The Alstonville Plateau

The Alstonville Plateau is the only place in Australia where peanuts are still "stooked". Photograph by Leanne Gould.

The Alstonville Plateau in far north-eastern NSW is a fertile subtropical landscape, patterned with paddocks of grazing cattle and rows of tropical fruit trees. In 1996 Jane Gardiner and Stephanie Knox undertook a study of the Plateau, partially funded by a grant under the Heritage Assistance Program. The study was initiated by local residents who were concerned that rapid population growth was placing pressures on the landscapes and historic villages of the Plateau.

In the everyday landscape of the Alstonville Plateau researchers Jane Gardiner and Stephanie Knox looked at evidence of human occupation and change. Ms Gardiner sums up the significance of the Plateau as 'landscape that not only tells about the agricultural history of the far north coast of the State, but also tells the story of the natural environment and the rainforest remnants'.

Today the Alstonville Plateau is a rural landscape with large scale macadamia and tropical fruit orchards. However, the beautiful views of rolling hills, the Border Ranges and the Pacific Ocean are the result of rainforest clearances in the late 19th century.

The Plateau was originally covered in tall subtropical rainforest known locally as the 'Big Scrub'. In the 1840s timber cutters took most of the best cedar from the area then known as Duck Creek. The settlers who followed cleared the Plateau for sugar-cane plantations and then dairy farms. Remnants of the rainforest survive in parks, some set up as early as the 1890s.

Australia's first commercial macadamia plantation was located on the Alstonville Plateau. Macadamia nuts grew naturally on the basaltic plateau, but the plants were sparse with not much fruit. From the 1860s settlers cultivated the slow growing plants, but it was not until 1888 that Charles Staff established an orchard, the first commercial plantation of a native Australian species. This orchard is still growing and producing nuts.

Towards the end of the 19th century the Department of Agriculture in NSW became concerned about agricultural practices on the far north coast. In 1893 the Wollongbar Experimental Farm was established on the Plateau. Only the second experimental farm to be opened in NSW, it worked closely with the local farmers. 'It was a centre of attraction for the local area at the time' said Ms Gardiner.

The local community has a special association with the landscape of the Plateau and participated in the study by nominating items or valued attributes of the area. Students at the Southern Cross University are now looking at the heritage items that were identified in the study with a view to having them listed on the Ballina Local Environment Plan and staff at the university are also making submissions to the North Coast Regional Environment Plan.