Land
Introduction
The decision by the High Court in 1992 to overturn the British
claim of terra nullius over land in Australia brought the
contested nature of claims to Australian land ownership to the consciousness
of many Australians.
Originally, the British claimed that because Aborigines did not
farm the land and that there were no recognised forms of land tenure
and government, the land was consequently settled, rather than bought
or conquered, and Aborigines have no claim to ownership. The close
affinity of particular ancestrally defined groups of people to particular
tracts of land - through totem and language - prompts many indigenous
people, however, to comment that it is they that belong to the land
(rather than the other way around). Whilst the British may not have
been able to recognise familiar forms of government, law and land
tenure, Indigenous people's links to the land still exist and demonstrate
an alternative conception of how land can be viewed.
What is at stake?
Land ownership is the key to resource ownership and economic independence
in the western system. Those that have land, those that own the
rights to access and use land are the ones with the power. Challenging
the concept of land ownership helps to bring into perspective important
issues that relate particularly to the relationship between Indigenous
and non-indigenous land practices, resource use and ownership, and
the maintenance of culture. Current Commonwealth systems of land
tenure and the legal system are problematic when attempting to reconcile
culturally different interpretations of land ownership and land
use.
Think about:
- How do people conceive of land?
- What do pastoralists in north Australia think?
- How do Indigenous people see land and their ownership
of it?
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The issue at stake is the challenge of current thinking regarding
land ownership and use, because opportunities for sustainable forms
of development require new ways of thinking about tenure, and ways
of ensuring that co-existing, multiple forms of land-use can occur.
What is the status quo?
Types of land tenure Currently, land in Australia is either privately
owned or vested in the crown, which means that it is held in trust
for the citizens of the country by the national or state governments.
Land is attributed a range of tenures depending upon its status
as privately owned or leased by the government to individuals or
groups for either commercial or community purposes.
Private land is considered to be freehold land, able to be bought
and sold as a commodity and in general, the western concept of land
is that it is a resource which can be commodified and therefore
bought and sold like all other commodities.
Think about:
- How does this commodification of land impact on our
perception of land and our relation to it?
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Leasehold land in north Australia
Much of the land in north Australia is under leasehold arrangements.
Pastoralists lease their land from the government on long term or
even perpetual leases with exclusivity of tenure. Miners are able
to lease land for the purposes of extractive resource use with caveats
for rehabilitation and regeneration of the landscape after the activity
has ceased. Long term leases provide stability for commercial activity,
however they also have tended to lock country into particular forms
of land use.
The Land Rights Act
The Aboriginal Land Rights Act (1976) provides for the transfer
of title from land in the Northern Territory to Indigenous people
represented by the Aboriginal Land Trust. This land is held by the
Trust as inalienable freehold land, which means it cannot be sold
in the same commercial sense as ordinary freehold land.
Think about:
- How does that affect they way Indigenous people use
land in a contemporary context?
- Is there a way of recognising Indigneous inalienable
ownership of land at one level, yet freeing them to use
their land as a resource at another level?
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Exclusive views of land ownership
The system of land ownership and tenure in the Australian government
system is a product of the era in which the industrial revolution
took place and often the structures in place to administer land
place unreasonable constraints on new ways of using land and prevent
straightforward ways of recognising the ownership and rights for
use of land by other cultural groups. Our current land ownership
system excludes all other ways of conceiving of land ownership that
might exist in a multi-cultural environment like north Australia.
What are the alternatives?
Alternative conceptions of land ownership and tenure clearly exist
with other cultures. The uproar caused by both the Mabo and Wik
decisions in the High Court demonstrate the vastly different concepts
of land and its ownership that exist in Australia.
Indigenous concepts of land
Indigenous people in Australia vary greatly in their understandings
of land, however important similarities can be drawn from what they
say and have been written. Indigenous people see themselves and
the other living organisms as coming out of the land. The land is
the origin of their existence and the source of provision and resources.
In this sense, it is almost impossible to conceive of land as a
commodity to be bought and sold. Land owns people because the creation
accounts demonstrate they originate from a particular and specific
place. They are drawn from the land there and the specificity of
their language is evidence of this.
Need for sustainability
In a contemporary sense, the western system of land ownership and
tenure needs to be revised to incorporate new forms of land ownership
to encourage sustainable land use and management of resources. In
recent years, people are beginning to demonstrate that concepts
of multiple tenures and land-use are not impossible.
Opportunities for multiple land-use
Multiple land-use provides the opportunity for land to be used
in ways in which the maximum benefit can be drawn from the use of
resources whilst ensuring the demise of land-use practices which
are unsustainable or destructive of the landscape. Multiple land-use
tenure also would allow for the recognition of different forms of
land-ownership and use that exist as an overlay on the western 'tenure'
landscape as it exists at the moment.
Think about:
- Could careful management of the system of tenure provide
for an integration of Indigenous and non-indigenous land
use and ownership aspirations on an equal footing?
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What happens when different knowledge systems
speak to each other?
Helen Verran's Reimagining Land Ownership analyses the
assumptions fundamental to the clash between pastoralists and Indigenous
Australians, and looks for a basis for agreement and negotiation.
This is epistemology at working in the contesting of knowledges:
- looking at the underlying assumptions which produce each perspective
(these can be related to the grand narratives of the respective
cultures);
- trying to find some common ground for negotiation.
Resources
There are a wide range of resources that you can use to develop
your understanding of issues related to land.
Reading 5.5
Verran, H., 1998 'Re-imagining Land Ownership in Australia', Postcolonial
Studies, Volume 1 No 2, pp 237 - 254.
Other References
Holmes, J. 2000 'Balancing Interests Through Land Tenure Reform:
Region Contrasts Between the Barkly and the Gulf ' in Dixon, R.
(ed) Business as Usual?: Local Conflicts and Global Challenges
in Northern Australia, NARU, ANU, Canberra & Darwin.
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