Managing their land

29/04/1998
Down To Earth

Managing their land Aboriginal people have provided for their needs through the ages by hunting and food gathering activities. These are an integral part of aboriginal religious practices. In recent years, they have been using a combination of traditional and contemporary land management techniques to care for the lands, which have been returned to their control after successful land claims of purchases.

Beth Schultz, eminent scholar and environmentalist of the Conservation Council of Western Australia, told Down To Earth: "60,000 years of aboriginal settlement changed Australia's natural environment is badly degraded."

Peter Sharp policy adviser, Conservation and Land Management (CALM), says CALM recognises the traditional roles of aboriginal people in looking after the land. But with the advent of European settlement and their massive impacts, additional land management activities must be introduced to safeguard the megadiversity of the landscape, he says.

Sharp says one of the most important issues facing the aboriginal people is their right to carry on hunting activities on land controlled by CALM. He says the Wildlife Conservation Act (state Act in Western Australia) prohibits hunting of native animals in reserve areas. This has disenchanted aboriginal people. What needs to be bone, he says, is for aboriginal people to discuss management strategies with CALM that enable native title rights to be exercised without threatening conservation values and nature reserve.

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