Green movement is in partnership with Aboriginal people to preserve our land
Marcia Langton’s promotion of the resource industry as the primary way to empower indigenous communities is a dangerous and fraught path. The historical experience of the interface between the resource sector and our first peoples is one of profound and adverse impact.
White occupation of Australia was based on the legal fiction of Terra nullius, coupled with a utilitarian economic thinking that saw this ”empty land” as fair game for any activity that could generate ”ownership” and income. Then, as now, mining could do that. Times, people and expectations have changed, but there is still a massive structural imbalance weighted in favour of mining giants.
Green movement is here to help, not hinder, Aborigines, The Age, December 21, 2012 Leah Talbot and Dave Sweeney A CONSISTENT theme running through Professor Marcia Langton’s recent Boyer Lectures is the idea that the environment movement is standing in the way of indigenous empowerment and that conservationists are ”new colonisers under a green flag”.
The accusation is way off the mark.
Long ago, the Australian Conservation Foundation recognised that the best way to protect the environment in this country was in partnership with those who have done this for thousands of years, the Aboriginal traditional owners.
We have a positive vision for northern Australia that aims to respect culture, protect the environment and put forward appropriate solutions to issues affecting indigenous communities. The policy of free, prior and informed consent from traditional owners underpins our work.
Knowing that language is an important tool that can empower or
oppress, the ACF has communications protocols that dictate, for
example, that when describing landscapes that have been occupied by
indigenous people, ”the word ‘wilderness’ should not be used as it
incorrectly denotes a place that is uncultivated and uninhabited and
reinforces the fallacy of Terra nullius”.
Across the country, and particularly in the north, there is an
increasing number of collaborations between indigenous Australians and
conservationists.
Since 2004 the ACF has worked closely with traditional owners and the
Queensland government to redress an injustice that Langton correctly
identifies in her essays – that national parks legislation was used to
deny Aboriginal ownership of land.
On Cape York Peninsula there has been a remarkable transformation in
land ownership. Since 2004, the Queensland and Commonwealth
governments have spent more than $30 million buying pastoral leases of
high cultural and natural significance. Together with the existing
national parks, these Aboriginal homelands are being returned to their
traditional owners.
To right the wrongs of the past – particularly those of the
Bjelke-Petersen government – the ACF has supported the return all
national parks on Cape York to Aboriginal ownership and securing
consent for any new national park from the traditional owners of that
area.
Queensland’s land tenure resolution process has returned more than 2
million hectares of land to Aboriginal ownership. About half is now
Aboriginal-owned.
This shows what is possible when people of good faith from
environment, government and indigenous communities and organisations
come together with a vision for a ”culture and conservation
economy”.
Langton’s promotion of the resource industry as the primary way to empower indigenous communities is a dangerous and fraught path. The historical experience of the interface between the resource sector and our first peoples is one of profound and adverse impact.
White occupation of Australia was based on the legal fiction of Terra nullius, coupled with a utilitarian economic thinking that saw this ”empty land” as fair game for any activity that could generate ”ownership” and income. Then, as now, mining could do that. Times, people and expectations have changed, but there is still a massive structural imbalance weighted in favour of mining giants.
Langton’s lack of rigour in assessing the heavy footprint of the
mining sector is compounded by scant mention of the legal limitations
of the native title regime, the often controversial and secretive
nature of mining ”agreements” and the fact that the cards are
heavily stacked against Aboriginal people who are concerned about or
would prefer to see no mining on their country.
The Mirarr people who lead a potent effort to stop uranium mining at
Jabiluka on their traditional lands in Kakadu, are dismissed as
”dissident” in Langton’s analysis and the current conflict over
Kimberley gas processing is avoided, as are continuing concerns over
the Fortescue Metals Group’s controversial approach to Aboriginal
consultation.
And underpinning all is a more fundamental question: why should
indigenous communities have to trade away their land for basic
citizenship entitlements that other Australians take for granted?
What about the many, many indigenous communities that do not have
mineral riches underneath their country or who cannot prove to the
satisfaction of a non-Aboriginal court that they have a connection to
that country? Is that just their bad luck?
None of these issues is easy, straightforward or one-dimensional.
Langton hits on one of the pertinent challenges facing Australia today
– how can we have a mining boom alongside deeply entrenched indigenous
disadvantage and how can we ensure healthy country and communities for
future generations?
We share her concerns about the social and economic issues faced by
indigenous communities. We accept the need to tackle the profound and
shameful legacy of hundreds of years of dispossession, denial and
despair but we do not accept that the best way to close the gap is by
digging a deeper hole.
We believe Australia can and must forge a future that embraces
indigenous cultural and ecological knowledge and heritage and takes a
different approach to managing our precious country for all
generations to come – and we believe this is a journey that must be
taken together.
Leah Talbot, who has a masters in environmental science, is a Kuku
Yalanji woman from the Bloomfield River area, and works for the ACF.
Dave Sweeney works on nuclear, resource and Indigenous issues with the
ACF’s north Australia program.
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