Australia’s Marine Environment: The History and Politics of Exploitation and Conservation

A recording of this event can be found here: https://youtu.be/IfAm0_BAXeo 

Climate change and resource exploitation is posing acute challenges for Australia’s marine environment. In this webinar three historians draw on their research in different contexts and cultures and together address key issues in the history and politics of marine exploitation and conservation. Lynette Russell (Monash University) reflects on ‘Looking Out, Looking In: visitors from the sea rethinking ocean voyages and Indigenous Australians’.  Alessandro Antonello (Flinders University) examines the history of ‘Protecting and possessing the cold Southern Ocean’. Joseph Christensen (University of Western Australia) considers 'Reconstructing a history of recreational fishing in Western Australia'.

Lynette Russell (Monash University), ‘Looking Out, Looking In: visitors from the sea rethinking ocean voyages and Indigenous Australians’: This presentation will consider maritime history and voyages to Australia of the deep past (65,000 years ago) up to the 18th century.

Alessandro Antonello (Flinders University): ‘Protecting and possessing the cold Southern Ocean’: Whales, seals, penguin, fish and krill in the Southern Ocean have all been variously exploited, studied, and protected across the centuries, and Australia has played a prominent and particular role in this history.

Joseph Christensen (University of Western Australia),   'Reconstructing a history of recreational fishing in Western Australia': This presentation outlines some major changes in recreational fishing activity post-1950 and reflects upon the value of historical knowledge for marine scientists and managers in the 21st century.

Presenter Bios 

Alessandro Antonello is a historian at Flinders University, Adelaide, who works on the environmental history and history of science of Antarctica and oceans globally in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. He is the author of The Greening of Antarctica: Assembling an International Environment (2019).

Joseph Christensen works on the maritime and environmental history of Western Australia. His publications include the co-edited volumes Historical Perspectives on Fisheries Exploitation in the Indo-Pacific (2014) and Pearls, People and Power: Pearling and Indian Ocean Worlds (2020).

Lynette Russell AM is Laureate Professor and director of Global Encounters and First Nations People: 1000 years of Australian history

Al Thomson, Professor of History at Monash University, will host the evening and HCV Executive Officer Alicia Cerreto and Monash University's Dr Susie Protschky will facilitate the discussion.

The seminar is part of an ongoing series, Making Public Histories, that is offered jointly by the Monash University History Program, the History Council of Victoria and the Old Treasury Building. Each seminar aims to explore issues and approaches in making public histories. The seminars are open, free of charge, to anyone interested in the creation and impact of history in contemporary society. Click HERE to learn about other events in the series.

We thank the series sponsors, Monash University Publishing, the Monash University History Program and the Old Treasury Building:

and the organising partners: