Jarrah karri

The jarrah and karri country of southwestern Australia included Wadandi lands, where Indigenous communities lived long before European settlement. Dutch navigators rounded the southwestern cape in 1622 and called the region Leeuwin's Land. Passing ships gave new names to coastal landmarks, but sustained colonial occupation came much later.

In 1830 John Molloy led settlers to Augusta. The dense timber made clearing difficult and slowed their efforts. John Garrett Bussell searched farther north and obtained a grant near the Vasse in 1832, attracted by open, green country. In 1834 the Bussell brothers and other settlers moved there from Augusta; by 1835 people in Perth were calling the settlement Busselton. Fencing and cultivation encroached on Wadandi country, and relations deteriorated into disputes and violence. By the end of this period, the forest's northern approaches were becoming a contested frontier of colonial farming.