WfHC - cover page (not to be used with pre-printed report ... - CSIRO

Regional scale
Neighbouring Station Management: evaluate impacts of condition and management
regime of surrounding stations (e.g., fire, weeds, cattle, feral animals, tourists) on the
ability to implement successful management strategies at Oriners.
Expand „Working Knowledge‟ to Neighbouring Stations: examine the value of
undertaking similar „Working Knowledge‟ studies of other properties in the area, using
this longer and deeper study as a foundation.
A range of other important research topics could be listed, but 5.4 provides a basic list from
which to prioritise scarce time and resources.
5.5 Conclusion
As the title implies, this document is intended to be a provisional information source to aid
further planning, rather than a definitive account. This report is now the best available
synthesis from multiple perspectives of what is known about this area of the central Cape,
and provides an example for future research of this kind to follow. Further analysis and
implications of the approach taken here will be developed in subsequent publication(s) in the
research literature, but the central argument is that „Working Knowledge‟ provides a useful
heuristic for summarising and engaging with the diverse knowledge base about Oriners, a
place that the majority of the research participants experienced as part of their working lives,
rather than as a long term residential home. The Oriners Mob contains people with far
deeper personal, affective, kin and cultural connections with the area, but that perspective
regarding the Mitchell catchment in general (Strang 1997) and sites at Oriners in particular
(Strang 2001) has been very effectively documented in greater detail elsewhere.
Strang has also emphasised the incommensurability of perspective between Indigenous
people and non-Indigenous pastoralists in the catchment, and in this sense the current
project both relies on Strang‟s foundations and suggests a counterexample to them. If that
counterexample succeeds, it succeeds because it synthesises knowledge and perspectives
from particular subsets of the groups Strang defines: the non-Indigenous pastoralists
involved have a century of family history in the Mitchell; some Indigenous participants spent
only a short time in the area rather than living their lives there as traditional owners; and a
scientific perspective from a locally embedded researcher with extensive „on the ground‟ field
experience. The research emphasis is functional and ecological, focusing on empirical
observations of natural phenomena, and in this way it is constrained, particularly so from an
Indigenous perspective. Yet that constraint also facilitates collation and synthesis without
misrepresentation and/or misunderstanding about the level of commonality involved. Rather
than negating Strang‟s argument for major differences in perspectives within Cape
communities, this project demonstrates the kind of conditions required for such differences to
be overcome, albeit temporarily. It also demonstrates that conditions on the Cape continue to
evolve, and that the conceptual frameworks used to meet those conditions will need to be
similarly adaptable. Oriners was a valuable property when it was purchased in the early
1990s, and it is considerably more valuable now. Maintaining and enhancing that value in all
its forms will require similarly diverse forms of work, the resources to support that work, and
appropriate alignments between that activity and those occurring elsewhere in the region.
Working Knowledge at Oriners Station, Cape York
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