Rabbit Proof Fence

This is a journey of young girls through the outback of Australia on a mission to reach their mother, who they were savagely taken from by the English appointed ruler of the Aborigine people. This film was based on a book that was adapted from real events of three girls who escaped the Moore River Native Settlement, just north of Perth, and traveled nine weeks to reach their Aboriginal families. Molly, Daisy, and Gracie traveled over 1500miles along the Australian rabbit proof fence while being tracked by a white lawman and a black tracker. They escaped and returned to Jigalong while traveling through some harsh environments with nothing but the clothes on their backs. This is truly a tale of the innocent overcoming the state who were separating aboriginal children from their families.


The Rabbit Proof Fence is actually a real fence built by the Australian government from 1901 to 1907 as a pest exclusion fence. there are three fences, the no.1 which crosses the state from north to south, the no.2 which is west of the first fence and runs parallel, and no.3 which runs east to west and is the smallest of the three. Australia also has a Dingo fence, or dog fence, running east to west in the southeastern part of the country. These fences were built to keep pests out of the western Australia pastoral areas. The country had become over run with rabbits that were originally introduced by a Victorian grazer Thomas Austin in 1859. There were no animals that could eat rabbits, so they flourished and overpopulated the outback. The fence did not stop the rabbits from moving west word and the plaque of rabbits had to be dealt with in other ways. However, this was a major attempt of man trying to control nature.

The effect of the rabbits on the ecology of Australia was devastating. 1/8Th of all mammalian species in the country are now extinct, and the largest contributor has been the rabbits. They are also responsible for the land eroding. They eat the plants which leaves topsoil exposed to sheet, gully, and wind erosion. It takes hundreds of years to regenerate this topsoil.



Well, the fence plays a big part in the movie, and without it the girls would not be able to find their way home through the ruff terrain. Western Australia is Australia's largest state in area, covering almost one third of the mainland. The capitol city is Perth, and it is very isolated from the rest of the large cities in Australia, as it is over 1300miles away from Adelaide. It is the second largest administrative territory in the world. Western Australia contains some of the oldest minerals in the world and are found in the Yilgarn Craton and the Great Western Plateau. The Great Western Plateau occupies most of the state, and the Continent, at roughly four times the size of Texas. Rain rarely falls in this region at about 4-14inches annually. surface water is pretty much non existent aside from a few permanent waterholes. Most of the territory is flat sandy or stony desert with little scrub or tussock grasses. This would be very difficult to live on and most inhabitants need to introduce strong fertilizers for anything to grow in the state.

The main issue depicted in this movie was what is now called the Stolen Generation. The Moore River Native Settlement was a place where Aboriginal orphans who were taken, mostly against their will, to live, go to school, and learn the ways of the English. There is a controversy of this Stolen Generation in Australia still today, as to what degree this really happened, and how many children were taken. The government claimed that it removed these children from their families to protect their interests and provide a better way of life for them. The Aborigines claim that they were taken from happy homes and from all over the country to live in these camps. The movie depicts them as inferior to the white English, and they are being held against their will.