Dear CJ

The one thing u clearly aren't acquainted with is the paucity of big development of any kind on Cape York! Its got the lowest grazing pressure of any part of Australia, the last mine that started there was more than 40 years ago and the largest sawmill is a back yard job in Cooktown. Before u start sniping with rather tragic conspiracy theories about who is supporting who and playing the man, u might get out of your comfortable living room, go there and work out that what WR puts a break on (by making it significantly more difficult and expensive) is the indigenous peoples who own the land who are trying to get off welfare by starting small businesses...cut flowers, passion fruit....and getting on with their lives on their own land as u do on urs and I do on mine. Maybe they dont all want to be Park Rangers because thats where most of the support is coming from right now! If WR happened in ur suburban backyard u would be screaming blue murder about ur property rights being trampled on. Its actually about a fair go for all Australians and the law is an ass if it does not seek to protect that principle!

PW2,
Mabo a success ? thank you for telling us. I'll tell that to the many indigenous people who aren't aware of that yet, it'll change everything. I'm sure it'll all be good now that you have told us.

GMac, hear, hear.
I fought the introduction of the Wild Rivers Legislation within Government and lost. For that I apologise to the indigenous people of Queensland. This legislation will condemn indigenous people of the Cape to a perpetual cycle of poverty and misery.
One wonders why we can have international outrage over a tacky 3 minute skit on Redfaces but as a society turn a blind eye to measures that perpetuate institutional racism and may I be bold to call it ethnic cleansing.

Hi GMac. You're quite correct of course - I don't know Cape York very well, having only been there once about 20 years ago. However, I don't live in the suburbs, but in rural southern Queensland. To the west of where I live the Paroo River was, as I recall, the first river declared under Wild Rivers provisions - which was supported by the Aboriginal communities in the affected areas.

You claim that the Wild Rivers legislation will stifle small-scale Aboriginal enterprises like horticulture and grazing, but I can't see anything in the legislation that supports such a claim. The reason I mentioned Noel Pearson is that this is exactly the line that he's been pushing in the media in recent months, and it's hard to imagine that his links with right-wing think tanks and mining companies haven't influenced his prominence in the debate.

What I do hear about - like on ABC radio this morning - is that mining companies are seeking to expand into new areas on Cape York, and I've yet to see a large sacale mine anywhere that hasn't affected the environment in a profoundly negative way. And as I said, I can't think of too many examples of Aboriginal communities benefiting from such development anywhere in Australia.

Inappropriate development - including agriculture and mining - has stuffed too much of the Australian environment already, which is why I generally support the Wild Rivers legislation. When it comes to salvaging what little is left of relatively pristine Australian waterways, I think that environmental interests outweigh the dubious potential benefits to developers and supposedly to Indigenous people.

While I support Native Title rights, I don't think that the intent of the NTA was to provide a vehicle whereby local communities are manipulated by large-scale developers in order to circumvent belated environmental protection legislation. There is nothing 'traditional' about a bauxite or rutile mine.

Welcome to the real world you blokes. What ever made you think that your native title would be any more meaningful than the freehold title, that many of us have mortgaged our soles to acquire.

For years we've been unable to protect our homes from things such as dangerous trees, all the way to bushfires. We have had to accept instruction from some council lackey, controlling our lives, at least it's a premier who has screwed you lot.

Perhaps you should not have been quite so strong in supporting the greenies, in causing land holders grief, in the past. Now you get the chance to reap what you have sewn, or at least helped with.

Welcome to equality.

Now might be time to join us, in fighting the all enveloping green slime, that's choking the life out of all productive country enterprise, but beware it's lonely over here.

CJ Morgan,
Interesting that you mention the environmental degradation caused by large scale mining projects when the two exemptions under the Wild Rivers scheme are the Aurukun Project and the PNG Pipeline.

GMac is correct in asserting that the real problem with the Wild Rivers legislation is that it prohibits or severely hinders small scale economic development opportunities, even where these activities are consistent with the objects of the Wild Rivers legislation.

For a good explanation of how the wild rivers legislation affects small scale economic development opportunities, read Meg McLoughlin and Melissa Sinclair's article: ‘Wild Rivers, Conversation and Indigenous Rights: An Impossible Balance?’ in July/ August 2009, Indigenous Law Bulletin Vol 7, Iss 13.
There is significant indigenous interest around the Cape in establishing a 'culture-based economy', whereby communities generate income from activities such as the cultivation and trade of wild animals (e.g. mud-crabbing, the harvesting of crocodile eggs etc), harvesting native plants for art and craft work, setting up market gardens and greenhouse gas abatement projects (strategic burning to create firebreaks before the bushfire season). These activities have been shown to be environmentally sustainable and financially rewarding, as well as contributing to indigenous self determination (by respecting the right of traditional owners to have a say in how their land is used and developed).

However, in a report on the three most recent wild river declarations, the Australian Human Rights Commission expressed concern about the viability of establishing an economy based on natural and cultural resources in areas subject to a wild river declaration.

The Queensland Minister for Natural Resources, Stephen Robertson, set the bar extremely high for developments which would be allowed within wild river areas, saying that development proposals should “have minimal or no impact on those river systems”. (see Siobhan Barry’s article in ABC News Online, 6 April 2009). Even though market gardens appear to meet this onerous requirement, they are prohibited in high protection areas. Meanwhile the Aurukun Project continues to have a very significant impact on wild river systems. The operation of the wild rivers legislation thus seems to amount to environmental racism.