Indigenous

On the 11th July 1987, Australians voted the ALP and Bob Hawke into federal government. Labor’s campaign promise, to stop logging within Queensland’s Wet Tropical rainforests via World Heritage nomination, was well supported and true to its word, inscription was ratified a mere sixteen months later.

World Heritage listing for the area’s Cultural Heritage was not sought in Australia’s nomination. The listing of the Wet Tropics was for natural heritage only. The tenor of the nomination rather celebrated the extraordinary natural values as if they had been found, like a hidden treasure, for the remarkable good fortune of humankind. Their urgent protection, through the highest order of protection available to Australia, was justified by their discovery.

But for the people whose lives and livelihoods were a part of the nominated landscape, there was also dishonour and disenfranchisement. Under the nobility of World Heritage, domestic maneuverings usurped economic benefits and amenity towards emerging interests with lesser familiarity.

The indigenous peoples of the Wet Tropics, in particular, were offered tokenistic recognition of traditional ownership, but were structurally excluded from management authority. The fact that the very values identified for World Heritage listing remained a living testament to indigenous land management practices, was not only overlooked by Australia, it was also severed from continuity.

After more than twenty years of effort to convince Australia to re-nominate the Wet Tropics for Cultural Heritage values, indigenous interests have recently won the support of federal environment minister, the Hon. Peter Garrett MP, for inclusion on the National Heritage List; whilst not quite World Heritage, it is a step in that very direction.

Taken from the Wet Tropics Management Authority website: story places (natural features such as mountains, rivers, waterfalls, swimming holes, trees) are parts of the Wet Tropics landscape that are important to Rainforest Aboriginal people as they symbolise features that were created during the ancestral creation period (sometimes called the “Dreaming” or the “Dreamtime”). These places have powerful meaning and properties. They may be considered dangerous to approach or take resources from, except in prescribed ways or by the right person. These places must be respected, not damaged and must be managed carefully by the expert guidance of the relevant Traditional Owners.

No, this is not a photograph of my two left feet … I will only claim the shod one at the left. Australia’s heaviest native land animal, the adult female Southern Cassowary Casuarius casuarius johnsonii, left the imprint of the other. As can be seen against my size-10 clodhopper, this is a bird that would fill a room.

On the issue of footprints, tracking is an invaluable skill taught to traditional indigenous children throughout time. It is a form of literacy, although the script is somewhat unenduring. Nevertheless, as it is with tracking, translating faded writing is entirely possible if the essence of the letters and their sequencing allows reader anticipation to conform to the growing meaning of the prose.

Much is reported about rates of illiteracy in indigenous communities, but the tracks presented in the assessment are of an overly unfamiliar passing and in an abstract form. Would non-indigenous Australia be regarded as equivalently illiterate in its performance of an indigenous test of tracking comprehension?

Many years ago, I crossed the path of an indigenous elder at the outskirts of a Warlpiri settlement in the Tanami desert. His concentration was on the ground before him as he walked along. I asked what he was looking for and he replied Killarwi, his son. He was tracking him. The truly astonishing part was that the track was awash with footprints; around two-hundred and twenty kids passing eight times per day at least five days per week. And yet the elder was able to read the passage of his son’s amongst all others. As an outdoor educator, this was a skill that I would very much like to acquire.

More recently, I was denied a commercial activity permit to enter Daintree NP from my adjoining property. The deposition of the Principal Policy adviser of the region included reference to a phone conversation with a Dr. John WINTER. He wrote:

“Dr. WINTER indicated to me that 4 expeditioners spent five days on the summit of Thornton peak (sic). These expeditioners formed paths simply by walking through the ferns. D. WINTER (sic) indicated that on a return visit about 8 months later there was no signs of any recovery to the vegetation from the damage done by trampling of the expeditioners.”

For such an important matter, I regarded the testimony very poorly. Who was to say that the impact was exclusively the expeditioners, or that in the intervening period no other had stepped foot on this portion of the landscape? And what of the thousands of feral pigs running rife throughout the Daintree and the other, more legitimate inhabitants?

Much is spoken these days of the ‘footprint’ of particular impacts, but I must say, the reading of tracks to give comprehension is a skill that is sadly lacking in contemporary curricula. Whilst governments provide recurrent funding for English literacy to be taught in indigenous communities, there is no counter-part for the employment of indigenous trackers in non-indigenous institutions.