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Greening the Silver City: seeds of bush regeneration
A strange and challenging landscape
Australian soils are mostly infertile, old and fragile.
Indigenous Australians had adapted the landscape to suit their needs over many thousands of years. Early European colonists were used to the resilient soils of their homeland and often over-cleared, over-stocked and over-cropped the vulnerable land.
The first white colonists measured everything by the English standards they were familiar with. The new landscape seemed alien, ugly and dangerous. With little knowledge of the bush, explorers perished. Colonists imported animals such as rabbits and foxes and plants such as prickly pear – unaware of the havoc they would cause.
The success of the bush revegetation reserve is clear in this 1938 image.
Regeneration plantation no 8, Broken Hill, 1938. Photo: Albert and Margaret
Morris, courtesy Barrier Field Naturalists’ Club and Broken Hill City Library.
‘Before the advent of the white man about 1860, the country was thickly
covered with scrub like mulga.’ Margaret Morris, 1938
The Silver city
Broken Hill is an isolated mining city in the far west of New South Wales. A boundary rider named Charles Rasp discovered silver-bearing ore on a broken hill ... and the name persisted.
Broken Hill is Australia’s most enduring mining city. It has been the largest producer of lead-zinc-silver in Australia and had produced 27 million pounds sterling worth of mineral wealth by 1925. Today the population is 20,223.
The image below shows Broken Hill becoming a booming town in the early 1900s – the largest after Sydney and Newcastle – with a population of 35,000 in 1914.
Argent st Broken Hill, about 1906, Powerhouse Museum
'The Hill that changed a nation' Alfred Heintz, The fabulous hill, 1960
Shifting sands
The countryside around Broken Hill was originally covered with woody mulga scrub. With the opening of the mines in 1885 the rapidly growing township required vast amounts
of wood for building, fencing, firewood and also fuel for the mines’ steam engines.
Trees and shrubs disappeared and newly introduced goats, cattle, horses and camels grazed the cleared land. Soon the landscape was denuded and desolate.
Without vegetation, big winds blew away the top soil. Major sand drifts on the city outskirts buried fences,threatened homes and forced people to move.
The image below shows the wind-eroded Broken Hill Common in 1936.
Broken Hill common, 1936. From Plant life of the West Darling compiled by Barrier
Field Naturalists’ Club, 1966.
‘The fences were piled high with sand, inside and out.’ Albert Morris, 1938
...Helping hands
In the 1880s committed enthusiasts formed a number of naturalists’ clubs and societies around Australia.
In Broken Hill, the Barrier Field Naturalist Club (BFNC)was established in 1920 with Dr W D K McGillivray as its first president. Chairing was the artist E E Gostelow. The secretary and treasurer was Albert Morris. In its first 50 years, over 580 lectures were given, there were study groups and regular excursions which included plant collecting.
The BFNC identified new species of plants, bees and in 1925 pushed for Mootwingee to be protected. It was eventually gazetted as a National Park and in 1998 Mutawintji was placed under Indigenous management.
Pictured below are members of the Club (BFNC) on one of their many outings in the 1920s.
An outing in Apollyon Valley, near Broken Hill, in the 1930s. Photo: Albert and
Margaret Morris, courtesy Barrier Field Naturalists’ Club and Broken Hill City Library.
‘... a conservation -minded public is the best safeguard that bushland can have.’
Wildlife Preservation Society charter, 1956
Albert Morris ... green visionary
Albert Morris experimented with a variety of plants suitable for the Broken Hill environment, like these cacti pictured below in his back yard.
He believed that the growing problem of sand and dust in Broken Hill could be overcome. In the 1930s he helped to establish the regeneration reserves that ring Broken Hill to the north, west and south. These reserves were planted with trees and vegetation native to the area, fenced off from grazing rabbits and livestock.
Morris (1886 -1939) was an assayer (analysing the composition of ores) with Sulphide Corporation’s Central Mine. With his wife Margaret he collected, documented and photographed hundreds of botanical specimens from around Broken Hill.
Image of Albert Morris’ garden about 1930. Photo: Albert and Margaret Morris,
Courtesy Barrier Field Naturalists’ Club and Broken Hill City Library.
‘I dream of a green belt around Broken Hill.’ Albert Morris, 1936
Revegetation and regeneration to the rescue
Zinc Corporation proposed a new mine in 1936 ... and was concerned about the dust and sand problems it would encounter. They approached Albert Morris and the Barrier Field Naturalists’ Club. In 1936 work began on 22 acres of barren and overgrazed land adjoining the town. It was protected with rabbit-proof fence. Volunteers planted 1100 Eucalypts, a hedge of saltbush and another 1400 trees; it was irrigated with waste water.
After two years the first reserve (now known as Albert Morris Park) was seen as a success. More fencing was erected, particularly to the south and west. These areas had minimal plantings and are known as ‘regeneration reserves’.
The image below clearly shows the extent of the green belt around Broken Hill about 1960.
Regeneration around Broken Hill, 1959. Photo: Wolfgang Sievers from The
fabulous hill by Alfred Heintz, 1960.
‘ The effect of fencing has been most beneficial ... there is a good cover of
grasses and native shrubs.’ Ilma M Pidgeon and Eric Ashby, Sydney University, 1938
The seeds of regeneration
The Broken Hill revegetation site was the first example of successful bush regeneration in its broadest sense in Australia. It improved the standard of living for the people of Broken Hill as well conserving plant and animal biodiversity. The regeneration reserves are National-Trust listed.
Today there is a much wider awareness and discussion of environmental degradation in Australia’s rural areas, and research is focused on many aspects of sustainability of ecosystems and plant communities.
The image below shows regrowth is possible.
Albert Morris Park in 1938. Photo: Albert and Margaret Morris, courtesy Barrier
Field Naturalists’ Club and Broken Hill City Library.
“If Albert were alive today he would be organising the community and seeking to influence policy about landcare..” Barbara Briggs, botanist and niece of Margaret Morris, interview, 2007
The Living Desert
The Living Desert is 2400 ha, located north of Broken Hill. It covers many of the ecosystems within the Barrier Ranges, from open woodlands to rocky gorges. Six kilometres of predator-proof fencing keeps out dogs, cats, rabbits, foxes and other feral animals introduced to Australia by Europeans.
Since the sanctuary was established in 1991 by the Broken Hill City Council, the plant and animal biodiversity there has increased.
The image below shows some of the 12 sandstone sculptures in the Living Desert flora and fauna sanctuary. Located on top of the highest hill in the sanctuary, they were made by Australian and international artists in 1993.
The Living Desert sculptures at sunset. Photo: Powerhouse Museum, 2007.
‘Don’t just look at the wonderful sculptures on the top of the hill but look at the country around them, next time you come back it will look entirely different.’
Pro Hart, in The Living Desert, Broken Hill City Council, 1995
