Australian Aboriginal land management: constraints or opportunities?

Australian Aboriginal land management: constraints or opportunities?

For many years, natural resource legislation in Australia has paid lip service to the land management principles of Australian Aboriginals, without making any genuine attempt to learn from these practices in areas such as fire management. This is despite the unquestionable sustainability and utility of such land management practices which maintained a civilisation for tens of thousands of years. Yet with the advent of European settlement, many of these techniques, including fire management techniques, were disregarded or discontinued when Aboriginal people were forced off their lands. This has altered the environment, often resulting in land becoming overgrown and subject to intense and damaging bushfires. Fortunately, notwithstanding the failures of legislation to address these issues, the increased attention on climate change mitigation measures, including the Carbon Farming Initiative, provides an opportunity for the recognition of Aboriginal land management practices, and also the ability of landholders and managers to generate an economic return from these practices.

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