Paper short abstract:

This paper examines the flows of global capital that have shaped possibilities for life for the endangered Camden White Gum - a Eucalypt found in the Sydney region, Australia - since the 19th Century. It is particularly attentive to the changing relationships between the trees and their landscapes.

Paper long abstract:

The Camden White Gum (Eucalyptus benthamii) is an endangered species of Eucalypt found in the Sydney region, Australia. While the species faces a range of threats, in recent years its future has become even more uncertain with a proposal by the state government to raise the wall of the Warragamba Dam, and in so doing drown the largest remaining population found in the Blue Mountains World Heritage Area. A few scattered stands of these trees can also be found elsewhere, growing along the Nepean River in what is now a predominantly rural and suburban area in Western Sydney. But they too are threatened in a range of ways, including by the reduced germination of their flood-reliant seeds as a result of the changing hydrology of this landscape. This paper uses Anna Tsing, Andrew S. Mathews, and Nils Bubandt’s concept of the “patchy Anthropocene” to examine the more-than-human histories and futures of the trees. It does this by tracing the flows of global capital that have profoundly shaped and reshaped possibilities for life for the trees since the early nineteenth century, with a focus on the changing relationship between the trees and their wider landscapes. It particularly explores how past and contemporary settler Australian relationships with water, and its control and regulation, are unravelling possibilities for ongoing life for the species in a way that is likely to only increase in an era of escalating climatic uncertainty.