Deirdre Wilcock
Macquarie University
Integrating Cultural Mapping into NRM: Examining challenges to inclusive adaptive management
Current drought conditions in Australia highlight the challenges of environmentally and economically sustainable water management. Nowhere has this been more pronounced than in the Murray Darling Basin (MDB). Indigenous (in particular, Yorta Yorta) involvement in water resource river management in the MDB is often seen as a flagship project for Indigenous involvement in NRM in Australia. This paper reports on research undertaken with Yorta Yorta Nation Aboriginal Corporation (YYNAC) and NRM agencies involved in The Living Murray Indigenous Partnerships Project, and negotiations between YYNAC and the Victorian State Government (through the Yorta Yorta Joint Body arrangement). These pathways of negotiation aim to involve Indigenous representatives into NRM in the Barmah Forest (one of the six Icon Sites of the Murray River) more effectively. However, this has been constrained by ontological differences between Indigenous and Western scientific understandings. This paper examines cultural mapping as an example of a culturally-oriented management strategy. Ontological differences pose great challenges to integrating diverse ways of thinking into NRM through cultural mapping. This research has found that understanding ‘sense of place’ and holistic (versus compartmentalised) thinking is crucial for the integration of these diverse knowledge bases, in order to promote flexible, responsive and effective adaptive management.
Current Research Directions
The abstract above reports on research conducted in 2006 as part of my Honours thesis at Macquarie University. Participants included Murray Darling Basin Commission managers, Yorta Yorta Nation Aboriginal Corporation, Murray and lower Darling Rivers Indigenous Nations (MLDRIN), the Department of Sustainability and Environment managers and Catchment Management Authority representatives involved in the management of Barmah Forest, Victoria. The project investigated the inclusion of multiple knowledges in adaptive river management – using Indigenous and geomorphological understandings as case studies. The research found that the exclusion of these valid and key areas of knowledge was undermining adaptive approaches to NRM in the Murray Darling Basin context.
I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to continue with similar themes in funded PhD research through Macquarie University. I will be examining the involvement of Indigenous and geomorphic understandings into NRM in a project comparing Australian, Canadian and New Zealand contexts. In particular, the project will investigate the potential of geomorphology to be used as a non-reductionist field of science that can be used to integrate Indigenous and scientific knowledge more effectively for adaptive approaches to NRM.
Email: dwilcock@els.mq.edu.au