Aboriginal Australians assignment exploring the effects of mining on the Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander culture

Question

Task: how to investigate effects of mining on the Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander using Aboriginal Australians assignment research strategies?

Answer

Introduction:
This Aboriginal Australians assignment investigates the effects mining has had on Australia’s indigenous communities. The indigenous Australian community refers to the group of people who lived in Australia and there surrounding islands before the colonization of British people. They are often termed as the Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander. Other than that they are also called as the first peoples of Australia (McMahon, Webster & Brimblecombe, 2017). The earliest anatomy reveals that they are the Mungo Man LM3 and Mungo women. In this assignment I have particularly focused on addressing the history of the indigenous communities of Australia, their issues and other than that I have also discussed about the impact of community engagements on the native land.

History of indigenous Australian community:
After reading several researches and Aboriginal Australians assignment, I could infer that, the information about the time of arrival of these“first individuals of Australia” is addressed between 50000 to70000 years ago and there are divided in almost 250 different language groups. After gathering information from various sources I could say that Aboriginal Australians are mainly found in many islands like Tasmania, Fraser Island, Hinchinbrook Island, Tiwi Island but excluding Torres Strait Islands. According to 2016 census the total population is 759,705 (3.1%) of total Australian population. Northern territory has 30% population of aboriginal people followed by Tasmania and others. I can state that during the Pleistocene era, the aboriginal people migrated from Asia through sea and settled in main land of Australia (Malaspinas et al., 2016). I have also found that genetically they have similarities with the Papua New Guinea indigenous community and East Indonesians.Colonization started in 1788.

Torres Strait Island is a part of Queensland State of Australia. And their indigenous people are known as the Torres Strait Islanders. I have gathered further information on this Aboriginal Australians assignment that they are culturally unique. According to 2016 census there are 4514 people lived on that Island. They have genetic link with Melanesian population and population of New Guinea. I could infer that about 70000 years ago the first inhabitants of this island migrated from Indonesian archipelago that at that time the Papua New Guinea was attached with Australian mainland. From 1870s the colonization started.

Issues of indigenous peoples and their Land:
Some common problems I have identified which are closely related to these peoples and their lands are Unemployment, poverty and deprivation, Lack of education, Lack of Infrastructure Climate change, welfare dependency, , lack of medical care, , High rate of crimes, broken families, ineffective government programs, Lack of water,. These are some common issues that always reflect that these regions need development (Arnold, Hoy & Wang, 2016). From my point of view I can outline that education and employment generation can heal and find solution for these issues. The only ways is to educate them, generate employment opportunity thus they can fight with the other problems. Infrastructural development and basic service providing is mostly undertaken by government.

Aboriginal Australians assignments, projectsand Community Engagement Programs:
The basic principle of making any community engagement program is to have quality of patience, mutual cooperation, understanding, respect and trust to others each other’s. I have found that most of the community engagement programs in aboriginal lands are related to extraction industries, basically mining engineering industries. They have both positive and negative impact on the indigenous people. In one side they creates employment opportunities and changes life for the native people but on the other side they also gave long term impact on their culture and environment (Rudel, 2018). I have addressed, these mining industries brought social, economic and institutional development to them on this Aboriginal Australians assignment. Now in Australia, several mining industries have improved their practices through high level policy commitment. In each stage of mining, they integrate community engagement routinely. Though according to my view, mining industry is not a solution to every issue they have but I reckon it has influence on resilience, development and sustainability to many of those communities.

Engineering Business: Mining Industry
The exploitation of indigenous land for extraction of mining or other natural resources are now under the legislation. The communication process between the company and the community is a complex one because I have noticed there are several misunderstandings happens due to cultural differences. According to my study, about 60% of the mining industry operation is related with indigenous people. Companies such as BHP and Rio Tinto have taken these indigenous people as a part of their projects. I want to outline the changing scenario of these native land from past to present time. The past time: In 1788 when British colonization began, British seized the aboriginal land and many died in that conflict. After independence Governments and local organizations paid less attention regarding the situation of the indigenous community. The people were relocated and often forcibly removed from their land and resulted loss of their habitat, capital. They faced restrictions due to legislation and earned limited wages.

The present time:
I have noticed that after Legislative reforms the scenario of the past situation changed. HoweverI found more agreements between the companies and the communities nowadays. They have considerably taken count on the development of the life of these indigenous peoples. They are now generation employment for the native people and building good relationship with native people.

Impact of mining industries in indigenous people:
I have recognized some notable impact of engineering companies on native people from various evidences. These are: Employment Generation – From the historical evidences I can state that very few people of these communities were included in such mining projects. From a repeat I have seen in early 1990s the number of indigenous people related to mining work was about only 100, but in between 2006 to 2011 the number was increased in above 7000. So I conclude that the participation of these communities in the mining projects has increased.

Creation of stronger Community – I have studied that in several ways mining industries are providing strength to the communities. I have noticed, the way these companies are interacting with the locals, they are strengthening the basis of the workers and providing strong confidence to run their own business. They are supporting various development programs and tried to improve the wellbeing and health conditions of the workers as identified on this Aboriginal Australians assignment

Building infrastructure for the communities – In several cases I have found that Mining industries of the native lands support various programs that aims to build infrastructure, like water supply, road construction, health facility and many other programs.

Poverty reduction – I can infer that the basic issue related to these people is poverty. I have seen from evidences that to eradicate this situation of poverty and deprivation the mining industries brought livelihood approaches. Education – Mining industries partly tried to address the educational gap among the communities. In 2014, the BHP Billiton made a four year agreement with CSIRO to increase the participation of the indigenous people in scientific studies. Heritage Management – A heritage and environment development plan was conducted by the south of Embley (SoE) project working group for the areas of Rio Tinto Alcan’s mining lease to manage the consequences of change brought by the project. Environmental Management – Indigenous Ecological knowledge helps to build co management in mining in the Northern territory. Several examples I can set on these perspective like: the Tanami biodiversity strategies, Dhimurru aboriginal cooperation etc. programs were taken as a consideration in the mining projects of native and.

Conclusion:
Thus from various researches and evidences I have noticed that these community engagement programs of mining have changed from past times. As per reports accessed during this Aboriginal Australians assignment research, these mining industries are now effectively working to increase the quality of life, increase education, helping to build basic infrastructure along with generating employment for the native people.

References
Arnold, L., Hoy, W., & Wang, Z. (2016). Low birthweight increases risk for cardiovascular disease hospitalisations in a remote Indigenous Australian community–a prospective cohort study. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health, 40(S1), S102-S106.

Malaspinas, A. S., Westaway, M. C., Muller, C., Sousa, V. C., Lao, O., Alves, I., ... & Heupink, T. H. (2016). A genomic history of Aboriginal Australia. Nature, 538(7624), 207-214.
McMahon, E., Webster, J., & Brimblecombe, J. (2017). Effect of 25% sodium reduction on sales of a top?selling bread in remote indigenous australian community stores: A controlled intervention trial. Nutrients, 9(3), 214.
Rudel, T. K. (2018). The Extractive Imperative in Populous Indigenous Territories: The Shuar, Copper Mining, and Environmental Injustices in the Ecuadorian Amazon. Human Ecology,Aboriginal Australians assignment46(5), 727-734.