Dartmouth senior studies aboriginal land rights in Australia

Posted 06/21/01

When Australia was settled by the British in 1788, it was done so under a doctrine that claimed the land was unpopulated. Obviously, this was not the case - the settlers had already encountered the indigenous population - but it was an expedient action that allowed the settlers to govern the continent.

However, the Australia Supreme Court has recently reversed that traditional policy toward aborigines and has begun recognizing the rights of the original occupants. In 1992 the court ruled in favor of Australian aborigine Eddie Mabo, who was seeking to regain the rights of his tribe to land in the Torres Strait. The court found that Mabo owned the land because his ancestors had owned the land at the time of the British claim of sovereignty.

The ruling, while still being challenged in the courts, has the potential to completely alter the way the Australian government and society works.

It's a shift that James Lederer '02 is watching first-hand.

Lederer, a double major in environmental studies and economics, is one of 80 students to win the prestigious Morris K. Udall Scholarship for environmental study. With the grant he is attending the University of Melbourne for two terms in an effort to examine both society's relationship with its environment and how changes in public policy affect that relationship.

"It is really a chance to examine an important, quite possibly world-changing situation, as it happens," says Lederer. "No other country has, at least in practice, actually acknowledged their colonized people's legitimate claim to the land. This decision has the capacity to dramatically alter so much of the way things are there, to completely change one of the largest countries in the world."

Lederer is sifting through legislation and interviewing both government administrators and tribal leaders about how the Mabo decision is being received and implemented.

With this decision the land would, in theory, return to aboriginal control. Current business practices, which have taken a heavy toll on the environment, could undergo a dramatic alteration. The aborigine population, which holds markedly different values in relation to the environment than the colonizers, would presumably use the country's national resources in an entirely different way.

"I'm interested in this case because I can be there as it happens," he says. "The situation there can shed some light on issues here at home with the Native-American population, which was resolved without a lot of questioning on the part of the United States. And how the Australian situation plays out could bring to light some of the ways in which the situation here could have gone differently."

After graduation Lederer intends to turn his research into the foundation of a career.

"There's whole field of environmental law and environmental consulting that I wasn't aware of before starting this research," he says. "After going to law school, I'm hoping to end up as a mediator, where I'd be one of the people who would help solve these conflicts over how and by whom the land is used."