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We provide a comparative analysis of two koala management plans for populations in two Australian municipalities, based on principles of landscape management: Ballarat (Victoria) and Bellingen (New South Wales). A landscape-based approach is required to protect the species, but evaluation of landscape management is limited. We present an assessment framework for evaluating local koala management plans. The plans are evaluated against a common set of principles and criteria, despite very different approaches stemming from context-specific factors. Interestingly, despite a variation in the number of indicators in the plans, the overall results of the evaluation demonstrate a similar level of performance against the criteria, and common strengths and weaknesses. In the absence of consistent standards for the protection of the koala across Australia, the species will continue to decline, and management practices will fail to protect the koala from extinction, as is currently predicted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article seeks to contribute to the emerging literature highlighting Indigenous peoples' significant involvement in and contributions to goldfields society, in Australia and internationally. It does so by way of conversations with Dja Dja Wurrung voices and a careful examination and interpretation of written colonial records relating to the Dja Dja Wurrung, the Aboriginal people whose Country encompasses what is now called central Victoria in Australia. Further, the article aims to demonstrate that Dja Dja Wurrung participation in and contributions to the gold rushes themselves were not without impact on the colonial society in which they occurred. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of fire as an offensive and defensive weapon on the colonial frontier in Australia has received little scholarly attention. This article aims to build on insights from current historiography about the customary use of fire by Aboriginal peoples within the borders of Victoria, Australia. Specifically, our aim is to highlight the historically significant role Aboriginal peoples' use of fire played in resisting the colonists in Victoria during the colonial period. By closely scrutinising documentary records it is possible to demonstrate that Aboriginal people used fire, both offensively and defensively, against the colonists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The principal purpose of this study was to gain a greater understanding of the utilitarian and symbolic significance of koalas for Aboriginal communities in Queensland, Australia as recorded by colonists during the early period of colonization and the early twentieth century. It does this primarily through a close examination of the nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century archival records and contemporary publications that relate to Queensland Aboriginal peoples' associations with koalas. This paper is the third in a series investigating the historic and cultural importance of the koala according to the location in Australia. It likewise employs the historical method approach, which relies on identifying historical sources, evaluating their relative authority, and combining their testimony appropriately in order to construct an accurate and reliable picture of past events and environments. Through a critique of the published historical sources, the distribution of and the etymology of "koala" are briefly discussed before an examination is made of the animal's spiritual importance, associated cultural traditions, and simultaneous utilitarian role. Mirroring previous studies published by the authors on Victoria and New South Wales, we confirm that the predominately non-Aboriginal historical records reveal that koalas were hunted for food and their skin in some Queensland regions. It shall be seen that the ethno-historical records are inconclusive about the koala's distribution in Queensland, whether they were hunted across all of the state at the point of colonization and whether they were considered an integral food source in some regions. Furthermore, this study demonstrates that the extent to which they were used varied across regions and between language groups and was subject to certain rules, and that their spiritual significance can be traced directly to epic creation stories. The implications of this paper are consistent with the earlier New South Wales and Victorian studies: regional variations exist in Queensland in relation to the (pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial) historic relationship between Aboriginal communities and koalas and that close consultation with Aboriginal communities needs to be taken into consideration when planning conservation measures relating to koalas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the emergence of traditional Aboriginal fire making practices as a tourism spectacle at the Coranderrk Aboriginal Station near Healesville, Victoria, Australia, in the late nineteenth century. Coranderrk was an important site where domestic and international tourism intersected with efforts of the state to Europeanise and Christianise its Aboriginal residents. It highlights the agency of Aboriginal people in this emergence. Through a survey of the myriad uses of fire in Aboriginal society, it contrasts Aboriginal methods of making fire with European methods as a way of contextualising the tourist interest in fire making demonstrations. Fire making was the perfect foil for tourism – it easily incorporated aspects of performance – such as the build, the show, the closer, and the hat. The skill of fire making was a demonstration of 'Aboriginality', and its appropriation by tourism was a means by which a traditional craft was maintained and sustained. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses a cross-cultural pedagogical approach, couched in a theory–practice nexus, used at a Victorian regional university to guide non-Indigenous pre-service teachers’ (PSTs) engagement with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives and cultures. We have drawn on qualitative and statistical data, and current issues in Australian and international literature, to explore the relevance and success suggested by data from this cross-cultural pedagogical approach, in particular the notion of teacher ethnicity in racialised spaces. In doing so, we have addressed recent sentiments about a lack of quantitative and qualitative research that explores inclusion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander content and discussions of ways in which tertiary educators construct and influence teachings about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures. It is anticipated that this paper will generate further dialogue and research-based evidence on ways in which other tertiary education providers may draw on cross-cultural theories to guide inclusion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander content and perspectives in PST education courses. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

There is an ethnographic and historical record that, despite its paucity, can offer specific insight into various contextual matters (purpose, motivations, acknowledgement) relating to how and why fire was being used by Victorian Aboriginal people in the nineteenth century. This insight is essential to developing cross-culturally appropriate land and fire management strategies in the present and into the future. This article demonstrates the need for further research into historical accounts of Aboriginal burning in Victoria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]