RIS ID

46973

Publication Details

D. Farrier and M. Adams, 2011, Indigenous – Government Co-Management of Protected Areas: Booderee National Park and the National Framework in Australia, in B. Lausche, Guidelines for Protected Area Legislation, pp 1-40 ‘Special Protected Area Types’ IUCN, Gland, Switzerland.

Abstract

This case study first describes and assesses co-management governance arrangements for Booderee National Park on the south-east coast of Australia. It then goes on to set this examination in the broader context of a range of other types of protected area co-management governance arrangements in the country. Co-management of Booderee National Park raises and reflects issues from the ongoing development of co-managed protected areas in Australia. The co-management arrangements for Booderee exempt Aboriginal management and use from a range of regulatory provisions, but this is not considered to pose any threats to the successful maintenance of biodiversity. The arrangements also facilitate development interests of the local Aboriginal community. However, there continue to be unmet aspirations of local Aboriginal people. More generally, the survey of the various co-management arrangements in place in Australia shows that land tenure factors have a vital influence on the nature of arrangements negotiated between governments and Indigenous communities. Arrangements negotiated in situations where a government will only hand land back to Aboriginal people on condition that it is in turn leased back to the government to be managed as a protected area, as with Booderee National Park, are contrasted with situations where a government must come cap in hand to established Aboriginal landowners in order to establish an Indigenous Protected Area.

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