1976 Quanbun Downs & Birdwood Downs
The vision we had when we started the Institute of Ecotechnics was of starting bold demonstration hands-on ventures in key biomes around our planet. It was clear mainstream economics was consuming everything it could, relentlessly and without remorse. Unfettered capitalism was winning – and ecosystems, human cultures and the biosphere – were losing. There had to be better ways to meet human needs AND sustain, restore and regenerate the world of nature. That was our optimistic starting point. What brought IE to northwest West Australia was the challenge of working in another major biome facing grave threats: tropical savannah. The Institute started a series of annual international conferences focused on major Earth biomes in 1976 and we heard from participants that the Kimberley had been identified as a critical savannah region which faced severe desertification.
Savannahs are a major ecological biome: grassland with varying tree cover, found in tropical regions worldwide. When the Institute of Ecotechnics was founded, the goal was to develop a new kind of approach: one which can harmonize ecology with technics, cultures, economic needs
and technologies. We sought “win-win” scenarios: to strengthen natural ecological resources while also improving economic viability and cross-cultural integration. We’d use whichever technologies work best, from ancient to modern, and couple that with ecological restoration.
After Richard Druitt was commissioned by the Directors of IE to do an exploration of properties available in the Kimberley, he discovered the owners were trying to sell the
pastoral lease for Quanbun Downs, then a 240,000 acre ranch but soon to grow to
300,000 acres.
Aerial photo of the homestead Area of Quanbun Downs
Though ranching had begun less than a hundred years earlier, the Kimberley was desertifying because of land misuse, overgrazing first by mostly sheep, and now cattle.
The savannah worldwide faced a similar crisis as they can become severely desertified when mistreated.
In the Kimberley and tropical savannah in northern Australia, the brief history of overgrazing caused severe soil erosion, loss of vegetation and a decline in biodiversity, especially valuable pasture species. With poorer soils and less vegetative cover, rains run off rather than infiltrate and the land becomes more arid, more desert-like. So, ranches support fewer grazing animals which put on less weight per year. Even enormous land areas for grazing animals produce marginal returns. That’s why northern Australian stations cover a half-million to a million acres.
IE also works in areas of cultural conflict, which ecological crises generate. In the Kimberley, with half the population Indigenous Australians, there was tension because of the disruptions their culture has suffered and the hostility/racism from many white Australians. Both cultures, white and Indigenous, faced crisis. Australian Indigenous people were forced to cope with the loss of their millennial-old culture and ways of life (at least 40,000 years) and from the unintended consequences of their recent “empowerment” as Australian citizens in the 1960s. High unemployment put many on “the dole” (welfare); some of the money bought alcohol and domestic violence. The station (ranch) culture of the whites suffered from absentee ownership, marginal economics, widespread cattle rustling, declining pasture resources and huge distances to markets.
In other words, the Kimberley was an ideal Ecotechnic challenge. Marginal economics meant that land was very inexpensive, though the “stations” (ranches) were all pastoral leases. For IE, first Quanbun Downs, acquired in 1976 and then Birdwood Downs property, in 1978, offered an opportunity to experiment and invest our time and money in a tropical savannah in a country with a secure political base and legal system. Since conventional ideas and strategies were not working, people with new approaches were welcomed. We had the approval of both the West Australian state government and the Australian federal government for the purchase of the Quanbun Downs pastoral lease and for the extension of our work at Birdwood Downs. On top of encouraging new ecological management approaches to this marginal land, the government hoped we,
veterans of the Civil Rights movement in the U.S., could bring a new sensitivity to race relations between the Indigenous and white Aussies.
A group of IE members had begun training for our Australian savannah program several years earlier at Synergia Ranch. Diana Mathewson, a gifted horsewoman, led the group in gaining skills which would be crucially needed. The outgoing Quanbun Downs owner also trained several of the IE members as he worked with them on the muster (roundup), windmill repair, fencing, horse and cattle management and operation of crucial infrastructure for a project isolated for months during the wet season when roads became impassable. Quanbun Downs offered a large-scale opportunity to put ecotechnics in operation. Core to the program was a breeding program for horses which eventuated in a line of Quarab horses (Quarter horse x Arab) better suited to the Kimberley climate and a method of working with horses which was far better than the rough “breaking” then common in the outback. Quanbun offered a property where the Institute could work with the better soils of river frontage since two rivers traversed it as well as the drier soils of the northern part of the property. With a cattle herd numbering over 1500 head and 70-80 fairly wild brumby horses, paddocks which covered up to 20,000 acres, Quanbun offered an amazing experience of the challenges and joys of ranching in the savannahs at breath- taking scale.
Importantly, Quanbun neighbored Noonkanbah Station, the first Kimberley property bought for the Indigenous Australians who considered it “their country.” Indigenous riders formed the majority on all the Kimberley stations as well as at Quanbun. The leaders and community at Noonkanbah became close friends and IE members informally advised them during the historic confrontation between miners and lands rights advocates which happened at Noonkanbah in 1979, a major catalyst for the Aboriginal lands rights movement.
Successful land claims resulted in Australian Indigenous groups regaining ownership of sizeable portions of the Kimberley. That, plus continued purchase of pastoral leases for Indigenous Australian communities, have radically changed land control. Australian Indigenous groups generally turn over cattle station management to white contractors, but this might change. Those trained in traditional horse and cattle work at Quanbun Downs and Birdwood Downs could help revive the stockman culture and traditional ways of running cattle stations to counteract the current trend to use helicopter and small plane mustering. The stock skills of their elder generations remain greatly admired. Already, some Australian Indigenous owned cattle stations intend to make their communities and cultures their focus and beneficiaries rather than bottom-line profits. A rapidly growing world-wide movement aims to make farming and ranching regenerative, rather than short-term exploitative, to restore soil and ecological health. This would increase resilience to climate change, important in an ecologically damaged region to ensure natural resources persist for future generations. The horse-breeding program at Quanbun and Birdwood Downs sparked a new perspective on the training and treatment of horses in the region. Many Quarabs were sold by both stations and the training offered by the Kimberley School of Horsemanship reached many. The brutal breaking of horses is now mostly a thing of the past. Similarly, providing hay to cattle in yards and when shipped is no longer radical and became the norm.
Birdwood Downs, working as a smaller scale pilot project, advised Quanbun Downs on its regeneration programme for prototype production testing. The pasture regeneration program includes: selective area ploughing and seeding, exclusion during the wet, slashing and cutting pasture-intruding trees, introducing new grass species, and allowing the native grasses to reestablish.
Historic changes occurred during the decades that the projects flourished. The Kimberley’s macho culture now is at least partly balanced by the strong women, Australian Indigenous and white, who have emerged to direct many of its businesses and communities. The leadership of Diana Mathewson at Quanbun Downs (station manager from 1979-2002) and Robyn Tredwell (General Manager, 1985-2012) at Birdwood Downs, the first two woman station managers, both widely admired for their intelligence and resourcefulness, certainly inspired others.