Kimberley Appropriate Economics Interim Report - Australian ...

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32 After years of affirmative action campaigning to get Aboriginal people into state and federal bureaucracy, to now see chardonnay swilling black bureaucrats assuming a mortgage on our plight and forgetting about us. Why would you, when you wake up in an environment in Aboriginal communities where there is asbestos housing, houses that are banned in the cities because people are getting sick from them. Yet our people are condemned to wake up to this everyday – children and adults. And why would you even believe in a native title system when the very system and the structures and organisations in the Native Title Act reject and knock back divestments to Indigenous Traditional Owners, and reject the traditional rights of Indigenous owners of these properties; your rights to enjoy the social and economic fruits of your country. That’s what I ask myself and I reckon Aboriginal people should be asking that too and bringing it up at this conference. Why would you? But as I said, Aboriginal people are supreme optimists, they’re survivors. They’re here, they’re not going to move from the Fitzroy Valley. You’re not going to move the Miriuwung people, the Karajarri people. That’s their country. So we have to find a way as Aboriginal people, and non-Aboriginal people - as an Australian community - to find ways to create what this conference is about – appropriate sustainable economies. The very word sustainable – let’s start explaining that to Aboriginal people because I don’t think non-Aboriginal people have an idea what sustainability is yet. What does the word sustainability mean? Does it mean you get money every week? Does it mean we’re going to keep this economy going? Does it mean we put your law and culture to one side for a little while but we’ll get it back in ten years time? And that’s what I say is one of the greatest traits of Indigenous Australians is the ability to survive, especially in this rapidly changing world. And it’s changing around us at the moment. Aboriginal people need to start taking control of their destinies, really talking up. I say to Aboriginal people, ‘Talk constructively, think about what you are saying, think strategically, and think long term’. And though the transgressions of the last 200 years have created an environment of distrust and disharmony in Indigenous communities, Aboriginal people will continue to seek partnerships and solutions to maintain that very basic value that our old people talk about – law and culture. And any initiative has to have that basis from day one whether tourism, even environmental protection mob who want to count how many sawfish in the river, they have to understand that people eat that rare sawfish. I had this British Lady ring me up wanted to make a documentary. I said ‘What’s it about?’. She said ‘We are making a documentary about freshwater sharks of the world and we want to film the two sharks that are in the Fitzroy River’. I said ‘that’s sounds interesting, what are you going to do?’ She said ‘We would like to catch one’, and I said ‘That’s easy, I’ll get my two sisters, they’ll catch you one’. ‘You can only catch them at certain times of the year’. She said ‘That’s all right’. I said ‘What else you going to do?’ ‘After filming it, we will let it go’. I said ‘You can’t do that’. She said ‘Why not?’ and I said ‘Because my two sisters want to eat that sawfish’. She said ‘What?’ So after finishing our discussion I never heard from her again. So its understanding that rare things get eaten in this country but they’re not rare here; they may be in the context of the world, but these sharks are not going to go anywhere, you only catch and eat them at one time of the year, and only Aboriginal people are going to eat them. But Aboriginal people need to think about the management of our catching, not only of sawfish and sharks, but dugong and turtle. I think Aboriginal people should welcome the level of representation from ACF. I think our Aboriginal communities should respect the commitment shown by Environs Kimberley, and definitely respect the ongoing support from the Kimberley Land Council. And that history of ongoing relationships, not only of these three organisations, but of Australian people to ably manage, in the context of this conference, our northern wildernesses, rangeland management, law and culture. This conference can continue, even if it is only an inch at a time, to build on what’s been done, to build opportunities to develop sustainable projects – but never
forgetting that intrinsic value that Aboriginal people place on their lands and law and culture. That’s got to underpin everything. And to finish, I spoke about two case studies that we could look at, the first of which is just starting, but both case studies are about leadership. But a little bit different. The first one is about our cattle company which owns Leopold, Fairfield pastoral leases to export cattle, developing a management base to run a herd on about five hundred thousand hectares of land. The cattle company, in its wisdom (the board of which June Oscar chairs), and the proactive approach of Conservation and Land Management (CALM) to be able to say ‘What can we do together, from an Indigenous enterprise base and a conservation land management department, to bring these two entities together with similar objectives. The cattle company not only wants to make money, but also to think about having 50-60 per cent of its land turned into conservation zone. How do you start that process of talking about natural resource management and looking after your lands, and again ‘why would you?’ Why, after the acquisitions of the 70’s when CALM just rushed through here and sectioned off all our country and turned it into national park without asking Aboriginal people? Putting these national parks into Section 22 of the CALM Act and then disgracefully for 30 years not even developing management plans for our national parks and no inclusiveness of Aboriginal people. Its only been in the last 3 years the Labour Government has just woken up and gone “That’s interesting, there are a lot of Aboriginal people up there in the Kimberley, wonder if they would be interested in us giving their country back to them?” So that’s the history. But today it is an emerging partnership, a good case study of how from an Indigenous enterprise base it is possible to continue to operate in a conservation and land management framework of preserving our flora and fauna on our pastoral leases while running cattle. And at the same time for the cattle company they get access to training networks, IT networks, that whole resource base that CALM brings. I think ACF and Environs Kimberley have to be facilitators in this as well as Land Councils, picking up on Indigenous enterprises – they don’t have to be cattle companies. The second one and the one I have watched for a while is the long running debate in which our Elders have fought for this river in the 90’s when the cotton growers were here talking about sectioning off our country and running all the water out of the Fitzroy. Putting a dam up in our country based on surveys done in the 1950s. At the time the choice was the Ord or the Diamond, but they went with the Ord and told the people, ‘Sorry but you’ve got five years to get off Argyle Station and move into Kununurra.’ At the same time they were thinking about a Jewish settlement in the Kimberley, well before Israel was formed. This is the history that has gone on behind Aboriginal people – not involved. A river that puts out about six and a half thousand gigalitres of water; rice growers in the Murray Darling area, their eyes glaze over when you tell them figures like that. And I often think about the 1998 trip we took with six Bunuba people and nine non-Aboriginal people and good leaders like Bob Brown and John Sinclair, Ian Morris from the Territory, journalists, supported by Bunuba. We took 15 Australians – black, white and brindle – and I look at that crew that was cruising through this country for ten days and I thought that colour really has nothing to do with looking after country – Aboriginal people have strong connections but non-Aboriginal people are there to help too. And the birth of Environs Kimberley and people like Tim Fisher and Peter Garrett, and how Alan Brimeblecom came here and we said ‘Just settle down Al, take it easy, we know you want to do something, but come and talk to us.’ And if you can’t talk to us, how about we nominate a facilitator that might be credible, and so Rick Farley comes along and suddenly old Al realises the value of our river. So he then says he doesn’t want to put a dam on our river. People from all around Australia, and internationally, the Wild Rivers Commission, helped Aboriginal people at the time. And this model is a great example of people power. Poor people in a western sense but rich in Aboriginal culture, our Elders come out of the woodwork just like that. And non-Aboriginal people came out when the canal debate was on. 33
Page 1 and 2: Kimberley Appropriate Economies Rou
Page 3: Kimberley Appropriate Economies Rou
Page 6 and 7: Why would you? The first three word
Page 8 and 9: From our culture, we have certain r
Page 10 and 11: We have won some battles, at least
Page 12 and 13: INTRODUCTION The Kimberley Appropri
Page 14 and 15: appropriate development in the regi
Page 16 and 17: SUMMARY OF WHAT HAPPENED AT THE ROU
Page 18 and 19: Pastoralism Workshop Danielle Eyre,
Page 20 and 21: actions to come out of the Roundtab
Page 22 and 23: OUTCOMES There were two main Outcom
Page 24 and 25: in the Kimberley with rules based o
Page 26 and 27: Research Action 2 Action 3 the regi
Page 28 and 29: Action 9 Tour operators from the Fi
Page 30 and 31: 26 Projects or enterprises that ach
Page 33 and 34: APPENDIX A PAPERS PRESENTED AT THE
Page 35: And sometimes people like myself an
Page 39 and 40: Keynote Address Wayne Bergmann, Exe
Page 41 and 42: Is there a role for Aboriginal know
Page 43 and 44: Ian Lowe President, Australian Cons
Page 45 and 46: Address by Tom Birch Chairman, Kimb
Page 47 and 48: Address by Pat Lowe, Founding Membe
Page 49 and 50: In recent years, Aboriginal people
Page 51 and 52: from the freshwaters of the river.
Page 53 and 54: ecorded. Dolores Cheinmora and Agne
Page 55 and 56: development of the area. Failures i
Page 57 and 58: 3b. Vegetation change The loss of s
Page 59 and 60: The Future The entire river system,
Page 61 and 62: Woirnarski, J.C.Z. (1992).Introduct
Page 63: 4. Recent photo of the same locatio
Page 73: APPENDIX C KIMBERLEY APPROPRIATE EC
Page 78 and 79: 74 Don Henry ......................
Page 80 and 81: 76 APPENDIX F TABLE OF PRESENTERS
Page 82 and 83: 78 APPENDIX H ROUNDTABLE SPONSORS A
Page 84: KIMBERLEY APPROPRIATE ECONOMIES ROU

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