Australian Environmental History: Gondwanda to Global Warming

Ancient Gondwana evolved over forty millennia into several continents including Australia. Since European settlement, the human impact on land, massive species extinction, and climate change, pose threats to the continent’s fragile ecology. In this course you will consider Australia’s early geological history; Indigenous land use; competing ideas of land use among early settlers; and how various forms of land use shaped, and changed the environment; the ways the environment has shaped humans and Australia’s participation in the global environmental movement. The course also introduces you to the recurring themes of Australian environmental history: colonialism and its legacies, drought, water, fire, climate.