Aboriginal land management & care

Approximately 20% of Australia is owned or managed by Indigenous Australian groups. Often working together with Australian Government departments, Indigenous groups manage the land, freshwater and marine resources. The Australian Government and Indigenous groups jointly manage a number of large national parks around Australia.

Koori people have lived in and around the Booderee National Park for hundreds of generations. Intimate knowledge of the local plants and animals as both food and medicines has been learned and passed down from generation to generation, and still is today. It is this traditional local knowledge that enables the park to be properly and successfully managed, benefiting the people of the Wreck Bay Aboriginal Community and other locals as well as visitors that come to enjoy the national park and botanic gardens.

There are three key objectives for the successful management of Booderee National Park:

• to conserve the biodiversity and cultural heritage of the park

• to provide for appreciation and quiet enjoyment of the park

• to benefit members of the Wreck Bay Aboriginal Community Council.

Modern Aboriginal land care methods are very different than traditional methods but address issues such as greenhouse gas emission. Bush rangers are critical for many land care tasks and highly successful.

Traditional care for the land

Aboriginal people created a complex system of land management. There was no 'pristine wilderness' as many explorers thought, but rather a patchwork of burnt and re-grown areas. Fire was their biggest ally.

In using fire Aboriginal people could plan and predict plant growth and with it attract animals for hunting. They converted the land to grasslands for the "maintenance" of animals, plants and fresh drinking water, according to Bill Gammage's award-winning book, The Biggest Estate on Earth.

Gammage explains that Aboriginal people not only thought of kangaroos when laying out their burn patterns, but also of possums, wombats, birds, insects, reptiles and plants. "Once you have started to lay out country to suit a species, you are on the way to an extraordinarily complex arrangement of the land, which you must maintain very carefully, and over many generations," he says. Burn patterns also need to consider plant cycles.

Research draws some striking conclusions:

• No uncontrolled fires. An uncontrolled fire could wipe out food sources—Aboriginal people had to prevent them or die. Evidence strongly suggests that no devastating fires occurred.

• Aboriginal people were farmers. (see section below)

• Customised templates. Aboriginal people developed specific templates to suit the land, plants and animals. They knew which animals preferred what, e.g. kangaroos preferred short grass, native bees preferred desert bloodwood etc. Managing the land with fire required them consider these dependencies.

• No pristine wilderness. More trees grow in areas now known as national parks than did in 1788.

Aboriginal people were sophisticated farmers

Researchers found that Aboriginal people grew crops of tubers such as yams, grain such as native millet, macadamia nuts, fruits and berries. People reared dingoes, possums, emus and cassowaries, moved caterpillars to new breeding areas and carried fish stock across country. [3]

There is "strong evidence" of "sophisticated farming and agriculture practices". Early explorers watched women harvesting yams, onions, and cultivating the land, [4] creating reserves of flour and grain.

Land management tasks

Traditional owners often work in partnership with government departments and other non-Aboriginal organisations to conserve and care for land.

In such mutual relationships traditional owners and rangers perform a multitude of tasks:

Spiritual & cultural works

• protect and maintain cultural sites, stories and songlines,

• recognise important cultural areas,

• perform cultural or customary activities,

• supply meat from crocodile and feral buffalo to the local community.

Environmental works

• record sites of resource use and special features,

• create seasonal harvest calendars,

• survey catchments,

• hunt for feral animals such as foxes, camels or cats which threaten the delicate ecosystem of the bush,

• record (new) plants,

• protect biodiversity,

• remove seeds and weeds including invasive pests like African buffel grass,

• remove rubbish left by tourists at camping spots, and ghost nets and other marine debris from seas and beaches,

• help reduce greenhouse gas emissions and earn carbon credits,

• return threatened species to their native habitat (439 animal species were threatened in 2012, up from 353 in 2001; 1344 plant species were threatened in 2012, a 20% increase from 2001,

• manage controlled burns and set fire breaks to prevent devastating bush fires and protect outstations and sacred sites,

• conduct fisheries surveillance and compliance patrols,

• help with sustainable water management, including animal rescue.

Educational works

• teach government departments and tourists about their connection with the land, the seasons and bush foods,

• assist with providing cross-cultural education and capacity building within their communities,

• take Aboriginal children out on country so they can learn from their elders.