Its immaculate golf courses and rolling green farms have made King Island iconic for food and sport tourism. But it is also a reminder of what was lost, as ancient trees were removed to make vast farmland. It took about 200 years to transform a once wild island into an agricultural powerhouse, and modern residents are dealing with the fallout. One of them, local beef farmer Fred Perry, was raised to conquer the land; slashing native vegetation to make way for agriculture. Like many others, he followed in the footsteps of generations of farmers before him, helping tame the Tasmanian island in the middle of Bass Strait into green pastures. When Mr Perry started "bashing and burning" about 50 years ago, much of the damage had already been done. Pointing to an historical photo of a man dwarfed by a metres-wide, freshly felled gum tree, he said: "They just bashed and burned them down, too," the farmer added. Mr Perry keeps the photo alongside stories and records that confirm the presence of ancient trees that once grew proudly among the island's more forested areas, including gum, blackwood and celery top pine. It's not what most of the island looks like today. So what happened? Hundreds of thousands of hectares of native vegetation has been lost since King Island was named in 1801. While an exact amount is not known, researchers estimate fewer than 30 per cent of the island's approximately 1,000 square kilometres is covered with native vegetation, excluding narrow tree lines and roadside vegetation. Starting with the arrival of sealers in the early 1800s and quickly followed by the practice of vegetation clearing to make navigation easier, the steady battering of King Island's natural resources continued throughout the next couple of centuries. Records show the local elephant seal population disappeared shortly after European sealers arrived, followed later by the once endemic King Island emu, tiger quolls, wombats and various bird and plant species. But serious land clearing began in the mid 20th century, when soldier settlers used modern machinery and tractors to flatten and sow land already under pressure from a hundred years of fires. The island's remaining scrub is still home to the King Island brown thornbill, as well as the orange-bellied parrot and the King Island scrubtit. All three are at risk of extinction. Reformed farmer's change of heart But attitudes have changed. About 30 years ago, Mr Perry's kids came home from school and told him he needed to look after the environment. Noting a lack of birds around his property, it sparked an "awareness" in Mr Perry, marking the start of a journey he and his wife, Shona Perry, are still on today. Using a mixture of their own money and government grants, the Perrys began fencing off and sometimes planting out sections of land with endemic and native plant species. "There are multiple things that have accumulated to the positive from that event," Mr Perry said, excitedly. "Water quality in the creeks and animal welfare with shelter. The family farm now hosts more than 40 species of local and migratory birds throughout the year. "I class the birds as a monitoring part of the property, because birds are smarter than us," Mr Perry chuckled. Mr Perry is not the only islander advocating change. King Island hosts multiple environmental volunteer groups, reserves, bird monitoring and weed management projects, often backed by farmers and landowners who want to learn from the mistakes of the past. "We just love it. We see things that we'd … never, ever took any notice of. Some of these migrating birds, over the years we've got to know what time of the year they're coming through, and we look out for them."