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Collecting Bulbs and Flowers, Aurukun Wetlands. Photo: Kerry Trapnell

Aboriginal Rights lead to conservation and development

The relationship of Traditional Owners to their country brings with it an intricate system of rights and responsibilities.

Traditional Owners have unique connections to Country and intricate ecological and geographic knowledge that has developed over the passage of time.

Over thousands of years, an intimate cultural understanding of the landscape and biota has grown as successive generations have watched seasons change and developed a ‘cultural map’ of their homelands.

The rights and responsibilities owned and held by Indigenous Traditional Owners still exist across Australia’s original Indigenous clan estates – covering the entire continent’s land and seas. Whilst dispossession through colonisation has resulted in extinguishment of some Indigenous knowledge systems, where culture and tradition prevail, Native Title and statutory rights are of great significance when it comes to protecting Australia’s superlative heritage.

"Cultural heritage forms the very fabric of our society, our spirituality and our connection with our lands and our very existence. Our waters, our seaways, our skies, our airspace, they're all a part of the complete cycle of who we are and what we're about" - Bob Anderson, of the Queensland Indigenous Advisory Board.

Recognising these rights, the Wilderness Society seeks to work with Indigenous Traditional Owner groups, to support Indigenous conservation strategies and guarantee a high level of environmental integrity in face of the increasing range and scale of destructive threats and degrading processes.