It is true that when it comes to diet koalas are not exactly adventurous, a fact that has contributed to the stereotype of them being somehow akin to marsupial stoners, drugged out on a sleep-inducing menu of eucalyptus that no other creature could tolerate. But of course, the evolutionary logic of resilience has allowed for this preference, which, as Clode shows, has served the koala well in terms of pure survival. Plus, it turns out that not only are koalas not off-their-heads all day on the aromatic oils of the national genus, they are rather well-adjusted dwellers of the forests that Clode describes so beautifully as “monuments of photosynthetic power”.

Clode’s lens is spot-on in the focus she places throughout the book on the inextricability of the koala with its habitat, and her interest in the longue duree migrations of the species only confirms this ecological perspective. Her view of the networked nature of life allows her to understand how “the solitary koala is not alone”, and also how our own understanding of the koala is culturally dependent.

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Appropriately then, her book ranges across an evaluation of the fossil record and current biological scientific data as well as the intervolved understandings to be gleaned from ongoing Aboriginal mythologies. She also recounts the dramatic challenges the species has faced due to colonisation, including the vile usuries of the Australian fur trade that saw more than 2 million koalas slaughtered for export in 1924 alone.

The writerly task of synthesising the breadth of this survey is complicated by a challenge that is at the heart of natural history writing in the Anthropocene, that of resisting anthropomorphic presumptions while accepting that we humans are storytelling animals. The difficulty of getting this balance right can at times bury Clode’s prose style in dutiful information but at other times it has her singing through.

Whatever the case, the humility of her approach encourages us to interrogate the koala information, or lore, even as we receive it, thus promoting the kind of active reading that must surely enhance the way we go on to experience the landscape around us.

Gregory Day’s most recent book, Words Are Eagles: Selected Writings on the Nature & Language of Place, is published by Upswell.

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