95739 Chap.7 Indigenous Knowledges and Sustainable Health
Indigenous Knowledges and Sustainable Health
A holistic view
Week 7 presents Indigenous sustainability as reciprocal relationships with all life, and social and emotional wellbeing as connection to body, mind, family, community, culture, country and spirituality.
Knowledge in action
The Brewarrina fish traps, the Fitzroy River Declaration and the Tiwi consultation case show sustainable practice, cultural governance and the cost of failing to consult.
Moving forward
Corntassel’s sustainable self-determination, the NHMRC core values and Indigenous leadership on climate guide professional action.
What this chapter covers
- 01
Indigenous peoples and the planetary health crisis
- 02
Social and emotional wellbeing domains
- 03
Brewarrina fish traps
- 04
Martuwarra and the Fitzroy River Declaration
- 05
The Tiwi consultation case
- 06
NHMRC core values for ethical action
- 07
Sustainable self-determination
- 08
Climate change and Indigenous leadership
Worked example · free
Link three disruptions to wellbeing domains
- 1Blocked access to a sacred waterhole disrupts connection to country and to spirituality.
- 1Young people moving away disrupts connection to family and kinship and to community.
- 1Scarce bush foods disrupt connection to body through diet, and to culture through food practices.
- 1Disrupted connections are associated with poorer wellbeing, so restoring them is a health strategy.
Key terms
- Sustainable Self-determination
- Corntassel’s benchmark of community-centred responsibilities to land and kin, beyond rights granted by states.
- Cultural Governance
- Decision making grounded in Traditional Owners’ law and culture, as in the proposed Fitzroy River management body.
- Caring for Country
- Looking after land, waters and sacred places through Indigenous knowledge and responsibility.
- Planetary Health
- A perspective that treats human health as inseparable from the health of the planet’s systems.
- Nothing About Us Without Us
- The principle that decisions affecting a people must be made with them.
Indigenous Knowledges and Sustainable Health FAQ
What are the domains of social and emotional wellbeing?
Gee and colleagues describe seven areas of connection, from body and mind through kin and community to culture, land and spirit, set within social, historical and political determinants. Disrupted connections, many caused by colonising policies, are linked with poorer wellbeing, while restoring them supports better wellbeing.
Why are the Brewarrina fish traps used as an example?
They may be among the world’s oldest structures built by people. Their river-stone ponds and channels adapt to seasons and water levels and hold fish for harvest, a lasting food system that shows Indigenous innovation and sustainable design at once.
What did the Fitzroy River Declaration commit to?
Traditional Owners who met at Fitzroy Crossing in November 2016 described the river as a living ancestral being with a right to life. They committed to joint decision making, a catchment management plan, a management body founded on cultural governance and other protective steps.
What is sustainable self-determination?
Corntassel argues that state-framed rights discourse downplays Indigenous responsibilities and relationships with family and the natural world. Sustainable self-determination is his benchmark for community-centred regeneration of those relationships, illustrated by cases from Peru and North America.
What happened in the Tiwi Islanders’ case against Santos?
The federal court held that the regulator, Nopsema, never properly checked whether Santos had consulted every affected person about planned gas drilling off Melville Island. The module calls it the first significant First Nations challenge to a large offshore oil and gas project on consultation grounds.
What did the Week 7 lecture cover?
It was a webinar on health in a changing climate by Jessica Szwarcbord of the Lowitja Institute, paired with a discussion paper by the HEAL Network and CRE-STRIDE. The tutorial asks how climate change affects communities differently and how Indigenous leadership, often dismissed, can help address it.
How large is the global Indigenous population?
The module cites an estimate of about 476 million Indigenous people worldwide, each group with health practices suited to its own country, culture and context. Its focus is Australia, but it argues the whole world risks missing the solutions Indigenous peoples offer to the climate crisis.
Assessment move
Learn the seven wellbeing domains and practise linking real changes to them. For each of the three examples, Brewarrina, Martuwarra and Tiwi, write one sentence on what it teaches about sustainability or consultation. Read Corntassel’s pages on sustainable self-determination before the tutorial, and keep the six NHMRC core values beside you when you design any initiative involving Indigenous communities.
Before the tutorial, read the HEAL Network discussion paper and prepare one answer to each of its three discussion questions.
Working through Indigenous Knowledges and Sustainable Health in 95739? Sia is AskSia’s AI Health and Medicine tutor — ask any 95739 Indigenous Knowledges and Sustainable Health question and get a clear, step-by-step explanation grounded in how 95739 is taught and assessed. Read this chapter free, then take your hardest questions to Sia.
