in remote Indigenous communities of the - CSIRO Publishing

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The Rangeland Journal, 2012, 34, 63–73 http://dx.doi.org/10.1071/RJ11037

Social implications of bridging the gap through ‘caring for country’ in remote Indigenous communities of the Northern Territory, Australia Julian Gorman A,B,D and Sivaram Vemuri C A

Research Fellow, Research Institute for the Environment and Livelihoods, Charles Darwin University, NT 0909, Australia. B Wildlife Enterprise Development Facilitator, Caring for Country Unit, Northern Land Council, NT 0810, Australia. C School of Law and Business, Faculty of Law, Education, Business and Arts, Charles Darwin University, NT 0909, Australia. D Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]

Abstract. ‘Caring for country’ is a term used to describe the complex spiritual affiliation that encompasses the rights and responsibilities that Aboriginal Australians have with their land. It includes their custodial responsibilities for keeping the land healthy and its species abundant. This ontology and associated practice of ‘caring for country’ continues across large sections of the Northern Territory of Australia through customary practice and through the Indigenous Ranger Program. This Program has been described as a ‘two toolbox approach’, which combines traditional ecological knowledge with more conventional land management practice, to manage landscapes for their natural and cultural values. Since 2007 there have been several policy initiatives which have changed the dynamics in Aboriginal communities which in turn has affected the structure of the Indigenous Ranger Program. In response to the dire social conditions facing Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory, the Commonwealth Government initiated the Northern Territory Emergency Response, which was a ‘top down’ approach with very little community engagement. At around the same time there was a shift in the way Indigenous Rangers jobs were funded. The unintended impact of this was a reduction in the number of Aboriginal people connected to the Ranger Program and potentially less input from culturally appropriate decision makers for land management. Another influencing policy change involved a shift in Commonwealth funding for land management from Natural Heritage Trust to Caring For Our Country funding. This new funding is more targeted and has changed the nature of the Ranger Program to being less ‘program based’ and more ‘outcome based’ by packaging many land management activities as ‘Fee for Service’ contracts. The transformation is taking place in a prescriptive manner. In this paper we advocate a more community-based approach which allows for greater community involvement in planning, decision making and governance. Additional keywords: Aboriginal, culture, environmental services, livelihoods. Received 16 June 2011, accepted 29 September 2011, published online 30 January 2012

Introduction This paper is concerned with the impacts of policy change in relation to land management and cultural wellbeing in remote Indigenous communities in the Northern Territory (NT) of Australia. In providing context it will describe the importance of Indigenous Natural and Cultural Resource Management (INCRM) to Indigenous land managers in the NT and will examine the broader principles of Commonwealth and State Government policy and funding linked to Indigenous land management. Finally, the paper is concerned with the implications of recent policy changes and how they might impact upon Indigenous livelihoods and subsequently the cultural and biophysical health of NT landscapes and its connected social implications. Many of the observations and ideas put forward in Journal compilation Ó Australian Rangeland Society 2012

this paper are based on the findings of a current Australian Research Council (ARC)-funded research project that explores alternative business opportunities for enhancing use of natural products by individuals participating in economic activities. It was during the course of this ARC project and after several Indigenous community consultations that the authors realised that the concept of ‘business planning’ was very different to that of ‘planning for business’. The research outputs required the former while the Indigenous participants wanted governance of the latter. These contrasting perspectives were further complicated by the impact of recent policy and legislative changes which will be discussed in this paper. The paper is organised as follows. The first part provides context and describes how ‘caring for country’ is fundamental to www.publish.csiro.au/journals/trj

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the social and cultural wellbeing of Aboriginal people living on their land. We will show that a historical connectivity exists between Indigenous Ranger Groups and Commonwealth-funded Government programs and initiatives. The second part of the paper discusses how delivery of natural resource management (NRM) activities is shifting from a ‘program’ to an ‘activity’funded model. The third part of the paper examines social implications of employing such an approach in the context of ‘Fee for Service’ (FFS)-type arrangements given recent policy and legislative changes impacting on Aboriginal communities. We use this term rather than ‘Payment for Environmental Service’ because it is broader and relates to a wider range of land management activities that are not readily identified as environmental services such as natural and cultural services that have environmental impacts. The trade-offs created through high transaction and limited opportunity costs on Indigenous lands promote FFS being used mainly as a tool for provision of NRM by Government agencies. Based on the findings of the ARC project and many other observations of changing dynamics in the Indigenous Ranger Program and communities in accordance with fundamental shifts in Indigenous and land management policy and legislation, the final part of the paper advocates extending use of FFS for adequately addressing the social implications of using a market-based instrument. The authors have experience in Indigenous affairs from many years of living and working in the NT and having a natural resource management and resource economics background. Julian Gorman works with Indigenous Ranger Groups through the Northern Land Council as a Wildlife Enterprise Development Facilitator. In this role he is made aware of the direct impacts of policy and legislative change on Indigenous community groups. He is also employed with the Charles Darwin University where he is involved in research related to feasibility, opportunities and constraints of use of wildlife as well as alternative models for land management. Ram Vemuri is an economist at Charles Darwin University with 25 years of experience in business development, structure, governance and resource economics. Context The NT of Australia (see Fig. 1) is unique in terms of its vastness, diversity and relative intactness of environment and culture. In the wet–dry tropics of the north there is a high diversity of habitats ranging from rainforests, mangrove forests, swamps and wetlands while to the south of the Territory there are desert areas consisting of hummock grasslands and mulga shrub lands. These vast landscapes are rich in biodiversity, largely unexploited and relatively intact (Altman and Whitehead 2003). Aboriginal people make up roughly 32% of the NT population while over 50% of the land is classed as Aboriginal tenure, much of which is held under freehold title through the Aboriginal Land Rights Act (NT) 1976. Scattered throughout the NT are hundreds of Aboriginal communities which range in size from a few small family groups to townships of over 2000 people. However, these Indigenous communities in remote regions of northern Australia are also among the most disadvantaged of the Australian population (Altman 2004), with limited commercial use of natural resources, despite having access to land under freehold and native title rights. Many Indigenous owned lands are rich in natural

J. Gorman and S. Vemuri

resources (biological and mineral) but the ‘income’ or other ‘gains’ from contemporary land uses (such as the equivalent of royalties from mining, or tourism leases) have not always resulted in social or long-term economic benefits for local Indigenous people (Collins 2000). While there has been a long history of failure of enterprises on Indigenous land in northern Australia (Dale 1996), there are potentially many commercial opportunities involving wild animals and plants for Indigenous people (SRRATRC 1998; Fordham et al. 2010). Natural resource management in the Northern Territory Indigenous and contemporary non-Indigenous land management in the NT have very different meanings and motivations. Contemporary land management stems from colonial Eurocentric views that were applied to the natural landscapes of Australia in a wave of theorised ‘improvements’ and which included concepts of private ownership, centralised governance and different land uses (Moncrief 1970). Over time land in Australia has been scientifically categorised, zoned and classified and land management practices assigned and actions performed according to perceived monetary, scenic or conservation values (Sithole et al. 2007). Many of these land management actions are in response to policy and legislative directives which have been determined in distant capital cities, and are performed outside the ‘lived experience’ of these remote conditions (Sithole et al. 2007), with little understanding of their cultural context. Indigenous land management is quite different in that it encompasses the ‘lived experience’ and the actions performed are connected to kinship, spirituality, custom and culture and in turn contribute towards balance, health and harmony in the lives of Aboriginal people (Bradley 1999; Burgess et al. 2005; Christie 2007; Muir et al. 2010). It should be noted that despite the dominating influences of contemporary non-Indigenous land management the ‘lived experiences’ of people on land continues to persist and customary Indigenous management practices endure. Over the 20 odd years that the Indigenous Ranger Program has operated the differences in land management philosophy has not precluded persistence of ontological distinctions in Indigenous land management with contemporary land management for managing natural and cultural resource in the NT (NLC 2006). However, these approaches do have distinctive social implications which will be discussed later in this paper. NRM has clearly gone through several phases, pre- and postcolonisation. At the time of colonisation there is evidence of land being managed by Aboriginal fire stick farming (Jones 1969), between and within clans at a relatively fine scale. At colonisation and until the Native Title Act 1993 (Commonwealth Consolidated Acts 2011) land was deemed as terra nullius (a Latin expression which is derived from Roman law to mean a ‘land belonging to no one’) and was predominantly managed with little acknowledgement of Indigenous land ownership or land management skills. From the late 1960s until ~2000 there was a realisation that non-Indigenous land use practice was failing and along with several significant social changes in Indigenous policy reform, the importance of Indigenous land management practices started to re-emerge. In the last decade there has been a convergence of interests between western scientists and Aboriginal land owners to maintain ecological values through

‘Caring for country’ in remote Indigenous communities


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Fig. 1. Map of the Northern Territory of Australia showing the geographic position of the Indigenous Ranger Groups mentioned in Table 2.

maintenance of cultural practice which lead to programs such as the West Arnhem Land Fire Abatement Program where western and traditional knowledge are being used together to burn country in such a way the custodial land managers deem appropriate while at the same time reducing carbon emissions (Russell-Smith et al. 2009). Associated with these phases in NRM, there have been a range of industry-specific and generic policy changes that have impacted upon Aboriginal access to country. These have included

the NT Cattle Industries Award 1968, which legislated Aboriginal people be paid a wage and resulted in many Aboriginal people and their families being moved off pastoral properties, the Aboriginal Land Rights Act (NT) 1976, which provided Aboriginal people access to freehold tenure, and the Native Title Act 1993, which allowed Aboriginal people to claim back some rights for customary use on the traditional lands (see Table 1). Land management and use of natural resources is a significant employment option in remote Aboriginal communities in the NT

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Table 1. Characteristics of policy and legislative changes Policy or Legislative change

Acronym

Year introduced

Northern Territory Cattle Industry Award Aboriginal Land Rights Act (Northern Territory) Community Development and Employment Program

NTCIA

1968

ALRA

1976

CDEP

1977

Aboriginal Employment Development Policy National Soil Conservation Program National Action Plan for Salinity and Water Quality Natural Heritage Trust

AEDP

1987

NSCP

1990–01

NAP

2000–01

NHT

1997

Native Title Act

NTA

1993

TEALMES

1999–2000

Caring for Our Country Program

CFOC

2008

Working on Country

WoC

2007

Northern Territory Emergency Response

NTER

2007

Top End Land Management and Employment Strategy

of Australia (SRRATRC 1998). As management of Government policy initiatives is invariably conducted through formalised structures and processes, land management of Aboriginal lands is also facilitated through formalised structures such as the Indigenous Ranger Program and Indigenous Protection Areas (Australian Government 2010a). There are also informal (in the western sense) and unrecognised land management services provided by Aboriginal people living on their country as an integral part of their cultural obligation to look after country. Another major form of employment in Aboriginal communities, and arguably the most active component of the free market, is the arts and craft industry. This is a rapidly growing, multi-million dollar industry that employs a great number of Indigenous people (see Altman 2003; for a description of the industry). There are strong links between this industry and natural resource management as many of the products are harvested from the bush – bark, dyes, carving wood (Koenig et al. 2006). The income from arts and craft sales has been estimated to be as high as 40% of cash income earnings for some remote Aboriginal communities (Altman and Taylor 1989) making it a very significant component of Indigenous livelihoods. A recognition of the significance of Indigenous ecological knowledge has led to changes in approaches to conventional NRM. In recent times there has been greater acknowledgement of INCRM or ‘caring for country’, which is based on responsibilities and obligations that Indigenous people hold to certain places (Burgess et al. 2005). There are several complex cultural factors which play a role in determining Indigenous people’s responsibilities for looking after their country including birth,

Characteristics Minimum wage introduced – wave of Aboriginal people forced off cattle stations Australian Government legally recognises the Aboriginal system of land ownership and put into law the concept of inalienable land title A program developed to develop skills, improve capacity, work readiness and employability and link with local priorities CDEP wages to be phased out from 1 April 2012 A major policy initiative that focussed on increasing the levels of Indigenous employment by job-matching and job-creation Objective to promote whole-farm and catchment planning and groups approaches to resource management in agriculture $1.4 b of funding for 7 years until 2007–08 to develop regional solutions to salinity and water quality problems Set up by the Australian Government to restore and conserve Australia’s environmental and natural resources Set out the processes for the determination of native title rights and dealings on native title land Four-year agreement between Northern Land Council, Commonwealth Government and Indigenous Land Corporation to support Indigenous Ranger Groups to manage weeds Latest natural resource management initiative –an integrated package with one clear goal, a business approach to investment, clearly articulated outcomes and priorities and improved accountability Part of the Caring For Our Country initiative that builds on Indigenous knowledge of protecting and managing land and sea country A set of measures designed to protect children, make communities safe and build a better future for people living in Indigenous communities in the Northern Territory

gender, skin group, moiety, totem and matrilineal/patrilineal connection to country. Land and sea ‘ownership’ is most commonly defined through father’s links to country while land and sea managers are generally defined through maternal links (Sithole et al. 2007). Customary land managers ensure that land is managed according to custom, law and tradition and the most senior land manager is expected to be involved in important decisions about their mother’s country. The Ranger Program until recently was considered to integrate several dimensions of land management including scientific, cultural and social decision making processes but recent changes in funding of this program have led to organisational and operational shifts which may inhibit cultural and social integration and ultimately create tensions which may undermine the success of this program. These tensions are being driven by a complex suite of policy, governance, social, cultural and ecological factors. Innovative and holistic approaches to landscape planning and management are needed to maintain the cultural and ecological integrity of these landscapes for better overall social outcomes (Pearson and Gorman 2010a, 2010b). Natural resource management funding Commonwealth funding initiatives determine the strategy that is used in NRM management (Rea and Messner 2008). The policy framework for NRM planning evolved from the Natural Soil Conservation Program in 1983, which was followed by the National Landcare Program, the National Heritage Trust (NHT), and the National Action Plan for Salinity and Water Quality


(NAP) until the introduction of the current Caring For Our Country Program, which was introduced in July 2008 (Hajkowicz 2009). Between 1996 and 1997 $2.8 billion was allocated to NHT, which was established to ‘conserve, repair and replenish Australia’s natural capital infrastructure’ (Natural Heritage Trust of Australia Act 1997; s. 3, p. 3). The aim of the NAP was to address dryland salinity and improve water quality, for which $700 m was allocated over 8 years. Caring For Our Country (CFOC) has a budget of $2.25 billion over 5 years (Hajkowicz 2009) and is currently under review. During the NHT phase there was an expansion of actions on the ground to a catchment scale and investments in NRM activity was done through action plans. However, reports from the Australian National Audit Office in 1997 and 2008 failed to find measurable improvements in the conditions of Australian landscapes, rivers and coasts as a result of these investments (ANAO 1997, 2008). Aboriginal interests were somewhat neglected under NHT and it has been suggested that regional plans could not adequately reflect customary law and the variety of Indigenous systems which are based on accumulated traditional ecological and management knowledge (Smyth et al. 2004; Hill et al. 2008), especially since those regional bodies based on Aboriginal land received less than 3% of NHT funds allocated between 1996 and 2005 (Hill et al. 2008). These examples suggest that the model that the Commonwealth Government uses in applying funding for NRM will have impacts on the way activities are applied on the ground in remote Indigenous communities of the NT. For outsiders to understand and ensure integration of appropriate cultural decision making in the NRM process is difficult and requires both a longterm and in depth epistemological understanding of the community as well as substantial community engagement. The biggest challenge facing Australia’s NRM is the ‘tyranny of size’ (Hajkowicz 2009) and in order to have the warranted impact, money will need to be carefully targeted. Australia has 56 regional NRM bodies with boundaries that are defined by water catchments and other biogeographic, socioeconomic and administrative regions (Hajkowicz 2009). The NT, which is 17.5% of the Australian landmass (~1 3466 200 km2), ranges in diversity from rainforest, mangroves, swamps and wetlands in the north to hummock grasslands and mulga scrublands of the desert areas in the south, and has over 700 Indigenous communities with culturally diverse populations ranging from 50 to over 2000 inhabitants (Gorman and Vemuri 2010) yet makes up only 1 of these 56 regional NRM bodies. Given the diversity of Aboriginal custodianship in the NT over such a vast area one could question the level of involvement of Aboriginal people in participation of the NRM planning process. Furthermore, given the relatively small amount of money that has been set aside to manage Aboriginal lands under past Commonwealth funding initiatives such as NHT (Hill et al. 2008) it could be that the Australian Government has been relatively content to ‘free ride’ on the INCRM services provided by Indigenous people still living on country as is part of their customary obligation (Luckert et al. 2007). With a change from NHT to CFOC the outcomes of NRM activities (such as those delivered through the Indigenous Ranger Program) will need to be measurable, demonstrable and comprehensive. For this reason there has been a shift from


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funding the Ranger Program per se to funding specific services that simultaneously involve people, places and processes. Indigenous ranger program The Indigenous Ranger Program was set up in the 1990s and was arguably in response to a failure in conventional land management. This relates mainly to an acknowledgement that fire, weeds and feral animals were out of control and becoming a threat to the pastoral industry, native wildlife and landscapes and endangering human life and infrastructure. The Ranger Program started in 1995–96 with Territory and Commonwealth funding in a bid to control the invasive Mimosa pigra weed. Two Ranger Groups were formed initially to control Mimosa pigra, the Djelk Rangers (Maningrida, central Arnhem Land) and Dhimurru Rangers (Nhulunbuy, east Arnhem Land). This was expanded in 1999–2000 through a 4-year agreement called Top End Land Management and Employment Strategy between Northern Land Council, Commonwealth Government (Department of Employment Workplace Relations, Department of Employment Education and Training) and the Indigenous Land Corporation. This supported six existing Ranger Groups and instituted five more with the main focus being weed control. Over time they broadened their scope to include a range of other land management activities. Like most activities on Aboriginal land, the Indigenous Ranger Program was funded through the Commonwealth Government Community Development and Employment Program (CDEP). This was set up in 1977 after the Aboriginal Land Rights Act (NT) 1976 was introduced and people moved back out to country as they got land ownership back through the Native Title Act 1993. Initially CDEP was set up primarily as an income support and community development program for remote Aboriginal communities but with the launch of the Aboriginal Employment Development Policy in 1987 the objectives were expanded and it was regarded more of an employment program (Altman and Daly 1992). The CDEP allowed flexibility for its participants to balance work with cultural obligations. The Indigenous Ranger Program is broadly divided into either land or sea management groups (depending on whether they are managing inland or coastal habitats) and vary considerably in their size, governance, and capacity. Some programs involve men and women working together or separately while others just involve men. Their capacity varies considerably and their ability to interact with State and Commonwealth bureaucracy ultimately impacts upon their autonomy (Taylor 2004; Cochrane 2005; NLC 2006). Government bureaucracy is layered upon a complex cultural planning and decision making processes and the two layers of governance seldom work complimentarily. In some areas there are Resource Centres which support a Ranger Group and generally there are Traditional Owners representatives for each clan group that have input into the general management of these Resource Centres. Most of these systems stem from non-Indigenous management processes and factors such as language and cultural barriers, lack of western education (reading and writing) and understanding of company structure and procedure work against complete Indigenous engagement. However, some of the more established Ranger Groups have been drawn into corporations which seem to have more culturally

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appropriate methods of governance enabling Traditional Owners to have real participation and ownership of planning and management activities (Taylor 2004; Cochrane 2005; Hunt and Smith 2007). Indigenous Ranger Groups have broadened their scope over the last 20+ years and the Ranger Program has waxed and waned


in different parts of the wet–dry tropics of the NT (Fig. 2). The labour component of the Indigenous Rangers was totally CDEP funded up until 2007 with their operational funds coming from a wide range of Commonwealth and State funding – mainly NHT money. Since 2007 the labour component of Indigenous Rangers has changed for some groups and individuals. While there are still

0

50 100 kilometres

Fig. 2. Map of the Northern Territory of Australia showing Indigenous Land and Sea Ranger Groups in the wet–dry tropics (adapted from NLC 2006).



some operating under the old CDEP scheme most Ranger Groups have a set number of wages from the Commonwealth Government while operational costs are largely funded through the Aboriginal Benefits Account. The Aboriginals Benefit Account is an account established under law to receive and distribute royalty equivalent monies generated from mining on Aboriginal land in the NT (Australian Government 2011a). When Indigenous Rangers were paid through CDEP, they worked 15 h per week, and this system allowed fairly large numbers of men and woman to participate. It was a very flexible arrangement where participants could be involved as much or as little as they wanted (often as customary obligations determined). Those that worked longer hours received a ‘top up’ (an extra amount for working more than their weekly 15 h). Probably their work was truly responsive to the operational funding they acquired (NHT), which was linked to regional management plans. The Indigenous Ranger Program was a unique combination of traditional land management and conventional non-Indigenous management, i.e. a mixture of ‘old ways, new ways’ or a ‘two tool box’ system (Aslin and Bennett 2005). Over time, ~35 Ranger Groups have been established in the wet–dry tropics of the NT (NLC 2006) (see Fig. 2) and their core activities were determined by the Government Departments who funded this work and the Aboriginal Resource Centres who employed the CDEP and Ranger co-ordinators. As mentioned, the way this Program was organised allowed for customary input which in many ways endorsed this arrangement.

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Since 2007, with the threat of CDEP being abolished, funding for the Ranger Program changed and the Commonwealth set aside money for wages for a certain number of Ranger positions. This was initially $20 million dollars over 5 years but was then expanded to $90 million over 5 years from 1 July 2008 (see Australian Government 2010b; for more information). This funding is channelled through the Working on Country Program and through the Indigenous Land Corporation, the later having more of a weed focus. With this came more rigid working conditions and the participation in the Ranger Program became less flexible than before. At about the same time many of the Ranger activities (old and new) were started to be packaged as FFS-type arrangements with payment being made on delivery of a service (Table 2). With the Northern Territory Emergency Response (NTER), change in structure of CDEP and introduction of wages, Aboriginal communities are now in a state of flux. Community groups, such as those involved in the Ranger Program, may not have as much cultural input as they had in the past because of these new conditions. The NTER is based on a set of measures which were designed to protect children, make communities safe and build a better future for people living in Indigenous communities and town camps in the NT (see Australian Government 2011c). This section has outlined the historical connectivity between the Indigenous Ranger Program and Commonwealth-funded programs. Since their establishment, these Indigenous Ranger Groups have played an extremely important role in merging

Table 2. Summary characteristics of PES programs carried out by Indigenous Rangers Groups (Gorman and Vemuri 2010) Environmental service

Industry consumers

Local vendors

Geographic area in the Northern Territory (see Fig. 1)

Disease monitoring – ants, mosquito, pigs, buffalo monitoring

Australian quarantine Inspection Service, Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and forestry

Gunbalanya, Maningrida, Darwin, Goulbourn Island, Woolianna, Kabulwarnamyo, Timber Creek, N.E. Arnhem Land, Ngukurr

Patrols for illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing

NT Fisheries

Illegal fishing vessels

Australian Customs and immigration Carpentaria Ghost Nets Program

Adjumarllarl Community Rangers, Djelk Rangers, Larrakia Rangers, Mardbalk Rangers, Malak Malak people, Manwurrk Rangers, Ngaliwurru Wuli Land Management, Yirralka Rangers, Yugal Mangi Mardbalk Rangers, Gumurr Marthakal Sea Rangers, Djelk Rangers, Lianthawirryarra Rangers, Thamarrurr Rangers, Tiwi Rangers, Anindilyakwa Rangers, Yugal Mangi Landcare Djelk Rangers Dhimirru, Gumurr Marthakal Sea Rangers, Numbulwar Rangers, Yirralka, Yugal Mangi Dhimurru Rangers

N.E. Arnhem Land, Elcho Island, Roper River, Blue Mud Bay, Ngukurr

Gamarrawa Nuwul Landcare

Nhulunbuy

Jawoyn Rangers, Djelk Rangers, Demed Rangers, Manwurrk Rangers, Mimal Rangers Minyerri Rangers

Maningrida – Katherine

Ghost net surveillance management Monitoring and eradication of yellow crazy ant infestations Landscaping and revegetation Fire abatement

Fire management

CSIRO

Alcan Refinery, Nhulunbuy Conoco Phillips and NT Government Neighbouring pastoral properties

Goulbourn Island, Elcho Island, Maningrida, Borroloola, Wadeye, Melville and Bathurst, Groote Island, Ngukurr

Arnhem Land Coastline

East Arnhem Land

Roper River

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the land management directives that have come in from the contemporary NRM bureaucracy with the Indigenous customary and community obligations and responsibilities. Recent policy and legislative initiatives are changing the dynamics in Indigenous communities and it is necessary to consider what the unintended impacts of these changes will be on Ranger Groups to decide on the best approach for delivery of INCRM into the future. Fee for service as a strategic tool Clearly the Indigenous Ranger Program plays an integral part in managing the ecological and cultural values on Indigenous land in the NT. As outlined above, the Ranger Program was initiated to deal with a specific environmental problem (control, over an exotic plant, Mimosa pigra) using Indigenous and nonIndigenous knowledge. This has grown so that there are now ~35 Ranger Groups dealing with a wide scope of cultural and ecological land management issues (NLC 2006). The main source of funding for this Ranger Program has been through the Commonwealth (initially CDEP program for labour and NHT funding for operation and now CFOC for wages and Aboriginal Benefits Account for operational) and the objectives have until recently been largely ‘program’ and not ‘activity’ based. One of the main criticisms of the NHT funding (the previous source of Commonwealth funding for NRM) is that it failed to provide measurable improvements in the conditions of Australian landscapes, rivers and coasts as a result of the investments (ANAO 1997, 2008; Hajkowicz 2009; Lane and Williams 2009). The CFOC funding initiative is very targeted and adopts a strong ‘business approach’ where the Australian Government has control of setting priorities with measurable outcomes. In line with this change in NRM and goal setting there has been a shift in the way money is being delivered to Ranger Groups. Indigenous Ranger positions are now based on wages through the Commonwealth Government but many of the activities of groups are being defined separately. The approach is that payment is made for the delivery of a defined service. In the past Ranger Groups provided a suite of INCRM activities and the funding came to the program from a wide range of sources. These sources include the CDEP from the Commonwealth for wages and a variety of funding bodies including Local Government, Regional Planning and Local Councils provided money for various activities. Some of these funders had set timelines and goals while the Rangers and their coordinators (with input from cultural advisors) had control of setting the timing and the outcomes of their activities. An important point worth noting is that the Ranger Program has generally been a fairly open system connected to the community imperatives and aspirations through being CDEP funded. FFS is a relatively new approach which allows for investment in conservation and biodiversity management outside of prescribed conservation programs by commercialisation of activities (Wunder 2005; Muller 2008). This approach adopts a broader view of environmental regulation where information, self regulation, commercial influences and rewards, strategically contribute to prevention of environmental harm (Gorman and Vemuri 2010). FFS, as a tool, is being integrated into the Indigenous Ranger Program but there is a risk that it has potential


to become prescribed or managed in a ‘deep colonised’ manner (Muller 2008) resulting in not achieving full potential for promoting INCRM (Gorman and Vemuri 2010). In the last decade many of the Ranger activities have started being funded as stand-alone contracts as a FFS-type arrangement (see Table 2). The Commonwealth and Territory Governments are the main buyers of these services and these FFS activities are being channelled through the Ranger Program for several strategic reasons. These include the inherent nature of the Ranger Groups as well as establishing a nexus between them and Government departments. More specifically: (1) Ranger Groups have the capacity (administration, resources, labour, training) to be able to deliver these services in an acceptable manner and time frame; (2) Ranger Groups know the country and are on site and able to deliver these services for a reasonable price; and (3) Government departments have the capacity to deal with the Ranger Groups to ensure services are provided to their satisfaction. Such capacities can lower the transaction costs for services provided. The capacity of Indigenous people to participate in the planning process will determine the extent Indigenous priorities are reflected in planning outcomes. There are a range of factors that are well known which inhibit this capacity including language and cultural barriers, geographic isolation, a lack of resources, consultation fatigue, a lack of familiarity with the mainstream planning and decision making process (Perry 1996; Lane 2002). Given these barriers it is easy to understand the difficulty in trying to incorporate Indigenous ontological views of land management into the NRM planning process, which has set the criteria for how Australian landscapes are managed (Lane 2006). The Territory and Commonwealth Governments are using FFS as a tool through the Ranger Program to achieve NRM objectives while at the same time continuing to provide employment for people on country. In principle there is nothing wrong with this as the Ranger Program has acted as a conduit for the ‘two tool box’ land management system and they have operated in this way in the past with remarkable success. However, despite the Ranger Program becoming more equitable and fair with the introduction of wages there may be unintended impacts resulting from these policy changes that could affect their suitability to provide INCRM through a more focussed delivery such as FFS. Recent policy changes and initiatives (such as the NTER, associated welfare ‘quarantining’ and overriding of ALRA (1976) through compulsory leasing of townships) are having a huge impact on Aboriginal communities and a disempowerment of local people (Altman 2007). There is a need to rethink the way INCRM is delivered on Aboriginal land to ensure there continues to be opportunity for customary input into NRM and that more than just Rangers have an opportunity to benefit from providing these services. Social implications of fee for service Ranger Groups have undergone major changes over the last few years and no longer have the same degree of flexibility that they had when they were based on CDEP funding. At present


Ranger Groups are more structured and accountable than they were in the past with a smaller total number of participants on a wage working a conventional day (Australian Government 2010b). In some instances there are still CDEP participants doing land management activities but in many cases these are managed and administered separately to the Ranger Groups. There is now less opportunity for community members to have input into the Ranger Program as less people are involved. Using FFS as a tool further regulates INCRM activities and there is a risk that if these activities are directed solely through the Ranger Group there will be serious social and cultural implications. Some of the social (and cultural) implications of prescribed FFS as a tool relate to: (1) Inappropriate outcomes of FFS activities (customary outcomes of land management activities may be very different to those outcomes required by science or Government); (2) Emphasis on NRM as opposed to Indigenous Natural and Cultural Resource Management (leading to assigning values of less importance on cultural management aspects); (3) Employment and financial gain being restricted to the Ranger Groups when there could be greater community input (potential for generating income differentials between those who have the opportunity to participate and those who do not); (4) Further reduction in intergenerational flow of knowledge as Ranger Groups become more insular (potential loss of community knowledge of integrated cultural management practices leading to the tragedy of loss of community knowledge); and (5) Greater emphasis on services which are quantifiable such as specific environmental services (over emphasis on outcomes rather than outputs). One way to reduce the negative social implications of FFS is to frame potential and actual employment opportunities in such a way that there continues to be community involvement in determining the conditions for engagement. This would ensure that the outcomes of these activities meet both the approval of designated cultural land mangers as well as the buyer’s satisfaction. It would also encourage broader participation in these programs and allow for community members outside the Ranger Group to have input and employment opportunity. Conclusion Despite a 240% increase in general environmental expenditure by the Australian Government between 2001 and 2002 and 2006 and 2007 (from A$1.7 billion to A$4 billion, respectively), the ‘tyranny of size’ will always be Australia’s biggest challenge for NRM (Hajkowicz 2009). Furthermore, the very nature of the Commonwealth Government’s NRM funding, CFOC, is likely to be focussed on damaged landscapes with the result that those landscapes, which are relatively intact and in good condition, such as those across northern Australia, will be unlikely to receive a proportional amount of these funds. Rather, the Australian Government is likely to continue to ‘free ride’ on customary management services provided by Aboriginal people still living on country and provide basic support for Indigenous Ranger Groups. Given these facts it is likely the Government will


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continue to move towards a FFS model where outcomes are negotiated before payments are made. It is integral that the outcomes defined in such contracts are culturally appropriate and overlap with the land management aspirations of the people on whose lands they occur. There are two areas that need consideration in improving the quality of land management in the NT. The first is to reduce the dependence on Commonwealth funding for land management and the second is to overcome the complicated layers of decision making and governance in land management decision making. These can both be solved by FFS operating as a framework rather than a tool. Currently, the systems set up for land management on Aboriginal land in the NT are very heavily influenced by a complex and sometimes conflicting sets of policy and legislative rules and regulations (Rea and Messner 2008; Lane and Williams 2009). Land management policy and its strategic planning are driven by conventional conservation principles and national best practice. The ability for the Territory NRM Board to consult adequately with customary INCRM managers will never be achievable because of inhibitive transaction costs as well as several other barriers including language and cultural understanding. There are hundreds of Aboriginal clans across the NT each with their own designated land managers who ‘talk’ only for their own clan area. Despite, the success of the Indigenous Ranger Program and acknowledgement of an innovative ‘two tool box’ system, Governments have retained governance of land management on Aboriginal lands through control of funding and administration. The Commonwealth Government is limited in its budget for NRM and must prioritise its spending. One of the six priority areas on which the CFOC funding is based is NRM in northern and remote Australia (Australian Government 2011b). However, given the intactness of NT landscapes it is likely that Government will continue to ‘free ride’ on the INCRM services provided by Indigenous people living on country who provide land management outside of the Ranger Program. This is at odds with the ‘Closing the Gap’ resolution which is a Council of Australian Governments initiative and has targets for improving economic futures for Aboriginal people. NT landscapes require active land management and this requires people living on country. The new strategy and vision for Indigenous communities announced in May 2009 by the NT Government titled Working Futures involves establishment of 20 growth towns across the NT (Northern Territory Government 2009). This strategy is likely to involve a concentration of people away from their country which will further de-populate NT landscapes and will have dire cultural and ecological consequences. These issues are resulting in a variety of unintended tensions and social disharmony among Aboriginal people in remote NT communities. Aboriginal people have repeatedly voiced their wants in many platforms. They simultaneously want to stay connected to their country, want their inherited Indigenous Ecological Knowledge to pass between generations, want their contribution to managing Australian landscapes to be acknowledged and financially recompensed, want land management decisions and priorities to be governed by their own decision making processes, and want to be less reliant on Government funding for land management. In short there is a genuine desire to seek autonomy for land management practices.

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One way to reduce reliance on limited Commonwealth funds while giving Aboriginal people much needed autonomy over INCRM is through a FFS framework based on a system of community based decision making. Such a framework could connect a range of buyers (private and Government) to several INCRM activities, which were defined and costed through a community hub and which would involve the necessary decision makers. The FFS framework would ultimately be governed by a community natural resource management NRM-type model, which is used by many Indigenous people worldwide and has characteristics (Kellert et al. 2000) concurrent with the values expressed by Aboriginal people. These relate to a mixture of political, organisation, socioeconomic, epistemological and institutional features (Kellert et al. 2000). The key purchasers of environmental, cultural and biosecurity services are mining and energy companies and pastoral stations, Local Government and NT and Australian Government agencies including Parks and Wildlife (Putnis et al. 2007). However, without a framework in place it is unlikely that many of these potential buyers would be able to purchase FFS actions and create appropriate contracts as transaction costs may be too high and Aboriginal communities ill informed about the process. Furthermore, without community participation in defining contracts there is a risk that these FFS-type arrangements would not have culturally appropriate outcomes and may not involve culturally appropriate people to do the job. Such a framework would be likely to reduce social implications because land management strategies and outcomes could be defined through local decision making processes and involve the right people to provide these actions. These services could be purchased by a range of buyers making it a true market-based instrument and employment opportunity would go to a community group of which the Rangers would be a part. There are caveats associated with the formation of such a FFS framework and its governance through a community NRM approach. It would involve a large investment from Government to develop a framework to connect buyers and sellers of FFS-type activities and for training of those Aboriginal communities in the administration, contracts, services and costing. Commonwealth and Territory Governments would need to be willing to allow autonomy in Aboriginal land management and remove the layers of conventional management which overlay traditional land management; Aboriginal people in remote NT would need to decide what scale would be best suited to their area. In helping to ‘close the gap’ between the health of Indigenous and nonIndigenous people it is important that real autonomy is given to these people. Freedom to choose and participate in the activities that matter to individuals and members of the community is perhaps the best way to promote social betterment. Acknowledgements We would like to acknowledge the Australian Research Council, Charles Darwin University, the Centre for International Forestry Research and Ramingining Homelands Resource Centre Aboriginal Corporation, for collectively providing funding towards investigating the barriers and opportunities towards Indigenous wildlife-based enterprise. We also acknowledge the Gurruwilling Rangers and others at Ramingining Community who helped shape some of the ideas put forward in this paper, the Charles Darwin University, specifically the Research Institute for the


Environment and Livelihoods and School of Law and Business, for allowing time to discuss ideas and work on this paper and finally, the editor and reviewers of this Journal whose comments have improved the quality of this paper.

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