Aboriginal Waterways Assessment program

54 Aboriginal Waterways Assessment — Part C Literature review
Literature review (summary)
Assessment and Indigenous knowledge — what do we know from other research?
Forty sources were analysed for the
literature review. Aboriginal scholars
and practitioners authored 19 in part
or in full.
The review begins by accounting
for Traditional Owners’ customary
authority in the Basin to hold and
use water assessment knowledge in
customary terms. This is followed
by a brief description of the difficult
regulatory history and context in
which this customary authority
struggles to be recognised.
The literature leads to a finding
that while statutory recognition of
Aboriginal rights and expertise in
water planning and management in
Australia is very recent, there is a
clear realisation by regulators and
scholars that:
• recognising Traditional Owners’
expertise in water is essential
to significantly improve water
management and planning practices
• there is early work taking place to
practically increase recognition,
and improve water planning and
management for Aboriginal and
non-Aboriginal interests.
Authors maintain that for such
gains to be realised, Aboriginal
participation needs to be culturally
safe. At the core of the design and
use of assessment tools and practices,
cultural safety involves two-way
learning so that Aboriginal worldviews
regarding a systemic approach
to flow management within current
regulatory and technical frameworks
can be understood and safely included
in western water planning.
Comparative studies in New Zealand,
India and Brunei Darussalam illustrate
that, while separated by distance and
experiencing very different histories
of colonisation, Indigenous knowledge
systems in relationship to water
management show strong correlations
with each other.
These similarities arise from a direct
relationship between ecosystem
characteristics and peoples’
livelihoods. Riverine seasonal
flow regimes are included in these
relationships in everyday life.
This direct relationship produces a
‘heuristic’ form of knowledge, which
is a different order of knowledge
(epistemology) to a technical form of
knowledge as used in western water
planning and management.
The literature informs us that heuristic
knowledge comes about (in the
context of Indigenous participation in
assessing riverine health) by a person
being situated in the environment and
using attuned skills of observation
over extended time scales. These skills
are required to use resources from
the ecosystem without extinguishing
the capacity of resources to maintain
a level of regeneration that will
continue to sustain life.
This ‘situated science’ develops both
intuition to know the patterns of how
an ecosystem functions, and cultural
practices of transmitting this science
for maintaining a balance between
human and natural viability. Such
knowledge is given sacred meaning
because of its close association with
maintaining life. It is also used in
the cultural practices of harvesting
and using water-related resources in
ceremonial and everyday life.
Indigenous knowledge systems do
not separate out elements of an