Culturally Imbued Trees: Physical and Metaphysical Connections

In some contexts, including those that require concrete and locally specific knowledge, the term 'traditional owner' has come to mean something different from its original statutory definition, in daily discourse, in the routine operations of settlement life and the administration of the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976 (ALRA). It has also become a common referent for Aborigines resident in remote areas, rather than a specific term for land-holder. I will begin to unpack the nexus between this category and the reality of decision making by persons whom I term 'community-country' Anangu. To this end, this post-settlement sociopolitical category is examined to contrast it from the definition of traditional ownership under the ALRA. This will highlight the tensions between the functional legal operations of the ALRA - its obligation to consult with traditional owners - and the reality of those persons who tend to be consulted about development proposals. The emerging issue of the regionalisation of remote settlements also plays directly into this issue of defining traditional owners.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the term coalition comes from the Latin coalescere or ‘coalesce’, meaning “come or bring together to form one mass or whole”. Coalesce refers to the unity affirmed as something grows: co – “together”, alesce – “to grow up”. While coalition is commonly associated with formalised alliances and political strategy in the name of self-interest and common goals, this paper will draw as well on the broader etymological understanding of coalition as “growing together” in order to discuss the Australian government’s recent changes to land rights legislation, the 2007 Emergency Intervention into the Northern Territory, and its decision to use Indigenous land in the Northern Territory as a dumping ground for nuclear waste.

For practitioners in the petroleum industry, the knowledge of Aboriginal heritage compliance requirements and an understanding of engagement with traditional owners, is vital to ensuring certainty and timeliness in project delivery. For the industry’s potential investors and business partners, this knowledge and understanding will assist in making properly informed investment decisions in Australian petroleum projects. This extended abstract analyses both the requirements of the South Australian Aboriginal Heritage Act 1988 (and similar legislation in other States and Territories) and how project proponents should engage with traditional owners to increase compliance with these requirements. There are two parts: Legislative compliance The Aboriginal Heritage Act—how it applies to petroleum production and exploration operations in SA: how legislative compliance is imperative from legal liability and project delivery perspectives. Compliance in other jurisdictions: jurisdictional comparisons to show the legal compliance issues facing proponents operating in multiple jurisdictions. Case study Exploration to production: a case study on interacting with traditional indigenous owners to increase legal compliance. The case study examines the path followed by all proponents from initial exploration activities to delivering a production project. It focuses on when and how proponents need to consider the Act, and how engagement with traditional indigenous owners can assist with legal compliance. This case study also considers the various types of heritage contracts that can be entered into with traditional indigenous owners, and how these contracts can increase certainty in project delivery.

Introduction There is substantial evidence that although there are a variety of responses to the disruption of indigenous economic systems, the imposition of a dominant form of economic and cultural behavior frequently is opposed (Ellana et al. 1988). Rather, the most usual response to such an imposition is to be found in the integration of market-based and subsistence-based behaviors and a consequent adaptation of associated social and institutional systems. It is important to note that subsistence-based economic systems generally have experienced the most difficulty integrating and becoming involved in the production side of goods and services within a market-oriented economy. On the other hand, individual members of such a subsistence-based economy have demonstrated a desire to become active consumers of the wider range of goods and services made available by market-based economic systems. Involvement in organizations concerned with the production of goods and services is likely to be of most interest to indigenous Australians, where the underlying methods of production have remained similar between production for subsistence and production for market exchange or cash (Ellana et al. 1988). For example, indigenous peoples within remote communities have been closely associated historically with pastoral enterprises. This paper presents the results of an investigation into opportunities and constraints to a small pastoral enterprise and cattle holding facility by the Warai, an indigenous clan in Northern Australia attempting to start up an economic enterprise on land granted to them, as traditional owners under the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976. Background to Establishment of the Warai Pastoral Enterprise The Finniss River Land Trust Area granted to the indigenous traditional owners, the Maranunngu, Kungarakany, and the Warai under the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976, and its relative geographical location can be seen in Figure 1. The Finniss River Land Trust Area has been divided into areas one, two, three, four, and five. Areas one and two have been granted to the Maranunggu. Areas three, four, and five have been granted to the Warai and Kungarakany clans. The Warai pastoral enterprise is located on approximately 20 square kilometers in area five, 100 kilometers south of Darwin. This research presents the results of information collected using a structured questionnaire based on the recommendations of Dodd (1993) and Stafford-Smith et al. (1994). The information collected enables a critical evaluation of the economic research and assessment processes followed in establishing the first Warai economic enterprise. As a result of information collected in this study, a number of proposals may be advanced in relation to future directions for improving the commercial potential of indigenous business enterprises. The Warai pastoral enterprise is owned by the Warai association, which is in turn managed by the traditional owners of the land. The Warai clan is estimated to consist of approximately 70 people aged 18 years and over and a further 50 aged less than 18 years of age (Dixon 1998). While the main priority for the Warai was to establish on their own country, the second and fairly immediate priority was to establish an economic base. The Warai initially thought that they would raise cattle on areas of land granted to them within the Finniss River Land Trust area. Figure 2 shows the numbers of live cattle exports from Darwin by destination over the period from 1993-98. The diagram shows a rapid growth in live-cattle numbers exported through Darwin before the onset of the Asian financial crisis in late 1997. Indonesia had been the most important export destination since 1996, when 59 percent of live-cattle exports shipped through the Port of Darwin were destined for that country. The Asian crisis resulted in a sharp decrease to nine percent in 1998. …

Context Green turtles (Chelonia mydas) are listed as vulnerable in Australia and are culturally significant to Indigenous Traditional Owners. However, their foraging habitats remain poorly understood, particularly in northern Australia. Aims To map green turtle foraging habitats in the Northern Territory, through collaboration with Traditional Owners and ranger groups to support Sea Country management. Methods Visual classifications of towed video transect data were used in a Support Vector Machine Learning Model to predict habitat across 379 km2 of remotely sensed satellite imagery, encompassing two green turtle foraging grounds within jointly managed parks, namely, Trepang Bay (Garig Gunak Barlu Marine Park) and Field Island (Kakadu National Park). Key results Foraging turtle habitat; algae and seagrass made up 30% of the Trepang Bay and 18.05% of the Field Island foraging areas. The classification accuracy of the model showed a high level of agreement at both sites (0.63 and 0.75 respectively). Conclusion These habitats provide good foraging grounds for green turtles and support different age classes for various behaviours, including resting and predator avoidance. Implications The simple and repeatable field methods used in this study allow for ongoing monitoring by ranger groups. The findings will support conservation planning and management in the Northern Territory.

This paper identifies the probable features of contemporary traditional land tenure in the Northern Territory. The fragility of the intergenerational transmission of detailed knowledge of traditional country in current circumstances leads to a hollowing out of the previous concomitants of dreaming sites (stories, songs, rituals, designs). Concurrently, traditional ideas of the spirits of the Old People and associated rituals of announcement and introduction become ascendent, as does claimant archival research, processes of sacralising sites of previous quotidian human activity, strictly biological ideas of descent, and the inclusion of select individuals into traditional owner groups by means other than descent. All these developments seem to raise questions of what can be considered ‘traditional’ under the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976. Only some of these changes may be accommodated under the limited flexibility in the current definition of traditional owner. Does the definition need revision to prevent disenfranchising the younger generation?

Cultural heritage management produces hundreds of archaeological assessments each year. However, the level of input from Aboriginal people into the significance assessment of places uncovered during this commercial archaeological work is minimal at best. Assessment outcomes continue to privilege scientific archaeological concepts of significance. To address this, the Bunurong Land Council Aboriginal Corporation has led the development of a tailored approach to significance assessment that is framed by the concept of Country. The criteria that have been developed integrate scientific archaeological approaches with Aboriginal cultural values and community perspectives in a balanced assessment methodology, which creates space for Aboriginal control of the assessment process and allows Aboriginal community perspectives to inform management/protection outcomes. Framing significance assessment within Traditional Owner perspectives of Country provides the opportunity for generating archaeological data that can address research questions and cultural significance at landscape or regional scales that are meaningful to the Traditional Owners, decolonising understandings of the past, and directly contributing to the protection of heritage places through improved and sustainable management outcomes.

Rehabilitation of mined land on First Nations’ country after mine closure must achieve particular criteria to be considered successful. Generally, these conditions are based on achieving a habitable condition that is more or less similar to analogue sites or to the pre–mining state. Rehabilitating a site to a habitable condition requires the restoration of cultural values, as well as environmental and economic values. This study investigates the extent to which First Nations’ cultural values are considered in mine rehabilitation in northern Australia. Interviews were conducted with environment professionals who had experience rehabilitating mine sites on First Nations’ land in the Northern Territory, Australia. The participants were asked about their experiences restoring First Nations’ cultural values to mined land. Thematic analysis found six main themes: “Values” (which need to be restored); “Planning” (of rehabilitation activities); “Impediments/barriers” (to successful rehabilitation); “Solutions” (to the barriers); “Traditional Owners” and “Principles”. This study shows that mining environmental professionals argue that, with suitable political and corporate support, many cultural values could be restored. However, it was generally agreed that government oversight and regulation in relation to reinstatement of First Nations’ cultural values needed to be improved. Several participants suggested that greater consideration should be given to closure plans generally, to financial means to carry out rehabilitation, and specifically to planning to identify and address the rehabilitation of First Nations’ cultural values prior to approval. Other findings were also that First Nations’ cultural values and environmental values are closely aligned, and that consultation and effective communication with Traditional Owners are the key to integrating awareness of First Nations’ cultural values into mine rehabilitation practices.

Anthropologists have been assisting in the identification of ‘traditional owners’ in Northern Territory land claims for 50 years. This is becoming a lesser part of their workload as most outstanding claims have now been resolved. A key element of traditional ownership as statutorily defined is the ‘local descent group’. This phrase arose in anthropological analyses of Aboriginal society, but was introduced as a criterion of traditional ownership into the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976. This paper considers the importance for applied anthropology of recognising the differences as well as links between statutorily recognised local descent groups and Indigenous understandings of relationships to land, especially as we move further in time from the land claims in which particular groups were originally described. Throughout history, abstract categories for people (such as ‘local descent group’) have been used in ways that direct the physical flow of populations through institutions, leading to what Anderson (1991, p. 169) has termed ‘traffic‐habits’ that ‘gave real social life to the state's earlier fantasies’. Based on my direct experience as a land council anthropologist, I argue that the contemporary form of many of the local descent groups with which the land councils consult is at least partially the result of ‘traffic‐habits’ that reify the ‘demographic topographies’ that exist in claim documents and meeting reports. In this context, ethnographic analysis of the political and institutional aspects of Aboriginal lives is required for applied anthropologists to deliver sound advice as to how local descent groups operate.

Energy for whom? Uranium mining, Indigenous people, and navigating risk and rights in Australia

13 uranium mines operated in the South Alligator Valley of Australia’s Northern Territory between 1953 and 1963. At the end of operations the mines, and associated infrastructure, were simply abandoned. As this activity preceded environmental legislation by about 15 years there was neither any obligation, nor attempt, at remediation. In the 1980s it was decided that the whole area should become an extension of the adjacent World Heritage, Kakadu National Park. As a result the Commonwealth Government made an inventory of the abandoned mines and associated facilities in 1986. This established the size and scope of the liability and formed the framework for a possible future remediation project. The initial program for the reduction of physical and radiological hazards at each of the identified sites was formulated in 1989 and the works took place from 1990 to 1992. But even at this time, as throughout much of the valley’s history, little attention was being paid to the long term aspirations of traditional land owners. The traditional Aboriginal owners, the Gunlom Land Trust, were granted freehold Native Title to the area in 1996. They immediately leased the land back to the Commonwealth Government so it would remain a part of Kakadu National Park, but under joint management. One condition of the lease required that all evidence of former mining activity be remediated by 2015. The consultation, and subsequent planning processes, for a final remediation program began in 1997. A plan was agreed in 2003 and, after funding was granted in 2005, works implementation commenced in 2007. An earlier paper described the planning and consultation stages, experience involving the cleaning up of remant uranium mill tailings and other mining residues; and the successful implementation of the initial remediation works. This paper deals with the final planning and design processes to complete the remediation programme, which is due to occur in 2009. The issues of final containment design and long term stewardship are addressed in the paper as well as some comments on lessons learned through the life of the project.

Context Feral buffalo are a problematic invasive species in northern Australia, associated with significant environmental, cultural, and economic impacts. Objectives Effective management requires understanding the environmental factors that drive their seasonal movements and distributions. Methods To support evidence-based management we GPS tracked 15 female buffalo over 15 months spanning two dry seasons and 1 wet season in the Djelk Indigenous Protected Area. We combined GPS locations with satellite data to analyse their movement responses to water availability, fire, vegetation and habitat characteristics. Results During the wet season, when resources are abundant, buffalo distribution was shaped primarily by vegetation characteristics and post-fire growth. In the wet season buffalo appeared to forage in floodplain areas and transited through dry grasslands and shrublands. In the dry season, when resources become scarcer, buffalo distribution was strongly tied to water availability. Vegetation selection patterns resembled those of the wet season but were weaker, maintaining a persistent attraction to floodplain, and with more homogenous movement characteristics among vegetation types. Conclusions These findings suggest that buffalo exhibited more variable movement behaviours among habitat types when resources were abundant but adopted more homogenous movement strategies under resource-poor conditions. Management should therefore consider prioritising control in areas of high vegetation density during the wet season, while focussing management effort near key water sources during the dry season. Seasonal variability in buffalo movement highlights the need for adaptive, flexible management strategies. These strategies should reduce environmental impacts and support Indigenous and other land managers protect cultural and ecological values.

Managing feral water buffalo in the Northern Territory is a formidable challenge. As an introduced species, buffalo are associated with a myriad of biosecurity, economic, cultural and environmental issues ranging from overgrazing, decreased water quality, disease vectors to the destruction of cultural assets. Nevertheless, the buffalo are also a harvestable resource that can support economic development of the region. To mitigate some of the biosecurity, economic, cultural and environmental risks they pose and manage buffalo effectively, we need a detailed understanding of their spatial and behavioural ecology. However, several factors make understanding how best to manage the dense populations of wild individuals challenging as buffalo inhabit remote areas with limited infrastructure and accessibility and their large size and often aggressive nature can make them difficult to observe in otherwise inaccessible areas. GPS tracking allows for high‐frequency data collection and surveillance of individual buffalo. Here, we investigated how the different seasonal periods of a Northern Territory floodplain area shaped patterns of habitat use for 17 buffalo tracked over 16 months. We found in the dry season, buffalo space use is restricted, and the size of home ranges are significantly smaller than in the wet season. During the wet season, buffalo expand their home range area as well as their social encounter area with other buffalo. These differences in their space use and social patterns suggest that increased disease surveillance may be needed for the wet season when buffalo are more likely to share space and interact. During the dry season, however, buffalo movement is more predictable and restricted, suggesting greater optimisation opportunities for buffalo management. Results from these models can be used by land holders, Traditional Owners and wildlife managers to make evidence‐based decisions to improve buffalo management with respect to disease risk, sustainable harvest and damage to environmental and cultural assets.

The relationships between traditional Aboriginal land owners and other Park users in Kakadu National Park in the Northern Territory are characterised by competing agendas and competing ideas about appropriate ways of relating to the environment. Similarly, the management of recreational fishing in the Park is permeated by the tensions and opposition of contested ideas and perspectives from non‐Aboriginal fishers and Aboriginal traditional owners. The local know‐ledge and rights of ‘Territorians’[non‐Aboriginal Northern Territory residents] are continually pitted against the local knowledge and rights of Aboriginal traditional owners. Under these circumstances, debates between non‐Aboriginal fishers and Aboriginal traditional owners are overwhelmingly dominated by the unequal power relationships created through an alliance between science and the State. The complex and multi‐dimensional nature of Aboriginal traditional owners’ concerns for country renders these concerns invisible or incomprehensible to government, science and non‐Aboriginal fishers who are each guided by very different epistemic commitments. It is a state of affairs that leaves the situated knowledge of Aboriginal traditional owners with a limited authority in the non‐Aboriginal domain and detracts from their ability to manage and care for their homelands. ACRONYMSAFANT Amateur Fishermen's Association of the Northern TerritoryALRA Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976 (Cth)ANCA Australian Nature Conservation AgencyANPWS Australian National Parks and Wildlife ServiceKNPBoM Kakadu National Park Board of Management

In Australia's Northern Territory, the Larrakia have been involved in a decades‐long effort to gain recognition as traditional owners through Land Rights and Native Title legislation. From one perspective, their claims have failed to achieve the entitlement and recognition grounded in these governmental regimes (Scambary 2007; Povinelli 2002). However, over the past decade the Larrakia Nation Aboriginal Corporation (LNAC) and the Larrakia Development Corporation (LDC) have emerged as locally powerful corporate bodies that pursue programs and exercise forms of power on behalf of the Larrakia that can be understood in terms of state and governmental practice. Through suburban development, a night patrol, educational and vocational training, a radio station, and through forms of policy research and statistical enumeration, the Larrakia nation have emerged in the eyes of many as a de facto Aboriginal ‘state’ in the Darwin region. This paper explores the intra‐Indigenous relations through which these practices have emerged, and analyses the extent to which the LNAC might be understood as a kind of ‘state’ within a state, responsible for world‐shaping activities of knowledge production, housing and health outreach, vocational training and education, and policing. Focussing on the forms of ‘stateness’ that accrue to the Larrakia Nation in Darwin through its policing, knowledge production, and outreach programs for Aboriginal campers, the article explores the differential articulation of Aboriginal groups with the state. It concludes by asking how such differences matter in contexts of planned urbanisation in the Northern Territory.