Applying the sustainable livelihoods approach in Australian desert Aboriginal development

Abstract

The sustainable livelihoods approach is widely used in rural development internationally but has been little applied in Australia. It is a framework for thinking and communicating about factors that impact on the livelihoods of individuals and families including their health, well being and income and the maintenance of natural resource condition. The approach aims to promote a systemic understanding of how multiple variables impact on local people’s livelihoods. Three case studies are outlined, that highlight its potential as a tool for collaborative engagement of researchers, local people and other stakeholders, to promote sustainability of Aboriginal livelihood systems in remote desert Australia and to contribute to improved understanding of the dynamics of regional socio-ecological systems.

A Typology of Indigenous Engagement in Australian Environmental Management: Implications for Knowledge Integration and Social-ecological System Sustainability

“…The continuum ranges from development as modernization and technology transfer (Sillitoe and Marzano 2009), through human capability development and asset deployment (Sen 2005, Davies et al 2008, to concepts of empowerment and participatory practice (Borrini-Feyerabend et al 2004, Davies andHolcombe 2009), community development, Indigenous hybrid economies (Altman 2007) and Indigenous "modernities" as hybrid responses based on Indigenous cultures (Robins 2003, Walker et al 2007. Table 3 illustrates the differences between Mornington Station's (AG) focus on transfer of modern technologies for fire management, and the Kimberley Appropriate Economies Roundtable (ICoG) focus on empowerment of Indigenous peoples through their own planning.…”

Linking Liberatory Pedagogy to Engineering and Sustainable Development

“…The aboriginal living conditions around the world have become a focus [35], [36]particularly within sustainable development agenda where these communities are fighting back for their privilege towards an education that does not marginalize and access to their deprived land [37]. Within Malaysia, the aboriginal community condition has become a political focus in the recent within the National Transformational Plan [37].…”

Zero net livelihood degradation – the quest for a multidimensional protocol to combat desertification

“…The five most frequent types of capitals that comprise the vertices of that pentagon are the natural, human, social, manufactured, and financial capitals (Ekins et al, 2003;Davies et al, 2008). Natural capital is a metaphor to indicate the importance of elements of nature to human wellbeing (Daly, 1994).…”

“…Interventions should be oriented towards the enhancement of social-ecological resilience and adaptive capacity of local communities in drylands (e.g. Davies et al, 2008;Tittonell, 2014), by supporting the diversity of rural livelihoods, which may be much more efficient than a narrow focus only on sustainable land practices and soil management. For instance, this wider perspective should avoid the erosion of traditional knowledge and weakening of local institutions (Linstädter et al, 2013;Schmidt and Pearson, 2016) in order to prevent crossing over human critical thresholds that may drive future land degradation processes (Easdale and López, 2014).…”