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Davies, Jocelyn --- "Of Caribou and Kangaroos: Agreements about Wildlife" [1999] IndigLawB 47; (1999) 4(21) Indigenous Law Bulletin 27
Of Caribou and Kangaroos:
Agreements
about Wildlife
by Jocelyn Davies
Wildlife[1] use and management agreements have been a prominent
feature of Canadian land (and sea) claims settlements over the past 25 years.
In
much of Canada, indigenous peoples continue to rely heavily on ‘country
food’ (bush tucker) for all or part of their
family nutrition, as well as
for their individual and collective well-being, through maintenance of
traditions and freedom ‘out
on the land’. This situation is similar
to some areas of Australia, particularly in the north. However, unlike Canada,
wildlife
has been virtually invisible in indigenous claims and native title
negotiations in Australia. Here the focus has instead been on
rights and
custodial responsibilities for culturally significant places. Although wildlife
is implicitly part of this, it has received
little overt attention.
In most of Australia, indigenous peoples have virtually no involvement in the
way wildlife is managed by governments. Nor is there
any significant data for
government wildlife managers to draw on to help them understand indigenous
wildlife use, the way it impacts
on wildlife populations, and the way that other
uses of land and sea impact on it.[2] It is therefore hardly surprising
that relationships between government and indigenous people over wildlife are
often characterised
by suspicion and mistrust. Nor is it surprising that these
feelings are compounded when indigenous people are forced to defend their
rights
to hunt wildlife in the courts, as in the Yanner crocodile case.[3]
Indigenous uses of wildlife, both subsistence and commercial, have been
accorded greater legitimacy in Canada than Australia for a
number of political,
historical, economic, ecological and geographic reasons.[4] These same
factors have influenced the approach taken in Canada to researching indigenous
land claims. Indigenous land use studies[5]- including detailed spatial
data on wildlife harvests, particularly for subsistence-have underpinned the
objections of Canadian indigenous
groups to energy and minerals development on
their country, have informed the settlement of comprehensive claims, and have
been used
as the basis of First Nations' regional economic planning.
Given the focus on wildlife in claims research, it is not surprising that
agreements with indigenous peoples have informed Canadian
government approaches
to wildlife management. As in Australia, Canadian indigenous peoples have
secured access to wildlife on land
where the Crown has recognised their claims
to title. In contrast to Australia, they are also now recognised by governments
as partners
in wildlife management in many other areas. Co-management is now the
dominant management regime for wildlife in Canada's northern
territories. In the
more southerly parts of Canada, co-management is applied less consistently and
the amount of decision-making
power shared between governments and indigenous
groups varies widely. Nevertheless four (out of ten) provinces are using
co-management
in their relationships with indigenous peoples regarding hunting,
trapping and fishing.[6] These include instances where single species
comanagement arrangements have been established, typically in response to a
perceived
crisis in wildlife populations.[7] In addition, some
provinces and territories have shared decision-making arrangements for
environmental and resource management. Such
mechanisms provide additional
opportunities for indigenous groups to influence management of wildlife habitats
on land where they
do not have statutory title.[8]
Wildlife co-management regimes in northern areas of Canada regulate
commercial, subsistence and recreational harvesting by both indigenous
and
non-indigenous people. Typically, they involve committees or boards with equal
numbers of government and indigenous representatives
which oversee wildlife
population monitoring, set quotas and otherwise regulate harvests. These boards
are nominally advisory to
the relevant government Minister, who retains a veto
power in the interests of conservation or public safety. However, in practice,
it is board decisions which determine the management regime for
wildlife.[9]
Although Australia is a world leader in co-management arrangements for
national parks,[10] such power sharing arrangements are yet to extend
to management of wildlife species and habitats outside protected areas.11
Wildlife features implicitly in negotiations for Indigenous Land Use
Agreements (ILUAs) and analogous agreements in Australia where
these concern
Aboriginal access to land for hunting. But hunting access is meaningless if
there are no animals to hunt. The 1997
dugong protection strategy negotiated
between the Northern Land Council and the Northern Territory Fishing Industry
Council broke
new ground in addressing the impact that other people's activities
have on the availability of wildlife to indigenous hunters. What
was at issue
was not traditional owners' right to go hunting, which is sanctioned by statute
law, but the impact that fishing has
on dugong populations. The Fishing Industry
Council agreed to the closure of some important dugong habitat to commercial
fishing
and to changes in the design of fishing nets.[12] If hunters'
rights to hunt are to have practical meaning, there is a need for more
agreements of this nature.
In some other cases, Aboriginal people could benefit from negotiated
agreements which provide government support for indigenous management
of
wildlife on Aboriginal-owned freehold lands. For example, a very few remnant
colonies of the black footed rock wallaby continue
to survive on Aboriginal
lands in the border regions of South Australia, Western Australia and the
Northern Territory. Ngaanyatjarra
Council and Anangu Pitjantjatjara land
management services are carrying out management programmes to protect these
animals on their
lands, in both cases with advice and assistance from State
government conservation agencies.[13] Yet each group has few resources
for this long term work and little opportunity to learn what is happening across
the State/Territory
borders. A multiparty agreement here might provide a secure
flow of resources to landowners to encourage them to continue their 'on
the
ground' management activities and, importantly, to enable them to meet
periodically to share their experiences of management
techniques. Without such
support mechanisms for Aboriginal landowners, these animals may well join the
long list of others that have
become extinct in this region. In this example,
government and Aboriginal goals are the same, and a wildlife management
agreement
ought to be relatively easy to negotiate.
However, most agreements will involve many more stakeholders and progress in
negotiations will inevitably be more difficult. This
is largely because
effective ecological management requires regionalscale processes to be
addressed. In some cases, such as dugong
management in Queensland, communication
channels between relevant government agencies and indigenous groups have already
been established
through many years of interaction over indigenous wildlife use.
This will facilitate negotiation of wildlife management agreements.
In many
other cases, however, this historical basis does not exist.
One example which presents key opportunities for promoting sustainable
futures for indigenous people is the kangaroo industry, Australia's
biggest
commercial wildlife harvest. Commercial kangaroo harvesting is undergoing a
shift in management philosophy away from being
an activity tolerated by
governments because it is necessary to contain kangaroo populations and reduce
economic impacts on livestock
grazing, to being promoted as a sustainable
industry, particularly in the sheep rangelands. Most commercial kangaroo
harvesting occurs
on pastoral leases. Yet management of the harvest has so far
not become part of negotiations for recognition of native title and
the
formulation of ILUAs.
Kangaroos, which have been favoured by provision of stock watering points,
are abundant in the commercial harvest zones. Nevertheless,
commercial
harvesting could have a potential impact on the local availability of kangaroos
for subsistence hunting. It could also
produce a less direct effect at the
regional level, by altering the relative abundance of different kangaroo species
and their population
demography. If use and management of wildlife were included
as an element in ILUA and regional agreement negotiations, Aboriginal
people
would be empowered, and the question of how Aboriginal people might derive
economic benefit through equity in the commercial
kangaroo industry could also
be addressed.
While indigenous people currently have almost no involvement in the
commercial kangaroo harvest, they are significant players in some
aspects of
Australia's commercial wildlife industries, such as crocodile egg
harvest.[14] Despite this, indigenous people still have no clear or
agreed role in government decisions about how wildlife industries are promoted
and regulated.[15] Addressing this situation is critical, because these
industries are in a phase of growth and institutional reform. Negotiated
agreements
offer the most promising way forward.
In their recent review of the status of indigenous community-based wildlife
management in Canada, Treseder et a1 [16] comment that the Canadian
co-management systems have been successful:
- in overcoming conflicts between state and indigenous systems of wildlife
management;
- in enhancing greatly the collection and exchange of information on wildlife
resources;
- in addressing mutual distrust between the parties involved in wildlife
management and increasing mutual respect and understanding;
and
- in contributing to social, cultural and economic development in remote
communities.
A recently published parallel review, Indigenous Community Based Wildlife
Management in Australia: Sustaining Eden, [17] argues that these same
outcomes could be achieved in Australia if wildlife management were reformed to
promote indigenous involvement,
including through negotiated co-management
regimes.
This report, and companion reports from a number of regions of the world,
have been prepared as contributions to the International
Institute for
Environment and Development's Evaluating Eden project. Evaluating Eden is
exploring the impacts of wildlife use and
management and is concerned with
promoting management approaches that maximise benefits from wildlife for
indigenous and rural peoples.
Early indications are that Australia's indigenous
peoples are by no means alone in their concern to ensure that wildlife is
conserved
through equitable, sustainable and culturally-appropriate uses in
which they have a strong managing role.
Jocelyn Davies is a geographer based in the Faculty of Agricultural and
Natural Resource Sciences, at the Roseworthy Campus of the
University of
Adelaide, where she works on indigenous environmental management issues.
[1] | Wildlife is taken here to mean
vertebrate animals other than fish. However, this distinction, influenced by the
framework of Australian
statute law, is artificial. The issues and opportunities
outlined here also have relevance to management of fisheries and, to some
extent, plants. |
[2] | J Altman, H Bek, and L Roach,
'Use of Wildlife by Indigenous Australians: Economic and Policy Perspectives',
in M Bomford and J Caughley
(eds) Sustainable Use of Wildlife byAboriginal
Peoples and Torres Strait Islanders, Canberra, Australian Government Publishing
Service,
(1996). |
[3] | See G Atkinson, 'Manner v
Eaton: Walden v Hensler reversed?' (1997) 4(1) Indigenous Law Bulletin
27. |
[4] | For a summary of how these
factors have operated in Canada, see P J Usher, F J Tough, and R M Galois,
'Reclaiming the Land: Aboriginal
Title, Treaty Rights and Land Claims in Canada'
(1992) 12 Applied Geography 109-132. |
[5] | For an overview of several
such studies see ibid 124. For an example see F Berkes, P J George, R J Preston,
A Hughes, J Turner, and
B D Cummins, 'Wildlife Harvesting and Sustainable
Regional Native Economy in the Hudson and James Bay Lowland, Ontario' (1994) 47
(4) Arctic 350-360. It is important to recognise that these land use studies do
not only return economic and ecological data on wildlife
use. Their prime
importance to First Nations groups is that 'subsistence embodies cultural
perspectives of relationships to places,
people and animals' (ibid 358). Thus,
in mapping wildlife use, such studies are also mapping cultural relationships
with country.
Questions of how the data generated are subsequently used can be
no less problematic than those encountered in Australia in relation
to
information about 'sacred sites'. See M S Weinstein, 'Getting to 'Use' in
Traditional Use Studies' (Paper presented at the Society
of Applied Anthropology
Annual Meeting, Seattle, Washington 1997); and M S Weinstein. 'Sharing
Information or Captured Heritage:
Access to Community Geographic Knowledge and
the State's Responsibility to Protect Aboriginal Rights in British Columbia
(Paper presented
at Crossing Boundaries, the Seventh Conference of the
International Association for the Study of Common Property Resources, Vancouver,
British Columbia 1998), both at
<http://www. nativemaps.org/Methods/tus_tek/tus.html>
[6] | L Treseder, J Honda-McNeil, M
Berkes, F Berkes, J Dragon, C Notzke, T Schramm, and R J Hudson, An Overview of
Community Based Wildlife
Management in Canada, Department of Renewable
Resources, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada (1998). |
[7] | For an example, see P J Usher,
'The Beverly-Kaminuriak Caribou Management Board: An Experience in
Comanagement,' in J T Inglis (ed),
Traditional Ecological Knowledge: Concepts
and Cases, Ottowa: Canadian Museum of Nature (1993). |
[8] | Op cit note 6. See also P
Usher, `Common Property and Regional Sovereignty: Recent Developments in the
Relations Between Aboriginal
Peoples and the Crown in Canada, in P Larmour (ed),
The Governance of Common Property in the Pacific Region, Canberra, National
Centre
for Development Studies, Australian National University,
(1997). |
[10] | See T De Lacy and B Lawson,
'The Uluru-Kakadu Model: Joint Management of Aboriginal Owned National Parks in
Australia, in S Stevens
(ed) Conservation Through Cultural Survival: Indigenous
Peoples and Protected Areas, Washington DC, Island Press
(1997). |
[11] | T Webb, 'Co-management of
Wildlife Resources by Indigenous Peoples' in M Bomford and J Caughley (eds)
Sustainable use of Wildlife
by Aboriginal Peoples and Torres Strait Islanders,
Canberra, Australian Government Publishing Service (1996). |
[12] | Northern Land Council and
Northern Territory Fishing Industry Council, 'Traditional owners' and fishing
industry's comprehensive agreement
on dugong protection strategy', Media
Release, 7 November 1996. |
[13] | See D Pearson and
Ngaanyatjarra Council 'Aboriginal Involvement in the Survey and Management of
Rockwallabies.' (1997) 19 (2) Australian
Mammalogy 249-256. Also L Geelen, A
Preliminary Study of the Black Footed Rock Wallaby (Petrogale Lateralis
Macdonnell Ranges Race)
in the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Lands, South Australia.
(Honours thesis, University of Adelaide, 1999). |
[14] | G Webb, 'Crocodiles' (1997)
10 (1) Australian Biologist 31-39. |
[15] | In addition most indigenous
groups have no clear mechanisms to access support to become stakeholders in
wildlife industries. Up to
1995 the Commonwealth Government Aboriginal Rural
Resources Initiative (ARRI) programme provided seed funding and expert support
for indigenous involvement in commercial enterprises based on use of native and
feral species. However ARRI was nor continued past
its original completion date
in 1995, even though evaluated as highly successful. See R Williams, A McNee, R
Rajavelu, and P Dougan,
Aboriginal Rural Resources Initiative (ARRT): Programme
Evaluation, Unpublished report commissioned by Bureau of Resource Sciences,
Canberra (1995). |
[17] | J Davies, K Higginbotrom, D
Noack, H Ross, and E Young, Indigenous Community Based Wildlife Management in
Australia: Sustaining Eden,
London, International Institute for Environment and
Development (1999). This review draws on 'desk top' case studies of 26
contemporary
projects and activities by or involving indigenous groups, for
which see J Davies, K Higginbottom, D Noack, H Ross, and E Young,
Indigenous
community based wildlife management in Australia: Case studies, (1997)
<http://www.waire.adelaide.edu.au/AME/jdavies/resear ch/studies.html.>
. |
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