Embracing the Remoteness: Is capacity building and valuing the arts at the Lo...
Australian Academy of Science 7Sept10 B Moggridge CSIRO
1. ABORIGINAL KNOWLEDGE AND CULTURAL
VALUES OF WATER
Australian Academy of Sciences
Water management options for urban and rural Australia
Bradley Moggridge
7 September 2010
3. Outline
1. Who I am as identity is important and NAIDOC 2010
2. Aboriginal Water Knowledge
3. Planning Opportunities
4. Values of Water
5. Cultural Flow
6. Gaps
4. Me
Toongabbie NSW
Kamilaroi Nation
Culturally I am Lucky and Unlucky:
Lucky - as I have a huge proud Murri family
Amaroo ACT 2010 and have a good education; and
Unlucky - as I have not grown up on Country
and cannot speak my language
5. Unsung Heroes: closing the gap by leading their way
NAIDOC 2010 POSTER
Artist: Sheree Blackley from Mt Isa QLD
Description of work: The artwork
depicts an Aboriginal mother who is an
'unsung hero' leading her children
through example, showing that actions
can speak louder than words. The dot
work illustrates nurturing and teaching
from birth, always guiding our children
towards 'closing the gap', towards
'success' for those who choose to stay on
the path.
6. Unsung Heroes and Leaders
Aboriginal heroes and leaders struggle to influence on a grand scale,
as locally their issues are to great
I don’t see myself as a leader, I just owe it to my ancestors
Dilemma for current generations:
Aboriginal Demographics (75% under 24 years of age)
Losing our Knowledge Holders at a great rate
We are at risk of losing far too much
We need to sit down and listen to our grass roots people
7. Outline
1. Who I am as identity is important and NAIDOC
2. Aboriginal Water Knowledge
3. Planning Opportunities
4. Values of Water
5. Cultural Flow
6. Gaps
8. Aboriginal Water Knowledge = Survival
• Aboriginal people are still here (climate change and all)
• Aboriginal people’s ability to survive in and understand the
Australian landscape is astounding this equates to:
Generations of Traditional Knowledge
• A precise classification system was developed for water sites
Aboriginal people know how to find and re-find water in a dry
landscape
• BUT, Aboriginal people are still not part of the “western
equation” in identifying how, when and where water flows in
Australia
9. Aboriginal Water Knowledge
A hypothetical addition:
D + TLC = 5000+/-
D = The “Dreaming”
TLC = Traditional Lore and Customs
5000+/-* generations of traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) and
survival on the driest inhabited continent on earth
*Based on 20years = 1 Generation (Wikipedia)
With the current state of the Country, who should protect and
nurture our country back to health - Aboriginal people, why?
Deep seated understanding and long relationship
Customary obligation
Are happier and healthier (in spirit and wellbeing) when we have the
same opportunities and standards of living as all Australians
10. Word Break
Frogs at
“Royal” Brewarrina Golf Club
Baiame’s Ngunnhu – Barwon River
Brewarrina Aboriginal Fishtraps
11. Outline
1. Who I am as identity is important and NAIDOC
2. Aboriginal Water Knowledge
3. Planning Opportunities
4. Values of Water
5. Cultural Flow
6. Gaps
12. Opportunities - National Water Initiative
• The National Water Initiative of 2004 for the first time explicitly recognised Indigenous
rights and interests in national water policy (paragraph 25(ix)):
“recognise Indigenous needs in relation to water access and management”
Paragraphs 52–54
Indigenous Access
52. The Parties will provide for indigenous access to water resources, in accordance
with relevant Commonwealth, State and Territory legislation, through planning
processes that ensure:
i) inclusion of Indigenous representation in water planning wherever possible; and
ii) water plans will incorporate indigenous social, spiritual and customary objectives
and strategies for achieving these objectives wherever they can be developed.
53. Water planning processes will take account of the possible existence of native title
rights to water in the catchment or aquifer area. The Parties note that plans may need
to allocate water to native title holders following the recognition of native title rights in
water under the Commonwealth Native Title Act 1993.
54. Water allocated to native title holders for traditional cultural purposes will be
accounted for.
13. Second Biennial Assessment of NWI 2009
Indigenous Specific Findings and Recommendations:
Finding 1.6
It is rare for Indigenous water requirements to be explicitly included in
water plans, and most jurisdictions are not yet engaging Indigenous
people effectively in water planning processes. The Commission notes
that Indigenous groups are, at their own initiative, currently developing the
capacity to participate more fully in water planning processes
Recommendation 1.4
The Commission recommends that all jurisdictions develop and publish
processes for effective engagement of Indigenous people in water
planning. Parties should ensure that all new water plans (including
statutory reviews of existing water plans) provide for Indigenous access to
water resources by at least incorporating Indigenous social, spiritual and
customary objectives and strategies for achieving those objectives.
Jurisdictional processes should also make clear how Indigenous groups
can pursue their legitimate economic objectives
14. Second Biennial Assessment of NWI 2009
Indigenous Specific Findings and Recommendations:
Finding 6.7
Water to meet Indigenous social, spiritual and customary objectives
is rarely clearly specified in water plans. It appears often to be
implicitly assumed that these objectives, where considered at all,
can be met by rules-based environmental water provisions
Recommendation 6.5
The Commission recommends further exploration of Indigenous
needs in relation to water access and management, and
mechanisms to meet those needs. The Commission proposes to
initiate a national study on this matter
15. The Third NWI Biennial Assessment
• The Third Biennial Assessment is due in 2011
• Will it be a cut and past from the 2009 Assessment?
Aboriginal interests in water planning are still neglected
• The formation of the First Peoples’ Water Engagement Council
just recently will assist the NWC:
to incorporate Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspective into
NWC processes and projects
to hopefully move on from a cut and past scenario
16. UN Declaration
• On 3 April 2009 the Australian Federal Government gave its
support to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of the
Indigenous People, and for the purpose of this presentation
Article 25 is of relevance as it states:
Indigenous peoples have the right to maintain and strengthen their
distinctive spiritual relationship with their traditionally owned or
otherwise occupied and used lands, territories, waters and coastal
seas and other resources and to uphold their responsibilities to
future generations in this regard.
17. Word Break
Ngemba Mission Billabong
- Barwon River
Thirlmere Lakes - Tahmoor
18. Outline
1. Who I am as identity is important and NAIDOC
2. Aboriginal Water Knowledge
3. Planning Opportunities
4. Values of Water
5. Cultural Flow
6. Gaps
19. Value of Water to Aboriginal People
• Aboriginal peoples’ value to water is sacred, deep and
necessary for survival.
• It is protected by Lore, which provide a system of sustainable
management ensuring healthy people
• Aboriginal people’s connection with Country does not separate
the individual features of the landscape
• Non-Aboriginal laws and traditions tend to separate water from
the land and from the sky
20. Value of Water to Aboriginal People
• Aboriginal cultural and economic values associated with waters
are poorly understood by water resource managers including
the cultural economy
(i.e. 1 echidna may equal 3 yellow bellies)
• The poor understanding leads to poor allocations/entitlements
• Aboriginal people are critical of water managers for the
exclusive focus given to satisfying ecological criteria in
environmental watering
21. The Value of Healthy Water
Water that is of adequate quantities and quality is the centre and
life blood to a healthy existence for all
Healthy
People
Healthy
Water
Healthy Healthy
Country Culture
22. Water Dependent Cultural Values
The water dependent cultural values will relate to the below cultural
assets in the form of:
• Creation sites and cultural hero stories linking with spiritual significance
along a song line/dreaming tracks - non-tangible (“Dreaming Sites”);
• Language (connects culture to place);
• Resource sites for traditional bush foods and medicines;
• Resource sites for artefacts, tools, art and crafts;
• Gender specific sites – men’s and women’s business;
• Ceremonial sites;
23. Water Dependent Cultural Values
Wait there's more:
• Burial places/sites;
• Teaching sites;
• Massacre sites where frontier battles occurred with traditional groups;
• Tribal boundary indicators, landscape features, or stone
arrangements;
• Cultural specific environmental conditions to sustain totemic species;
and
• Sites that contain physical/tangible evidence of occupation middens,
campsites, artefact scatters, scarred and carved trees, stone
arrangements and fish traps
25. Outline
1. Who I am as identity is important and NAIDOC
2. Aboriginal Water Knowledge
3. Planning Opportunities
4. Values of Water
5. Cultural Flow
6. Gaps
26. Cultural Flow
• Aboriginal people rely heavily on rivers, groundwater and wetlands to
access their values both tangible and non-tangible,
• Many values require a flow, otherwise the story/connection is lost
• The terms Cultural Flow and Cultural Water have been mentioned and
described in a number of published papers and reports, below is a personal
description of both:
Cultural Flow: is the water determined/managed by an Aboriginal group and
ordered from an water authority to arrive at a certain time of year (seasonal) for
a certain cultural purpose to sustain their local water dependant cultural values
Cultural Water: is the water body itself that sits in a billabong, wetland or river
that allows Aboriginal people to undertake their custodial and cultural
responsibilities. This cultural water, Aboriginal people engage and interact with
rather than extract, irrigate or store for economic or environmental purposes
(Following discussions with F.Hooper, 2010)
27. Cultural Flow
• Water Plans generally assume that environmental water or
flows will meet cultural values, including Aboriginal social and
economic values
• The problem here is that Aboriginal people are rarely engaged
to determine environmental flows
• Other challenges include for Aboriginal water entitlements:
Lack of data
No clear definitions
Lack of policy and guidance
Lack of understanding
28. Cultural Flow
• In a report to the NSW Healthy Rivers Commission by Behrendt and
Thompson 2003 state that:
Cultural flows should be an essential component of river
management. A ‘cultural flow’ can be set and monitored as
sufficient flow in a suitable pattern to ensure the maintenance of
Aboriginal cultural practices and connections with the rivers
(Behrendt and Thompson 2003)
• Another definition offered by a MDLRIN delegate from the Yorta Yorta
Nation, Professor Henry Atkinson:
Cultural Flows’ are water entitlements that are legally and
beneficially owned by the Indigenous Nations of a sufficient and
adequate quantity and quality to improve the spiritual, cultural,
environmental, social and economic conditions of those Indigenous
Nations (Atkinson 2009)
29. Cultural Flow
• Definitions and needs for cultural water by Aboriginal people
may differ at a local scale
• A representative definition of a Cultural Flow is yet to be agreed
upon by the 250+ Aboriginal Nations within Australia
AIATSIS (2005)
32. Outline
1. Who I am as identity is important and NAIDOC
2. Aboriginal Water Knowledge
3. Opportunities
4. Values of Water
5. Cultural Flow
6. Gaps
33. Gaps in Knowledge
• No research is yet to quantify a cultural flow i.e. no credible evidence
• No research has compared a cultural flow to an environmental flow
• There is a severe lack of quantitative real data on Aboriginal water uses
and values:
So a need for further primary data collection or case specific investigations
(Long Term)
• There are substantial gaps in science of identifying Aboriginal water
requirements – Culturally and Economically
• Aboriginal people do not have the big reports or glossy maps, all their
knowledge is obtained orally, in song, stories through TEK
34. CSIRO
• CSIRO investing in Aboriginal water management through the
Water for a Healthy Country Flagship:
Work to date in Northern Australia
CSIRO Indigenous Engagement Strategy
CSIRO Indigenous Employment Strategy, aiming to increase
Indigenous employment in CSIRO to 2.5%
CSIRO three National Indigenous Roundtables on:
o Indigenous Research, 2008 in Broome
o Water and Climate Change, 2008 in Mildura
o Health, 2009 in Adelaide
Employment of Brad Moggridge
• CSIRO has a strong interest in developing long term research
activity to address Aboriginal water requirements
35. Wrap Up
• Aboriginal people have a long and deep relationship with water but are not
part of the water debate
• Aboriginal people have opportunities to engage in water through the NWI
and UN Declaration, but jurisdictions need to allow this to occur
• Aboriginal people want to protect Country as their relationship with Country
does not separate the individual features of the landscape such as water,
land and sky
• A growing body of interest in a Cultural Flow
• There are considerable gaps in knowledge in understanding how water is
used by Aboriginal people both economically and culturally and what
benefits TEK can provide “Western Science”
• While I am at CSIRO I will be keeping this issue on the lab bench
36. Thanks goes to
Chair, Professor Graham Farquhar
Dr Tom Hatton
Savita Khiani
Dr Fiona Leves
37. Brad Moggridge ph: 02 6246 5633
or bradley.moggridge@csiro.au
QUESTIONS
Thank you
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