Australia: INDIGENOUS SUSTAINABILITY: RIGHTS, OBLIGATIONS, AND A COLLECTIVE COMMITMENT TO COUNTRY

Raoul Wallenberg Institute Human Rights Library

Volumn 20, Issue , 2005, Pages 159-193

  Kinnane, Steve ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 85180771007     PISSN: 13883208     EISSN: None     Source Type: Book Series    
DOI: 10.1163/9789047407324_012     Document Type: Chapter

References (144)

1. Indigenous is used here in a general sense, usually accompanied with ‘peoples’ as a general term with regard to diverse Indigenous peoples of the world. I use the capital ‘I’ as is done with the term, ‘Aboriginal’ which has become a pan-Aboriginal defining term for many Indigenous peoples. Capital ‘I’ Indigenous is also used as the chosen form of expression within recent declarations from the Kimberley Declaration of Indigenous Peoples at the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development.
2. The term ‘natural-cultural resources,’ is used in this thesis as a means of subverting dominant Western approaches to resources as being innate, asocial, and apolitical constructs, as related by M. Langton, Burning Questions: emerging environmental issues for indigenous peoples in northern Australia (CINCRM, NTU, Darwin, 1998) p. 7 (hereinafter Burning Questions).
3. H.C. Coombs (ed.), Land of Promises: Aborigines and Development in the East Kimberley (Centre for Environmental Studies, Australian National University and Aboriginal Studies Press, Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies, Canberra, 1989) pp. 1–5.
4. R. Howitt, Rethinking Resource Management: Justice, Sustainability and Indigenous Peoples (Routledge, London and New York, 2001) p. 47 (hereinafter Rethinking Resource Management).
5. Country is described as the ‘totality of Indigenous connections to land, kin, spirit, and place’, in M. Dodson, ‘Indigenous peoples, social justice and rights to the environment’, in Sultan et al. (eds.), Ecopolitics IX Conference; Perspectives on Indigenous Peoples Management of the Environment Resources, Darwin, 1995 (Northern Land Council, Darwin, 1996) p. 25; also in Understanding Country, Key Issues Paper No. 1 (Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation, Canberra) 1994, p. 1.
6. Throughout this paper I refer to this system of Western resource exploitation or development as one of ‘mainstream Western development practices’. I recognise that it is problematic to generalise about a unitary ‘mainstream’ system of Western development practices as this overlooks the role of Labour and other social movements associated with the resistance of overtly capitalist structures. However, from an Indigenous perspective, such systems have operated historically in predominantly exploitative systems and it is this perspective of this system that I refer to when using this term.
7. J. Connell, P. Hirsch, and R. Howitt, ‘Resources, Nations, and Indigenous Peoples’, in R. Howitt, et al. (eds.) Resources, Nations and Indigenous Peoples (Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1996) p. 1.
8. P. Jull, ‘Outback Internationalism: New Linkages in Northern Development’, in P. Jull and S. Roberts (eds.), The Challenge of Northern Regions (Australian National University/ North Australia Research Unit, Darwin, 1991) p. 284 (hereinafter ‘Outback Internationalism’).
9. Neo-colonial practices are described by Coombs as being a form of continuing modern internal colonialism in which Indigenous natural-cultural resources continue to be exploited by hegemonic Western development paradigms. Coombs, supra note 3, p. 5.
10. M. Jacobs, ‘Sustainable Development as a Contested Concept’, in Fairness and Futurity (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1999), p. 33.
11. A. Davison, Technology and the Contested Meanings of Sustainability (State University of New York Press, New York, 2001) p. 213.
12. F. Passy, ‘Supranational Political Opportunities as a Channel of Globalization of Political Conflicts: The Case of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples’, in D. della Porta, et al. (eds.), Social Movements in a Globalizing World (St Martin’s Press Inc., New York, 1999) p. 162.
13. E. Becker, ‘Fostering Trans-disciplinary Research into Sustainability in an Age of Globalization: A Short Political Epilogue’, in E. Becker et al. (eds.), Sustainability and the Social Sciences: A cross-disciplinary approach to integrating environmental considerations into theoretical reorientation (UNESCO and the Institute for Social Ecological Research, St Martins Press, New York, 1999) p. 288.
14. Jull argues that Indigenous Internationalism is leading to the creation of new ‘political institutions and political cultures’, from which national governments must negotiate with Indigenous peoples as self-governing entities as the only means of subverting neo-colonial practices. P. Jull, ‘The Politics of Sustainable Development: Reconciliation in Indigenous Hinterlands’, draft paper for Indigenous Peoples, Power and Sustainable Development in the Global World (International Research Project, University of Tromsø, 2002) p. 1 (hereinafter ‘The Politics of Sustainable Development’).
15. Terra Nullius, translating as ‘land belonging to no one’, was the legal fiction by which Indigenous Australian lands were colonized, as outlined in H. Amankwah, ‘Mabo and International Law’, 35 Race and Class: A Journal for Black and Third World Liberation (1994) 58.
16. Ten Years of Native Title - Information Kit, National Native Title Tribunal, 2002, p. 6.
17. Indigenous Peoples Earth Charter, Kari-oca Conference, 25–30 May 1992, Human Rights and International Law.
18. Inter-subjective negotiations are discussed within this paper with reference to Marcia Langton’s consideration of inter-subjectivity with respect to Indigenous/non-Indigenous negotiations in which engagement occurs on a subjective level of actual negotiation rather than an objectified dogmatic positioning of ideas, perspectives and hierarchies. M. Langton, ‘. . . Well I heard it on the radio, and I saw it on the television . . .’ (Australian Film Commission, North Sydney, 1993) p. 10 (hereinafter ‘Well I heard it’).
19. Coombs, supra note 3, pp. 1–5.
20. Kimberley Land Council, Media Release – Miriwung-Gajerrong Decision, 08/08/2002, p. 1.
21. Dodson, supra note 5, p. 25;
22. Langton, Burning Questions, supra note 2, pp. 7–8;
23. and J. Davies and E. Young, ‘Taking Centre Stage: Aboriginal Strategies for Marginalisation’ in Howitt et al. (eds.), Resources, Nations, and Indigenous Peoples, supra note 7, p. 152.
24. ‘Unity of Interests’ refers to a non-recognition of Indigenous rights to resources and resource development, and an expectation of the State as ‘honest broker’ through which resource development is promoted for the ‘good of all citizens’, described by R. Dixon in ‘In the Shadows of Exclusion: Aborigines and the Ideology of Development in Western Australia’, (1985) reprinted in M. Dillon and R. Dixon, Aborigines and Diamond Mining (UWA Press, Perth, Australia, 1990) p. 155.
25. M. Langton, ‘The Nations of Australia,’ An Alfred Deakin Lecture (Melbourne Town Hall, 20 May 2001) p. 17.
26. S. Kinnane, ‘Beyond Boundaries: Exploring Indigenous Sustainability Issues Within a Regional Focus Through the State Sustainability Strategy’ (Sustainability Policy Unit, Department of Premier and Cabinet, Perth, Western Australia) April 2002, p. 2.
27. Waddi is Nor’west lingo for a Digging Stick also used by women for Fighting. It is a big heavy fire-hardened wooden stick.
28. P. Newman et al., ‘Focus on the Future,’ Consultation Paper for the State Sustainability Strategy (Department of Premier and Cabinet, Western Australia, 2001) p. 1.
29. While constituting a ‘paradigm’ within the meaning of a conceptual framework, Indigenous sustainability is a body of knowledge constituting a ‘trans-disciplinary field’, as related by Becker et al. as a ‘multiplicity of new forms of cross-disciplinary co-operation’. E. Becker (et al.), ‘Exploring Common Ground: Sustainability and the Social Sciences’, in Sustainability and the Social Sciences: A cross-disciplinary approach to integrating environmental considerations into theoretical reorientation, UNESCO and the Institute for Social Ecological Research (St. Martins Press, New York, 1999) p. 12.
30. ‘Multiple interests’ paradigm refers to the recognition of indigenous interests in resource development through an understanding of indigenous cultural-spiritual relationships with land and indigenous approaches to resource development and trade, as described by R. Dixon, supra note 24, p. 155. Note also that when referring to ‘the State’, I am referring to a general sense of the ‘state’ as a totality of civic governance that encompasses Australian non-Indigenous federated political systems of governance, not to any particular State within that federal system.
31. S. Lindqvist, Exterminate All the Brutes (Granta Books, London, 1998) p. 138.
32. The Kimberley Declaration, International Indigenous People’s Summit on Sustainable Development Khoi-San Territory, Kimberley, South Africa, 20–23 August 2002, p. 1.
33. Kartiya is a term for non-Indigenous peoples used across a wide variety of Indigenous languages in the Kimberley region of Western Australia. In Australia there are many such terms that are used by particular Indigenous regional groupings such as Wedjalla (Nyungar), Migloo (Murri), and Gunbbah (Koori). I use Kartiya because it is a term in common usage in the East Kimberley and among Nor-westers, like myself, whose families were removed to the South.
34. M. Dodson, ‘The End In The Beginning: Re-(de)fining Aboriginality’, The Wentworth Lecture, 1 The Australian Aboriginal Studies Journal of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (1994) p. 3 (hereinafter ‘The End In The Beginning’).
35. T. Rowse, ‘Were You Ever Savages: Aboriginal Insiders and Pastoral Patronage’, 158:1 Oceania (1987) 92. Rowse relates how the Duracks’ (Kartiya) apporoach into Mirriwoong Country upon the backs of strange beasts was seen as coming from areas of traditional cultural renewal and as such, along with the later revelation of their off-cider ‘Boxer’ to be a ‘Marban’ man, they were somehow imbued with spiritual associations. See also A. Lanyon, Malinche’s Conquest (Allen and Unwin, Sydney, 1999) pp. 120–121. Lanyon relates the similar myth that invading Conquistadores in the various indigenous countries of Mexico in the 15th Century were believed by Montezuma to have been returning gods. However, Lanyon notes that this internationally popular myth actually sprung from the work of 16th Century Franciscan evangelists who were propagating this myth as a means of aiding the conversion of Indigenous peoples of the Culua-Mexica into the fold of colonial España.
36. J. Kohen, Aboriginal Environmental Impacts (UNSW Press, NSW, 1995) pp. 107–109.
37. Ironically, in Flinders’s 1801 expedition journal he wrote of the Nyungar peoples whose country he was passing as seeming undesirous of communication and in fact gestured to Flinders and his crew to go back to where they came from, indicating an air of indifference, indeed contempt, to the assumed superiority that Flinders believed he represented. ‘The Navigators’, ABCTV Documentary, 13 Oct. 2002. However, Lindqvist notes many instances where imagined European superiority formed the foundation of eventual domination and exploitation of Indigenous peoples the World over. Lindqvist, supra note 31, pp. 115–155.
38. Howitt, Rethinking Resource Management, supra note 4, pp. 29–30.
39. Lindqvist, supra note 31, p. 8 (citing Herbert Spencer, Social Statistics (London, 1850) p. 410).
40. Lindqvist, supra note 31, p. 12.
41. Howitt, Rethinking Resource Management, supra note 4, p. 23.
42. A. Haebich, For Their Own Good – Aborigines and Government in the South of Western Australia 1900 – 1940 (UWA Press, Western Australia, 1988) p. 48.
43. B. Attwood and A. Markus, The Struggle for Aboriginal Rights – A Documentary History (Allen and Unwin, Sydney, 1999) p. 8.
44. Howitt, Rethinking Resource Management, supra note 4, pp. 48, 155.
45. H. Reynolds, With The White People (Penguin Books, Sydney, 1990).
46. The Kimberley Declaration, supra note 32, p. 1.
47. J. Saul, On Equilibrium (Penguin Books, Sydney, 2001) pp. 54–55. Coombs, supra note 3, pp. 3–5. R. Williams, ‘Socialism and Ecology’, 6:1 Capitalism, Nature, Socialism (1995) 46.
48. Coombs, supra note 3, pp. 3–4.
49. Ibid., p. 3. The original meaning of this development is ‘refers to the way potential is realised’.
50. Howitt, Rethinking Resource Management, supra note 4, p. 63.
51. A. Dobson, Green Political Thought (2nd ed.), (Routledge, London, 1995) p. 30 (citing E. Goldsmith and N. Hildyard, Green Britain or Industrial Wasteland? (Oxford Polity Press, London, 1986) pp. 343–344).
52. Howitt, Rethinking Resource Management, supra note 4, p. 117 (citing D. Rose, ‘Indigenous ecologies and an ethic of connection’, in N. Low (ed.), Global Ethics and Environment (Routhledge, London, 1999) p. 182–183.
53. M. Tarran, ‘People, country and protection of cultural properties’, in D. Rose and A. Clarke, Tracking Knowledge Across North Australia (NARU, ANU, Canberra, ACT, 1997) p.
54. D. Rose, Nourishing Terrains: Australian Aboriginal Views of Landscape and Wilderness (Australian Heritage Commission, Canberra, 1996), p. 5 (hereinafter Nourishing Terrains).
55. D. Rose, ‘Exploring an Aboriginal Land Ethic’, in (1988) 3:47 Meanjin 382 (hereinafter ‘Exploring’).
56. Rose, Nourishing Terrains, supra note 71, pp. 83–84.
57. ‘Anthropocentric’ reflects a view of our environment as being human-centred, with benefit to human existence at its core. See D.A. Posey, ‘Indigenous peoples and traditional resource rights: A basis for equitable relationships?’, in Sultan et al. (eds.), Ecopolitics IX Conference;
58. Perspectives on Indigenous Peoples Management of the Environment Resources 1995, Darwin (Northern Land Council, Darwin, 1996) p. 45.
59. ‘Ecocentric’ reflects the view of our environment as a non-human world of which humans are only a part, and of which humans are not any more integral than any other species. See R. Eckersley, ‘The development of modern ecopolitical thought: from participation and survival to emancipation’, in Environmentalism and political theory: toward an ecocentric approach (London, UCL Press, 1992) pp. 7–31.
60. ‘Anthropogenic’ references human created and/or modified landscapes that require continued human intervention and engagement. See Langton, Burning Questions, supra note 2, p. 9 (citing Posey, supra note 74, p. 45).
61. S. Yu, ‘Ngapa Kunangkul: Living Water’, Report on the Aboriginal Cultural Values of Groundwater in the La Grange Sub-basin, Centre for Anthropological Research, University of Western Australia, And the Waters and Rivers Commission of Western Australia, December, 1999, p. 22.
62. Davies and Young, supra note 23, p. 155, citing Rose, ‘Exploring’, supra note 72, pp. 378–387.
63. R. Eckersely, ‘The development of modern ecopolitical thought: from participation and survival to emancipation’, in Environmentalism and political theory: toward an ecocentric approach (London, UCL Press, 1992) p. 29.
64. Rose, Nourishing Terrains, supra note 71, p. 18.
65. Dodson, ‘Indigenous peoples, social justice and rights to the environment’, supra note 5, p. 25.
66. Kohen, supra note 38, p. 125. Kohen refers to Aboriginal peoples as ‘managers’ of country, and non-Indigenous Australians as ‘exploiters’ of resources.
67. The Kimberley Declaration, supra note 32.
68. P. Yu, ‘Aboriginal Rights and Governance, A Kimberley Perspective’, April 2002, p. 3.
69. F. Walsh, ‘Information Needs and Media in Aboriginal Land Management’ (citing J. Oscar, Kimberley Land Council Land and Sea Management Unit), March 2002, p. 3.
70. A. Shoemaker, ‘The Politics of Yothu Yindi’, in K. Dorian-Smith (ed.), Working Papers in Australian Studies, Nos. 88–96, (Australian Studies Centre, Institute of Commonwealth Studies, University of London, London, 1994) p. 35 (citing M. Yunupingu as quoted in S. Brown, ‘The Rock of Ages Past’, The Australian, Weekend Review, 27 May 1989).
71. M. Yunupingu, ‘Yothu Yindi: Finding Balance’, Race and Class [1994] 112.
72. M. Diesendorf and C. Hamilton, Human Ecology, Human Economy (Allen and Unwin, Sydney, Australia, 1997) p. 68 (citing the World Conference on Environment and Development Brundtland Report, Our Common Future, 1987, p. 46).
73. P. Newman and J. Kenworthy, Sustainability and Cities: Overcoming Automibile Dependence (Island Press, Washington, DC, 1999) p. 1.
74. Ibid. Notably, Diesendorf and Hamilton relate this breakthrough as having direct linkages to the publication of Silent Spring (Carson, 1962), and the growth in concern over chemical pollution in particular.
75. Diesendorf and Hamilton, supra note 93, pp. 67–71.
76. I. Sachs, ‘Social Sustainability and Whole Development: Exploring the Dimensions of Sustainable Development’, in Sustainability and the Social Sciences: A cross-disciplinary approach to integrating environmental considerations into theoretical reorientation, UNESCO and the Institute for Social Ecological Research (St. Martins Press, New York, 1999) p. 28. 175
77. K. Turner et al., Environmental Economics: An elementary introduction (Harvester Wheatsheaf, Hertfordshire, UK), p. vii.;
78. Rosewarned, ‘Selling the environment: a critique of market ecology’, in S. Rees et al. (eds.), Beyond the market: alternatives to economic rationalism (Pluto Press, Lichardt, NSW, 1993) p. 55.
79. Newman and Kenworthy, supra note 94, p. 3.
80. Diesendorf and Hamilton, supra note 93, p. 68.
81. ‘Malthusian’ refers to the work of Thomas Malthus,(1798) and Malthus’s idea of ‘absolute limits’, or scarcity, in which Malthus argued that as an economy developed, human population would always outstrip growth, and therefore lead to poverty, misery and despair. Turner, supra note 98, p. 2.
82. Diesendorf and Hamilton, supra note 93, p. 68;
83. see also Newman and Kenworthy, supra note 94, p. 2;
84. see also Davison, supra note 13, p. 12.
85. F. Bayet, ‘Overturning the doctrine: Indigenous people and wilderness. Being Aboriginal in the environment movement’, 13(2) Social Alternatives (1994) 31.
86. Newman and Kenworthy, supra note 94, p. 2;
87. see also Davison, supra note 13, p. 14.
88. S. Beder, ‘What is Sustainable Development’, in The Nature of Sustainable Development (Scribe Publications, Newham, 1993) p. 4.
89. Newman and Kenworthy, supra note 94, p. 2.
90. Coombs, supra note 3, pp. 3–5.
91. Davison, supra note 13, p. 16.
92. Jull, ‘The Politics of Sustainable Development’, supra note 16, pp. 3–5 (citing the World Conference on Environment and Development Brundtland Report, Our Common Future, 1987, pp. 114–115).
93. Newman and Kenworthy, supra note 94, p. 6.
94. UNCED, Agenda 21, Chapter 26, Rio, Brazil, 1992.
95. Kar-oca Declaration, 25–30 May 1992.
96. I. Zethoven, ‘Sustainable Development a Critique of Perspectives’, in J.W. Smith (ed.), Immigration, population and sustainable environment (Flinders University Press, 1991) p. 7.
97. Kar-oca Declaration, supra note 119.
98. Davison, supra note 13, p. 33.
99. Zethoven, supra note 123, p. 7.
100. Davies and Young, supra note 23, p. 155.
101. Davison, supra note 13, p. 38.
102. T. Goldtooth, Indigenous Environmental Network Statement at the WSSD Full Plenary, Johannesburg, South Africa, 29 August 2002.
103. Howitt, Rethinking Resource Management, supra note 4, p. 26.
104. Howitt, Rethinking Resource Management, supra note 4, p. 148.
105. Langton, ‘The Nations of Australia’, supra note 25, p. 16.
106. Davison, supra note 13, pp. 50–51.
107. Coombs, supra note 3, p. 3.
108. Ibid., p. 10; Jull, ‘The Politics of Sustainable Development’, supra note 16, pp. 3–5.
109. Jull., ‘The Politics of Sustainable Development’, supra note 16, pp. 21–22 (citing Jull, Politics, Development and Conservation in the International North (Canadian Arctic Resources Committee, Ottawa, 1986)).
110. G. Alfredsson, Human Rights Workshop, Irish Centre for Human Rights, National University of Ireland, Galway, 6 June 2002.
111. H. Corbett, ‘International Efforts’, in Yunupingu et al. (eds.), Voices From the Land, Boyer lectures, (ABC Books, Sydney, 1993) p. 83.
112. Jull, ‘Outback Internationalism’, supra note 8, p. 285.
113. P. Jull, ‘Indigenous Internationalism: What Should we do next?, Draft Article, Indigenous Affairs, IWGIA, Copenhagen, 1999, pp. 1–2.
114. Jull, ‘Outback Internationalism’, supra note 8, p. 285.
115. Davies and Young, supra note 23, p. 155.
116. Howitt, Rethinking Resource Management, supra note 4, p. 93.
117. Davison, supra note 13, p. 37, (citing, Kholsha, ‘Forward’, in T.C. Trzyna (ed.), A Sustainable World: Defining and Measuring Sustainable Development (Earthscan/IUCN/ ICEP, 1995) pp. 7–9.
118. Howitt, Rethinking Resource Management, supra note 4, p. 111.
119. ‘Strong sustainability’ refers to operating with strong adherence to sustainability principles with particular focus on the precautionary principle. This concept is also referred to as ‘deep sustainability’. Zethoven, supra note 123, p. 9.
120. ‘Weak sustainability’ operates with a focus on economic development within the eco-modernist technocratic agenda outlined previously. It is usually applied as a cooption of the term sustainability with little real adherence to its principles. Weak sustainability is also termed ‘shallow sustainability’. Zethoven, supra note 123, p. 9.
121. Howitt, Rethinking Resource Management, supra note 4, p. 49.
122. Jull, ‘The Politics of Sustainable Development’, supra note 16, p. 1.
123. Langton, Well I heard it, supra note 20, p. 10. Langton argues that an anti-colonial engagement is necessary for non-Indigenous Australians to engage with their pasts, and for Indigenous Australians to realise that constructions of Aboriginality and Indigenous/ non-Indigenous relations have been mitigated within the colonial processes that have consumed our countries.
124. Howitt, Rethinking Resource Management, supra note 4, p. 34.
125. Langton, Burning Questions, supra note 2, p. 8.
126. Howitt, ‘Resources, Nations and Indigenous Peoples’, supra note 7, p. 22.
127. C. Anderson, ‘Aborigines and conservationism; The Daintree Bloomfield Road’, 24:3 Australian Journal of Social Issues (1989) 219.
128. Langton, Well I heard it, supra note 20, p. 10.
129. J. Ah Kit, ‘Our Place: Our Future’, Conference Report, KLC, 1998, p. 37.
130. P. Kaufman, Wik, Mining, and Aborigines (Allen and Unwin, Sydney, 1998) pp. 171–172.
131. Indigenous Peoples Political Declaration, Prepcom IV, Indonesia, Bali, 6 June 2002, p. 1.
132. The Kimberley Declaration - International Indigenous Peoples Summit on Sustainable Development Khoi-San Territory Kimberley, South Africa 20–23 August 2002.
133. Johannesburg Political Declaration, Paragraph 22bis, World Summit on Sustainable Development, 4 September 2002.
134. I. Moffatt, ‘An Impression of New Developments and Trends in Northern Regions’, in Jull and Roberts (eds.), The Challenge of Northern Regions, supra note 8, p. 272.
135. J. Wolfe, ‘Canada: Current Developments in Aboriginal Self-Government’, in Jull and Roberts (eds.), The Challenge of Northern Regions, supra note 8, p. 129.
136. Dodson, ‘The End In The Beginning’, supra note 34, pp. 8–10.
137. Davison, supra note 13, p. 61 (citing, P. Mcnaughten and J. Urry, Contested Natures (London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Dehli, Sage, 1998)).
138. Davison, supra note 13, p. 61.
139. S. Adams, ‘The Management of Southern Bluefin Tuna: Consensus or Conflict’ in S. Sergeson (ed.), Collective Good: Collective Futures in Asia (Routledgde, London, 2002) p. 3.
140. Howitt, Rethinking Resource Management, supra note 4, p. 161.
141. Howitt, Rethinking Resource Management, supra note 4, p. 161.
142. Jull, ‘The Politics of Sustainable Development’, supra note 16, p. 20. Jull cites that the Indigenous Internationalism movement began in 1973.
143. Langton, Burning Questions, supra note 2, pp. 59–71.
144. Shoemaker, supra note 91, p. 35.