01 Oct Wild Rivers: environmental colonization (ABC)
In all of the current debate on the Queensland Government’s Wild Rivers laws, one major matter is being completely missed.
That matter is the process of contemporary environmental colonisation of Cape York. Where once Indigenous rights in land were taken by colonialists for economic gain, they’re now taken to appease the environment lobby.
The Anglican Church in Brisbane has been looking for over a year now into the impact of Queensland’s Wild Rivers laws on Cape York Indigenous economic opportunity. In essence, the Church’s investigations have established that where Wild Rivers law is applied without Indigenous consent, economic opportunity is unjustifiably stifled. This is incontrovertible fact.
The Wild Rivers laws, operating in concert with the plethora of land management laws affecting the Cape, ban a range of economic activities that can be done sustainably. In banning sustainable economic activities the laws restrict sustainable economic development.
This is a bizarre government policy outcome for a region that is suffering intractable Indigenous poverty.
Bizarre as it might be, the flow of Wild Rivers declarations has continued and looks to continue unabated. …Go to article.