# Support for Indigenous wildlife management in Australia to enable sustainable use

> Guns, vehicles and life in settled towns have changed how Indigenous Australians hunt, and some game animals such as emus, bustards and dugongs are under pressure. The authors argue that the right to hunt should go hand in hand with management, and describe kuka kanyini, a way of “looking after game animals” that blends elders’ knowledge with wildlife science, with tools such as CyberTracker helping non-literate trackers record data.

Summary by Kersey Lawrence, Original Wisdom. Updated 9 November 2026. Page: https://www.originalwisdom.com/tracking-literature/2010-wilson-edwards-support-indigenous-wildlife-management/

## Citation and access

- **Authors:** George R. Wilson, Melanie J. Edwards and Jennifer K. Smits
- **Year published:** 2010
- **Journal or source:** Wildlife Research
- **Full citation:** Wilson, G. R., Edwards, M. J. and Smits, J. K. 2010. Support for Indigenous wildlife management in Australia to enable sustainable use. Wildlife Research 37(3): 255-263.
- **DOI:** 10.1071/WR09130
- **Access status:** Hosted (freely available elsewhere)
- **PDF:** https://www.originalwisdom.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/11/2010_Wilson_and_Edwards_etal_support-for-indigenous-wildlife-management-to-enable-sustainable-use.pdf

## Tags

- **Region:** Australia
- **Methods and technology:** CyberTracker; Indigenous knowledge; Literature review
- **Data type:** Review
- **Observer qualification:** Not needed
- **Discipline:** Human dimensions; Indigenous knowledge; Social science
- **Year published:** 2010

## Detailed keywords

- **Species:** Discussed as hunted or harvested wildlife (no species studied directly): kangaroos (Macropodidae), including red kangaroo (Macropus rufus); wallabies; dugong (Dugong dugon); sea turtles (Cheloniidae), including green turtle (Chelonia mydas); emu (Dromaius novaehollandiae); Australian bustard (Ardeotis australis). Examples from other countries: muskox (Ovibos moschatus) in Canada, sooty shearwater (Puffinus griseus) in New Zealand, and fish monitored by the Cree people of northern Canada. Also mentioned: feral animals and Pleistocene megafauna.
- **Location and habitat:** Australia, with a focus on Indigenous lands in central Australia: Angas Downs Indigenous Protected Area (a 3000 km² Indigenous-owned property, near the Imanpa community), Watarru Indigenous Protected Area and the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) Lands in South Australia, and Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park. Also the Northern Territory (Blue Mud Bay intertidal zone), the Torres Strait and northern Australian coasts (dugong and turtle hunting). Arid, low-productivity lands and coastal and marine areas. Comparisons with Canada, New Zealand, Namibia and Zimbabwe. The Indigenous estate covers over 20% of Australia (1.5 million km²).
- **Topics:** Indigenous wildlife harvesting and subsistence hunting; sustainable use; customary law (Tjukurpa), taboos and totemic species; effects of guns, vehicles and motor boats on hunting pressure; settlement in towns and meat-sharing obligations; hunting of females for their fat; kuka kanyini (looking after game animals), a framework for sustainable use; adaptive management (“learning by doing”); combining traditional knowledge with western science; Indigenous Protected Areas (IPA) and Working on Country (WoC) programs; Indigenous Rangers; co-management of national parks; CyberTracker for non-literate trackers; Indigenous intellectual property and restricted knowledge; literacy and counting; health, employment and social benefits of caring for country; government funding (Closing the Gap).
- **Statistics or models:** None
- **Data type:** Review (the authors call it an opinion piece that reviews factors that can lead to over-harvesting). Includes personal observations by G. R. Wilson (2009) and statements by Anangu elders (personal communications, 2010). Manuscript received July 2009, accepted March 2010.

## Synopsis

### 1. What they did

The authors, from Australian Wildlife Services, wrote an opinion piece that reviews why wildlife hunted by Indigenous Australians may now be over-harvested, and argues that western wildlife science should work alongside Indigenous knowledge to keep hunting sustainable.

They drew on published studies, government and legal documents, their own work with Anangu communities in central Australia, and what elders told them. They covered:

- History. Indigenous Australians lived as hunter-gatherers for 40,000 to 60,000 years under customary law that set where, when and by whom hunting could take place.

- The law and government support. Indigenous hunting is largely exempt from statute law, and the Indigenous estate covers over 20% of Australia.

- What has changed. New hunting technology, settlement in towns and weakened authority of elders.

- Whether current hunting is sustainable, with examples of kangaroos, emus, Australian bustards, dugongs and sea turtles.

- Examples of Indigenous practice combined with wildlife science, in Australia and overseas.

- Barriers to combining the two knowledge systems, and the social and health benefits of Indigenous wildlife management.

- Recent Australian Government spending on Indigenous land and wildlife management.

### 2. What they found

Changes in hunting

- Guns, vehicles, motor boats, chainsaws, shovels and metal digging sticks have made hunting and gathering more efficient. Kangaroos are now hunted with vehicles and guns rather than on foot with spears and boomerangs; dugongs and turtles from motor dinghies with metal harpoons.

- Families are no longer nomadic. Programs have encouraged people to move to towns away from their traditional lands, where local laws and customs constrain hunting less. Obligations to share meat with family and community can push hunters to take more.

- Indigenous law is less likely to regulate hunting where elders have lost authority, leadership is lacking, and social and health problems such as substance abuse exist.

- Some traditional practices may now add to the problem: females of dugongs, green turtles, kangaroos and wallabies are often targeted for their higher fat content.

- On the other hand, tighter gun laws and rising fuel costs are likely lowering hunting pressure, and greater mobility can spread hunting away from settlements. Some communities appear to use their wildlife sustainably, usually where the hunted species breed quickly, the habitat is more productive, or other pressures are lower.

Examples of pressure on wildlife

- In central Australia, emus and Australian bustards are hunted as soon as they are seen, or as soon as nests with eggs are found (the first author’s own observation), even though Indigenous groups say they want more of these animals. Both are classed as vulnerable in the Northern Territory.

- On Angas Downs, 208 to 260 red kangaroos used to be harvested each year (from a 1965 source). An Anangu elder said that in 2010 the kangaroo population could not support that harvest. Frozen kangaroo tails from pastoral lands elsewhere are popular in the local store.

- Pre-colonial dugong hunting was probably sustainable, but studies cited by the authors show current harvest rates in Torres Strait are unsustainable. Elders consider young men hunting dugong and turtle culturally inappropriate.

Combining Indigenous knowledge and science

- Kuka kanyini (“looking after game animals”) was worked out with traditional owners on the APY Lands. It sets a goal (more game animals) and works toward it by improving habitats, providing water, protecting refuge areas and sacred sites, using fire for habitat diversity, controlling feral animals and weeds, monitoring populations and setting harvest targets. It is in the plans of management for the Angas Downs and Watarru Indigenous Protected Areas. On Angas Downs there are early signs that kangaroo numbers are increasing in response to feral animal control, habitat protection, water and hunting restrictions set by the community itself.

- CyberTracker, an icon-based data capture system, lets non-literate trackers record data on wildlife populations and the environment, helping Indigenous people take part in biological surveys.

- Other examples: community management plans for dugong and turtles on six Torres Strait islands (seasonal closures, gear and area limits and catch limits, though there are still no current dugong catch data); shared management of Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park; fish monitoring with the Cree in Canada; aerial surveys of muskoxen in Canada to set quotas; sooty shearwater harvest research with a Maori community in New Zealand; and community programs in Namibia and Zimbabwe.

Barriers

- Differences between knowledge systems and institutions, poor cross-cultural communication, and reluctance to accept Indigenous knowledge that conflicts with government or industry agendas.

- Indigenous knowledge is intellectual property and needs protecting; some knowledge can only be held by people of a certain sex, age, family or initiation. The Ara Irititja archive is given as an example of managing access while honouring these limits.

- Low literacy and the lack of number systems in most Aboriginal languages make written quotas difficult, although hunting was sustainable in the past without them. Distrust after dispossession can make people unwilling to share knowledge.

Benefits and funding

- Taking part in land management has been linked with lower obesity, blood pressure, diabetes, and kidney and heart disease, and with better school engagement, motivation and job-readiness.

- Of $4.6 billion committed by COAG for 2008 to 2013 under Closing the Gap, only 3% ($150 million) goes directly to Indigenous natural resource and wildlife management. The Caring for our Country program does not fund wildlife enterprises, and bush-tucker production is largely excluded.

### 3. What they concluded

- There is growing evidence that current hunting by Indigenous Australians, while not the only cause, threatens the long-term survival of some native species.

- The authors stress that they are not questioning the right to hunt: the Indigenous right to hunt should exist alongside responsible management. With such management, hunting even threatened species such as dugong and emu could be sustainable.

- Wildlife managers should listen to what Indigenous people want from their country (more game, and security for totemic species), and support them in surveying populations, estimating sustainable yields, identifying refuge areas, improving habitat diversity, controlling weeds and feral animals, and sharing information between regions.

- Spending on Indigenous communities should place more weight on land and wildlife management. A program such as kuka kanyini would let people keep hunting while increasing wildlife, and would bring jobs, culture, health and better living conditions.

### 6. Other technologies, skills or innovations

- CyberTracker icon-based data capture, which lets non-literate trackers record wildlife and environmental data.

- The Ara Irititja project, a community archive for Anangu that stores knowledge, photos, film, sound and documents and controls who may see them; land and wildlife management was being added in 2010.

- Aerial surveys (Canada) and community-based harvest management plans (Torres Strait), described from other sources.

### 7. Implications for conservation (from the paper)

- Hunting pressure adds to other threats such as habitat loss, feral predators and climate change, especially in arid lands and for some marine species.

- Combining traditional knowledge with science, through adaptive management, can increase the wildlife Indigenous people want while supporting biodiversity conservation.

- Strong leadership and authority in communities are essential for harvest limits to work.

- Current programs focus on threatened species and biodiversity and rarely on sustainable use; the authors call for more support for wildlife harvesting and wildlife enterprises on Indigenous lands.

### 8. Implications for tracking (Original Wisdom's observations)

_These are Original Wisdom's observations, not the authors'._

- The paper does not study tracking, but it names CyberTracker as one way non-literate Indigenous trackers can take part in monitoring wildlife on their lands, the kind of population surveys the authors say are needed before sustainable harvest levels can be set.

## Cite this summary

Lawrence, K. 2026. Summary of: Support for Indigenous wildlife management in Australia to enable sustainable use (Wilson and Edwards et al., 2010). Original Wisdom, Tracking Literature. https://www.originalwisdom.com/tracking-literature/2010-wilson-edwards-support-indigenous-wildlife-management/