Valuing Indigenous cultural connections Go Back

Indigenous cultural values, Country knowledge and management practices provide critical insights about valuing and maintaining our precious ecological resources. The federal Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment is developing an experimental system to account for ecosystem services. Working together with our Indigenous partners, we will consider whether it is possible to include cultural connections to Country within these experimental accounts, or whether there are alternative ways of recognising Indigenous cultural values.

Ecosystem accounting approaches may not be compatible with Indigenous values, concepts and relationships with Country. First, it is not always appropriate to use money as a metric. Second, the ‘western’ ecosystem service categories may have little or no meaning in Indigenous contexts. Third, these approaches consider that benefits only flow from nature to people. But caring for Country is a two-way reciprocal relationship – people look after Country, and Country looks after people.

Our partners for this project are the Ewamian Aboriginal Corporation (EAC) and the Indigenous Research Committee for Kakadu National Park. Together we will explore commonalities and differences between western ecosystem accounting frameworks and Indigenous understandings of cultural connections to Country.

This project is:

• advising the federal Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment of how best to acknowledge Indigenous cultural values within, or alongside, their experimental ecosystem accounting system, including estimates of value (if possible)
• developing and testing methods for estimating (prioritising) values and reciprocal relationships between people and Country
• assisting our partners prioritise different caring for Country activities
• facilitate networking opportunities between Indigenous project partners
• providing Indigenous groups with a stronger voice in discussions about ecosystem accounting

Project activities

• Co-developing an approach to investigate the relationships between Indigenous connections to Country and caring for Country activities, and the relationships between those connections/activities and ecosystem accounting approaches.
• Holding a workshop with EAC to
  • explore cultural connections to Country
  • trial a decision tool that helps prioritise caring for Country and other activities
  • identify links (or not) between concepts relevant to Indigenous people and concepts used for ecosystem accounting.
• Revising approach and adapting for use with Kakadu partners, and holding similar workshop(s) with them.
• Working with partners to identify similarities and differences between ‘cultural connections’ (to Country) and ecosystem accounting and developing recommendations about how cultural connections might be acknowledged (or otherwise) in accounting frameworks.

Anticipated outputs

• Journal articles co-authored by Indigenous partners and researchers
• Project updates and fact sheets
• Final presentation and report to the Department by Indigenous partners and researchers.