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Conclusions (continued)

Sustainability of Australia's heritage

We are still reinventing ourselves as a continent and a people. We redefine ourselves both positively and negatively against a primarily European past.

... we need to keep in mind...the extent to which Aboriginal notions of inclusiveness, of re-imagining the world to take in all that is now in it, has worked to include us.

In order to assess the sustainability of our heritage places and collections, adequate tools are necessary. But as we have shown consistently throughout this report, there are huge gaps in the type of data, and the collection methods used to gather data, to inform this assessment.

There has been a failure of governments, to date, to establish a set of minimum standards for the identification, listing and conservation of heritage places, despite efforts during the reporting period and the agreement at the National Heritage Convention in August 1998 on a set of National Heritage Principles, as outlined in Appendix 2. Both major efforts - the heritage coordination project and the revision of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act 1984 - have so far failed to produce a set of standards on which all jurisdictions agree, other than the Burra Charter and the Natural Heritage Charter. Related to this is the adoption by the State of the Environment Reporting program of the 1998 indicators for natural and cultural heritage which have been tested in this report, but there is no nation-wide agreement on their relevance and consistent application.

On the other hand, moves towards a national database for heritage places, and the establishment of a national list of significant places and a list of Commonwealth heritage places can be seen as an administrative refinement, but which could lead to gaps in the identification and conservation of heritage places if implemented before State, Territory and local systems are developed to fill the gaps left by the demise of the Register of the National Estate. Many databases have been started but have not been maintained - this seems to be a systemic problem that needs addressing.

Another key issue is that of integration of natural, Indigenous and historic values that are identified and assessed under different criteria and often under different jurisdictions but for the same place. Apart from the fact that the conservation of Indigenous sites in large areas of the National Reserve System needs integrated conservation planning, one of the other issues which needs national leadership is recognition of the necessity for integrated identification and conservation of all heritage values on any particular piece of land. The Regional Forest Agreement process, the regional identification studies like the Murray Mallee and the Paroo projects are important developments during the last reporting period. However there is no agreement at a State, Territory or Commonwealth level to give priority to such work and such assessments.

Integration of heritage values in any place is increasingly the way the community considers and treats heritage but still not the way government proceeds - a good example is the nationwide Natural Heritage Trust effort which mostly excludes historic and most Indigenous heritage. There is a growing understanding that every part of life is part of a larger system, each component interacts and changes accordingly. A practical way to protect those linkages is through identification of significant landscapes be they natural or cultural, rural or urban. The approach of listing individual places versus the recognition of those places in their broader context is yet to be widely advanced as an alternative approach.

As there is no part of Australia (except its external territories) which has not been lived in by Indigenous people over a long period of time, there is a close correlation between the nature conservation status of land and the conservation of Indigenous heritage places. Indigenous heritage sites exist throughout Australia. With the exception of Indigenous sites of recent origin which relate to the contact period, Indigenous heritage places can only be conserved effectively in situ and as part of the natural environment of which they are an integral component. As a general rule the best levels of conservation of the sites will be found in the least disturbed areas. There is therefore a close correlation between the nature conservation status of land and the conservation of Indigenous heritage places. One indicator of the level of destruction or damage to Indigenous sites would be, the amount of development of previously undeveloped land, and conversely, any increase in the nature reserve system of Australia would provide some insurance for at least a basic level of conservation greater than that for land of other tenures.

Land handed back to Indigenous people under various land claim regimes, would, if it remained in its natural state, provide the same level of passive protection. Therefore, the increase in the reserve system in Australia and in the number of successful land claims over the reporting period can be seen as one indicator of improvement in the percentage of sites being preserved from destruction by development or land disturbance. For the conservation of Indigenous sites to be fully effective within the reserve system, integrated conservation planning which provides for the protection of Indigenous values as well as natural values is essential. An examination of the extent to which conservation/management plans on reserves and Indigenous land provide for the protection of Indigenous and historic heritage as well as natural heritage might be a useful indicator for the future. Indigenous concepts of care include (except for sacred/dangerous sites) visiting and use (including hunting/foraging/burning) not the 'hands off' approach of conservationists.

Even within the cultural heritage field there is a lack of integration. We pay lip service to such in tourism programs for example, but there is not a genuine understanding of the inter-relationship of all heritage elements in any one place.

How sustainable is our heritage? Despite all the research in the natural environment on sustainability, there has been no development or testing of models applicable to heritage places. In natural heritage places there has been a declining expenditure on the conservation management of protected areas and a consequent lack of monitoring of environmental changes. There is much evidence of the pressures affecting sustainability of historic heritage especially in urban areas. We know from experience that there is a point where the heritage value overrides economic potential; however such places are only sustainable as heritage sites if adequately funded and protected so that their values are known and respected. Funding by government, particularly local government, is being seen as part of the sustainability of places in the Heritage Trails program in Queensland for instance. It is sustainable because the community values it enough to adequately fund it.

State of the Environment reporting is an opportunity to reflect on and measure performance in heritage conservation and use the results as a promotional tool or at least as evidence of the need for new directions in policy and funding for sustainability of our heritage. Australia is a fragile continent with an ancient culture that has been subject to rapid changes over the last 200 years. Our knowledge of its significant heritage places and our appreciation of the nature and distribution of human induced impacts on those places is increasing but is still inadequate for effective management.

We could end the first century of Federation counting the losses, the cleared forests and woodlands, the extinct marsupials, the threatened birds, fish and amphibians, the lost topsoil, the salinated paddocks, the lost and forgotten places.

But we could also enter our second century of Federation rejoicing in our unique landscape, determined to understand it. So much that we cherish about ourselves...can be traced back to our land.

Bennelong...had behind him the strength of a culture that in being old had developed, in its long view of things, an extraordinary capacity to accept change and take in what was new and must be adapted to. It is in terms of that long view that what we have made here will be judged...

I hope to show you something less simple about the country we are in, something outside the categories you know... I plan to stand by and wait until this land, which is so near you and so unseen, enters your heart too.

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