Rights to the rangelands: European contests of possession in the early 20th century

Abstract

Resolving competition over rights to the resources of Australia's rangelands is an issue of national prominence. In the early 20th century, European competition over the rangelands reflected the idea that the land needed to be used 'productively' for its occupation to be legitimate, and the idea that the rangelands were the 'public estate'. These perspectives about rights to the rangelands expose roots of today's conflicts. A central theme of 19th century Australian history has been conflict between squatters and colonial governments. By the beginning of the 20th century, occupation of the rangelands had been mostly legitimised through leases and licenses. Governments have continued to use leases to influence access and the use of the rangelands.

The 20th century saw conflict continue over rights to the rangelands. Closer settlement, an expression of this conflict, sometimes led to land use that was disastrous for the land and those who used it. The career of the pastoralist Sidney Kidman illustrates the conflicts between the landed and landless, and the inseparability of 'productive' and 'legitimate' land use. The beginning of the 20th century also saw growing knowledge about the environmental impacts of rangeland pastoralism. The rights of lessees and governments were widely renegotiated, in the example of New South Wales, in all attempt to make land use better reflect this new knowledge and to protect the 'public estate'.

Today, the history of the rangelands is used by different groups to justify perceived rights to its resources — these rights are legitimised culturally as well by the narrower prescriptions of the law. As social values change, different interests in the rangelands need to be accommodated. A better awareness of past ideas about the rights to the rangelands may in a small way help reconcile these interests, if only by reminding us that in the continuing process of adapting to the rangelands, rights have always been contested and negotiated rather than immutable.