ABSTRACT

Even though their countries were violently invaded by settler colonisers in the 1870s, the Indigenous peoples of the southwest Gulf of Carpentaria region maintained their social capital – their laws, cultures, knowledge, ceremonies and songs – to survive as distinct groups. Then when legal opportunities became available they regained ownership of some of their ancestral lands and then, over a period of 40 years, they slowly rebuilt their natural capital; their lands, waters and other natural resources. Using both their natural and social capital have they developed innovative community-based cultural and natural resource management initiatives to provide social, economic and environmental benefits to themselves and to the wider Australian community.