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Natural resource scientists and managers increasingly recognize traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) for its potential contribution to contemporary natural resource management (NRM) and, through this, to more resilient social-ecological systems. In practice, however, inadequate cross-cultural means to organize and communicate TEK can limit its effective inclusion in management decisions. Indigenous seasonal knowledge involving temporal knowledge of biota, landscapes, weather, seasonal cycles, and their links with culture and land uses is one type of TEK relevant to this issue. We reviewed the literature on Australian Aboriginal seasonal knowledge to characterize contemporary and potential applications to NRM. This knowledge was often documented through cross-cultural collaboration in the form of ecological calendars. Our analysis revealed a variety of basic and applied environmental information in Aboriginal seasonal descriptions and calendars that can contribute directly to NRM. Documented applications have been limited to date, but include fire management, inclusion as general material in NRM plans, and interpretative information about environments. Emerging applications include water management and climate change monitoring. Importantly, seasonal knowledge can also contribute indirectly to NRM outcomes by providing an organizing framework for the recovery, retention, and crosscultural communication of TEK and linking to its broader cultural and cosmological contexts. We conclude that by facilitating the combination of experiential with experimental knowledge and fostering complementarity of different knowledge systems, Aboriginal seasonal knowledge can increasingly contribute to more resilient social-ecological outcomes in NRM. Nevertheless, the seasonal framework should augment, rather than override, other approaches to cross-cultural NRM such as those with spatial and/or social-ecological emphasis.

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ABSTRACT. Increasing attention to formal recognition of indigenous and community conserved areas (ICCAs) as part of national and/or global protected area systems is generating novel encounters between the customary institutions through which indigenous peoples and local communities manage these traditional estates and the bureaucratic institutions of protected area management planning. Although management plans are widely considered to be important to effective management of protected areas, little guidance has been available about how their form and content can effectively reflect the distinctive socio-cultural and political characteristics of ICCAs. This gap has been particularly apparent in Australia where a trend to rapidly increased formal engagement of indigenous people in environmental management resulted, by 2012, in 50 indigenous groups voluntarily declaring their intent to manage all or part of their estates for conservation in perpetuity, as an indigenous protected area (IPA). Development and adoption of a management plan is central to the process through which the Australian Government recognizes these voluntary declarations and invests resources in IPA management. We identified four types of innovations, apparent in some recent IPA plans, which reflect the distinctive socio-cultural and political characteristics of ICCAs and support indigenous people as the primary decision makers and drivers of knowledge integration in IPAs. These are (1) a focus on customary institutions in governance; (2) strategic planning approaches that respond to interlinkages of stewardship between people, place, plants, and animals; (3) planning frameworks that bridge scales by considering values and issues across the whole of an indigenous people's territory; and (4) varied communication modes appropriate to varied audiences, including an emphasis on visual and spatial modes. Further research is warranted into how governance and management of IPAs, and the plans that support these processes, can best engender adaptive management and diverse strong partnerships while managing the risk of partners eroding local control.