The Wilderness Society supports Cape York Wild River declarations and stands by its work with Traditional Owners

The Queensland Government has recently declared the Archer, Stewart and Lockhart River basins on Cape York as ‘wild rivers’. This affords these rivers protection under a regime that prevents large-scale development threats, such as in-stream mining, damming, and intensive irrigation, while supporting the continuation or establishment of smaller scale commercial uses, eco-tourism and other sustainable industries. It also guarantees Indigenous people traditional hunting, fishing, land management and conservation, through protection of native title rights and support for rangers. 

• Details of the declarations along with other info on wild rivers are here >>
  

Wenlock River, Cape York. Photographer: Nikki Michaels

These three river basins are among the last free flowing, natural river systems in Australia, and The Wilderness Society strongly supports their protection. The declarations are based on long-standing commitments by the Queensland Government to protect wild rivers in the State, and follow an extensive public consultation and Indigenous engagement process. 

Few important conservation achievements come easily, and these wild rivers declarations have attracted a negative response from a number of pro-large scale development interests. Most prominent and challenging has been the outright opposition of Cape York development advocate, Noel Pearson, and a number of his supporters including Gerhardt Pearson, director of Balkanu Development Corporation, academic Marcia Langton, and The Australian newspaper’s Tony Koch. Liberal Senator Bill Heffernan, exponent of industrial and farming development for Northern Australia and head of the Northern Australia Development Taskforce under the Howard government - who appointed Noel Pearson to this same Taskforce - has also weighed in.

Their claim is that conservation equals loss of rights and dignity for Aboriginal people and that ‘wild rivers’ shut down all economic opportunity. They also allege that the Government has denied Indigenous rights and interests and that this is all the manipulative work of The Wilderness Society.

We are being attacked for our long-standing and widely promoted campaign to have the free-flowing rivers of Northern Australia protected and managed. We stand accused of not listening to Aboriginal people and of disregarding their rights.  The Wilderness Society totally refutes these claims. 

The Indigenous rights and conservation debates are complex, but the attacks on us are ill informed of how the wild river protection regime operates, and they represent opposition to sensible regulation of large-scale and destructive development on Cape York. Our opponents neglect and belittle our years of advocacy, policy development and negotiation with Indigenous representative bodies and Governments – effort that has delivered a new model of landscape conservation that includes Indigenous rights, and enables sustainable development in remote intact landscapes.

One particularly disingenuous accusation leveled against us is that we somehow blocked further consultation or negotiations with Traditional Owners late in 2008.  This is utterly untrue.  As the attached letters: one in response to Traditional Owners, and a second to the Queensland Government show that in fact we specifically encouraged formal negotiations before the declaration process was completed. Our subsequent enquiries to the Minister’s office on the process (confirmed to us by Balkanu themselves) indicate that the government did attempt to hold such negotiations with Traditional Owners, but Gerhardt Pearson, head of Balkanu Cape York Development Corporation, which was itself engaged and funded to facilitate the original consultations, cancelled the meeting.

Northern Australia is subject to an increasing number of massive industrial resource, agriculture and forestry proposals. Without a wild river framework for river basin management, large-scale development exponents will continue to push their agendas on Cape York and elsewhere. There are presently new bauxite strip mining projects and applications, mineral exploration permits including for uranium cover the region, and advocates of broadscale agriculture are pushing a variety of proposals. 

There is an emerging push for bio-fuel plantations, which generally require substantial land clearing and significant irrigation. There are serious questions to be answered on the sustainability of this type of farming in Northern Australia, and it is of dubious value in addressing climate change despite its ‘green’ tag.

Wild river protection supports sustainable development opportunities and the exercise of native title rights. What it does not support is the failed development model of big dams, irrigation and broad-scale tree clearing: a model that we have been told numerous times Traditional Owners do not want, and one that is ecologically inappropriate for the fragile regions of the North.

Our approach to seeing wild rivers protected addresses both the environmental benefits and Indigenous conservation and land justice interests. See Indigenous Rights and Interests in Wild Rivers for a better appreciation of our approach to these issues].  While we oppose current and future threats to our natural environment, we will continue to work with Indigenous Traditional Owners and others who wish to see a conservation approach to Cape York’s beautiful free-flowing rivers and its amazing natural and cultural landscapes, in ways that also support sustainable economic development opportunities for Indigenous people. 

If you would like more information, please contact the Brisbane Campaign Centre:
brisbane@wilderness.org.au

You may also wish to check out the following ‘further reading’ links:

• No problem with Wild Rivers science: Qld Govt
  20 April 2009 (ABC online)
  
• Divisions run deep in Qld Wild Rivers debate
  20 April 2009 (ABC online)
  
• A copy of the The Wilderness Society article in Crikey! (PDF - 13 Kb)
  
• Media Release - Wik leader applauds Wild Rivers legislation (PDF - 22Kb)
• The Aurukun elders statement on Wild Rivers issued to Qld Govt (PDF - 31Kb)