For millennia and through multiple climate shifts, Traditional Owners have held and exercised inherent rights, interests and knowledge of Australia’s land and sea Countries.
Country is land, sea, air, stars, rocks, plants and animals – all things living and non-living. She is our spirituality. Country is Us. We look after Country through our cultural Lore. If Country is strong then, so too are her Peoples. However, the current regulatory systems make it difficult for Traditional Owners to fulfill their responsibilities to Country, and we are concerned about what is happening to our Country, her health and struggles under many impacts.
The UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples established a universal framework to uphold the rights of First Peoples including their role in management and governance of land and sea Country through Free Prior Informed Consent (FPIC) negotiated via their customary processes and institutions (UN, 2007ref). The Australian Institute of Marine Science has established an Indigenous Partnership Plan, Policy and Project Team to implement the right of Traditional Owners to negotiate FPIC, and where possible, facilitate collaboration between marine scientists, Indigenous people and Traditional Owners (Evans-Illidge et al 2020, AIMS 2021). Where negotiation of FPIC is enabled to go beyond a purely transactional process, it often leads to more impactful co-designed and co-delivered research, particularly if relationships are first developed with Traditional Owners based on mutual trust, respect, and honesty.
Today, we have an opportunity for scientists and Traditional Owners to work together. We must find ways to bring together our 2 knowledge systems to create a meeting of Western Science and Indigenous Knowledge and build partnerships that acknowledge the strengths of both sciences.
Let us explore how this can happen.