"One of the greatest problems of today's rural societies is finding culturally sustainable activities that provide both material and social wellbeing....Community enterprises could empower communities through encouraging the re-acquiring of traditional cottage industry skills that create products of exceptional quality, just like the artisans and guilds did in the 18th and 19th centuries".

While I agree that the decline of rural areas is a major social and economic problem, I think this article ignores the fundamental causes and proposes an unrealistic solution.

Rural decline has largely resulted from farm output prices failing to grow at a sufficient rate to maintain farm incomes. Poor educational facilities in rural areas, as well as an unattractive climate in much of rural inland Australia, have also contributed to driving rural Australians to the cities.

The main prospect for a sustainable solution lies in the hope that growing affluence in Asia coupled with reduced barriers to farm exports will result in a resurgence in prices for farm exports, thus raising farm incomes.

"Community enterprises" (co-operatives) were tried in the past and have not proven to be a particularly successful model so that they are gradually disappearing. The re-acquiring of traditional cottage industry skills is hardly a solution either, as there is a very limited market for high cost traditional hand-made goods.

The only constant in the entire universe is constant change!
People need to adapt to that change or simply follow the Dodo.
When I was a boy, there was far fewer people and more freedom.
We also had dirt roads, kerosene lamps and a tin dunny.
Many of our indigenous folks have Occidental blood, in their DNA! Something only a fool would reject!
Both cultures can learn from the other.
I'm sure that bush medicine is vastly underutilized by the occidental community, whereas, white mans grog is over-utilized by the indigenous communities!
And we really need to have a conversation about acceptable social behavior in the 21st century; and how to moderate some of the worst examples.
A spear in the leg, or exile are simply no longer available, and prison is all too often seen as a badge of honor!
Sure lets encourage traditional industries, but protect with a copyright!
And just because it's not traditional, we simply can't reject vaccines, or routine cervical screening etc/etc.
As much as the heart yearns, we simply cannot go back, but need to embrace what we can of this new world, to allow our people to advance through it!
And that means education and attendance, and indeed, making sure that people with the intellectual gifts go on to learn medicine, law and so on, and indeed, make it all the way to parliament and leadership roles, that could see an indigenous PM!
Evolution has a natural order or stages, hunter gathers eventually turn to farming and growing their own food, and indeed, learning to trade their surplus production with other communities, in order to get those things they need, like iron implements, rifles, tinnies, four wheel drives etc.
Yes there is a spiritual component, but that is never ever limited to a time or place, or indeed, any single culture.
Simply put, people who dwell in the past, have no future!
That said, there is a lot to be said for reestablishing some traditions, rather than be overwhelmed by the supermarket culture, and sit down money!
Rhrosty.

Adam Smith pointed out long ago that artisanal pin-makers, working by hand and producing an entire pin all by themselves, could produce perhaps forty pins a day. I haven't priced pins lately, but let's be generous and assume that caring, culturally-sensitive people would pay as much as ten cents each for them. Your self-sufficient hard-working community craftspeople aren't going to contribute much to the economy earning four dollars each per day.

As a matter of fact there is far more art and craftsmanship around now than at any time in the past, and the reason is simple: because there is more affluence now than at any time in the past. But that affluence is almost entirely due to the fact that mass production has made the necessities of life much cheaper, and left us with surplus cash to spend on fripperies like hand-made pins. Dismantle the factories, the power plants and the battery farms, and most of us will find our incomes are exhausted just from buying bread and clothes. Art and craft will become once again a luxury for the privileged few.