The Multifunctional Transition in Australia’s Tropical Savannas: the Emergence of Consumption, Protection and Indigenous Values

As elsewhere in affluent, western nations, the direction, complexity and pace of rural change in Australia can be conceptualised as a multifunctional transition in which a variable mix of consumption and protection values has emerged, contesting the former dominance of production values, and leading to greater complexity and heterogeneity in rural occupance at all scales. This transition has been explored in accessible, high-amenity landscapes driven by enhanced consumption values. Less attention has been directed to remote, marginal lands where a flimsy mode of productivist occupance can, in part, be displaced by alternative modes with the transitions being facilitated by low transfer costs. Such is the case in Australia's northern tropical savannas where an extensive mode of pastoral occupance is selectively displaced by alternative consumption, protection and Indigenous values. This transition towards multifunctional occupance is most readily documented by mapping changes in land tenure and ownership over the last three decades. Tenure changes have been accompanied by new regimes of property rights and land ownership, including: native titles derived from common law; non-transferable, common-property Aboriginal freehold tenures; transfers of pastoral leases to Indigenous and conservation interests; expansion of conservation lands under public tenures; and revisions of the rights and duties of pastoral lessees. Future occupance scenarios remain unclear, given the sensitivity of this frontier zone to national and global driving forces. © 2009 The Author. Journal compilation © 2009 Institute of Australian Geographers.

[1]  A. Straton,et al.  The Changing Value of Australian Tropical Rivers , 2008 .

[2]  R. Gerritsen,et al.  Future Options for North Australia , 2008 .

[3]  H. Nix,et al.  The nature of Northern Australia : natural values, ecological processes and future prospects , 2007 .

[4]  Christopher Ling,et al.  Restructuring the post-industrial landscape: A multifunctional approach , 2007 .

[5]  Geoff A. Wilson,et al.  Multifunctional Agriculture: A Transition Theory Perspective , 2007 .

[6]  J. Holmes,et al.  Impulses towards a Multifunctional Transition in Rural Australia: Gaps in the Research Agenda. , 2006 .

[7]  R. D. Groot,et al.  Function-analysis and valuation as a tool to assess land use conflicts in planning for sustainable, multi-functional landscapes , 2006 .

[8]  J. Mccarthy.  Rural geography: multifunctional rural geographies - reactionary or radical? , 2005 .

[9]  M. Lane.  The Indigenous Land Corporation's First Land Management Policy: Reconciling National Policy with the Contingencies of Local Context , 2005 .

[10]  N. Gill.  Life and Death in Australian "Heartlands": Pastoralism, Ecology and Rethinking the Outback. , 2005 .

[11]  Jeremy Russell-Smith,et al.  Viewpoint: Assessing the carbon sequestration potential of mesic savannas in the Northern Territory, Australia: approaches, uncertainties and potential impacts of fire. , 2004, Functional plant biology : FPB.

[12]  Richard A. Davis,et al.  Aboriginal Managers as Blackfellas or Whitefellas? Aspects of Australian Aboriginal Cattle Ownership in the Kimberley 1 , 2004 .

[13]  M. Lane.  Buying Back and Caring for Country: Institutional Arrangements and Possibilities for Indigenous Lands Management in Australia , 2002 .

[14]  J. Holmes.  Diversity and change in Australia’s rangelands: a post–productivist transition with a difference? , 2002 .

[15]  Clive Potter,et al.  Agricultural multifunctionality in the WTO—legitimate non-trade concern or disguised protectionism? , 2002 .

[16]  Henry Buller,et al.  Setting the next agenda? British and French approaches to the second pillar of the Common Agricultural Policy , 2002 .

[17]  F. Dawson.  Love and loss on the colonial frontier: biodiversity conservation and the law in the pastoral lands of the Northern Territory , 2002 .

[18]  G. Wilson.  From productivism to post-productivism … and back again? Exploring the (un)changed natural and mental landscapes of European agriculture , 2001 .

[19]  R. Baker,et al.  Working on country: Contemporary indigenous management of Australia's lands and coastal regions , 2001 .

[20]  Terry Marsden,et al.  Rural Futures: The Consumption Countryside and its Regulation , 1999 .

[21]  L. Head.  The Northern Myth Revisited? Aborigines, environment and agriculture in the Ord River Irrigation Scheme, Stages One and Two , 1999 .

[22]  G. Hiley.  The Wik case: Issues and implications , 1997 .

[23]  J. Holmes.  Diversity and Change in Australia's Rangeland Regions: Translating Resource Values Into Regional Benefits. , 1997 .

[24]  P. Bridgewater,et al.  National parks and other protected areas. , 1996 .

[25]  L. Head.  Aborigines and Pastoralism in North-Western Australia: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives on Multiple Use of the Rangelands. , 1994 .

[26]  H. Ross,et al.  Using the Aboriginal Rangelands: 'insider' Realities and 'outsider' Perceptions. , 1994 .

[27]  D. Freudenberger,et al.  Good Relationships: Ethical and Ecological Perspectives of Rangeland Management. , 1994 .

[28]  R. Heathcote.  Manifest destiny, mirage and Mabo : contemporary images of the rangelands , 1994 .

[29]  R. Howitt.  Social Impact Assessment as ‘Applied Peoples' Geography’ , 1993 .

[30]  G. Crough,et al.  Aboriginal people in the economy of the Kimberley Region , 1993 .

[31]  S. Morton.  Changing Conservation Perceptions in the Australian Rangelands. , 1993 .

[32]  E. Young.  Caring for country : aborigines and land management , 1991 .

[33]  J. Holmes.  Ricardo revisited: Submarginal land and non-viable cattle enterprises in the northern territory gulf district , 1990 .

[34]  R. Payne,et al.  Hinterland or Homeland? Land-Use Planning in Northern Canada, edited by Terry Fenge and William E. Rees , 1988 .

[35]  J. J. Mott,et al.  Ecology and management of the world's savannas , 1985 .

[36]  Young.  Pressures for competing uses of the north west pastoral lands of Australia. , 1981 .

[37]  R. Hunt.  Aboriginal land rights and the northern territory , 1972 .

[38]  B. Davidson.  The Northern myth in Australia. , 1965 .

[39]  R. A. Perry,et al.  Pasture lands of the Northern Territory, Australia. , 1960 .

[40]  W. Beattie.  A survey of the beef-cattle industry of Australia. , 1956 .