"Recherche Bay and its important French heritage" Huonville Travelogue by Kate-Me

To set the scene here, I'll first give you a fairly complete copy of the story which I believe first brought this issue to the general public's, where it had begun as only a small issue in a 'lost' corner of Australia.

This article and an episode dedicated to the subject on the ABC's Catalyst tv programme I believe made great progress on raising the profile of the issues involved, and certainly opened my eyes to what the term 'Clear felling' really means. Far more horrific than destroying all vegetation and burning tree stumps, after aerial seeding it also involves the laying down of poison to kill native wildlife.

Feb 15-16, 2003.
Weekend Australian Review.
Logging in to history.
Why our French heritage should be spared the axe.

There is a secluded, pristine area of Tasmania that will always be French.
Or will it?
*Carol Altmann reports on an exotic clash between history and the very modern controversy over the clearfelling of native forests.

Sails furled, the tall ship delivers its exhausted crew into a bay so remote and so beautiful that their leader is inspired to take up the quill: ? It will be difficult to describe my feelings at the sight of this solitary harbour situated at the extremities of the world? Joseph-Antoine Raymond de Bruny D?entrecasteaux writes, after laying anchor in the isolated inlet in Van Diemen?s Land.
?So perfectly enclosed that one feels separated from the rest of the universe...with each step, one encounters the beauties of unspoilt nature.?

Trees reaching ?25 fathoms? (about 45 mts) encircle the harbour into which D?entrecasteaux?s ship, the 350 tonne La Recherche, has limped after weeks in the Indian Ocean. In search of fresh water and sturdy timber for repairs, he is excited by what he sees.
? Some of the trees seem as ancient as the world and are so tightly interlaced that they are impenatreble."
D?entrecasteaux?s crew was the first to take an axe to the imposing bush tucked on the furthermost tip of Tasmania?s southeast coast. Almost 211 years later, a portion of the same land is being swept up in Tasmania?s long running, passionate debate over native forest preservation.
And while conservationists consider D?entrecastaux?s little known venture into the bay justification enough to spare it from the bulldozers, state authorities are yet to be convinced.
When D'entrecasteaux arrived on April 23, 1792, Van Diemens land was officially just a squiggle of coast, its circumnavigation still 6 years away.
To the north, New Hollandýs south east corner remained uncharted and the mystery of whether an ocean separated Van Diemenýs Land from the mainland was still unsolved.

Dýentrecasteauxýs mission was not primarily to fill in the mapping gaps, even though his crew was heavily laden with scientists.
He had been chosen by King Louis XVI to lead a search for La Perouse, who had vanished after departing Botany Bay on March 10, 1788.
Two store ships had been refurbished with cabins and storage hulls for the long journey: La Recherche, complete with an above deck windmill for grinding wheat, and Lýesperance, placed under command of Jean-Michel Huon de Kermadec.
Ahead of them lay an impossible task: - La Perouse, it was much later discovered, was already dead. Behind them lay a country on the edge of revolution that would be forever changed on their return.

And the crew - which included Botanists, mappers, astronomers, artists, a gardener and Louis Girardin, a mysterious steward with his own secret - could not have anticipated becoming an important part of Australian history.

During the voyage, after rounding the Cape of Good Hope, the ships were struck by the notorious Roaring Forties winds. They were battered for 4 weeks by strong waves until, timber hulls battered and running dangerously short of water, Dýentrecasteaux headed due east towards the sanctuary of Van Diemenýs land.
Had the ships continued along Australiaýs south coast instead as planned, the French would have discovered the unchartered coastlines of South Australia and Victoria 10 years earlier than Matthew Flinders (et aussi Nicolas Baudin)
This was the first of their two extroadinary visits to what is now known as Recherche Bay.
Here the weary crew discovered not only pristine water and some of the worldýs strongest timber, they also entered an Eden unknown to Europeans.
ýWith each step, one encounters the beauties of unspoilt nature, -, with no signs of decreptitude, trees reaching a very great height, and of a corresponding diameter, are devoid of branches along the trunk but crowned with an everlasting green foliage,ý Dýentrecasteaux enthused.
Fish were in abundance, while flocks of parrots, swans, ducks, pelicans, eagles, partridges and crows provided wild game to roast over their fires.

The enforced 5 week rest stay gave the officers and crew time to explore. Jacques-Julien Houtou de Labillardiere, one of two botanists on board, carefully plucked specimens to be documented by ths ship?s artist, Nicholas Piron. Among the 5000 plants, which included at least 100 new species, was the first sample of the blue gum eucalyptus, Tasmania?s floral emblem.
Expedition gardener Felix Delahaye - later to become Empress Josephine?s head gardener at Malmaison - laid out the first European vegetable garden in Tasmania.
Chicory, cabbage, radishes, cress, sorrel and ptatoes were planted neatly behind a protective stone wall, although too late in autumn for the plants to prosper.

The astronomers were also to be disappointed, as a unique opportunity to observe the moons of Jupiter cross the southern sky was hindered by delays in setting up complex viewing equipment.
?Bonvoulier, who had made the preliminary calculations a long time since, was so affected by this disappointment that he wept like a child,? de Labillardiere recorded.
By contrast, the hydrographers were spectacularly successful, with landmark observations of the earth?s magnetic fields that would transform navigation. Their work is considered the first specific science experiments conducted on Australian soil.

Hidden within this band of intellectuals was fresh-faced Girardin, an effeminate young man who, as the crew was to discover, was in fact a 38 year old woman,. Marie Louise Victoire Girardin.
Going against the strict naval laws then forbidding women to participate in expeditions, d?entrecasteaux and de Kermadec not only knew of Girardin?s deception, they appeared to encourage it.

?Almost nothing is known about Louise, but by reading between the lines we have learnt about her sideways, if you like,? says retired historian Bruce Poulson from his home near Recherche Bay. He, fellow Tasmanian Paddy Proser and Sydney lawyer Greg Hogg have co-scripted a play on the intriguing Girardin, believed to be the daughter of the head gardener at the royal court of Versailles who was forced out of France after shaming her father by having an illegitemate child.
A letter of introduction from a friend to de Kermadec espoused her commerce skills, persuading him to include her in an expedition containing already many scientists.

?There is no doubt d?Entrecasteaux and de Kermadec knew her real identity,? says Poulson. ?A special cabin was allocated to her and she was allowed pretty much to keep to herself.? According to crew diary notes, Girardin was keen to maintain her disguise - she defended her masculinity by challenging a fellow crew man to a sword fight during which she suffered a gash to the arm. ?It appears Louise Girardin was the first European white woman to duel on Australian soil,? says Poulson. She was certainly the first white woman to touch Tasmanian soil, 12 years before European settlement at Hobart Town.

Journal entries suggest Girardin?s real identity was soon suspected but never a concern; she eventually became the lover of a sublieutenant on La Recherche. With a hint of due Shakespearean tragedy, the pair died a day apart in late 1794 of dysentery.

Despite spending more than a month at anchor during that first visit, the expedition did not encounter Aboriginal Tasmanians, although their presence was clear. The crew found a small hut, water bags made of dry seaweed, intricate baskets woven with strips of bark and an early version of the G-string: a small wedge of seaweed threaded with straw-string to ?cover the natural parts.?

D?entrecasteaux was also intrigued by the lack of weapons: ?Since we have found no trace...we presume they live in peace.?
It was different almost a year later when the expedition returned. After continuing to search for La Perouse along the east coast of Australia, through the islands of Indonesia and down the west coast of Australia, d?entrecasteaux was again thwarted by a lack of water in his attempt to navigate the southern coastline. Knowing they were certain to find fresh water at Recherche Bay, he anchored there on January 20, 1793 for another 5 week layover.

In the heat of summer, Delahaye?s vegetable garden had withered and several watering holes had evaporated. Unperturbed, de Labillardiere and Delahaye set about gathering fresh samples of native plants to complete their extensive collection. While they were foraging, d?Entrecasteaux recorded that the pair ?heard voices in the bushes.? Resisting the urge to draw guns, the two encouraged their curious onlookers to step forward.
Possibly emboldened by the familiarity of vessels that had returned to their land, a group of Aboriginal men and women left their hiding place.

?The natives came forward with confidence; and from that moment onwards, the most cordial relationship was established.? Having heard of European explorers in New Holland being attacked by ?ferocious savages?, D?entrecasteaux was surprised at the trust shown by the Aborigines towards his party.
Mothers passed their children to be cuddled by the strangers. In turn, the younger and more feminine-looking French crew agreed to a ?very exacting inspection? by the Aborigines to prove that, despite their assumptions, there were no women on board - at least officially.

The buttoned-down French delighted in the apparent freedom and simple lifestyle of the indigenous Tasmanians.
The two groups watched each other prepare and eat meals. One of the crew cut an Aboriginal man?s hair; others exchanged medals, bells and badges for seashells. ?If our stay at port could have been extended,? d?Entrecasteaux wrote ?we would have had a real opportunity of obtaining a very interesting insight on the lifestyle of human beings so close to nature, whose candour and kindness contrast so much with the vices of civilisation."

pinpointing the location of Recherche Bay

But the ocean beckoned and the expedition hauled anchor early on February 27, 1793. Within 6 mths, d?Entrecasteaux was dead from scurvy. The remaining crew arrived in Indonesia in October to learn that their country was at war and that Louis XVI had been beheaded the day after their return to Recherche Bay. Without the stabilising influence of d?Entrecasteaux, the expedition divided along royalist and republican lines, falling into disarray. By year?s end, the ships were seized by the colonial Dutch and sold.
Although the expedition failed to locate La Perouse, its scientific and cartographic work paved the way for explorers such as Baudin and Flinders to further investigate the mysteries of the far south.
Upon his return home, de Labilladiere reproduced his botanicl specimens in the two-volume ?Novae Hollandiae plantarum specimen? - a pioneering work on Australia?s fauna that celebrated its 200th anniversary in December 2003.

And what of that protecive retreat that played such a role in the d?Entrecasteaux journey? While large tracts of the Recherche Bay Peninsula are protected within the 4150 ha Southport Lagoon Conservation Area, a 48ha parcel of privately owned land there was in 2002 offered to Australia?s largest timber producer, Gunns, for clearfell logging.
And 4 km of road will be bulldozed through the Southport Lagoon Conservation Area to access the logging zone.
Clearfelling is the most controversial logging method in the state?s forestry industry, involving the complete removal of all native trees and vegetation from a coupe. Timber leftovers are bulldozed into mounds and burned as part of a high intensity fire designed to promote regrowth. Eucalyptus seeds are then aerial-dropped into the cleared zone and baits of 1080 poison are laid to kill native animals that may feed on the seedlings.

In Recherche Bay, browsing animals could be those that venture from the Southport Lagoon Conservation Area. From the air, a fresh clearfell zone resembles a lesion - irrespective of its economic and safety merits, most agree that it is not easy on the eye.
The proposed logging zone includes the garden area where Delahaye tried in vain to grow vegetables, and the coastal tip where officer Bonvoulier wept as the satellites of Jupiter sailed unseen overhead. It also encroaches upon the site of the observatory set up by the French scientists to conduct their bold geo-physical experiments.

Sydney historian Edward Duyker, who with his mother Maryse published the first English translation of d?Entrecasteaux?s journals from the Australian voyage, is astounded that such a site of such national and French significance may be pillaged. ?I was struck by the contrasting outrage in Australia over possible plans to move World War I graves in France for an airport, yet there are mere whispers over plans to destroy an important French historic site in Australia.
?It would seem to me that we have double standards. The airport plans have been shelved in France...but in Tasmania we face the possibility of the desecration of the landing place of a major French expedition, and of the location where Labillardiere began collecting for what effectively became the first general flora of Australia.

Duyker, whose ?Citizen Labillardiere? will be published by Melbourne University Press in April 2003, believes the loaction of the French observatory and its contribution to the history of science in Australia is more than enough to warrant the area?s protection. d?Entrecasteaux has suffered from the chronic Anglocentrism of Australian history. His voyage has an important place in the story of this country, and sites associated with it deserve more respect.?
Ironically, perhaps, Tasmania in 2004 celebrates the bicentenary of its European settlement, and, according to the state Government, intends to celebrate the landmark work of early Dutch, French and English explorers.
Wren Fraser Cameron is among a group of grassroots activists intent on protecting Recherche Bay from the bulldozers. An unapologetic environmentalist, she was at the birth of Australia?s green movement - rowing down the Franklin River during the anti-damming protest of 1982 with the then unknown Bob Brown. Now 49,she has lived at Lune River, north of Recherche Bay, for 20 years. She doesn?t pretend the forest is unchanged - fire has moved through it many times and neighbouring whaling communities have been and gone - but she considers clearfelling an entirely different intrusion.
?If the French came back tomorrow, they would pretty much recognise {Recherche Bay) as the way it was in 1792,? she says. ?It is an enormously significant area when you look at the world picture that unfolded....the work of Baudin, the work of Matthew Flinders all came on the back of what d?Entrecasteaux did.?

Fraser Cameron is working closely with other peninsula residents, eco tourism operators and the Australian Greens to libby for state or national cultural protection of the entire site, with hopes of developing a detailed, long-term management plan. ?There is a growing interest around Australia in our French history and it is very much a part of our district?s identity. We want to see enterprises put in place that reflect and protect that.?

Sydney lawyer Hogg, an amateur maritime historian and one of the authors of the Girardin play, joined the battle after having visited the Recherche Bay area many times. ?The fact that the state?s floral emblem was first recorded there is reason enough for it to be preserved,? he says. ?In any other country, that would be a place of national significance"

**Two letters from the Recherche Bay lobby group asking to meet Tasmanian Premier Jim Bacon, who is also Parks and Heritage minister, received courteous acknowledgements but nothing more. Questions on Recherche Bay are directed to Deputy Premier Paul Lennon, who also oversees forestry. A spokesman for Lennon says that, to the Government?s knowledge, the parcel of land is not for sale; even if it were, it was not at this stage deemed significant.
With the Green vote expanding in Tasmania - it jumped by 8% at the previous state election, increasing its seats from 1 to 4,- the Bacon Government is keen to defend its forestry policies and frequently refers to the amount of native forest protected from logging by state and national agreements. ?All areas deemed as being of significance under the Regional Forests Agreement have been protected in reserves, ? says the spokesman. ?The Recherche Bay land...earmarked for logging was not identified as being of significance,.? Unique finds, however, would be assessed accordingly.
The Recherche Bay land is one of two 50ha parcels in the area inherited by brothers David and Robert Vernon, with the timbered site now understood to be worth more than $1 million. They live in the state?s north and David Vernon has expressed concern to Gunns at rising local publicity aboiut the logging plans. David Vernon is the family spokesman on the plans but he failed to return calls.
Greens Senator Brown has met the brothers to see if they would sell the two parcels to the local community but the approaches have bee un productive. Brown intends to continue the negotiations. This is a globally important site, he says. ?D?Entrecasteaux?s meeting with the Palawa (Tas Aboriginal) people - the modern world conecting with a people still wholly living in the natural world - is one of global significance...and one of the world?s great stories.?

Gunns? timber company chief executive John Gay is unsure of the status of the logging plan, despite Gunns submitting documents with the Forst Practices Board last year for the proposed clearfelling. Planning approvals for the roadwork are also in train. Gay agrees, however, that the site has historical linkages: ?It is an area of significance, you would have to say, an area that needs to be considered on all aspects. I believe that they [the land owners) have done that and have come up with a plan to log it. Whether they are going to go on with it, I don?t know."

The proposed logging area is small by Tasmanian standards, where a single coupe can stretch across hundreds of hectares, but environmentalists fear it could create a precedent to log private land within other conservation parks. The loss of a potential tourism drawcard and the disregard of its rich history have also galvanised the community into ensuring that the d?Entrecasteaux story is told. Blockades have been mentioned by some, but are considered premature by local shackowners and the Lune River community until ?softer? options are exhausted - protest postcards, information drops at big events and petitions. The human chains may come later.
It is a battle light years away from the experience of botanis Labillardiere, yet deeply infused with the emotions of the Frenchman as he first walked through Recherche Bay: ?In the afternoon I went on shore, accompanied by the gardener and two others from our ship?s company....we were filled with admiration at the sight of these ancient forests - in which the sound of an axe had never been heard.?