AustLit

'Documenting the limited success of land rights alone in securing the basic infrastructure for indigenous people, such that they might 'enjoy' those rights, and 'grow the land', Tracker Tilmouth's warnings about the dangers of ignoring both the structural aspects of indigenous disadvantage and the cultivation of local processes in addressing it, appeared not in 2007, when the plot of the Australian federal government's Northern Territory (`national emergency') intervention into remote indigenous communities came to light, but in 1997, in the introduction to an anthology of writings compiled by Alexis Wright (1998) for the Central Land Council.' Preceding the intervention's belated interest in questions of indigenous security, health (itself 'one of the most highly politicized domains of Indigenous affairs in Australia') (Sutton 2009: 115) and well-being, Tilmouth acknowledges how the (politico-legal) battle for land rights may have distracted the parties engaged from the larger project of creating and supporting a 'sustainable self-determination' (Corntassel 2008: 105-32) for indigenous Australians. Acknowledging that `sustainable development Implies meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs' (Ibid.: 105). the Native American scholar Jeff Comtassel promotes the idea of developing a 'sustainable self-determination' in order to emphasize the necessity of 'a more holistic and dynamic approach to regenerating indigenous nations' and as a means to combat the ways in which, as he sees it, the dominant framing of self-determination rights as 'political/ legal entitlements' have 'de-emphasised the responsibilities and relationships that indigenous people have with their families and the natural world that are critical for the health and well being of future generations' (ibid.). For Comtassel, 'sustainable self-determination' must become a 'benchmark for the restoration of indigenous livelihoods and territories' and for future political agitation (ibid.: 109). Tilmouth's emphasis on building upon successful local Indigenous models is shared by Comtassel who documents how discourses of sustainability have, in the past, often worked against the greater good of indigenous. He argues that 'what Is considered sustainable practice by states comes at a high price for indigenous communities, often leading to the further degradation of their homelands and natural resources (ibid.: 108). Consequently, he suggests, the time has come for indigenous peoples to reassert sustainability on their teams. If Tilmouth's comments in 1997 anticipate a renewed focus on 'indigenous' ecosystems, his emphasis on the enjoyment of land rights reflects too the permutations marking the major documents and instruments that articulate the ambitions of both local and transnational indigenous movements, not least the United Nations (UN) 'Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples' which reiterates the right of indigenous to 'be secure in the enjoyment of their own means of subsistence and development. and to engage freely in all their traditional and other economic activities'. I don't mean to suggest here that the UN's formulation captures the fullness of indigenous ambitions, for such documents are always a compromise, the product of a coalition of diversely oriented interests and agreements/disagreements. Rather, I mean to denote a continuity of emphasis across spheres of interest, local and transnational. (Introduction)