Sunday, 23 September, 8:30-9:15AM, Mal Nairn Theatre Joe Morrison,
North Australian Indigenous Land and Sea Management Alliance Joe Morrison is the Chief Executive Officer of NAILSMA Ltd. Both Dagoman and Torres Strait Islander, he has spent the last 20 years working with remote communities throughout the Top End of the Northern Territory, and more recently across north Australia, to develop capacity to lead “Caring for Country” initiatives. For the past decade, Mr Morrison has been advising Federal, State and Territory governments about Indigenous natural and cultural resource management, advocating for increased resources as part of the reform agenda in Indigenous communities and has overseen research relating to Indigenous livelihoods, water policy and planning, carbon, climate change, marine management and Indigenous Knowledge. He is currently a member of the Federal Government’s Indigenous Advisory Committee. He has a BA in Natural Resource Management from the University of Sydney.
Abstract: The future of indigenous land and sea management in northern Australia The caring for country renaissance expressed as modern day Indigenous land and sea management has grown exponentially over the last 30 years across northern Australia. It is now emerging as the job of choice for many remotely located Indigenous people wanting to fulfil their cultural obligations and broader aspirations to their families and country.
The caring for country movement became an expression of the long standing commitment to ancestral lands and seas, and so it made sense to use the ‘environment’ banner as a means of achieving sometimes unrecognized but purely Indigenous ambitions. Today, well over 80% of northern Australia has some form of legally recognized title or interest by Indigenous people. With a rapidly growing and young Indigenous population, caring for country is now viewed as a success in Indigenous public policy. But the future of caring for country will require a comprehensive rethink to reinvigorate the Indigenous discourse and associated social, cultural and customary values that underpin Indigenous efforts. Without this uniqueness rising up, caring for country will wither along with many other great Indigenous created ideas.