People, place and practice on the margins in a changing climate: Sustaining freshwater customary harvesting in coastal floodplain country of the Alligator Rivers Region, Northern Territory of Australia

Abstract

Human-environment interactions will be profoundly affected by anthropogenic climate change. Coastal communities, dependent on freshwater ecosystems for their livelihoods and cultural practices, are likely to be seriously impacted by rising sea level. For communities already subject to marginalising forces of remoteness, poverty or the legacies of colonisation, climate change impacts will likely compound existing stressors. The freshwater floodplains of the Alligator Rivers Region in the Northern Territory, spanning Kakadu National Park and part of West Arnhem Land, represent such a place. This area is at risk from sea level rise, particularly saltwater intrusion, while also home to Aboriginal Australians continuing to practice customary or subsistence harvesting based on freshwater resources. In seeking to support sustainable adaptation to climate change in this context, this thesis examines Indigenous people’s experiences, in living memory, of responding to past and persisting social-ecological change. A place-based, contextual framing approach was used to examine vulnerability and adaptive capacity. Through semi-structured interviews, trips on country, cultural resource mapping and archival work, contemporary patterns of freshwater resource use and Aboriginal people’s perceptions of changes to their freshwater hunting, fishing and gathering activities (collectively termed ‘harvesting’) were examined. Qualitative models were used to conceptualise factors influencing an individual’s ability to engage in freshwater customary harvesting and the determinants shaping adaptive capacity for customary harvesting. The social-ecological drivers of change in freshwater harvesting practices raised by respondents included: existing threats from introduced animals and plants, altered floodplain fire regimes and the ‘bust then boom’ in saltwater crocodile population following recovery from commercial hunting. These all had implications for sustaining customary harvesting practices including restricting access and the transmission of knowledge. Impacts driven by the introduced cane toad, invasive para grass and saltwater crocodile population change, represent examples of solastalgia, particularly for women’s harvesting practices. In addition to environmental conditions, determinants of adaptive capacity of customary harvesting included; mobility on country- particularly supported through on country livelihoods and outstations, social networks facilitating access and knowledge sharing, health and well-being and inter-generational knowledge transmission. Past experience of saltwater intrusion facilitated by feral water buffalo in Kakadu was examined through the lens of social learning, as a historical analogue for future sea level rise. These experiences were shown to influence contemporary perceptions of risk and adaptive preferences for future sea level rise. Customary harvesting was also found to offer unique opportunities to improve remote Indigenous development outcomes across diverse sectors. To build adaptive capacity supporting freshwater customary harvesting practices in this context it will be essential to; understand historical trajectories of social-ecological change, recognise the potential for diversity within groups- including a gendered analysis of adaptive capacity, address existing social-ecological stressors and foster knowledge collaborations for supporting knowledge transmission, the co-production of knowledge and sustaining social networks. Facilitating a social learning environment will be particularly crucial in supporting local autonomy, leadership and experimental learning, and is particularly beneficial in jointly managed protected area contexts. Most importantly, incorporating local Indigenous knowledge, values, perceptions of change and risk into locally-developed adaptation strategies will be essential in developing more culturally relevant and thus sustainable, adaptation pathways.