Susan bought a rural property as a ‘vague retirement plan’. Now she’s using it to reverse history

Regular flights to distant Christmas and Cocos (Keeling) islands to attend pregnant Malay, Chinese and Muslim women earned her a General Practice Prize for Excellence in Population Health. She even found herself performing emergency brain surgery on a man on Christmas Island, drilling a hole in his skull to relieve pressure after he fell down concrete steps. It was the first – and last – time she carried out such a procedure.

In 2017, Downes was awarded an Order of Australia for “significant service to rural and remote medicine and Indigenous health”. Her love of remote and rural obstetric care saw her continuing to fly north even after she purchased the farm. “There’s a fine balance between working less and retaining my credentials. But last year, I found a wonderful doctor who I felt could take over from me. It was incredibly sad to leave, but I did it. The mob still rings me and asks me things.”

The thrill of delivering babies or chasing goannas with her patients has given way to other unexpected pleasures at Mount Mackie, Downes tells me over a pot of tea at the 100-year-old homestead. “I’m not advocating that it all goes back to bush,” she says. “I’ve just realised that you can treat the land differently.”

As if giving their approval to her efforts, animals like echidnas, a carpet snake and families of wallabies, or euros, have reappeared. Understorey plants, not seen for decades due to stock grazing, are poking their heads up again – yellow buttercup (hibbertia) flowers, tufty mulla mulla and a strange, spiky acacia that turns out to be a threatened species. BirdLife Australia has selected Mount Mackie as a site for one of its “Birds on Farms” surveys and is already documenting an increase in species.

Mount Mackie is representative of hundreds of landcare projects occurring across the nation, says Paul Della Libera, head of natural capital at Landcare Australia. “While individually they may be small, cumulatively they add up to a significant amount of good-quality work, but we don’t often see it.”

Established in 1989 by former prime minister Bob Hawke to spearhead a national movement, Landcare Australia supports 6000 landcare and community-led environmental groups, and more than 140,000 volunteers. “There is plenty of good work like this happening with community groups, First Nations groups, not-for-profits and farming communities,” says Della Libera. “We also make sure farmers are involved in the process of what works for them. Some areas that are non-productive could be put to a better use, like creating windbreaks, vegetating ridgetops and creek lines, things they can’t get a dollar out of but may enable them to have a greener conversation with people they sell their produce to.

“When we look at the scale of land across Australia that needs some sort of rehabilitation, it’s in the millions of hectares. While a lot has been put into national parks, covenants, reserves and the like, the private land estate – including Indigenous-owned land – occupies about 60 per cent of our land mass.”

Meanwhile, Downes says she’s happy she no longer has to contend with medical clinics or operating-theatre lists, but life doesn’t seem any less busy. “I have ordered 1000 litres of herbicide to honour the contract of 52,200 seedlings [supplied by her local Landcare group] for next year,” she tells me on a call after my visit. “I’ve just hitched my six-wheel trailer now to collect it.”

Downes knows nature can’t be hurried, but a date looms in her mind. “Even if it’s just my family and friends, we’ll gather at the summit on August 7, 2030 to acknowledge the 200th anniversary of Dale standing there. By then, I’m hoping that the whole fenced area will be planted with native species, that Aboriginal elders will make this place part of reconciliation and healing, and that there will be public access to share the beauty and spirit of Mount Mackie.”

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