A fly committed suicide in my oatmeal this morning. Not a good way to start the day for either of us. Unfortunately for me, once I fished him out, there were raisins in the oatmeal which made eating it a stressful task. Why not throw it out and eat something else you ask? That's just not an option around here... and anyway there are so many flies in the kitchen another one would surely take the opportunity to end it's life in the new bowl.
I suppose I should explain what it is I am doing out here at Uluru... or for some of you what Uluru even is!
Uluru is also known as Ayers Rock. It is the big red rock in the middle of the desert that you often see on books or websites about Australia. After the Great Barrier Reef this is probably Australia's most well known natural attraction... well beside all those crazy poisonous snakes and spiders and seashells.
Uluru is the Aboriginal name for Ayers Rock. In 1985 ownership of the land surrounding the rock was returned to the Aboriginal community. Management of the park is now shared by 4 white officals from the park and state, and 8 Aboriginal committe members (providing the Aboriginal community the ability to veto any proposal without explanation). With all of these changes, the name of the site has also been changed back to the original "Uluru".
It has been difficult for me to find scientific explanations for what this big ass rock is doing out here in the middle of the desert. There is no traditional welcome center like most parks in the US have with scientific explanations for what you are seeing. There is however, a cultural center, that was apparently only built in 1996, that provides information on the customs of the Aboriginal people, their stories and beliefs about the rock, etc. There is no scientific information because they have requested that there not be. I did find one page in a guidebook with the preface at the top "Please remember that this is a western point of view of how Uluru and Kata Tjuta formed. Anangu have a different belief accoiunt to Tjukurpa". You would think with a preface like this, the information to follow would be something along the lines of evolution vs creatiomism type conflict, and yet all it said is that the rock is made of a sedimentary sandstone rock, that both Uluru and Kata Tjuta exten
d for 5-6 km below the surface, that they have a red color because of weathering similiar to rusting on the iron mineral in the rock and that these two rocks were harder than other rocks that at one time surrounded them and have now eroded away. Strange to think that this could be a controversial idea.
So now that you know what Uluru is, what the hell would I be doing out here for 2 weeks. First you should know that other than this small Aboriginal community we are strangely living inside of, there are NO people out here for hundreds of kilometers.(Get used to me speaking in metric terms. I will convert over entirely as soon as I learn how to accurately express my height in centimeters). For 10 days I will be part of a volunteer team charged with the removal of invasive buffel grass. Buffel grass is a native grass of Africa that was originally brought to Australia to feed the invasive cattle that were brought to Australia from Europe to feed the invasive Europeans. Incase you do not know what I mean by "invasive", the term refers to a species of plant or animal that is not native to that part of the world -- usually it is a species that was transported somewhere by humans within the last 300 hundred years.
Having recently finished "The World Without Us" (Alan Weisman), I now look upon this idea of describing any life form as "invasive" as really more of a short-sited concept. If you look at life on a longer time scale, every species was at sometime "invasive".... or new to that environment. That's how evolution works. However, that is a conversation for another day.
Today, is simply about learning why it is that the buffel grass is considered invasive, what effect it is having on the environment of the Australian outback (at least as it has existed for the last several thousand years), what it is that is being done to reverse these changes, and why. And I have plenty of time to contemplate these things, as I swing my maddock repeatedly at the roots of the enemy plant. Apparently buffel grass, which is highly suitable for desert environments, has spread outside of the cattle pastures and now grows on 57 percent of the land mass of Australia. By taking up so much space it leaves less space for the native species, which are disappearing quickly. When the native species disappear,the small animals and insects that eat it disappear, and when the small animals and insects that are eaten by larger animals, like dingos and guannos, disappear so do the dingos and guannos.
Essentially that is the reason why we are doing what we are doing. We do 3 shifts a day starting at 7 am and ending at 3 pm. It is about 40 degrees when we start and about 75 degrees when we finish. We identify the grass, hack it out of the ground with its roots, bag it up and move the bags to the street. All the while under the shadow of the rock, the curious eye of the tourists, a film of red dust and a sun that even in the middle of winter requires application of SPF 50 every hour or so.
And for those of you concerned about the crazy Australian spiders, insects and snakes that I might be uncovering under these plants; I have yet to find a single bug-like or snake-like creature while traipsing about in the bush; unless of course you count the bee that stung me yesterday, and the fly that died in my oatmeal this morning.
When Adami took this photo he said, "I need to take picture. You look like working hard volunteer."
No comments:
Post a Comment