A new direction for water management? Indigenous nation building as a strategy for river health

Abstract

ABSTRACT. Indigenous involvement in Australian water management is conventionally driven by a top-down approach by nonIndigenous government agencies, that asks "how do we engage Indigenous people?" and has culminated in the ineffective "consult" and "service delivery" processes evident in mainstream water management planning. This is a hopeful paper that identifies the critical importance of a "nation-based" approach for effective Indigenous engagement in water planning and policy through the work undertaken by the Ngarrindjeri Regional Authority (NRA) in the Murray Futures program. The NRA is an Indigenous government in the "settled-south" of Australia. Over past decades, the NRA has developed a range of political technologies that act as tools for redeveloping Ngarrindjeri Nationhood after colonial disempowerment and dispossession. These tools enable better collaboration with nonIndigenous governments, especially in natural resource management policy and practice. In turn, this has better enabled the NRA to exercise a decision-making and planning authority over the lands and waters in its jurisdiction, therefore, more effectively exercising its ongoing duty of care as Country. This paper presents a case study of the Sugar Shack Complex Management Plan, codeveloped by the NRA and the South Australian Government in 2015, to demonstrate the benefits that accrue when Indigenous nations are resourced as authorities responsible for reframing water management and planning approaches to facilitate the equitable collaboration of Indigenous and nonIndigenous worldviews. As a marker of the success of this strategy, the Ngarrindjeri Yarluwar-Ruwe Program, in partnership with the South Australian government, recently won the Australian Riverprize 2015 for delivering excellence in Australian river management. The Ngarrindjeri "Vision for Country" quoted above encapsulates the Ngarrindjeri philosophy of being (Ruwe/Ruwar) at the center of Ngarrindjeri innovations in water management. Its ancient but radical message has far-reaching implications for Australian water planning. Originally developed as part of the whole-of-country strategy expressed in the Ngarrindjeri Nation Yarluwar-Ruwe Plan (Ngarrindjeri Nation 2007), it asserts a sovereign vision for healthy Ngarrindjeri country, based on valuing Ngarrindjeri lifeways, values, and knowledge. Ngarrindjeri country is in the "settled south" of Australia, at the end of the iconic River Murray (Murrundi), the longest river in Australia and third longest navigable river in the world.Freshwater flows through the Murray-Darling system into Ngarrindjeri lands are, for Ngarrindjeri, the life blood of the living body of Murrundi. The mouth of the Murray and its nearby region is a place of great spiritual and cultural significance known and formally registered as the "Meeting of the Waters" where the salt and fresh waters mix. For Ngarrindjeri, the reproduction of wellbeing is inextricably linked to interconnectivity, estuarine mixing, and the overall health of Murrundi as a living bod...

Indigenous sovereignties: relational ontologies and environmental management

“…Despite generally sound intentions among environmental managers to engage Indigenous worldviews, its "tools"-such as creating management plans and quantifying ecological services-largely remain based in Western worldviews, further entrenching colonial power and ideology (Hemming et al, 2017;Hemming & Rigney, 2008). As such, Indigenous knowledges are generally marginalised as representing relative "perspectives", heritage "artefacts", "oral histories", or the views of a single "stakeholder", all of which fail to recognise Indigenous nations as sovereign rights holders.…”

“Whiteness” and natural resource management: let's talk about race baby, let's talk about sovereignty!

“…This approach differs from an ‘outdated consultation paradigm’ (Tan & Jackson, , p.138) in NRM that is more akin to acquiring information than genuinely collaborating across worldviews. Documentation of a nation building approach is beyond the scope of this paper but has been discussed elsewhere and demonstrates a genuine shift in power structures in NRM to the Ngarrindjeri Nation (Hemming et al, ). We encourage geographers to engage with nation building approaches as an aspiration for addressing whiteness in future NRM cross‐cultural collaborations.…”

“…For example, Hemming and Rigney (, p.762) cite instances of where First Nations in the “settled South” of Australia have been assumed “extinct” in the development of management plans—erasing their existence, knowledge, and sovereignty of Country. The traditional approach to developing management plans, at best, may include a chapter on “Indigenous culture” but the overall structure and function of the plans conforms to white institutional formats (Hemming et al, ) authorised by Western sovereignty. When First Nations apply for mainstream funding for NRM, the funding is couched in whiteness in its administration and accountability mechanisms (see Muller, ), without space for First Nations ways of being or Caring as Country (Muller, ).…”

“…We suggest that if white people can question their own cultural assumptions and problematise their own approaches instead of focusing on the Other, then new ways of conceptualising and addressing challenges will emerge. Such labours will enable non‐Indigenous practitioners to more equitably co‐develop new solutions with First Nations' partners or, where possible, resource First Nations to self‐determine their own solutions—a nation‐building approach where First Nations in the driving seat (Cornell, ; Cornell & Kalt, ; Hemming et al, ; Muller, et al, In press).…”

Evolving Governance and Contested Water Reforms in Australia’s Murray Darling Basin

“…Section 2 sketches a history of water resource development, profiling some of historical transitions and the dominant paradigms framing contemporary debates. Indigenous systems of water governance are beyond the scope of this paper but Australia's laws and public institutions are tentatively recognising these through native title claims and the formal exploration of cultural water [12][13][14].…”