Looking after country in New South Wales: Implementing a Land & Sea Country Plan on the far south coast

Abstract

This case study is about the Eden Local Aboriginal Land Council's (LALC) engagement in cultural and natural resource management and the organisation's recent efforts to enhance these through development of a Land & Sea Country Plan. The paper outlines the early involvement and gradual exclusion of Aboriginal people from the natural resource industries of the Eden region and their efforts to negotiate agreements for access to and co-management of the considerable public lands in their region. The Land & Sea Country Plan, which is their latest effort to build greater opportunity for employment in cultural and natural resource management, is described. Unlike Indigenous land and sea country plans in northern Australia, in this case the Eden LALC is seeking opportunities to work on and be involved in the management of public and even private lands within the Land Council's boundaries, as well as on its own land. This necessitates negotiating arrangements and opportunities with a number of regional natural resource management agencies at all levels of government. These have come together to form a Steering Committee for the Land & Sea Country Plan to support its development and implementation. After just two years of implementation, the emerging benefits and challenges are discussed.