Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
This is 99% Invisible. I'm Roman Mars. Over the years in this job, I've learned a lot of cocktail party facts about the built environment. For example, the tallest building in the world is the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. But the largest building in the world by volume is a Boeing airplane factory in Everett, Washington. It's 472 million cubic feet.
The longest bridge is in China, as is the longest wall. No surprise there. But what about the longest fence? Reporter Shirley Wong traveled deep into rural Australia to find it.
The longest fence in the world begins just a few hours north of Brisbane on the outskirts of a small town called Jindawi. Jindawi has a hardware store, an accountant's office, a butcher shop, a beauty salon, and a small hotel on top of a pub. Oh, I've got a meat tray raffle. I love those. But I wasn't here to win a meat tray. I came to Jindawi to meet Doug Henning.
He's a former tourism officer who agreed to give me a tour of the fence his town is famous for. Hi, so nice to meet you.
Thank you. I've been watching the weather.
Amazing.
The clouds are going that way. So we should be lucky this afternoon.
I met up with Doug outside the Jindawi Cultural Centre right in the middle of town. And he was standing next to an almost seven foot tall sculpture of a dog.
It's all made from small pieces of metal welded together.
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Chapter 2: What is the longest fence in the world and where does it start?
They have reddish blonde fur, white bellies, and pointy ears. They look kind of like, I don't know, buff Shiba Inus.
Given this giant, prominent statue, you might think that the people of Jindawi worshipped the mighty dingo. But Doug informed me this is very much not the case. So there's not a lot of dingo fans in town?
Not a great lot.
In fact, Jindawi's famous fence was built to keep dingoes out.
It's called the Dingo Barrier Fence, and it stretches across the southeastern corner of the continent, separating dingoes from the part of the country where the vast majority of Australians actually live. And it is the longest continuous fence in the world.
At over 5,000 kilometers, the Dingo Barrier Fence is longer than the distance between San Francisco and New York City. And in a field just outside of Jindawi is where the fence starts.
That big tree there is the true start of the fence and it goes that way.
To be honest, it's not much to look at. Just a regular wire fence that's about six feet tall to prevent dingoes from jumping over. I want to stand next to it and see if it goes above my head. I think it should. I'm 5'4". Okay, I'm like about the same height as it.
You are standing on a 12-inch mound.
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Chapter 3: How did the Dingo Barrier Fence transform the Australian landscape?
Kangaroo, oh.
Yep.
I'm back in Jindawi in the eastern state of Queensland, and I'm walking along the dingo fence with Doug Henning.
Australia still spends big money on this fence, $10 million a year funded through state and local governments and a fence tax on sheep and cattle farmers.
The fence is maintained by a team of patrolmen who divvy up the length and each take care of a section. Doug pointed to a hole that had been patched over.
See this piece of mesh here?
Yeah.
There's a hole underneath there.
Okay, I see that, yeah.
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Chapter 4: What role did invasive species play in the creation of the fence?
Coming up after the break, we take you to an island off the coast of Australia where dingoes run free. And where a recent tragedy has people asking whether dingoes and humans can safely coexist.
When I finished touring the dingo fence with Doug, I was a little disappointed that apart from the metal sculpture, Doug and I hadn't actually seen a dingo. But there is another place in Australia where anyone who wants to see dingoes is likely to find them. It's an island that was once called Fraser Island, but now goes by its indigenous bachala name, Garry.
Gari is covered in tropical rainforest with long white sand beaches and a series of spectacular freshwater lakes. The island is home to a small population of dingoes that have evolved in isolation from the animals on the mainland.
When Gari was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1992, the dingoes on the island were officially named an indigenous species and provided legal protection, meaning they are allowed to roam free.
The Bachala Aboriginal Corporation hires rangers to deal specifically with dingoes, which they call Wangari. It's a role that Bachala people have played for thousands of years long before colonization. They recognized dingoes as dangerous animals, but ones that were worth keeping around.
And they developed non-lethal ways to manage them. For example, if a dingo got too familiar or audacious, they would ward him off with safety sticks. And the tips they give the visitors today are directly informed by the old ways.
Like if you're in a camp area, you make sure if you see a wongry even looking or lurking around, you make him know that that's your camp area.
Tessa Waya is an officer for the Butchella Aboriginal Corporation and she works with park rangers on Gari. A big part of her job is educating people on how to be safe around dingoes.
You know, with a loud voice, shout, yell. He will know because that's your being the dominant one. And I said, and he will just watch from afar because he knows he's not welcome in there. And that's how that was managed back in the old times to now. You know what I mean?
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