The environment
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Australians of today are deeply concerned about environment issues like global warming. Surviving on this land for more than 60,000 years, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders established effective ways to use and sustain resources. In addition to family and kinship structures, an important form of Indigenous organisation is the right of certain people to control the use resources in a particular area. Indigenous people don't see themselves as 'owning' land, animals, plants or nature, but rather belonging with these things as equal parts of creation. |
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Click on the arrow to see the movieclip "We are caretakers":
The rights of different groups to live in and manage certain areas of land are clear and recorded through art, stories, songs and dance.
Deep cultural and spiritual values like totemism have also played an important part in Indigenous resource management. Totemism is a belief and value system that connects human beings to other animals, plants and aspects of nature. Groups and individuals are assigned a particular animal that they are related to and have to care for. This gives them a profound sense of connection to and responsibility for the natural world.
Indigenous peoples have a wide range of traditional methods for gathering food – fish traps, traps for bird-life, subsistence agriculture, hunting, fishing and harvesting a wide range of natural fruits and vegetables. Some groups of people would stay in one place, while others moved around the land according to the seasons, to ensure sustainable and rich food supplies, and to fulfil their spiritual and cultural obligations.
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