Rivers of tears
THE Wild Rivers legislation is meant to protect the environmental heritage of rivers in Cape York. Effectively however, it strangles the rights of the Aboriginal people who have fought for self-determination of their land. DENISE CARTER speaks to those directly affected by the Wild Rivers legislation.
Bruce Martin and his mother Dorothy Pootchelunka know of many battles their people fought for their land.
There was the battle with the Dutch, who landed at the now-named Cape Keer Weer, which is south of Aurukun and the Wik people’s homeland.
The struggle with the British invaders is well documented. And then there was the battle which Bruce’s uncle, John Koowarta, fought with the Queensland government.
He took them to court for racial discrimination because they wouldn’t allow him to buy a cattle station.
"He used the appropriate avenues, like Australian common law, to get what he knew was his in traditional law, Aboriginal law," Bruce Martin says.
The case eventually went to the Privy Council in London.
Although John Koowarta won the battle, he essentially lost the war, because the Bjelke-Petersen administration subsequently declared the area of his interest national park, thus preventing him from ever being able to use it.
This same scenario is what some Aboriginal people believe is happening once again with Wild Rivers legislation which was introduced in 2005.
Bruce and his mother sat in the High Court in Canberra in 1996 when it found that the Wik people’s native title may co-exist with some pastoral leases and they experienced great joy.
It continued when the Wik determination, handed down in 2004, gave the Wik people title rights over much of their claimed land in the west coast of Cape York Peninsula.
But since the declaration of the Wild Rivers legislation, their land rights may remain the same but their use of the land has been curtailed.
"The sad thing is the fight is still having to continue today," Bruce says.
He is a 26-year-old student of arts in politics and anthropology at the University of New South Wales, who has taken a break from his studies to help out in the current fight for the Wik people, with other Aboriginal clans, against Wild Rivers.
"What Wild Rivers does is it takes away indigenous people’s rights to have a say as to what goes on on their land and for me that’s the real problem," he says.
This week Bruce travelled around communities in the Cape, showing people maps of wild rivers and informing them of how the legislation will affect them.
In April, the Archer River, on which the Wik people’s homeland is based, was declared a Wild Rivers area, with high protection zones one kilometre each side of its banks.
It’s one of three river systems announced in April, with a further eight basins and their rivers being considered for declaration before the end of 2010.
On the Department of Environment and Resource Management website and on that of the Wilderness Society, which proposed the Wild Rivers move, assurances are given that native title will not be affected, but Bruce says this is not so.
He joined his mother, and Aunty Martha Koowarta, the widow of the late John Koowarta, in Cairns on September 9 to hear Professor Greg McIntyre SC speak to JCU students about native title, and ask him about the effect of Wild Rivers on their rights.
Greg was the lawyer for the high profile Mabo case and that of the late John Koowarta versus the Bjelke-Petersen government.
He says there is a special provision for protection of native title rights in Wild Rivers legislation but that it is vague.
He believes Wild Rivers will have a severe impact on native title rights because it takes away indigenous people’s choice as to what they can do with their land.
"If an area is declared wilderness, the indigenous people won’t have the right to make decisions about the land," Greg says. "It also converts common law into a licence regulatory regime."
Any applications for development would have to be made through the Integrated Planning Act.
"There are processes of approval with local authorities and state-wide planning schemes," Greg says. "There’s a high level of complexity."
For Dorothy Pootchelunka, a Wild Rivers declaration, which has placed a blanket high preservation zone on her homeland and which she personally was not consulted about, means she may not be able to continue making baskets and selling them to galleries around the country.
A weaver, Dorothy has always made the baskets and other traditional accoutrements such as mats and feather flowers for traditional ceremonies.
She learned the art of weaving from her grandmother and she now teaches it to the young girls at the arts centre in Aurukun.Dorothy is now afraid she won’t be able to gather the materials in the bush such as dyes and roots necessary for her trade.
"It would appear it would be a problem because there are stringent controls on the taking of vegetation for commercial purposes," Prof McIntyre says.
It’s not the only way Wild Rivers could affect Dorothy.
She currently lives in Aurukun but she would like to eventually return to Cape Keer Weer, where her family is from, to live out the rest of her days.
There she may want to build an outhouse, but the building of outhouses now has to be applied for under Wild Rivers legislation.
"Outhouses are areas where families could go and stay and have access to their traditional lands," Bruce says.
"They might put in a market garden so they could grow fruit and vegetables, very low impact stuff."
"I grew up out bush for the first part of my life," Bruce says.
"I didn’t speak English until I was five when I moved to Canberra with my dad and went to school."
"Two elders were responsible for teaching me culture and all the dances and you know I’d hope that one day my children can be afforded the same opportunity."
The area covered by Wild Rivers seems to have taken many people by surprise.
Not only does it cover rivers but also their tributaries.
"What surprised me is the wide impact of the catchment," lawyer Greg McIntyre says.
"It’s flat terrain so it’s quite enormous."
Mike Winer, an advisor to the Give us a Go Cape York campaign, and a former member of the Wilderness Society who set up their Cairns branch, says the maps shown in the original consultations indicated much smaller areas around rivers than was eventually declared, and there were more rivers overall than were originally discussed.
"The original concept was for 13 keys rivers on Cape York," Mike says. "But then more and more rivers were declared and the land around the rivers."
By the time declarations are completed in 2010, he says "it will be about 60 rivers across Cape York; every river and watering hole will be in a high preservation zone".
He believes these will cover 80 per cent of Cape York.
There has been huge debate as to whether the legislation will affect the economic future of Aboriginal people.
Certainly Noel Pearson believes so. He recently resigned from the Cape York Institute to take up the battle against Wild Rivers, which he said was urinating on indigenous people’s rights. So too does former Young Australian of the Year Tania Major who, representing the Indigenous Environment Foundation, recently led a protest against the Wilderness Society.
Bruce Martin also believes it will prevent Aboriginal people from building a sustainable future.
"The point is if we wanted to set up an outstation for people to live or to set up a small business, you want to be within one kilometre of the river," he says.
"Traditionally that is where indigenous people camped."
"It’s only in the last couple of years that people have started even thinking of businesses for themselves, which for me is another injustice because Aboriginal people have been kept so low compared to mainstream society, and now that some people have the knowledge and experience to be able to move into this new area, the government comes in and puts these blanket restrictions that make it extremely difficult for business applications to even get off the ground."
Applying for licenses for any activity, Bruce says, is made more difficult because of the disparity in education standards between Cape communities and mainstream Australia and the language and cultural barriers.
For many people English is their second or third language, making the process too difficult, and the expense of making numerous applications prohibitive.
Bruce’s mum Dorothy recently visited the Northern Territory and has seen first-hand a scheme where big businesses pay the Aboriginal people to be custodians of the land, burning off at the right time, and using the many cultural practices that keeps Aboriginal land in pristine condition. The companies do so as part of their carbon trading scheme.
He believes should Queensland companies want to do the same thing, it will not now be possible because of Wild Rivers. The State Government and the Wilderness Society emphatically deny Wild Rivers will affect the creation of small sustainable business.
Campaign manager Tim Seelig says it was not the aim of the Wilderness Society to affect small Aboriginal business but rather large scale mining and agribusiness.
He says the North Australian Taskforce was planning to set up large-scale irrigation of fields to make the Cape the "food bowl of Asia", which he says is totally impractical. And he says he doesn’t want Cape York to end up like the Murray Darling.
But Mike Winer, advisor to the Give us a Go Cape York Campaign, says the Wilderness Society has betrayed Aboriginal people after years of working closely with them.
Mr Martin is insulted at even the term "Wild Rivers".
He says Aboriginal people have been custodians of the land for hundreds of generations.
"I’ve gone through the bushes as a young kid learning about maintaining the land, and how to use the land to get the most from it while making the least amount of impact," he says.
"We burn off at the right time of year to help the rejuvenation process and spread the water lilies from up the top of the Archer River downstream into the lagoons.
"It’s what we do as part of daily life so we think our conservation techniques have been proven."
"I used to get angry about it," Bruce says. "But now it’s a sense of sadness really because I have to explain what this means to my elders and see the look in their faces when they understand it’s a severe impact on what they’re able to do and not just them but my generation and future generations."
The tragedy of the whole situation is that current mines are exempt from Wild Rivers legislation.
So Rio Tinto, which takes 80 per cent of water from the Wenlock River can continue to do so, even when it is declared a wild river.
And there is no blanket ban on mining for the future.
Wild Rivers has a provision for mining "if it is of state significance".
A May 2009 newsletter from Tress Cox lawyers about the implications for mining and petroleum activities says mining activities which exist at the time of a declaration are not affected until they are renewed or amended, that the Aurukun and PNG Gas projects are exempted, and that amendments to the act in 2007 "opened the door for certain mining activities to proceed if the Minister provided consent".
The fight continues on many fronts. On Wednesday Balkanu, with Prof McIntyre lodged a submission with Premier Anna Bligh saying there was inadequate consultation with indigenous people and that the areas declared so far under Wild Rivers were far larger than what was originally tabled.
Mr Winer continues to mentor young indigenous people to motivate them to fight the legislation.
Mr Martin is visiting communities in the Cape to explain maps to the people and find out what they want to do.
For Bruce and his mother, the land from which they come continues to have a deeply personal meaning.
He says: "It’s just a huge orange blob on a map to a bureaucrat but for us it’s our home, our life, and our death."
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Standing tall: Bruce Martin and his mother Dorothy Pootchelunka are planning to fight the Wild Rivers legislation. Picture: MARC McCORMACK
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