Harsh realities in land of the Dreamtime

ARNHEM LAND, Australia — In the lush, green grasslands of northeast Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory, we come across the equivalent of a bald patch.

The land resembles an open African savanna more than the dense tropical expanses typical of this remote part of Australia.

I am with a local indigenous woman, Roslyn, who surveys the broken earth flattened by buffalo and says that as a child she remembers a wild and verdant landscape with many species of plants and waterlilies.

The waterlilies are gone. The buffalo, introduced from Indonesia, have trampled over the earth — destroyed grasslands and flattened flowers.

When I ask Roslyn how it feels to see the land transformed, her face creases, she puts her hand against her heart and shakes her head. “It is very painful,” she says. Across the river, a buffalo hunt is in progress. Men stalk them with spear guns.

The buffalo are seen as a pest and ruinous to the environment, and hunting is encouraged. Meanwhile the people living on the nearby Arafura Swamp have noticed areas of Australian native plant melaleuca die, which they suspect is a result of saltwater intrusion into the wetlands.

Environmental change is posing the most significant threat to the traditional Aboriginal way of life since English settlement of Australia more than 200 years ago.

Climate change, mining and the introduction of species such as the buffalo have caused new problems for Aborigines. All threaten to weaken the traditional, strong ties some Aboriginal people have with their ancestral lands.

Many Aboriginal tribal groups with a significant attachment to the land, who still maintain a traditional hunter/gatherer lifestyle, are finding environmental forces are limiting food stock, increasing disease, harming sacred sites and making life on the land unsustainable. These challenges are not all new.

John Greatorex of the Yolngu languages and culture department of Darwin’s Charles Darwin University said there is evidence that Aborigines have had to cope with climate change in the past. “From song and other oral traditions the peoples of east Arnhem Land have dealt with changes in sea level before. Collective memory tells of times when the seas extended inland for at least 50 kilometres,” says Greatorex.

But he added, “This is not to say that rises in sea level changes will go unnoticed, on the contrary, sea level rises will result in large areas of fertile land, sources of yams, bulbs, tortoises, geese, fish and other foods being lost. A critical concern is that rises in sea level will force peoples living on low lying ancestral estates to relocate from their lands.”

Relocation isn’t just a logistical problem: Removal from lands can result in a profound spiritual crisis for Aboriginal people. Greatorex said, “This (climate change) is likely to further compound the physical and spiritual dislocation from nation estates instigated by missionaries and governments."

"Dislocation from ancestral, custodial estates has been shown to be the most significant factor causing the social dysfunction and chronic ill-health common place in the centralized townships in Arnhem Land.” 

But social dysfunction may increase, with climate scientists issuing a stark warning to governments and indigenous people. They say Australia, the world’s driest inhabited continent, is experiencing an accelerated form of climate shift.

According to an expert report published in the prestigious Medical Journal of Australia, studies have shown that Aborigines in the north of Australia will be among the hardest hit by climate change, with higher rates of disease likely and spiritual suffering on seeing their ancestral lands ravaged.

“The psychological well-being of indigenous people is frequently connected to the well-being of the land, the spiritual connection and the whole cohesion of the community itself,” said Donna Green, New South Wales University climate change researcher and co-author of the report.

According to the report: “Elevated temperatures and increases in hot spells are expected to be a major problem for indigenous health in remote areas, where cardiovascular and respiratory disease are more prevalent and there are many elderly people with inadequate facilities to cope with the increased heat stress.”

Increased rates of disease come with changes to the environment and climate change. Communicable diseases such as bacterial diarrhoea and a spike in the mosquito-born dengue fever may increase unless new preventative action is taken, said the report.

Australia’s peak scientific research body, the CSIRO, has also been monitoring the situation. It warns that storms and droughts are likely to rise in frequency and intensity “leading to increased flooding, contamination of drinking water and potentially unsafe releases of waste water into the environment."

Social factors also affect the indigenous population’s ability to tackle climate change issues: a high portion of property renters (as opposed to homeowners) among indigenous people means there will be less opportunities to modify their houses or adjust infrastructure to cope with weather changes.

The growing Aboriginal tourist industry in northern Australia, which is being run and managed by indigenous people, is also vulnerable to climate change. Frequent flooding and drought make the area less attractive to visitors. 

But its not all bad news. Some such as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner Tom Calma believe the problem can be turned into an opportunity, with indigenous people taking charge to help solve climate change problems.

“Maintenance of traditional life, language and culture are threatened by climate change but if we work together and we work quickly, we can sustain them and seize the new opportunities presented,” he said.

Calma said Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people had much to contribute to mitigation efforts and in developing “culture-based” economies in areas such as biodiversity conservation, land and water management.

“It is clear that indigenous Australians are major stakeholders in developing and advancing a national climate change policy,” he said.

Australia’s indigenous population may be part of the solution, but with a traditionally light ecological footprint, they may be able to argue that they are not the major cause of the problem.