Albert Morris
From time immemorial traditional owners, the Wilyakali people, cared for homelands that encompassed the extended Broken Hill and Barrier Ranges region, western New South Wales (hereafter NSW).
From ca.1830 onwards, pastoralists forcibly dispossessed the Barkandji and Wilyakali communities, seizing homelands along the Baaka and steadily extending their influence to more distant regions.
[1] As well as being dispossessed of their spiritually significant homelands, First Nations communities of western NSW were for many decades subjected to various hardships: material deprivation; widespread ill health and epidemics; racism; confinement to government reserves and denial of civil liberties.
In 2015, the Wilyakali community and the Barkandji nation, after eighteen years of challenging and protracted legal proceedings, were successful in establishing their Native title claim to traditional homelands along the Baaka and extensive areas of western NSW.
[5] By the time he was undertaking technical school studies in metallurgy and assaying, Morris had developed a small garden and nursery, and contributed to the cost of his fees by selling plants (pepper trees) that he had grown.
By ca.1900, the previously well vegetated homelands of the Wilyakali community had progressively been exploited by overstocking on pastoralist stations (properties, or ranches), and further devastated by introduced animals such as rabbits, foxes and feral goats.
[10] The mining industry and the impacts of people and their stock had resulted in the Broken Hill region being stripped of trees such as Acacia aneura Mulga, Eucalyptus camaldulensis River Red Gum, and soil binding shrubs and ground cover plants.
Natural recovery from these detrimental impacts was inhibited by the arid climate, which featured low average rainfall of 250 millimetres or less per annum, long dry periods and high summer temperatures.
Morris described the degraded landscape in these terms: "The extending country stretched for miles without a vestige of any green thing and each stone or old tin had a streamer of sand tailing out from it.
[12] Albert and Margaret Morris were concerned about the detrimental impacts that wind erosion was inflicting on the amenity of their fellow citizens in Broken Hill, as houses, gardens, roads and public facilities were often smothered in sand.
McGillivray (1868-1933), a local doctor and also a prominent Australian ornithologist and natural scientist, Albert helped establish the Broken Hill based Barrier Field Naturalists Club, serving as its secretary until his death in 1939.
Albert and Margaret were prominent members, participating in field trips to the country around Broken Hill, studying and collecting specimens of the indigenous flora and observing the local ecosystems.
[17] Morris became widely recognised for his botanical expertise, urban tree plantation work, his propagation and contributions of plants to residents and civic bodies in Broken Hill, and for his firm belief in the possibility of revegetating the barren city landscapes.
University of Adelaide botanist and plant ecologist Professor T G Osborn had been concerned about the degradation of South Australia's arid-zone flora, and the resultant wind erosion, since approximately 1920.
[30] In April 1936, Albert and other field naturalists presented detailed submissions on soil and flora conservation, and stock exclosure and natural regeneration techniques, to the New South Wales Erosion Committee.
Displaying considerable initiative and management skills, Morris demonstrated to Broken Hill mining executives the botanical feasibility of his plans, and convinced them to financially back the project.
The knowledgeable Albert Morris had fully anticipated and predicted the natural regeneration that occurred within the fenced tree plantations adjacent to the new mining complex.
As mentioned, he had already observed and confirmed this process in previous broad acreage field trials, and was aware of the ways in which arid-zone indigenous flora seed could be naturally dispersed by wind and stored in the soil, germinate, and thrive after relatively small amounts of rainfall.
(often referred to as gum trees), was a familiar concept to many settler Australians, Morris's knowledge of the viability of various arid plant species' seed, and his experience with the natural regeneration capabilities of the indigenous flora communities, were exceptional.
[39] Sadly, Albert Morris died in January 1939, after several months of illness, but he did live to see substantial evidence of the success of his regeneration vision and initiatives.
Before he died, Albert was also aware that a Broken Hill community progress association had successfully obtained funds from the state government to finance the construction of a regeneration reserve to the south of the city in 1938-39.
The Barrier Field Naturalists Club also continued its involvement with the reserves, with members conducting botanical surveys of the thriving natural flora and advocating for the extension of the regeneration area.
[42] The citizens of Broken Hill suffered severely from the effects of the 1940 drought, and further prolonged dry periods in the early to mid-1940s, as enormous dust storms ravaged the city.
In fact, University of Sydney researchers Professor Eric Ashby and Ilma Pidgeon were drawn to the project in order to study the spectacular natural regeneration of the indigenous flora that had occurred following exclusion of stock, and concluded that ‘fencing the land has restored the vegetation’.
The Broken Hill regeneration area project and its outcomes significantly influenced the development of NSW state government soil erosion management policies and legislation.
NSW Soil Conservation Service (established 1938) director Sam Clayton, and researcher Noel Beadle, were impressed by the successful revegetation outcomes achieved within the regeneration area.
[52] Throughout the 1940s, they pushed for and implemented state government land management policies that aimed to revegetate, by stock exclosure and natural regeneration processes, those landscapes of western NSW that were in a degraded vegetation condition, but were still, fortunately, not yet wind or water eroded.
To achieve both of these objectives, state legislation was passed in 1949, and stock exclosure and natural regeneration processes were codified as government land management techniques and policies; overstocking was outlawed.
In 1941 an impressive water fountain, dedicated to his memory and funded by public subscription, was installed outside the Technical College, Argent Street, Broken Hill.
The second project was located on the current site of the Ada Ryan Gardens in Whyalla, and involved the management of invasive beach sand dunes, by fencing to exclude rabbits and cattle, allowing the indigenous flora to recover.
