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

2010) as well as letters and other correspondence. These related to post-purchase
community plans and aspirations about the station, the establishment of key infrastructure,
and the wider context of homeland/outstation development at Kowanyama. Copies and
originals of photographs of the area from the previous two decades were also located,
although not all were of sufficient quality to be reproduced here. One of the largest
documents located was a late draft of a strategic assessment report for Oriners produced by
the consultancy company Burdon Torzillo (Burdon Torzillo and Associates 2000). This draft
report dated late 2000 and presumably published in 2001, examined future options for
Oriners, reflecting the long term strategic vision people had for the station at that time. Most
importantly for present purposes, the report documents the rapid and ongoing rise of
„homelands‟ (small family-oriented settlements around Kowanyama) which created
considerable competition for scarce resources with respect to the better established but far
more remote settlement at Oriners. This issue is discussed in more detail in 1.7 below.
Viewed from the present day, it is also clear how resource, logistical, and personnel
constraints limited the degree to which the vision the Burdon Torzillo report and others from
around that era contains was able to be realised in the subsequent decade. The difficulties
encountered provide important lessons for subsequent development at Oriners, and
development in similarly remote circumstances elsewhere on the Cape.
1.5.3.5 Wider cultural and environmental values analysis – Strang 1997
The literature cited above gives, to varying degrees, specific information relevant to Oriners
as a location. However in many respects the most significant resource complementing and
contextualising the specific ecological knowledge recovery project attempted here is the
published work of Strang. Strang‟s primary published resource (Strang 1997) uses
ethnographic research undertaken with both Indigenous residents of Kowanyama and with
non-Indigenous cattlemen (including members of the Hughes family, notably David Hughes).
In that research, Strang presents and analyses the differing ways that these two groups
understand, use, and ascribe meaning to their surroundings. Her broader theoretical
intention is to show (Strang 1997: 6) how the relationship between human beings and the
environment is founded on a combination of:
universal human imperatives and cognitive processes
responses to ecological pressures and potentials
beliefs and values instituted within specific cultural contexts.
Strang argues that human environmental interactions are an expression of cultural values,
which, in combination with universal human imperatives and ecological pressures, create a
particular and recurring „mode‟ of interacting with the environment. Her work compares and
contrasts the respective modes of the Indigenous residents and landowners of Kowanyama,
and the non-Indigenous cattlemen. After an extended analysis of them, her conclusion draws
out the key features of each mode, and analyses their implications for environmental
relationships. She acknowledges the risks and dangers of making oppositional simplifications
as well as the overlaps between perspectives, but is nevertheless able to produce a
summary of values based on her research (Strang 1997: 285):
ABORIGINAL WHITE AUSTRALIAN
Unboundaried Boundaried
Connected/immediate Alienated/distanced
Holistic/integrated Specialised/fragmented
Lateral/spatial Linear/temporal
Emotional/irrational Intellectual/rational
Subjective Objective
Qualitative Quantitative
Implicit/metaphorical Explicit/literal
Conservative/passive Progressive/active
Stable Mobile/transformational
Working Knowledge at Oriners Station, Cape York
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