First Nations People lead the Climate Fight
World-wide, Indigenous people manage or have tenure over 38 million sq km of land in 87 countries. This represents over one-quarter of the Earth’s land surface and is often rich with biodiversity. In Australia, First Nations people hold rights and interests in land (via native title, land rights, etc) in approximately 40% of the continent, again land that is highly environmentally valuable. This land is known as the Indigenous Estate.
Land is central to combating climate change, and people are central to ensuring that land is best cared for to ensure climate adaptation and mitigation. As many First Nations people have been saying for years, Country must be cared for, Country needs people. And, as a ground-breaking 2018 global study pointed out ‘recognising Indigenous Peoples’ rights to land, benefit sharing, and institutions is essential to meeting local and global conservation goals’.
Australian First Nations people are in a key position to lead the Australian effort to combat the climate crisis.
Publicly available information on the work being done is still very limited, however, the following is a brief snapshot.
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The best available land for large-scale wind and solar farms, and their downstream industries including hydrogen and ammonia production, is on First Nations peoples’ Country, that is, the Indigenous Estate. Aboriginal groups like the First Nations Clean Energy Network are currently driving a national strategy to ensure that large-scale clean energy projects on the Indigenous Estate abide by best practice standards as laid out by Traditional Owners and other First Nations communities, including that they benefit these communities and respect the environment.
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Indigenous land management, Caring for Country and cultural burning practices (also known as ‘firestick farming), are increasingly being recognised as essential to both Australia’s fire management strategies in the face of increasingly dangerous bushfires, as well to Australia’s climate adaptation and mitigation approach.
These methods rely closely on different First Nations groups’ knowledge of their Country.
As Michael-Shawn Fletcher has written: ‘Cultural Burning is a holistic approach at landscape management with fire throughout the annual cycle that is based on an intimate understanding of local place and custom, and which is attuned to environmental changes, local environmental conditions and cues’.
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The carbon market in Australia is led, in many ways, by the Aboriginal Carbon Foundation (AbCF) whose Australian Carbon Capture Units are being sold at approximately double what other carbon credits are receiving on the spot market. This premium is paid because their co-benefits include social and cultural benefits, including training for Aboriginal communities.
How First Nations peoples will save the world
Watch how First Nations people are working toward climate repair on Vimeo - Clean energy and climate repair: How First Nations peoples will save the world - a video presentation to the Cambridge Zero Climate Change Festival 2022.
Organisers of the presentation are Dr Lily O’Neill, a Senior Research Fellow with Melbourne Climate Futures, University of Melbourne, and Karrina Nolan, a descendant of the Yorta Yorta people and Executive Director of Original Power.
ATNS Climate Project
The ATNS database, in partnership with Melbourne Climate Futures, a University of Melbourne climate action initiative led by Professor Jaqueline Peel, is currently expanding its subject matter to include information on arrangements being undertaken concerning all aspects of clean energy and carbon capture projects on the Indigenous Estate. The subject matter of these arrangements includes Indigenous Land Management, Cultural Burning, clean energy, battery storage, carbon capture, carbon offset, and other matters.
Highlighting these arrangements will help to build a clearer picture of the significant and diverse work First Nations people are undertaking to address climate change.
Furthermore, our research is aimed at gaining a better understanding of the detail and specifics of these arrangements. We believe the outcomes of our research will be useful for other First Nations organisations to develop stronger arrangements and to advocate for policy funding and reforms.
We welcome your suggestions about how you would like us to provide research outcomes including, for example, by providing summaries on a regional basis..
References and acknowledgments
Cited on this page:
Stephen T Garnett et al, ‘A Spatial Overview of the Global Importance of Indigenous Lands for Conservation’ (2018) 1(7) Nature Sustainability 369.
Michael-Shawn Fletcher et al, ‘Catastrophic Bushfires, Indigenous Fire Knowledge and Reframing Science in Southeast Australia’ (2021) 4(3) Fire 61.
Michael-Shawn Fletcher et al, ‘Submission to the Royal Commission into National Natural Disaster Arrangements’.
Lily O’Neill et al, ‘Renewable Energy Development on the Indigenous Estate: Free, Prior and Informed Consent and Best Practice in Agreement-Making in Australia’ (2021) 81 Energy Research & Social Science 102252 (‘Renewable Energy Development on the Indigenous Estate’).
Andrew Edwards et al, ‘Transforming Fire Management in Northern Australia through Successful Implementation of Savanna Burning Emissions Reductions Projects’ (2021) 290 Journal of Environmental Management 112568.