The Australian Government through its statutory research corporation, Land and Water Australia, identified that a key theme emerging from their literature review on the effective engagement of Indigenous peoples in natural resource management, was the ‘nexus’ in the Indigenous relationship between land, water and health. My doctoral thesis research identified that Aboriginal water values exhibit far more than symbolic expressions of Aboriginal peoples’ relationship to the land, the waters and resources; they are a life-blood connection of Aboriginal identity.
I argue that any government interest and policy shift towards acknowledging the concepts of Aboriginal cultural values in water is a result of the activism and the increased agency of Aboriginal peoples and their peak bodies. The incorporation of Aboriginal values in water within the framework of national water reforms did not occur until Aboriginal organisations urged government to recognise Aboriginal rights and interests. An Aboriginal ‘ecological’ economy has always existed through barter, trade and environmental stewardship. The First Peoples in Australia maintain the oldest continuing cultures in the world, and are knowledge holders of ancient science, intergenerational water management and familial connection to the creation of the tangible and intangible. However, the national water blueprint, the National Water Initiative, includes only three discretionary clauses on Aboriginal water requirements.
Professor John Burrows, international legal scholar, Anishinabe/Ojibway and member of the Chippewa of the Nawash First Nation in Ontario, Canada, argues that Aboriginal rights are continually ‘downgraded and infringed by governments and the courts’ in order to ‘dictate how the laws and traditions of Aboriginal peoples can be reconciled with non-Aboriginal interests’.
In this changing world of climate change, the lack of geo-political stability and the unrestrained exploitation of natural resources coupled with global water scarcity, I argue that the case for securing Aboriginal water rights across Australia has never been more critical.