How The 5 Themes Of Geography Have Affected The People In Australia
Some countries out there are very interesting and exciting, but you can’t go there because you are busy, and you just can’t afford it. One of not the most interesting countries out there is Australia because of how many unique species live there and how people have interacted with the environment. I will be talking about how the 5 themes of geography have affected the people who live here and many strange things that live and happen in Australia.
Australia is located at, well, Australia, but it is never that simple. It is the massive island that is way far south of Japan but north of Antarctica. In the perspective of latitude and longitude it is located at 25⁰south and 135⁰East. It has a very serene landscape in some parts and others is a bustling city. Most of Australia is not populated and has less than 1 person per square kilometer. As such, most of Australia is untouched except for some roads and is flat apart from some mountains.
Australia is home to 7 formal regions, including an island. They are Western Australia, the Northern Territory, South Australia, Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, and the island of Tasmania. There are also metric tons of functional regions, but the few I am mentioning are Canterbury-Bankstown, Goulburn, Gosford-Wyong, and South Sidney with Inner Sidney. There are also a few perceptual regions. These include and are not limited to the Outback, the Gold Coast, and Tropical North Queensland.
Human environment interactions are present in Australia. Due to the hot climate, people have a tough time growing crops, but they also get to enjoy the beach year-round. Australia is also abundant in minerals like iron and diamond, but people mining these up is harming the environment. Deforestation is also apparent in Australia with the forest there.
Australia is also home to its fair share of the weird in the world. Like the Gympie plant that you do not want to touch. It apparently feels like being burned by hot acid and electrocuted at the same time. On Charismas Island, there are migrations over the island by thousands of Red Crabs! It is also home to its fair share of lizards. The Thorny Devil is a lizard the size of a gecko that has thorns all over its body. The Bearded Dragon is a large lizard that has a beard under its mouth that it can puff up to ward off predators. They are also household pets and are very social and very funny, as each one has its own unique personality. Australia is also home to the Frilled Lizard. The Frilled Lizard has a frill around its head like a Dilophosaurus and when it shows its frill, you had better back up, otherwise they will chase you and they are fast. The Komodo Dragon also lives here and is one of the biggest lizards in the world! Also, there is the occasional Coconut Crab, which is massive and scary, and looks more like an armored spider than a crab. As you may already know, the Kangaroo also lives here. There are also a multitude of different species of spiders and scorpions. The Koala also has homes in the forest of Australia. There is one occurrence that is scary and weird.
Australia will occasionally have rat plagues. Mice that stowed away on trading ships when Australia was first discovered were released but without any natural predators, their population soon grew out of control. The rats would even kill livestock if they got to them in barns. People would starve because they ran out of food and the rats weren’t dying fast enough. People tried pesticides and that worked for a while, but the rats just came back again and again and again. The only thing that somewhat works was poisoning the crops. When the rats came back, they ate the crops and the fields were soon full of dead rat carcasses. But the rats would come back, but in much smaller numbers. And that’s not the only thing that was brought over when Australia was discovered.
European Rabbits were introduced as it was sport to hunt and kill them. But with few predators and conditions that allowed them to reproduce year-round, they soon had a rabbit problem on their hands. So, they decided to introduce a predator of the European rabbit, but it ended up eating easier prey that is found in Australia. The rabbits would devastate the grasslands and eat crops. Eventually people began to shoot any rabbit they saw. In 1920, there were over 10 billion rabbits all over Australia, and that number has diminished drastically. Unfortunately, they are so widespread of a problem that they never go away.
