Environmental practice and Indigenous Peoples: we can’t do it without them!

Australia and Aotearoa-New Zealand have different histories with respect to recognising the rights and interests of Indigenous Peoples. Nevertheless, both countries are on converging pathways to ensure that Indigenous Peoples have a role in decisions regarding environmental management and protection from impacts. As we write this editorial, NAIDOC Week (National Aboriginal and Islander Day Observance Committee) is drawing to a close in Australia with the theme ‘Heal Country’, and the Māori New Year (Matariki) heralds a time of reflection, renewal and celebration of life. Both these topics have direct applicability to the environment profession, which is on a journey of appreciation and understanding of Indigenous Peoples’ perspectives, especially regarding their ancestral lands and waters and connection to place. Over the past year, ethical obligations with respect to Indigenous Peoples’ rights, interests, values and traditional knowledge have been starkly highlighted in Australia by public conversations and debates about fire management and stewardship of cultural heritage places. This has coincided with growing support for the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander ‘Uluru Statement from the Heart’ and calls for Australian legislative or constitutional recognition of Indigenous Peoples. Australia comes late to this process of settlement, with the High Court’s Mabo decision of 1992 laying bare the myth of terra nullius that had informed Australia’s approach to land ownership. More recently, Dark Emu by Bruce Pascoe (2014) and other books have also re-framed perceptions of Aboriginal land and water management and added to the momentum for change. New Zealanders have long accepted many of these principles, based on the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi as a central foundation for framing future relationships between its peoples, and the enactment of policy requirements. Within the EIANZ, discourse centres on the recognition that environmental professionals needed to practice in accordance with a Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct that recognises the rights and interests of Indigenous Peoples. An amended Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct has been adopted (in May 2020). The proposals for change were developed by an Indigenous Engagement Working Group, including Indigenous members and advisers. The draft Code was enhanced through widely consultation among EIANZ members and Certified Environmental Practitioners who are bound to practise in accordance with the Code. The Code changes, while seemingly minor, importantly recognise that the environment specifically includes human societies and culture, acknowledge and value the rights and interests of Indigenous Peoples, while at the same time advocating for their involvement in decision making. They also legitimise Indigenous Peoples’ traditional knowledge as part of the multiple evidence base for decision making, and recognise the importance of human values (including obligations to future generations) to ethical environmental practice.