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Indigenous Rights and Obligations to Manage Traditional Land and Sea Estates in North Australia: The Role of Indigenous Rangers and the I-Tracker Project
Abstract and Figures
North Australia is a significant reservoir for biodiversity and contains some of the least impacted ecosystems found anywhere, but it also faces a range of environmental threats. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island peoples living in north Australia have gained significant legal recognition of their rights to own and manage their traditional lands. Many Indigenous community-based land and sea organizations have emerged that
support ranger programmes that actively manage traditional estates. Coupled with recognition of land claims, support for ranger programmes is a practical and culturally effective way to support the rights of Indigenous peoples to manage their traditional lands under international, national, and customary laws. The I-Tracker project, an initiative of the North Australian Indigenous Land and Sea Management Alliance (NAILSMA),
empowers Indigenous communities by providing them with the tools and skills to effectively collect and manage environmental data. Utilizing robust field computers and internationally-acclaimed CyberTracker® software, the project is underpinned by a set of guiding principles that are centred on the cultural rights
and obligations of Traditional Owners. While focused on providing tools to inform local-level management and decision-making, the project also facilitates data sharing to address regional, national, and international environmental issues, thus supporting Australia in meeting its national and international conservation obligations.
International Union for the Conservation of Nature, Policy Matters 17, 2010
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... Indigenous Australians are increasingly looking to establish contemporary management control over and address a growing array of new threats and issues to the lands and seas for which they have long-held rights and responsibilities for 'Caring for Country' (Kennett et al. 2010). At the same time, they are looking to develop new and innovative livelihood options based on these 'Caring for Country' obligations for their young people and their growing populations in remote locations across a vast and sparse population area (Kennett et al. 2010). ...
... Indigenous Australians are increasingly looking to establish contemporary management control over and address a growing array of new threats and issues to the lands and seas for which they have long-held rights and responsibilities for 'Caring for Country' (Kennett et al. 2010). At the same time, they are looking to develop new and innovative livelihood options based on these 'Caring for Country' obligations for their young people and their growing populations in remote locations across a vast and sparse population area (Kennett et al. 2010). ...
... The legal status of native title over sea country is an emerging situation (George et al. 2004 (Kennett et al. 2010). ...
... The legal status of native title over sea country is an emerging situation [34]. Several court judgments have provided certain rights to coastal Indigenous peoples over their traditional coastal and intertidal estates, commonly referred to as 'sea country' by Aboriginal peoples living on or near the north Australia coast [35]. In 2001, the High Court of Australia found that claims under the Native Title Act can be made over the sea, including intertidal zones, although these rights are non-exclusive. ...
... In 2001, the High Court of Australia found that claims under the Native Title Act can be made over the sea, including intertidal zones, although these rights are non-exclusive. They can include rights to access and extract water for non-commercial purposes, the right to fish, and the right to hunt and gather from the water [35]. ...
Aboriginal participation in water resources decision making in Australia is similar when compared with Indigenous peoples’ experiences in other common law countries such as the United States and Canada; however, this process has taken different paths. This paper provides a review of the literature detailing current legislative policies and practices and offers case studies to highlight and contrast Indigenous peoples’ involvement in water resources planning and management in Australia and North America. Progress towards Aboriginal governance in water resources management in Australia has been slow and patchy. The U.S. and Canada have not developed consistent approaches in honoring water resources agreements or resolving Indigenous water rights issues either. Improving co-management opportunities may advance approaches to improve inter-jurisdictional watershed management and honor Indigenous participation. Lessons learned from this review and from case studies presented provide useful guidance for environmental managers aiming to develop collaborative approaches and co-management opportunities with Indigenous people for effective water resources management.
... The application of technology in community-based monitoring is now practiced globally in an effort to address community concerns. It can be found in various fields, such as monitoring forest activities in Cambodia (Brofeldt et al., 2018), hydrometeorology in Ethiopia (Walker et al., 2016), fish stocks in Brazil (Oviedo and Bursztyn, 2017), wildlife harvests and natural resources in Canada (Danielsen et al., 2014), land and sea ecosystems in Australia (Kennett et al., 2010), air quality in Italy (Elen et al., 2012), ecosystem threats in the United States (Gray et al., 2014), among others. However, according to Brammer et al. (2016), the use of digital devices is common in less participatory and more scientist-driven programmes, such as citizen science, whereas participants in many community-based monitoring programmes consider technology to be unnecessary. ...
Community-based monitoring is increasingly recognised as one solution to sustainable environmental management. However, the development of community-based monitoring has led to confusion or misconceptions regarding other similar initiatives. Through a review of the characteristics and synthesising criteria of effective community-based monitoring, this article addresses how to distinguish community-based monitoring from other forms of community engagement research. A review of relevant community-based monitoring literature identifies the characteristics of and knowledge gaps in procedures and governance structures. Additionally, evidence of common benefits, challenges and lessons learned for successful community-based monitoring are deliberated. As an outcome of the review, the article synthesises a set of community-based monitoring criteria as follows: (1) efficacy of initiatives, (2) technicality aspects, (3) feedback mechanisms and (4) sustainability. These synthesised criteria will be instrumental in designing customised community-based monitoring initiatives for environmental sustainability.
... For instance, the Torres Strait Island people in northern Australia inhabit one of the country's most significant reservoir for biodiversity facing environmental threats. To meet international frameworks for conservation, the North Australian Indigenous Land and Sea Management Alliance (NAILSMA) adopted an 'I-Tracker project' that engages indigenous rangers with field computers and CyberTracker software, to gather and manage environmental data (Kennett et al. 2010). While, indigenous rights to own and manage traditional land are paramount to the project, it enables data sharing to address Page 13 of 25 environmental issues at regional, national, and international level. ...
Over the last few decades, resilience and its related practices have been at the core of responding challenges in the Global South and North. We should, however, be conscious of its gaps for many reasons. First, environmental plans not attuned to local traditions can create cultural conflicts. Second, the politicised nature of international agreements poses unintended consequences as societies find it hard to engage in such agreements. Third, uncertainties about changes in socio-ecological systems reduce people’s adaptive capacity. Without an awareness of these inconsistencies, policymakers risk impeding societies’ adaptation to environmental change. By doing a systematic review of articles from academic and policy publications, this paper explores repercussions for environmental governance, illuminating key concerns in protected areas, climate change policy, and hydropower systems.
... ISOPs have already been developed at a regional or local scale for monitoring species of cultural significance (Kennett et al. 2010, NAILSMA 2014 including marine mammals (Jackson et al. 2015), turtles (Jackson et al. 2015), seagrass (Howley et al.) and mangroves (Hub 2017), and could provide foundations for developing national scale ISOPs. There are currently no ISOPs for monitoring for environmental perturbations such as coral bleaching, oil spill response, invasive species detection, marine debris and microplastics and other specific environmental impacts. ...
A suite of field manuals was released by the NESP Marine Hub in early 2018 to facilitate a
national monitoring framework, with a focus on seven marine sampling platforms: multibeam sonar, autonomous underwater vehicles, baited remote underwater video (pelagic and demersal), towed imagery, sleds and trawls, and grabs and box corers. These platforms were identified based on frequency of use in previous open water sampling and monitoring programs. Stakeholder feedback revealed several key sampling platforms and data types not included in the original release, as well as a possible need for field manuals related to cultural or socioeconomic standard operating procedures (SOPs).
The current report scopes the need and feasibility of developing new field manuals as related to monitoring Australia’s waters for the following:
• Remote operating vehicles (ROVs)
• Passive acoustic monitoring (PAM)
• Sub-bottom profiling (SBP)
• Drones
• Satellite imagery
• Marine plastics
• Environmental DNA (e-DNA)
• Plankton
• Sampling for Sea Country
• Socioeconomic monitoring
Based on recommendations provided here, an ROV field manual seems necessary and
achievable for the NESP Marine Hub program in 2019-2020, while the new NESP Project D6 will provide foundations in 2019-2020 from which a new SOP on socioeconomic monitoring may eventuate. A further six SOPs and associated field manuals may be developed in the future (UVC, PAM, SBP, drones, e-DNA, plankton), assuming suitable resources are secured, including a champion to chair a collaborative working group and lead the development of a field manual.
Recommendations from this report indicate that three of the scoped SOPs are not needed, either due to a scope too broad to allow a national SOP (satellite imagery) or other initiatives that are already in advanced development stages (marine plastics, sampling for Sea Country).
... Some Traditional Owner groups have co-ownership over the land and sea as a result of successful Native Title claims. Co-ownership of sea occurs in some important marine turtle feeding areas (e.g., the Torres Strait Native Title sea claim; Akiba on behalf of the Torres Strait Islanders of the Regional Seas Claim Group v State of Queensland, 2010; Akiba on behalf of the Torres Strait Regional Seas Claim Group v Commonwealth of Australia, 2013;Kennett, Jackson, Morrison, & Kitchens, 2010). Further, Traditional Owners have sole ownership over some important marine turtle nesting habitats (e.g., Traditional Owners have sole ownership of the intertidal zone of Blue Mud Bay in the Northern Territory; Gawarrin Gumana & Ors vs Northern Territory, 2007). ...
Marine migratory species require collaborative decision-making because individuals move across jurisdictional boundaries within and between countries. However, governance of these species is not always harmonized or truly collaborative. We analyzed the Recovery Plan for Marine Turtles in Australia 2017 (the Plan) and three of its subsidiary plans for evidence of collaborative governance using a two-part gap analysis and interviews with environmental managers, scientists, and other stakeholders involved in the development of the Plan and in managing marine migratory species in Australia more generally. We applied existing adaptive and collaborative governance frameworks, which focused mainly on the social components of collaborative governance, and identified a need for a new, interdisciplinary framework for the collaborative governance of marine turtles in Australia. We applied our new framework to the Plan and identified that while the biological components of the Plan were well-developed, stakeholder analysis and engagement details were largely missing. We recognize that recovery plans are inevitably silent about certain issues but suggest that plans would benefit from including better guidance on stakeholder engagement and analysis. Our framework is directly relevant to harmonizing the management of marine turtles across jurisdictions in Australia but it could also be applied to managing threats towards other migratory species that inhabit large marine jurisdictions. K E Y W O R D S collaborative governance, cross-jurisdictional governance, marine migratory species, threatened species management
... This paper builds upon a body of scholarship on ILM internationally (e.g., Kenya- Davies et al. 2015;Bolivia-Hartman, Cleveland, and Chadwick 2016;Venezuela, Brazil, and Guyana-Mistry, Bilbao, and Berardi 2016;Cambodia-Penny et al. 2016) and in Australian peri-urban landscapes specifically (Hunt 2010). Most research on ILM in Australia has focused on Traditional owners 3 working in remote locations that are predominantly rural and where Native Title has been determined or where inalienable 4 freehold titles have been recognized (Yibarbuk et al. 2001;Robinson and Whitehead 2003;Davies et al. 2010;Kennett et al. 2010;Ens et al. 2015). Less is known about Aboriginal land managers operating in peri-urban landscapes, where customary management still applies. ...
This article examines roles, opportunities, and challenges for Indigenous land management in rapidly developing landscapes through a case study of Bunya Bunya Country Aboriginal Corporation, a not-for-profit organization on the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Australia. An analysis of data collected through semistructured interviews, participant observation, and analysis of secondary sources reveals that Aboriginal land managers work in a variety of roles to manage issues affecting the local environment and cultural heritage sites. These efforts are challenged by the absence of Native Title and colonial land management policies, which restrict Aboriginal involvement in land management. We conclude that there is a need for alternative pathways to engage with Aboriginal land managers who cannot, or choose not to, proceed with Native Title. Decolonized decision-making tools and sustainable enterprises are viable opportunities that partially address these challenges and could deliver tangible socio-economic and cultural benefits to local Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people.
There is a growing interest by governments and academics in including Indigenous knowledge alongside scientific knowledge in environmental management, including monitoring. Given this growing interest, a critical review of how Indigenous peoples have been engaged in monitoring is needed. We reviewed and analyzed the academic literature to answer the following questions: How have Indigenous peoples participated in environmental monitoring, and how has their participation influenced monitoring objectives, indicators, methods, and monitoring outcomes? We also summarized how this literature discussed power, governance, and the use of both Indigenous and scientific knowledge in environmental monitoring efforts. We found that the literature most often characterized participation as data collection, and that higher degrees of participation and power held by Indigenous peoples in environmental monitoring leads to initiatives that have different objectives, indicators, and outcomes than those with heavier involvement of external groups. Our review also showed that a key challenge of conducting effective monitoring that leverages both Indigenous knowledge systems and science is the power imbalances that uncouple Indigenous monitoring efforts from management. We encourage future initiatives to carefully consider the ways in which power and governance shape their programs and the ability of their monitoring to lead to meaningful management actions.
s it time to embrace the so-called “Anthropocene”—the age of human dominion—and to abandon tried-and-true conservation tools such as parks and wilderness areas? Is the future of Earth to be fully domesticated, an engineered global garden managed by technocrats to serve humanity? The schism between advocates of rewilding and those who accept and even celebrate a “post-wild” world is arguably the hottest intellectual battle in contemporary conservation.
In Keeping the Wild, a group of prominent scientists, writers, and conservation activists responds to the Anthropocene-boosters who claim that wild nature is no more (or in any case not much worth caring about), that human-caused extinction is acceptable, and that “novel ecosystems” are an adequate replacement for natural landscapes. With rhetorical fists swinging, the book’s contributors argue that these “new environmentalists” embody the hubris of the managerial mindset and offer a conservation strategy that will fail to protect life in all its buzzing, blossoming diversity.
With essays from Eileen Crist, David Ehrenfeld, Dave Foreman, Lisi Krall, Harvey Locke, Curt Meine, Kathleen Dean Moore, Michael Soulé, Terry Tempest Williams and other leading thinkers, Keeping the Wild provides an introduction to this important debate, a critique of the Anthropocene boosters’ attack on traditional conservation, and unapologetic advocacy for wild nature.
Is it time to embrace the so-called 'Anthropocene'-the age of human dominion-and to abandon tried-and-true conservation tools such as parks and wilderness areas? Is the future of Earth to be fully domesticated, an engineered global garden managed by technocrats to serve humanity? The schism between advocates of rewilding and those who accept and even celebrate a 'post-wild' world is arguably the hottest intellectual battle in contemporary conservation. In Keeping the Wild, a group of prominent scientists, writers, and conservation activists responds to the Anthropocene-boosters who claim that wild nature is no more (or in any case not much worth caring about), that human-caused extinction is acceptable, and that 'novel ecosystems' are an adequate replacement for natural landscapes. With rhetorical fists swinging, the book's contributors argue that these 'new environmentalists' embody the hubris of the managerial mindset and offer a conservation strategy that will fail to protect life in all its buzzing, blossoming diversity. With essays from Eileen Crist, David Ehrenfeld, Dave Foreman, Lisi Krall, Harvey Locke, Curt Meine, Kathleen Dean Moore, Michael Soulé, Terry Tempest Williams and other leading thinkers, Keeping the Wild provides an introduction to this important debate, a critique of the Anthropocene boosters' attack on traditional conservation, and unapologetic advocacy for wild nature.
Introduction If you leave the Wet Tropics around Cairns, and head west by car for an hour or so, the road goes up and over the mountains that lie behind the coast. On the other side, the rainfall drops off quickly, and you enter the great ‘sea’ of savanna that stretches across Northern Australia. Still heading west, several long days of driving later, you will reach Broome on the edge of the Indian Ocean. For all this time, for all the 3000 or more kilometres of travel, you will have been among vast areas of eucalypt savannas and native grasslands, broken only by an occasional cleared paddock, a scattering of small towns, and the rivers and wetlands that give life to the country. This landscape of savanna and rainforest, rivers and wetlands, is of great significance. On a global scale, such large natural areas are now very rare. Northern Australia stands out as one of the few very large natural areas remaining on Earth: alongside such global treasures as the Amazon rainforests, the boreal conifer forests of Alaska, and the polar wilderness of Antarctica. Unlike much of southern and eastern Australia, nature remains in abundance in the North. Great flocks of birds still move over the land searching for nectar, seeds and fruit. Rivers still flow naturally. Floods come and go. In fertile billabongs, thousands of Magpie Geese, brolgas, egrets and other water birds still congregate. The intact nature of the North provides a basis for much of the economic activity and the general quality of life for residents of the area. Most of the major industries – tourism, pastoralism, Indigenous economies – rely on productive, functioning and healthy natural ecosystems. Across the North, recreational activities such as fishing, four-wheel driving and visiting beautiful country depend on the opportunities provided by a largely intact and natural landscape. Being in and among nature remains a normal part of life for people in the North, in contrast to the situation for those living in the now highly transformed, cleared and urbanised areas of southern Australia. For the high proportion of Northern Australian residents who are Indigenous, country is part of the essence of life. Knowledge of and links to the land remain strong, and there remains an enduring responsibility to look after the land, and its plants and animals.
The dugong (Dugong dugon) is listed as vulnerable to extinction at a global scale. It has a large range that spans some forty countries and includes tropical and subtropical coastal and island waters from east Africa to Vanuatu. A significant proportion of the world’s dugongs is found in northern Australian waters where most modern dugong research has been conducted. Dugongs are long-lived animals with a low reproductive rate, long generation time, and a high investment in each offspring. Population simulations indicate that even with the most optimistic combinations of life-history parameters (e.g. low natural mortality and no human-induced mortality) a dugong population is unlikely to increase by more than 5% per year. Dugongs are vulnerable to anthropogenic impacts because of their life history and their dependence on seagrasses that are restricted to coastal habitats. Even a slight reduction in adult survivorship as a result of habitat loss, disease, hunting or incidental drowning in nets can cause a chronic decline in a dugong population. The optimum management strategy is to identify areas that consistently support large numbers of dugongs and to set these aside as dugong sanctuaries in which dugong mortality is minimized and their habitat protected.
United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, UN Doc A�RES�61�295 (opened for signature September
United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, UN Doc A�RES�61�295 (opened for signature September 13, 2007).
United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, UN Doc A�RES�61�295 (opened for signature September 13, 2007).
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First Australians, their country and knowledge: Threats and Opportunities for the use of I� Across Northern First Australians, their country and knowledge: Threats and Opportunities for the use of I� Across Northern Australia
- J H Morrison
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Morrison, J. H., 2007 (in press). "First Australians, their country and knowledge: Threats and Opportunities for the use of I� Across Northern
First Australians, their country and knowledge: Threats and Opportunities for the use of I� Across Northern
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