For the past 50 years, ecologist and botanist, Jamie Kirkpatrick has been returning to study sites on The Queens Domain — monitoring how the park has been bursting back to biodiverse life after two centuries of hard use.
The Queens Domain, or The Domain as Hobartians call it, contains a nationally significant grassland and is home to endangered species — just a half-hour stroll from the Hobart CBD.
"Grasslands in south-eastern Australia have been almost totally wiped out because they happen to be on the best soils," says Professor Kirkpatrick, of the University of Tasmania.
"They were occupied initially for pastoralism, then for agriculture or urban [development]."
Visiting The Domain's rare grasslands with Professor Kirkpatrick involves getting on hands and knees to search for tiny native herbs or bandicoot diggings. He knows the scientific name of every plant species and greets them like old friends.
"[The Domain] was the first place that I started long-term monitoring; it's one of the places in Tasmania I'm very strongly attached to," he says.
History going back millennia
Greg Lehman, Pro Vice-Chancellor of Aboriginal Leadership at the University of Tasmania, says the area was managed by Aboriginal people for "tens of thousands of years".
"The Domain is one of the last places that the Muwinina people, the traditional owners of the area, nipaluna, occupied," Professor Lehman says.
"They continued to camp on The Domain right up until the late 1820s … and there are remains of their living places in the form of middens all around the lower slopes of The Domain.
"In the Hobart area, it's the last surviving cultural landscape that has been created by Aboriginal burning over millennia."
Historical writings, maps and artworks have provided Professor Kirkpatrick with hints as to what the area looked like.
Early writings describe "a gentleman's park", with red-green kangaroo grass swaying under "spreading umbrageous trees".
The kangaroo grass was kept short with pademelons, wombats, wallabies, and kangaroos constantly grazing the lawn.
Early European history
Since those days, The Domain has undergone a lot of change.
Once Hobart Town formed, The Domain was used to graze livestock, "both legally and illegally", Professor Kirkpatrick says.
Hungry livestock gobbled many of the trees and shrubs and, by the 1850s, the native grasses were feeling the strain of the 'uncontrolled commons'.
Stock was taken off The Domain in the 1940s, but by then there were no kangaroos, wallabies or pademelons.
Without hungry marsupials to keep the plants in check, The Domain "took off" and, by the time Professor Kirkpatrick first surveyed the place in 1974, there was a lot of invasive gorse and south African bone seed.
The spiky invasives formed thickets that pushed out native plants and animals.
Since the 1970s, City of Hobart workers and volunteers have made these species almost rare, but an unexpected species has started causing problems: the she-oak.
Cutting down native trees to help the environment
She-oaks are native to Tasmania but were historically quite rare due to fire and grazing from marsupials.
In recent decades, their numbers have exploded on The Domain.
Professor Kirkpatrick likens she-oaks to "shiraz" because it "is a marvellous tree in moderation" but does cause problems in excess.
They are thirsty plants, leaving the soil dry for other species. Their needles create a thick mat that is high in nitrogen but hard for any young plants to germinate in.
For several years, City of Hobart workers have been busy removing she-oaks to return the landscape to grassy woodlands — and they are seeing results.
Standing on a border between thick straggly she-oaks and diverse woody grassland, Matthew Bartlett, team leader of the Fires and Biodiversity Unit for the city smiles as he admires his team's work.
"You can see how, as soon as you open all the natives, the grasses and sedges take off — they love it," Mr Bartlett says.
Species return
Once banished, wallabies and pademelons are also coming back in force — as are more vulnerable species such as the southern brown and eastern barred bandicoot.
Professor Kirkpatrick describes the return of the bandicoot as "absolutely gobsmacking", and says their presence is helping the grassland repair.
Their diggings create space for invertebrates to live in and new plants to germinate. Each year a large population of bandicoots can turn over 2 to 4 per cent of the ground. Professor Kirkpatrick says this is "really important" for the health of the soil.
Tiny, native plants such as orchids, lilies, and billy buttons that thrive between clumps of native grass are also returning.
"Some of them only survived under exotic trees and others managed to hang on growing in gravel heaps," Professor Kirkpatrick says.
What next for The Domain?
Just like the rest of the world, climate change will challenge The Domain, so when Mr Bartlett makes management decisions for the park he likes to think "400 years" into the future — that's the life span of a eucalypt.
His team is now considering planting seeds from northern Tasmania that are better suited to hot dry conditions.
Fire is an important part of how the park is managed now, but Professor Lehman hopes that the City of Hobart will involve Tasmanian Aboriginal people in the burning regimes, "in a similar way as to how it was managed by Aboriginal people for many thousands of years".
"There is huge potential for the City of Hobart to build collaborative relationships with Aboriginal land managers," Professor Lehman says.
No matter how The Domain is managed, it will be assiduously tracked by ecologists. But after 50 years it is not Professor Kirkpatrick getting his hands dirty.
"I'm passing the baton" he laughed. "I've got an honours student doing it now".
