Bardi Jawi Rangers: Land and Sea Management

The Bardi Jawi Rangers program started back in late 2006 from the Dugong and Marine Turtle project facilitated through the Kimberley Land Council in partnership with the North Australian Indigenous Land and Sea Management Alliance (NAILSMA). The work was based around all aspects turtle and dugong monitoring and recording which included beach and sea patrols to record turtle nesting, catch data from local hunters and the satellite tagging of dugong in partnership with Edith Cowan University over 3 consecutive years. This demonstrated experience led to travelling to Abu Dhabi and the Arabian Gulf assisting the United Arab Emirates Environment Agency with their own dugong tagging program

Indigenous Voices: Paris 2015

Each year, countries from around the world meet to discuss the issue of climate change, and what governments should do to minimise the impacts. In November and December 2015, the 21st United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (Conference of Parties, or COP21) took place in Paris; the biggest meeting since the Kyoto Protocol was agreed in 1997. Governments negotiated an international legal document committing countries to reduce their greenhouse gas pollution in an effort to reduce the impacts of climate change. With support from the Australian Government, Oxfam and the Australian Conservation Foundation, delegates from the Kimberley Land Council attended this important event, highlighting the particular vulnerabilities facing Indigenous people from climate change, but also showcasing the powerful role played by Indigenous land management in offering innovative and effective tools to tackle the problem

Climate Change and Adaptation on Karajarri Country and ‘Pukarrikarra’ Places

I am a Karajarri woman and one of the Traditional Owners of Karajarri Country. I come from Bidyadanga Aboriginal Community which is on Karajarri Country, approximately 190 km south of the township of Broome in the Kimberley region of Western Australia. I am a linguist, interpreter and researcher at the Nulungu Research Institute, located on the Broome campus of the University of Notre Dame Australia, on Yawuru Country. I am often required to bring together traditional knowledge and Western rationalist approaches to knowledge generation in my research endeavours. The aim of the project described in this paper was to explore people’s concerns around climate change on Karajarri Country. It reflects on my cultural background, knowledge, traditional language and beliefs concerning changes to Country caused by changing climate. It also includes the ways my people adapt to changes to Country. During the research, Karajarri People talked about the importance of culture and heritage, and the importance of protecting Karajarri ‘Pukarrikarra’ (dreaming) places from changes to the land and waters. The importance and connectedness of language to Country is highlighted, and the significance and value of Country is demonstrated through our spiritual understandings and cultural practices, especially around climate change on Karajarri Country.https://researchonline.nd.edu.au/nulungu_research/1000/thumbnail.jp

Planning for Development using Social Impact

Economic development activities change the physical and social environments in which individuals live. For planners, it is important to anticipate the types of changes that might occur, and to put measures in place that mitigate negative impacts and promote positive impacts on people and communities. Social Impact Assessment (SIA) was introduced as a tool for understanding the social impacts of development. There are three factors, however, that limit the use of SIA in developing countries. First, the original SIA tool was designed in a developed country, and as such the list of indicators developed may not suitable for local conditions. Second, there is no specific theoretical underpinning of the SIA tool, and thus no link between the SIA tool and particular theories of social behaviour. Third, there is no particular link between what SIA measures, and what should be done to mitigate the effects of development activities. The purpose of this paper is to address these three issues and in doing so, provide a SIA tool that can be applied usefully and practically in a developing country. The theoretical basis of SIA used in the paper is Actor-Network Theory (ANT). The tool, which was developed using ANT, principles consists of five stages of analysis: identification of principal actors (human and non-human) and the changes due to development; exploration of the ownership of resources (capital) that enables principle actors to change; identification of change agents attached to the capital of principal actors; tracing which interests of actors are aligned to deal with the development; and an analysis of the social change platform (mobilization of actors) based on connections of all principal actors with other actors. Each of these stages provides the basis for determining what should be assessed in SIA, how to structure the assessment, and how to interpret the results of a SIA.Social Impact Assessment (SIA), Actor-Network Theory (ANT), development impact, Community/Rural/Urban Development, Public Economics,

Next Generation Leadership - Jawun Emerging Leaders Program

The Jawun Emerging Leaders Program is run every two years and the inaugural program commenced in 2011. It is a “Best Practice Study Tour and Leadership Experience” aimed at broadening the exposure of emerging Indigenous Leaders across the locations that Jawun currently supports: Goulburn-Murray, Cape York, Central Coast NSW, East Kimberley, West Kimberley, Northeast Arnhem Land, Inner Sydney and the APY Lands. The 2015 theme is “innovative change requires leadership for action”. This unique program gives Emerging Leaders from across the Jawun regions the opportunity to share insights and lessons by engaging with individuals and organisations that demonstrate best practice and innovation. Chad will talk about his experience of being involved in the 2015 Jawun Emerging Leaders Program and the growing discussion about leadership with the Kimberley and across Australia

Beyond native title: Multiple land use agreements and Aboriginal governance in the Kimberley

Aborigines make up by far the largest proportion of the long-term residents of the Kimberley region and much of the population living outside the major towns. They already control, by one means or another, considerable areas of land. The Native Title Act 1993 offers the possibility of greater control still. They have a network of community-controlled functional organisations such as medical services, radio stations, service delivery resource agencies, cultural and language maintenance centres, and a publishing house. Not surprisingly with Canadian models before them and the example of the Torres Strait Regional Authority, the mood is growing among these organisations, in the communities, and with the political leadership, for greater regional autonomy and a form of Aboriginal governance in the region. This paper analyses the various pressures for a regional authority under the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC), a regional agreement or various sub-regional agreements over multiple land use, and a form of regional Aboriginal governance. It points out the distinction between these three approaches to regional autonomy. It suggests that the need for the first is being driven by pressures for multiple access to land, while the proposal for the second is simply a means of more efficient delivery of Commonwealth development funding and may in the long term act as an impediment to greater autonomy. The third, regional governance, embraces the first two needs and goes beyond them to respond to the longstanding need, sharpened since the Mabo decision, for a new form of political accommodation between Aborigines and settlers in the Kimberley

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

A Geography of Water Matters in the Ord Catchment, Northern Australia

This thesis examines water matters in the Ord catchment. It shows how social, environmental, cultural and economic dynamics are manifest in water matters. In so doing, it critiques material and discursive practices that create environmental injustices, and highlights efforts underway to remedy thoes. The thesis makes two major contributions. First, to dissect water politics in the Ord through the prism of how water matters - from water supply and sanitation, to water allocations for cultural flows. Second, to demonstrate a theoretical means twoards this end, by combining political ecology and environmental justice with a Masseyian spatial approach. Water, as a physical substance, makes tangible invisible power relations. To consider this, the thesis marries political ecology, with its focus on how power and politics help shape human-environment relationships, to environmental justice. A politics of difference informs the particular type of environmental justice drawn on here: it asks whether there is recognition of difference, plurality of participation, and equity in distribution of benefits, in environmental matters (Schlosberg, 2004). This nuanced theoretical terrain blends well with a Masseyian spatial approach that acknowledges places as made of 'loose ends and missing links' (Massey, 2005:12). The latter holds that places are never finished, are always being made, while the former analyses how power relations operate through processes.The thesis presents water matters as contested yet crucial to making sense of social-environmental matters; through contextaulising governance transformations and current water dilemmas, the shape of this contestation becomes clear. This involves spaces of interests coming together, and spaces where interests remain apart. These gaps are renegotiated through instruments such as the Ord Final Agreement. However, fraught water matters do persist, in part due to the complex place-based politics of water in the Ord that include Indigenous politics, environmental contestation, development processes, and a recent colonising history