Danielle Clode

A Natural History and an Uncertain Future

Koala

'Have you met Mrs Edith Coleman? If not you must - I am sure you will like her - she's just A1 and a splendid naturalist.'In 1922, a 48-year-old housewife from Blackburn delivered her first paper, on native Australian orchids, to the Field Naturalists Club of Victoria. Over the next thirty years, Edith Coleman would write over 300 articles on Australian nature for newspapers, magazines and scientific journals. She would solve the mystery of orchid pollination that had bewildered even Darwin, earn the acclaim of international scientists and, in 1949, become the first woman to be awarded the Australian Natural History Medallion. She was 'Australia's greatest orchid expert', 'foremost of our women naturalists', a woman who 'needed no introduction'. And yet, today, Edith Coleman has faded into obscurity. How did this remarkable woman, with no training or connections, achieve so much so late in life? And why, over the intervening years, have her achievements and her writing been forgotten? Zoologist and award-winning writer Danielle Clode sets out to uncover Edith's story, from her childhood in England to her unlikely success, sharing along the way Edith's lyrical and incisive writing and her uncompromising passion for Australian nature and landscape.

The Wasp and the Orchid

Fire has shaped the Australian landscape and the lives of Australians for thousands of years--and will continue to do so as the climate changes. For all our advances in prevention and prediction, planning and communication, bushfires keep claiming our lives and our homes. How can we avoid another Ash Wednesday or Black Saturday? Danielle Clode has lived in the bushfire danger zone and studied the past and recent history of fire management and fire-fighting. Here she tells the complex story of Australia's relationship with fire, from indigenous practices to country fire brigades and royal commissions--as well as her own story of living with the threat of fire. A Future in Flames is a vivid history, a sombre reflection and an invaluable guide for living and dealing with fire.

A Future in Flames

Step back to a time when giant goannas and marsupial lions stalked the Australian bush. Imagine herds of two-tonne Diprotodon roaming the plains, and flocks of flightless ducks bigger than emus striding across the shallow inland sea.

The Megafauna of Australia

Prehistoric Giants

When Bill Borthwick, Minister for Lands, delivered his welcoming speech to the newly formed Land Conservation Council in 1971, he advised them to make their recommendations on public land use for Victoria "is if for a thousand years". And with that, he left them to it. The Land Conservation Council was to provide a unique framework free from political intervention, where experts could debate public land use issues and recommend fair and balanced public land use, enshrining a representative reserve system for Victoria's remaining natural heritage. This is the story of the Land Conservation Council and how it developed into a leading model for community consultation, surviving dramatic changes to the political and environmental landscape but, despite name changes, remaining a stable and conciliatory force in the battle over public land in Victoria.

A history of Victoria's Land Conservation and Environment Counservation Councils

As If for a Thousand Years

Gillian Dooley

The European maritime explorers who first visited the bays and beaches of Australia brought with them diverse assumptions about the inhabitants of the country, most of them based on sketchy or non-existent knowledge, contemporary theories like the idea of the noble savage, and an automatic belief in the superiority of European civilisation. Mutual misunderstanding was almost universal, whether it resulted in violence or apparently friendly transactions. Written for a general audience, The First Wave brings together a variety of contributions from thought-provoking writers, including both original research and creative work. Our contributors explore the dynamics of these early encounters, from Indigenous cosmological perspectives and European history of ideas, from representations in art and literature to the role of animals, food and fire in mediating first contact encounters, and Indigenous agency in exploration and shipwrecks. The First Wave includes poetry by Yankunytjatjara Aboriginal poet Ali Cobby Eckermann, fiction by Miles Franklin award-winning Noongar author Kim Scott and Danielle Clode, and an account of the arrival of Christian missionaries in the Torres Strait Islands by Torres Strait political leader George Mye.

Danielle Clode

About

Books

Join the club