final katherine indigenous water valuesapril08

Preliminary Study on Indigenous Water Values and Interests in the Katherine Region of the Northern Territory

David Cooper and Sue Jackson, March 2008 A report prepared for NAILSMA’s Indigenous Water Policy Group CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems, Darwin, Northern Territory

Enquiries should be addressed to: Sue Jackson CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems Tropical Ecosystem Research Centre PMB 44 Winnellie NT 0822 Ph: +61 8 89448420 Fax: + 61 8 89448444 And Lorrae McArthur North Australian Indigenous Land and Sea Management Alliance (NAILSMA) Charles Darwin University Casuarina NT 0909 Ph: +61 8 89466973 Fax: +61 8 89466388

Front cover image: Dimalanji (Gum Hole) on the King River, Manbulloo Station.

Katherine Indigenous Water Values and Interests

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Table of Contents Page Number Foreword 1

Executive summary 3

Acknowledgements 7

Study aims 8

Part One Methodology 10

The study area 12

Surface and groundwater within the study area 15

The Katherine Water Allocation Plan 17

Influences on Indigenous occupation and use of land

Ecological and related cultural values of permanent

groundwater-fed rivers 19

Pastoral and mining development 20

Development of the town of Katherine 22

Regional movement of Aboriginal people to the area 23

Part Two The cultural context and significance of water

The Dreaming 25

Aboriginal cosmology 26

Indigenous hydrological knowledge 26

Rainbow serpents 28

Cultural practices and responsibilities relating to water

Talking to country 29

‘Watering’ strangers and others 29

Restrictions on behaviour and activities 30

Protecting others from harm 31


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Management and protection of sites 31

Significant cultural water sites in the study area 31

Springs 32

Waterholes and billabongs 32

Karst features 33

Sites used for ceremonial purposes 34

Utilisation of cultural water sites in the study area 34

Upper Katherine River 35

(Katherine Gorge to Katherine Hot Springs)

Mid Katherine River 36

(Katherine Hot Springs to Galloping Jacks)

Lower Katherine River 37

(Galloping Jacks to Flora junction)

Flora River 38

Upper King River 39

Lower King River 39

Edith River 39

Other sites 39

Part Three Formal protection and management of cultural water sites 40

Potential for protecting water sites under heritage legislation 40

Native Title protection of waters 41

Impediments to continued customary use of water sources

Alienation of water sources 41

Damage to or destruction of water sources 42

Loss of cultural and ritual knowledge 48

The role of Aboriginal organisations in mediating customary

water rights and interests 51

The Jawoyn Association 51

The Wardaman Association 52


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The Northern Land Council 53

The Aboriginal Areas Protection Authority 53

The Kalano Association 53

The Daly River Aboriginal Reference Group 54

Negotiating over water interests 54

Aboriginal attitudes to development and aspirations for

future development 56

Attitudes to development 56

Aspirations for future development involving water 56

The Katherine Water Allocation Plan 57

Consultation and engagement with Aboriginal stakeholders 57

Including access to cultural water sites as a Plan objective 59

Ensuring customary rights and cultural values are protected 60

Indigenous commercial water requirements 62

Recommendations 64

References 67

Figures

Figure 1. Map of study area 12

Figure 2. Map of Katherine Water Control District 13

Figure 3. Map of land tenure in the Water Control District 14

Figure 4. Map of land tenure and land use in Daly-Katherine catchment 15

Figure 5. Three dimensional view of Daly River Basin 16

Tables

Table 1. Current water use from Tindall Aquifer 19


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Foreword This report was commissioned by the Indigenous Water Policy Group established by the North Australian Indigenous Land and Sea Management Alliance (NAILSMA) in 2006. The Indigenous Water Policy Group project aims to build the capacity of Indigenous organisations in north Australia in order to understand and influence the National Water Initiative (NWI) policy agenda. This group has been established to oversee the conduct of research activities, to consider and endorse policies, engage with water policy makers, and to improve awareness of NWI issues in the wider Indigenous communities of northern Australia. Specifically the NAILSMA project aims to articulate the least known aspects of water policy particularly relevant to north Australia’s Indigenous population i.e. issues relating to property rights, use and management by Indigenous people. General research areas were proposed in the original funding application to Land & Water Australia (LWA) in 2005 and included:

1. institutional frameworks that embrace the articulation between Western water resource law and policy and customary water use, rules and norms

2. mechanisms to enhance the participation of Indigenous people in multi-stakeholder and collaborative water management structures and processes including methods to evaluate and bench-mark Indigenous participation.

3. barriers to the incorporation of Indigenous values, rights and responsibilities in water (e.g. Indigenous institutional capacity), and

4. identification of potential incentives to overcome barriers (e.g. land and possible water use agreements, conflict resolution).

The funding application to LWA noted that these were preliminary suggestions that required further input from the Indigenous Water Policy Group and refinement in the early stages of the project. At its first meeting in November 2006, the IWPG confirmed the suitability of these general topics to be examined through brief case studies, desk top reviews and through interaction with Land Councils and other relevant Indigenous organisations. This report on Katherine Indigenous water interests describes the results of one of the four case studies undertaken during 2007, each with different emphases. Other case study locations are Maningrida (NT), Gulf of Carpentaria (Queensland) and the Ord River (WA). A report synthesising the results from all four case studies will be completed in coming months. Since commissioning the case studies, interest in the issues under consideration in this report on Katherine has increased, largely because a water allocation plan is under development by the NT’s Department of Natural Resources, Environment and the Arts


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(NRETA). It is hoped that this report will serve to assist the Katherine Water Advisory Committee, NRETA, and Aboriginal organisations contributing to the preparation of the Katherine Water Allocation Plan.

Following a discussion of the report’s findings, we make a set of recommendations to NAILSMA’s Indigenous Water Policy Group in the interests of:

• contributing to water policy development around Indigenous rights and interests; • identifying research gaps for future attention; • identifying research opportunities that may assist Katherine’s Aboriginal groups

to document and conserve their traditional knowledge, and increase their involvement in water management; and

• improving the extent to which Jawoyn, Wardaman and Dagoman interests are reflected in the Katherine Water Allocation Plan.

Every effort has been made to ensure that the Jawoyn and Wardaman Associations support the report’s conclusions. It should be stressed, however, that the report does not purport to represent the views of other Aboriginal groups in the Katherine and Daly River regions who may intend on contributing to the Katherine Water Allocation Plan, for example, the Daly River Aboriginal Reference Group, and the Northern Land Council.


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Executive summary

The study aims to describe the social arrangements and cultural practices relating to water and to document the Indigenous knowledge of groundwater and surface water sources held by cultural groups in the vicinity of the regional centre of Katherine. An emphasis on the environmental management and governance frameworks affecting water management is especially relevant to the Katherine case-study because of recent increases in the commercial demand for water. A water allocation plan is now in preparation and will be looking to address Indigenous values relating to water and Indigenous people’s direct requirements for water. The scope of this study includes the customary relationships to water and Indigenous hydrological knowledge of Aboriginal groups in the Katherine area and the impediments to continued customary use of water sources. The study also examines how rights to water and management responsibilities are conceived and applied in context of the land use history of the area as well as present and future economic and commercial use of water supplies. Water planning processes govern current water use and will play a significant role in determining patterns of future water use. Northern Territory legislation guides these processes; however, they are also influenced by national water policy. For this reason, issues relevant to Indigenous participation in water planning and the potential impacts arising from inadequate attention to Indigenous interests are considered in this report. The study area centres on the catchment of the Katherine River in the vicinity of the town of Katherine, the third largest population centre in the Northern Territory. Aboriginal people comprise approximately 25% of the town’s population. This area was chosen to include the range of land tenures and traditional interests found in the region and to take in the southern portion of the Katherine Water Control District (the planning unit for a water allocation plan). In this way it was intended to identify the key issues relating to cultural water interests in the region and to maximise the usefulness of the results of the study for current planning processes. The report finds that Aboriginal rights and interests in water in the study area are in part a product of the history of Aboriginal occupation and use of land, which has been influenced by a number of environmental, cultural and historical factors. Such factors include the ecological and related cultural values of significant riverine environments such as the Katherine River system, pastoral and mining development; development of the town of Katherine, and the regional movement of Aboriginal people to the area. The Katherine and Flora Rivers are both examples of culturally-rich riverine environments which have continued to influence the residential patterns of local Aboriginal people. The present locations of the permanent Aboriginal communities of Jodetluk, Kalano, Rockhole, Binjari and Djarrung are all within such zones, and despite the fact that their development as permanent communities has been influenced by non-Indigenous settlement; they are all on or adjacent to important cultural sites of longstanding significance. That is, they represent instances of customary use of the land. Certain land


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and waters within the Katherine Water Control District are subject to a current native title claim, and in claim documentation, fishing and hunting in those waters are given as incidents of the customary rights asserted by claimants.

A significant portion of this report is devoted to describing the cultural context and significance of water. As a fundamental aspect of land and ecosystems, water is integral to the lives and beliefs of Aboriginal groups in the Katherine area. However, while there exist distinct and, indeed, profoundly-important aspects of cultural practices and beliefs relating to water, it is impossible to abstract such practices and beliefs from the broader processes and institutions that shape and give meaning to Indigenous cultures and to the social arrangements, lived experience and relationships to land of Indigenous people. More recently, as water has emerged as a key resource policy issue, an Indigenous discourse around water has started to emerge. However it remains essentially separate from the day-to-day social arrangements and cultural practices relating to water, which exist within the broader cultural and social organisation, processes and practices of Aboriginal people of the Katherine area. These social arrangements and cultural practices are described in some detail, revealing the importance of water in Aboriginal cosmology and belief systems.

The extent of Indigenous hydrological knowledge is evidenced by the richness of terms and concepts contained within local Aboriginal languages. Every aspect of water as a phenomena and a physical resource as well as the hydro-morphological features it creates is represented and expressed in the languages of local Aboriginal cultures: mist, clouds, rain, hail, seasonal patterns of precipitation, floods and floodwater, river flows, rivers, creeks, waterholes, billabongs, springs, soaks, groundwater and aquifers, and the oceans (saltwater).

Cultural practices relating to water are also detailed, including talking to country, ‘watering’ strangers and others, restrictions on behaviour and activities, protecting others from harm and management and protection of sites. These practices are a consequence of belief in the continuing spiritual presence in the landscape of creation beings as well as more recent remembered and unremembered ancestors, or ‘old people’, returned to their countries as spirits. The animating spirits that become children are also believed to enter their mothers from water.

Significant cultural water sites within the study area include rivers and creeks and their associated features, including gorges, waterfalls, plunge pools, waterholes, billabongs and springs; and areas away from river and creek beds such as seasonally inundated swampy areas and isolated rockholes and springs. The groundwater-fed baseflows of the Katherine and Flora Rivers and, to a lesser extent, the upper and lower portions of the King River, provide permanent water sources that sustain ecologically-rich ecosystems and are correspondingly rich in the occurrence of Aboriginal cultural sites and patterns of occupation and use. For each section of the Katherine River within the study area, use patterns and key sites are described. The study finds that the underground waters, including the water of the Tindall Aquifer, are themselves significant and feature in Aboriginal ritual knowledge. This is an important issue that remains largely unaddressed


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in management and planning contexts, including in relation to heritage protection and the current water planning processes. Utilisation of cultural water sites in the study area is influenced by a range of factors: current patterns of residence and access to vehicles; knowledge of the cultural associations of sites and historic patterns of Aboriginal use; the particular experiences of individuals in visiting sites with their elders and families; the availability of access; and uses associated with cultural tourism and other economic uses of traditional lands. Alienation of land through non-Indigenous acquisition, land uses and management practices prevents access to large sections of the rivers and streams and many cultural water sites. Most Aboriginal usage of water sites includes fishing, whether or not that is the primary reason for visiting a location. It is noteworthy that all Aboriginal communities within the study area are near or adjacent to significant cultural water sites and water sources which are visited and used by community members. This is reflective of traditional patterns of residence and use of country. Since white settlement, locations chosen by Aboriginal groups for permanent communities have often included important or vulnerable sacred sites or significant natural features in the knowledge that this will provide a means of protecting them.

In the second section of the report the formal mechanisms for the protection and management of cultural sites are described and questions are raised about the application of NT heritage law and Commonwealth native title law to the extraction or consumption of groundwater. The traditional owners of the study area have sought formal registration of a number of sites under the Sacred Sites Act. There are approximately 25 registered sites within the study area that include culturally-significant water features. The study has identified three principal impediments to continued customary use of water sources in the Katherine area. The first relates to the impacts of the alienation of water sources by non-Indigenous acquisition and occupation of land containing such sites. The second relates to the damage or destruction of water sources through the impacts of land uses and natural processes. The third impediment relates to the loss of cultural knowledge of water sites through the inability to pass on knowledge and to show sites to younger generations. Recommendations are made to address these impediments by the following means: further research, changes to management arrangements and through the water allocation plan and its associated mechanisms. The study has demonstrated the deep cultural connections of Aboriginal groups with respect to water sources in the study area, including customary rights of ownership and custodianship of cultural water sources. Importantly, such connection and cultural rights extend beyond surface waters to the underground waters, including the waters of the Tindall Aquifer. The study has also demonstrated that the ability of traditional owners to exercise their cultural rights and responsibilities and to access cultural water sites for customary


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purposes has been impaired as a result of the history of non-Indigenous usurpation and exclusive use of the land. At the same time, the more recent development of common law and statutory recognition of customary rights through the Land Rights Act, Sacred Sites Act, and Native Title Act and the recognition of native title at common law, have resulted in an expectation on the part of traditional owners that they now have a legitimate basis in terms of recognised rights and interests, for assuming a position of at least negotiating parity with non-Indigenous decision-makers and land owners. Local Aboriginal groups have not had the opportunity to properly consider the implications of the current national water reform process, including with respect to their aspirations for future developments or enterprises requiring water allocations. The fact that none of the current water licence applicants are Aboriginal is indicative of this lack of opportunity. In the beginning of the study, very few people were aware of the water plan and government efforts to regulate and trade in water. Furthermore, Indigenous engagement in the water planning process has been insufficient. The report urges that significant attention be given to ensuring that local Aboriginal groups are consulted extensively in the public comment period following the release of the draft water allocation plan and that options for ensuring on-going Indigenous engagement in plan implementation are investigated. Although there are not significant areas of Indigenous-owned land within the Tindall Aquifer, a native title claim is pending and, if successful, may raise expectations of commercial development opportunities. Indigenous groups, such as those in the Katherine region, do not yet have fully formed strategies for utilising water for commercial purposes and their relative disadvantage in this regard should not preclude them from benefiting from future development opportunities, particularly where it is likely that a cap on water entitlements will soon be in place and entering the water market in coming years may be costly.


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Acknowledgements

We gratefully acknowledge the support, advice and assistance provided by the Jawoyn and Wardaman Associations for this study. We particularly appreciate the time given to the project by those who participated in fieldtrips and provided interviews with David Cooper. It is with great sadness that we acknowledge the recent passing of two of the Aboriginal elders who provided valuable contributions to the study. It is to their memory that the report is dedicated. We are also grateful to Land & Water Australia for funding to establish the Indigenous Water Policy Group and the development of its research agenda. The National Water Commission has since assumed responsibility for provision of external funds for a further three years and we acknowledge the part played by Murray Radcliffe and the late Peter Cullen in supporting this interesting initiative. Jon Altman, a co-author of a companion case study on Maningrida, has provided valuable input to the development of the project case studies. We are also appreciative of the efforts of Joe Morrison and Lorrae McArthur of NAILSMA who have been responsible for managing the project. Rosemary Hill, Ian Watson and Alan Andersen provided comment on earlier draft. All errors and omissions are the responsibility of the authors.


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1.0 Study aims Each of the case studies undertaken during 2007 had a different emphasis. This Katherine case-study was initially intended to focus on customary relationships to water and Indigenous hydrological knowledge. The principal researcher, David Cooper, has a long history of working with traditional owners in the region and his experience in Aboriginal heritage studies was valuable in a preliminary effort such as this.

The study aims to describe the social arrangements and cultural practices relating to water and to document the Indigenous knowledge of groundwater and surface water sources held by cultural groups in the vicinity of the regional centre of Katherine. An emphasis on the environmental management and governance frameworks affecting water management is especially relevant to the Katherine case-study because of recent increases in the commercial demand for water such that a moratorium has now been placed on the granting of new water licences. Environmental water allocations will also need to be determined to ensure water use is sustainable. Upon commencement of this study, a water allocation plan, drafted in accordance with the Northern Territory’s Water Act, was under development and little consideration had been given to its potential effect on Indigenous interests by researchers, Aboriginal organisations or government agencies. This plan is now looking to address Indigenous values relating to water and Indigenous people’s direct requirements for water.

The scope of the study includes the customary relationships to water and Indigenous hydrological knowledge of Aboriginal groups in the Katherine area and the impediments to continued customary use of water sources. The study also examines how rights to water and management responsibilities are conceived and applied both in context of the land use history of the area as well as present and future economic and commercial use of water supplies. Water planning processes govern current water use and will play a significant role in determining patterns of future water use. Northern Territory legislation guides these processes; however, they are also influenced by national water policy. It is for this reason that issues relevant to Indigenous participation in water planning and the potential impacts arising from inadequate attention to Indigenous interests are considered in this report. Recommendations are made to address identified impediments to continued customary use of water sources, particularly measures that could be embraced by the proposed Water Allocation Plan. The report is organised into three parts each addressing:

1. background information: methodology; details of the study area; and historical influences on Indigenous occupation and use of land;

2. cultural information relating to water: the cultural context and significance of

water; cultural practices and responsibilities relating to water; significant cultural water sites; and the utilisation of cultural water sites in the study area; and


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3. the interface between cultural water issues and contemporary external factors: the

formal protection and management of cultural water sites; impediments to continued customary use of water sources; the role of Aboriginal organisations in mediating customary water rights and interests; negotiating over water interests; Aboriginal attitudes to development and aspirations for future development; and the Katherine Water Allocation Plan.


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Part One

Methodology This report was prepared in cooperation with local traditional landowners through their representative organisations. The principal traditional affiliations within the study area are held by the Jawoyn, Wardaman and Dagoman groups. The northern section of the study area includes traditional lands of the Jawoyn, whose interests are represented by the Jawoyn Association Aboriginal Corporation1 (Jawoyn Association). The southern section of the study area, south of the Katherine township, is affiliated with the Wardaman, whose interests are represented by the Wardaman Aboriginal Corporation2 (Wardaman Association). The country in between Jawoyn and Wardaman lands comprises the traditional lands of the Dagoman. Non-indigenous occupation of the land, particularly in relation to the development of the town of Katherine, has had significant impacts on local Aboriginal groups, resulting in complex changes over time to the relationships and affiliations of groups, families and individuals to the land. Documenting these changes was beyond the scope of the project, and consequently, this report in no way purports to provide a comprehensive or definitive account of traditional land interests within the study area. In particular, the report does not directly address the traditional interests of the Dagoman as a distinct group. However, Dagoman individuals were interviewed during the course of the project. In not addressing Dagoman group interests it is acknowledged that there are formal processes currently underway but not yet concluded, to resolve issues around continuing Dagoman interests in the area. Dagoman native title claimants have lodged a native title claim over an area that includes the central portion of the study area. Fieldwork and consultation was undertaken over two periods, in May-June and August-October 2007. The research leader (Sue Jackson) and principal researcher (David Cooper) met with key personnel from the Jawoyn Association and Wardaman Association to discuss the project and its aims and to seek guidance on how the project might be focused to minimise resource demands on these organisations and enhance useful outcomes in terms of their needs and priorities. This is an important consideration for organisations that are not well resourced to undertake the broad range of services and responsibilities they provide to their constituent communities. Comprehensive research agreements were negotiated with each organisation.

1 See http://www.jawoyn.org/draft/index.htm (Accessed Oct 2007). 2 The Wardaman Aboriginal Corporation was incorporated in 1990 for the benefit of the Wardaman people.


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The research leader and principal researcher also liaised with the Northern Land Council, which has statutory responsibilities towards traditional owners under the Aboriginal Land Rights (NT) Act 1976, and to native title holders under the Native Title Act, 1993. From the outset it was acknowledged that, due to its limited scale and scope, the project could not provide a comprehensive picture of culturally-significant water resources in the study area and the customary relationships relating to such resources. Instead, the study could most usefully provide an outline of the range and nature of such resources and relationships through interviews with key individuals and selected case studies and field visits. The resulting cultural data was augmented with material from published and unpublished studies, reports and transcripts relating to the area, including the Jawoyn (Katherine Area) Land Claim. The principal researcher also met with the Executive Officer of the Kalano Association, an Aboriginal organisation controlled by representatives from a number of Aboriginal communities within the vicinity of Katherine township to which the Association provides services and resources. Although not a traditional owner representative body, the communities serviced by the Kalano Association include residents from local Aboriginal groups as well as residents from Aboriginal groups outside the area who have chosen to live in Katherine and who use local and regional water sources for fishing, camping and recreation activities. Coincidentally to the project, the NT Government has declared an area of the Katherine River catchment a Water Control District and is currently developing a new water allocation plan for the area (including the area covered by this study), the first of a series in the Top End of the Northern Territory. Early in the project, prior to fieldwork components, the research leader and principal researcher were invited to attend a meeting of the Katherine Water Advisory Committee (KWAC), which is preparing the new water allocation plan. Although not commissioned by them, the KWAC expressed interest in the results of the study to provide additional information on Aboriginal cultural values and interests. Initial fieldwork revealed a low awareness of the water planning process amongst Aboriginal people in the region, necessitating the production of an information pamphlet by CSIRO. As far as we understand, this is the only such material so far produced. Given this context, a number of qualifications need to be made to avoid any misinterpretation of the purpose and findings of this report. The study did not set out to meet the information needs of the NT’s water planners, either by providing a comprehensive survey of sacred sites and the cultural landscape, or assessing the socio-economic impacts of water resource development on Aboriginal communities in the Katherine region. Nor did it set out to quantitatively determine Aboriginal water needs, particularly for economic development, and where comments are made in this regard they should not be taken as representing the formally considered views of Aboriginal groups in the area. However, the report does flag that this is an important area that needs further detailed work and consideration. As stated above, this study is of a preliminary nature,


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commissioned by a non-government organisation to scope out previously underexplored issues relevant to Indigenous interests in water.

The study area Katherine is one of the NT’s largest regional centres (see Map 1).

Figure 1. Map of the study area within hatched line showing communities referred to in report, and location in relation to Darwin (insert). The study area takes in the central lower catchment of the Katherine River from Katherine Gorge to the Flora River junction and extending north-west to the Edith River, south-west to the Flora River, north-east to the King River and south-east to the Dry River (see Map 2 below).


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Map 1: Study area Figure 2. Map of the Katherine Water Control District (WCD). Area shaded green is the area of the Tindall Aquifer within the WCD. The study area was chosen to include the range of land tenures and traditional interests found in the region and to take in the southern portion of the Katherine Water Control District. In this way it was intended to identify the key issues relating to cultural water interests in the region and to maximise the usefulness of the results of the study for current planning processes. The land tenure of the area divides into three broad zones comprising a range of land tenure types (Map 3 and 4). The northerly zone takes in large areas of Aboriginal land,


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including parts of the Aboriginal-owned Nitmiluk National Park, and southern fringes of the Arnhem Land Escarpment. The central zone comprises more intensive land uses along the Stuart Highway corridor, including the Katherine township and outlying residential blocks, commercial horticulture and farms and the Tindal airbase. The southern zone comprises mainly pastoral leases, most notably Manbulloo Pastoral Lease, and the Flora River Nature Reserve, which is located in the south-western corner of the study area.

Figure 3: Map showing land tenure in the Water Control District . Source: NRETA, Presentation to the Katherine Water Allocation Advisory Committee, February 2007.


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Figure 4. Map showing land tenure and land use in the Daly-Katherine catchment, showing pastoral leases and other features referred to in the report. Source: NT Department of Lands Planning and the Environment, Top End Waterways Project. The major regional centre, Katherine, is the NT’s third largest, with a population of approximately 9,000, of which about a quarter is Aboriginal. The total regional population is about 17,000, 29% of which are Aboriginal. There are seven Aboriginal communities within the study area (see Map 4) ranging in size from about 10 to 300 residents. The major river system of the study area is the Katherine River, which is part of the Daly River system. The headwaters of the Katherine River lie in the escarpment country of Arnhem Land and Nitmiluk and Kakadu National Parks to the north. Within the study area, the Katherine River is fed by major tributaries, the King River and Dry River to the east, Seventeen Mile Creek to the west, and Scott Creek, Mathieson Creek and the Flora River, to the south. Surface and groundwater within the study area3 The average rainfall of the study area is 1040mm per annum, falling mainly in the wet season (November to March). The Katherine River is subject to high wet season flows

3 Many of the details in this section are drawn from George, D. 2001, Water Resources of the Katherine Region and South West Arnhem Land. The report was partly funded by the Jawoyn Association.


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with occasional serious flooding. Katherine was subject to serious floods in 1897, 1931, 1940, 1957, 1988 and 2006 (Ogden nd). The dry season extends from April to October. Groundwater discharge from aquifers sustains dry season baseflows in parts of the river systems within the study area: including the Katherine River, Flora River and the lower part of the King River. Groundwater baseflows in these rivers are drawn from the Tindall Aquifer (See Figure 5), the most substantial and reliable groundwater resource within the study area. It is a highly permeable dolomitic aquifer, with groundwater occurring in cavities and fractures. Sinkholes are a common surface feature, and act as points of recharge to, and occasionally discharge from, the aquifer. Figure 5. Three dimensional view of Daly River Basin showing the Tindal Aquifer in blue. Source: NRETA. The baseflows sustain the important ecological and cultural values associated with the river systems and maintaining these baseflows is a priority of water management regimes.


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Extraction of groundwater for other purposes depends on protecting and maintaining these flows. The capacity of the Tindall Aquifer has been assessed as capable of providing sufficient water for commercial purposes and groundwater is currently abstracted for agricultural and horticultural irrigation and other purposes including domestic and light industrial use. As much of the Tindall Aquifer lies within the Katherine Water Control District, licences are required for bore drilling and abstraction. A new water allocation plan is currently being prepared for the Katherine area (see below). Katherine town water supply is drawn from the Katherine River at Donkey Camp, and is occasionally supplemented by bore water. Until fairly recently, smaller communities in the study area obtained their water supply from surface water, such as rivers or creeks, or from springs. Bore water is now used throughout, with the exception of Jodetluk, near the Katherine Gorge, where some of its supplies are still pumped from the Katherine River. Surface water occurs as rivers and springs, river pools, waterholes and billabongs, sourced directly from rainfall and rainfall runoff, and, in some areas, from groundwater discharge or baseflow. Baseflow in the Katherine River comes from both the Cretaceous aquifers via springflows from the Marrawal Plateau into Seventeen Mile Creek, and from the Tindall Limestone aquifer between Knott’s Crossing and Galloping Jack’s. Baseflows in the Flora River and parts of the King River are maintained from the Tindall Aquifer. Springs occur as natural outflow points for groundwater where the watertable is at or above the ground surface. Springs in the study area can be permanent (perennial) or seasonal (ephemeral), depending on the fluctuations in the local watertable. The Katherine River in the town area obtains most of its baseflow from points along the river valley, where fractures and cavities in the underlying Tindall Limestone aquifer are intersected. Sinkholes are a common, natural surface feature of limestone or karstic aquifer systems and are widespread in the Tindall Limestone Formation aquifers. A sinkhole is a localised sinking of the land surface caused by the dissolution of the underlying rocks, forming depressions or more dramatically, cavern systems. Change or collapse of sinkholes can be induced by land uses causing changes in the water table or drainage system. Many examples of rapid sinkhole development have been documented in the Tindall Limestone in the Katherine town area. Sinkholes can act as pathways for rapid recharge to the underlying aquifer.

The Katherine Water Allocation Plan The study area centres on the catchment of the Katherine River in the vicinity of the town of Katherine, the third largest population centre in the Northern Territory. The area comprises land tenures associated with the most intensive current and future water usage in the region. This includes residential, industrial, commercial horticultural, farming and pastoral uses. The region also relies economically on tourism focused on Nitmiluk


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National Park and Katherine Gorge and other permanent waters of the spring-fed Katherine/Daly River system, including Edith Falls and the Flora River Nature Reserve. Coincidentally to the project, the NT Government has declared an area of the Katherine River catchment a Water Control District and is currently developing a new water allocation plan for the area, the first of a series in the Top End of the Northern Territory. Of central significance to the water allocation process are the underground waters of the Tindall Limestone Aquifer, a limestone, bowl-shaped strata underlying the Katherine area. This is the largest underground water resource of the area and is facing increasing demand and competition for both domestic and commercial purposes. The baseflow component of the Katherine River is dominated by water discharged from the Tindall Limestone Aquifer. According to NRETA4 (2007), at the end of the wet season ‘when all the runoff has flowed out at the end of the Katherine River, discharge from groundwater via springs is all that keeps the River flowing’ (p.5). The Tindall Limestone Aquifer is highly valued as a water supply by the region’s irrigated agricultural industries because it is typically high yielding, where up to 100 l/s can be extracted via bores. Water sourced from this aquifer has reasonable water quality, typical of limestone. The following table shows current water use from the Tindall Aquifer.

Rural Stock and Domestic 1,204ML/yr

Public Water Supply 1,408ML/yr

Irrigated Agriculture 25,175ML/yr

Industry 860ML/yr

Rural Stock and Domestic 1,204ML/yr

Total 28,647 ML/year

Table 1. Current water use from Tindall Aquifer

The Katherine Water Advisory Committee (KWAC) has been tasked to develop a draft Water Allocation Plan for the Tindall Limestone Aquifer5, in accordance with the NT Water Act. KWAC was formed by the Minister for Natural Resources, Environment and 4 See NRETA’s Values and Issues Report: Water Allocation Plan – Tindall Limestone Aquifer (Katherine),

September 2007. 5 See http://www.nt.gov.au/nreta/water/kwac/index.html (Accessed Sept 2007)


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Heritage in February 2007 as a sub-committee of the Daly River Management Advisory Committee. Its role is to incorporate community values and beliefs in the water allocation and planning process. The committee’s composition includes a range of stakeholder interests, including representatives from the Jawoyn and Wardaman groups, and is assisted and guided by NRETA’s Katherine Water Planner. During the past year the KWAC has developed a vision for the Plan to manage the Tindall Aquifer sustainably, balancing environmental and other water requirements. Initial objectives for the plan include:

• Maintain the groundwater contribution to surface waters for the protection of minimum flows in the Katherine River and associated water dependent ecosystems;

• Ensure the maintenance and protection of values and places of importance under traditional laws, customs and practices;

• Ensure the ongoing maintenance of groundwater quality and quantity from this water source;

• To maintain access to this groundwater source for stock and domestic purposes;

• Provide sustainable access to groundwater for town water supplies, • To provide access to groundwater for agricultural, (aquacultural) and

industrial purposes, and • Create an effective and enforceable plan that promotes the efficient and

equitable use of the water resource (http://www.nt.gov.au/nreta/water/kwac/index.html).

Indigenous participation in the preparation of the Water Allocation Plan will be further discussed below.

Influences on Indigenous occupation and use of land Aboriginal rights and interests in water in the study area are a product of the history of Aboriginal occupation and use of land, which has been influenced by a number of environmental, cultural and historical factors which it is necessary to briefly consider. These are:

• the ecological and related cultural values of the Katherine River system; • pastoral and mining development; • development of the town of Katherine; • regional movement of Aboriginal people to the area.

Ecological and related cultural values of permanent groundwater-fed rivers Ecologically-rich riverine corridors in northern Australia are correspondingly rich in Aboriginal patterns of occupation and use and associated cultural sites. Riverine corridors contain important permanent water sources and food resources able to support larger


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numbers of people and to do so over longer periods and during seasons when non-permanent water sources dry up. They are also capable of supporting large congregations of people such as is required in order to carry out regional ceremonial gatherings (Cooper 2000). More intensive occupation and use results in higher concentrations of culturally-significant landscape features within such corridors, including places with personal, family or clan group associations, such as campsites, fishing and resource-gathering sites, birth and burial locations, and features with religious or spiritual significance (sacred sites). Regionally-significant dreaming tracks often traverse these corridors providing important cultural linkages between groups that interface along the path of a dreaming track and who share ritual responsibility for its associated sites and religious knowledge. An important consequence of these socio-cultural features of rich riverine corridors is that they also tend to be zones where cultural boundaries between groups converge (Cooper 2000) and, particularly in the historical period, where patterns of co-residence and co-location of different groups have developed. The Katherine and Flora Rivers are both examples of such culturally-rich riverine environments which have continued to influence the residential patterns of local Aboriginal people. The present locations of the permanent Aboriginal communities of Jodetluk, Kalano, Rockhole, Binjari, Djarrung and Werenbun (see Figure 1) are all within such zones, and despite the fact that their development as permanent communities has been influenced by non-Indigenous settlement, they are all on or adjacent to important cultural sites of longstanding significance. That is, they represent instances of customary use of the land. As noted above, the permanent waters of the Katherine River system are made possible by the baseflow from groundwater. The interconnectedness of these systems is understood and represented in the cultural traditions of local Aboriginal people, and will be elaborated on below.

Pastoral and mining development These same ecological values of the Katherine River system that have been important to Aboriginal groups also attracted outsiders keen to exploit the land. As with experience elsewhere in Australia (Weir 2007), along the rivers major waterholes, fords and springs were strategically appropriated, forming settlement nodes, initially tenuous and sometimes ephemeral, but also in places, such as Katherine, coalescing over time into permanent centres. Pastoralists were the first of many non-Indigenous intruders who would eventually settle and take over land in the area, displacing Aboriginal groups and considerably affecting their ongoing patterns of occupation and use of country. Early non-Indigenous occupation within the study area occurred in the 1870s with work to establish the Overland Telegraph Line, which crossed the Katherine River in the vicinity of Knott’s Crossing, north of the present town. In 1879, initial pastoral settlement occurred at Springvale, downstream of the present town (Ogden 1989). This initial period


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is likely to have resulted in the decimation of Aboriginal numbers in the immediate vicinity from frontier violence and introduced disease.

Photo 1. Deep waterhole at Springvale homestead on the Katherine River. Springvale was abandoned in 1886. Manbulloo Station was established at about the same time, located on the opposite side of the Katherine River, slightly downstream. Manbulloo was owned by the British company, Vesteys, along with other stations, including Delemere and Willeroo to the west. Aboriginal camps comprising station workers and their dependents became co-located with station homesteads. The camp at Manbulloo existed until 1974 when the remaining Aboriginal residents were removed by the manager of Vesteys (Merlan 1998). Mining development in the immediate area centred on Maude Creek, near the Katherine Gorge, where gold was discovered and exploited from 1887. Around this same period mining was occurring around the centres of Pine Creek and Maranboy, to the north and east of Katherine. Mining centres attracted Aboriginal people from surrounding areas who provided cheap labour, mainly in return for food, tobacco and other useful goods.


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Development of the town of Katherine The area’s location at the intersection of the north-south road linking Darwin with central Australia and the southern states, and the road west to the vast pastoral lands and stations of the Victoria River and Kimberley regions, led to the development of a regional centre at the Katherine River. The town of Katherine developed initially around the river ford at Knott’s Crossing, shifting focus to the Pine Creek rail-head on the northern side of the river (Emungalan), and finally around its present location following the building of the Katherine River rail bridge in 1926 (Ogden 1989) (see photo below).

Photo 2 Katherine ‘High-level’ Rail Bridge constructed in 1926. Katherine’s development had a considerable impact on Aboriginal occupation and use of the land. From about the 1920s, peanut and vegetable farms were established along the Katherine River, attracting Aboriginal workers who lived a mainly subsistence existence based around relationships developed with individual farm owners, and camped on their farms for periods of time (Merlan 1998).


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Aboriginal people’s movements were tightly controlled. From 1918 prohibited areas ordinances prohibited Aboriginal people from the Katherine township between sunset and sunrise and only allowed their access to the town for business associated with an employer. In practice there were camps in the vicinity of the town, particularly along the river. Prior to World War II, an Aboriginal compound managed by the Australian Inland Mission was located at Maude Creek, near the present Jodetluk community. During the War a new Aboriginal compound was located at Donkey Camp, a large waterhole on the Katherine River upstream from Knott’s Crossing. Following the War, a large Aboriginal community was established on the CSIRO agricultural research station on the western side of the river opposite the Katherine Hot Spring. The community provided workers for the research station and Merlan (1998) notes that in the mid-1960s an estimated 200 people lived at the camp. The CSIRO camp closed in the late 1960s. There were a number of other camps in the vicinity of the town over the period, mostly along the banks of the Katherine River. These included camps such as the army camp, 14A (Fordinay) on Manbulloo, Meatworks Camp (Northmeat) on the river near the abattoir, Two Mile camp north of the town, ‘High Level bottom camp’ south of the highway on the western side of the river, and a camp at the location of the current Warlpiri transient camp. By the 1970s, the growth of the town and changes in Aboriginal affairs policy resulted in moves to begin to address the presence of a large Aboriginal population living in the town and its vicinity in temporary or semi-permanent camps without proper housing and basic facilities. This resulted over time in the development of the present formalised communities of Mayali-Brumby (Kalano), Rockhole, Binjari and Warlpiri Transient Camp (see Figure 1).

Regional movement of Aboriginal people to the area The present Aboriginal population within the study area is comprised of many different cultural groups, including Aboriginal people whose traditional countries lie outside the area. Merlan (1998) describes Katherine as “a mid-zone between…two settler ecologies”, that of the pastoral stations to the west and the mostly short-lived mining centres to the north. Pastoral, mining and farming activities and the development of the town of Katherine have contributed in different ways to attracting Aboriginal people from outside areas. Mayali, Rembarrnga and Ngalkbon people were attracted from areas of Arnhem Land to the north to the various mines and mining centres in the region, including Maude Creek, the Edith River, Pine Creek and the Maranboy area north of the town, and to the farms that had been established along the Katherine River. Yangman and Mangarrayi people from the south were also attracted to the area. Some of these ended up staying and intermarrying or co-residing with local groups in the Katherine area. Mayili people in particular, who have cultural connections with the Jawoyn (whose country extends north


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of Katherine into the Arnhem Land escarpment), have established many lasting links to the area. The name for one of the main Aboriginal communities in Katherine, Mayili-Brumby, is indicative of this connection. The establishment of a large Aboriginal station worker community on Manbulloo, drawn in part from stations to the west, brought Aboriginal people from groups from those areas. Many from this community, which included many Wardaman people and local Dagoman families, continue to live in the Katherine area, including at Binjari. More recently, since the 1980s, Warlpiri people from the desert lands to the south have been attracted to the area and have established a permanent presence in the town. All of these groups have established associations and ties to the area and regularly access and use water sites in the study area for fishing, camping and other purposes. The patterns of their use are along customary lines. Many have been shown or introduced to water sites by local Aboriginal traditional owners and have permission to visit and use the sites. Because existing legal frameworks privilege traditional ownership interests, we have focused on these interests in this study. Nevertheless, water planning processes need to address the public interest held by Aboriginal residents of Katherine town.


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Part Two

The cultural context and significance of water As a fundamental aspect of land and ecosystems, water is integral to the lives and beliefs of Aboriginal groups in the Katherine area. However, while there exist distinct and, indeed, profoundly-important aspects of cultural practices and beliefs relating to water, it is impossible to abstract such practices and beliefs from the broader processes and institutions that shape and give meaning to Indigenous cultures and to the social arrangements, lived experience and relationships to land of Indigenous people. More recently, as water has emerged as a key resource policy issue, an Indigenous discourse around water has started to emerge. However it remains essentially separate from the day-to-day social arrangements and cultural practices relating to water, which exist within the broader cultural and social organisation, processes and practices of Aboriginal people of the Katherine area.

The Dreaming Indigenous hydrological knowledge and cultural relationships to water are understood within the context of an overarching belief system or cosmology relating to the origin and ongoing maintenance of the physical environment and of the distinct cultures and social groups that reside within it. This is commonly referred to in English as “the Dreaming”, derived from translations of its equivalents in Aboriginal languages which are usually derivations of the words for “dream”. The Jawoyn use the word puwurr. This is similar to the Wardaman equivalent, buwarraja, a word which is also used by a number of language groups to the west. The Dreaming comprises the creation stories of local Aboriginal cultures, manifested within ‘song cycles’ passed down by the creation figures or ancestral beings that inhabited the original primeval landscape and who, through their travels and activities, transformed the world into its present form. The song cycles trace ‘song lines’ or ‘dreaming tracks’ through and over the landscape, naming the sites, features and resources of the landscape and establishing the cultural boundaries and distinct peoples, languages and cultures of the present. Importantly, the Dreaming is not simply past-oriented, but provides a continuous, real presence in the landscape and in the daily lives of Aboriginal people. Thus, ancestral beings or dreamings continue to have a spiritual presence and to be active in the present landscape, residing at locations or as physical manifestations of landscape features (sacred sites), or manifesting as meterological phenomena or even within the bodies and dreams of individuals. This aspect of the Dreaming influences and imposes responsibilities on individuals in relation to their behaviour and informs their interpretation of phenomena and events. This includes day to day events, but also potential events, such as proposals for mining, building dams, extracting water, or other actions imposing change on the landscape.


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In this sense, the landscape for Aboriginal people is not simply experienced as a physical landscape, but as a responsive cultural landscape. A further important understanding about the Dreaming is that it also established the charter or law upon which Aboriginal behaviour, rights, responsibilities and values are based, including those related to the ownership and management of the land and waters. Such customary rights provide the basis and justification for Aboriginal aspirations to be afforded recognition in natural resource use and management decision-making.

Aboriginal cosmology Water features strongly in Aboriginal cosmology. For example, Wardaman creation stories envisage a primeval epoch when there was only the ocean (saltwater) and a landscape of sand. From the actions of the Rainbow Serpent that lived in the saltwater, and other creation beings, the present landscape took shape in a series of events – a flood that covered the world and from which only a few survived in the highest places; the actions of the Black-headed Python, Walujapi, and Water Python, Kunitjarri , in creating the rivers and creeks which drained the land and established the division between land and ocean; and in actions which established the hydrological cycle of clouds and rain and, ultimately, the present physical forms of landscape, rocks, trees, animals and people. These world-creating events have detailed local-level expression, manifested in a vast system of land-based cultural sites, connections and networks underpinned by the cultural knowledge encoded in the song lines, some of which run for thousands of kilometres through the countries of many different cultural groups. The corporate organisation that was required to maintain such expansive, shared cultural traditions was itself both extensive and highly sophisticated, necessitating the bringing together of large regional gatherings of many different cultural groups on an annual basis to perform the major ceremonies (song cycles) and at the same time to mediate shared cultural, social and economic interests. These gatherings, usually held during the wet season, required locations with plentiful water and food resources and were in themselves logistical feats. There are a number of locations in the study area that held such gatherings, for example, on the Katherine River at Manbulloo. Other similar sites are discussed below.

Indigenous hydrological knowledge The extent of Indigenous hydrological knowledge is evidenced by the richness of terms and concepts contained within local Aboriginal languages. Every aspect of water as a phenomena and a physical resource as well as the hydromorphological features it creates is represented and expressed in the languages of local Aboriginal cultures: mist, clouds, rain, hail, seasonal patterns of precipitation, floods and floodwater, river flows, rivers, creeks, waterholes, billabongs, springs, soaks, groundwater and aquifers, and the oceans (saltwater).


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The Jawoyn and Wardaman languages have a number of distinct terms for describing the different states and origins of natural waters. For example, the Jawoyn language has a term for water which is carbonated, or high in lime, maminga, which is regarded as ‘light water’. Wardaman have a parallel term, yigargin. Other kinds of ‘light water’ are derived from sandstone (igilarrang) and from rock puddles (yikalal). In contrast, water from igneous rocks, such as basalt, yiman wiyan, is regarded as ‘heavy’. Other types of water include yingol wiyan, which gets its sweet taste from being filtered through the dense root systems of paperbark trees, and water from trees (karrikbal), which is highly regarded for its medicinal uses. There are generic terms for springs – jirrngul in Jawoyn and jiyila in Wardaman – and recognition of the origin of the water from springs. The hydrological cycle and physical and ecological changes that occur with the wet season floodwaters are understood in detail. In the Wardaman language the first or new floodwaters are called yibalang and have different characteristics from the main floodwaters, or jarrang. Observational and experiential knowledge of water and hydrological phenomena are informed and shaped by customary relationships and cultural knowledge. This includes ritual knowledge associated with the creation activities of ancestral beings who brought or created the water and water sources that are present today. Some of this knowledge relates to information about underground waters and springs and their relationship with river flows. For example, local Aboriginal people know that water is maintained in the Katherine River during the dry season because of the inflow of groundwater from springs. However, they regard this as a consequence of the presence of Rainbow Serpents:

“The spring him fill up with water from the ground, so now him dry [dry season] … that river still runnin’ from that spring. Him bin that spring all the time. Important because that Rainbow Serpent they sit down there longa spring every time … When him dry you know that the spring gotta have him water because that Rainbol6 there.” 7

Wardaman traditional knowledge also recognises the role of Rainbow Serpents in creating and maintaining groundwater and springs, and provides explanation and details of the hydrogeology of local groundwater. This includes an understanding of the link through the underlying limestone strata, including the direction of flow, between the underground water contained in the Tindall Aquifer at Mataranka, and the water which emerges from the Tindall Aquifer at the Flora River (see below). In local Aboriginal understanding, then, every aspect of water – the hydrological cycle and hydromorphological features of the landscape, including streams, rivers, waterholes, billabongs, springs, and underground water – are explained by and have significance in relation to the Dreaming past-present.

6 Rainbol is the regional Aboriginal Kriol term for Rainbow Serpents. 7 Balany narwurrpbambulu, Manyallaluk, 7 June 2007.


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Rainbow serpents As suggested above, Rainbow Serpents, or Rainbol, are widely recognised and revered by Aboriginal people for their powers and special relationship to water, and are, in fact, recognised in the cultural traditions of Aboriginal groups throughout Australia. Jawoyn and Wardaman religious traditions recognise Rainbow Serpents as important and potentially-dangerous creation-beings, referred to in Jawoyn as Bolung and in Wardaman as Gorondolmi. There are many Rainbow Serpents, however there is also a hierarchy with some regarded as more important and dangerous, such as the original Rainbow Serpent from the saltwater, mentioned above. Rainbow Serpents are believed to be present in permanent, deep green pools, at springs, and at locations underground, particularly those associated with underground water. The Rainbow Serpents are also believed to be the drivers of the hydrological cycle and bringer of the wet season monsoon floods. There are many instances of recorded Aboriginal concern regarding disturbance of Rainbow Serpents within the study area, particularly associated with non-Indigenous activities. A number of Aboriginal accounts concern the killing of the resident Rainbow Serpents in the Katherine River under the present High Level Bridge, and at the main plunge pool at Edith Falls on the Edith River. In these cases, non-Indigenous people are alleged to have used dynamite to kill the Rainbow Serpents. Concern was also expressed by local Jawoyn people about the use of explosives in Katherine Gorge to deepen a boat landing to accommodate larger tour boats. Merlan and Rumsey (1982:52) reported that a meeting in 1981 of about 75 Jawoyn from Pine Creek, Katherine and Bamyili (now called Barunga) expressed strong opposition to the proposal. The work went ahead and the incident became a part of Aboriginal oral history in the Katherine region. It can be seen as a cautionary tale about the Rainbow Serpent and about the impacts of non-Indigenous activities on Aboriginal sacred sites. Local Aboriginal cultural traditions concerning the Rainbow Serpent also include beliefs regarding its travels and presence underground, including within the limestone formations of the Tindall Aquifer. Aboriginal conception of the Tindall Limestone formation is that it has tunnels or channels within it along which Rainbow Serpents travelled and which now channel the water in underground rivers. This is close to scientific understanding that water is held in the aquifer in fractures and cavities within the limestone. Wardaman elder, Bill Harney, recounted the travels of a Rainbow Serpent which followed an underground river, emerging first at a sinkhole at the Katherine Golf Course8, then emerging a second time at another sinkhole at the corner of the Stuart and Victoria Highways (this sinkhole was filled-in in 1968)9, and then a third time at the Cutta Cutta Caves10 before going underground again and heading south towards Elsie Station and beyond. The Wardaman language has a term, barlba, for this process of dreamings travelling or going underground.

8 This site is registered by the Aboriginal Areas Protection Authority, (5369-102). 9 A local elder [name withheld – recently deceased] has also provided accounts of an association of the Rainbow Serpent with this site to Merlan (1998) and to the author. 10 This is also a registered sacred site.


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Cultural practices and responsibilities relating to water Cultural practices relating to water are a consequence of belief in the continuing spiritual presence in the landscape of creation beings as well as more recent remembered and unremembered ancestors, or ‘old people’, returned to their countries as spirits. The animating spirits that become children are also believed to enter their mothers from water. This means that Aboriginal people consider the landscape as a living entity responsive to their actions and behaviour. People believe and will often remark, as they have done during this study, that when they are out in country “the old people are watching us”. Creation beings are also spiritually active in country, and spiritually present at the many sacred sites and sacred areas they inhabit. The spirits of old people and creator beings can not only watch but can also respond, and cause misfortune when people have not behaved correctly but also potentially helping those that do, for instance, in success in hunting or fishing.

Talking to country For these reasons, Aboriginal people regard it as cautionary to talk to the country and its spirits on approach. It is necessary to use the traditional language of the area because the country and spirits recognise it. It is usual to announce the reason for the visit and to mention if any strangers are present and to ask that they not be harmed. The following translation of an example of a local Jawoyn person talking to country was provided during the Katherine Land Claim:

“ [Name of Dreaming] I am here! I came on foot [from somewhere] but the grass is high, I’ll burn it. I want to fish here too. Give me flesh. Give us fat”. (Merlan and Rumsey 1982:51)

‘Watering’ strangers and others If strangers are brought into country it is necessary to introduce them to the country and spirits that would otherwise not recognise them and might therefore cause them and others harm. It is also necessary to do this for the children of local groups and those who are visiting dangerous areas, for example, where a Rainbow Serpent is present, for the first time. This usually involves “watering” the person. Water and sweat are the medium for introducing strangers to country. These are regarded as powerful spiritual substances - water in relation to the spirits residing in country, and sweat in relation to a person’s spirit. Country can recognise the sweat of traditional owners, but not that of strangers. Methods of watering vary to some degree but all involve wetting the stranger’s head with water either blown from the mouth or wiped on with the hand by a local person. This practice is called jololma-wendi-wiyan in Wardaman and pam-kiwk-ma(ma)ng in Jawoyn.


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A rock or sand can also be rubbed with sweat under the armpits and thrown into the water. During the study, a number of local Aboriginal people recounted instances where country had reacted adversely to a stranger’s presence. A Jawoyn resident of Jodetluk told of an incident in which a wild wind sprang up on the return to camp of a party which included strangers who had not been properly introduced to the country. She also recounted how when she went camping at Nitmiluk with her young baby daughter for the first time, her daughter developed a fever which was attributed to the old people not recognising her. So her mother rubbed her sweat on the baby’s head and washed it with water from the site. The baby’s fever soon passed. A Jawoyn elder explained the need to introduce people to country “so him can't make it rain or anything like that or make it sick. For Jawoyn and for everyone, whitefella or black one, well him bin important for all.” 11

Restrictions on behaviour and activities At some water sites certain behaviours and activities are not permitted under Aboriginal tradition. This can include restrictions on access by women and children, restrictions on swimming or fishing or drinking water, or activities that might disturb the dreaming. A Jawoyn elder talked about restrictions relating to water sites at Katherine Gorge that she was taught about. Women and girls were not allowed inside the gorge, only men. Fishing was only allowed downstream from approximately where the boat ramp is now located. People were also not allowed to swim in the vicinity. At one site people were not allowed to drink water unless there was a significant flow of floodwater to displace or ‘push’ the dangerous water. A Wardaman elder explained how children are told not to throw rocks in the water or make noise at significant springs. Such behaviour may make the spring dry up. Children are also told not to fish close to locations where flying fox are camped in trees above deep water. Flying fox are regarded as the children of the Rainbow Serpent and their presence indicates danger in the water. Another important and closely-followed rule is that the bones and remains of any fish caught must be burnt in the fire and not thrown away. To not do so will upset the dreaming for the site and make the spirits of old people “feel no good”.

Protecting others from harm Traditional owners have a responsibility to protect others from harm as a result of inadvertently disturbing the spirits within country and the sites associated with them. In relation to water, the Rainbow Serpent, is regarded as being very powerful and potentially

11 Balany narwurrpbambulu, Manyallaluk, 7 June 2007.


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very dangerous if disturbed or annoyed, however there are other dreamings which are also regarded as potentially harmful if disturbed. Ways of protecting others from harm include talking to country and “watering” strangers as described above, and taking measures to try to ensure that strangers don’t access or carry out inappropriate actions at sacred sites. Such measures have included warning non-Indigenous people about the dangers of disturbing sites. For example, in the early 1980s warnings were given by Jawoyn elders of the dangers of disturbing the resident Rainbow Serpent by the proposed blasting of rocks in the second gorge at Nitmiluk National Park. Similarly, in the 1990s, Wardaman elders warned of the danger to non-Indigenous people if they swam at a deep waterhole inhabited by a dangerous dreaming at the Flora River Nature Park. It is common for local Aboriginal people to attribute drownings of tourists and others to their having disturbed resident Rainbow Serpents. A more recently-available option which has been used by traditional owners has been to utilise formal protection mechanisms such as are offered by the Sacred Sites (NT) Act 1989 to signpost and, where necessary, fence off sacred sites (see below).

Management and protection of sites Traditional owners have a responsibility to look after significant cultural sites and to ensure that customary maintenance and management activities are carried out. Such activities include visiting sites and using them for traditional purposes such as hunting, fishing and collecting customary resources, burning the grass around sites to “clean them up”, cleaning springs and soaks, and carrying out ritual and ceremonies associated with sites. Factors such as the alienation of land, construction of fences, and constraints associated with land within municipal boundaries have impacted significantly on the ability of traditional owners to carry out such activities. The alienation of land and encroachment on sites through non-Indigenous ownership and access to land has also greatly increased the potential for sites to be inadvertently damaged or destroyed. In some such cases warnings and other informal means of avoiding interference with sites are not sufficient and Aboriginal traditional owners have sought formal cultural heritage protection under the Sacred Sites Act (see below).

Significant cultural water sites in the study area Significant cultural water sites within the study area include rivers and creeks and their associated features, including gorges, waterfalls, plunge pools, waterholes, billabongs and springs; and areas away from river and creek beds such as seasonally inundated swampy areas and isolated rockholes and springs. As discussed above, the underground waters, including the water of the Tindall Aquifer, are themselves significant and feature in Aboriginal ritual knowledge. This is an important issue that remains largely unaddressed in management and planning contexts, including in relation to heritage protection and the current water planning processes. These issues will be discussed further below.


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The groundwater-fed baseflows of the Katherine and Flora Rivers and, to a lesser extent, the upper and lower portions of the King River, provide permanent water sources that sustain ecologically-rich ecosystems and are correspondingly rich in the occurrence of Aboriginal cultural sites and patterns of occupation and use.

Springs Springs are culturally-important to local Aboriginal people, with the water emanating from springs itself being regarded as a significant feature created by Rainbow Serpents. Two very significant springs for Aboriginal people in the Katherine area are Jamanbukjang (Katherine Hot Springs) and Bulkbulkbaya, a spring at the Flora River, both of which emanate directly from limestone formations associated with the Tindall Aquifer. In Wardaman tradition, the spring at the Flora River was made by the Black-Headed Python, Walujapi, who thrust a digging stick into the ground. Walujapi pushed the digging stick through till it reached the spring water near Mataranka, and the water flowed back, creating the spring at the Flora River. Groundwater hydrological studies have shown that the water within the Tindall Aquifer does indeed flow from the Mataranka area of the aquifer towards the Flora River.

Waterholes and billabongs There are numerous waterholes and billabongs within the study area that are significant to local Aboriginal people. Some of these are significant as fishing and camping locations, but many have, in addition, significance as sites associated with ancestral beings. For example, in preparing this report the principal researcher visited a number of significant waterholes and billabongs on the King River in Manbulloo Station with traditional owners for the area. These sites are all permanent waters, fed from the underground waters of the Tindall Aquifer. The course of the King River in which the sites are located also carries a very small baseflow in the dry season, fed from the same source (George 2001). Importantly, traditional knowledge regarding these sites contained in the relevant song cycle, records the source of the water as originating from the Tindall Aquifer through the actions of the Rainbow Serpent:

“that’s the water comin’ now from Elsie, he go past la [named waterhole on King River] ‘nother side, underground longa [named waterholes on King River], straight past limestone, you know, la [site name], go underneath that Scott Creek, come out right there longa that fig tree, [named spring at the Flora River]. Because that sing [song-cycle] follow that line now that we know that water there now underneath see. That’s why how come we know that water [is] there… that’s what the song say”.


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All of the waterholes also have fringing vegetation which includes trees which are spiritually-significant features of the sites, having been left there by the Rainbow Serpent and other dreamings. This includes dimalan (River Redgum) (see image below) and wularin (Freshwater Mangrove) trees which are said to “keep the water up” at the sites. Wularin was first used as a fish poison by ancestral beings who left the trees at the waterholes for the use of subsequent generations. Vegetation regarded as being spiritually-significant elements of sacred sites, either as transformations of ancestral beings or as resources used by them, are common features in the region, particularly along watercourses and at cultural water sites (Cooper 2000). Similar occurrences are found throughout central, northern and other parts of Australia.

Photo 3 Dimalanji (Gum Hole) on the King River, Manbulloo Station.

Karst features Limestone formations associated with the Tindall Limestone formation include sinkholes and other karstic features, such as tufa dams. Some of these are significant to Aboriginal people, being associated with the Rainbow Serpent. The Cutta Cutta Caves are said to be one of the locations where a Rainbow Serpent emerged from its underground travels through the Tindall limestone system. The Kintore Caves is also a significant location and has a Rainbow Serpent painting. Both Cutta Cutta and Kintore have been gazetted as


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Reserves for their karstic features. Kathleen Falls, a tufa dam on the Flora River, is also associated with the Rainbow Serpent.

Sites used for ceremonial purposes The availability of water was important for carrying out ceremonies, particularly those requiring large gatherings of people. In many cases, ceremonial areas were located at sites of related mythological significance, but even where they were not, the fact that ceremonies were carried out at a location attaches a special significance to the site. There are a number of sites within the study area where ceremonies have been carried out in the past, mostly along the Katherine River. Ceremony grounds have been recorded at Delerrmiluk (Knott’s Crossing), and Dulukurrlula (Donkey Camp), upstream from the town, and within the present town area on the eastern bank of the river south of the High Level bridge. Downstream of the town there was a major ceremony ground near Rockhole which was used prior to World War II. The vicinity of Rockhole was a longstanding camping area associated with this ceremony ground, and this was a factor when local Aboriginal people selected it for the location of the Rockhole community. When Binjarri community was established following the removal of the Aboriginal station community from Manbulloo, its location was strategically chosen between two ceremony areas downstream from Manbulloo homestead. These sites were used during the period when the Aboriginal community lived on Manbulloo, being a safe distance downstream from the homestead. An important ceremony ground was also located at the junction of the Flora and Katherine rivers. There are also sites where ancestral beings carried out ceremonies during the creation period and these are also located at important permanent water sources. For example, ancestral beings held a major ceremony at Yijawuy, a billabong near a creek junction with the Katherine River in the vicinity of Springvale Homestead. Wardaman ancestral beings performed ceremony at a site at the junction of the Flora River and Mathison Creek at a site known as Uburlbanya.

Utilisation of cultural water sites in the study area Current utilisation of cultural water sites in the study area is influenced by a range of factors: current patterns of residence and access to vehicles; knowledge of the cultural associations of sites and historic patterns of Aboriginal use; the particular experiences of individuals in visiting sites with their elders and families; the availability of access, and uses associated with cultural tourism and other economic uses of traditional lands. Alienation of land through non-Indigenous acquisition, land uses and management practices prevents access to large sections of the rivers and streams and many cultural water sites. Most Aboriginal usage of water sites includes fishing, whether or not that is the primary reason for visiting a location.


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It is noteworthy that all Aboriginal communities within the study area are near or adjacent to significant cultural water sites and water sources which are visited and used by community members. This is reflective of traditional patterns of residence and use of country. Since white settlement, locations chosen by Aboriginal groups for permanent communities have often included important or vulnerable sacred sites or significant natural features in the knowledge that this will provide a means of protecting them. Current utilisation of cultural water sites also includes an economic component related to Aboriginal cultural tourism. Local communities are interested in further developing this kind of activity because of the employment and education benefits offered and its compatibility with customary priorities, including the maintenance of cultural knowledge. Sustaining the quality of these water bodies demands consideration of their water requirements. The following description of the utilisation of cultural water sites within the study area has been divided into key sections along the major rivers.

Upper Katherine River (Katherine Gorge to Katherine Hot Springs) A number of sites within this section are used for tourism activity, particularly Nitmiluk (Katherine Gorge). The community of Jodetluk is located near the Katherine River not far from the mouth of Katherine Gorge. Members of Jodetluk community utilise cultural sites on the Katherine River and in the vicinity of the community for fishing and recreation. Actual fishing spots on the Katherine River vary from year to year subject to the physical changes to the bed and banks of the river wrought each wet-season flood time. Jodetluk residents also regularly use a site upstream on Maude Creek as a weekend camping and fishing site. In the past the lower reaches of Maude Creek were regularly used for fishing and camping, however alienation of land to private property has closed access to much of Maude Creek. Over the past few decades, the section of the Katherine River between Maude Creek and Knott’s crossing has largely been alienated from access by private blocks which extend right down to the river. Donkey Camp and Knott’s Crossing, located further downstream towards Katherine, are both sites with cultural significance and historical association for many people. The former is now more difficult to access and is seldom visited, while the latter has public vehicular access and continues to be accessed by local Aboriginal people. Kalano community is located on the western side of the Katherine River north of the High Level Bridge. The area in which it is located has been used for Aboriginal camps since the establishment of non-Indigenous permanent occupation in the vicinity. Kalano residents use adjacent areas of the Katherine River for fishing and other purposes.


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An old section of Katherine township with residential housing stretches along the southern bank of the Katherine River immediately downstream of the highway and effectively alienates this section of the river from Aboriginal use.

Mid Katherine River (Katherine Hot Springs to Galloping Jacks) In the 1950s and 60s significant Aboriginal communities were located along this stretch of the river at the CSIRO camp opposite Katherine Hot Springs, and at Old Manbulloo Homestead. Areas of the river adjacent to these communities were extensively used by Aboriginal residents. The CSIRO camp closed in the late 1960s and the community at Manbulloo was moved off in 1974. High tourist visitation at the hot springs and the use of the old homestead area for a private tourist venture means that these locations are no longer accessed.

Photo 4. Katherine Hot Springs which is also a registered sacred site.

The Low Level Crossing (Gawutjwutjma) has been developed as a public picnic area and swimming spot and although well-used by tourists and non-Indigenous residents, it also continues to be visited and used by local Aboriginal people. The grassy picnic area has a long history of use as a location for Aboriginal meetings and gatherings.


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Photo 5: Low-level crossing (Gawutjwutjma) on Katherine River, downstream of Katherine. Much of the river between Low Level and Galloping Jacks is occupied by private blocks and is not accessible for Aboriginal people. This includes the Lilly Ponds, a resource-rich wetland area on the western side of the river along the Florina Road. This is a significant cultural site and was an important food harvesting place.

Lower Katherine River (Galloping Jacks to Flora junction) Much of the Katherine River between Galloping Jacks and the Flora junction is also not accessible to Aboriginal people as it is occupied on the northern side by private blocks and on the southern side by pastoral leases. Rockhole community, set up in the mid-1970s, is located on the western side of the Katherine River downstream of the township. The community is close to a site which was an important regional ceremony ground and to an important catfish Dreaming site. Rockhole residents, many of the families of which formerly lived at the CSIRO camp, use adjacent areas of the Katherine River for fishing and recreation. Binjari community is located on the eastern side of the Katherine River on land which was formerly part of Manbulloo Station. The Binjari community was set up in the mid-1970s when the former station community was moved off Manbulloo Station. The site was chosen because of its location midway between two important ceremony areas and residents utilise adjacent areas of the Katherine River for fishing and other uses.


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Flora River Access to the Flora River for Aboriginal people was enhanced by the acquisition of formerly pastoral land in the 1990s to establish the Flora River Nature Park, and by the granting of an excision adjacent to the river on which the small community of Djarrung is located. The area is also regularly visited by Aboriginal people resident in Katherine who have cultural connections to the area. The Nature Park is one of the parks included in the renegotiation of joint management arrangements with Aboriginal traditional owners. Traditional owners are interested in river-based tourism opportunities within the Park. The Park contains many important recorded and registered sacred sites along the river.

Photo 6. NT Parks & Wildlife Rangers and Griffith University researcher discussing fisheries research in Flora River Nature Park


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Upper King River Because of its accessibility and relative lack of use by non-Indigenous locals, Aboriginal people from the region frequently visit sites along the upper section of the King River for fishing and recreation. There are a number of registered sacred sites along the river.

Lower King River The lower section of the King River is located within Manbulloo Pastoral Lease and is therefore not easily accessible to local Aboriginal people. As part of the fieldwork research for this report a visit to key cultural water sites on the King River was organised with the manager of Manbulloo. The Wardaman traditional owners have expressed a strong desire to seek permission for regular access to, and to seek protection for, their important cultural sites along the river.

Edith River Werenbun community is located on the Edith River, not far from the popular tourist attraction and important sacred site of Edith Falls (Leylin). However tourist visitation is controlled within a limited area around and above the plunge pool, leaving the downstream sections of the river available for free access by members of Werenbun community and other Aboriginal people visiting the area. It is a favoured area for turtles and is also regarded as a safe place for children due to the relative absence of saltwater crocodiles.

Other sites There are some cultural water sites visited and utilised by local Aboriginal people which are not situated on a major river or creek. One such site is Leech Lagoon (Wubilawun), a low swampy area in the north-eastern corner of the study area. The site is a turtle dreaming and is registered as a sacred site (5468-2). It was a favoured location for hunting long-necked turtle.


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Part Three

Formal protection and management of cultural water sites Significant cultural water sites falling under the definition of a sacred site12 are protected under the commonwealth Land Rights (NT) Act 1976 (Land Rights Act) and the complementary Northern Territory Aboriginal Sacred Sites (NT) Act 1989 (Sacred Sites Act). These acts provide statutory protection against unauthorised entry and damage to all sacred sites in the Northern Territory, wherever these occur, including on freehold and leasehold land. The Sacred Sites Act provides a process for the registration of sacred sites which has the effect that Magistrates and Judges accept this as prima facie evidence that the site is a sacred site. A further effect of registration is that developments affecting registered sacred sites are required to have an Authority Certificate which sets out the conditions of any works permitted on or in the vicinity of the site. The traditional owners of the study area have sought formal registration of a number of sites under the Sacred Sites Act. There are approximately 25 registered sites within the study area that include culturally-significant water features. Registered sites include the Katherine Hot Spring, Jamanbukjang (5369-100), numerous sites including an important spring at the Flora River, and important waterholes on all the major rivers within the study area. However, only a small fraction of all cultural water sites are registered or recorded. Although, the Sacred Sites Act also provides rights of entry to Aboriginal custodians “in accordance with Aboriginal tradition” even if sites are located on private property, in practice such access is seldom sought. The reasons for this are complex, involving historical and cross-cultural factors which are discussed further below.

Potential for protecting water sites under heritage legislation The full extent of the powers for protecting sacred sites and associated customary practices and use under the Sacred Sites Act is rarely used. This is partly due to the extent to which the Act is used to address non-Indigenous requests for land use or access approvals, where emphasis is placed on reaching mutual agreement between landowners/land users and Aboriginal custodians. The legislation is relatively untested with respect to the extent and types of features of significance which can be registered and afforded protection under the Act. Registration is usually sought for individual sites. However, there are instances of site complexes being registered and even whole sections of dreaming tracks which include multiple and interconnected features of significance.

12 A sacred site is defined under the Land Rights (NT) Act 1976 as “a site that is sacred to Aboriginals or is otherwise of significance according to Aboriginal tradition”.


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In this respect it should be noted that, under the terms of the Sacred Sites Act, the water flowing from springs is a sacred or significant feature of such sites according to Aboriginal tradition, and would appear to be protected under the Act. So too is underground water where it is specifically regarded as of dreaming origin, and where it feeds springs and waterholes that are regarded as sacred sites. The implications of protections provided under heritage legislation vis-à-vis the allocation and trading of water in the Katherine area warrants investigation and is further considered below.

Native Title protection of waters The Native Title Act 1993 (Cth) does not confer full property rights in fresh water, only partial rights covering customary uses (Altman 2004). However, this includes the right to protect sites or areas of significance that include waters (Jackson and Morrison 2007). Native title claimants in Katherine have asserted that right over various waters, including parts of the Katherine River, within the claim area. In consequence, as noted by Altman (2004), there is the potential for legal recourse and compensation if customary use is impaired by commercial or other uses, such as might occur as a result of the impacts of water allocation and trading. The implications of native title rights vis-à-vis the allocation and trading of water in the Katherine area warrants further investigation (see below).

Impediments to continued customary use of water sources The study has identified three principal impediments to continued customary use of water sources in the Katherine area, detailed below. The first relates to the impacts of the alienation of water sources by non-Indigenous acquisition and occupation of land containing such sites. The second relates to the damage or destruction of water sources through the impacts of land uses and natural processes. The third impediment relates to the loss of cultural knowledge of water sites through the inability to pass on knowledge and to show sites to younger generations.

Alienation of water sources The history of non-Indigenous settlement of the study area has involved the progressive alienation of land for pastoral, mining, residential and commercial/industrial purposes. While Aboriginal people enjoyed continued, though conditional, access to water sources for customary purposes during the period when they worked and lived on pastoral stations, this changed dramatically with the movement of Aboriginal people off the stations in the period between the mid-1960s and about 1980.


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In 1974, the remaining Aboriginal residents on Manbulloo Pastoral Lease were removed by the Manbulloo manager and many moved to set up a new community at Binjari, downstream of the homestead. This resulted in the loss of access to sites on Manbulloo. During the present study a site visit was organised to visit culturally-significant permanent waterholes on the King River in Manbulloo. These sites, amongst the most culturally-significant sites for Wardaman traditional owners, had not been regularly accessed since the mid-1970s, and, in the case of the senior traditional owner who led the site visit, since 1957 – a period of fifty years. Although Aboriginal custodians have a right to visit sacred sites on pastoral and other lands, the existence of fences and locked gates often makes it impossible to access such areas and Aboriginal people are also wary of approaching unfamiliar pastoral managers to seek access. Jawoyn residents of Jodetluk noted the lack of ability to access sites traditionally used by them along the Katherine River and Maude Creek due to the subdivision of freehold blocks and their acquisition by non-Indigenous people. In some cases, previous relationships established with the non-Indigenous land owners has allowed access to continue on a request by request basis. However, it unusual for Aboriginal people to approach unfamiliar non-Indigenous landowners to seek such access and some landowners are not sympathetic to granting such access. The effective alienation of sites from Aboriginal access can also occur where sites become subject to intensive visitation and use by non-Indigenous people. An example is the Katherine Hot Spring, known to local Aboriginal people as Jamunbukjang. The spring and surrounding section of the Katherine River were once frequented by local Aboriginal people for swimming, fishing and camping. [Name withheld – recently deceased] described how she and her extended family regularly used the area. During the period from the end of the Second World War to the late 1960s, when the CSIRO agricultural research station was located on the western side of the river near the Hot Springs, the large resident Aboriginal population also frequently used the area. Since the Hot Springs has become a popular site for tourists to swim, Aboriginal people rarely visit the site.

Damage to or destruction of water sources In some instances the physical elements of cultural water sources have been damaged or destroyed by the effects of non-Indigenous land uses or through natural processes. Wardaman elder, Bill Harney, described profound impacts that he has observed on numerous cultural water sources, principally through silting or blocking up with sand, silt or gravel.


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Photo 7. Kanarwiyn-ya (Redbank Lagoon), on King River, Manbulloo Station Some of these impacts can be directly attributed to land uses, such as pastoralism. During the course of this study we visited a number of culturally-significant waterholes and billabongs on the King River on Manbulloo Station that had (in 1957) deep, permanent water but which were shallower or dry at the time of the visit (during the dry season of 2007). These sites appear to have had largely unrestricted access by cattle, which have, over time, broken down the banks and contributed to soil erosion runoff into the waterholes and billabongs (see photos 7-11). All the water sources visited had significantly-reduced depths and extent of water present. At one significant billabong, Bill Harney indicated an old Eucalypt (dimalan) tree which used to stand at the water’s edge but which now stands some 20 metres from the present edge of the billabong (see photos 8-9 below).


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Photo 8 Janarray-ya (Cow Eye Lagoon) on Manbulloo Station.

Photo 9. Janarray-ya (Cow Eye Lagoon) on Manbulloo Station showing previous extent of water (near eucalypt on right).


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Another noticeable impact since the sites were last visited was the lack of water lilies in all but one of the waterholes. Water lilies are an important traditional economic resource and an important ecological component of natural water sources and were previously present at all the sites visited. In other cases, such as waterholes within the Katherine River, erosive and alluvial processes associated with wet season flooding may have been major contributing factors in causing significant changes to river morphology and to cultural water sites within the river system. It was not possible, on the basis of research for this report, to evaluate the contribution of human impacts or activity in causing the observed changes to water sources on the Katherine River described below. Bill Harney described significant changes he has observed along the Katherine River between the Flora junction and the Katherine Hot Spring over a number of decades:13

• At the Flora-Katherine junction there used to be a deep hole with sand on one side where turtles used to lay their eggs. Now the junction is all gravel and shallow.

• Upstream from the Flora junction was a deep hole known as Barramundi Hole

with shale banks above it. Now the hole has been filled by sand and there is only a thin strip of water at the bank.

• Further upstream at the Scott Creek-Limestone Creek junction there used be a big

sandbank on the opposite side of the river. Bill remembers this location as having a lot of freshwater crocodiles and barramundi and was a nesting place for turtles. The weed and sandbank have gone, replaced by a shallow, gravel bottom.

• Further upstream at the King River junction was a deep hole above which in the

early 1950s was a cattle yard. A couple of years ago when Bill visited the location the hole had been filled by a large sand bar, leaving a narrow channel running on one side.

• Further upstream was another deep hole at a place called Leichhardt Yard, below

Galloping Jacks. When Bill visited the location about five years ago he was surprised to see it full of sand.

• Upstream from the Katherine Hot Springs was a deep hole where you couldn't

touch the bottom. This part of the river is all shallow now. It is clear, then, that there have been significant changes to cultural water sites along both the King and Katherine Rivers, and although cattle have almost certainly had an impact on the King River sites, it not as clear what processes have contributed to the changes to the Katherine River. However, the fact that these sites are cultural sites which all had the

13 We had intended to visit these locations during the study but there was insufficient time.


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common characteristic of deep water, suggests their physical state was relatively stable for some time up until the period over which significant change has occurred (the past forty to fifty years). This leaves open the possibility that the changes are to a significant extent human-induced. It is also clear that, as all the sites described above are culturally-significant, the changes which have occurred have diminished the cultural amenity of the sites for the traditional owners. There is, therefore, the need to consider possible rehabilitation and remediation measures. This will require improved research and monitoring to better understand the causes of change, identify when negative changes are occurring, and to develop appropriate rehabilitation and remediation responses.

Photo 10. Wongala lagoon on the King River on Manbulloo Station In the case of cultural water sources visited on the King River, this should include measures to exclude the unrestricted access of cattle by the use of fencing and strategic watering points. Such measures should also be aimed at re-establishing water lilies and other aquatic plant species that are important to the cultural and ecological values of the water sources.


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Photo 11. Manjani waterhole on the King River on Manbulloo Station, showing unrestricted cattle access. Depletion or capture of natural flows can also damage or impair the cultural values of water sources. This could be caused by water being held back in storage dams or from the over-extraction of water directly from rivers. There are currently no major dams on the Katherine River, although there have been dams proposed in the past and similar proposals could emerge in the future. Dams, of course, also require the flooding of natural stretches of rivers within which there will almost certainly be significant cultural sites, including water sites. Experience from past proposals to construct dams on the Katherine River demonstrated that there was considerable concern expressed by traditional owners. For example, in 1981 meetings of Jawoyn traditional owners expressed strong opposition to the proposed damming of the Katherine River because it would submerge and destroy many sites (Merlan and Rumsey 1982). Similar concerns were expressed to me during the course of this research. Over-extraction from the Katherine River also currently appears not to be a problem, however, this remains a critical issue for water management, particularly as demand for water use increases. Pumping directly from the Katherine River is regulated, as is the extraction of underground water from the Tindall Aquifer which provides the dry season baseflows for the river. The task of the Katherine Water Allocation Plan will be to set in place allocation levels and monitoring measures that will ensure that these baseflows are not put at risk (see


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below). However, the efficacy of yet-to-be-finalised allocation and monitoring measures to prevent over-allocation is uncertain and there remains the possibility that the springs which are of considerable cultural significance to their Aboriginal customary owners may be damaged by over-allocation. This is discussed further below.

Loss of cultural and ritual knowledge Customary use of water sources depends on some degree of direct knowledge of the location and significance of relevant water sources. Loss of such knowledge or the lack of capacity to pass it on therefore poses a significant impediment to ongoing cultural use and amenity. This is particularly urgent in the case of the song-cycles which contain information about important features and resources in the landscape, including water sources, some of which, as we have seen, include sophisticated and well-observed hydrological knowledge. On one level, these represent intricate and irreplaceable resource maps which, if not recorded and passed on, will constitute a huge loss to current generations as well as to the broader community. There are two significant issues here which are relevant to local Aboriginal groups: the loss of knowledge through the attrition of those, particularly older people, with direct knowledge and experience of customary water sources; and, the lack of capacity to pass such knowledge on to younger generations. The study acknowledges the loss of many local elders who had direct experience of country, particularly through their association with pastoral work and travels on country with family groups, or who possessed the requisite detailed ritual knowledge through participation in ceremonies and knowledge passed on from elders. During the course of this project three senior Jawoyn elders with considerable traditional knowledge of the study area died, highlighting how tenuous this knowledge-base is and how urgent is the task to conserve and pass on existing knowledge. Both the Jawoyn Association and Wardaman Association have sought to address this issue through developing cultural education programs to document the knowledge of elders and to give young people opportunities for visiting cultural sites and learning about their traditional cultures and sites from their elders. For example, in 2004 the Wardaman Association negotiated funding from the Northern Land Council to house a cultural school for young Wardaman people at Menggen. The project funded week-long courses in dancing and traditional law as part of an effort to educate Wardaman people who missed initiation about their traditional culture. With more resources at its disposal, the Jawoyn Association has developed many projects aimed at or incorporating the recording and transmission of traditional knowledge. A recent project involves recording rock art sites and associated traditional knowledge in the escarpment areas in the northern section of Jawoyn traditional lands. It is intended that the project will contribute to the further development of Jawoyn cultural tourism


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enterprises and provide opportunities to learn traditional knowledge and develop skills and employment in cultural resource management. However, there have been and continue to be significant resource and capacity issues which affect the ability to carry out this important work in a sufficient and timely fashion. During the course of this study both the Jawoyn and Wardaman Associations have identified cultural knowledge retention projects that they regard as critical to the futures of young Jawoyn and Wardaman and as extremely urgent due to the age and frailty of knowledgeable elders, but for which they are struggling to find sufficient funding and/or the organisational capacity to carry out. This is an area where it is strongly recommended that even a modest increase in resources made available from outside funding bodies, both government and non-government, would deliver substantial dividends in the form of the retention and transmission of traditional knowledge and, as importantly, the health and well-being of members of the community. Recent research suggests that positive engagement with traditional lands and cultural knowledge boosts confidence and self-esteem and has implications for improving long-term health outcomes (Luckert et al 2007). It is important to note that where funding is made available for the purposes of recording and transmitting traditional knowledge attention must be given to:

• Allowing broad scope to projects in terms of the structure of fieldwork activities and the breadth of recording of traditional knowledge so that the project delivers the maximum benefit to the community in terms of their particular circumstances and needs;

• Ensuring that Aboriginal groups are provided with resources to develop or access

proper audio-visual archival storage and access facilities and systems which are controlled by the community according to established legal and ethical guidelines and which protect the rights of legal copyright owners14;

• Building capacity, particularly in skills and training, of members of the

community in which the project is being conducted. Although discretely-funded projects can provide for urgent cultural knowledge salvage and retention work, more substantial and longer-term benefit is gained from permanent jobs and employment which are based on or which incorporate cultural knowledge, including traditional ecological knowledge and land management skills. There are three main areas of employment for Aboriginal communities which offer these opportunities: cultural tourism enterprises; ranger positions and cultural and environmental resource

14 Comprehensive guidelines for the storage and management of audio-visual archival material is provided by the Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS). http://www.aiatsis.gov.au/audiovisual_archives/audiovisual_archives_collection_management_policy_manual (accessed Nov 2007).


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management activities in national parks and reserves; and ‘caring for country’ type projects or enterprises on Aboriginal-owned land. Cultural tourism enterprises have been established by both the Jawoyn and Wardaman, although there remains considerable potential to develop and expand such enterprises in the Katherine region and to increase the numbers of Aboriginal people employed in them. In the 1990s the Jawoyn Association established the award-winning Manyallaluk Tours at Eva Valley and bought a 50% share of Nitmiluk Tours. In 2001 they established Jawoyn Tourism Development which includes the mentoring of trainees, course development work and delivery and job placements. In 2006 the Jawoyn Association bought out the remaining 50% stake in Nitmiluk Tours. The Wardaman have involvement in cultural tours to locations, including rock art sites, on Innesvale Station (Mengen), west of Katherine. However these enterprises are not owned or controlled by Wardaman and the Wardaman Association is keen to establish community-owned cultural tourism enterprises on their traditional lands. There is also limited employment of rangers in national parks and reserves. A Wardaman trainee ranger is employed at the Flora River Nature Park, for which there is a joint management arrangement between Wardaman Traditional Owners and the Northern Territory Parks and Wildlife Service.15 In 2002 over half the available ranger positions in Nitmiluk National Park were filled by Aboriginal staff.16 Currently, there are 8 Aboriginal people employed as rangers or trainees in Nitmiluk, 5 of which are full-time. Cultural and natural resource management activities also provide an avenue for Aboriginal employment although such work is usually carried out on a project by project basis. Caring for country projects also offer ways for cultural knowledge and skills to be preserved and passed on through activities that can also generate income for communities through improved environmental outcomes. For example, the Jawoyn are involved in an innovative carbon abatement project in which land managers in western Arnhem Land are paid $1million a year over the next 17 years to manage fire more effectively by reinstating Indigenous fire regimes which limit the incidence of wildfires. A number of Jawoyn are currently employed in the project. This is an example of what Altman (Altman 2007) refers to as a “hybrid economy” - one that seeks to integrate state and market economies with customary economies. Indigenous employment in natural resource management activities can generate both environmental and economic benefits for Indigenous communities as well as contributing to the maintenance and strengthening of cultural knowledge and activities.

15 See http://www.nt.gov.au/nreta/parks/manage/joint/news/naturepark.html (accessed Nov 2007). 16 Although not all of these were Jawoyn. See http://www.nt.gov.au/nreta/parks/manage/plans/pdf/nitmiluk_part_1_2_3.pdf (accessed Nov 2007).


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There is a significant potential to develop “hybrid economy” projects and enterprises on Aboriginal land which may apply to cultural water sources as well as environmental protection of rivers and other aquatic ecosystems. One such example recently announced by the Federal Government is the Working on Country program17 which provides funding for environmental work that incorporates Aboriginal employment in caring for country activities that align with government environmental responsibilities. The program encourages projects that include the participation of elders, women and young people and which facilitate the active transfer of knowledge. Its limitations are that it currently applies only to Aboriginal-owned lands (although it will consider projects on private land), and requires an existing environmental management plan or framework. Less-resourced groups and those whose traditional lands have been alienated by non-Indigenous-owned private or leasehold tenures, such as the Wardaman, have limited capacity to meet such guidelines. Their situation illustrates a gap in present policy and funding around support for the aspirations of Aboriginal groups to undertake caring for country activities.

The role of Aboriginal organisations in mediating customary water rights and interests Within the context of complex planning and development processes over land use, including issues with significant financial and commercial implications such as water allocation, customary rights and interests, as well as Aboriginal economic interests, Aboriginal people are vulnerable to being over-looked or left out of decision-making processes. Aboriginal organisations have increasingly played an important role in protecting and mediating the customary rights and interests of Aboriginal groups and individuals and in facilitating economic development of their traditional lands. In the Katherine area, Aboriginal groups have developed representative bodies based on but not exclusively adhering to, broader-scale language group identity. The two principal Aboriginal representative organisations in the Katherine area are the Jawoyn Association and the Wardaman Association. It is indicative of the significance of the roles of such organisations as outlined above that these were the bodies approached to mediate and represent Aboriginal interests with respect to this project.

The Jawoyn Association The Jawoyn Association is a representative organisation which represents the interests of Jawoyn and other people who have associations with Jawoyn country in the Katherine region. The Association represents and promotes the views and aspirations of traditional landowners in relation to the management, protection, control, and development of

17 See http://www.environment.gov.au/indigenous/workingoncountry/index.html for details of this program.


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Jawoyn traditional lands. Providing for the general social welfare of Jawoyn clans is one of the objectives of the Association. The Jawoyn were fortunate to have had amongst their traditional lands significant areas of unalienated crown land which were available for claim under the Aboriginal Land Rights (NT) Act. The success of the Jawoyn (Katherine Area) Land Claim enabled the Jawoyn to negotiate the lease-back of the Nitmiluk (Katherine Gorge) National Park, containing the premier tourist attraction of the region (Katherine Gorge), to the then NT Conservation Commission. The resulting Nitmiluk (Katherine Gorge) National Park Memorandum of Lease sets out the provisions for the lease of land and includes agreement, amongst other things, for the protection of Aboriginal cultural rights and interests and for the provision of Aboriginal training and employment. The Jawoyn Association has been able to develop a well-resourced secretariat with the capacity to respond to land use issues and to pursue opportunities for commercial enterprises and joint-ventures that have benefited the Jawoyn community, including through the provision of employment and training opportunities. Jawoyn representatives also sit on a number of boards and committees and are able to directly input into decision-making regarding various land use and resource management issues. One such committee is the Katherine Water Advisory Committee (see below). However, the Jawoyn Association is also limited in its capacity due to the extensive range of issues and complex projects and bodies which it is required to administer and respond to. As a consequence, the Association has not had the opportunity to fully engage with the issues surrounding developments in water policy, including the water allocation process currently underway.

The Wardaman Association The Wardaman Association presents a somewhat contrasting picture to that of the Jawoyn Association. Wardaman traditional lands comprise mainly pastoral lands which were already alienated and therefore not available for claim under the Land Rights Act.18 This has had the impact of denying the Wardaman the opportunity to develop a sufficient economic base to support a permanent secretariat to carry out the aims and functions of the Association. The ramifications of this have been to lessen the organisation’s ability to respond to land use issues, develop opportunities for commercial enterprises and to fund community development and social welfare projects. There is the need for governments and other authorities and bodies involved in decision-making over land issues to acknowledge the resource difficulties faced by the Wardaman Association and to provide additional support to ensure that Wardaman people are able to properly respond in a manner that protects their cultural and economic interests.

18 Although, as a result of the purchase of a pastoral lease, Innesvale Station, the Wardaman were able to place a claim over the land under amended provisions of the Aboriginal Land Rights (NT) Act. Innesvale Station, however, is well to the west of Katherine and not located in the study area.


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In relation to areas of significant cultural water sites for the Wardaman within the study area, protection is afforded to important sites within the Flora River Nature Park. However, in contrast to the Jawoyn’s major stake in Nitmiluk National Park, including a majority on its Board of Management, there is no joint-management agreement for the park. There is, however, a joint-management arrangement with the NT Parks and Wildlife Service and ongoing involvement in a Planning and Management Group that meets occasionally19. A plan of management is in preparation.

The Northern Land Council The Northern Land Council (NLC) is a statutory body representing the interests of Aboriginal traditional owners and native title holders with interests in land in the Top End of the Northern Territory. The NLC is required to consult with traditional owners and native title claimants with regard to a range of matters affecting their rights and interests. The Land Rights Act, under which the NLC is set up, establishes a set of rights for traditional owners, including the right to be consulted and provide consent about development on their lands, and the blanket protection of all sacred sites in the Northern Territory against desecration. As a Native Title Representative Body (NTRB), the NLC also acts on behalf of native title claimants. There have been a number of native title claims covering portions of the study area.

The Aboriginal Areas Protection Authority (AAPA) The AAPA is a statutory authority set up under Northern Territory legislation and is controlled by a Board of which a majority (10 out of 12 members) are senior Aboriginal traditional owners nominated by the land councils. The AAPA must consult with Aboriginal custodians concerning matters associated with the protection of sites of significance. As such, the AAPA plays an important role in providing Aboriginal participation in land use and planning processes and in mediating Aboriginal heritage protection with planning, land use and land management activities, particularly on non-Indigenous owned lands.

The Kalano Association The Kalano Association was established in 1974 as an Aboriginal resource centre to address land, housing, transport and health issues for Aborigines in Katherine and provides services for a number of Aboriginal communities. Although not an Aboriginal traditional owner representative body, the Kalano Association has an elected council and provides a range of services for the Aboriginal residents of the communities, which

19 See http://www.nt.gov.au/nreta/parks/manage/joint/news/naturepark.html (accessed Nov 2007).


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includes both local and non-local residents. The Association also runs a cultural program, coordinated by a Cultural Adviser. The program involves elders in teaching young people and organises men’s and women’s trips out bush for fishing and recreation. The Daly River Aboriginal Reference Group A representative group of traditional owners from the Daly River region was formed in 2006 to contribute to land and water planning. This group was formed in response to concerns raised by Aboriginal groups over planning processes and their representative structures. The group has two representatives which sit on the Daly River Management Advisory Committee and who will advise the Minister on water allocation issues in the Katherine region. Membership of the Daly River Aboriginal Reference Group is drawn from the following language groups: Wadjikan, Malak Malak, Maranunnggu, Kamu, Larbagunyan, Wagiman, Dagoman, Wardaman and Jawoyn.

Negotiating over water interests The study has demonstrated the deep cultural connections of Aboriginal groups with respect to water sources in the study area, including customary rights of ownership and custodianship of cultural water sources. Importantly, such connection and cultural rights extend beyond surface waters to the underground waters, including the waters of the Tindall Aquifer. The study has also demonstrated that the ability of traditional owners to exercise their cultural rights and responsibilities and to access cultural water sites for customary purposes has been impaired as a result of the history of non-Indigenous usurpation and exclusive use of the land. At the same time, the more recent development of common law and statutory recognition of customary rights through the Land Rights Act, Sacred Sites Act, and Native Title Act and the recognition of native title at common law, have resulted in an expectation on the part of traditional owners that they now have a legitimate basis in terms of recognised rights and interests, for assuming a position of at least negotiating parity with non-Indigenous decision-makers and land owners. This expectation was strongly put to the principal researcher by a local Aboriginal elder during fieldwork for this report:

In early days the white man just put trouble all over blackfellas... he was under a pastoral property...they didn't want to talk. [If] they just wanted to put something up there, they just went on ahead and put it up. But now we comin’ in together, negotiate proper deal, and work together. We should share something, then we happy to do that. But it gotta be court proper way [proper processes which recognise our right of consent], whether we can give him go ahead to put the bore in there, or might be we say no, might be find another place away from that


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sacred site. Well, we have to negotiate the proper way, good relationship for share the water, together. Because [it’s] their water and our water too, same way. Well, government say, "no, everything under the ground belong to us", but we got our dreaming too, you know, all the way. That's what our ceremony and law is, underneath the ground.

There could be no clearer statement of the basis of traditional rights over underground and other waters, and of the desire of local Aboriginal people for a respectful and collaborative partnership with governments and decision-makers with respect to the management of areas and resources of cultural significance on their traditional lands. It is incumbent on governments at all levels to ensure to the maximum extent that such proper processes are in place, regardless of the strict legal status of the land or resources in question. In relation to water, the reasons for doing so are many and include ensuring that the actual and potential property rights in water of Aboriginal groups are clarified and protected, and that uncertainties and inefficiencies in the emerging water market, including through legal challenges and compensation arising from the impairment of customary use or failure to follow due process, are avoided (Altman 2004). However, there are also other equally cogent reasons, including helping to overcome the legacies of the past in terms of the exclusion and socio-economic disadvantage of Indigenous people, by ensuring that they benefit equitably from the reforms of the National Water Initiative (Altman 2004; Jackson and Morrison 2007), and creating improved, inclusive resource management and governance models which will be better able to incorporate Indigenous objectives, cultural values and traditional knowledge (Jackson and Morrison 2007). As mentioned above there are existing structures, including Aboriginal representative bodies, with which to engage in negotiating water interests in the Katherine area. Experience in other jurisdictions indicates that a key issue is sustaining engagement processes. This has been the experience in relation to the Western Australian Department of Environment and Conservation’s (DEC) engagement with the Combined Metropolitan Native Title Working Group (CMNTWG) on the development and management of the Gnangara Water Mound (GWM)20. The DEC initiated a consultation process with CMNTWG Elders to establish a long-term relationship with them and to determine, amongst other things, Aboriginal cultural values and possible impacts, and Aboriginal involvement in developing a management plan for the GWM and in future monitoring, assessment and management. CMNTWG Elders expressed the need for the GWM to be protected under the WA Aboriginal Heritage Act, and provided recommendations on measures to avoid impacts on Aboriginal cultural values (Fisher 2005). Since then (mid-2005), an application to protect the GWM under

20 Similar to the situation in the Katherine area, the GWM contains the principal future groundwater source for the Perth area and is also of Aboriginal significance as an underground water system and connected surface waters created by the Waugal, a mythic water snake similar to the Rainbow Serpent (Fisher 2005).


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the Aboriginal Heritage Act was rejected and the foreshadowed engagement processes have stalled21. It seems unlikely that unresolved issues and uncertainties around Aboriginal rights and interests in water can be adequately addressed without an established, resourced process (“court proper way”) that includes the provision of support to enable the sustained and considered engagement of Aboriginal traditional owners through their representative organisations.

Aboriginal attitudes to development and aspirations for future development

Attitudes to development Aboriginal groups in the Katherine area are often unfairly regarded as anti-development. In reality, Aboriginal concern about proposed development is focused on its potential impact on cultural sites and values in the context of uncertainty about the exact nature and extent of development proposals, and uncertainty about their ability to prevent unwanted outcomes and to share equitably in the benefits of regional development. The advent of the Land Rights Act and Sacred Sites Act, which have established processes which recognise Aboriginal traditional owners’ and custodians’ rights to consider the impacts of proposed developments on traditional sites and to secure protection of sacred sites, has done much to counter such misconceptions, essentially by removing some of these uncertainties. Nevertheless, some developments, particularly those that involve large-scale modification of the environment, are clearly of concern to local Aboriginal people. This includes proposals such as dams and mining proposals, which may result in the destruction of cultural sites. This study has also revealed significant concern about the over-use of water, particularly from bores, and the potential to deplete underground waters and permanently damage springs. The placing of bores too close to sacred sites is also a concern. A further concern about development is the potential for loss of access to traditional country and cultural sites, including water sites.

Aspirations for future development involving water As discussed, local Aboriginal groups have not had the opportunity to properly consider the implications of the current water management reform process, including with respect to their aspirations for future developments or enterprises requiring water allocations. The fact that none of the current applicants are Aboriginal is indicative of this lack of

21 Personal communication, Glenn Kelly, 13th December 2007.


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opportunity. In the beginning of the study, very few people were aware of the water plan and government efforts to regulate water and introduce water trading. The following is a list of indicative enterprises nominated by the Jawoyn and Wardaman which would require water, although, it is uncertain if these would all require a water allocation licence:

• Forestry enterprise • Cattle enterprises • Traditional plant nursery

In addition to these there is considerable interest in developing and expanding cultural tourism enterprises that would rely on guaranteed environmental flow levels. It needs to be stressed that Aboriginal groups in the Katherine region require the opportunity to fully consider their future planning needs in relation to water use and that the information contained here is indicative only. It will also be important to ensure that there remains an opportunity for Aboriginal access to water for future economic needs after the first round of licences.

The Katherine Water Allocation Plan In considering the issues identified in this report it is relevant to make comment about the current process to develop a Katherine Water Allocation Plan (KWAP). Four issues stand out:

• Consultation and engagement with Aboriginal stakeholders; • Including access to water sites and places as a Plan objective; • Ensuring customary rights and cultural values are protected; and • Indigenous commercial water requirements.

Consultation and engagement with Aboriginal stakeholders The first issue for comment concerns the adequacy of consultation and engagement with Aboriginal stakeholders. Under national water policy, adequate water planning processes require engagement of key stakeholders, including Indigenous people. Direct participation by Indigenous people will assist water planners and advisory groups to meet the tasks of the National Water Initiative. Parties to the NWI have agreed that water access entitlements and planning frameworks should recognise Indigenous needs ‘in relation to access and management’ (paragraph 25(ix)). Indigenous access is to be achieved through planning processes that:

• include Indigenous representation in water planning, wherever possible; • incorporate Indigenous social, spiritual and customary objectives and strategies for

achieving these objectives, wherever they can be developed;


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• take account of the possible existence of native title rights to water in the catchment or aquifer area;

• potentially allocate water to native title holders; and • account for any water allocated to native title holders for ‘traditional cultural purposes’

(paragraphs 52-54) A key function of the KWAC is to incorporate community values and beliefs in the water allocation and planning process. In relation to the interests of Aboriginal stakeholders, this has primarily involved the provision of representation on the KWAC by the Jawoyn Association and the Wardaman Associations. The diagram below shows the consultation process

Source: NRETA’s website, Katherine Water Allocation Plan However, the present study has highlighted the significant capacity constraints faced by key Aboriginal representative organisations in responding to the vast array of issues in relation to developments on their traditional lands. This has been a particular burden for the Wardaman Association, which lacks secretariat support, as well as for the Wardaman KWAC representative, who has been unable to consistently engage with the committee due to the pressure of other commitments. Regional staff at the Northern Land Council’s office have also been preoccupied with native title claim research in the Katherine area and in negotiations over land use at Bradshaw Station. A further issue relates to the cross-cultural difficulties which may be experienced by Aboriginal representatives on committees or bodies which are made up of mainly non-Indigenous members and which include formalised processes and consideration of complex technical information. Such barriers impede the effective transmission of relevant information back to constituent communities by under-resourced individuals.


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Consideration needs to be given to the burdens placed on individuals expected to serve as representatives in unfamiliar group processes. Where the expectations are not being met, as has been the case in the Katherine planning processes, remedial measures need to be addressed urgently, prior to plan completion. There were early indications that the process was not working effectively in relation to the Aboriginal representatives on the committee. This highlights the need to consider providing additional support to key Aboriginal representative organisations if it is expected that they are to be able to effectively engage with and respond to the complex issues raised during the planning process. Further consideration also needs to be given to the interests of the many permanent Aboriginal residents of the Katherine area whose traditional lands lie outside the area but who utilise cultural water sources in the region in accordance with their values and traditions. It should also be noted that this report has been anticipated as providing further information and input on Aboriginal values and interests for the purposes of the current water allocation planning process. However, this study has been commissioned and funded independently of the planning process, highlighting a gap in the planning process for ensuring that the KWAC is fully appraised of all relevant Aboriginal cultural issues. During the preparation of this report, the Katherine Water Controller indicated awareness of this gap in the planning process and has indicated that the plan will be reviewed over time and relevant information taken into account. However, the current gap in information places a duty of care to ensure that extra attention and resources are put into obtaining Aboriginal input on the draft plan, and closely monitoring the potential impacts of the current first round allocations on Aboriginal values and interests. To this end, we make recommendations for the establishment of an Indigenous Values Implementation group to redress the knowledge gaps and low levels of Indigenous input experienced during plan preparation.

Including access to water sites and places as a Plan objective The second matter for comment concerns the issue of access. The study has identified the considerable difficulties in accessing cultural water sites faced by Aboriginal people in the Katherine area due to the alienation of land for private and other purposes. This includes significant stretches of the Katherine and King Rivers. This issue does not appear to have been picked up in the current process to develop a new water allocation plan by the Katherine Water Advisory Committee (KWAC). A stated objective of the KWAP is to ensure the maintenance and protection of values and places of importance under traditional laws, customs and practices. The NT’s Water Act also provides for cultural values to be taken into account in setting management objectives for a water body. This is achieved through the declaration of cultural beneficial uses. Maintenance of such ‘values’ and uses ultimately depends on ensuring continued


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access. This is in line with the provisions of the intergovernmental agreement on a National Water Initiative, to which the NT Government is a signatory, which state that “water plans will incorporate indigenous social, spiritual and customary objectives and strategies for achieving these objectives wherever they can be developed” (COAG 2004). It is therefore recommended that ensuring access to Aboriginal people to cultural water sites for customary purposes be included in the objectives of the plan and a management response be detailed. This will need to include monitoring the performance of this water plan objective.

Ensuring customary rights and cultural values are protected The third issue for comment relates to the need to ensure that customary rights and cultural values are protected. This includes but is not restricted to rights associated with heritage protection legislation and native title. As mentioned above, native title claims to areas within Katherine have been lodged. An Indigenous Land –Use Agreement under Federal native title laws was negotiated in 1999. This agreement saw the Jawoyn native-title holders agree to extinguish their native title rights and interests over Crown land south of Katherine (known locally as the Venn blocks, and Warlangluk, by traditional owners). This allowed the land to be subdivided by the Northern Territory Land Corporation for horticultural projects. In return, a newly created Warlangluk Aboriginal Corporation received freehold title to a 16 hectare site in the same area, adjacent to the Stuart highway and approximately 20kms sough of Katherine. In 1999 it was thought that the land would be used by Kalano Community Association for an alcohol rehabilitation facility, and other community purposes. Given that the NWI requires that water plans take account of the possible existence of native title rights to water in an aquifer area, this matter deserves considered attention and a precautionary approach. It is incumbent on the KWAC to ensure that water allocations do not impact on Indigenous cultural water sites and values and that there is accurate and appropriate monitoring in place to identify any adverse changes. We suggest that the Water Plan should include a trigger for review of water entitlements should the plan’s water use regime be shown to be having any detrimental effects on the rights of native title holders. More will be said about providing for Indigenous access to water for commercial purposes in the section below. Of particular concern is the waters emanating from springs and those of permanent waterholes and billabongs sustained from groundwater. The NT has adopted the national definition of sustainable yield of groundwater which states that the requirements of all groundwater dependent ecosystems must be maintained and local policy limits total groundwater extraction to 20% of annual recharge. Further, the current intent of the NT water policy is that 80% of flow at any time in any part of the river is allocated to the environment and that the groundwater extraction regime will be


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managed so that this will be achieved22. We are advised that the KWAC has now set a cap on the take from the Tindall Aquifer, based on best information, and that the cap exceeds the national guidelines. However, as noted above, there remains the potential for over-allocation of groundwater and indeed, it is considered that the current licences are over-allocated but under-utilised. It is clear that the groundwater being allocated through the KWAP is part of the same resource as that emanating from springs and sustaining permanent waterholes, and that where over-allocation affects spring flows or permanent waters, that there is a clear, acknowledged causal link to over-extraction. Returning to the previous discussion concerning the rights and protections to cultural water sources provided by heritage legislation and common law and statutory native title rights, it follows that the traditional owners, custodians or native title holders of cultural water sites affected by over-extraction would have grounds for legal action, including possible compensation claims. Furthermore, where a cultural water site is registered as a sacred site under the Sacred Sites Act, it is possible that an Authority Certificate would be required for water extraction. These issues should be fully considered by the KWAC. This brings us to the importance of monitoring the effects of water extraction. It has been suggested by the Katherine water planner that, as an interim measure, the level of the Katherine Hot Springs will be monitored from a bore site near the springs and used as a guide for maintaining a minimum level in the Tindall Aquifer23. The technical background to this is that this is the highest of the Tindall Aquifer springs and therefore should be the first to indicate change if the water level in the aquifer begins to decline. If a decline is measured it is planned that there will be an immediate cessation of extraction from Tier 2 and 3 licences. While this appears to be a reasonable interim measure, there remain questions about its suitability as a long-term monitoring measure for this purpose. Firstly, the Katherine Hot Springs is a registered sacred site and a drop in the level of the spring would itself constitute a significant impact on the cultural values of the site. Secondly, once an impact has been detected, it is not certain if the immediate measures put in place to reduce demand on ground water in the aquifer would act quickly enough to halt the decline in the level of the spring (and hence further damage occurring). The potential implications of this are serious and the matter requires the timely and full consideration of the KWAC. Consideration should be given to establishing a mechanism to allow on-going Indigenous input into monitoring and reviewing the effects of water extraction. An Indigenous Values Implementation Group could be established to take on the important task of ensuring that monitoring is carried out sensitively and that the correct attributes are being monitored. This group could also oversee socio-economic

22 Conjunctive water management and Northern Territory water policy,

http://www.connectedwater.gov.au/water_policy/nt_perspective.html . Website managed by the Bureau of Rural Sciences. Accessed Oct 2007. 23 Personal communication 18th August 2007.


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assessment of water extraction and trading and recommend management actions in response to any indications of adverse impact either during the life of the plan or at the end of its term. An Aboriginal Values Implementation Group could be responsible for the following tasks:

• contributing to oversight of the research effort identified in this study; • negotiating over heritage issues raised by the water use regime proposed in the

final Water Allocation Plan; • providing input to a monitoring program, e.g. attributes, sites and amelioration

and mitigation measures; • increasing awareness about the Water Allocation Plan amongst the Aboriginal

community; • serving as an advisory group to the proposed socio-economic study of the Plan’s

impact on Aboriginal communities and interests. This group will need to be resourced to carry out these and any other functions. Indigenous commercial water requirements As noted elsewhere (e.g. Jackson and Morrison 2007), there is a tendency to assume that Indigenous water requirements are to be met from the non-consumptive pool. Recent discussion between the Indigenous Water Policy Group and senior water planners from northern jurisdictions has revealed an interest in pursuing opportunities for Indigenous groups to access water for commercial use in under- or near fully-allocated systems. Although there is only one small portion of Indigenous-owned land within the Tindall Aquifer (a 16 ha. Block referred to above), a native title claim is pending and, if successful, may raise expectations of commercial development opportunities. Indigenous groups, such as those in the Katherine region, do not yet have fully formed strategies for utilising water for commercial purposes and their relative disadvantage in this regard should not preclude them from benefiting from future development opportunities, particularly where it is likely that a cap on water entitlements will soon be in place and entering the water market in coming years may be costly. In evaluating how water might be optimally used, the Water Controller should consider the options for providing an allocation for Indigenous commercial use (agricultural, industrial) during the life of the plan. For example, it may be possible to reserve a portion of the consumptive pool for future Indigenous commercial use. Such a reservation can be made in the case of town water supplies in some plans. In this case, it could be traded in the short-term, or until Aboriginal groups require it for their own enterprises. There is some Australian experience in building flexibility into water plans to address future native title requirements. In New South Wales, under the provisions of the Water Management Act 2000, each of the Water Sharing Plans recognises that extractions as


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part of a native title right may increase over the term of the WSP in the event of a successful determination of native title. For example, under section 19 of the Murrumbidgee Regulated River Water Source WSP (2003), clause 2 states ‘The Plan recognises that the exercise of native title rights may increase during the term of this Plan’. Furthermore, clause 3 states ‘The water supply system shall be managed so that it would be capable of maintaining supply to those exercising rights through a repeat of the worst period of low inflow to this water source represented in flow information held by the Department of Land and Water Conservation’ (cited in Rural Solutions SA 2008). Given the current pressures on the water resource, we argue that a socio-economic assessment of the costs and benefits of providing an Indigenous access entitlement is warranted. The National Water Initiative recognises that settling trade-offs between competing outcomes for water systems will involve judgements informed by the ‘best-available science, socio-economic analysis and community input’ (s. 36). A Katherine assessment should consider the potential for adverse socio-economic impacts arising from the exclusion of a large and disadvantaged sector of the community from commercial opportunities arising from water trading. Experience in southern Australia has shown how difficult it is to ‘claw-back entitlements’ once granted, notwithstanding public support for providing more water to the environment, for example.


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Recommendations The following recommendations are made to NAILSMA’s Indigenous Water Policy Group for their consideration: Recommendations relating to future water research in Katherine: 1. Rehabilitation and remediation of damage: There is the need for improved research and monitoring to better understand the causes of change that result in damage to cultural water sites, to identify when negative changes are occurring, and to develop appropriate rehabilitation and remediation responses. 2. Facilitate traditional knowledge recording and transmission: Governments and private funding bodies should be strongly encouraged to increase funding available for the purposes of the recording and inter-generational transmission of traditional knowledge. Funding guidelines should:

• Allow broad scope to projects in terms of the structure of fieldwork activities and the breadth of recording of traditional knowledge so that the project delivers the maximum benefit to the community in terms of their particular circumstances and needs;

• Ensure that Aboriginal groups are provided with resources to develop or access

proper audio-visual archival storage and access facilities and systems which are controlled by the community according to established legal and ethical guidelines and which protect the rights of legal copyright owners;

• Ensure that projects build capacity, particularly in skills and training, of members

of the community in which the project is being conducted. 3. Assistance for under-resourced Aboriginal communities: There is the need for projects to be established to assist under-resourced Aboriginal communities to apply for and manage funding for urgent or critical traditional knowledge retention projects. 4. Damage to cultural water sites on pastoral lands: The issue of identifying and remediating damage to cultural water sites on pastoral lands needs to be addressed. This could include:

• Initiating a process that includes Aboriginal custodians, pastoralists and key agencies, to identify damaged or threatened cultural water sites on pastoral lands.

• Encouraging pastoral managers to adopt measures to exclude the unrestricted access of cattle to cultural water sites, by means such as the use of fencing and strategic watering points.


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• Developing rehabilitation measures that include re-establishing key aquatic plant species, such as water lilies, that are important to the cultural and ecological values of the water sources.

Recommendations relating to management of non-Indigenous lands in Katherine 5. Caring for country activities on non-Indigenous lands: Consideration should be given to developing funding models for establishing caring for country activities on non-Indigenous owned lands which are joint partnerships between landowners and Aboriginal traditional owner groups. Such projects could be focused on rehabilitation of important cultural water sites. Recommendations relating to water planning in Katherine 6. Assistance for Aboriginal bodies to engage with water planning processes: There is the need to consider providing additional support to Aboriginal representative organisations if it is expected that they are to be able to effectively engage with and respond to the water planning processes. This support should be provided during the public comment period on the draft plan, and be ongoing during the life of the plan (see recommendation 10 below). 7. Heritage legislation and native title: That the implications of the potential impairment of customary rights in water afforded under Aboriginal heritage and native title legislation by the current NT water allocation processes be further researched and considered by the Katherine Water Advisory Committee, NRETA and by NAILSMA, the NLC and relevant Aboriginal organisations. The Plan needs to be open to review and adaptation to allow for changes to be made in light of improved knowledge about the extent of native title rights, commercial water requirements of Indigenous organisations/groups and socio-economic analysis. 8. Including Aboriginal access to cultural water sites as an objective of Water Allocation Plans: It is recommended that ensuring access to Aboriginal people for customary purposes be included in the objectives of the Katherine Water Allocation Plan. 9. Aboriginal commercial water needs: Consideration needs to be given to the means for and objective of providing for the commercial water needs of Aboriginal groups now and into the future. A socio-economic analysis of various options should be undertaken to provide a strong information base. 10. Establish an Aboriginal Values Implementation Group to oversee monitoring and revise interim monitoring measure for impact on Aboriginal values: The current proposal to measure the level of the Katherine Hot Springs as a means of monitoring impact on Aboriginal cultural values should be re-evaluated by the KWAC and long-term alternatives considered. Efforts should be made to establish adequate Indigenous input to monitoring and review processes that allow for changes to be made in light of improved


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knowledge. The proposed Aboriginal Values Implementation Group will need to be resourced by NRETA.


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References

Altman, J. (2004). "Indigenous Interests and Water Property Rights." Dialogue 23(3/2004): 29-34.

Altman, J. (2007). "Alleviating poverty in remote Indigenous Australia: The role of the hybrid economy." Development Bulletin (72).

Council of Australian Governments. (2004) Intergovernmental Agreement on a National Water Initiative between the Commonwealth of Australia and the Government of New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia, the Australian Capital Territory and the Northern Territory.

Cooper, D. (2000). An Unequal Coexistence. Unpublished PhD thesis. Canberra, Australian National University.

Department of Natural Resources, Environment and the Arts. (2007) Values and Issues Report: Water Allocation Plan - Tindall Limestone Aquifer (Katherine), September 2007, Darwin.

Fisher, S. (2005). Report of consultations with the Combined Aboriginal Native Title Group regarding the Aboriginal heritage values of the Gnangara Water Mound. Department of Water, Government of Western Australia.

George, D. (2001). Water Resources of the Katherine Region and South West Arnhem Land, Department of Lands, Planning and Environment Natural Resources Division.

Jackson, S. and J. Morrison (2007). Indigenous perspectives in water management, reforms and implementation. Managing Water for Australia: the Social and Institutional Challenges. Karen Hussey and Steven Dovers. Melbourne, CSIRO, 22-41.

Luckert, M., B. M. Campbell, J. T. Gorman and S. T. Garnett. (2007) Investing in Indigenous Natural Resource Management. Charles Darwin University Press.

McFarlane, B. (2004). The National Water Initiative and acknowledging indigenous interests in planning. National Water Conference. Sydney.

Merlan, F. (1998). Caging the Rainbow: Places, Politics, and Aborigines in a North Australian Town. Honolulu, University of Hawai'i Press.

Merlan, F. and A. Rumsey (1982). Jawoyn (Katherine Area) Land Claim: Anthropologists' Report. Darwin, The Northern Land Council.

Ogden, P. (1989). Katherine's Earlier Days. Northern Territory Library Service Occasional Papers. N. T. L. Service. Darwin.

Ogden, P. (nd). Flooding Across the Top End. Darwin, Darwin Research Centre.

Weir, J. (2007). The traditional owner experience along the Murray River. Fresh Water: New Perspectives on Water in Australia. A. M. Emily Potter, Stephen McKenzie and Jennifer McKay. Melbourne, Melbourne University Press.


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