ABC News Online reports that the Federal Government has doubled the funding under its Indigenous Protected Area program, from three to six million-dollars a year.
Twenty-two initiatives are currently funded to help indigenous communities run conservation programs on land covering 15 million hectares, or 6 per cent of Australia’s land mass.
At $5 per hectare, I wonder how this investment in public monies compares with the cost per hectare, within the publicly-owned protected area estate?
Federal parliamentary secretary for the environment, Greg Hunt, says “We weren’t expecting social impact but what we’re finding is when people are doing meaningful work in remote Indigenous communities, there’s been a decrease in domestic violence, a decrease in drug and alcohol and other substance abuse and an increase in social cohesion.”
No doubt the economic beneficiaries of recurrent funding on the public estate also enjoy the social benefits of employment in the name of conservation, but surely the greater challenge for Australia is the development of sustainable economies on indigenous communities that meaningfully revitalise traditional care for country.
The major difficulty, as I see it, is the environmental functions and mandates of government land management agencies are not regarded as business activities; therefore, they are not required to maintain competitive neutrality. The supply of environmental goods and services on public estate is heavily subsidised to provide the illusion of free or nominal-fee entry, excluding fair trade upon non-government tenures.
Australian Government’s Tourism White Paper states:
The tourism industry is only meeting half the market demand for Indigenous tourism experiences. International visitors are clearly interested in experiencing these cultures but, at this stage, our tourism industry has not been able to develop sufficient Indigenous tourism product to meet that demand. Visitors are particularly interested in learning, experiencing and interacting with Aboriginal people, with authenticity an important aspect of the experience. Germany, the United Kingdom, other European countries and North America show the strongest potential demand for Indigenous tourism experiences in Australia.
Tourism offers particular opportunities for Indigenous Australians. In many areas of regional and remote Australia it offers the prospect of a pathway to economic independence. A significant proportion of the Indigenous population resides in regional and remote Australia. Developing Indigenous tourism can provide much needed opportunities for employment, social stability and preservation of culture and traditions.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Curious – summary comment identifies an interesting point of view, but could you please explain in more detail: “The major difficulty, as I see it, is the environmental … excluding fair trade upon non-government tenures.” (not selective quoting, just saving space). Thanks, Neil.
I would say, though, that while the idea of “public estate” seems fairly neutral and makes sense if you’re talking about a park in the suburbs or city, extending that idea to areas that have been populated by blackfellas longer than whitefellas, even since whitefellas set sandal upon the East coast, is a stretch. If a program indirectly achieves beneficial outcomes in unexpected ways, like health, lowered rates of depression, violence, crime, or drug abuse, then surely there’s a cost comparison to be done in comparing those outcomes to the price, not only of levels staying the same, but of attending to their consequences. Not that big a deal if some dodgey tourism operators selling bodgy art and bamboo didges have to peddle elsewhere, really?
On a related paint, I wouldn’t be surprised if Pantera has a linxi for this, but when the Canadian government acknowledged their First Nations and in effect said “Sorry”, there was a similar outcome. Levels of alcoholism, violence, health disorders, and social/cultural/employment problems amongst indigenous communities also decreased significantly and unexpectedly. Maybe it just feels good to have your existence and history acknowledged.
There is something ghastly about a system to “help indigenous communities run conservation programs” which will use “preservation of culture and traditions” to generate “[i]ndigenous tourism experiences.”
If this were tried in Watts or Calcutta, the result would be indigenous violence. Do people mired in poverty, illiteracy and crime want to preserve it as a ‘unique culture’? Should we pay them to do that? And do they want Europeans to come gawk at them?
We have this oddity in the US, with the ‘Native Americans’ (themselves originally immigrants) and many of them justly hate everyone else for making a spectacle of their misery, and mocking their tribal/religious customs as a quaint form of proto-theater.
That said, I am done with circumlocution. In its entirety, this program makes me queasy.
On the tourism bit: The problem with the tourism hopes for more interaction with aboriginal people is that the reluctance of the latter. They don’t often see putting on shows about the remnants of their culture as ‘meaningful work’. And tourism entry restricted where & when hunting – for queazy tourist stomachs as much as safety.
Re: the extra $THREE m:
LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Money should be better spent
Issue 119 – 30 Nov 2006
Open letter to the Prime Minister
Your recent contribution of twenty five million dollars of Australian people’s money so that we can better understand American culture is astounding.
How will such a donation be received by the rural or remote grandmother forced to leave her home and family in order to travel to the city for dialysis?
What will you say to the child who due to lack of adequate health care, can’t hear the teacher when he tries to stay in school?
Who will tell our homeless and dispossessed that the millions spent on researching the culture of the world’s most powerful country is of greater importance?
There are places in your own country Mr Howard where Indigenous Australians face morbidity and mortality rates comparable to the third world.
Why not trying looking in your own backyard?
When you do this you may just discover that a culture far closer to home could put the money to more ethical uses.
Dennis Eggington
CEO, Aboriginal Legal Service of Western Australia
(From NIT.)
(On the dialysis, there’s a diabetes epidemic in aboriginal communities if you don’t already know)
NIT are still on holidays, but there’s some other interesting reading here
http://www.nit.com.au/opinion/
If these types of programs help decrease alcoholism, petrol sniffing, drug abuse, domestic violence, sexual abuse and feelings of hopelessness as Greg Hunt implies they do, then it has got to be better than what traditional owners are experiencing now.
I agree that the tourism-side can bring other problems such as the need for more development and its associated problems, ‘corruption’ of indigenous values and that some in the community may feel they are being put on display. However, if the community, government, industry and all concerned can work together in the planning of tourism programs, then hopefully there will be less negativity and increased benefits for all. Mentoring programs involving indigenous people and more involvement from the arts and sporting associations may also help young community members. A pride in one’s culture has got to start with a pride in oneself.
I think we all would agree that something needs to change for these remote communities in Australia particularly on a social level. The fact they are now getting some attention and increased help from the government will(hopefully) be a step in the right direction.
And the fact that communities are getting more actively involved in engaging with mainstream communities, in helping to develop the solutions and steering their direction is great. Small surprise that people get positive benefits from that. Funnily enough the early Austn aboriginal-govt arrangements for co-operative land management were held up internationally as a model to be emulated. Some small starts, need to keep the momentum going. An interesting area of development is indigeneous industries (other than just tourism).
Libby,
First you have to define what the culture is. Then you have to decide if you want to preserve it.
I submit that every culture, everywhere in the world, wants to grow beyond what it is, and that all efforts determined to “preserve” a culture in stasis, in whole or in any part, is woefully egregious and justly condemned by anyone who lays claim to participating in modern society.
Such notions are central to what “preserves” the vast difference between poverty and wealth and should be blasted as akin to advocating genocide.
I remember reading an article that described an eloquent illustration of frustration, across the cultural divide:
As I recall, the Prime Minister at the time (Keating, I think) and his entourage sat with Gagadju elders on the shady banks of a picturesque freshwater creek. The senior traditional owner drew his index finger through the sand to mark the symbol of the Rainbow Serpent. To the PM, he advised, this is our dreaming. With an unexpected brutality, he cut a line straight through the longitudinal centre of symmetry of the serpent’s design, converting its meaning to the instantly reconisable dollar symbol. That, Prime Minister, is the dreaming of your people.
Over less than two years, 21,370 contributions have been posted to Jennifer’s site, which deals with politics and the environment. For tens of thousands of years, the original inhabitants of this land (that became known as Australia) sustained a harmonious relationship with the natural environment.
Suffer the discomfort of comparison, in respective orders of magnitude.
The National Landscapes initiative is a partnership between the tourism and conservation management sectors that aims to capture and promote the best of Australia to achieve conservation, social and economic outcomes for Australia and its regions.
Australia is widely regarded as having one of the world’s most distinct and rich environments. It is also home to the world’s oldest living culture. These compelling assets make Australia one of the world’s most desirable visitor destinations – one that must be better interpreted, visited and conserved.
Schiller,
The deciding is up to each community. Whatever way of life they originally had, they no longer have in its entirety, and this can be seen in some of the health problems that exist for a start. The ‘growth beyond what it is’ can take shape in many, many forms, but the culture can evolve along with it. Change is constant, and cultures change too. It would appear that these communities want to maintain some of their traditional ways, and elders in communities have an important role in passing down this information (elders in ALL communities actually have an important role in doing this). It also appears that these people want decent health facilities, some infrastructure, education and so on, and surely this is their right in a country as rich as Australia. We have already seen genocide in this country if you consider the Aborigines in Tasmania.
Libby,
Experience with welfare politics has conclusively proven that if you pay people to live in squalor, that is what they will do. If you pay them to make babies, they will do that as well.
This entire scheme smacks of subsidizing a way of life that is not beneficial. Sniffing petrol should be an unequivocal sign of desperation, and no-one with any sensibility would wish to bless the practice by proclaiming it an “aspect of culture.”
“Sniffing petrol should be an unequivocal sign of desperation, and no-one with any sensibility would wish to bless the practice by proclaiming it an “aspect of culture.””
Sorry Schiller, but where did I say or imply that petrol sniffing was an “aspect of culture”?
Schiller is ignorant about these communities, the programe and how the funds are being used. It’s not an attempt to shove aboriginal cultures into a jar and pickle them or a scheme to pay them to breed like flies.
Culture & health aside, if you want to consider the investment, what tourism $$$ will these activities bring to Australia? What other culture do we have to flog to paying visitors? You know the international joke: Q what’s the difference between Australia and yoghurt? A; Yoghurt has culture. Foreign visitors that do make it to rural Australia (more should) are often more knowledgeable about traditional aboriginal culture than is the average pinkish Aussie.
I saw this TV program where an aboriginal park guide, in his early 20’s. was telling the tale about how some big animal came out of the sky and created a creek or mountain or something….I thought to myself, your culture has betrayed you, it makes you look a real an idiot.
I dont think indigenes are glad to be sitting around weaving baskets, they want to be part of the real world.
Rog,
I have heard of this “big animal that came out of the sky and created a creek or mountain or something…”. The Christian community have a similar belief, which they call ‘God’.
Dismissing the longest surviving human culture in the world on the basis that you thought an unknown park guide of aboriginal extraction looked like a real idiot on TV, is a poor reflection on yourself.
I humbly submit that I have appeared quite idiotic on TV on a number of occasions, as travel shows and documentaries strive to access the most evocative landscapes. Perhaps that explains why our visitor numbers remain unaffected. Hmm.
Anyway, do you think indigenes would rather sit around posting comments on a weblog about politics and the environment? Metaphorically, one could say that we are weaving baskets ourselves.
You are wrong though, to believe that indigenous Australians are not a part of the real world. Indeed, they are more a part of a world made real by its lack of delusion and artifiality, IMO.
Good comment again Neil! You have my willing consent to compare me to a bird dropping anyday. I make an idiot of myself at least several times a day as most readers would agree. I have so many metaphorical baskets filling up my shelves now that I’m going to open a virtual store. Some of them are just loose sketches.
Neil are you game to open a new thread on if, how or why biodiversity matters? I think we need it and all things considered I reckon you’d be a good one to kickstart and even manage that. But feel free to decline of course & even delete this comment. But if you do, I copied some stuff from CBD preamble on the ‘weekend’ thread and there have been some general responses that you could pick from. If you do, I promise to behave and we could all agree not to discuss the PBs. In fact, I’ll be preoccupied with my new store.
The majority of aboriginals that I met or worked with in FNQ seemed to be seriously conflicted, the socialist experiment has failed in isolated populations and the cycle of crime, violence and abuse within indigenous communities is evidence of a dysfunctional culture.
http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2006/s1669713.htm
That link mentions some dysfunctional communities rog. Communities.
What would you propose is done to help these dysfunction communities help themselves rog?
Rog,
With regard to your observation that the socialist experiment has failed in isolated populations and the cycle of crime, violence and abuse within indigenous communities is evidence of a dysfunctional culture…
Which culture are you talking about: The culture of the descendants of the original occupants of this land or that of the Commonwealth of Australia?
In the link you provided, Pearson clarifies,
“…when it comes to government and when it comes to people of another race presuming to carry out a paternal role in relation to the welfare of people of another race, then I think, you know, we’re returning to an old institution that became extremely problematic for Aboriginal people.”
He also laments,
“I think the problem of Indigenous leaders is that we – in terms of time, we spend 95% of our time thinking about these problems. 95% of our knowledge is dedicated to the resolution of these problems but we have 5% of the power and conversely, politicians – this problem is only 5% of their attention, 3% of their knowledge and yet they possess 95% of the power and that’s the paradox within which we labour. That’s the paradox within which we labour but the problem is we live in a place where, as I say, we possess a fraction of the power to be able to do something about it.”
These are not exclusively aboriginal problems, Rog.
It’s not reasonable to assume that violence and other “community” problems did not arise until the Europeans showed up.
Since that’s unreasonable, it’s unreasonable that descendants of Europeans (dEs) will make it go away, any more than dEs will make it go away in their own communities.
At the same time, a system to “help indigenous communities run conservation programs” which will use “preservation of culture and traditions” to generate “[i]ndigenous tourism experiences” is abnormal to the extent that it subsidizes a way of life that is less than what dEs enjoy.
The insidious thing is that *environmentalists* want this scheme–and, as everyone knows, environmentalists will settle for nothing less than a neolithic way of life.
Schiller you really should get those old wood joins fixed on your rocking chair. We can hear it all the waay over here, creaking and banging against the weathered boards of your front porch.
Noel Pearson prevails against the culture of dependancy, and he is quite right in blaming welfare for the destruction of his people.
“When you look at the culture of Aboriginal binge drinking you can see how passive welfare has corrupted Aboriginal values of responsibility and sharing, and changed them into exploitation and manipulation.”
“In Cape York, he says, the practice of each individual getting a welfare cheque, with no strings attached, doesn’t work. Welfare without responsibility has made many communities of Cape York ‘the most dysfunctional societies on the planet’, he says.”
Lefties dont take too kindly to such views being expressed.
“The insidious thing is that *environmentalists* want this scheme–and, as everyone knows, environmentalists will settle for nothing less than a neolithic way of life.”
Schiller you are assuming that Australian Aboriginals have no say in this process and are blindly going along with whatever the ‘environmentalists’ or tourism industry wants? Do you really direspect their capacity to make their own judgements so much? I wonder who views these people as neolithic?? What environmentalists want this scheme? When you have visited an Australian Aboriginal community and talked to some of its members, then come back and make some comments about neolithic ways of life and problems that don’t exist due to dEs.
Rog,
Don’t you agree that it is shameful that Australia enjoys such affluence and at the same time administers to indigenous communities in ways that have them described as ‘…the most dysfunctional societies on the planet’?
I suspect that someone in the Australian government has become so enamored of the results of the US program to establish reservations for American Indians that they’d like to replicate this glowing ideal of social engineering.
Ignorant remark Schiller. Go learn something.
Too many do good advisors – you know, there are more people in departments that know the various aboriginal dialects than the aborigines themselves. Being stuck on a reservation cleaning tourist dunnies, picking up litter and weaving baskets is enough to drive anyone to drink. This is a legacy of Nugget Coombs who elevated abos to super human status whilst denying them the opportunity of integration. As former ALP Finance Minister Peter Walsh wrote in 1992 ‘the only discriminatory laws which apply in Australia are those which favour—or are intended to favour—Aborigines’
Gee Rog, I thought the term “Abos” died out when my ancestors were alive, but sadly not.
So Rog how many staff would that be in depts compared to aboriginal speakers of these dialects in the field. Surely you wouldn’t have just made that up would you, being the right wing scum that you are.
The term ‘abo’ is a derivative of ‘aborigine’, both are now regarded as culturally insensitive by the urban worriers. What do you call these people, by some accounts they are not the first Australians.
“The term ‘abo’ is a derivative of ‘aborigine’, both are now regarded as culturally insensitive by the urban worriers.”
The term ‘abo’ is indeed now largely viewed as derogatory. What do you call these people? Most of us here call them Aborigines or Indigenous Australians. I think they have been here long enough to be considered native Australians and original occupiers of this country. Being of Aboriginal decent myself Rog, I find your comment and attitude highly offensive, urban worrier or not.
Rog, it’s no wonder the Aboriginal community has so many problems. There are still people like you out there trying to stamp them into the ground and make them feel like they are worthless and have no place in this country. I am appalled and deeply saddened by some of the views on this blog.
Not just this country sadly. People are racist, ethnist & xenophobic everywhere.
You know exactly what you’re doing in what you wrote Rog (you creep) – and it’s not simply a matter of political correctness about issues of welfare either. This is the complete nasty fullsome right wing picture of Rog – tick every box on your fetid checklist mate.
“Super human status” indeed.
I apologise for any offence Libby.
I see that Rolf Harris has also come under fire for some of the lyrics in ‘tie me kangaroo down sport’.
Economist Thomas Sowell has long written about how the mix of the welfare state and meddling sociologists (“black rednecks and white liberals”) are creating or heightening racial conflict in the US. He argues that the success of social or economic policy is not the stated intentions of promoters, but the actual end results produced….
” …Teachers are not supposed to correct black youngsters who speak “black English” and no one is supposed to be judgmental about the whole lifestyle of black rednecks. In that culture, belligerence is considered being manly and crudity is considered cool, while being civilized is regarded as “acting white.”
These are devastating, self-imposed handicaps that prevent many young ghetto blacks from getting a decent education or an opportunity to rise to higher levels.
Multiculturalism today celebrates all cultures but it is the poor who ultimately pay the price of that celebration in stunted development, missed opportunities and blighted lives.
No one today would dare to do what Northern missionaries did after the Civil War, set up schools for newly freed black children in the South with the explicit purpose of removing them from the redneck culture that was holding back both races there.
A wholly disproportionate number of future black leaders and pioneers in many fields came out of the relatively few and small enclaves of Northern culture deliberately planted in the post-Civil War South. What they did worked and what the multiculturalists are doing today repeatedly fails.
But results are no longer the test. The test is whether what you say makes you feel good as someone who is a “friend” of blacks. But friends like that can do more damage than enemies.”
what’s your point rog? What’s your policy recommendation seeing this one isn’t to your liking? What would you do?
Both pinxie and neil compete for #1 in the leading question stakes.
Listen, when are you going to do something about your weight?
you saw fit to criticise but have no alternative to suggest rog. Ashamed to admit them or just thoughtless as usual?
I reference my observations with informed opinion, stifling debate is not on the agenda. The original topic was the “development of sustainable economies on indigenous communities” and to be fair this should apply to all communities and sustainability should should be measured economically, not by a committee.
‘Indigenous funding for conservation’
Whose committee decision appoints economy as the sole and relevant arbiter? So you tally up the market value of their output .. and… so what?? On what basis would you claim that would lead to an improved lot for the aboriginal people, or does that not concern you at all?
What is the nature of international responses to health problems? What assumptions and intentions underlie aid programs? WBR LeoP