Abstract
Indigenous engagements with water are dynamic and contextually contingent, and contemporary attitudes and environmental valuations are shaped by diverse pre-existing water histories. Geographical variation intersects and interacts with such histories to influence the moral position taken by individuals and groups and their negotiating positions as they engage in public debates or decisions about water diversion, management, and use, as well as the tradeoffs and risks of associated negative impacts. This paper draws together Indigenous historical and contemporary perspectives regarding the diversion, damming and manipulation of water sources from four tropical watersheds that span Australia’s remote north—the Harding and Ord Rivers in Western Australia, the Roper River in the Northern Territory, and the Gilbert River in North Queensland. Conceptually, the paper brings together the literatures of Indigenous water values and the political ecology of water resources. The analysis deploys the waterscape concept that has emerged from the disciplines of geography and history to characterise the key features of Indigenous peoples’ dynamic relationships to water and to link water and social power relations in these watersheds over time. The cases support the proposition that Indigenous people are often concerned about industrial-scale water diversion and damming. Yet our regional studies also undercut the notion that such concerns emerge from an Indigenous culture that passively responds to the prevailing hydrology, or the idea popular in settler Australia that these hydraulic environments are themselves unaffected by past human action. Indigenous attitudes to diversion and damming are informed by previous experiences of water manipulation, which include the social relations that shaped these practices, at times with demonstrably pre-colonial origins, as well as by contemporary perspectives on the tradeoffs between development, sustainable local livelihoods, and environmental and cultural impact. Our analysis of the Australian context informs ongoing international debates about large scale irrigated agriculture, aquaculture, mining, and other water-intensive development in regions occupied by Indigenous peoples and experiencing high and increasing water variability.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
The information from this case study is drawn from consultations that were a component of a larger project undertaken by the Australian government research agency, the CSIRO, which examined the potential for water resource and irrigation development (Barber 2013). The project was initiated by the Federal government in response to expectations for increased international food and fibre demand.
References
Abbott WE (1884) Water supply in interior NSW. J Proc R Soc N S W 18:85–111
Altman J, Kerins S (eds) (2012) People on country: vital landscapes, indigenous futures. Federation Press, Sydney
Australian Tropical Rivers Group (2004) Securing the north: Australia’s tropical rivers. A Statement by the Australian Tropical Rivers Group. World Wildlife Fund, Sydney
Bandler H (1995) Water resources exploitation in Australian prehistory environment. Environmentalist 15:97–107
Barber M (2005) Where the clouds stand: Australian Aboriginal attachments to water, place, and the marine environment in Northeast Arnhem land. Ph.D. Thesis, Australian National University
Barber M (2013) Indigenous water values, rights and interests in the Flinders and Gilbert catchments: a technical report to the Australian Government from the CSIRO Flinders and Gilbert Agricultural Resource Assessment. CSIRO, Brisbane
Barber M, Jackson S (2011a) Aboriginal water values and resource development pressures in the Pilbara region of north-west Australia. Australian Aboriginal Studies 2:32–49
Barber M, Jackson S (2011b) Indigenous water values and water planning in the Upper Roper River, Northern Territory. Unpublished Report. CSIRO, Darwin
Barber M, Jackson S (2012) Indigenous engagement in Australian mine water management: the alignment of corporate strategies with national water reform objectives. Resour Policy 37:48–58
Barber M, Jackson S (2014) Autonomy and the intercultural: interpreting the history of Australian Aboriginal water management in the Roper River catchment, Northern Territory. J R Anthropol Inst 20:670–693
Barber M, Jackson S (2015) Remembering “the blackfellows” dam’: Australian Aboriginal water management and settler colonial riparian law in the upper Roper River, Northern Territory. Settl Colon Stud 5:282–301
Barber K, Kennedy E (2007) Indigenous values and the Ord River. In Jackson S (ed) Recognising and protecting indigenous values in water management: a report from a workshop held at CSIRO in Darwin, NT. CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems, Darwin, pp 67–81
Barber K, Rumley H (2003) Gunanurang: (Kununurra) big river aboriginal cultural values of the Ord River, Report to the Water and Rivers Commission. Water and Rivers Commission of Western Australia, Perth
Bark RH et al (2015) Operationalising the ecosystem services approach in water planning: a case study of indigenous cultural values from the Murray-Darling Basin, Australia. Int J Biodivers Sci Ecosyst Serv Manag 11:239–249
Baviskar A (2003) For a cultural politics of natural resources. Econ Polit Wkly 38:5051–5055
Blanch S (2008) Steps to a sustainable northern Australia. Aust J Ecol Manag Restor 9:110–115
Boelens R (2013) Cultural politics and hydrosocial cycle. Geoforum 57:234–247
Boelens R, Seeman M (2014) Forced engagements: water security and local rights formalization in Yanque, Colca Valley, Peru. Hum Organ 73:1–12
Bradley J (2010) Singing saltwater country: journey to the songlines of Carpentaria. Allen & Unwin, Melbourne
Brennan S et al (eds) (2015) Native title from Mabo to Akiba: a vehicle for change and empowerment?. Federation Press, Sydney
Budds J (2008) Whose scarcity? The hydrosocial cycle and the changing waterscape of La Ligua River Basin, Chile. In: Goodman MK (ed) Contentious geographies, environmental knowledge and meaning. Ashgate, Surrey, pp 59–68
Budds J, Hinojosa L (2012) Restructuring and rescaling water governance in mining contexts: the co-production of waterscapes in Peru. Water Altern 5:119–137
Byerley F (ed) (1949) Narrative of the overland expedition of the messrs Jardine, from Rockhampton to Cape York, Northern Queensland. Angus and Robertson, Brisbane
Carino J, Colchester M (2010) From dams to development justice: progress with “free, prior and informed consent” since the World Commission on Dams. Water Altern 3:423–437
Cook GD, Jackson S, Williams RJ (2012) A revolution in northern Australian fire management: recognition of indigenous knowledge, practice and management. In: Bradstock R, Gill A, Williams R (eds) Flammable Australia: fire regimes, biodiversity and ecosystems in a changing world. CSIRO, Melbourne, pp 293–305
Cooper D, Jackson S (2008) Preliminary study on indigenous water values and interests in the Katherine region of the Northern Territory. CSIRO, Darwin
Daniel D (1990) Thalu sites of the West Pilbara. Unpublished Report, Western Australian Museum, Perth
Davidson G (1972) The Northern Myth: limits to agricultural and pastoral development in tropical Australia. Melbourne University Press, Melbourne
Fujikura R, Nakayama N (2009) Lessons learned from the World Commission on Dams. Int Environ Agreem Polit Law Econ 9:173–190
Gammage B (2011) The biggest estate on earth: how aborigines made Australia. Allen & Unwin, Sydney
Gosford B (2014) Good money after bad. The NT Government and the Ord River Irrigation Scheme, Crikey.com
Gunn J (1908) We of the never–never. Project Gutenberg: EBook #4699 Project Gutenberg
Head L (1999) The Northern Myth Revisited? Aborigines, environment and agriculture in the Ord River Irrigation Scheme, Stages One and Two. Aust Geogr 30:141–158
Head L (2000) Second nature: the history and implications of Australia as Aboriginal landscape. Syracuse University Press, New York
Humphries P (2007) Historical Indigenous use of aquatic resources in Australia’s Murray-Darling Basin, and its implications for river management. Ecol Manag Restor 8:106–113
Hundley N (1987) California’s original waterscape: harmony and manipulation. Calif Hist 66:2–11
Jackson S (2017) Indigenous peoples and water justice in a globalizing world. In: Conca K, Weinthal E (eds) Oxford handbook on water politics and policy. Oxford University Press, Oxford
Jackson S, Altman J (2009) Indigenous rights and water policy: perspectives from tropical northern Australia. Aust Indig Law Rev 13:27–48
Jackson S, Barber M (2013) Recognition of indigenous water values in Australia’s Northern Territory: current progress and ongoing challenges for social justice in water planning. Plan Theory Pract 14:435–454
Jackson S, Palmer L (2012) Modernising water: articulating custom in water governance in Australia and Timor Leste. Int Indig Policy J 3(3). Retrieved from: http://ir.lib.uwo.ca/iipj/vol3/iss3/7
Jackson S et al (2008) The changing value of Australian tropical rivers. Geogr Res 46:275–290
Johnston BR (2010) Chixoy dam legacies: the struggle to secure reparation and the right to remedy in Guatemala. Water Altern 3:341–361
Jones R (1969) Fire stick farming. Aust Nat Hist 16:224–231
Klaver IJ (2012) Placing water and culture. In: Johnston BR (ed) Water, cultural diversity, and global environmental change. Springer, Dordrecht, pp 9–30
Langton M (2002) Freshwater. Background briefing papers: aboriginal rights to waters. Lingiari Foundation, Broome, pp 43–64
Langton M, Mazel O (2008) Poverty in the midst of plenty: aboriginal people, the ‘resource curse’ and Australia’s mining boom. J Energy Nat Resour Law 26:31–65
Leichhardt L (1846) Journal of an overland expedition in Australia: from Moreton Bay to Port Essington, a distance of upwards of 3000 miles, during the years 1844–1845, 2004th edn. T and W Boone and Project Gutenberg, London
Loftus A (2007) Working the socio-natural relations of the urban waterscape in South Africa. Int J Urban Reg Res 31:41–59
Loftus A, Lumsden F (2008) Reworking hegemony in the urban waterscape. Trans Inst Br Geogr 33:109–126
Lourandos H (1980) Change or stability?: Hydraulics, hunter-gatherers and population in temperate Australia. World Archaeol 11:245–264
Maclean K, Inc BYB (2015) Crossing cultural boundaries: integrating Indigenous water knowledge into water governance through co-research in the Queensland Wet Tropics. Geoforum 59:142–152
McGrath A (1987) Born in the cattle. Allen & Unwin, Sydney
McLean J (2012) From dispossession to compensation: a political ecology of the Ord Final Agreement as a partial success story for Indigenous traditional owners. Aust Geogr 43:339–355
Merlan F (1987) Catfish and alligator: totemic songs of the western Roper River, Northern Territory. In Clunies-Ross M, Donaldson T, Wild S (eds) Songs of aboriginal Australia. Oceania Monograph, vol 32, pp 142–167
Nikolakis W, Grafton R (2014) Fairness and justice in Indigenous water allocations: insights from Northern Australia. Water Policy 16:19–35
Olive N (2007) Enough is enough: a history of the Pilbara mob. Fremantle Arts Centre Press, Fremantle
Orlove B, Caton S (2010) Water sustainability: anthropological approaches and prospects. Annu Rev Anthropol 39:401–415
Palmer K (1977) Aboriginal sites and the Fortescue River, north west of Western Australia. Archaeol Phys Anthropol Ocean 12:4–8
Palmer L (2015) Water politics and spiritual ecology: custom, environmental governance and development. Routledge, Oxford
Palmer K, Maynard L, Wright, B (1978) West Pilbara water supply investigations—Aboriginal sites. Report of survey for Aboriginal sites for the Public Works Department, WA, Perth
Perreault T, Wraight S, Perreault M (2012) Environmental injustice in the Onondaga lake waterscape, New York State, USA. Water Altern 5:485–506
Powell J (1991) Plains of promise rivers of destiny: water management and the development of Queensland, 1824–1990. Boolarong Publications, Brisbane
Rijavec F (1993) Exile and the Kingdom. Screen Australia, Sydney
Rose DB (1996) Nourishing terrains: Australian Aboriginal views of landscape and wilderness. Australian Heritage Commission, Canberra
Rumley H, Barber K (2004) We used to get our water free…. Identification and protection of Aboriginal cultural values of the Pilbara Region. Report for the Western Australian Water Supply Commission, Perth
Schwartz D (2015) Queensland Government reportedly strikes deal to facilitate $2 billion IFED irrigated agriculture project. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-06-04/qld-government-strikes-deal-to-facilitate-ifed-project/6520090
Stoeckl N et al (2013) An integrated assessment of financial, hydrological, ecological and social impacts of “development” on Indigenous and non-Indigenous people in northern Australia. Biol Conserv 159:214–221
Strang V (2004) The meaning of water. Berg, Oxford
Swyngedouw E (1999) Modernity and hybridity: nature, regeneracionismo, and the production of the Spanish waterscape, 1890–1930. Ann Assoc Am Geogr 89:443–465
Swyngedouw E (2006) Power, water and money: exploring the Nexus. Oxford University Centre for the Environment, United Nations Human Development Report, United Nations Development Programme Background Paper. http://hdr.undp.org/en/content/power-water-and-money-exploring-nexus
Swyngedouw E, Kaika M, Castro E (2002) Urban water: a political-ecology perspective. Built Env 28:124–137
Toussaint S, Sullivan P, Yu S (2005) Water ways in Aboriginal Australia: an interconnected analysis. Anthropol Forum J Soc Anthropol Comp Sociol 15:61–74
Webster T et al (2009) Irrigated agriculture: development opportunities and implications for northern Australia. In: Stone P (ed) Northern Australia Land and Water Science Review, Final Report to the Northern Australia Land and Water Taskforce. CSIRO Publishing, Canberra
Wegner J (1993) Aborigines of the Etheridge shire, 1860–1940. In: Reynolds H (ed) Race relations in North Queensland. James Cok University, Townsville, pp 131–147
Williams N (1986) The Yolngu and their land: a system of land tenure and the fight for its recognition. Australian Institute Of Aboriginal Studies, Canberra
World Commission on Dams (2000) Dams and development: a new framework for decision-making. The Report of the World Commission on Dams. Earthscan, London
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to acknowledge the Indigenous participants of the Roper, Pilbara, and Gilbert River studies. Funding for the projects upon which this work is based was obtained from a range of sources: CSIRO, Griffith University, Rio Tinto Iron Ore, the Office of Northern Australia, the North Australia Water Futures Assessment and the Australian Research Council (Project FT130101145). The views expressed herein are those of the authors and are not necessarily those of any funding body.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Jackson, S., Barber, M. Historical and contemporary waterscapes of North Australia: Indigenous attitudes to dams and water diversions. Water Hist 8, 385–404 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12685-016-0168-8
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12685-016-0168-8