EXTINCT CIRCA 1850
ponrabbel 'The Place'
Somewhat serendipitously a 1969 copy of John Reynolds’ “Launceston; history of an Australian city” landed again in 2015 to tell us about how “Ponrabbel” was understood in 1969. Just looking at sentence one, paragraph one in Chapter One, entitled as it is, “Ponrabbel”, it shines a light on a set of sensibilities that would be fiercely contested in so many ways in a 21st C context. ................ Meaning is always invested in the context. So, it needs to be said that John Reynolds was writing from an ‘adult education’ perspective and in chapter one, addressing the Tasmanian Aboriginal issue. Intriguingly, Reynolds was writing as a historian and a Hobartian. He was nonetheless informed from within, writing from within and somehow centered within, ‘Launceston society’. Nevertheless, the Hobart, Launceston rivalry evident at the time, and still there today, draws the critique that Reynolds comes with ‘Hobartian baggage’. It also needs to be said that John Reynolds had a background as a metallurgist and thus mining and industry also. ...... Hobart being Tasmania's capital its the place where decision making goes on. On the other hand Launceston is/was at the State's economic centre, and the place where all the money was/is actually made. Well that's the argument.
The money to be made is clearly more important than
the extinctions we cause, including our own.
Guy R. McPherson
Biological diversity is messy. It walks, it crawls, it swims,
it swoops, it buzzes. But extinction is silent, and it has
no voice other than our own.
Paul Hawken
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