Law versus justice: the Strategic Aboriginal Water Reserve in the Northern Territory, Australia

Using a policy tracing approach, we analyse the legislating of the Strategic Aboriginal Water Reserve (SAWR) in the Northern Territory, Australia. The SAWR is a share of the consumptive pool allocated to eligible Indigenous landowners in water plan areas, providing water resources for future economic development. Drawing on parliamentary and policy sources to reveal competing interests and ideologies, and the challenges of codifying water rights, this study finds that legislating water rights alone is insufficient to achieve water justice – water justice measures must respond to power imbalances and inequities by empowering people with the capabilities to implement their rights

A systematic literature review of non-market valuation of Indigenous peoples’ values: Current knowledge, best-practice and framing questions for future research

Non-market valuation (NMV) can be effective to understand the value people place on ecosystem goods and services for which there are no market prices. Over the last 20 years, NMV has increasingly been applied to Indigenous contexts, albeit with important conceptual and methodological limitations. We conduct a global systematic literature review and detailed meta-synthesis of 63 peer-reviewed studies on NMV research applied to Indigenous peoples’ values. Selected studies are categorized by methods, year of publication, geographic area and ecosystem components. Australia (n = 19), the USA (n = 9) and Canada (n = 8) account for over half of all articles. Important knowledge gaps remain in the NMV peer–reviewed literature for other geographic areas. Our taxonomy based on ‘whose values’ and ‘which values’ reveals that a large proportion of studies (n = 24) focused on values held by Indigenous peoples, predominately on direct-use values (n = 12) and total economic values (n = 10). Studies based on the general population (n = 17) typically examined altruistic and/or existence values (n = 15). Our analysis identified seven main strategies used by previous studies to overcome critical limitations of NMV when applied to Indigenous peoples’ values. Strategies include: (1) engaging directly and ethically with Indigenous peoples; (2) investigating multi-dimensional values; (3) valuing health benefits; (4) adopting nonmonetary payment vehicles; (5) using market prices for valuation; (6) sampling the broad population; and (7) investigating non-cumulative values. Based on this review, we provide seven critical questions to guide future NMV research: (1) What is the purpose?; (2) How does Indigenous knowledge inform NMV?; (3) Who benefits?, (4) What ethical frameworks apply?; (5) Whose values are considered?; (6) What is the expected change?; and (7) How are NMV limitations handled? Our contribution provides researchers and policy-makers with the most upto- date review of the state-of-knowledge and suggestions for best-practice on the use of NMV methods when applied to Indigenous peoples’ values.This research was undertaken under the auspices of the Water Justice Hub and was funded, in part, by the Australian Research Council grant FL190100164 ‘Water Justice: Indigenous Water valuation and Resilient Decision-making. This funding supported Ana Manero, Kat Taylor, Alaya Spencer-Cotton, Mai Nguyen and R. Quentin Grafton. The Gathering Voices Society, Vancouver British Columbia, supported William Nikolakis

A global outlook on increasing wildfire risk:current policy situation and future pathways

International audienc

Providing for social equity in water markets: the case for an Indigenous reserve in northern Australia

Introduction Across tropical northern Australia there is a significant Indigenous population which suffers from chronic socio-economic disadvantage. Against a backdrop of federally led national water reform, Indigenous peoples in jurisdictions across the region are seeking to have their social, cultural, and economic aspirations recognised and supported in water-sharing and market frameworks (Lingiari Foundation, 2002; Armstrong, 2008; NAILSMA, 2010). Currently there are no exclusive Indigenous rights to water, but rather what has been made available is a bundle of non-exclusive rights which seek to support non-commercial subsistence and customary activities (O'Bryan, 2007). There has been a lack of recognition of Indigenous rights to commercial access to water to address their economic aspirations (Jackson and Morrison, 2007). Only the state of Queensland provides statutory recognition for an allocation of water to Indigenous groups for cultural, social, or economic purposes (Jackson, 2009). Jackson and Altman (2009) argue that a heightened focus is required on equity issues to reduce the potential for unequal allocation of water resources in this period where a �new� form of water property rights is being created. The authors go further to state that there is a pressing need to consider �the adverse socioeconomic impacts arising from the exclusion of a large and disadvantaged sector of the community from commercial opportunities arising from water trading� (Jackson and Altman, 2009: 41)

Putting Indigenous water rights to work: the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework as a lens for remote development

Sustainable development programs can lead to tension and conflict in human communities when natural capital is used as the foundation for livelihood programs. Building on the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework (SLF), this study demonstrates that including community perceptions in the creation of sustainable livelihoods programs is important in designing programs that are legitimate to community members, and this is especially important in the context of natural capital. Using the SLF, the allocation of water rights to Indigenous groups in remote northern Australia is examined to determine the acceptability of this form of natural capital to support sustainable livelihoods. The findings indicate that there are competing values of water within communities, and that balancing the preferences for spirituality and conservation with economic development and self-sufficiency is critical to the success of sustainable livelihoods programs across the region

Building voluntary partnerships for climate action: An exploratory study from Iceland

The Paris Agreement called for voluntary cooperation between firms, NGOs, and the state, to meet global climate goals. This study examines the development of voluntary carbon projects (VCPs) in Iceland – a country aiming to be carbon neutral by 2040. There is little empirical evidence on what catalyzes voluntary and inter-organizational climate cooperation. To fill this gap, we use a mixed methods research design, surveying firms to understand their awareness and commitment to VCPs, and interviewing state and non-state actors involved in VCPs. In interviews, we tested a cooperation framework with six ‘levers’ to enable cooperation: a superordinate goal, group identity, trust, accountability, communication, and reward distribution. Individualist and collectivist cultural dynamics influence these mechanisms. Survey results showed a general awareness of and support for VCPs, but concerns around their robustness. In interviews, the six cooperation mechanisms offered structured pathways for enabling and strengthening VCPs

Fairness and justice in Indigenous water allocations: Insights from Northern Australia

Based on findings from participatory action research, we describe a process for the development of a Strategic Indigenous Reserve (SIR) in water for Indigenous groups in the Northern Territory, Australia. In the first case study at Mataranka, we show ho