Five million hectares around Uluru to be declared an Indigenous protected area
A special ceremony was held on Thrusday last week, with five million hectares of land around Uluru being declared as an Indigenous protected area. The new zoning will allow traditional owners to better preserve the area and surrounding sites of cultural significance.
The Anangu people will also receive Federal Government funding to help them protect sacred sites, native plants and animals around the Uluru-Kata Tjuta national park.
“We really want to teach the young ones how to look after the place properly and strongly … to get out there and see all the waterholes and important places,” said one traditional owner, Janie Miama.
How do you feel about this? Is this a positive step for recognition of Indigenous rights to their traditional lands? Are there other areas you feel could be declared as Indigenous protected areas?
KFC you sound like idiot Abbott in your statements, the arrival of Cook was the very worst thing that could have happened to this country.
Darn right I disagree with you!
The Aboriginals have far more respect for this place than most of the "arrivals"
How the hell would you know anything about the Aboriginal culture!?
The elders (who are fast dying out) are the ones for whom I feel very sorry. They are trying their best to instil values into the younger generation but sadly many will not listen to them.
It is my belief that unless the drugs, alcohol, and physical abuse problems are not dealt with the purity of a once proud Aboriginal race will eventually die out. Millions has been spent and the problems still exist. What the answer is I dont know. You cannot make people change unless they want to do so.
I speak as someone who has lived over 20 years in the NT; visiting many parts of it and seen things first hand.
People need to visit and make up their own minds...what you see and read is not always as it is when you see it yourself.
Tony Abbott, for all his failings, spends a week every year on Aboriginal communities helping out, so I think it is unfair to condemn him on this occasion. He is highly thought of by them from what I understand.
KFC, we all know that the history of Australia started when Capt Cook discovered Australia in 1770!
When Captain Cook arrived back in England to report his findings, the British parliament was shocked that he could have declared terra nullius for a continent that was clearly populated. A long debate occurred and they eventually accepted it as fait accompli. This is not well known.
By their own standards, the British settlement of Australia was conducted incorrectly, particularly soon after, when the local establishment ran riot. Greed and entitlement was the prevailing sentiment. This mentality has continued ever since amongst the privileged.
PlanB,
If Cook hadn't arrived, someone else would have.
There is no way that our indigenous people would have not witnessed invasion, and have been able to live as they traditionally did without influence of another culture.
Every society on earth has been invaded at some stage by another.
To believe in some sort of continuing 21st century Aboriginal Utopia is naive in the extreme. This also smacks of the sentimental Victorian idea of the "noble savage" ...
Also ... aboriginal tribal groups fought each other.
Gilstamp
Your post @ 11.am...thank you for bringing that fact to people's attention. James Cook made regular entries in his diaries....many of which were ignored by English society. For instance Cook spent much time among the Aborigines and wrote in his diary how impressed he was by the lack of a "class" system amongst the Aborigines. This pleased him because he came from humble beginnings himself and had a hard time working his way up the structured English society.
Among his entries he also compared British society unfavourably with Aboriginal culture... the gentry did not want to make it known that in Cook’s opinion... the Aborigines were happier than the British.
When Cook set sail...he had in his "secret orders" two conditions that would allow him to claim land for Britain. These were... if the land was unihabited... which it wasn’t... or.. if the native peoples gave their consent, which they had not.
So exactly as you say...this land was "incorrectly" claimed and a great injustice has been enacted.
I think it's a great move. The Anangu people are doing wonderful work educating people about the environment and their customs and history. They should stop people climbing Uluru though. After the rains earlier in the year when the waterfalls flowed down the Rock they tested the water in the water holes and found it was full of sulphur from people relieving themselves on the top of the Rock. They also found dirty nappies that had been left up there and washed down by the waters. It is beyond belief that anyone would disrespect custom to climb that dangerous precipice let alone take young children up there.
In Central Australia there is tremendous respect for our indigenous guardians of the land. The more they are given to care for the better.
I also think it is a great move but makes me wonder just what they have been bribed with to maybe get more minerals from somewhere else? Am I cynical YES I AM!
I am all for supporting the Aboriginals as they have and still are being treated in the worst way.
People should NOT climb the Rock is is a total disrespect for their beliefs.
I don't agree Robi that there is tremendous respect for those few Aboriginals that choose apartheid and live on welfare . They are mainly seen as drunks women beaters and child abusers .
The respect is for those that have joined with their fellow Australians and are in Law Parliment pop singers artists Miners Sport etc etc etc
For someone who professes to be well travelled you are showing your ignorance Pete. Take a trip out to central Australia and learn something.
We are seeing the results of a despondent culture. They cannot maintain their standards or self respect when the bases are eroded by the overwhelming influences and incusions of a rapacious mob such as the caucasian invasion has been.
Exactly...
Why are we giving the best bit of the desert away .
Who is "we"????
What a stupid comment!. What do you do to look after the desert lands from inner city Paddington?
Why do deserts need looking after ...
It's not the Sahara. It is a fragile country which is productive when managed sensitively, something which we do not seem to be able to do.
Good point...if no one goes there it will remain pristine.
Close down all tourism in the area then it will be fine.
Only one problem left. How do we let all the dingoes all over Australia, know that they only have to move to the protected area to live happily ever after???
It is my information that there are 10 public servants in that area looking after every Aboriginal resident.
We must need more, they are doing a lousy job.
I think this is brilliant, the best thing that could happen. The Aboriginal people are far better custodians of the land and always will be . It shocks me that people can say WE are giving THEM this land such an ignorant statement... the land was never ours to give, they were there before we arrived.. and took over.
There is a pretty good statistical chance that around 50 generations back, one of my forebears was related to Jesus Christ. Do I own part of the Vatican or part of Rome?
If your related to Jesus Christ, Innes.. i would stake your claim in Bethlehem.. Jesus was a Jew, not a Roman.
Lucky you're not a Palestinian
Peanuts...thank you for telling Innes Jesus was a Jew...are you Jewish Innes?
Innes,
The others are correct.
Jesus was a Jew and never deviated in his teachings from this position.
Some believe that he may have been a rabbi.
Interestingly, he only taught in a limited area. There is some suggestion that the "Jews" here had been forceably converted to Judaism, and it was his intention to teach and solidate Judaism with them.
Certainly, he had important things to say.
I think it is for the good of that community and the land.
Gerry you have hit the nail on the head, it is for the good of the community and the land. What is wrong with restoring ownership to the Aboriginal community who are far more likely to care for the land. It not only guarantees the land will be kept safe but it also restores pride in the Aboriginal community ,hopefully also creating work for their young as Rangers etc.. The nainsayers that sit in their airconditioned homes down here grumbling about this, would be the last ones who would want to go live in these isolated places, let alone care for them. I am a decendant of a man who was speared to death by Aboriginals, while sitting on their land land i might add i am still sitting on...i think it is time we recognised that these people were here first, and have every right to be made custodians of this land.
Brilliant....if only we had more people with such thoughts Peanuts!
Good point Innes..JUST how far back do we go!
Why can't we accept what really happened. This land was taken brutally from the inhabitants. They have been treated like shit from the beginning and all along the way. Look at the farrago of excuses for not paying the wages for 70 yrs. Look at the stolen children. They were not granted citizinship, in their own land, till 60yrs ago - like180yrs after the Anglo usurping of their land. Discrimination and racism exists now - look at the Adam Goods example televised to all and sundry.
Have we dealt with our indigenous people fairly? Many would say no.
Absolutely Kopernicus and it always amazes me when some people say...oh, it happened a long time ago...get over it. When you are torn from your mother's arms...when you are reduced to less than nothing in your own land...how do you get over that. You can't...you just have to somehow live with it and do the best you can.
My sons & daughters were born in Australia, from many generations of Australian born forebears. They are as indiginous as any of the 20 or 30 Aborigine people who have spent their lives in the protected area. When they visited the Ularu area, they never call the Aborigine people racist names. But they put up with the racist insults from the few local bludgers that they were helping to support . The never employed, never schooled & educated, petrol sniffing alchoholics. The multitude of Aborigine tribes were nomadic & did not co exist or mix with other tribes. Why have so few been granted legal ownership of 5 million hectares of land that belonged to over one million of their forebears?
From what I know there are 60 protected aboriginal sites
not enough in my opinion and think the Uluru site is great
news.
For the people who think Aussie history started with
the coming of Cook,might consider some history lessons.
All the coming of Cook brought was pain and suffering
and disease to these people.
And the wheel
Good one Banjo.
Thanks Peanuts,but dont know what "the wheel"
has to do with it.Google said it was invented
3500 BC. Thinking Pete is in a time warp.
If Cook hadn't arrived, then some others would have and claimed the country.
There is no way that Australia would have remained as it was pre-European inhabitants.
Does anyone believe that?
Banjo, Pete was implying that the indigenous people had not discovered the wheel. This radical invention came with Cook.
There are three distinct races among our aboriginals and they did not live peacefully with each other.
Lol Haha.. i agree.
Just how much desease did Cook bring? How many Aborigine people died of what desease? Where did you read these documented accurate statistics? As I understand it, the Aborigine invaded this Country much earlier & whiped out all the true Aborigine people of Australia, for which crime of total genicide, they have never faced, been charged with or worked to pay any form of restitution. Between 1788 and 1868, approximately 162,000 convicts were transported to the various Australian Penal Colonies by the British government. It is my understanding that most of the guards & crew returned to England. Therefore the "invasion" was committed by Britain, not the forebears of the current inhabitants who were only guilty of minor crimes in England & were here of a totally involantary nature.
Innes, there were over one hundred men on the ship with James Cook. One hundred men raping Aboriginal women and infecting them with venereal diseases, yes, they introduced diseases to the Aboriginals which never existed before they arrived.
The Aboriginal people had no immunity and consequently huge numbers died from chicken pox, smallpox, typhoid, measles and influenza, not to mention syphilis and other STDs.
I look at other indigenous cultures around the world and quite frankly, I see little in our own aboriginal culture worthy of preservation. Apart from some carvings and stains on cave walls, little remains of the footprint left by this race.
Todays aboriginals have only word of mouth history/fables/superstitions to rely on and their art, dance and culture is really a menage of the past and present. They were always a primitive race, showing virtually zero growth or development over the last 50,000 years or so. I am an Australian and as loyal and patriotic as anyone, but for me, Australias history began when James Cook stepped ashore in Botany Bay. I well understand that others may disagree, but that is my opinion as an Aussie.