School of Culture and Communication - Theses
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ItemWild articulations: the Wild Rivers Act 2005 (Qld), conservation, development and sustainable futures in remote Australia( 2014)This thesis examines issues of development, Indigeneity and environmental conservation byconsidering how the controversial Wild Rivers Act 2005 (Qld) was debated, reported on,celebrated and condemned in Cape York Peninsula, northern Australia between 2004 and 2012.The Peninsula has long been constructed as a ‘wild’ space, whether as terra nullius, a zoneexcepted from settler law or a biodiverse wilderness region in need of conservation. The past twodecades, however, have seen two major changes in the political and social composition of theregion, the first being the legal recognition of geographically extensive Indigenous land rights andthe creation of a corporate infrastructure to govern them. Second, the Peninsula has been thecentre of national debates regarding the market integration and social normalisation ofIndigenous people and the site of substantial investment in Indigenous policy reform. Ironically,the Queensland state government’s own attempts to ‘settle’ land use through the Wild Rivers Act2005 (Qld) brought out the immanent tensions within the region’s present political formation.This thesis adopts an interdisciplinary approach to examine how and why the controversy overthe legislation occurred and what it indicates about present imaginaries of the governance andpotentiality of Indigenous lands and waters in northern Australia. The thesis shows thathistorically embedded forms of ‘wildness’ continue to shape debates about Cape York Peninsula’sfuture, debates in which economic and social development are often conflated and conceptualisedas beneficent transformations. Ultimately, the thesis contends that close consideration of thisevent provides insights into the future dilemmas of development, conservation and Indigenouspolitics in remote Australia.