An Aboriginal research project in the North
Kimberley, supported by the Tropical Savannas CRC, is showing how
collaboration between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal knowledge
systems and management responsibilities can lead to practical
outcomes. By Mark Horstman
Indigenous
ecological knowledge | Wunambal country
| Land management | Leading the
way | Wandjina and Wunggurr: Creators of
the north-west Kimberley | More
information
 |
|
At Punamii-unpuu (Mitchell Falls, north-west
Kimberley) Wunambal people want to ensure that tourists and
governments respect Aboriginal law. From left: Aaron, Simon,
Wilfred Goonak, Sylvester Mangolamara and Mervyn
Photo: Mark Horstman
|
Standing with Wunambal people on the edge of the chasm at
Punamii-unpuu in the north-west Kimberley (Mitchell Falls), it is
easy to sense the significance of the place to its Aboriginal
owners. Gazing into the deep pools and feeling the roar of water
through your feet, the power of the country is readily
apparent.
However, whitefella scientists would describe this landscape
quite differently from its traditional owners. It has been the
exception, rather than the norm, for European science to work
collaboratively with Aboriginal knowledge. Yet our understanding of
Australian ecology benefits from a bi-cultural perspective, and
environmental management is improved when the shared knowledge is
applied.
The North Kimberley includes Aboriginal tenure (as Aboriginal
Reserve), unallocated Crown Land, four pastoral leases, a mining
reserve for bauxite, and the Drysdale River National Park. Two
Native Title claims encompass the region: the
Wandjina/Wunggurr-Uunguu claim of the Wunambal-Gaambera language
groups in the west, and the Balanggarra claim in the east.
Last year, these two major Aboriginal groups living in the North
Kimberley agreed to work together. Managed by the Kimberley Land
Council, a research project was funded by the Tropical Savannas CRC
to explore the interface between traditional ecological knowledge
and scientific perceptions of ‘good’ or
‘appropriate’ land management. During the 1999 dry
season, nearly two months of fieldwork were undertaken in six areas
of coastal, river, woodland, and plateau country in the North
Kimberley.
More than 50 traditional owners, from the family groups in each
of the study areas, participated in the fieldwork.
The ecological knowledge of the Balanggarra and
Wunambal-Gaambera peoples is immense and detailed, drawing from
thousands of generations of experience. Knowledge of names, uses,
behaviour, and distribution were recorded for more than 600 plants
and animals, a significant proportion of the region’s
biodiversity.
A management manual has been prepared to provide an information
platform for negotiations about access and joint management between
traditional owners and government departments, research agencies,
mining and exploration companies, commercial fishers, tourism
operators, and other user groups.
The work demonstrates clear evidence of ongoing Aboriginal
connection to country. It will be used to create educational
products for the community and tourism use. It provides a
foundation to continue ethnobiological research, by enabling work
to advance from the taxonomic level towards the ecological level,
in the terms and language of the traditional owners.
Importantly, the process of ethnobiological field research
itself—families of traditional owners travelling and camping
on country—provides the most appropriate forum for
consultation and planning about future management to occur.
Unmanaged and rapidly growing tourism is one of the most urgent
issues in the north Kimberley. For Wunambal people at Mitchell
Plateau, the pressures are acute. Visitor numbers have increased
ten-fold in recent years, and at current rates will nearly double
within four years.
Traditional owners are especially concerned by the potentially
dangerous consequences of uncontrolled access to sacred
sites—which could result in accident, illness and even death.
Tourists frequently visit, disturb, and camp on sacred art,
ceremonial and burial sites with no appreciation of their
importance. Tourists have also been held responsible for the
movement, and removal, of parts of skeletons placed in burial
sites.
Wunambal people regard management as inseparable from land and
sea ownership. Management is a responsibility that comes with
belonging to country. For this reason, Aboriginal people in the
Kimberley are concerned that genuine joint management of national
parks, where traditional ownership is recognised, does not yet
exist in WA. Currently, ownership is vested in a government
authority and management is delegated to the Department of
Conservation and Land Management (CALM). Traditional owners have no
role in decision-making.
In July, Wunambal people invited the WA Minister for the
Environment and CALM to come to the Mitchell Plateau to present the
results of their work on the TS–CRC project.
At the time the Wunambal people were unaware that the WA
Government had already converted 150,000 ha of unallocated Crown
Land within their registered native title claim to national and
conservation parks. These were created without notifying the native
title holders, receiving their consent, or getting agreement on
joint management. The new parks are the first European tenure over
areas of Wunambal country since 1788.
Angry elders make it clear that while they want CALM to help
them manage tourists on the country; “we know that those
people want to come up here—but we want it done in a proper
way, a way that doesn’t steal our country.”
Among the Plateau’s conservation and tourism values of
interest to CALM is the amazing diversity of vegetation types,
which is in large part created by long-term Wunambal fire
management.
Wunambal people have called for the government to ‘pull
back that paper making the national park before we can start
talking again’. Backed by legal action, they want the
reservation orders withdrawn, pending negotiations about genuine
joint management. Their call is supported by the Australian
environment movement and the Australian Committee of the IUCN.
Meanwhile, the Mitchell Plateau mob intend to use the outputs
from their CRC-supported research and lead the way in managing
their country. They have asked KLC to assist in the development of
a management plan to address the immediate issues of visitor
impacts and sacred site protection on their country. The guiding
principles of the plan are the maintenance of Wandjina-Wunggurr
law, and the protection of areas like Punamii-unpuu in their
natural condition.
Aboriginal rangers and guides, signs, interpretive information,
camp grounds and access plans are proposed. Agreements will be
negotiated with commercial tourism companies. The pro-active plan
will also deal with longer-term matters such as fire management.
The initial draft will be released for public comment, and support
will be sought from all quarters, including CALM.
Next tourist season, visitors will receive information about
culture, ethnobiology, history, the do’s and don’ts of
using Wunambal country. The older people are teaching and urging
the younger people to assert their ownership and management of
country. Sylvester Mangolamara, one of the researchers on the
TS-CRC project, is guided by his elders when sharing knowledge and
country. “We can share this land with white people if they
want to come and look at country,” he said. “They have
to respect what we say, even if it’s hard for them to
understand. The only thing we don’t want in this Wunambal
country is disrespect.”
|
Wandjina and Wunggurr: Creators of
the north-west Kimberley
Wunambal law is centred around the
belief that the north-west Kimberley was created by the Wandjina
and Wunggurr. One old man who has now passed away explained:
“the Wandjina came from the wind and travelled the land and
made this earth, and sea, and the mountains, the rivers, the
waterholes, the trees, the plants, the animals, the language and
then the people. Wandjina made everything. Wandjina then gave us
the law to follow and gave us the land”.
As major fertility figures, Wandjina
are associated with regeneration, creation of rain, renewal of
resources, and continuation of life. Wandjina left themselves
throughout the region as landscape features and distinctive cave
paintings (featured in the Olympic Games opening ceremony).
Wunggurr are creator snakes; their
winding travels through the country with Wandjina made the rivers.
Many came from the sea, and now reside in deep pools and
waterholes. The Mitchell Falls are part of Punamii-unpuu, a
powerful creation place and Wandjina-Wunggurr
“cathedral”. The senior traditional owner, Wilfred
Goonak, tells the Lalai (Dreamtime) story that “the snakes
all meet up here, and say ‘right, where are we going to
camp?’ We’re camping at Punamii-unpuu, this is our
home.’ Lalai, Creation, in the history. That’s the
law.”
Wunggurr are intimately associated
with Wandjina, ensuring water flows and good rains, showing
themselves as rainbows in the spray over the falls during the wet
season. “The rainbow is made from that snake”, says
Goonak. “When you see that rainbow, that snake comes out of
the water.”
Just as the traditional owners of
Uluru are concerned about people climbing the rock, Wunambal people
require that visitors to Mitchell Falls behave correctly and swim
in the river “on top” or “low down”, and
not in the deep pools where Wunggurr live.
|
Cultural information in this article is not to be used
without the permission of Wunambal traditional owners.
Click here to view a comment from the WA
Dept. Conservation and Land Management
