Access to Aboriginal Land

Dear Birders, Having gone to Alice Springs looking for Princess Parrots unsuccessfully on public land last week I took the opportunity to make an appointment to see a senior officer of the Central Land Council to discuss the situation that had arisen and to seek to find a way for birders to visit the Mt Winter site while ensuring that the wishes of the traditional owners are respected fully. This discussion is ongoing and may, or may not, result in an arrangement that will benefit both parties – If anything comes of it you will be informed through Birding-Aus, please don’t hassle the Land Council !

I learnt a lot about the permit system for entry onto aboriginal land that I was not previously aware of. This information might be of interest to other birders as it highlights how careful one has to be before entering aboriginal land. It also throws light on some aspects of the recent controversy about access to Mt Winter. When a permit application is made to visit a site the land council asks its anthropology section to generate a list of the Traditional Owners for that site. That section has a data base of the owners of all lands under land council authority. The permit section then contacts those owners and ascertains their attitude. This is then conveyed to the permit applicant. It is ONLY the Traditional Owners (who may be one person or a number of people) FOR THAT SPECIFIC SITE who can grant you permission to visit the site. Thus the ONLY way to you can get permission is by agreement of the correct Traditional Owners and you can only be sure of who those people are by going through the land council.

It is clear that from the perspective of the rightful Traditional Owners a group of birders visited their land around Mt Winter without proper permission . The fact that some other aboriginal people had purported to give permission and the visitor believed that had permission is not good enough to avoid the unhappiness that has arisen in this case. The message is you have to go through the land council to be sure that the right Traditional Owners are consulted. If that had happened then it is possible that the present unfortunate situation might not have arisen. Regards Peter

PS Wonder if the early birds who got a permit will let the rest of us know how they went? _______________________ Peter Crispin Marsh 82 Louisa Road Birchgrove NSW 2041 +61 2 9810 4264 0414 810 426 crispin_marsh@scp.com.au ============================== To unsubscribe from this mailing list, send the message: unsubscribe (in the body of the message, with no Subject line) to: birding-aus-request@vicnet.net.au

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