This is a response to Ravkaran Grewal’s article Imperial Botany published in the Semester 2 Week 3 edition of Honi Soit, dated 20th August 2025. After reading it, one may be forgiven for thinking that botanical gardens — particularly the Royal Botanic Garden Sydney (RBGS) — are still stuck in their old roles as platforms for enabling colonisation and capitalism. Historically this is true, but they have developed far beyond that. Crucially, some of these developments are reparations that place Indigenous voices front and centre in prominence, policy, and practice, and are worthy of being celebrated, or at the very least mentioned.
The author states: “Botanical Gardens have lost some of their former significance here [as instruments of neo-colonialism] and instead mostly focus their research on ecological preservation”. With the RBGS at least, it does much more than is captured by these mere two words, and in part involves enlightening the public via education – especially of First Nations’ botanical wisdom.
To provide some background, I was formerly an Education Officer with the RBGS (then managed together with Centennial Parklands under the NSW Office of Environment and Heritage) from 2017-2022. It was the first job I received as a recent migrant; a non-white, non-Aboriginal person being given a fair go by an equal opportunity employer in my adopted country. During the COVID-19 lockdowns the RBGS was once again my lifeline, co-opting me and other fellow Education Officers who were out of work to digitise and curate its vast herbarium and seed specimens, in preparation for their relocation to the PlantBank at the Australian Botanic Garden (ABG) in Mount Annan.
Thus, to me, the botanic garden represents a mother: a provider, a nurturer that welcomed me to establish new roots in Australia, to survive and thrive; a protector that safeguards her seeds as insurance against extinction; a teacher that gently grew my knowledge and appreciation for our rich and beautiful biodiversity both native and foreign, embracing plant matter of this country and out of it alike, so that I became capable of teaching about this to others in turn. This is my lived experience.
We can look at the First Encounters Garden section in the RBGS, featuring an unmissable 52-meter storyline of the histories of the Gadigal people, their relationships with the myriad native flora and with the early settlers? The article cherry-picks one foreign plant as an example to portray botanical gardens negatively as bastions of colonial conquest, while an entire garden space dedicated to sharing First Nations’ perspectives is glaringly omitted as if it does not exist.
Further down just past Macquarie Wall, one encounters a Blackbean Tree (Castanospermum australe), a species whereby all of its trees in NSW have been traced back to one single mother seed. A cross-cultural research team from various botanic gardens, universities, and the Herbarium NSW worked together with the Aboriginal Heritage and Joint Management Team and consulted many Elders to make this discovery. They combined genomic studies with analyses of songlines describing ancestral journeys to map this culturally significant resource plant across the state, dispersed mainly by hand rather than natural means as was previously assumed. This collaboration was so successful that the research team is now applying the same methodology into investigating the dispersal of the Bunya Pines (Araucaria bidwillii), sacred trees for many Aboriginal groups that became gathering sites which facilitated trade, networking, corroborees, and festivals during its fruiting season.
The RBG and Domain Trust (which manages the RBGS and ABG) developed its Reconciliation Action Plan 2021-2023 and First Nations Engagement Strategy 2021-2026 specifically for “embedding Aboriginal and Torres Straits Islander cultural protocols, knowledge and perspectives in all aspects of our activities”. Yet long before this, the organisation was already demonstrating that it was starting to talk the talk. With some school programs, my role would overlap with a First Nations Education Officer to present a wholesome learning experience where Western science and knowledge would complement Indigenous oral histories i.e. Connection and Country, Aboriginal People and Plants, Food in Australia, Plant Connections and Purposeful Plants.
National Sorry Day events have been held annually at the Stolen Generations Memorial in the ABG since 2018. The Community Greening Program supports Aboriginal communities (including in rural NSW) to create living spaces following traditional custodial approaches, and language revitalization through poetry in the Gadigal language at RBGS, aimed at reconnecting young children with their cultural roots.
Emeritus Professor Susan Martin cites examples of the Western Australian Botanic Garden and Inland Botanic Gardens in Mildura, favouring native and Indigenous gardens over the traditional heritage European style for decades. Many gardens nowadays provide heritage walks, tours, and talks by Indigenous owners, making Acknowledgment of Country a real practice for and within these institutions, not just lip service. The Aboriginal Heritage Walk at the Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria (RBGV) and Harbour Heritage Tours of the RBGS are reserved exclusively for First Nations guides to conduct.
For an experience that will also enrich your tastebuds and honour local ingredients in native cuisine, the Aboriginal Bush Tucker tour at RBGS is available for booking all year round. With a simple browse in The Garden Shop, one can also easily find many handiworks made by First Nations artists across NSW and from other states.
Exhibitions that directly address the topics of colonisation have been hosted at these sites, such as Garden Variety at the RBGV (2021) and the Sea of Hands artwork installation at the RBGS (2022) by Yaegl woman and award-winning artist Frances Belle Parker. The latter is part of an ongoing movement that began with the first Sea of Hands planted outside Parliament House on 12th October 1997 organised by Australians for Native Title Reconciliation (ANTaR): a powerful, visible symbol of solidarity with Aboriginal and Torres Straits Islander peoples and support for reconciliation.
To promote science (including ethnobotany) and natural history to the wider public during the National Science Week, RBGS also collaborates in a joint program with the Australian Museum, another cultural institution of colonial heritage that is striving to honour First Nations’ voices in its education and exhibition spaces today. To quote a former officer of the Herbarium NSW: “So many people would have no connection to the unbuilt world if not for botanic gardens and museums.”
All of these are before considering the other positives that botanic gardens provide: habitats for wildlife including endangered species; urban green spaces for tourism, public recreation and well-being; venues for milestone events; ambassadors for promoting environmental awareness.
The author’s dedication to digging up dirt on the colonial foundations of our botanical gardens is remarkable and indeed, this chequered history is neither being denied nor forgotten by these institutions. But this is only a half-truth. Failing to research, acknowledge and make visible the improvements that they are making in contemporary practice, thereby creating an impression as if they are doing nothing to correct the wrongs of their past, is an incredible disservice to them and the many people (Indigenous and non-Indigenous alike) working hard to make reconciliation a reality.
A little thanks for these unsung heroes would go a long way.
Editors’ note: the processes to acknowledge Country and First Nations peoples and sovereignty are still imperfect, and reconciliation is ongoing. Community-oriented programs are vital to reconciliation, but programs or institutions that seek to do so are not thus absolved of historically perpetuating colonial ideals. Sovereignty has not been ceded, and the land upon which the Botanical Gardens have been built always was and always will be Aboriginal land.
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