Empowering Indigenous peoples’ biocultural diversity through World Heritage cultural landscapes: a case study from the Australian humid tropical forests

Abstract

Australian humid tropical forests have been recognised as globally significant natural landscapes through world heritage listing since 1988. Aboriginal people have occupied these forests and shaped the biodiversity for at least 8000 years. The Wet Tropics Regional Agreement in 2005 committed governments and the region’s Rainforest Aboriginal peoples to work together for recognition of the Aboriginal cultural heritage associated with these forests. The resultant heritage nomination process empowered community efforts to reverse the loss of biocultural diversity. The conditions that enabled this empowerment included: Rainforest Aboriginal peoples’ governance of the process; their shaping of the heritage discourse to incorporate biocultural diversity; and their control of interaction with their knowledge systems to identify the links that have created the region’s biocultural diversity. We recommend further investigation of theory and practice in Indigenous governance of international heritage designations as a means to empower community efforts to reverse global biocultural diversity loss.

Keywords:

• biocultural diversity
• Aboriginal
• Indigenous
• rainforest
• heritage

Acknowledgements

We thank the Australian Government’s Marine and Tropical Science Research Facility, Terrain NRM, CSIRO, the Wet Tropics Management Authority and Rainforest Aboriginal peoples for the support that made this research possible. We particularly acknowledge the invaluable support of Rainforest Aboriginal peoples’ organisations including the Aboriginal Rainforest Council, Girringun Aboriginal Corporation and the North Queensland Traditional Owners Water and Land and Management Alliance. Dr Henrietta Marrie provided invaluable guidance as Chair of the ARC Intellectual Property Sub-committee, as did the members, including Ken Reys, Rhonda Brim, Margaret Freeman and Peter Wallace. We would like to acknowledge the fine support of Chantal Roder, Nigel Hedgcock, Linda Leftwich, Steve Turton, Mike Woods and Leigh Pentecost to the project. Liana Williams and Kirsten Maclean provided invaluable comment on earlier versions of this manuscript. We would also like to thank Eastern Kuku Yalanji people for their permission to publish the photographs that accompany this special edition.

Notes

1. ‘Outstanding universal value means cultural and/or natural significance which is so exceptional as to transcend national boundaries and to be of common importance for present and future generations of all humanity’ (UNESCO 2008, p. 14).

2. The concept of Indigeneity is highly contested in the academic literature. This article is guided by Martinez-Cobo’s (1986, United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Peoples E/CN.4/Sub.2/1986/Add.4) working definition, essentially ‘Indigenous communities, peoples and nations are those which, having a historical continuity with pre-invasion and pre-colonial societies that developed on their territories, consider themselves distinct from other sectors of the societies now prevailing on those territories, or parts of them.’ In this article, we use the term ‘Indigenous’ generically to refer to peoples whose origins fit this description, and the word ‘Aboriginal’ for wet tropics people, according to their own convention.

3. The World Heritage Convention lists places as either natural, cultural, or joint cultural/natural properties. At the time of listing a cultural landscape was not an available option for the Wet Tropics, and the Australian government chose not to pursue a mixed site.

4. Traditional Owners is the term adopted for Rainforest Aboriginal people who hold rights and interests over land and cultural practices according to traditional law and custom.