I am over on Oxley Island near Old Bar for a week & have been paddling around the Manning river but have seen no scartrees at all. Maybe thats because of the wetter wilder weather here or different tree types that don’t hold scarring like the coolabah & bimble box or simply population pressure in these coastal areas ? Anyway the roadside scartrees seem to peter out after Gunnedah which may explain why so few Australians have ever seen one or are interested in their preservation .
To me these trees are the antipodean antiquities – magnificent, mysterious and misunderstood . We really need some research funding & some indigenous archaeologists to increase our national knowledge . Dr Michael Strong’s paper in Queensland History : Journal of the royal historical society of QLD, Volume 22, No. 12, February 2016 ‘One Ring To Rule Them All?’ Towards understanding the plethora of bora grounds in southeastern Queensland’ is very interesting but only makes reference to the scartrees at the ceremonial grounds not the thousands of others scattered through our paddocks & parks.
The biggest threat to our inland scartrees is not fire or termites but politics. Landholders will never register or report these trees on their properties if they think it will trigger a native title claim or that some bureaucratic lifer from the government will turn up wanting to erect signs and fences everywhere. This website aims to bring the trees to the people but the task of bringing the people to the trees remains with the local Aboriginal community….. I reckon they are well & truly over whitefellas telling them what to do !
