“Having a Yarn”: Engaging Indigenous Communities in Natural Resource Management

Nursey-Bray MJ¹*

1. CRC Reef Research, Townsville, Queensland, Australia

Across Australia, Indigenous peoples have responsibility for managing country. Increasingly, partnerships between management agencies, mining companies, conservation groups and the pastoral industry are being brokered with traditional owners of land and sea. The successful outcome of these partnerships necessitates the implementation of participative and culturally appropriate and professional processes of engagement with Indigenous communities. This includes addressing local modes of governance and community relations. In 2002 in the Hinchinbrook section of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park World Heritage area, Girringun, a traditional owner representative body for that area, developed a co-management agreement with the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority (GBRMPA).

In 2004 the Wuthathi people, traditional owners of Shelburne Bay, Cape York Peninsula, Australia, launched a Land and Sea Management Framework. The Girringun and Wuthathi initiatives illustrate the necessity of developing coherent practices of community engagement. They provide an interesting contrast as the Girringun initiative was a co-management enterprise whereas the Wuthathi Framework was constructed as a community based enterprise.

This paper compares these two initiatives with a view to helping promote understanding of the concept of engagement and participative practices in Indigenous communities. It argues that engagement processes need to go beyond ‘having a yarn’ and address deeper issues of social justice and equity in order to achieve conservation outcomes. It concludes with a framework for engagement based on the principles of social justice and biodiversity protection.

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