The Future Eaters: An Ecological History of the Australasian Lands and People [Paperback]

Tim Flannery (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 16, 2002

Humans first settled the islands of Australia, New Zealand, New Caledonia, and New Guinea some sixty millennia ago, and as they had elsewhere across the globe, immediately began altering the environment by hunting and trapping animals and gathering fruits and vegetables. In this illustrated iconoclastic ecological history, acclaimed scientist and historian Tim Flannery follows the environment of the islands through the age of dinosaurs to the age of mammals and the arrival of humanity on its shores, to the coming of European colonizers and the advent of the industrial society that would change nature's balance forever. Penetrating, gripping, and provocative, The Future Eaters is a dramatic narrative history that combines natural history, anthropology, and ecology on an epic scale. "Flannery tells his beautiful story in plain language, science-popularizing at its Antipodean best." -- Times Literary Supplement "Like the present-day incarnation of some early-nineteenth-century explorer-scholar, Tim Flannery refuses to be fenced in." -- Time

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Who destroys or "eats" the future? Those who have not shared a past: coevolution is the key to survival of all species, maintains Flannery, a senior research scientist in mammalogy at the Australian Museum in Sydney. Just as human immunities have failed when confronted with previously isolated viruses, so entire ecosystems have crumbled with the introduction of man. Australia, New Zealand, New Caledonia and New Guinea make for an interesting case study: though once conjoined, they later separated, developing disparate climates and soil types. Equally important, they were colonized at different times, with man reaching Australia 45,000 to 60,000 years ago and New Caledonia just 3500 years ago. Flannery posits that these virgin islands, which were replete with unexploited resources, naive, almost ``tame,'' herbivores and no real competition from other predators, allowed man to make ``the great leap forward'' to become not just one species among many but the species. New virgin territories presented other opportunities for wealth, population growth, leisure and subsequent leaps forward. But the cost is invariably great: human populations soar, then drop as food sources become extinct or soil is exhausted and imported ideas of agriculture, husbandry and hunting slowly give way to environmental reality--reality that is particularly harsh to Australia's poor soil. With great skill and research, Flannery demonstrates the subtle interaction that makes an ecosystem work, from glaciers to fire, from dung beetles to man. In the process he makes a formidable, sometimes frightening argument for careful cooperation with--rather than domination of--the world.

Copyright 1995 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

During the ice ages, when the sea level was low, Australia, New Guinea, Tasmania, and smaller islands reemerged as a single landmass known as Meganesia, connected to Antarctica. Harsh conditions selected those species most adapted to the cold: amphibians, marsupials, monotremes?species with lower metabolic rates and low energy needs. When Meganesia separated from Antarctica 36 million years ago, species extinctions began. Isolated from the rest of the world, Australia developed unique flora and fauna to become a land rich in minerals and fossils but having the poorest soil of any continent because of geological inactivity. The first Australians consumed without replacing resources they would need in the future; later-arriving Europeans destroyed even more. In this fascinating, thought-provoking ecological history of his homeland, Flannery, a senior research scientist at the Australian Museum in Sydney, reveals how humans?and other species?transplanted out of their original habitat become "future eaters" by the indiscriminate consumption of a land's resources. Flannery voices his theories and opinions while also presenting opposing viewpoints, creating a well-balanced, extremely readable treatise. Highly recommended for all collections.?Gloria Maxwell, Kansas City P.L., Kansas
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 432 pages
• Publisher: Grove Press (October 16, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0802139434
• ISBN-13: 978-0802139436
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #329,353 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #95 in Books > History > Australia & Oceania > New Zealand

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating Journey Through Tasmantis and Meganesia!, August 5, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Future Eaters: An Ecological History of the Australasian Lands and People (Paperback)

Dr. Flannery takes the reader on a fascinating journey through time in Australia, New Guinea, New Zealand and New Caledonia. This book is about the flora and fauna of these regions, their evolutionary relationships, and the role man has played in their shapeing and disrupting. I found surprisingly good information about the Gondwana origin of the flora. The chapter about New Caledonia was great - who ever hears anything about New Caledonia? It has a fascinating ecosystem based on an ancient flora shaped by poor, toxic-metals rich soils and, like the rest of 'Tasmantis,' an historical lack of mammals, where birds and reptiles filled ecological niches more usually held by mammals. The same sort of thing (but with fertile soils) happened in New Zealand, with the moas acting like more familiar large mammal herbivores and small birds acting like mice! Did you know that there are living trees in New Zealand that were probably actually grazed upon by moas? Learn about the magnificent vanished mammal fauna of Australia and how it used and adapted to a difficult environment. Enter humans; watch them hunt, and modify the environment with fire, with both intended and unintended consequences. Then the Europeans came and tried to turn Australia into a southern English countryside; they didn't understand why this didn't work, was disasterous, in fact. Dr Flannery ends the book with musings about the future of mankind in the environment, with lessons from the region that are applicable to all of us and especially to his fellow Australians. Makes one think about some hard questions.

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Southern Lands, November 18, 2001

By 

Roger McEvilly (the guilty bystander) (Sydney, NSW Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Future Eaters: An Ecological History of the Australasian Lands and People (Paperback)

Tim Flannery's book on the ecological history of the `Australasian lands' (Australia, New Zealand, New Guinea, New Caledonia, with bits and pieces on islands such as Christmas Island, Lord Howe Island, Norfolk Island, etc), is both timely and refreshing. It is a good and current overview of argument and debate concerning the complex interplay of ecological and cultural forces shaping these parts of the world, from before human influence, to the times these lands were invaded at various times by homo sapien from at least 40,000-60,000 years ago (New Guinea earlier), to the present. It is very frank about the current state of these lands, in terms of environmental degradation, and what things could be done about it. It is quite controversial, and as someone who works in issues concerning biodiversity, ecology and resource sustainability, I can tell you much of the material is cutting-edge, complex, and controversial at times. In many instances Flannery is speculative and original, but often entertaining. He does back his theories and views up with substantial argument and evidence, and it is this which makes the book a cut above the ordinary.

One particular feature of the book worth emphasising is just how different these lands really are in terms of ecology, compared to most of the rest of the world. Not only is the flora and fauna, both extinct and living, somewhat unusual, but in, for example Australia, the climate, the influence of fire, the poor fertility or soils, and the part these factors have played in shaping the ecological past is rather surprising at times. Maladaptation of modern culture to these sorts of things is also particularly striking (for example seasonal agriculture in non-seasonal climate-early Australian colonisers, tropical agriculture in cold temperate climate-early polynesians in New Zealand). Of course early colonisers wanted, in the case of Australia, to create a `little Britain', so to speak, except that it is obvious after 200-odd years of settlement (and some of this has been rather odd), it isn't western Europe. Later idealists wanted another North America-Australia is similar in size to the USA, but it isn't in natural ecology.

The book is very detailed and quite complex to describe in short review. It includes chapters on early megafaunal and other extinctions from the arrival of early man in all locales, through to the present. It speculates about early human migrations to Australia, backed up for example by sediment cores from three interesting locales in Australia (Lake George particularly interesting). Discussions of diprotodon, megalania (an extinct 7m long lizard), giant moa, an extinct New Caledonian land crocodile, and 3m high kangaroos are some highlights. It is a complex story, but readers will be delighted in the unusual flora and fauna, the misguided `invasions', the arrogance, the trials, the failures and the astounding successes alike. Some particularly interesting parts for me was the demise of the New Zealand Moa-the worlds largest extinct bird, the story of virgin Lord How Island- first seen by humans of any kind in 1788, the discovery that many of Australia's marsupials descended from South America (ancient Gondwana in origin), the extraordinary array of New Zealands birds in the absence of evolving mammals, the degree of evolved co-operation amongst Australia's biota (for example self-sacrifice, and strange examples of symbiosis), and the story of Easter Island and its human contact.

There is a lot of controversial and complex stuff here, but it is well argued. Flannery speculates for example that Wallace's line played an important part in the `great leap forward', which I admit I didn't quite follow, with early agriculture in the New Guinea area, which spread outwards. I didn't agree with his assessment of firestick farming and agriculture in prehistoric Australia, and in this he differs from Diamond (The Third Chimpanzee/Guns Germs and Steel) in the reasons agriculture never developed in prehistoric Australia. He asserts that the reason agriculture didn't kick start in early Australia is due to poor soils, unpredictable climate (ENSO), and the prevalence of natural fire, not the lack of available biota. I don't think he is quite correct here, it is more likely competitive selection pressures, both *cultural* and ecological, in addition to isolation, did not facilitate development of the varities found in Australia, as compared to Eurasia. I also don't think his description of Australia's mineral wealth as a `one-off', is quite correct. `Mineral wealth' changes with technology, market and cultural factors. He also seems to miss evidence of some megafauna existing well after the arrival of aborigines in Australia, (it is a large and scattered ecological landmass) which I have come across elsewhere (eg Coonabarabran). I am also not sure of his view that high urbanisation in Australia is a modern maladaptation to the ENSO climate. He emphasises the influence of fire in Australian ecology, but perhaps over-emphasises in parts (his house was burnt down in a bushfire whilst writing the book, which may explain this!)

Nevertheless it is well argued and quite astutely written. The `Future Eaters' refers to homo sapien tending to eat his future resources and overpopulating-as occurred in New Zealand, Easter Island, and parts of colonial Australia-for example-and the human disasters which resulted form this tendency. He has a wide knowledge of the material, and certainly there are many original ideas worth thinking about. Some of the arguments will surprise readers, particularly from northern hemisphere countries, primarily because southern land masses have been, and also will be, rather different ecologically from their northern counterparts.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Superb "Biography" of Australasia, July 4, 2003

By 

Jeffery Steele (Taipei, Taiwan) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Future Eaters: An Ecological History of the Australasian Lands and People (Paperback)

Tim Flannery has written what can only be described as a the most comprehensive history imaginable of the lands making up present-day Australia, New Zealand, New Guinea, and New Caledonia. His fascinating account starts with the earliest breakaway of those lands from the super continent Gondwana, more than forty million years ago, and goes right up to the present-day, ending with Flannery's recommendations for preserving Australia's unique ecology.

Despite this mind-blowing multimillion-year scope of a territory covering an enormous area, the book never falters in its readability or interest. Much of it is highly speculative (as even the author occasionally admits), but Flannery presents enough evidence to make his hypotheses almost always seem plausible. I most enjoyed the comparison of the ecologies of New Caledonia, New Zealand, New Guinea, and Australia -- despite their proximity, they are entirely different places, and those differences are reflected in their histories. Flannery's account of the destruction of megafauna in Australia and New Zealand is also well-told.

There should be more of these kinds of books: "biographies" of not just a land, but an entire continent (and its neighbors). Flannery has also written a similar book on North America, called "The Eternal Frontier", that rivals this book in its scope and excellence, but with that single exception, I can't think of any other ecological history that does such a fine job over so wide a range.