1.1.1

Question 1

Wilderness

Answer 1

An environment
that is big, remote,
and untouched (or
relatively untouched)
by humans

Question 2

Mother nature

Question 3

Built environments

Answer 3

Areas that have been
created or modified
by people and
include buildings,
parks and transport
systems

Question 4

Urban environments

Answer 4

Areas of permanent
infrastructure
designed to support
higher population
densities such as
cities and towns

Question 5

Big

Answer 5

Wilderness areas can, like many protected places,
begin as smaller environments that are then
gradually expanded over time. Although, remote
places that become wilderness areas often start
out large, simply because of their remoteness.
How big is big enough to be considered a
wilderness can vary, but a lower limit is often
set at about 2000 hectares. More generally, a
wilderness area needs to be big enough to be self-sufficient in terms of maintaining its ecosystem
processes and biological diversity.
In Victoria, two of the biggest wilderness areas are the Avon Wilderness Park in the Victorian Alps (at
just under 40 000 hectares) and the Big Desert Wilderness Park in the state’s west (at over 100 000 hectares).

Question 6

Remote

Answer 6

Remoteness refers to the ease with which we can access a place. We would typically expect a remote place
to be some distance from large population centres such as Melbourne, Geelong, Ballarat, Bendigo and other
large cities. We would also expect that a remote place doesn’t necessarily have easy transportation access –
limited public transport, probably with no air or rail connections. To get to wilderness you probably have to
drive, likely on unmade roads, and you may also need to walk or cycle to get the last bit of the way.

Question 7

Untouched

Answer 7

There are some places on Earth that humans have yet to travel to, live in or alter in some way – but there
aren’t many. In Australia, there aren’t any of these places – either the many Indigenous communities or the
European settlers, or more recent generations of modern Australians, have walked, ridden or driven pretty
much everywhere across the continent. So, strictly speaking, there aren’t likely to be any ‘untouched’ places.
But when it comes to defining a wilderness area, ‘untouched’ means undamaged or unmodified.
In other words, a wilderness area is a place that looks pretty much as we would expect a place to look
without any major damaging impacts by humans. There are quite a few places like this across Australia,
including in Victoria. We could even consider a place wilderness if it had received some major human
impacts, as long as it were possible to repair and rehabilitate that place.