Abstract:
Joint management regimes in Australia are seeing an increasing focus on cross-cultural
approaches to management of national parks. This has brought under scrutiny the
eurocentric approaches to park management that exclude the rights and perspectives of
indigenous Australians. The history of our parks appears to have been built on policy
that is not only exclusionary but stems from a hegemonic approach to management.
With an increasing focus on natural resource and cultural tourism (often referred to as
ecotourism)within Australia, it is time to address the issues that are fundamental to the
provision of policy for this area of park management. Pressure from tourism can have
significant impacts upon the natural and cultural resources of national parks, and thus
on the local aboriginal community itself. Policies formulated within the framework of
ecotourism principles, supported with social science research in the community studies
area, are ideally suited to application within the joint management framework.
These policies facilitatea cross-cultural flow of information and thus promote a development
of the cross-cultural understanding that is vital to the resolution and progress
of joint management. It would seemthat policy directions founded on the principles of
ecotourism and the facilitation of community ownership and control of tourism and the
associated resource are being overlooked or treated in politically expedient ways as a
means of appeasing legal requirements at both a management and political level.
