Please contact the organiser before attending this event in case it has been cancelled.

In recognition of 2020 as the UN International Year of Plant Health, this History Council of Victoria seminar will illuminate the challenging and contested past, present and future of Victoria’s native vegetation.

This is a free event however bookings should be made through the HCV website.

Professional historian Dr Gary Presland, author of many books about Victoria’s natural and human heritage (including Understanding our natural world: the Field Naturalists Club of Victoria 1880-2015) will speak about the importance of native vegetation in understanding past human activity.

Professor Mike Clarke from the Centre for Future Landscapes at La Trobe University will consider the place of fire in the history of Victoria’s vegetation: ‘The Bush will be OK, it’s evolved to cope with fire…hasn’t it?’.

Dr Lilian Pearce, a research fellow on the ARC-funded project Owning nature: mapping the contested country of private protected areas and a member of the Landscape Reference Group with the National Trust of Australia (Victoria), will consider the changing role of history in contemporary environmental management activities.

This seminar contributes to the 2020 Australian Heritage Festival for which the theme is ‘Our Heritage for the Future’. The discussion will be chaired by Professor Alistair Thomson of Monash University.