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Indigenous land and sea management programs: Can they promote regional development and help “close the (income) gap”?
Author(s) -
Jarvis Diane,
Stoeckl Natalie,
Hill Ro,
Pert Petina
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
australian journal of social issues
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.417
H-Index - 30
eISSN - 1839-4655
pISSN - 0157-6321
DOI - 10.1002/ajs4.44
Subject(s) - indigenous , distribution (mathematics) , agriculture , natural resource , project commissioning , natural resource management , resource (disambiguation) , economic growth , geography , natural resource economics , economics , business , publishing , ecology , political science , mathematical analysis , computer network , mathematics , archaeology , computer science , law , biology
Throughout the world, there is growing recognition of the important role Indigenous people play in natural resource management and conservation. Indigenous Land and Sea Management Programs ( ILSMP s; which provide funds to Indigenous people to support Indigenous land management activities) are also known to generate social and economic benefits, although relative few of these co‐benefits have been quantified. Using northern Australia as a case study, we analysed data on ILSMP expenditure within three regional input–output tables, learning more about the size and distribution of their associated regional economic benefits. We found ILSMP s make a significant contribution to regional economies—with multipliers commonly exceeding that of other key regional industries such as agriculture and mining. We also found ILSMP expenditures make a larger contribution to Indigenous household incomes than they do to non‐Indigenous incomes—thus helping to close the (income) gap. They will continue to do so, provided the proportion of ILSMP money spent on Indigenous (compared to non‐Indigenous) incomes does not fall below a threshold amount. Rather than finding evidence of a trade‐off between socio‐ecological and financial/economic goals, our results suggest ILSMP s, known for their ecological importance, can also make a vitally important contribution to economic development in rural areas.