Aboriginal And Torres Strait Islander People’s Use And Management Of Resources

Activity

Aboriginal And Torres Strait Islander People’s Use And Management Of Resources

INFORMATION

In many Aboriginal Dreaming stories, the ancestral beings responsible for creation often spoke to the tribal Elders and made the local people guardians or custodians This is a Ready-Ed Publications' of the land. This is why the people have a very special meaning of ‘Country’ that goes beyond the supply of food, water and other resources. Their spiritual and cultural connections to the land oblige them to look after the sites of their ancestors. book preview.

Traditional Land Management Practices

Read the examples of ways in which traditional Aboriginal Peoples used resources to meet their needs and wants without over-exploiting them. • Some clans developed a nomadic lifestyle, moving seasonally between locations so that water supplies were given a chance to renew. • Eating a large variety of foods meant that no one food source was depleted. • Enough seeds were left so that there would always be new growth. • The young of any animals, or females still caring for their off spring, were rarely killed. • When collecting eggs from a bird’s nest, some were always left to hatch in order to ensure the survival of the species. Unfortunately, many Aboriginal People’s connections to the land were broken after the time of European settlement in Australia. It is estimated that up to 70% have lost their traditional connection to Country and knowledge about the use and management of resources. Today, Elders and their people, who have had this knowledge passed on to them, are working with both Indigenous Australians and non-Indigenous Australians

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1.

Read the poem ‘The Land’.

2.

Highlight three lines which you believe refl ect the spiritual and cultural connections between the land and the people.

Explain the obligation that

Th e Land

Aboriginal Peoples have to manage the land. We have walked on the land for thousands of years. We are caretakers of the land not owners of the land. We are one with the land. We hunt on the land, the land feeds us. We make all uses of the land. We have cultural ceremony on the land. We have all-embracing knowledge of how the land changes and how to adapt to that change. We know how to read the land. We communicate with each other concerning the land. Th e land is part of our dreaming.

Poet Unknown Taken from ‘Understanding the Land through the Eyes of the Ngunnawal People: A Natural Resource Management Program for ACT Schools’. Published by the ACT Government.