Category Archives: Indigenous land management

Australia’s shame Part 2: Tiwi Forestry – 30,000 hectares of “bankrupt monoculture”

October 28, 2009 – 8:20 am

Senator IAN MACDONALD—What is your concern about the Tiwi Islands, from the Tiwi Islanders’ point of view? Dr Ajani—I think they have a product which is not well placed in the play that is going to unfold over the next few years as our hardwood plantation resource comes onto the market.

By Bob Gosford | Also posted in Australian politics, Northern Territory politics, Northern development, The Northern Myth | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (10)

Why birds, culture and language are relevant…and interesting

August 23, 2009 – 6:00 pm

The most substantial single source of Aboriginal bird knowledge in the mainstream ornithological literature was John Gould’s “Handbook to The Birds of Australia”, published in 1865. I’ve not been able to find a replacement candidate as the primary source – and much of the information contained therein was collected by one of Gould’s collectors, John Gilbert, who was taken from us too soon in 1845 while on a cross-country expedition with Ludwig Leichhardt.

By Bob Gosford | Also posted in Birds, Birds and people, Ethnoornithology, Northern development | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (2)

The Senate, the Alice Springs News and Centrecorp – a “multitude of factual errors and distortions”

June 29, 2009 – 4:41 pm

As the Alice Springs News says: “a dossier of Alice Springs News reports was a substantial part of the briefing NT Senator Nigel Scullion gave Senator Brandis.”

By Bob Gosford | Also posted in Australian politics, Northern Territory politics, Northern development, The Law | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments (1)

Great Southern on the Tiwi Islands – Timber, Fear, Intimidation and a great tax dodge

May 26, 2009 – 1:07 pm

Under the Senate’s spotlight are the arrangements between the Tiwi Land Council and Great Southern, the promoter of broad-acre MIS forestry schemes on the islands that have seen vast swathes of virgin tropical savanna transformed into a monocrop of the fast growing Acacia mangium.

By Bob Gosford | Also posted in Australian politics, Northern Territory politics, Northern development, Some places I've been, The Law, The Northern Myth | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (7)

Bird of the week – Kanpanparlala – Crested Bellbird, Oreoica gutturalis

May 2, 2009 – 9:48 pm

The Crested Bellbird has a very distinctive call, from which its Warlpiri name of Kanpanparlala is an onomatopoeic derivation.

By Bob Gosford | Also posted in Animals, Birds, Birds and people | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (1)

Towards an (Australian) Indigenous Ornithology – Is Australia an ornithological terra nullius?

November 22, 2008 – 4:36 pm

Australia is an ornithological terra nullius – an ‘empty land’ – It is unforgivable that the most complete references to Australian Aboriginal ornithology are found in John Gould’s Handbook to the Birds of Australia, 1865 – published 138 years ago.

By Bob Gosford | Also posted in Birds, Birds and people, Ethnoornithology | Tagged , , , , | Comments (2)

The Sooty Shearwater (Puffinus griseus) – a lesson in indigenous bird hunting and conservation

November 19, 2008 – 2:40 pm

For too long, western scientists have either willfully ignored indigenous knowledge of Australia’s birds or damned it as ‘unscientific’. How we access and record what people know of and how they use birds, and the value of indigenous bird knowledge are important tools for species and landscape management.

By Bob Gosford | Also posted in Birds, Birds and people, Ethnoornithology, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | Comments (1)