Indigenous Science and Land Management

Introduction

The marriage of science and cultural practices differs greatly between societies.

Aboriginal people have a different world view than non-Aboriginal people. Aboriginal people learn to live with fire, they are born with fire, its part of their culture. Fire in Aboriginal ways means many different things, it could mean life or death in a cultural or spiritual way. Aboriginal people want to keep traditional knowledge and a connection to the land, and self determination seems to be a main priority.

In indigenous society scientific knowledge is integral to cultural knowledge. Joe Morrison describes this as "Traditional Ecological Knowlege (TEK). Traditional Ecological Knowledge refers to the knowledge and the process of orally transmitting information about ecological processes, the reasons behind the processes, the naming of organisms, the spiritual understanding behind them and the process of status relating to ownership of knowledge." (Morrision, 2001)

Discussion

In my experience I have encountered Indigenous people from a wide variey of places who have a completely different opinion about the way they manage thier land. For example South Sea and Torres Strait Islanders that I have met, have their own traditions and opinions about land management in comparison to Aboriginal people.

Larakia woman Lorraine Williams (pers comm. 2001), combines her Indigenous knowledge with mainstream education. Her comments depict how she cares for her country, she sees country in many eyes and she understands western views, this demonstrates how different knowledge systems speak to each other.

"When I burn my country, I am conscious of the fact that there are various land users. I take into consideration, the safety aspects, wind weather, time of day and I think about the animals, which may be affected. I look at fuel loads, vegetation cover and the topography. Most importantly I try to visualise how my 'Old People" would have done it.

In burning my country, I am asserting my authority over my land. I am strengthening my attachments, physical and spiritual. Burning my land means that I am caring for my physical, emotional and spiritual well being and in doing this I am 'Caring' for my 'Country'."

Traditional burning as practiced by Aborigianl people may be outdated in the eyes of the western world. But in Northern Australia, this Aboriginal ritual is alive and well. Dean Yibarbuk, Lofty Bardayal, Jimmy Kalarriya are land owners from hte Arnhem Land Plateau. They attended a fire management workshop in Darwin in 1998 and talked about why they used fire, how they managed fire and who was responsible for fire.

• Dean stated "where most people know fire is something very dangerous that can destroy the environment, but the secret of fire in our traditional knowledge is that it is a thing that brings the country back alive again".
• Jimmy said "We use fire from the beginning. The adults teach us when we are children for the correct time to burn".
• Lofty also said "The old people told us there are many reasons why fire makes good the country good. One reasons is for hunting kangaroos, and another reason is for making new grasses and trees grow and thirdly, animals will be healthy and fat". ( Yibarbuk et al, 1998 )

A local example of Traditional Ecological Knowledge being shared and respected as scientifically valid, is in the work of Rita Tingey and Lorraine Williams. They share their ethnobotany knowledge with a wide variety of people. They work both with individuals and groups as well as being involved in published works. Rita is a member of the "Indigenous Advisory Committee" which provides advice on the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act. In meeting with this committee there was a focus on the retaining of ownership of traditional knowledge in terms of intellectual property rights, "Issues of commercial companies bioprospecting and using traditional knowledge of bush tucker and bush medecine are of concern to the committee. They spoke at length about access to Australia's biodiversity and ethnobiological (indigenous ecological knowledge) recording and how to protect traditional owners rights."(Greening Australia NT, 2001 )

Summary

Aboriginal people have been managing this great land of ours for many years. It is now the right time to listen to these people. Aboriginal people are the black scientists of the world, we know some of the answers about fire and how to manage it, but fire is a thing we should all treat with caution and respect.

In an ideal world we would hope that the indigenous and the non indigenous people come together, combine each of these two knowledges together and hopefully save our precious earth.