Management Challenges for Aboriginal Cultural Heritage in Peri-urban Queensland

ABSTRACT

It is often assumed that places of cultural significance to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are protected under cultural heritage legislation such as the Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Act 2003 in Queensland. Such Acts are improvements on previous policies, which all but neglected Aboriginal cultural heritage. Nevertheless, the aims of policies developed at wider geographic scales, such as States within the Australian system, continue to be disconnected from the experiences of some local Traditional Owners. In this paper, we examine conflicts between non-local policy and on-ground management decisions for Aboriginal cultural heritage in peri-urban Queensland. We focus on the challenges of local Traditional Owners in peri-urban landscapes, basing our discussion on recent experiences conducting research on Indigenous land management in southeast Queensland. We examine three case studies: one in which colonial heritage values were prioritised over existing Aboriginal cultural heritage values, a second where local government failed to support a private landholder’s attempt to identify and protect a cultural heritage site, and a third where a cultural heritage site was protected but in a way that restricts the continuation of cultural practices. Developing more productive and equitable relationships between Traditional Owners and non-Indigenous decision makers, with regards to Aboriginal cultural heritage, requires new locally developed processes for engagement and we suggest how this could be achieved.

KEYWORDS:

• Traditional Owners
• Australia
• land management
• Indigenous
• Kabi Kabi
• Gubbi Gubbi
• cultural heritage management plan

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Corrigendum

Acknowledgements

We respectfully acknowledge the Kabi Kabi and Jinibara peoples, and their Elders both past and present, who are the Traditional Owners and custodians of the Country on which this research was conducted. We thank those members and friends of Bunya Bunya Country Aboriginal Corporation who generously contributed to this research, and key informants who shared their knowledge and advice in this project. In particular, we thank Genevieve Jones, Kerry Jones, Sean Fleischfresser, Beverly Hand, and Alex Bond for their intellectual contributions to this research. We also thank Dr Ray Kerkhove for sharing his insights on Aboriginal histories and significant sites mentioned in case studies.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Rachele Wilson http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2567-3151

Tristan Pearce http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5384-5870

Notes

1. Long-term Aboriginal camping grounds in resource-rich areas that can be likened to traditional villages (500 m to 2 km across) and included special-use areas such as a women’s area, men’s area, Bora/ceremonial rings, shell midden sites, fresh water and elevated lookout points nearby (Kerkhove 2015).

2. German word for ‘kitchen refuse’ given to a feature formed over many years from discarded shells. Sometimes used as an indicator of historical resource use, environmental conditions and shellfish species diversity and abundance.

3. A cultural heritage management plan is an agreement between a land user (sponsor) and Traditional Owner (endorsed party) under the ACHA. The plan explains how land-use activities can be managed to avoid or minimise harm to Aboriginal cultural heritage.

4. An earthen feature sometimes surrounded by trees and normally constructed by Aboriginal women for use in ceremonies such as initiation of young men.

5. Biral is the image most often placed in Bora grounds either as a sand mound or carved into trees (see, for example, Mathews 1894; Steele 1984). All over southeast Australia where Biral figures are known, they are always depicted as larger-than-life (to show how great he is) and as a splayed figure with one good leg and one bad leg (often a stump). Being the Eaglehawk, he had very long arms that doubled as wings. He was said to have lived on earth at the dawn of time as a great hunter who became a great elder or medicine man. He created the Bora ceremonies and much of the landscape. The ‘Sky Father’ cult was known only to occur in southeast Australia—from Victoria, north to about Bundaberg, and west to around Broken Hill.

6. The register contains information about cultural heritage studies, CHMPs, designated landscape areas, details of registered cultural heritage bodies and Aboriginal parties for an area. Information in the register is available to any member of the public and is included in an online public map. The database contains information about cultural heritage sites and places (location, reports, images and other documentation). Information in the database is not available to the general public but can be provided to land users seeking to satisfy their duty of care by submitting a search request form.

7. The function of an Aboriginal cultural heritage body for an area is to identify, for the benefit of a person who needs to know under the Act, the Aboriginal parties for the area or for a particular part of the area.

8. Public notice for a cultural heritage management plan under the Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Act 2003, Section 96, available from: https://www.datsip.qld.gov.au/resources/datsima/people-communities/cultural-heritage/chmp-public-notice.pdf.

Additional information

Funding

The research was funded by the University of the Sunshine Coast Faculty of Science, Health, Education and Engineering, Faculty of Arts, Business and Law, the Vice Chancellor (Honours scholarship), and the Sustainability Research Centre.