Indigenous Land Management

As Australian landscapes continue to degrade under current land management practices, land managers and stake-holders are looking toward alternative and more sustainable land management strategies, such as indigenous land management and traditional knowledge. This subject looks at how indigenous people in Australia manage their environment and how management practices vary across the Australian landscape. The subject will examine indigenous land management in Australia and abroad, and evaluate how traditional knowledge and beliefs guide approaches to land management. We will examine examples where indigenous land management has been reintroduced to landscapes in Australia and investigate the potential application of similar schemes across different parts of Australia. The subject will be taught as a 14-day intensive during the mid-semester break, comprising lectures and field observations in western Victoria and the Northern Territory. These two very different regions will be used to examine the relationship between environmental context, indigenous land management and post-colonial history. Lectures will provide the necessary conceptual framework with which to engage and understand the different environmental contexts and indigenous land management practices of these regions.