Traditional Owners Research Articles

'Critical Issues in Nigerian Property Law' by Amos Agbe Utuama. Subject Matter Analysis and Commentary.

One of the challenging issues in sub-Saharan Africa is land title and land management. Several countries have attempted reforms moving from the colonial legal regime to the post-colonial as the need for land by individuals and government for infrastructure development continues to increase. Much of these land reform initiatives have led to significant social tensions and problems because of existing interests particularly where such reforms has led to actual acts of expropriation and redistribution of land.The Nigerian example at reform offers a less disturbing initiative and has been comparatively more successful, by making land the property of government, specifically the Governor of the state. The Land Use Act, enacted in 1978 is an expropriation law placing all lands within a state in the management and control of the Governor of the state with the powers to grant a right of occupancy for a specific period in the manner of a leasehold, compulsorily acquire for overriding public interest, invalidate alienation of interest where consent to the transaction was not obtained, etc.Nonetheless, several legal issues have arisen since the coming into being of the law: the place of customary law in traditional landholding, duality of legal regime, compensation, the loss of land as a resource by traditional owners, the abuse in the process of acquisition due to existing political interest. These are the concerns of that have made the Nigerian reform far from wholly successful but a continuing subject for academic and scholarly examination.

Discovering Indigenous Australian Culture: Building Trusted Engagement in Online Environments

ABSTRACTPromoting and facilitating access to historical collections for Indigenous communities has recently increased across Australia. Such activities have been integrated into the practices of archives and libraries seeking to reunite Indigenous people with materials that not only document their past but also inform their future. Challenges in accessing these materials go beyond retrieval and include concerns about their emotional content. The State Library of New South Wales is working to create trusted environments for Indigenous peoples and collections with both physical and digital spaces. Through the presentation of work undertaken at the State Library, this article explores how the digital environment can be an effective extension of the physical site in which cultural collections are held. In addition, this article looks at issues that must be addressed to ensure the success and ongoing viability of Web spaces, specifically, the long-standing power dynamics that often dominate interactions with Indigenous collections and that have displaced power from the traditional owners of Indigenous knowledge.

Managing the Past in Northern Australia: Challenges and Pitfalls for Indigenous Communities, Rock Art and Cultural Heritage

The challenges faced by Aboriginal groups and other interested parties in protecting cultural heritage sites in the current Australian economic and legislative context are discussed. While the focus is primarily on Queensland, many of the issues raised here are applicable in other parts of Australia and in other countries, although, of course, there are varying legislations in force in the different regions. The analysis in this article is based not only on research into the various pieces of applicable legislation and programs currently available but also on multiple discussions with various Traditional Owners in Queensland and across northern Australia. Throughout many years working with a variety of groups of Aboriginal people, some central themes have emerged concerning the obstacles facing communities in terms of cultural heritage protection. Aboriginal groups in Australia confront issues concerning gaps in the cultural heritage protection legislation, increasingly diminished funding support and limited access to appropriate training and professional advice. These concerns cross state boundaries, and Indigenous communities in Australia face similar impediments and pressures regardless of their location. Many of these barriers are also shared by Indigenous groups around the world. This article concludes with some recommendations, both immediate and long-term, for supporting Aboriginal communities who wish to be proactive in protecting cultural heritage sites in Australia. These measures may also aid Indigenous communities elsewhere.

An Experimental Act: Formations of Wildness and Indigeneity in Far North Queensland

In this article, I focus upon the recent Wild Rivers Act controversy in Queensland, Australia, as an ‘experimental event’ that drew together a diverse cast of actors – including Indigenous traditional owners, state politicians, bureaucrats, environmentalists, mining companies, the late Steve Irwin, and waterways – to contest the future of a region historically (over)coded as ‘wild’. In attending to these actors, and the discourses and arguments mobilised, I argue that this controversy reveals emergent trends in the imaginaries of wildness and indigeneity surrounding indigenous lands and waters in contemporary settler colonial nations. Critical insight into such issues, I show, requires reconceptualising the static ‘matters of being’ through which indigenous territory is often captured – such as tradition and development – as contingent and contested ‘matters of becoming’. It is precisely in events such as the Act controversy that the contemporary politics of indigenous territory, and its contingent and contested foundations, becomes visible.

Forest as Place in the Album "Canopy": Culturalising Nature or Naturalising Culture?

Forest as Place in the Album "Canopy": Culturalising Nature or Naturalising Culture?

Conservation planning and Indigenous governance in Australia's Indigenous Protected Areas

Indigenous Protected Areas (IPAs) recognize that “country” constitutes land and waters that have enduring cultural, social, and economic linkages for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples that extend over millennia, and which are critical to sustainable Indigenous futures. Within Australia's conservation system, IPAs become part of the National Reserve System (NRS) when Indigenous peoples voluntarily announce their intention to manage “country,” in accordance with their law, custom, and culture, and consistently with national and international conservation guidelines. The NRS requirement is that land is managed “in perpetuity” which highlights a potential tension between with the conservation goals and the voluntary character of IPAs. Ecological restoration in IPAs also raises contested ideas about what is “natural,” the relevant “baseline” for restoration, and what are the objectives to be achieved—ecological or cultural sustainability? Experience from Healthy Country Planning in IPAs indicates that restoration of traditional owner decision‐making, as well as respectful use and valuing community knowledge, is central to the sustainability of outcomes. Ecological restoration is most effectively achieved by restoring governance processes that support Indigenous peoples given the inseparability of cultural, social, economic, and ecological objectives.

The Future Is Already Here—It’s Just Not Evenly Distributed

The Future Is Already Here—It’s Just Not Evenly Distributed

Creating multi-functional landscapes: Using exclusion fences to frame feral ungulate management preferences in remote Aboriginal-owned northern Australia

Invasive species can have negative and positive impacts for local communities. Conflict between these different values can complicate and sometimes prevent broad-scale management and decision-making. Multi-functional landscapes and community-based conservation paradigms have emerged as constructive approaches to integrating competing interests and the development of sustainable and locally meaningful management planning. Here, we report on a five year feral ungulate exclusion fence project that was used to focus local people's attention on the eco-cultural and socio-economic impacts of feral ungulate invasion in a remote Aboriginal-owned region of northern Australia. Exclusion of feral buffalo, horses and pigs from three culturally significant freshwater billabongs from 2009 to 2013 resulted in variable increases in smooth ground (from 64–93%), ground cover vegetation (from 18–95%) and water lily cover (bush food) (from 20–60%), dependent on the site. The reduction in feral animal ground surface damage in the fenced areas was fastest at the floodplain billabong, Nalawan, which took only a year to become negligible. At the two channel billabongs, Costello and Namaliwiri, feral animal damage was negligible after 3years. Senior Aboriginal Traditional Owners of these areas were pleased that these environmental assets were protected, but only agreed on the wholesale culling of pigs. Despite recognition of the negative eco-cultural impacts of feral ungulates as observed through the exclusion fence project, they wanted to maintain buffalo and horse on their Country to financially benefit from potential pet-meat and live export industries. Fencing was requested for culturally meaningful sites including those that were used for fishing and were sacred. Fenced areas were viewed by Traditional Owners as “protected” areas of ecological and cultural resources. These multiple management preferences can be combined to build socio-ecological resilience into regional strategic planning for feral ungulate management that will deliver multiple benefits for local communities.

Restoring habitat and cultural practice in Australia’s oldest and largest traditional aquaculture system

Lake Condah (Tae Rak) in south-western Victoria, Australia, is one of the world’s most ancient examples of traditional aquaculture, consisting of complex systems of traps and ponds used by Gunditjmara (Indigenous people) over millennia to collect short-finned eel (Anguilla australis) for consumption and trade. Artificial draining of the lake during the nineteenth century reduced surface water retention in the landscape and rendered most of the eel traps inoperable. In this paper, we describe the traditional eel fishery at Lake Condah and its historical and cultural significance to the Gunditjmara people. We document the impacts of European settlement on the traditional eel fishery, and describe the processes and events leading to eventual restoration of the lake and subsequent reactivation of major parts of the traditional aquaculture system. In addition to restoring an important ecological asset to the region, the restoration project provided significant benefits to the Gunditjmara people, including enhanced connection to country and culture, opportunities for economic development and employment, and increased capacity for traditional owners to progress and negotiate outcomes within regulatory and administrative frameworks. Aspects identified as critical to the ultimate success of the Lake Condah restoration project include: open and transparent lines of communication with stakeholders; building of trust and confidence with key individuals over sustained periods; use of strategic and business planning documents to guide activities; commissioning of high quality technical information to support and justify activities; representative leadership structures, and effective use of ‘two-way learning’ across western scientific and indigenous knowledge systems.

The Re-imagining Inherent in Crime Fiction Translation

The Re-imagining Inherent in Crime Fiction Translation

“Are We There Yet?”

The proposition “We are all archaeologists now”, appears to equate public interest in the past with the practice, theory and method of archaeology. To argue that this is not the case is not to adopt an elitist position but rather to consider the complexities of such a statement. The importance of public involvement in archaeology is acknowledged as both supporting, broadening and democratising the profession and the discussion of past lives and cultures. However, the limitations of generalised archaeological presentations, particularly as often presented in the general media is highlighted, noting that the ethical dimensions of archaeological practice is often ignored in favour of a methodological focus and attached with western bias. The application of an Australian context questions both the applicability and indeed relevance of the proposition to Traditional Owners for whom archaeological approaches may be viewed through the prism of past western cultural treatment and exploitation. Consequently the use of ‘we’ as an inclusive term is debatable within this contested cultural dimension. The limits of a general Australian public engagement and interest in Indigenous archaeology further undermines the proposition, although the potential for archaeology to play a positive ongoing role in promoting and supporting a reconciliation of these issues of understanding in collaboration with Traditional Owners is advocated. We may not all be archaeologists then, but we all have a stake in and role to play for a greater mutual understanding of the past and its effects on the present, with a view to the preservation of our collective cultural heritage.

Humpback Dolphins of Western Australia: A Review of Current Knowledge and Recommendations for Future Management.

Among the many cetacean species that occupy Australian coastal waters, Australian humpback dolphins, Sousa sahulensis, are one of the most vulnerable to extirpation due to human activities. This review summarises the existing knowledge, presently occurring and planned research projects, and current conservation measures for humpback dolphins in Western Australia (WA). Rapid and wide-scale coastal development along the northern WA coastline has occurred despite a lack of baseline data for inshore dolphins and, therefore, without a precautionary approach to their conservation. The distribution, abundance, habitat use, and population structure of humpback dolphins remain poorly understood. Less than 1% of their inferred distribution has so far been studied to understand local population demography. The sparse data available suggest that WA humpback dolphins occur as localised populations in low numbers within a range of inshore habitats, including both clear and turbid coastal waters. Marine protected areas cover a third of their inferred distribution in WA, but the efficacy of these reserves in protecting local cetacean populations is unknown. There is a pressing need for coordination and collaboration among scientists, government agencies, industry bodies, Traditional Owners, and local community groups to fill in the gaps of information on humpback dolphins in WA. The recently developed strategies and sampling guidelines developed by state and federal governments should serve as a best practise standard for collection of data aimed at assessing the conservation status of humpback dolphins in WA and Australia.

Fire management business in Australia's tropical savannas: Lighting the way for a new ecosystem services model for the north?

Fire management business in Australia's tropical savannas: Lighting the way for a new ecosystem services model for the north?

Passion, People, Risk and Opportunity: The Case for Public Service Leadership in Reforming the Federation

Passion, People, Risk and Opportunity: The Case for Public Service Leadership in Reforming the Federation

Welcome to Country: Acknowledgement, Belonging and White Anti-racism

The Welcome to Country (WTC) ceremony and its twin, the Acknowledgement of Traditional Owners, have become prominent anti-racist rituals in the post-settler society of Australia. These rituals are rich in meaning. They are simultaneously emblems of colonisation and dispossession; of recognition and reconciliation; and a periodic focus of political posturing. This article analyses the multiple meanings of WTC ceremonies. In particular, I explore the politics of belonging elicited by WTC and Acknowledgement rituals. Drawing on ethnography of non-Indigenous people who work in Indigenous affairs, I argue that widespread enjoyment of these rituals among White anti-racists is explained because they paradoxically experience belonging through a sense of not belonging.

“They Planned Their Calendar… They Set Up Ready for What They Wanted to Feed the Tribe”: A First-Stage Analysis of Narungga Fish Traps on Yorke Peninsula, South Australia

ABSTRACTThis article outlines “first stage” research into Aboriginal fish traps located on Yorke Peninsula, South Australia. The project was undertaken by Flinders University researchers in collaboration with the Indigenous traditional owners of the region—the Narungga people. The research aimed to achieve a range of objectives including obtaining basic data as to the location and types of fish traps in the region as well as contextualizing these fish capture facilities in a variety of ways via traditional knowledge and contemporary perspectives, a consideration of temporal issues, a reflection on the role of traps in the Narungga coastal economy, and through reference to broader discussions (both nationally and internationally) concerning the timing and economic/socio-cultural importance of these technological innovations. Narungga knowledge systems and perspectives recorded in relation to the fish traps reveal multifaceted relationships between the community and their environment as well as associated religious/ritual engagement and cosmological knowledge. Comparison with neighboring areas reveals that the role of fish traps in coastal economies in the broader South Australia region is differential. Our observations also align with the conceptual approaches of prior researchers who have used fish traps to infer the existence or at least emergence of detailed socio-cultural organization in a late Holocene context.

Enabling people to ‘see what they can be’. The Community Aspirations Program (CAP-ED)

The Community Aspirations Program in Education (CAP-ED) was delivered by CQUniversity’s Office of Indigenous Engagement to increase Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander student participation in higher education. CAP-ED was developed through scoping studies of six individual communities within the CQuniversity footprint, including a designated Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community and rural and regional communities. The scoping process included developing community profiles and extensive consultation with Traditional Owners, Elders, community members and key stakeholders. This process proved to be an essential component of CAP-ED’s success, resulting in Indigenous participation in the program’s networking lunches, through to the delivery of information and workshop sessions. Moreover, it witnessed engagement with people in communities as partners in the program’s delivery and co-presenters in workshops and other events. The CAP-ED workshops focus on identity, culture, aspirations and assist participants to see that they have the potential to participate in higher education. The other essential components of the program’s success have included enabling people to ‘see what they can be’, offering opportunities for people to ask questions, voice honest concerns, and build confidence. The flexibility of delivery was paramount in accommodating the varying needs of each community and the differences in cultural protocols and community approaches, while the face to face engagement between knowledgeable and skilled staff and community members proved to be vital. Over the life of the project, CAP-ED has developed into a broad based strategy that has successfully matched community needs and university based responses through the process of community engagement.

Saharawi conflict phosphates and the Australian dinner table

This article describes how the investor community has intervened vis-à-vis the global fertilizer companies sourcing phosphate rock from occupied Western Sahara. The territory holds large phosphates deposits, and the export of such rock constitutes the biggest source of income for the Moroccan government in the territory it has annexed. Due to the particular nature of the conflict in that territory, such practice is associated with concerns of human rights breaches, international law violations and political controversy. A dozen companies purchase these phosphates from the Moroccan government, while their traditional and legal owners are increasingly active in trying to stop the practice. Investor engagement and company improvement are discussed with a particular focus on Australia. By the end of the 1980s, 39% of all phosphate rock in Western Sahara ended up in Australia. After a massive shareholder campaign directed at the Australian importers, the country has basically ended its dependence on such phosphate rock. The article also looks at import cases in North America. The article outlines the different arguments and strategies of investors, based on public statements and on internal dialogues between international investors and the civil society organization Western Sahara Resource Watch over the last decade.

Beyond Braille on Toilet Doors: Museum Curators and Audiences with Vision Impairment

Beyond Braille on Toilet Doors: Museum Curators and Audiences with Vision Impairment

Observations on the development of native title trusts in Australia

Aboriginal people have suffered a long and arduous journey of recognition in Australia. Throughout this journey, trusts have been a common feature and have developed in step with social advancements. Early indigenous trusts were paternalistic in nature and were used in a manner that suggested Aboriginal people were incapable of managing their own affairs. Although modern day trusts have tried to move away from the use of trusts as a paternalistic concept, there are still residuary features from this era in modern indigenous trusts, but these modern trusts have also developed in other ways to provide ownership and control in Aboriginal people. The evolution of native title in Australia has been by far the biggest economic change for Aboriginal people. Although there are many different claim groups with vastly divergent financial management structures, there are many common features of indigenous trusts. This article is intended to provide an overview of features and current trends in the operation of those trusts. This article will also talk about further developments that could benefit indigenous trusts. This article is not an overview of all Aboriginal Trusts—there are many different types. It is an overview of the common trusts native title groups have adopted. This article also tells the story of the interaction between traditional owners, the resources sector and government and how that interaction has shaped Native Title trusts.