Creating an ecologically sustainable northern Australia

1. Creating an ecologically sustainable northern Australia Dr Rosemary Hill Northern Australia Program Coordinator Australian Conservation Foundation

2. Overview • Culture and nature: the importance of the north • Consequences of our current direction • Sustainability: nature and culture • Charting true sustainability

4. What makes the north important globally? - nature and culture

5. Outstanding natural values • rare, endemic, endangered animals - Gouldian finch, spotted cuscus, golden-backed tree rat • wetlands of national and international significance • the most extensive eucalpyt forests in the world • complex island archipelagoes around the sunken Kimberley coastline

6. Relatively good condition • most intact tropical savanna landscapes in the world • less than 1% cleared in Cape York Peninsula and the Kimberleys • Biodiversity Audit findings: • health of nationally important wetlands generally good • mostly near pristine estuaries in northern Australia

8. Slower rate of mammal attrition remember the highest mammal extinction rate in the world, accounting for a third of global extinctions

9. Centre of cultural diversity • Part of WWF’s map of global ethnolinguistic groups • low density population (around 0.1 people per km2 cf 4 in southern Australia) • Diversity of language, art, music, resources

10. Connections to country • “country is living entity with a yesterday, today and tomorrow, with a consciousness, and a will towards life” • places are travelled, known, described in song, dance, design, stories • fire, season, resources • “country of the heart”

11. Keeping country strong • Indigenous land and cultural management agencies: Balkanu, NLC, KLC, Dhimurru, Bamanga Bubu Ngadimunku… • Resistance to industrialisation: the Mirrar people; Wuthathi people heroic struggles at Jabiluka and Shelburne

12. Consequences of our current direction

13. Northern Australia Forum eg. • acknowledges “clean green and tropical” as a key competitive advantage but recommends: • development of irrigated horticulture • intensification of beef production • mining and mineral production • clearing for plantation forestry

14. Consequences for the land • Declines in mammal numbers and granivorous birds….Why? • broadscale clearing- most important -threatens specific ecosystems on CYP <1% clearing • grazing, inappropriate fire regimes, feral animals and exotic weeds, water development (salinisation in the Ord) • global climate change…. Grazing impact Gamba grass

15. Consequences for the people • Australia-wide Indigenous peoples have the lowest economic status • Kimberley: apprehension rate for young Indigenous 3 times that for non-Indig. • Cape York: almost 25% of adults with signs of early kidney disease in one health check

16. Major development projects... Kakadu: no improvement throughout the 80s despite $ from mine, Park

17. Sustainability: nature and culture

18. Creating sustainability • Passing onto future generations the same opportunities we enjoy • Natural assets: environmentally appropriate development • Cultural diversity, which is the basic fabric of human life: culturally appropriate development

19. Environmentally appropriate • Underpinned by best ecological science • Avoid where possible the impacts identified as most damaging: no broadscale clearing or major water impoundment/extraction • Control those impacts that can’t be eliminated: fire regimes, weeds and feral animals • Ecologically modern: renewables, efficient

20. Growth industries! • natural and cultural heritage-based tourism; • cultural industries (arts) - fastest growing in the world • land and water management - international education and training - knowledge industries • commercial farming of wildlife • rehabilitation of lands retired from grazing and extractive uses such as mining • renewable energy, efficient technologies .

21. Culturally appropriate • Indigenous leadership • NT Forum on Indigenous Econ. Devel.: • good governance • cultural industries (largest employer of Indigenous people in NT) • tourism • wildlife farming • caring for country, carbon accumulation through fire management • also interest in sustainable pastoralism and mining • Synergies here!

22. Charting sustainability - or how to steer in a different direction?

23. Get real!..generate hope • Don’t start in the opposite direction: recognise the north is marginal for pastoralism, agriculture and that large scale developments have not benefited broadly • focus on nature and culture • support, respect, recognise Indigenous leadership and communities • protect our country - keep the trees, keep the rivers wild, listen to the curlew call at night • base economy on nature and culture

24. Stimulate debate • ACF/Rainforest CRC “Appropriate Economic Models Roundtable” • Research support important – true partnerships between Indigenous knowledge and science • Government policy/regulation/incentives also critical

25. Creating sustainability • Places us at the forefront of the greatest questions of our time, achieving environmental protection and reconciliation with the First Nations peoples of our global community