Aboriginal Translocations: The Intentional Propagation and Dispersal of Plants in Aboriginal Australia

Abstract

The prevalence and imperative of translocations for the conservation of plant species is increasing in response to habitat loss and degradation, plant diseases, and projected climate change. However, the intentional movement and nurture of plant species to increase their range and/or abundance has been practiced for millennia, encompassing species with food, medicinal, narcotic, and ceremonial values. While it is well documented that Australian Aboriginal people altered the composition and structure of vegetation communities through regular burning and engaged in complex food processing and storage, the extent to which they intentionally dispersed and propagated plants remains unclear. Here, I review the ethnographic, archaeological, biogeographic, and phylogenetic record relating to plant translocations in Aboriginal Australia. With the exception of re-planting of tubers after harvesting, the ethnographic record is characterized by sparse but detailed accounts of movement, planting, and/or nurture of important species, often involving ceremonial elements. Translocations encompassed assisted migrations, introductions and reinforcements, and spanned much of the continent and numerous life-forms and plant uses. The ethnographic record is fragmentary and often difficult to verify, and we will never know the full extent and nature of plant translocations in Aboriginal Australia. However, combined with biogeographic and, increasingly, phylogenetic insights, there is sufficient evidence to place modern translocations in a much older context of human-plant interactions. This allows for broader and more nuanced discussion around the practice and ethics of translocations, particularly in the context of assisted migrations in response to climate change, as well as re-evaluation of “natural” plant distributions in Australia.

Extensive Genetic Connectivity and Historical Persistence Are Features of Two Widespread Tree Species in the Ancient Pilbara Region of Western Australia

“…Indigenous Australians have occupied the Pilbara for at least 50 thousand years [ 113 ] and may have been important dispersers of some plant species [ 114 ]. Relatively little recognition has hitherto been given to the potential impacts of this means of dispersal on the present distributions of species and their genetic diversity, but it is likely that people have impacted the current biogeography of plant species, mobilising them for their use as food, medicine or for totemic purposes [ 114 , 115 , 116 , 117 ]. Combined with extreme meteorological events, these features provide a context for understanding the LDD observed in widespread Pilbara plant species and can form the basis of future hypotheses regarding genetic connectivity amongst the Pilbara flora.…”

Contemporary distribution of Macrozamia dyeri (Zamiaceae) is correlated with patterns of Nyungar occupation in south‐east coastal Western Australia

“…Likewise, Forster (2004) made no mention of human dispersal in discussion of Macrozamia genetic patterns. Conversely, Silcock (2018) suggested that numerous plant translocations are likely to have occurred in at least 50 000 years of Australian human history, but much knowledge of Aboriginal translocations remains undocumented and therefore overlooked or underestimated by contemporary ecologists. Such translocations may account for unusual, disjunct populations in the Australian flora.…”

Foragers or Farmers: Dark Emu and the Controversy over Aboriginal Agriculture

“…It might be argued that this is a misuse of the term 'cultivator', for cultivation entails a suite of related activities including the production and storage of seed (or the equivalent in roots and tubers), preparation of the soil through tillage, etc., sowing or planting, tending crops through such practices as weeding and fencing, harvesting and storage. One might add the importance of translocation in shaping the distribution of food plants (Silcock 2018).…”