We cannot lessen the impacts of climate change if we do not learn from the mistakes of the past. Aboriginal and First Nations people must be centred in decision making. Their knowledge in caring for country for millennia must be honoured, sought out, and understood. Their time must be paid for in providing advice.
There have been stories from all over the country for years about the damage being seen by custodians, and ideas for management based in science and thousands of years of experience.
Traditional owners are devastated by the lack of recovery at the site of Australia’s worst recorded mangrove dieback and are calling for action to limit climate change threats.
ABC News, Oct 2019
- Indigenous Youth Declaration for Climate Justice – Seed
- Blak New deal – Overland
- Central Land Council calls for climate action legislation – media release
- Indigenous knowledge systems can help solve the problem of climate change – Indigenous X, Guardian
- Indigenous Peoples Policy for Green climate fund – WeDo
See other general resources on our SOLIDARITY resource page
Know your history
- Aboriginal Tent Embassy case study
- Learn from elders: Interview with Uncle Kevin Buzzacott
- Gurundji Land Rights case study and workshop/training guide
- The Freedom Riders case study
Indigenous Land Management
There has been significant discussion in late 2019 / early 2020 after the unprecedented fires about Indigenous land management and cultural burning practices.
- Indigenous leaders say Australia’s bushfire crisis shows approach to land management failing
- Firesticks alliance is a First Nations led approach to land management & protection of country
- Cultural burning is more about just hazard prevention
- Indigenous knowledge must be brought into the bushfires conversation
- These bushfires are an historic event – this is what we should learn
- Owners say cultural burning saved their property
Climate Emergency Critiques
There is a pattern of critique from First Nations organisers about the narrative of “climate emergency” which has been broadly adopted by the climate movement.
The “emergency” framing can bring up ideas of military or state intervention, and a potential loss of human rights, and civil liberties. Aboriginal people have concerns around how the “emergency” relating to the abuse of children led to the Northern Territory intervention and significant harm. With the unprecedented deployment of the military to relocate climate refugees, we must be mindful of this as a movement. The “state of emergency” has already resulted in Victorian police depicting protesters as selfish and reckless. (Jan 2020)
Read critiques on Eureka Street, Sydney Morning Herald, and from the Australian Youth Climate Coalition.