Looking back to look forward: a timeline of the Fitzroy River catchment. Report to the Australian Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment

Given proposed expansion of developments in northern Australia and current tensions among different interest groups, there is a need to develop new planning approaches that support multiple uses of land and water, while maintaining environmental and cultural values. Our project aimed to demonstrate how to operationalise multi-objective catchment planning supported by scenario thinking, by which stakeholders collaboratively build and assess the outcomes of alternative development futures. The project used participatory scenario planning to guide stakeholders through a systematic and critical examination of possible development trajectories and their associated environmental and socioeconomic outcomes. A multi-stakeholder group worked through a series of workshops to explore alternative development pathways and their outcomes. On July 10-11, NESP researchers led the first project workshop, gathering 40 people from 26 organisations across all main interest groups, including the federal Department of the Environment and Energy, state agencies, local governments, mining, agriculture and tourism organisations, environmental NGOs, and Aboriginal organisations representing the views and interests of Traditional Owners. The workshop involved a series of activities for team members to get to know each other, strengthen relationships, and build trust – all critical elements of participatory scenario planning. During the workshop, we discussed the meaning of development, driving forces of land use change, and development initiatives proposed for the region. An important goal of the first workshop was to create shared understandings of what is happening in the region that could shape the future development of the catchment. Therefore, before exploring the future, we looked back into the past. We created a timeline for the Fitzroy, identifying the events and forces that have shaped how the catchment looks today and could drive land use change in the future. Such events included social movements, policy changes, resource exploration, early irrigation projects, road improvements, and the proclamation of the Native Title Act that recognizes the rights and interests of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in land and waters according to their traditional laws and customs, among many others. This report summarises the process underpinning the creation of a timeline of the Fitzroy River catchment. For this timeline, the group identified the things that have changed the region and shaped the way things are today. Building this timeline helped participants to understand and share ideas about driving forces of land-use change. This activity opened up thinking on how local and external events and processes have shaped and will continue to change the region. The Story Map referred to in this report (Looking back to look forward: A timeline of the Fitzroy River catchment) was created based on the timeline. The online application combines text, images, and maps to describe a series of key events that have shaped the Fitzroy catchment

Learning together for and with the Martuwarra Fitzroy River

Co-production across scientific and Indigenous knowledge systems has become a cornerstone of research to enhance knowledge, practice, ethics, and foster sustainability transformations. However, the profound differences in world views and the complex and contested histories of nation-state colonisation on Indigenous territories, highlight both opportunities and risks for Indigenous people when engaging with knowledge co-production. This paper investigates the conditions under which knowledge co-production can lead to improved Indigenous adaptive environmental planning and management among remote land-attached Indigenous peoples through a case study with ten Traditional Owner groups in the Martuwarra (Fitzroy River) Catchment in Western Australia’s Kimberley region. The research team built a 3D map of the river and used it, together with an interactive table-top projector, to bring together both scientific and Indigenous spatial knowledge. Participatory influence mapping, aligned with Traditional Owner priorities to achieve cultural governance and management planning goals set out in the Fitzroy River Declaration, investigated power relations. An analytical framework, examining underlying mechanisms of social learning, knowledge promotion and enhancing influence, based on different theories of change, was applied to unpack the immediate outcomes from these activities. The analysis identified that knowledge co-production activities improved the accessibility of the knowledge, the experiences of the knowledge users, strengthened collective identity and partnerships, and strengthened Indigenous-led institutions. The focus on cultural governance and management planning goals in the Fitzroy River Declaration enabled the activities to directly affect key drivers of Indigenous adaptive environmental planning and management—the Indigenous-led institutions. The nation-state arrangements also gave some support to local learning and decision-making through a key Indigenous institution, Martuwarra Fitzroy River Council. Knowledge co-production with remote land-attached Indigenous peoples can improve adaptive environmental planning and management where it fosters learning together, is grounded in the Indigenous-led institutions and addresses their priorities

Looking back to look forward: a timeline of the Fitzroy River catchment, Story Map

The story map describes a timeline of key events that have shaped the Fitzroy River catchment. It was created to help understand and explore the driving forces of development in the region. This application allows results to be shared in a user-friendly format, to keep it updated (and live) after the process finishes, and to help to communicate the timeline with the wider community. Creating a story map allowed images and interactive maps relevant to events to be included and updated as needed