broome waters and war graves and measuring and documenting Indonesian vessels which come here with refugees. The Heritage Council is coming into the picture to protect things other than wrecks, like lighthouses and harbours. Mike suggested that we need to have a stronger museum in the Kimberley and take the luggers back to where they belong.

Other people working on Museum projects include Rodney Dixon who has studied shipbuilding and use of WA timbers such as cadjeputs. Myra Stanbury, ex-midwife and BOAC hostess, is now an historical archaeologist and began her studies in 1978. Archaeology tells us what people did in the past and allows us to transfer culture from one generation to another.

It seems the Aboriginal people did not use canoes until they were introduced here by the Macassans. So concluded Mike's talk, an outline of work in the Kimberley and an interesting insight into the fascinating life of a marine archaeologist.

Daphne Choules Edinger

THE HISTORY OF DERBY AND THE WEST KIMBERLEY

On the evening of 28 November 1994, President Cathie Clement spoke to the first regional meeting of the Kimberley Society (in Derby) whilst visiting the West Kimberley as a consultant in the compilation of the shire's built-environment heritage inventory.

Cathie provided a fascinating and lucid account of the early history of white settlement in the west Kimberley, with particular focus on the allocation of land, drawing on her many years of research in this domain. First successful white settlement began with Alexander Forrest's 1879 expedition along the Fitzroy valley (an earlier unsuccessful attempt had been made at Camden Harbour in the 1860s). On Forrest's return to Perth, a moratorium was put on the allocation of Kimberley land until February 1881, partially as a response to allegations that he and his brother John had derived financial advantage from knowledge gained during previous government expeditions. Ultimately, however, Alexander Forrest still managed to obtain an interest, directly or indirectly, in a significant portion of the land that was initially distributed.

The process by which the land was allocated made an interesting story. For a fee of 2/6 one could lodge an application for a lease, covering a million acres if desired, with no obligation to then pay rent for the land. These applications were submitted to a ballot. This was intended to be a fair means of dividing up the land, but various fiddles and loopholes mitigated against a fair distribution. Of the 448 applications, a third were submitted by a combine that included Fremantle politician William Edward Marmion and the Pearse brothers. They actually acquired a third of the lease approvals, coming out well ahead of other applicants who missed out altogether!

Cathie then moved on to the establishment of Derby, declared a townsite in November 1883. We learnt that the first area to be divided into town blocks was in the vicinity of the present Woolworths, and that it was not until 1885 that development at The Point end of Derby started. The Halls Creek gold rush of 1886 provided an impetus to the early development of Derby, but this was short-lived: by March 1887, 4 of the town's 7 hotels and 6 of the 8 stores had been closed.

One of the most interesting themes Cathie developed was that conflicts of various kinds characterised early European settlement in the West Kimberley. There were of course many violent conflicts between Aborigines and whites, beginning with blackbirding parties which scoured the Dampier Land peninsula during the 1870s, chaining Aborigines and taking them to such places as the Lacepede Islands, where they were held until they had been sufficiently subdued to serve as divers or shell cleaners on pearling luggers (which at that time operated from Cossack). For their part, Aborigines sometimes killed whites, and frequently killed sheep for food - actions which quickly provoked retaliation from the whites.

There were also many conflicts within the white community itself, and tensions between Derby and Perth. There were arguments about the location of Derby; police and pastoralists were frequently engaged in acrimonious public debate; and conflicts between Thomas Henry Lovegrove, the first medical officer, and John Finnerty, first inspector of police.

Among the interesting snippets Cathie provided were that Nobby's Well was named after a horse that died at the well, and that Derby has always been recycling-conscious, re-using building materials from its earliest times. Cathie fielded a variety of questions, on topics as divergent as blackbirding and the naming of Point Torment, impressing the audience with her wide-ranging knowledge of Kimberley history.

Considerable interest was shown in early maps of Derby township and of the pastoral leases in the West Kimberley, which were on display. It was a most enjoyable evening, and provided an outsider such as myself with opportunity to renew acquaintances, and meet local residents. Derby lives up to its reputation as the most friendly town in the Kimberley - one of these days I'll move here.

Bill McGregor