Over the last 130 years, patterns of land use in central Australia have altered dramatically, and so too have fire regimes and fire management objectives. Although Aboriginal people still have tenure over large parts of the landscape, their lifestyles have changed. Most Aboriginal people now live in towns and settlements and, although fire management is still culturally important, the opportunities for getting out on country to burn are constrained. Large parts of the landscape are now used for pastoral production. Under this land use the management objective is often one of fire exclusion. The other large-scale land use is for conservation. Here, fire management has a greater focus on conserving biodiversity using various burning strategies. In this paper we explore contemporary fire regimes in central Australia. Widespread fire events are found to be associated with two or more consecutive years of above-average rainfall. Although most of the fires linked with these high rainfall periods occur during the warmer months, in recent times these fires have exhibited increased activity during the cooler months. There has been a concomitant increase in the number and size of these fires and in the number of fires associated with roads. We also explored current fire management issues on Aboriginal, pastoral and conservation lands. Current fire management goals are not being wholly met on any of these land tenures in central Australia and social conflict sometimes emerges as a result. There are overlaps in management aims, issues and the under-achievement of desired outcomes across the land tenures which lead us to five key recommendations for improving fire management outcomes in central Australia. We finish with some comments on associated opportunities for livelihood enhancement based on the management of fire.
Many central Australian Aboriginal settlements have recently gained access to mobile phones and the Internet. This paper explores ways in which Aboriginal people engage with this technology outside of institutional settings. Drawing on long-term research among Warlpiri, I reflect on people's responses to earlier communication media such as the two-way radio and radio-telephone and compare them to patterns of use emerging around new technologies. Attending to the social landscape surrounding the uptake of new media and the social networking site 'Divas Chat', I consider how transformations in material structures of communication interact with changing demographics, embodied socio-spatial relations, sorcery beliefs and mobility to reinforce, refigure and/or disrupt patterns of conflict and connectedness that hitherto have structured Warlpiri relational ontology. I suggest that the way people engage with these technologies illuminates and intensifies fault-lines arising from contradictions between older established social orders and changing relations with the state and modernity.Established as a pastoral lease on Warlpiri and Anmatyerr land in the 1940s, Willowra station was purchased by the Australian Government in 1975 for the resident Indigenous community. The following year I took up a teaching post in the recently established Willowra school. At the time there were few Europeans or facilities, and the majority of the local population camped near the station homestead in makeshift shelters. Although Warlpiri occasionally visited relatives at government settlements such as Ali Curung and journeyed to Alice Springs, few people owned cars, and patterns of mobility were radically different than those of today. Apart from the considerable effects on the Warlpiri lifeworld arising from the establishment of the cattle station, the 1970s was a period when European infrastructure barely shaped people's subjectivities and social practices. Although Willowra had an office equipped with a radio-telephone and two-way radio, Warlpiri were only permitted to use the technology when the station became Aboriginal-owned. Thereafter, the office became an important site of articulation between Warlpiri and the outside world.While at Willowra, I was asked to train some young Warlpiri women people to run the office and operate the two-way radio and radio-telephone. The new form of communication proved challenging for people at first, due to the complex technological protocols, the need to communicate with the operator in English and, in the case of the radio, to use the International Radiotelephony Spelling Alphabet. 1 However, as the following story illustrates, the technology presented not only functional problems for individuals but also introduced social issues, which the community had to
Environment, the Arts and Sport (PO Box 1120, Alice Springs NT 0871, Australia; Email: Glenn. Edwards@nt.gov.au). This research was part of an integrated research programme with the overarching aim of developing a national management framework, which will lead to a reduction in camel numbers to a level that reverses their current population growth trajectory and reduces their impacts. The research was undertaken through collaboration between the researchers and different stakeholder groups, including Aboriginal organisations and communities, individual pastoralists and conservation land managers based in a range of jurisdictions.Summary Recently, the value of incorporating Indigenous ecological knowledge approaches in natural resource management has been increasingly recognised. In arid zone, Australia scientific interest in Indigenous ecological knowledge has tended to focus on native plants and animals and on customary ways of looking after country that Aboriginal people have developed over thousands of years of engagement with their environment. Far less attention has been paid to how Aboriginal perceptions of introduced species inform their ecological knowledge and land management practices. This study argues that it is important to take account of Aboriginal understandings of introduced species in addition to native species if a more sustainable approach to natural resource management is to occur across Australia. It draws on a recent cross-cultural and interdisciplinary research project conducted for the Desert Knowledge Cooperative Research Centre on feral camels in central Australia. In discussing how culture shapes Aboriginal people's views on introduced species, we attend to the complexities of Aboriginal interactions with introduced species through time and space. In doing so, we move beyond simple categorisations of introduced animals as 'belonging' or 'not belonging' to a more nuanced appreciation of how context may influence shifts in perspectives and result in more flexible positions on management options. Finally, we discuss the need to incorporate both Aboriginal and Western scientific understandings concerning feral animals in developing strategies to manage the negative impacts of the animals.
As part of a collaborative research project created to promote the coexistence of fire, people and biodiversity in central Australia, a case study was conducted on Aboriginal perceptions of fire and its management in the southern Tanami Desert of Central Australia. The Tanami was chosen due to consecutive wildfire events and reported fire conflicts between Aboriginal and pastoral (cattle station) landholders on fire issues. This paper addresses fire issues from the perspective of Warlpiri Aboriginal people in this region. It shows that many Warlpiri hold strong views concerning the use of fire and its management. Elders, in particular, have retained tradition-based knowledge about fire and its effects on the environment. The complex cultural protocols that structure decisions about who burns, when and where are discussed. It is shown that, although there have been dramatic changes to their subsistence economy, Warlpiri still burn for cultural and economic reasons. At the same time, social change has given rise to new fire-related issues, including lack of access to remote areas in order to undertake burning and a decrease in fire knowledge among younger generations. The paper argues that Warlpiri perceptions of fire management, needs and skills must be incorporated in a regional fire management strategy if the cycle of wildfire that follows above average rainfall periods in the Tanami is to be broken. Proper resourcing of Aboriginal people to fire their land in customary ways will enhance Aboriginal livelihoods as well as benefit other stakeholders in the region.
This paper reports on a survey of Aboriginal perceptions of feral camels undertaken with Aboriginal people from 27 Aboriginal communities within the current feral camel range in central Australia. Research methods were qualitative, involving face-to-face semi-structured interviews. Views were sought on feral camel presence and impacts and people’s attitudes towards feral camel management. In just over two-thirds of the communities surveyed, interviewees reported seeing camels. Many interviewees in high camel density areas claimed that camels damage natural and cultural resources (such as water places and bush tucker) and affect their customary use of country. Roughly a third of interviewees also claimed that feral camels deprive native species of water. Damage to infrastructure and homelands was also reported, and concern was expressed over the danger that camels posed both on and off the roads. At the same time, camels are said to have positive benefits and most interviewees view them as a potential resource. Yet despite a widely held view among interviewees that camels need to be controlled, the majority were only prepared to consider limited management options. What is significant, however, is that Aboriginal views on feral camels today are not homogenous: there is a diversity of perspectives emerging in response to transformations being brought about by feral camels on Aboriginal land. The findings are discussed in the context of earlier studies on Aboriginal perceptions of feral animals in central Australia, which concluded that feral animals were thought not to be a significant land management problem but to ‘belong to country’. The implications of changing Aboriginal perceptions of feral camels are discussed for the development of a collaborative feral camel management strategy.
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