Historical and contemporary waterscapes of North Australia: Indigenous attitudes to dams and water diversions

Abstract

Indigenous engagements with water are dynamic and contextually contingent,\rand contemporary attitudes and environmental valuations are shaped by diverse pre-existing\rwater histories. Geographical variation intersects and interacts with such histories to\rinfluence the moral position taken by individuals and groups and their negotiating positions\ras they engage in public debates or decisions about water diversion, management, and use,\ras well as the tradeoffs and risks of associated negative impacts. This paper draws together\rIndigenous historical and contemporary perspectives regarding the diversion, damming\rand manipulation of water sources from four tropical watersheds that span Australia’s\rremote north—the Harding and Ord Rivers in Western Australia, the Roper River in the\rNorthern Territory, and the Gilbert River in North Queensland. Conceptually, the paper\rbrings together the literatures of Indigenous water values and the political ecology of water\rresources. The analysis deploys the waterscape concept that has emerged from the disciplines\rof geography and history to characterise the key features of Indigenous peoples’\rdynamic relationships to water and to link water and social power relations in these\rwatersheds over time. The cases support the proposition that Indigenous people are often\rconcerned about industrial-scale water diversion and damming. Yet our regional studies\ralso undercut the notion that such concerns emerge from an Indigenous culture that passively\rresponds to the prevailing hydrology, or the idea popular in settler Australia that\rthese hydraulic environments are themselves unaffected by past human action. Indigenous\rattitudes to diversion and damming are informed by previous experiences of water\rmanipulation, which include the social relations that shaped these practices, at times with\rdemonstrably pre-colonial origins, as well as by contemporary perspectives on the tradeoffs\rbetween development, sustainable local livelihoods, and environmental and cultural\rimpact. Our analysis of the Australian context informs ongoing international debates about large scale irrigated agriculture, aquaculture, mining, and other water-intensive development\rin regions occupied by Indigenous peoples and experiencing high and increasing\rwater variability.