One bright day in December 2001, sixty-two-year-old Germaine Greer found
herself confronted by an irresistible challenge in the shape of sixty
hectares of dairy farm, one of many in south-east Queensland that, after
a century of logging, clearing and downright devastation, had been
abandoned to their fate.
She didn't think for a minute that by restoring the land she was saving
the world. She was in search of heart's ease. Beyond the acres of exotic
pasture grass and soft weed and the impenetrable curtains of tangled
Lantana canes there were Macadamias dangling their strings of unripe
nuts, and Black Beans with red and yellow pea flowers growing on their
branches . . . and the few remaining White Beeches, stupendous trees up
to forty meters in height, logged out within forty years of the arrival
of the first white settlers. To have turned down even a faint chance of
bringing them back to their old haunts would have been to succumb to
despair. Once the process of rehabilitation had begun, the chance proved
to be a dead certainty. When the first replanting shot up to make a
forest and rare caterpillars turned up to feed on the leaves of the new
young trees, she knew beyond doubt that at least here biodepletion could
be reversed.
Greer describes herself as an old dog who succeeded in learning a load
of new tricks, inspired and rejuvenated by her passionate love of
Australia and of Earth, most exuberant of small planets.
