EV5252:03
Indigenous Environmental Management in Tropical Australia
Cairns
HECS Band 2
56 hours. Flexible delivery. Semester 2.
Staff: Dr R Hill.
The subject explores Indigenous peoples’ roles in Australian tropical environments through both the course content and the collaborative course delivery. Students obtain an introduction to core issues and concepts through course material that reflects and accesses Indigenous perspectives and then participate in an intensive field experience with Indigenous environmental management organisations, traditional owners and other Indigenous Australians. Students are subsequently guided towards additional resources to enable them to synthesise their new understandings and complete the course assessment.
Learning Objectives:
- demonstrate understanding of the roles of Indigenous peoples in the environments of tropical Australia;
- describe the historical, political, scientific and economic contexts of environmental management by Indigenous peoples;
- demonstrate the capacity to communicate in cross-cultural situations;
- demonstrate understanding of the interface between non-Indigenous and Indigenous legal systems, including customary law and native title;
- discuss issues and debates relevant to achieving co-existence of Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples’ approaches to environmental management, including contested knowledge systems, wilderness and contemporary hunting and resource utilisation;
- awareness of the network of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander organisations relevant to environmental management at the local, regional, national and international levels;
- value debate, thought and knowledge with respect to the diversity of environmental management approaches.
Assessment by minor assignment (15%); field trip report (30%); major assignment (30%); examination (25%).