In the beachside house where I used to live near Cairns in Far North Queensland, looking out through the coconut palms to the placid tropical sea protected by the coral reefs on the horizon, it could be hard to remember the region’s natural perils, and its far from picturesque history. In most seasons you could only swim within protective netting, as deadly stingers lurked in the summer currents. The rainforests were full of scorpions and snakes and ruthless logging operations, the mangrove swamps harboured crocodiles, the mosquitoes carried fatal diseases, cane toads were a plague, the Great Barrier Reef’s corals were dying under too many cruise ships and glass-bottomed boats, the cane fields had been established by the forced labour of Pacific Islanders, and cyclone warnings were common.