Doug Ralph

Doug Ralph (10 July 1948 – 24 February 2015) was an Australian historian, environmentalist and activist.

Doug Ralph was the fifth generation descendant of ancestors who came to Mount Alexander in the Goldrush of the 1850s, and he was born in Castlemaine, living in the area all of his life and working as a self-employed carpenter.

Doug Ralph became acquainted with a specific forest type found in Central Victoria, the Box-Ironbark, and built his knowledge of its ecology, geology, botany, biology and history during his lifelong study of a very specific area, the Fryers Forest and the catchment of Columbine Creek in particular, and it is for this thorough local knowledge, applicable to far-reaching discovery, that he became known. As contributor of, and consultant about, such discrete expertise he is acknowledged in a number of diverse reports. A passionate protector of the local environment, in 1997 Ralph became founding president of the Friends of the Box Ironbark Forests, for whom he conducted bush walks for more than fifteen years, from the late 1990s. He was a contributor to the formation of, and first president of, Connecting Country, a community-based not-for-profit organisation that "operates at a landscape scale to increase, enhance and restore biodiversity across the Mount Alexander Shire and surrounds in Central Victoria".

"Historically, the early white settlers described the land as “park-like” – the forests had big trees with space in between. That’s what (British explorer) Major Mitchell described when he came through this area. But they cut down the big trees and when you do that you get a denser, coppiced, multi stemmed growth.[...] Once grazing stops, life comes back from nowhere. Where I live there were cattle for over 100 years, but the land is repairing itself. Even where you’ve had the worst impacts of mining, [...] where the land has been sluiced, it’s regenerating. You can strip the land bare but a seed will still germinate, a blade of grass will still come up."

• "Doug knew and loved this country; he walked it, he thought about it, he observed its changing, he loved and nurtured it. He was of this place and embedded in this country. Anyone here who ever went on his Sunday morning walks will know what a revelation they were. Doug would stroll along, never in a rush, and take us into gullies to show us where ancient rivers once ran, the stony beds of these waterways now resting on the ridges above, and he’d point out where early white occupants of the land had once tried to build a well, and failed. He’d reveal stories of the rocks and undulations in the land, which we never noticed until it was pointed out to us, by Doug. He gave voice to the country, and put a story on the country, reading it like braille. Jan Wositzky [1]
• Reports in which Ralph is acknowledged include:

• National Parks (Box Ironbark and other parks) Bill. In Parliamentary Debates (Hansard) Legislative Assembly, Fifty-fourth Parliament, First Session Tuesday , 15 October 2002, Parliament of Victoria, p.620.
• 'Swifts Across the Strait'. 2005 Newsletter Swift Parrot Recovery Program (acknowledged for contribution to the Swift Parrot Habitat Management Plan, developed for the Mount Alexander Shire by the Threatened Species Network);
• Macedon Ranges Planning Scheme Amendment of July 2007 ('...for scientific evidence that was used by the CFA to construct the site assessment method'); 'Better Protection for Special Places’,
• Victorian National Parks Association Small Parks Project: Public Land Conservation Priorities for Central Victoria, Victorian National Parks Association, May 2010;
• FOMAD Survey of historical mining sites Little Quartz Hill & Scotchman’s Gully [2];

• "Doug is a passionate advocate for the forests of the Fryerstown area, in particular a special patch which is coursed through by Columbine Creek." Reference on Connecting Country website (Connecting Country (Mount Alexander Region) Inc is a community-based not-for-profit organisation that operates at a landscape scale to increase, enhance and restore biodiversity across the Mount Alexander Shire and surrounds in Central Victoria). [3]
• See Doug Ralph's Blog: Central Victorian Ecology Archived 24 February 2015 at the Wayback Machine.
• quoted by Ingamells, P. (2013). Prospecting: Time for some 'real' changes'. In Park Watch No. 252, Mar 2013: 10-11. Victorian National Parks Association, ISSN 1324-4361
• Shtargot, Sasha (2014). Voice for the voiceless: Sasha Shtargot interviews Doug Ralph. In EarthSong Journal: Perspectives in Ecology, Spirituality and Education. 2 (8), 24-25.
• "Doug Ralph, of Friends of the Box Ironbark, said the trees formed a wildlife corridor into the Box Ironbark Forest that was a tourism selling point. "In a lot of cases it's the only place animals can survive," he said. Melissa Iaria 'Call to save trees' Bendigo Advertiser June 13, 2005 [4]
• 'Mt Alexander Shire ignoring flood history' Bendigo Advertiser Jan. 27, 2012
• "A man respected for his advocacy for the environment, our history and his community".Maree Edwards MP. In Castlemaine Mail February 27, 2015, p.21
• Connecting Country > Vale Doug Ralph Accessed 27 February 2014.
• "Doug Ralph led an excursion on the history of soil in the Mount Alexander region. Doug is a long-time resident of Castlemaine whose broad knowledge of the local environment and its history is unique and well-regarded.[5]"
• Shtargot, Sasha (2014). Voice for the voiceless: Sasha Shtargot interviews Doug Ralph. In EarthSong Journal: Perspectives in Ecology, Spirituality and Education. 2 (8), 24-25.
• Interview by ABC Radio’s Derek Guille with John Flaus and Doug Ralph live at Theatre Royal: [6]

Doug Ralph contested the seat of Bendigo in the 1996 federal election for the Greens, for whom he won 2,534 votes (3.27%), which represented a significant level support for the new party. He was a Greens candidate in the 2002 Victorian State Election and again in 2006. He contested the 2008 Victorian Council Elections standing for the Greens in Calder Ward.[1] In 2010 he stood in the Electoral district of Murray Valley for the Victorian Legislative Assembly.

Ralph presented The History Show on 9.49 Main FM under the banner 'there is never one way to look at history'. Self-educated through his own field explorations and research in public archives, he was an advocate of the practice of the 'citizen-historian'. Ralph appears in, and was consultant for, a film written & co-produced by Jan Wositzky about the Monster Meeting of 15 December 1851, in which between 14,000 and 20,000 miners took part, the biggest protest leading up to the Eureka Rebellion of 1854.

Publications and Presentations

• 2008: Co-authored Vagabond : the story of Charles Sanger.
• 2009, 20 November: John Flaus and Doug Ralph live at Theatre Royal, hosted by Derek Guille, ABC Radio.
• 2011: Presenter at Major Mitchell : Australia Felix Symposium and Exhibition. 23–25 September 2011, Castlemaine Town Hall [1]

He died on 24 February 2015 of a heart attack at his home in Little Bendigo, a suburb of Castlemaine, and is survived by his children Jason, Lindy and Adam.