A CELEBRATION OF THE HISTORY, CULTURE, SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY OF RECHERCHE BAY
CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research Auditorium Hobart, Tasmania
26–28 February 2007
Rediscovering Recherche Bay – the book presenting outcomes from the symposium
Edited by John Mulvaney and Hugh Tyndale-Biscoe
 Order forms for the book are available here. |
In November 2001, in a review published in the Journal of Australian Studies, Leo Scheps made the startling assertion that the translation of French Admiral Bruny d'Entrecasteaux's account of his voyage to Australia and the Pacific (the first in English) 'might find a market with collectors of early Australiana and maritime arcana', but that 'its text and extensive notes' were 'of little value to scholars of Australian and Pacific history, geography or anthropology'. No doubt this present volume, edited by Emeritus Professor John Mulvaney and Professor Hugh Tyndale-Biscoe, will come as a surprise to Mr Scheps: d'Entrecasteaux's account is cited in the endnotes of several of the papers delivered by experts in a variety of disciplines, at a symposium held in Hobart, 26–28 February 2007. No doubt it will also surprise Senator Eric Abetz, who was as dismissive of the remarkable heritage of Tasmania's Recherche Bay as he was enthusiastic about having it logged. Ultimately the privately owned north-eastern peninsula of the bay was saved thanks to a generous donation by philanthropist Dick Smith. It is now owned by the Tasmanian Land Conservancy. In the wake of its acquisition, the symposium was organised to 'celebrate the cultural, historical and scientific significance of Recherche Bay' and was enthusiastically supported by all four of Australia's learned academies. Named by Bruny d'Entrecasteaux in honour of his flagship, the bay has a rich heritage: long Aboriginal habitation, visits by Bruny d'Entrecasteaux and his scientific expedition in 1792 and 1793, mutiny on the brig Cyprus, European settlement, whaling, fishing, coal mining and nineteenth- and early twentieth-century timber-getting. My own participation in the symposium was regrettably thwarted by pre-existing obligations in Paris; so it was with great interest that I read the dozen papers all inspired by a connection with the bay. Having also been involved in the campaign to save Recherche Bay, I hope my readers will forgive what are sometimes very personal observations in this review.
One of the editors of these papers, Emeritus Professor John Mulvaney, has already done a fine job examining the joyous interaction between the members of d'Entrecasteaux's expedition and the indigenous inhabitants of the bay. In 2007 he published an important historical portrait of Recherche Bay: 'The axe had never sounded': Place, People and Heritage of Recherche Bay, Tasmania (ANU E Press and Aboriginal History, Canberra). This offered a case study of the National Heritage nomination process. In studying the values associated with the bay, Professor Mulvaney highlighted major contradictions in state and federal policy and legislation. He also examined the concept of heritage and particularly the notion of associative cultural landscape. In this present collection, Joan Domicelj, of the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), further explores this concept in the context of Recherche Bay sites and UNESCO's World Heritage Convention. Nevertheless, another of the contributors, Professor Aynseley Kellow of the University of Tasmania's School of Government, apparently sees a focus on heritage considerations, as an example of environmentalists employing an (implicitly cynical?) coalition-building tactic of political 'whirlpooling'. He does not offer any critique of the notion of associative cultural landscape, but does provide interesting examples of contradictions in recent conservation policies and campaigns, including a critique of the use of cultural heritage for political purposes. Environmental and heritage campaigns, however, can co-exist and overlap with shared appreciation of a landscape and its ecological, historical and cultural associations. The campaign to save Recherche Bay was never one about preserving wilderness untouched by human hands; it was always one which celebrated a multiplicity of human associations with the bay.
As an historian who initially sought to give the Tasmanian Government objective advice on Recherche Bay and then wholeheartedly embraced the campaign to save it when that advice was ignored, I never doubted the sincerity of Senator Bob Brown or Wren Fraser Cameron of the Recherche Bay Protection Group. This was not an opportunistic campaign, however much it helped demonstrate the profound inadequacies of state and federal legislation in the face of insatiable logging.
I do not doubt that some French, with bitter personal memories of the campaign against France's nuclear tests, distrusted environmental activists who now celebrated France's links with the early history of Australia. When I tried to convey my concerns about the threat posed to France's heritage at Recherche Bay to one French diplomat, he focused on the campaigners and declared that 'not long ago these same environmentalists were dumping manure on our doorstep'! France's representatives in Australia, however, eventually acknowledged the significance of the debate, even if they steadfastly sought to avoid the fray. The French Ambassador, Patrick Hénault, aided by his astute and admirable wife Anne Hénault, did facilitate an archaeological assessment of the site presumed to be that of the vegetable garden planted by Félix Delahaye. The results of this assessment, carried out by a team led by Jean-Christophe Galipaud, formed the basis for one of the major papers of the symposium. In it, Galipaud and his co-authors declared:
The lack of any artefactual evidence on the stone structure, the nature of the soil in and around it, the absence of any recognizable phytoliths, and the proximity of the structure to the sea, all point to the conclusion that the stone layout cannot be the French garden of Delahaye, although its size and orientation are quite similar to the known descriptions of the garden.
The site located by Helen Gee and Bob Graham in 2003 had already generated a great deal of public interest. When, during an interview with Judy Tierney for 'Stateline' on ABC TV, I acknowledged that there was an element of doubt about the presumed location (because of cartographic anomalies) and urged caution until a full archaeological survey was possible, I was surprised to receive a hostile e-mail from my friend, the late Bruce Poulson, who accused me of 'kicking own goals' for the loggers. It was a reminder that passions can become very heated in such circumstances and that the quest for truth and accuracy can sometimes be viewed with suspicion. I was as disappointed as Bruce no doubt was, when the archaeological study indicated that the presumed site was probably not the long-sought garden location. But much more disappointing was how close this ultimately National Heritage-listed peninsula came to being logged and that both the state and federal governments were prepared to let it happen. For Tom Baxter, who presented a paper on the 'Legal lesson from the recent history of Recherche Bay', that close call 'demonstrates the urgent need to reform at least the Commonwealth EPBC [Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation] Act and Tasmanian legislation to provide proper protection for Australia's heritage places'. Many will agree with him.
Even without a definite garden site (and there certainly was one planted), Recherche Bay remains important – arguably as important as Botany Bay in New South Wales. It has a major place in the history of early science in Australia. In the symposium papers Professor Alan Frost provides a useful orientation to the international context of d'Entrecasteaux's expedition. The geophysicists of that expedition established an observatory and undertook pioneering experiments that helped to prove for the first time that the earth's magnetic field intensifies north and south of the equator. The naturalists of the expedition gathered many thousands of specimens. Indeed the collections of the botanist Jacques Julien Houtou de Labillardière (1755—1834) provided the basis for the first general flora of Australia: the Novae Hollandiae plantarum specimen. This contribution was further discussed at the symposium by botanist Gintaras Kantvillas of the Tasmanian Herbarium. Other papers on the scientific heritage of the expedition include Michael Pearson's fine account of the work of the expedition's hydrographer Charles-François Beautemps-Beaupré (1766–1854), who was much-praised in his lifetime by Matthew Flinders. There is a stimulating paper on the 'Tasmanian Aborigines and the origins of language', by Professor Iain Davidson and a fascinating contribution by Stewart Nicol's on the study of the echidna, which was not seen by the naturalists of d'Entrecasteaux's expedition, but was studied by later visiting French naturalists. One paper which does not deal with French visits to the bay is Professor Ian Rae's engaging study of the technology of whaling. Despite the gruesome use of this technology, I found myself captivated by discussion of zany inventions such as harpoons filled with prussic acid and curare and even electric harpoons connected to hand-cranked generators. I knew exactly what he meant when he wrote of the smell of whale oil that he had encountered 50 years earlier at his grandfather's workbench. My own indelible memory of that potent smell comes from a visit I made to the Russian whaling factory-ship the Soviet Union in 1970. Once experienced, it is never forgotten! Appropriately, the final chapter, 'The conservation and management of ecological communities' by Professor David Lindenmayer looks to the future and how best to conserve Recherche Bay. As several of the contributors also argue, it offers lessons for other important heritage locations in Australia, particularly those on private land.
It is very pleasing to see Australia's academies join together in multidisciplinary initiatives such as the Recherche Bay symposium. Professor Mulvaney and Professor Tyndale-Biscoe deserve our special thanks for helping to make the symposium happen and for bringing together the papers in this fitting celebration of one of Australia's special places. And Senator Bob Brown and Wren Fraser Cameron deserve our thanks for leading the fight to save the bay.