WRECKS AND RUINS IN THE BUSH DCE'S LEGACY OF INDUSTRIAL HISTORY JANE LENNON The Department of Conservation and Environ- ment is responsible for the management of 38% of Victoria, that is public land reserved as national parks, state forests, a multitude of reserves along the coastline, in towns and cities and around specific features, natural or man- made. The general public (and most of our staff) expect us to be managing natural re- sources for long term conservation - the .. green and furries" of the countryside. Implicit in this duty is the expectation that we will enhance, improve, ..tidy up" the bush and keep it looking well managed, cared for and accessi- ble. This general perception is the first major threat to the physical relics of industrial activities which occurred in the bush, that is that they are wrecks and ruins and should be tidied up. Why waste money and human resources preserving such items? The answer lies in understanding the adminis- trative history of licensing such uses in the past, in the inherent significance of the relics surviving in-situ and in the potential of such relics in their original setting to illustrate aspects of the past which have a lesson for today. During the first decade of European settlement of what is now Victoria, the colony was really a distant sheep farm supplying raw materials to the mills of the English midlands, halfway around the world. Public land (then called Crown land) was leased to the squatters, the contemporary name given to the stockowners who occupied vast tracts of rural Victoria. Meanwhile surveyors were marking out townships at the ports and transport crossing points and land was subdivided and sold. The need to protect physical resources re- quired for future developments was seen by chief surveyor Robert Hoddle, who in 1839 marked off a 23 acre reserve on the south bank of the Yarra River (opposite the present rail- way yards) for quarrying and brickmaking, a 5000 acre reserve at Point Nepean in 1843 to protect limestone deposits and a 640 acre granite reserve at Yuroke. In 1842 an embargo was placed on timber felling within a 2 mile Historic Environment VIII 3&4 ( 1991) radius of the township of Melbourne and by 1849 this had been extended to 5 miles. All timber felling elsewhere was regulated by payment of an annual licence fee but relentless felling steadily reduced the tree cover in the settled districts. By 1853 there were 9 timber reserves and 1 85 water reserves out of a total of 250 reserves including those for townships. With the discovery of gold, Victoria's popula- tion rose from 97,000 in 1851 to 463,000 in 1857 and this caused enormous upheaval and administrative chaos. But between 1853 and 1858, just over 2,000,000 acres were auctioned off to private landholders while a mere 2,959 acres were approved as public purposes reserves - 42 for recreation including 8 gar- dens, 14 for resource protection and 5 miscella- neous. Mining occurred over most of central Victoria and generated a huge timber industry, initially wood for fuel for cooking and warmth, then for building, fencing, boiler fuel and later pit props. Tramways and bullock tracks snaked through the forests taking timber from sawmills to the mines and villages. The use of natural resources on public land accelerated from this period and the attitude developed that these resources were there for the public to take. Most activities were li- censed and it is from studying these licenses and associated records that a picture can be reconstructed showing the range, type, inten- sity and location of such industrial activities. About 130 years after the start of this acceler- ated industrial activity, the Historic Places Section was established within the Department of Conservation, Forests and Lands, as it was titled in 1984, to provide a focus and centre of expertise for the management of historic places on public land. Our major goal is to identify, assemble and develop a representative sample of historic places on public land which: a) illustrates the sequence and themes of human impact on and use of public land, and b) demonstrates restoration and preserva- tion techniques. 49