WA Parks Conference 2017

Acknowledgements

Jalangurru garrwarri balanggarri.
Yaningi warangira ngindaji yuwa muwayi ingirranggu, Wadjuk Noongar yani u.   Balangarri wadjirragali jarra ningi – gamali ngindaji yau muwayi nyirrami ngarri thangani. Yaningi miya ngindaji Muwayi ingga winyira ngarragi thangani.  Yathawarra, wilalawarra jalangurru ngarri guda.

Good afternoon everyone.
I stand here today on the lands of the Wadjuk Noongar People. There are many of us that have come from afar, we come speaking different languages, and we are strangers to these lands. The ear of this land is hearing our different languages and we reassure that we gather and talk together with good feeling.

Thank you Walter and Meg McGuire for your moving welcome to your country earlier today.

I would like to begin by acknowledging the Wadjuk Noongar peoples, the Traditional Owners of the land upon which we meet today.

I’d like to thank Professor Ross Dowling from the Edith Cowan University and the staff from the WA Department of Parks and Wildlife for inviting me to speak today.

I’d also like to acknowledge a couple of notable people who are here with us today, the Governor of Western Australia, Her Excellency, the Honourable Kerry Sanderson AC, the CEO of the National Parks and Conservation Association of the USA, Ms Theresa Pierno and Mr Francis Woolagoodja, Chair of the Dambimangari Aboriginal Corporation, who you will all here from soon.

I am a proud Bunuba woman from Fitzroy Crossing here in Western Australia, and it gives me great pleasure to be here with you all at this conference dedicated to maintaining and protecting our world-renowned parks and reserves.

I may be slightly biased because I come from this side of the country, but our creator has produced some of the most unique, ecologically diverse country in Western Australia – landscapes here are like no other in the world.

There is no other place in the world like the Purnulula National Park, home to the Bungle Bungle Range; the Windjana Gorge and Danggu Gorge National Parks or the Mimbi Caves, all located in the Kimberley region.

As the traditional custodians of these places, they are extremely special to us – we carry on our responsibilities of custodianship from our ancestors and we pass them onto future generations to hold.

While we are proud to share these places with tourists and locals alike, it is vital that we build a respectful two-way understanding that there is a deep cultural history connected to these places that needs to be kept alive and intact.

I trust that many of us here today understand the value in working together to achieve such a vision.

Role of the Social Justice Commissioner

I address you today as the first Aboriginal woman appointed to the role of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner.

It is my responsibility to monitor and report to the Australian Parliament on the exercise and enjoyment of human rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, including the operation of the Native Title Act and its effect on those rights.

When we look at our country, right across all corners of this great land, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people know that this land is the home of our ancestors and our old people. I say this with great pride that our roots grow deep into the land, seas and waters of this country.

Via a system of native title and land rights, we now hold around 40 per cent of this continent;  we also hold in our hands our hopes and aspirations for the future.

Indigenous rights to land

I spoke earlier this year at the National Native Title Conference, commemorating the 25th anniversary of the Mabo Decision – a legal decision that found our collective ancient title survived the act of colonial sovereignty. It fundamentally changed the way the commonwealth and state laws of this country consider our rights, interests and aspirations to land, seas and waters.

I talked about how our peoples carry an enormous role and responsibility in relation to country and so we engage in native title and land rights spaces to articulate our knowledge and our knowing – to carry the fight for what is rightfully ours and what we must all protect.

Under a framework of international human rights law, our rights as unique and distinct peoples are protected within the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

This year, Indigenous peoples across the world commemorated the 10 year anniversary of the Declaration which recognises our right to own, use, develop and control the lands, territories and resources that we possess by reason of traditional ownership.  Under the Declaration, we also have a right to conserve and protect our lands, territories and resources without discrimination.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people know, as we have always known, that the land will deliver prosperity, but only if we care for it, we stay with it and we do not leave it behind. Our ancestors cared for our land, and it is now our duty to care for it and leave it healthy and strong for our children and their children.

Country and culture - sources of our healing

As descendants and custodians of one of the oldest cultures in the world, we have adapted, innovated and embraced changes in the environment around us.

It is our common belief that we don’t own the land, the land owns us – so we manage and care for our country collectively.

While the myth of Terra Nullius is no longer commonly accepted, there remains a pervasive belief that Australia, and the people who lived here were wild and uncultivated until the arrival of Europeans. We know this is not true.

Under a sophisticated system of customary law, we have built intricate knowledge of the ecosystems within our regions. Our languages, creation stories and songlines are all tied to practical examples of traditional and ecological knowledge.

For many thousands of years, this knowledge has been passed down from generation to generation through our strong oral history tradition of stories and songs.

Arrernte woman and filmmaker Rachel Perkins explains:
As with many cultures, Aboriginal Australia had no written language. One of the principal methods of retaining knowledge was to remember, recount and pass it on through songs. It makes sense that the repeating verses, accompanied by a melody, aid in the capacity to recall information.
Our continent was once alive with song. In hundreds of languages, the Dreaming, which recounts how the world was created, was delivered in song.

I have had the privilege to know and speak my language, Bunuba, spoken in the central Kimberly region. I was taught the stories of my people from as early as I can remember and have dedicated my life to passing on this rich knowledge to future generations.

However, many of our families and communities have been broken by the brutal impact of colonization – displacement and dispossession of land and culture of our people has had a devastating impact on our communities which continues to manifest itself in our lives today.

My own community has had its share of crippling despair – youth suicides, drug and alcohol dependence, family violence, homelessness and many other challenges continue to weigh down my community.

But our people are a strong and proud people – we know that the sources to our strength is our culture and our country. They are the healing pathways, which will guide us to a safe and prosperous future.

The strength and healing that we receive through our culture and country is what gives us the resilience we need to combat the pervasive trauma that so many in our communities experience.

Despite the challenges we face, there are many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people doing remarkable things for our communities. We must reinforce what our people have always said and continue to say, that we have the solutions!

It is my intention that throughout my term in this role, I will advocate for and promote community-led solutions to highlight the infinite strengths of our peoples, across our diverse communities.

With this in mind, I would like to briefly talk about some of the ways Traditional Owners are exercising their collective self-determination and cultural strengths through legal recognition, protection and caring for their country.

We know our lands are our collective assets and that we all share the responsibility to secure and protect the Indigenous Estate.

Land management

I can speak in particular about my country. After many years of negotiation, Bunuba native title rights are now recognised under western law over a large area of land stretching from Fitzroy Crossing to the South East, the Leopold Range to the North East, the Oscar rage to the South West and the Napier Range to the North West.

Once there has been a determination that native title has survived, the responsibility for protecting and managing those inherent Indigenous rights and interests rests with the native title holders themselves.

Bunuba native title rights and interests are managed through the Bunuba Dawangarri Aboriginal Corporation, our Prescribed Bodies Corporate (or PBC). PBCs often operate with few resources and are required to navigate between complex traditional and western governance arrangements.

Yet our PBCs are uniquely placed to provide a means for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to exercise their right to participate in decision-making based on free, prior and informed consent over our collective rights and interests.

It is my view that our law and culture is what makes the governance of our organisations strong - it is what guides and reminds us that the decisions we make about country now, affect many generations to come. For the survival of our culture and prosperity of our people, we consider our rights in the realm of collective perpetuity.

In exercising our self-determination, good governance and securing legal recognition of our native title rights, Bunuba people have negotiated agreements which serve our interests in protecting and caring for our country. These agreements solidify our partnerships with a range of stakeholders who work with us to achieve our aspirations for our future.

As I have said many times before, if our people are to take on the challenges of change, it is always better to do so in partnership with others. And it is always important to reach out beyond the familiar: to find, educate, collaborate and learn from others. In rebuilding our communities, only measures which have been developed in partnership with the community will be successful.

Which brings me to talk about the important positive benefits of jointly managing our lands and waters, particularly in areas where our rights and interests coincide with areas set aside for public use or conservation, such as parks and reserves.

Joint land management

While Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people’s vision for our country is broader than parks and reserves, these areas of land tenure play an important role in the overall protection and management of our lands and waters.

In contribution to the national reserve system, which includes government and non-government parks and reserves, Traditional Owners are increasingly voluntarily declaring specific areas of their owned and managed land as Indigenous Protected Areas. They are also employing Indigenous rangers to care for these areas, creating a natural source of income for our people who wish to live and work on country.

As Traditional Owners, we must have the right, the choice and the capacity to live on our country, with pride and with dignity – Indigenous Ranger programs provide this for our people and stand as a shining example of what can work when programs are led by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

There are now nationally, more than 100 Indigenous ranger groups, employing almost 800 full time rangers.   It is pleasing to hear the Government has extended their funding commitment for the Indigenous Rangers – Working on Country program until 2020 however, our rangers need a sustainable funding base to be able to continue to protect and care for Australia’s national and cultural assets well into the future.

We know that we own the stories of places on our country and we are best placed to care for, manage and make-decisions about the sustainable future of our lands and waters.

While our perspectives of land management is quite different to western concepts of land management, it is through land-based partnerships that we can continue to keep our culture alive, yet protected. We can continue our responsibilities to care for and protect our cultural sites and songlines and we can continue our cultural practices and ceremonies to pass onto future generations.

Across the country, we see best practice examples of joint management arrangements of parks and reserves between Traditional Owners, government departments and stakeholders. Some of these arrangements are really working for our people and translating into positive outcomes more broadly for our communities.

[Bunuba example]

After almost two years of negotiation and planning, the Bunuba PBC recently entered into a partnership with a social enterprise, Bush Heritage and WA Parks and Wildlife and other key stakeholders to deliver a healthy country plan – we call it the Jalangurru Muwayi Plan.

Under this partnership, the Bunuba people are being supported to manage nine conservation reserves on our country, which include significant cultural sites for Bunuba within these areas.

Drawing from our experiences in working in partnership with others, Bunuba are now able to express, our vision of country from our perspective, as we see it and as we have always seen it.

We have spent many years building a relationship with WA Parks and Wildlife, negotiating and articulating the importance of renaming place names back to their traditional names – what is thankfully, a growing trend in Western Australia and across the country.

It is unsettling and deeply disturbing for many Indigenous Australians to know that there are some place names, which still exist today, that publically represent the killing of our people and deepen the prevailing discrimination towards Indigenous Australians.

On my country, what tourists know as the Geikie Gorge, will hopefully soon be renamed its traditional name, ‘Danggu’, which means the area where the water is very deep under the cave.  It is a significant place for my people, as our ancestors spirits live there.

Without their traditional names, these places loose a little of their ancient cultural and historical significance in the eyes of others, locals and tourists alike.

An extremely special place to me personally and for Bunuba people is the home of our powerful creation spirits and the place where our warrior, Jandamarra took stand against those who sought to take our country from us in the early days of European settlement. We call it Bandilngan, to others, it is called Windjana Gorge. It gives me great pride to know that our rangers, Bunuba rangers take care of this special place.

For me personally, it is a place which provides solace to my soul. While I now live and work in Sydney, each year as I grow older, it is the beauty and significance of this place which calls me back to my country.

[Martu example]

Another excellent example demonstrating the strength of our cultural knowledge and the benefits of joint managing our lands with external agencies is the Martu land management program in the central western desert region.

Starting with only one ranger team in 2009, the Martu now have five permanent ranger teams, including separate ranger teams for men, women and youth.

The Martu rangers lead land management activities such as reinstating traditional fire burning management practices using satellite imagery, monitor threatened animal species and conduct fauna surveys.

With the incredible advancement of modern geospatial technology, our people are now able to capture a visual representation of their land, sea and waters subject to rights and interests under numerous land tenures and regulations, including native title land, parks and reserves, pastoral land and local government zonings.

The natural synergies that exist between Indigenous ways of knowing and modern technology provides a unique space for sustainable partnerships and innovation in land management practices to flourish.

Collaboration in land based innovation is fundamentally built upon relationships of trust and respect. And the depth of cultural knowledge we bring to these relationships provides a two-way learning platform which can assist in how we address the broader community-wide challenges we face.

After years of building these such land-based partnerships, the Martu ranger programs have built a space for Martu to establish a leadership program, which is building their capacity to have discussions about their identified community priorities on such issues of justice, health and women’s empowerment.

We know that safe and healthy communities create the best conditions for sustainable social and economic development. Working together in this way, we can begin to open up the world for ourselves and future generations.

Tourism and development

With this in mind, I would like to end my discussion today in recognising the natural space for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to generate opportunities which flow from land-based partnerships in the tourism industry.

We know our country is simply breathtaking and tourists from across the world come to see its beauty all year round.

Many of our people are now entering into the tourism industry to gain employment and to establish their own business and entrepreneurial opportunities. Social ventures such as eco-tourism can provide a secure foundation for ongoing cultural, social and economic development, which is critical to the future of our communities.

Indigenous tourism can also offer opportunities for foster reconciliation and bridge cultural divides, enabling our ancient knowledge to travel back to the home countries of travellers.

In recent years, Bunuba rangers have been taking small groups of tourists for guided tours through our picturesque country, often away from the usual tourist spots. These guided tours introduce people outside our community to the spirits of our country, to our culture. They are given a unique opportunity to experience firsthand the traditional ways and depth of knowledge our people hold about our country. When harnessed, these ventures also offer a unique economic stability for individuals, families and communities.

There is a growing body of evidence which demonstrates that resilient ecosystems and resilient economies create resilient communities! I believe that Indigenous rangers and eco-tourism ventures are part of the solution to creating resilient communities.

By harnessing the deep insights of Indigenous knowledge and building sustainable partnerships, we can truly make a real difference.

I have often spoken about the need for cultural rejuvenation and civic reconstruction within our communities in order to create the best conditions for future development. We need to have a means to actively engage and meaningfully participate in the social, cultural and economic future of our lives and our communities.

As I said earlier, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples see our rights and interests in our lands and waters as collective assets.

Self-determination is a collective right and what I do know is, that we are in it for the long haul.

We will continue to care for and manage our lands and waters, as it is our collective responsibility and we will continue to find the solutions to the difficulties we face.

We have no other choice but to strive for a better future for ourselves and our children.

Yaninyja.
Thank you.

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1.  Australian Law Reform Commission, Connection to country: review of the Native Title Act 1993 (Cth) report (2015).
2.  United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, GA Resolution 61/295, UN Doc A/61/L.67 (2007), art 26.
3.  United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, GA Resolution 61/295, UN Doc A/61/L.67 (2007), art 29.
4.  Rachel Perkins, ‘Songs to Live By’ The Monthly (July 2016). At https://www.themonthly.com.au/issue/2016/july/1467295200/rachel-perkins… (Accessed 11 September 2017).
5.  Kimberly Land Council, Bunuba People celebrate native title determination, 19 Jan 2016. At: http://www.klc.org.au/news-media/newsroom/news-detail/2016/01/19/bunuba…
6.  Prime Minister and Cabinet, Indigenous rangers – working on country, Indigenous Affairs. At: https://www.pmc.gov.au/indigenous-affairs/environment/indigenous-ranger…
7.  http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-06-13/kimberley-geikie-gorge-to-return-to-its-…