Talking camels: a consultation strategy for consent to conduct feral camel management on Aboriginal-owned land in Australia
Ben Kaethner A C , Peter See B and Adam Pennington BA Central Land Council, Alice Springs, Northern Territory 0870, Australia.
B Kanyirninpa Jukurrpa, Newman, Western Australia 6753, Australia.
C Corresponding author. Email: ben.kaethner@clc.org.au
The Rangeland Journal 38(2) 125-133 https://doi.org/10.1071/RJ15076
Submitted: 5 August 2015 Accepted: 22 March 2016 Published: 27 April 2016
Abstract
Thorough consultation and informed consent are required for any work on Aboriginal-owned land in Australia. Consultations for feral camel (Camelus dromedarius) management under the Australian Feral Camel Management Project across the Northern Territory, Western Australia and South Australia were conducted across a vast area, spanning a diversity of cultures and landscape types. Aboriginal organisations from these jurisdictions developed consultative processes that supported Aboriginal communities in making informed decisions on any removal of camels from their country. This article describes the communication techniques used to depict the feral camel issues and opportunities to Aboriginal communities at the local and landscape scale. The decisions that communities arrived at were varied, but consistently focussed on feral camel removal. Their decisions have led to broad-scale feral camel removal under the Australian Feral Camel Management Project, and beyond.
Additional keywords: arid rangelands, camel culling, camel population control, Indigenous knowledge, land management.
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