Desert Journey
Margaret Friedel
Joining CSIRO
Land Resources Management back in 1974 did not involve the formal interview
procedures we have today. No gender-balanced interview panel and carefully
worded questions probed my abilities for the job. Instead, I arrived in Alice
Springs at the end of an international conference when all the staff were in the
mood for celebrating. Some of my clearest memories are of pistol shooting down
the hallway of a (soon-to-be) fellow scientist’s home, at targets on the sitting
room wall, while the Divisional Editor ducked stray pellets behind the couch and
bobbed up to check the score, and cries of “She’ll do” from tech staff when I
entered the tea room (it was the mini-skirt era then).
But there was a serious purpose to the fun. I had applied for a Research Scientist position at Alice Springs, to study nutrient cycling and its role in maintaining soil fertility and ecosystem stability in arid Australia. My PhD had been on productivity decline in Pinus radiata, with a particular focus on changes to nutrient cycles in second rotation plantations. Early on, my scientific capacity had been assessed from a review of the thesis by two senior CSIRO scientists. The visit to Alice was really to see if I could fit in to a small but enthusiastic research group, and whether I could make a go of living and working in the outback.
To me it was all a huge adventure and a great privilege to be offered a job with CSIRO in a place I had dreamed about. Science had been my chosen career since the age of eleven, although I had no idea what kind of science it might be. Looking back, one of the most important things in the early development of what became a career, was to keep an open mind about what was possible. I had thought about becoming a microbiologist, then a marine biologist and then for a while, it looked as though forestry was the way forward. Decisions were driven by available courses at Melbourne University, how much I enjoyed them, and the thesis topics offered by potential supervisors.
With the offer of a post doctoral position in forestry in Canada, the die was almost cast, but I took a temporary job teaching trainee teachers in a bush camp in Gippsland. Teaching young and enthusiastic people about science and the environment, and joining in bushwalks and snow camping, extended into three years and the post doctoral work slowly faded from my ‘must do’ list. Along the way, I completed a Dip Ed. but eventually decided I should try to return to research before my skills were outdated. The joy of working in a bush camp with a great group of teachers and students was tempered by rain, cold and mud, and sleeping in army tents, and so my thoughts focused on somewhere warm – Alice Springs!
Luckily for me, having no formal training in ecology and no knowledge of the arid zone was not an impediment to becoming an arid lands ecologist, but I doubt young scientists would be so fortunate today. Critical elements were working with supportive colleagues and being mentored along the way. While I did not recognise ‘mentoring’ consciously at the time, there were significant occasions when I was encouraged and put forward for a task, and always by male colleagues, since women scientist were rare in that world. Ray Perry, the Chief of the Division then, remained a key mentor for many years after our group was no longer affiliated with his Division.
Keeping an open mind about what is possible has continued to be
important.
With the collective wisdom of fellow scientists as a guide, research on nutrient
cycling soon expanded to include the productivity of grazed native pastures,
which had been assessed to be in different ‘states’ as a consequence of the way
they were managed. Imagine my surprise when my beliefs about these managed
systems were challenged by a colleague in Canberra, who suggested that the
assessments might be wrong and hence so might my conclusions!
A new research stream opened up. What were the theoretical and practical bases for the assessment of the condition of rangelands (the US term for grazing lands)? Luckily, many of the conventional theories of vegetation change and succession were being challenged at the time, most notably in a landmark paper by Westoby, Walker and Noy-Meir, and there was room for new insights. Land management agencies in Australia were keen to review or develop rangeland monitoring systems too so that I could learn from colleagues both locally and interstate. A six-month fellowship from the South African Department of Agriculture in 1985 gave me the opportunity to expand my understanding of vegetation change in another fascinating environment.
I also explored the dynamics of woody plants in central Australia, and how different kinds of land had contrasting problems – some were rabbit infested and had only relict populations of woody plants, while others were burnt too infrequently and had become choked with shrubs. I became a junior partner in a study of fire in the arid zone and later worked closely with a senior technician to mine his wonderful diaries for information about phenology of arid zone shrubs and trees, which we subsequently published.
Scientifically, a powerful influence on later work was the expansion of skills in the Alice Springs group, now the Centre for Arid Zone Research, to encompass remote sensing, and the landscape-scale insights it provided. The group as a whole developed perspectives on structure and function of landscapes and how different scales were integrated into one another. This was a crucial development, since practical grazing management was based on pastoral properties of 2-5000 sq km and paddocks of sometimes several hundred square kilometres. Small-scale grazing trials were costly and could never mimic the grazing patterns created by free-ranging cattle. While I worked with colleagues to refine range assessment technologies at ground level, to match our growing understanding of grazing lands, others developed complementary methods based on remotely-sensed data.
Of course, grazing is not the only land use in the outback and it is certainly not the major money earner, although it occupies very significant amounts of land. By the early 1990s, pressure was growing for regional-level planning and the inclusion of other land uses. I became part of a team of people from government and non-government organisations, with diverse skills and interests, researching how to involve rangeland communities in land use planning.
Suddenly, understanding arid lands ecology was only a minor component of the skills needed. Learning on the run, we had to develop abilities in politics, social science and economics – all essential if we wanted to make our research relevant in the real world. We worked with the North East Goldfields community as well as a much broader constituency, to understand needs and possibilities. At the end of the project, we had an established group with the capacity to become leaders in natural resource management for the region, and a real appreciation of the participants – Aboriginal people, conservationists, diversifiers, miners, pastoralists, prospectors and tourism operators.
Aboriginal people, conservation and tourism were also important in another project I had the good fortune to undertake in the 1990s. Working with traditional owners, research staff and rangers at Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park, we investigated the impact of tourism at key locations around the base of Uluru. By locating 100 years of photographic records and interviewing people with long memories, we were able to show that much of the damage was generated in early years of unfettered tourist access and subsequent efforts at rehabilitation, but that tourism was secondary to major natural events like drought, fire and floods.
Personal highlights, many not at all scientific, included marriage to historian and writer Dick Kimber who, like me, had to live in the government hostel for single people in the earlier 1970s. Single people were not entitled to housing, with the fortunate outcome that we had a hectic social life in the hostel and still have many long-term friends from that time. Our son and daughter were born in the early 1980s and Dick gave teaching away to become their primary carer. We managed to share parenting very happily, with small babies being brought in to the office for feeds at all hours. With Dick’s support through my absences interstate and overseas, our children are now a cheerful pair of young adults and, what’s more, Dick’s own career has burgeoned.
In the 1980s, I became the first woman president of the Australian Rangeland Society, and chaired their Publications Committee for seven years. With Ray Perry’s encouragement, I became active in the management of International Rangeland Congresses, becoming a member of the International Continuing Committee in 1991 and its first woman chair from 1995-9. I was honoured to receive an award from the US Society for Range Management in 1996, for work on vegetation and soil change and the concepts of ‘thresholds’ or stepwise rather than continuous change. Once again I was supported by a colleague, this time Prof Bill Laycock from the University of Wyoming.
If I reflect on where I started and where I am now, I am reminded once again of the importance of keeping an open mind about possibilities. I inherited responsibility for our lab’s remote sensing group a few years ago, knowing almost nothing about remote sensing. While they may say that I still don’t, I have learned an enormous amount from them and greatly enjoy working with a skilled and dedicated team. Currently, I am managing a project in the Rajasthan desert with colleagues from Alice and Jodhpur, to test and adapt our remote sensing technologies to Indian needs, including their social and economic context. This is a far cry from nutrient cycling in pine plantations, and something for which one could never have planned.
Science is rarely a solo occupation in my field. Expert technical support as well as scientific advice have been essential to the things I do – it’s pleasure to acknowledge all my colleagues and the adventures we’ve shared, sometimes in remote and beautiful parts of the outback.
From time to time I talk to school students about what they need to become scientists and technicians, and I am sure they expect a list of subjects. What we have found in our lab, and what I think is generally true, is that subjects are just one aspect of the skills that people need to have rewarding careers. A delight in ideas, an open mind, a willingness to change and the ability to work in teams are also key skills. On the other side, we need mentors and opportunities, sometimes simply luck! I believe I have had plentiful luck.
Margaret Friedel is a Principal Research Scientist at the Centre for Arid Zone Research in Alice Springs, part of CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems.