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It became like this from a long, long time ago. It started when humans first appeared on Earth. Like about millions of years ago.
Between about 100,000 and 35,000 b.c.e.., early humans spread from Africa to Europe, Asia, and Australia. Humans first migrated to the Americas from Asia as long ago as 25,000 b.c.e.
Eternity. There are no roads across the Pacific.
From the most eastern point of Australia, Cape Byron in New South Wales, to the most western point of Australia, Steep Point in Western Australia, is a distance of almost 4,000km (2485 miles).
The continent of Australia was first given the official name of Australia in 1824. As a nation, Australia became the Commonwealth of Australia at Federation on 1 January 1901.
The original rabbit-proof fence stretches across 1,833 km of Western Australia. Two additional fences were built shortly after the first one, for a total rabbit-proof fence that is 3,256 km long.
The first people arrived in Australia about 65,000 years ago, having traveled by boat from Indonesian islands.
8 months.
8 months.
That across the Nullarbor Plain in S. Australia. It's about 360 miles long.
Australia was discovered by humans long before New Zealand. Australia has evidence of human habitation 50 000 years ago, while the earliest evidence in New Zealand is from 700 years ago. New Zealand is one of the last land masses to be inhabited by humans, which is why the New Zealand native ecology is so sensitive to the impact of humans - it has had very little time to adjust. Australia was also the first of the two countries to be sighted by Europeans. The first documented European sighting was in 1606 for Australia, by Willem Janszoon from the Netherlands, and for New Zealand it was 1642, by Abel Tasman, also of the Netherlands.
As far as I know, the earliest deforestation caused by humans was in Australia about 40,000 years ago. So it has been going on for a long time.