As a white man living on Bundjalung Country, I acknowledge that it is not easy to make the cross-cultural shift from a Western paradigm lens to comprehend and appreciate the rich diversity and complexity of 65,000 years of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples’ sociocultural and spiritual history.
My study’s title is Perceptions and Values of Climate Change – Insights from Remote Indigenous Australians: A Literature Review. Seventeen qualitative and mixed-method peer-reviewed journal articles were examined between 2010 and 2021 from remote northern parts of Australia, including the Torres Strait. The findings were organised into four main themes: climate change, plants and animals, Country, and knowledge.
Holistic approach
The findings showed that the respondents have a limited scientific understanding of climate change. Yet, they expressed their concerns about observed environmental changes such as sea level rise, flooding, and shoreline erosion (particularly evident on the Sabai, Poruma, and Boigu islands in the Torres Strait) and a weakening of flora and fauna on Country.
Most studies viewed climate change holistically and directly linked climate change to more pressing and urgent concerns. This included painful memories of colonisation, dispossession, cultural and spiritual losses, health concerns, socioeconomic issues such as poor housing and infrastructure, poverty, unemployment, excessive alcohol consumption and mining, which has degraded the landscape.
The Closing the Gap statistics between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples show these long-standing generational disadvantages. According to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW, 2022), compared to non-Indigenous Australians, the health of Indigenous peoples ‘is poorer in almost every disease across the life cycle’. For Indigenous people living in remote areas, there is approximately a 14-year difference in life expectancy (AIHW, 2023). The Commonwealth government Closing the Gap Report 2022 shows that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ suicide rates and incarceration are worsening. Indigenous incarceration accounts for approximately 32 per cent of all prisoners, yet they comprise about 3.2 per cent of the population.
History shows that during the British colonisation of Australia, Indigenous peoples experienced intense fear, violence, and death at the hands of the British, colonists, and free settlers. Here, Indigenous individual and collective trauma are identified. Furthermore, many of their descendants have directly and vicariously experienced intergenerational trauma. The forced removal of Indigenous children in Australia continued until 1969. These chronic problems erode Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ well-being.
Most of the 17 studies show that the respondents mistrust governments’ willingness to collaborate with them honestly and justly about climate change adaptation policy. This belief was based on their trauma of colonisation and policymakers’ broken promises and unilateral decision-making, which led to procedural unfairness.
Status quo not working
Given the Closing the Gap statistics, procedural unfairness extends beyond climate change issues. The current status quo is not working! Enshrining a Voice in the Constitution is important to communicate to the parliament and the executive government about matters that can improve the lives of Indigenous peoples living in remote and other parts of Australia, whether about climate change, closing the gap, Country’ and/or cultural issues. This can provide pathways to greater Indigenous intergenerational self-determination to be agents of change, resulting in progress towards much-improved practical outcomes and more effective use of taxpayers’ money.
All the studies found that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ understanding of Country encapsulates values around a narrative of interconnected and interwoven sociocultural and spiritual relationships associated with identity, kinship, and languages that sustain their communities on Country. They reported experiencing sadness because climate change is weakening Country and cultural practices. Most studies showed that despite climate change, there was a reluctance to relocate from Country for sociocultural and spiritual reasons. Their wish is that policymakers respect those values. Although a few studies, one in North-East Arnhem land, found that when researchers framed questions around the hazards of climate change being unmanageable instead of using the word relocation, 66 per cent of respondents would likely relocate for safety reasons. However, they responded with the proviso of staying within 20 kilometres inland with the hope of someday returning to their homelands. This shows the importance of Indigenous interconnection between Country and place.
Collaboration
The studies show that Indigenous peoples seek genuine mutual collaboration with the Australian government on climate change-related issues. Similarly, the Voice seeks to collaborate with the parliament and ministers of government on critical issues affecting their lives and communities.
Concerning climate change, the major obstacle may be a question of divergent values. Indigenous peoples’ perspectives of climate change in remote areas are viewed primarily from their values related to historical, sociocultural, and spiritual connection to Country at a local level. This contrasts with a modern Western perspective whose values and cultural history have not been as entrenched with the natural environment and views climate change more from a global scale, with economic and political implications.
In 1967, our First Nations people were counted, and in 2023, it is time to enshrine their Voice.
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
