Teacher background information

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have long held a deep knowledge and understanding of water as a renewable resource cycling through the environment. However, there are risks to the sustainability of the water supply available for drinking and for environmental and agricultural uses. Some of these risks can be minimised through the application of management practices informed by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ detailed and comprehensive understanding of water flows, and of the impact that water use may have on downstream ecosystems. 

Australia’s waterways have undergone dramatic changes as result of European colonisation. Rivers have been transformed by land clearing and by damming to divert water for agriculture, industry and human consumption. Schemes such as the Snowy Mountains Hydroelectric Scheme have significantly altered both the flow rate of water through the environment, as well as the amount of water available in different locations. These changes have had a profound long-term effect on the ecology of these riverine and riparian ecosystems. This in turn is of great significance to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as custodians of country, and in terms of the impact on cultural continuity.  

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have deep connections to country in its totality, placing significant socio-cultural, economic and environmental values on the land, and also its associated water sources and other water features. These connections extend to the custodial responsibilities in managing the inter-related parts of their traditional estates in a sustainable way. 

Australia contains a broad range of ecological environments, including water sheds. Each environment has its own unique hydrological and geological features that determine water cycling. Associated with these particular environments are specific Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultural groups who, over millennia, have developed strategies for sustainably managing water and aquatic resources. These strategies and understandings are specific to the way water cycles through their respective environments. 

The deeply held understandings regarding water cycling through the environment were and continue to be essential knowledge that has historically been crucial to the access of potable water. Beyond maintaining essential water supply, water ways are also a crucial source of a vast range of resources, including produce and materials necessary for every-day life. 

The pragmatic understandings of the critical nature of water ways and their essential function for providing resources underpinned a system of custodial obligations and commitments, including inter-group agreements that ensured the sustainability of each community and the continued access to healthy water ways. 

Healthy water ways contain abundant aquatic resources, such as fish, birds, molluscs and crustaceans. They also contain many important aquatic plants that provide a source of food and raw materials for a range of contemporary purposes.  

In order to maintain access to these resources, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have long manipulated and influenced water flows in a number of innovative ways. These included extensively engineered weirs, small dams and fish traps. A well-known example of water-way manipulation is the Brewarrina Stone Fish traps on what is today known as the Barwon River in north-central New South Wales. Some researchers believe that these traps are the oldest extant man-made structure on Earth. Also, channels have been excavated to allow fish to be farmed by moving them on to floodplains or into a system of small artificial ponds. In a similar fashion, fish traps with multiple pens are common in the Torres Strait. However, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples recognised that such interventions required careful consideration of water flows, especially of perennial freshwater systems, as they involve not only an obligation to maintain the local ecosystem, but also a responsibility to those living downstream. Such practices are considered recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander understandings of hydrological processes, including awareness of how water cycles through an interconnected series of both surface and subterranean flows. 

For Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples living in freshwater-poor regions, traditional knowledge of the water supplies available locally was passed down through generations via oral instruction including, at times, stylised mapping. This knowledge is crucial in ensuring survival. Many Torres Strait Islander communities have, for thousands of years, successfully managed severe fresh-water supply issues, carefully collecting rainwater in a variety of ways. In desert areas, where rainfall is sporadic, Aboriginal peoples draw on their knowledge of a variety of water sources to meet their needs. These sources include riverine waterholes, soakage-wells in permeable sediments, flooded rock holes (known as gnammas, a Nyungar word from south-west Western Australia), rainwater accumulated in tree hollows and even water from the body of the water-holding frog (Cyclorana platycephala). 

Managing water resources in a sustainable way is of paramount importance to First Nations’ Australians, and increasingly, more Australians are becoming aware of the need to develop a water-governance framework that is inclusive of First Nations’ Australians’ perspectives and shaped by customary relationships and traditional knowledge.  

Water is an essential aspect of the beliefs, practices and cultures of First Nations’ Australians. This is not only demonstrated through the records of hydrological knowledge held and transmitted through paintings, stories and ceremonies, but is also evident in the richness of terms and concepts relating to water in all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages. 

As students investigate Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples' knowledge of, connections with and values about water and water resource management, they have opportunities to develop an understanding of the need to build cross-cultural collaborative research and management partnerships in the environmental water sector. They also have the opportunity to improve their understanding of the social and economic significance of water to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.