Sustainable land sector development in Northern Australia indigenous rights, aspirations, and cultural responsibilities

245 Pages·2019·53.2 MB·English

by  James

Sustainable Land Sector
Development in Northern Australia

Sustainable Land Sector
Development in Northern Australia
Indigenous Rights, Aspirations, and Cultural
Responsibilities
Edited by
Jeremy Russell-Smith, Glenn James, Howard Pedersen,
and  Kamaljit K. Sangha
(Courtesy of Duwun Tony Lee, Birrimilanga Nadine Lee, Ian Lee, Glenn James)
CRC Press
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Library of Congress Cataloging‑in‑Publication Data
Names: Russell-Smith, Jeremy, editor.
Title: Sustainable land sector development in Northern Australia : indigenous
rights, aspirations, and cultural responsibilities / edited by Jeremy
Russell-Smith, Glenn James, Howard Pedersen, and Kamaljit K. Sangha.
Description: Boca Raton, FL : Taylor & Francis, 2018. | Includes
bibliographical references.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018013164 | ISBN 9781138600201 (hardback : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Aboriginal Australians--Australia--Northern Territory--Social
conditions. | Aboriginal Australians--Land tenure--Australia--Northern
Territory. | Sustainable development--Australia--Northern Territory. |
Land tenure--Australia--Northern Territory.
Classification: LCC GN667.N95 S87 2018 | DDC 338.994--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018013164
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Contents
List of Text Boxes ............................................................................................................................vii
Preface...............................................................................................................................................ix
Acknowledgements ...........................................................................................................................xi
Editors ............................................................................................................................................xiii
Contributors .....................................................................................................................................xv
Chapter 1
2-Way Country – Challenges for Inclusive, Equitable, and Prosperous Development
in North Australia ..............................................................................................................................1
Joe Morrison, Peter Yu, and Melissa George
Chapter 2
Change and Continuity: The North Australia Cultural Landscape ...................................................9
Ricky Archer, Jeremy Russell-Smith, Seán Kerins, Robert Costanza,
Andrew Edwards, and Kamaljit K. Sangha
Chapter 3
North Australian History – Dispossession, Colonisation, and the Assertion of
Indigenous Rights .......................................................................................................................35
Howard Pedersen and Stuart Phillpot
Chapter 4
Economic Development Across the North: Historical and Current Context of
Possible Alternatives ........................................................................................................................53
Rolf Gerritsen, Peter Whitehead, and Natalie Stoeckl
Chapter 5
Towards a Sustainable, Diversified Land Sector Economy for North Australia .............................85
Jeremy Russell-Smith, Kamaljit K. Sangha, Robert Costanza, Ida Kubiszewski,
and Andrew Edwards
Chapter 6
Resilient Communities and Reliable Prosperity ............................................................................133
Glenn James, Bentley James, Joe Morrison, and Douglas Paton
v
vi Contents
Chapter 7
‘Like a Rusty Nail, You Can Never Hold Us Blackfellas Down’; Cultural Resilience
in the Southwest Gulf of Carpentaria ............................................................................................177
Seán Kerins and Jacky Green
Chapter 8
Governing North Australian Landscapes for a Better Future .......................................................203
Allan Dale
Index ..............................................................................................................................................223
List of Text Boxes
Box 2.1 Oral tradition of the Great Inundation ............................................................................19
Box 4.1 The Ord Scheme – A spectacular failed vision ...............................................................55
Box 4.2 emPOWERING Australia’s North ..................................................................................64
Box 4.3 Mine site rehabilitation as an opportunity for aboriginal economic development
in Northern Australia ......................................................................................................70
Box 4.4 Sacred food economic opportunity: The case of Terminalia Ferdinandiana and
the creation of an economic base for Northern Australian homelands, remote
and regional areas ...........................................................................................................75
Box 4.5 Valuing the North Australian conservation estate ..........................................................78
Box 5.1 Valuing pastoral properties in Northern Australia ..........................................................86
Box 5.2 Water, wetlands and ecosystem services .......................................................................107
Box 5.3 A social, economic, and environmental assessment of water resource
development in Northern Australia ...............................................................................109
Box 5.4 High biomass grasses threaten the savanna landscape .................................................116
Box 5.5 Social capital and the creation of an innovative environmental and cultural
enterprise in Arnhem Land ...........................................................................................120
Box 5.6 Indigenous pastoral case studies, north Queensland .....................................................124
Box 6.1 Girringun Aboriginal Corporation case study ..............................................................138
Box 6.2 The importance of language .........................................................................................153
Box 6.3 Recognising indigenous knowledge in a western education paradigm.........................155
Box 6.4 Living with widdijith – protocols for building community resilience ..........................158
Box 6.5 North Australian bushfire & natural hazard (BNH) training: A case study in
building remote community resilience .........................................................................160
Box 6.6 Galiwin’ku Burrmalala – strong winds of change ........................................................164
Box 6.7 Indigenous emergency response prospectus: cyclone Yasi, Girringun
aboriginal corporation ...................................................................................................167
Box 6.8 Keeping track – a toolkit for monitoring and decision making based on
local values ...................................................................................................................168
Box 7.1 Building on native title: the right to trade ......................................................................186
Box 7.2 Land sector opportunities in the NT Gulf region ..........................................................189
Box 7.3 Social enterprise as a model for developing aboriginal lands in the southwest
Gulf country ..................................................................................................................197
vii
viii List of text Boxes
Box 8.1 Myth to reality ...............................................................................................................204
Box 8.2 Peter Yu’s 2016 northern development speech ..............................................................205
Box 8.3 Remote focus on governance ........................................................................................206
Box 8.4 From the grassroots up: the Broome social investment model .....................................214
Box 8.5 What if Native Title was like other property interests? ................................................217
Preface
This book provides a synthesis of a suite of research projects addressing the broad theme,
‘Building community resilience in northern Australia’, focused especially on remote, predomi-
nantly Indigenous (Aboriginal) communities. This research was contracted by the Bushfire and
Natural Hazards Cooperative Research Centre (BNHCRC), Melbourne, in late 2013, and under-
taken under the auspices of the BNHCRC’s ‘northern hub’ administered through Charles Darwin
University (CDU) in partnership with the North Australian Indigenous Land & Sea Management
Alliance Ltd (NAILSMA).
The book incorporates findings from BNHCRC component sub-projects that address a range of
related topics (community resilience and governance, economic opportunities especially through
payments for environmental services, appropriate bushfire and natural hazards training, savanna
fire management, management of high biomass flammable grassy weeds). For reporting and wider
readership purposes, we have intentionally placed these matters in a broader cultural, historical,
environmental, economic, development and governance context. At an early project workshop, we
asked colleagues what issues they considered necessary to illuminate the broad project theme, and
this book is the result. The views expressed are those of respective contributing authors, and do not
purport to represent those of the BNHCRC.
—Jeremy Russell-Smith, Howard Pedersen, Glenn James, and
Kamaljit K. Sangha
ix