University of Queensland
Stephen Johnson
Summary | Tourism and community benefits | Key questions | Initial
interest |
My research aims to gain an adequate understanding of the
intimate relationship between social and environmental well-being,
both in indigenous and non-indigenous terms. Toward this end, I
will be working in close collaboration with the Yanyuwa community
in the south-west Gulf of Carpentaria and limiting the area of my
study to that part of the tropical savannas which encompasses their
ancestral domain.
However, while I intend to focus on contemporary Yanyuwa
perceptions of landscape health, vitality and sustainable use, I
readily acknowledge that these perceptions do not exist
independently of, or always agree with, those of the many other
stakeholders in the region. Therefore, I intend to identify and
examine those points of contest and correspondence that exist
between the various regional players, in an attempt to tease out
the environmental consciousness underlying and informing each point
of view. The advent of tourism (planned and unplanned) in the
south-west Gulf of Carpentaria provides an ideal vehicle for this
study.
To date, most tourist operations in the area (with some notable
exceptions) fall into the unplanned category. These are ad hoc
ventures comprising independent travellers or one-off tour groups,
both seeking a frontier experience: a communion with pristine
physical and cultural environments.
Exceptions to this rule include a number of recreational fishing
clubs, established at King Ash Bay, and an increasing number of
regional tours conducted by the Savannah Guides. Unfortunately,
both planned and unplanned operations appear to consist primarily
of “one way traffic”: there is very little actual
consultation or collaboration with indigenous groups. Indeed, there
is a common perception among local residents, both indigenous and
non-indigenous, that these operations provide very little benefit
to their communities—all the money flows “down
south”.
These preliminary observations pose a number of questions. For
example, at a philosophical level, what cultural and intellectual
preconceptions inform indigenous and non-indigenous interactions
with the physical environment? At a more pragmatic level, is there
a shared space where these seemingly divergent interests might
meet? Furthermore, without some articulation of such interests,
what implications do the pursuits of special interest groups have
for the overall health and sustainability of tropical savannas, in
this region and right across northern Australia?
On a more personal note, my Grandmother Elfreda MacDonald lived
and worked with the Yanyuwa community as a linguist, from 1963 to
1972. I grew up in the Northern Territory during this time and much
of what I experienced then sparked my initial interest in the
diverse and complex nature of interactions between people and
place. The stated objectives of the TS–CRC, particularly the
emphasis on collaborative approaches to landscape management,
further stimulated my interest in this area of study.
