Caring for Country: Indigenous Niche Evolution in 21st Century Australia

1. CARING FOR COUNTRY:An Indigenous Propitious Niche in 21st Century Australia Dr Dermot Smyth Research Institute for the Environment and Livelihoods Charles Darwin University

2. Niche Messages • What is a propitious niche? • How does it apply to Caring for Country? • Evolution of the Caring for Country niche • Breaking Barriers: • Re-thinking Caring for Country as “Cultural Selection”

3. Encountering the “Propitious Niche” “Closing The Gap” Workshop late 1970s Peter Ucko Neville Bonner

4. What is a Propitious Niche? “Propitious” Attended by favourable circumstances “Niche” A position particularly adapted to its occupant(and vice versa)

5. Propitious niches in America Iroquois Steel workers In New York African American soldiers Irish Police in New York

6. Indigenous propitious niches in Australia

7. What makes a niche propitious? • Applies existing skills, knowledge or interests • Valued by minority group and wider society • Limited competition from wider society • Entry point into wider employment opportunities • An opportunity pathway • Not a limited destiny

8. What is Caring for Country? Weed control Feral animal control Fire management Satellite tracking Cultural heritage management Research

9. Caring for Country as a propitious niche • Applies inherent skills and cultural knowledge • Highly valued by Indigenous communities • Highly valued by wider society • Limited competition from wider society • Potential for subsequent employment opportunities

10. Evolution of Caring for Country Niche • Based on ancient and enduring responsibility for country

11. Evolution of Caring for Country Niche • Land Rights – 1976 onwards

12. Evolution of Caring for Country Niche • Co-management of national parks from 1979 onwards

13. Evolution of Caring for Country Niche • Palm Island Ranger Service 1983

14. Kowanyama – Western Cape York • 1989 Ranger employed • 1990 Land & Natural Resource Management Office • Independent cultural evolution? Colin Lawrence

15. Cape York Community Rangers from early ‘90s • Supported by ATSIC and Cairns TAFE College • Where were the research institutions? Study tour of Northern Territory early 1990s

16. Coastal Ranger Groups across northern Australia www.nailsma.org.au/projects/srm

18. Indigenous Protected Areas (IPAs) from 1998 • Voluntary protected areas • Declared by Traditional Owners • Recognised nationally and internationally • Supported by IPA Program and other partners • Initially based on Indigenous tenure • Increasingly based on “country” (land and sea) • Comprise over 40% of Australia’s protected area estate

20. Working on Country Program • From 2008 • Funding for Indigenous Ranger employment • Currently over 630 Ranger employed • Over $320 million for 5 years from 2013 • Commitment to fund 730 Rangers by 2015

22. Ongoing Indigenous Drivers • Traditional Owners • Community Councils • Land Councils and other regional organisations • Torres Strait Regional Authority • North Australian Indigenous Land and Sea Management Alliance (NAILSMA) • Environment Minister’s Indigenous Advisory Committee

23. Other investors • Fee-for-Service contracts • Conservation NGOs • Philanthropics • Research institutions

24. The Caring for Country ‘Industry’ today • 60Indigenous Protected Areas • Over 1,000 Indigenous rangers and other Caring for Country workers employed • Total investment $100 million per year?

25. Remote Community Case Study Indigenous Land and Sea Management Group Local Indigenous employment: Indigenous-owned resort Local Indigenous employment: Multi-national mine Local Indigenous employment: 0% 5% 90%

26. Benefits of Caring for Country • Employment • Education and Training • Enhanced self esteem, health and wellbeing • Contribution to biodiversity conservation • Contribution to cultural maintenance • Reconciliation and partnership building

27. Policy & Research Implications • Ongoing support for locally driven, well coordinated, purposeful Caring for Country programs • Support for other propitious niches • What are they? • Where are they? • Why are they propitious? • Contribution to understanding “The Gap”? • Indigenous Rangers • Non-Indigenous Coordinators

28. What’s Going On? Tenure Country Indigenous Knowledge Western Science Holistic Land/Sea Management Separate Land/Sea Management Selective advantage Caring for Country Contemporary value

29. Encountering Cultural Selection Agner Fog “Cultural Selection” Kluwer Academic Publishers 1999 2009

30. What is Cultural Selection? • Analogous to Natural Selection • Not related to Social Darwinism! • “Memes” and “Meme complexes” • Transmitted • Change (mutate) • Selectively advantageous • Selectively disadvantageous • Cultural adaptation and evolution

31. How does this help? • A framework for understanding cultural change? • Incentive to seek selective advantages for cultural values? • Hasten supportive policy development and research?

32. Tenure-based IPA Land Sea Private Land Marine Park Forest Reserve Aboriginal land (Exclusive Tenure unlikely) IPA National Park

33. Country-based IPA Land Sea Land Sea Private Land Marine Park Forest Reserve Aboriginal land (Exclusive tenure unlikely) National Park

34. Country-based IPA Land Sea

35. Country-based IPAIntegrated land and sea country IPA Land Sea