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Indigenous values and north Australian water resource management
The Issue
Incipient water allocation processes across tropical Australia are struggling with how to acknowledge and protect Indigenous values of water and meet native title requirements. The National Water Initiative seeks to provide for Indigenous access to water and protection of Indigenous values associated with water.
Indigenous perspectives on water use and management have a number of dimensions spanning the ecological/social/economic/cultural categories (uses and benefits) that Western resource managers apply when planning water resource use and management. Indigenous Interests in environmental flows research and policy, including traditional knowledge, have tended to be neglected. Where they have been considered, a surrogate environmental flow is assumed to address cultural requirements. The validity of this assumption has not been tested, nor is it clear whether volumetric measures can address the less tangible values. Preliminary research in the Daly River region in the Northern Territory by CSIRO found that the symbolic and intrinsic values of water are of considerable significance to the many Aboriginal language groups, and that these are difficult to address in environmental flows processess. Water resource managers have little expertise in eliciting and explicating the range of cultural values, nor in designing a suitable framework for Indigenous values and water requirements in allocation plans, including monitoring systems for social indicators.
CSIRO Research
CSIRO aims to engage Aboriginal traditional owners and resource managers in applied research and problem-solving relating to the incorporation of Indigenous values into water management in regions of northern Australia. The Daly has been a suitable region to commence such a study given its high potential for agricultural development, and the strong interest in catchment management models that incorporate Indigenous perspective and participation. Other case studies will be devloped in collaboration with Indigenous groups and water resource agencies.
The project has four objectives:
- Improve Indigenous people's understanding of contemporary water resource management practices, especially water allocation planning
- Demonstrate how Aboriginal environmental knowledge can contribute to the determination of environmental water requirements, especially knowledge of fish and valuations of fishing activity
- Define the Indigenous values of water and investigate the means for incorporating and protecting cultural values in water allocation planning
- Develop and communicate a generic framework and methods from case studies for use in other tropical catchments, and elsewhere where Indigenous interests are similar.
These objectives will be met through close collaboration with Wagiman (Guwardugan) Rangers, the Daly River Aboriginal Reference Group, the Northern Land Council, the North Australia Indigenous Land and Sea Management Alliance and the NT Government. This project received initial funding from Land & Water Australia's Tropical Rivers Program. Funding for the study of fish and river flows is being provided by Land & Water Australia's Environmental Flows Program. This project is managed by Dr Michael Douglas of Charles Darwin University in collaboration with Griffith University, the NT Museum, NT Government and University of Wisconsin.
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Collaborators
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