Settlements at the Edge examines the evolution, characteristics, functions and shifting economic basis of settlements in sparsely populated areas of developed nations. With a focus on demographic change, the book features theoretical and applied cases which explore the interface between demography, economy, well-being and the environment. This book offers a comprehensive and insightful knowledge base for understanding the role of population in shaping the development and histories of northern sparsely populated areas of developed nations including Alaska (USA), Australia, Canada, Greenland, Norway, Russia, Sweden, Finland and other nations with territories within the Arctic Circle.

Cities and urban settlements in Australia exist on lands that are the traditional lands of Australia’s Aboriginal peoples (The focus of this article is on Aboriginal land claims in our capital cities and regional centres on mainland Australia rather than the Torres Strait, and consequently the term Aboriginal is used throughout except where the context makes it necessary to refer to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander or Indigenous.).

This paper examines the links between emergency management and land use planning in four remote Indigenous communities in tropical northern Australia and the extent to which such linkages produced better disaster resilience in these communities. The case study communities were chosen because they are in locations likely to experience increased frequency and/or intensity of extreme weather events, both slow (sea level rise, drought) and rapid onset (storm surges, cyclones, floods) as a consequence of climate change. We compared land use planning legislation, state level planning policies, statutory planning schemes, property registration systems and emergency management systems. We found a clear disjuncture between understanding the likely impacts of climate change and the collection of emergency management data and the consideration of hazards and risks in land use planning systems. We conclude that the land use planning systems in tropical northern Australia are still geared toward promoting and facilitating development and have not evolved sufficiently to take account of climate change impacts, including sea level rise. This disjuncture is particularly evident in the context of remote Indigenous communities in Australia and reforms to land use planning systems are urgently required to address this disjuncture.

This paper examines how two Australian land use planning systems address the creation of hazard resilient communities in tropical areas. The application of substantive hazard knowledge and how this influences the associated procedures within the planning system is examined. The case studies of Darwin the capital of the Northern Territory, and the beachside suburb of Machans Beach within the Cairns Regional Council in far north Queensland are investigated. Both case study locations have experienced tropical cyclones since settlement and despite their hazard prone locations, both have intensified over their 120 year existence. Moreover, it is predicted that cyclones in tropical Australia will decrease in number, but increase in intensity. It would be rational to assume that industry, community and government would actively pursue planning strategies to negate the risks of natural hazards and the corresponding level of vulnerability to a hazard event. However, neither communities nor planning are driven by rational technical decision making processes. The paper concludes that the rhetoric for creating hazard resilient communities dominates national and state government policy, however this has minimal influence upon the legal framework that protects development rights. It would appear that the safe development paradox [1,2], is present in the Australian land use planning system, and that the focus of planning is on creating certainty of development rights and achieving efficiencies through urban settlement patterns, as opposed to creating hazard resilient communities.

Video:
http://vimeo.com/album/3174364/video/114321840

PowerPoint presentation:
http://cdu.edu.au/sites/default/files/the-northern-institute/docs/wensing.pdf

Research on the land tenure aspirations of Aboriginal people in the Kimberley region in WA in 2011 found that Aboriginal people as native title holders are reluctant to surrender their native title rights and interests in exchange for forms of Crown title. Native title determinations in Australia align the incidents of title with attested 'custom' such as hunting, fishing and gathering. So far, they have excluded 'alienability' as a feature, other than by surrender to the Crown for their permanent extinguishment. While native title rights and interests are considered by the High Court to be a property right, native title holders are unable to use their native title rights and interests to engage in the modern economy in ways that require them to be alienable or as equity to secure finance. Similarly, the statutory Aboriginal land rights regimes that pre-date Mabo (No. 2) impose similar restrictions on alienability and use of the land as equity to secure finance. The Commonwealth believes these arrangements are an obstacle to the expansion of government-backed home ownership programs and private economic development and is actively urging the states to undertake land tenure reforms aimed at individuating land titles and facilitating private home ownership.