SYDNEY, Australia -- Overrun for two months by 16 wannabe "survivors" and more than 200 television production crew, a remote area of northern Queensland is finally getting back to normal. That is, it's reverting to unvisited bushland.
Filming for Survivor: The Australian Outback ended in early December. Now, with just two weeks to go before the U.S. television premiere of the second series, only a skeleton crew remains at the Australian site.
They're carting off the last remains of an ersatz primitivist domain in which contestants alternately bolstered and back-stabbed each other in a Machiavellian maze of tribulations in which $1 million stood at the center.
At its height, the site for the production crew boasted a small city of satellite dishes, equipment trailers and 4-wheel-drive vehicles. These supported an army of technicians whose sole aim was to present the illusion to television viewers they were alone in the Outback with the contestants.
In granting permission to film the show, state authorities worried deeply that the TV types would trash the environmentally sensitive area in pursuit of the ultimate reality program.
So far, these worries appear to have been unfounded. "They seem to have had a pretty positive attitude to the environmental issues, and were keen to mitigate any impacts," said Ian Sinclair, an inspection official with the Queensland Department of Natural Resources. "If the general public were as clean as these people, we'd have a lot fewer hassles."
The lease issued to Survivor included guarantees on waste collection, clearing of vegetation and the need to safeguard rare and endangered plant and animal species from being eaten or trampled by the contestants or their pursuing TV crews, he said.
Among species interested in staying alive were kangaroos, emus, wild pigs, horses, goannas (monitor lizards) and other wildlife. So worried were state authorities that hungry contestants would roast the last members of some species that they took the action of publicly warning the producers of the show.
"Ever since the first approach from the American production company, I have insisted that the highest level of protection is afforded to the environment," Rod Welford, Queensland minister for environment and heritage, proclaimed in a mid-October press release.
As a sign he understood how seriously Queensland took native wildlife, executive producer Mark Burnett donated US$10,000 to a state campaign to save the northern hairy-nosed wombat, an endangered nocturnal local marsupial and one of the world's rarest mammals. Burnett also made clear contestants would be supplementing their meager rations of rice and flour largely with fish taken from the Herbert River, which passes through the contest site.
The competition area was located in a rugged ravine on land adjacent to the remote Lumholtz National Park, about 200 kilometers south of Cairns, which itself is the last town of any size in northern Queensland. The nearest permanent dwelling to the filming site is roughly 25 miles away.
So far, state environmental authorities have visited the Survivor filming site three times on full-day visits. One more visit is expected before the site is entirely returned to its pre-show state and the program is released from a bank guarantee posted as part of its lease agreement.
For the most part, weather was benign during the filming period, without great deluges that can characterize the early part of the rainy season in northern Australia, he said. As survivors were booted off the show one by one, they were allowed to relax and unwind.
"Most of them just wanted food, which was pretty predictable," said Mary Alderman, who operates the El Rancho del Ray retreat where the losers were taken. The small, back-country inn is about two hours away by rough back roads from the filming site.
Alderman was among the first outsiders to see the contestants as they left the hot-house environment of the competition.
After food, most generally wanted a shower and the ability to talk to someone who wouldn't be their friend one minute and executioner the next.
A few unsuccessful survivors went whitewater rafting after their ordeal was over, Alderman said. And since there was no fixed amount of time the contestants were allowed to stay at the inn before moving on, a few hung on quite a while. Since most weren't going to win the $1 million, they clearly understood the value of a parting freebie.
"I had some of them for quite a long time," she said. "They liked it here."
