Climate Change And Indigenous Australian Aboriginals

Vulnerability of Indigenous Australian Aboriginals to climate change

Question:

Discuss About The Climate Indigenous Australian Aboriginals?

Globally, the climatic change has been regarded as the outrageous policy crisis. The Indigenous Aboriginal people have been surviving on the Australian continent for centuries. According to The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Third Assessment Report (TAR), the aboriginals are one of the most potential communities who will be directly affected by the climate change[1]. It raises challenges and risks for their culture, resources and lands. accounting to many global academics and natural scientist, the climatic change is largely induced by human activities. Tribal activities like tress cutting and burning, deforestations and burning grasslands at large scales are facilitating the impact of climate change in a higher degree.

The global agents and institutions has lately shown concerns and addressed the issue of the current climatic transformation debate with its stressing on the immediate action is shocking simply in the time span the questions have been raised in Australia now. In 1996, the very first report was published by the Commonwealth Minister for the Environment addressing the climate concern within Australia. The report of Australia: State of the Environment 1996, states that the environment and its natural resources should be managed that will enable its ecological sustainability[2]. The report is an example of essential source of environmental information about Australian climatic changing issue and the basic challenge is to utilize the available knowledge information for the use of societal betterment and suitability of the ecosystem. Despite mainstream engagement and concerns about addressing the climatic change and related policy in Australia the Indigenous Aboriginal’s role and involvement is negligible[3]. They do not possess any long-term engagement with government and community policy or reformation regarding the rising issue of climatic change.

In the current situation, the Aboriginals of Australia are in front of extreme existing challenges due to rising concerns of climatic change. The main areas of concerns are- poor health facilities, unemployment and illiteracy, low levels of income, poor and inadequate infrastructure for communal development. The climatic change and its impact will facilitate in worsen the current and existing issues and challenges faced by the aboriginals.

In the Part I of this paper, the author will begin with identifying and recognizing the vulnerability of Indigenous Australian Aboriginal and emphasising the significance of climatic stability for the sustainability of the Australian Aboriginals. The research will highlight the vulnerability of Australian Aboriginals to the climatic change due to the geographic distribution of settlement of the tribal population and the vastness of the Indigenous-owned estate within the continent. People living in interiors of Indigenous-owned estate generally face more hardship in everyday life due to the nature of Indigenous hybrid economies and lack of proper economic setup[4]. Also, the positive aspect of the challenge is that more than 20% of the total land area of the Australian continent is under the control of under land rights and native title laws where the Aboriginal Australians enjoy special control over the land[5].

Evolution of Indigenous Australian Aboriginal rights in the international arena

In the Part II of this thesis will study the evolution of the Indigenous Australian Aboriginal rights in the international arena. In the year 1963, the Yirrkala people presented the bark petition in-front of the House of Representatives which first initiated the question and discussion of Australia’s Aboriginal land rights[6]. The primary question was about the legal obligations that the English Common Law had towards respecting the Aboriginals who are occupying the land for centuries. In 1978, the ‘NSW Select Committee of the Legislative Assembly upon Aborigines’ which is also known as the Keane Committee was established, that directly lead to the passing of the landmark Aboriginal Land Rights Act 1983 (ALRA) by the NSW Parliament[7]. According to this land right legislation, “that Land is of spiritual, social, cultural, and economic importance to Aboriginal peoples and that the decisions of past Governments have progressively reduced the amount of Aboriginal land without compensation”[8]. The basic aim of this legislative was to return the Crown land to the Aboriginals of Australia to decompensate the disadvantage of that the Indigenous community is facing. As a result, the ALRA also setup an association of democratically elected representatives of Aboriginal Land Councils so that land management can be done on an economical basis and a legal account of compensatory duty to fund their operations. The study details the emerging shortcomings in the implementation of the legislative of ALR Act 1983. There are mainly two legal processes by which the Aboriginal land rights can be achieved. They are- the legislative process or by the common law that has been developed by judges. Although neither of the legal processes has been effective in accomplishing the Aboriginal land rights.

The climate change and its effect on the human race are expanding every day. The people who will be mostly affected by the climatic change will be the indigenous aboriginal population with foremost effects on the indigenous natural and cultural landscapes. On a recent study it has been observed by that as the sea level rises it will be affecting thousands of Aboriginal habitats and archaeological sites residing in the coastal regions[9].

In the past twenty-five years there has have been a lot of dialogue and debates engaging the Aboriginal Land rights in Australia but I reality there have been little consequences on the actual critical situation. The Aboriginal Land Rights is not a contemporary or new idea in Australia rather it was first proposed by a Christian philanthropist and the Aboriginal Protection Society in Australia from the early nineteenth century[10]. The first Aboriginals Land Rights were donated by the British Government in early 1830s with the instruction of local governor. Therefore, the land reserves were established and rights to use and possession of the Crown land was identified and social welfare and education was given as a form of compensation[11].

Challenges faced by the Aboriginals of Australia

A recent initiative was taken by the James Cook University for the study of “climate change conservations” on two indigenous aboriginal communities in the northern Queensland. The study was conducted among the two-distinctive aboriginal community, the Injinoo and Girringun communities[12]. The basic aim of the project was to identify people of aboriginal community valued in the ecosystem and management. What are the changes that have been observed in the environment and lastly scientifically predicting the climatic changes in the geographical area? In the study, it was found that indigenous people identify climatic and environmental changes through oral history unlike factual affirmation of past events.Although most of the elderly population of the Aboriginal community believes that they are helpless and should be facing climatic change and its effects because they have little to no influence over the developed nation’s activities.

The recent boom in the mining industry and activities in the protected land for Aboriginals are also affecting the ecosystem and the environment[13]. Mining in the Aboriginal’s land is controlled by the Mining Act (NT) and Part IV of the Aboriginal Land Rights Act 1976[14], which was last amended in the year 1987. Mining is one of the major industries in Australian economy which contributes more than a billion Australian dollars a year. Unfortunately, most of these mining lands are situated at the land of Indigenous Aboriginals of Australian northern part which gives serious concerns about the Aboriginal Land Rights Act 1976[15]. Fortunately, the Aboriginal Land Rights Act offers safety and protection to the land owned by Indigenous people and facilitates the Land Council to create agreements with mining business organizations which assure to safeguard the interests of the Aboriginal land owners.

The study requires a complex range of data collection techniques for the requirement of the research project. The research related sources will be collected from secondary data like archival resources, ethnographic practice, resources from new oral histories and utilizing the existing ones. Secondary data is a set of quantitative data which has already been collected and composed by someone else for a distinct purpose[16]. By utilizing content analysis, the author will critically analyse the various regulations. The study will be based on theoretical framework which will include a positivist doctrinal approach.The study is an interdisciplinary approach as it includes analysis on the field of law, environmental science and management. The research will analyse the cases that has been original officially recognised decisions have been subject to appeal. A further analysis will be done into the nature of environmental threats and challenges their possibility and solutions within the doctrine of sovereign immunity from suit will follow under this doctrinal approach.

Recent initiatives taken to study climate change conservation among Indigenous Aboriginal communities

A follow-up research study is necessary for the interdisciplinary methodology that appears ahead of the legal discipline. In a interdisciplinary research study, the scope for greater space for the applying the concept to specific segment of social life investigating the functionality of legislative policies in society. To develop a novel approach to the legislative principles of Australian Aboriginal Land protection policies, the study will consider recommendations and solutions within the legal structure for the betterment of Aboriginals. Therefore, it can be hoped that the resultant and the solution which is effective will be applied for the amendment of the legislative policies in the Aboriginal Land Rights Act.

References

Altman, J. (2010). What future for remote Indigenous Australia? Economic hybridity and the neoliberal turn. Culture crisis: Anthropology and politics in Aboriginal Australia, 259-280.

Bayon, R., Carroll, N., & Fox, J. (2012). Conservation and biodiversity banking: a guide to setting up and running biodiversity credit trading systems. Earthscan.

Behrendt, L. (2003). Achieving social justice: Indigenous rights and Australia’s future. Federation Press.

Evans, J., Grimshaw, P., Phillips, D., & Swain, S. (2010). Equal subjects, unequal rights: Indigenous people in British settler colonies, 1830-1910. Manchester University Press.

Farbotko, C. (2010). “Wishful sinking: Disappearing islands, climate refugees and cosmopolitan experimentation.” Asia Pacific Viewpoint 51(1): 47-60.

Goodall, H. (2008). Invasion to embassy: land in Aboriginal politics in New South Wales, 1770-1972. Sydney University Press.

Green, D. L. (2006). Climate change and healthcare: impacts on remote Indigenous communities in northern Australia. Aspendale: CSIRO.

Green, D., Jackson, S., & Morrison, J. (2009). Risks from climate change to indigenous communities in the tropical north of Australia. Department of Climate Change, Commonwealth of Australia.

Johnson, M. C. (2016). The Land is Our History: Indigeneity, Law, and the Settler State. Oxford University Press.

Lester, A., &Dussart, F. (2014). Colonization and the origins of humanitarian governance: protecting Aborigines across the nineteenth-century British Empire. Cambridge University Press.

Mitchell, J., &Curthoys, A. (2010). 8. How different was Victoria? Aboriginal ‘protection’in a comparative context. Journal of Australian Studies, 34(3), 257-273.

Nix, H., Mackey, B., Traill, B., &Woinarski, J. (2013). The nature of Northern Australia: its natural values, ecological processes and future prospects (p. 127). ANU Press.

Ritchie, J., Lewis, J., Nicholls, C. M., &Ormston, R. (Eds.). (2013). Qualitative research practice: A guide for social science students and researchers. Sage.

Russell-Smith, J., Cook, G. D., Cooke, P. M., Edwards, A. C., Lendrum, M., Meyer, C. P., & Whitehead, P. J. (2013). Managing fire regimes in north Australian savannas: applying Aboriginal approaches to contemporary global problems. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, 11(s1).

Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976. (2017). Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976. https://www.foundingdocs.gov.au. Retrieved 14 September 2017, from https://www.foundingdocs.gov.au/resources/transcripts/nt7_doc_1976.pdf

McHugh, P. G. (2011). Aboriginal title: The modern jurisprudence of tribal land rights. Oxford University Press.

[1]Goodall, H. (2008). Invasion to embassy: land in Aboriginal politics in New South Wales, 1770-1972. Sydney University Press.

[2]Behrendt, L. (2003). Achieving social justice: Indigenous rights and Australia’s future. Federation Press.

[3]Green, D. L. (2006). Climate change and health: impacts on remote Indigenous communities in northern Australia. Aspendale: CSIRO.

[4]Nix, H., Mackey, B., Traill, B., &Woinarski, J. (2013). The nature of Northern Australia: its natural values, ecological processes and future prospects (p. 127). ANU Press.

[5]Bayon, R., Carroll, N., & Fox, J. (2012). Conservation and biodiversity banking: a guide to setting up and running biodiversity credit trading systems. Earthscan.

[6]Johnson, M. C. (2016). The Land is Our History: Indigeneity, Law, and the Settler State. Oxford University Press.

[7]Evans, J., Grimshaw, P., Phillips, D., & Swain, S. (2010). Equal subjects, unequal rights: Indigenous people in British settler colonies, 1830-1910. Manchester University Press.

[8]Mitchell, J., &Curthoys, A. (2010). 8. How different was Victoria? Aboriginal ‘protection’in a comparative context. Journal of Australian Studies, 34(3), 257-273.

[9]Green, D., Jackson, S., & Morrison, J. (2009). Risks from climate change to indigenous communities in the tropical north of Australia. Department of Climate Change, Commonwealth of Australia.

[10]Russell-Smith, J., Cook, G. D., Cooke, P. M., Edwards, A. C., Lendrum, M., Meyer, C. P., & Whitehead, P. J. (2013). Managing fire regimes in north Australian savannas: applying Aboriginal approaches to contemporary global problems. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, 11(s1).

[11]Lester, A., &Dussart, F. (2014). Colonization and the origins of humanitarian governance: protecting Aborigines across the nineteenth-century British Empire. Cambridge University Press.

[12]Farbotko, C. (2010). “Wishful sinking: Disappearing islands, climate refugees and cosmopolitan experimentation.” Asia Pacific Viewpoint 51(1): 47-60

[13]Altman, J. (2010). What future for remote Indigenous Australia? Economic hybridity and the neoliberal turn. Culture crisis: Anthropology and politics in Aboriginal Australia, 259-280.

[14]McHugh, P. G. (2011). Aboriginal title: The modern jurisprudence of tribal land rights. Oxford University Press.

[15]Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976. (2017). Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976. https://www.foundingdocs.gov.au. Retrieved 14 September 2017, from https://www.foundingdocs.gov.au/resources/transcripts/nt7_doc_1976.pdf

[16]Ritchie, J., Lewis, J., Nicholls, C. M., &Ormston, R. (Eds.). (2013). Qualitative research practice: A guide for social science students and researchers. Sage.