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Letter to 'The Australian' Editor - 21/04/07
I don’t know why Gerhardt Pearson continues to propagate a distorted view of The Wilderness Society and our role in conservation outcomes ("Cape York leaders take on wild rivers legislation”, 20/4), but I do know he’s creating a political straw man when he accuses us of denying Cape indigenous people the recognition and rights that are their due.
It is well known that we support environmental management of the free-flowing rivers of northern Australia, but we have never attempted to achieve this by denying Aboriginal rights or the central role of traditional owners in the management of their lands. We have argued publicly to the Queensland Government since day one of the wild rivers debate that it needed to include confirmation of native title rights and recognition of traditional ownership in the Wild Rivers Act.
Balkanu and the Wilderness Society, along with others, have spent more than a decade together in dialogue and joint effort to secure the return of land to traditional owners of the Cape, and to gain recognition and support for the central role of these landowners in the contemporary conservation agenda.
It is really far-fetched that Gerhardt Pearson would attempt to paint us as worse than governments of the 1950s, a time when Aboriginal people were denied ownership of their land, self-determination, and citizenship.
Unfortunately, the Wild Rivers Act has become a lightning rod for
historical grievance, and the Wilderness Society a convenient whipping
boy upon which to focus resistance. Yet not a single Cape York river
has been nominated under the act, let alone declared. And a process of
extensive community consultation will commence before this happens.
Anthony Esposito
The Wilderness Society, Australia
West End, Brisbane