We crested the rise and in the distance broad acres of wheat were green in the spring sunshine. The showers of rain had washed the roadside trees and acres of multi coloured wildflowers vied for attention. Marino sheep looked up as we passed by along the quiet country lane and birds startled by our approach flashed their wings as they flew before our eyes. The white fluffy clouds grazed across the blue heavens and a friendly sun played hide and seek behind his flock.

The rolling hills were stitched together with avenues of tress and planted wind breaks. On the quilted landscape a group of farm houses nestled among green trees and a small stream ducked it's head as it squeezed under the road and rushed away into the distant valley, where a blue haze sang of endless prosperity and peace.

We had spent four months traversing the deserts and this was our first sight of domesticated farming land.Sure it wasn't an English landscape as imagined by 1950's children, however my perceptions were rooted in the values of an agrainian culture where farming and domesticated cattle and sheep underpinned my very DNA.

I communicated to Eytea the difference between the productivity of the land that we were passing through and compared it to the burnt sand dunes in the desert.

"Lets face it I said, this pleasant landscape, this productive landscape was left undeveloped by the previous occupants. "

I had a head of steam up as I do when I get passionate about my point of view.

"That burnt landscape to the North, would have been more lush and vegitated prior to the repeated burnings of 10's of thousands of years. It stands to reason that if you repeatedly burn, then only the plants that can quickly regrow are going to be successful.

I raved on….." what about the birds and animals that require the leaf litter like the malleefowl to build their mounds or the fairy wrens for protection and breeding and that is forgetting the lizards which live in dead branches that die when a fire goes through."

Yes I have heard all the arguments about "ecofire", a cool burn that stops total decimation of the landscape after a lightning strike. I have heard about the carefully planned strip burning and the cycle of burning in a structured way so the same piece of land is only burnt infrequently. I have heard about asset protection and I have heard about the marvelous regrowth that comes after the fire has gently passed through."

Eyetea communicated, are you finished yet?

"No, this issue really riles me. Lets look at how and possibly why this process commenced and how it has now been blown out of all proportion to how it was.

It seems reasonable and practical for early inhabitants with a fundamental need for food and very basic weapons (no automatic rifles, speed boats or Landcruisers) to burn a section of land for a number of reasons;

1. The fire would have killed small animals and lizards - food already cooked.

2. The fire would have made it easier to walk across the landscape when one has no shoes and snakes are a possible threat - though I believe they had various snake chasing strategies - they weren't stupid or careless.

3. They could maintain contact with other groups in their area who would know where they were by the rising smokes.

4. Certainly small burnt areas would attract kangaroos and other herbivorous animals to the fresh shoots.

5. It seems highly likely that burning the land became and remains a religious ceremony that resonates with their very DNA,

So lets put that into context.

A small population, that could only move relatively slowly at walking pace had little need to burn 100,000,000's of acres of land at one hit. Really a small fire area, bit by bit would perhaps be a better strategy. You burn 100,000,000 acres and most of the killed lizards and small wild life would be rotten or devoured by some other predator before it could be collected.

Animals coming to feed on regrowth would be so widely dispersed as to be a long walk to even get close enough to spear, catch or trap.

So all in all a small fire regime, undertaken at walking pace for a small group was relatively sustainable even if it gradually changed the nature of the plant species in Australia over span of time which might be 50,000 or even 80,000 years.

I say relatively sustainable because it appears that the human population ate their way through a good number of species during their long tenure. The biodiversity of life in Australia has suffered under these waves of migration by humans. The English were not to be outdone and they hoed into the environment, trashing in 200 years probably more species than the previous invaders had managed during their much, much longer occupation. Also the English invoked massive environmental destruction as they imported farm animals and pests alike to help in "opening up" the country for the new dominant culture.

OK, Eytea that will do as an opening download.

Eyetea took his time and then provided a response that I could understand and it pretty much went like this.

"Will it is obvious that you are attempting to be even handed in your assessment of the environmental changes that have occurred in Australia since human habitation commenced. The options for considering such a wide ranging question has in your case taken a very human and time centric view, which is natural enough. You want to be reasonable but really you lack the capacity to sustain multiple viewpoints with any degree of subtlety. "

"Each individual species of plant, animal, insect, reptile or bird may have a different perspective on the questions involved. Life forms want to procreate and expand and have little consciousness of the impacts that their increasing numbers cause to the overall diversity and robustness of the matrix of life on Earth."

"Humans have taken this self expanding drive to increasing extremes and no other weed or feral animal can compete with them for degrading the biodiversity of the planet. Humans have, one and all selfishly and instinctively run roughshod over the planet causing pollution, turning rain forests to dry woodlands and dry woodlands to grasslands and grasslands to deserts. The report card on human behavior does not get very good marks."

"The irony is that in the future balance may be restored and other global systems enhanced through their endeavours. It is almost a cosmic fundamental that if a coin has a bad side it also has on the opposite side redemption. "

"So all in all you will not live long enough to see the end of play. Like Friday night football your suburb will have a power outage just as the game goes into the second half."