Where's the water? Investigating the extent to which Water Observations from Space can support wetland management on Roebuck Plains Station with Nyamba Buru Yawuru

Abstract

The recognition of Yawuru native title has provided new opportunities for the Yawuru people to rebuild connections to Country and assert their own development agenda. Nyamba Buru Yawuru (NBY), the developmental organisation of the Yawuru community, have invested in developing their internal geospatial capacity to provide decision-support in the management of Country and negotiations with external parties in the post-native context. Australia’s expanding Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI), and the opening up of data to the public, enables Yawuru people to freely access and use a range of national spatial data products to add to their geospatial program and enhance decision-support. This includes in the management of water, specifically wetlands or ‘bilarra’, on Roebuck Plains Station, part of the Yawuru exclusive native title estate. Guided by a participatory indigenist research framework, this thesis investigates the extent to which NBY can use a national spatial product, Geoscience Australia’s Water Observation from Space (WOfS), to support the management of bilarra on Roebuck Plains Station. As an exploratory project with NBY, it asks: i) is WOfS useful and interpretable to NBY; ii) what constrains the use of WOfS by NBY; and, iii) what value can national spatial data products hold for Indigenous organisations in cultural and natural resource management and decision-making? This is a novel approach, likely representing the first exploration evaluation of WOfS with an Indigenous organisation. The thesis adopts an exploratory-sequential mixed methods approach consisting of a dominant qualitative fieldwork phase in Broome and a subsequent GIS analysis phase to examine WOfS in collaboration with NBY. It finds that though limitations of WOfS do constrain its utility for bilarra management, WOfS is interpretable to NBY, NBY perceive it to have a number of practical and strategic applications, and the product’s data can be readily integrated into NBY’s existing geospatial program. This places NBY in good stead to be able to use WOfS as well as future national spatial data products as they are developed. This is significant for NBY in the post-native title context. As a national spatial product, WOfS is seen to add valuable independent information to NBY’s internal spatial data library, and provide best-practice spatial data to empower NBY and sustain Yawuru liyan (a Yawuru conceptualisation of ‘wellbeing’) during challenging negotiation processes. These benefits of WOfS suggest the broader potential value of national spatial data to other Indigenous organisations and land managers. However, they may not necessarily share NBY’s capacity to access and use national spatial data. As such, this thesis closes with an initial conceptualisation of an Indigenous Spatial Data Infrastructure that may help to democratise data and information, and facilitate greater Indigenous ownership and use of spatial data for decision-support and management of Country in the post-native title context. Show more