The Biggest Estate

9,000 years ago agriculture started in different parts of the planet – The Middle East, China and Greater Australia in the Highlands of New Guinea. Agriculture spread to the Torres Strait but not to mainland Australia. Here people carefully manipulated the available natural plants and animals to greatly increase their food resources. In Victoria a huge communal aquaculture system was engineered. Thousands of people lived in stone houses in settled villages. All over Australia fire was used to create habitats that encouraged particular plants and animals. They transformed the continent into the biggest estate on earth, fully sustainable into the future until outsiders arrive. First there were the maccassan traders from Indonesia, then the Dutch and the English who came to stay in 1788.