Beeswax rock art from Limmen National Park (Northern Territory), northern Australia: new insights into technique-based patterning and absence in the rock art record

2019 ◽  
Vol 85 (2) ◽  
pp. 126-138 ◽  
Author(s):  
Liam M. Brady ◽  
John J. Bradley ◽  
Daryl Wesley
Keyword(s):  
National Park ◽  
Rock Art ◽  
Northern Territory ◽  
Northern Australia

National Parks and Native Peoples in Northern Canada, Alaska, and Northern Australia

1981 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 207-215 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. E. Gardner ◽  
J. G. Nelson
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
National Parks ◽  
National Park ◽  
Northern Territory ◽  
Yukon Territory ◽  
Native People ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
Northern Australia ◽  
Native Peoples ◽  
Northern Canada

At the very general level, the aim of this paper is to compare the interaction of national parks and native peoples in Northern Canada (Yukon Territory), Alaska, and the Northern Territory of Australia. Currently these areas are subject to increasing land-use pressures from mining, industrial development, the creation of national parks and related reserves, and native attempts to maintain traditional wildlife and renewable resource use. The study focuses on the interactions between national parks and native peoples on the premise that experiences can be compared and problems encountered in one area but possibly avoided in another.The study begins by briefly describing native land-use issues, land-rights arrangements, and organizations, in the Yukon Territory, central Alaska, and Northern Australia. The national park agencies are described, compared, and shown to differ considerably in institutional character, field of management, control of land, and external links with interest groups such as native peoples. Case-studies of the national parks etc. named Kluane (Yukon), Gates of the Arctic (Alaska), and Kakadu (Northern Territory of Australia), are presented to provide more details on similarities and differences in planning, types of tenure, native subsistence activities, and other factors.In the Yukon Territory, neither the national parks agency nor the native people are highly motivated to interact. In contrast, the park agencies and native people in Alaska and the Northern Territory of Australia recognize mutual benefits from interaction—largely as a result of legislation and policies which encourage cooperation. Native involvement officers now facilitate coordination in the Yukon and Alaska. Park agency native employment programmes are proceeding in all three ‘hinterlands’, while native people can own land on which national parks are established in Alaska and the Australian Northern Territory. Only in Australia are native people known to be directly involved in upperlevel national park management. Potential limitations on native subsistence and associated use of national parks range from moderate to severe, and are only defined clearly in Alaska. Lack of definition leads to confusion in deciding upon native use, while exceedingly precise definition precludes flexibility at the park level.A number of aids to a more mutually satisfactory interaction can be identified. One is motivation, or recognition by both parties that there are advantages to consultation and cooperation. Another, not yet achieved in the Yukon, is a land-claims settlement, stating the legislated rights of native peoples in the ‘hinterlands’ and giving them a land-holding and bargaining status which is comparable with that of government agencies. A third aid is comprehensive systematic and regional planning efforts involving opportunities for informed input from all affected parties. Such planning would provide a forum for consideration of a variety of interests, including national parks and native peoples. Finally, satisfactory interaction on the park site could be assisted by clear yet flexible means of deciding upon acceptable native use of parkland, the conservation of wildlife, and associated economic and cultural factors.

Distribution and conservation status of the rare plants Melaleuca triumphalis and Stenostegia congesta (Myrtaceae), Victoria River district, northern Australia

2006 ◽  
Vol 54 (7) ◽  
pp. 641 ◽  
Author(s):  
Beth Crase ◽  
Ian D. Cowie ◽  
Carrie R. Michell
Keyword(s):  
National Park ◽  
Conservation Status ◽  
Landscape Scale ◽  
Northern Territory ◽  
Rare Plants ◽  
Habitat Requirements ◽  
Northern Australia ◽  
Digital Elevation ◽  
Rivers And Streams ◽  
Scale Data

Targeted searches of approximately 150 km of cliff lines for two rare sandstone shrubs, Melaleuca triumphalis Craven and Stenostegia congesta A.R.Bean, thought to be restricted to the Victoria River gorge system within Gregory National Park, increased the number of known populations from 3 and 6 to 31 and 37, respectively. Both species occur predominantly in rocky and often fire-protected niches on sandstone cliffs and scree slopes, and are frequently associated with permanent drip-lines and seepage areas. Although their broad habitat requirements are similar, the two species do occur in slightly different niches. The data presented here suggest that M. triumphalis is reasonably fire tolerant, whereas S. congesta appears to be more fire sensitive. Weeds and introduced animals are not thought to pose a threat to these rare species. Models developed using remotely sensed and landscape-scale data (digital elevation models, radiometrics, geology and distance to rivers and streams) suggest that these species may also occur outside Gregory National Park in other areas of the Northern Territory such as on Bullo River and Bradshaw stations and in Keep River National Park. It is suggested that both species be regarded as Vulnerable under the IUCN guidelines.

scholarly journals Declines in the mammal assemblage of a rugged sandstone environment in Kakadu National Park, Northern Territory, Australia

2018 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
pp. 181 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Ibbett ◽  
J. C. Z. Woinarski ◽  
M. Oakwood
Keyword(s):  
National Park ◽  
Northern Territory ◽  
Northern Australia ◽  
Success Rates ◽  
Sampling Area ◽  
Mammal Species ◽  
Clear Cut ◽  
Mammal Fauna ◽  
The Common ◽  
Intermittent Sampling

There has been marked recent decline in the terrestrial mammal fauna across much of northern Australia, with most documentation of such decline for lowland areas. Here we report changes in the assemblage of small mammals in a rugged sandstone environment (Nawurlandja, in Kakadu National Park) over intermittent sampling between 1977 and 2002. Four native mammal species were commonly recorded in the original sampling: sandstone antechinus (Pseudantechinus bilarni), northern quoll (Dasyurus hallucatus), Arnhem rock-rat (Zyzomys maini) and common rock-rat (Z. argurus). Trap success rates declined significantly for the northern quoll, Arnhem rock-rat and all species combined, but increased for the common rock-rat. Despite being recorded commonly in the initial (1977–79) study, no Arnhem rock-rats were recorded in the most recent (2002) sampling. Trap success rates for northern quoll declined by ~90% from 1977–79 to 2002. The reasons for change are not clear-cut. Notably, all sampling occurred before the arrival of cane toads (Rhinella marina), a factor that has caused severe decline in northern quoll numbers elsewhere. Fire was more frequent in the sampling area in the period preceding the 2002 sampling than it was in the period preceding the initial (1977–79) sampling, and this may have contributed to change in mammal abundance.

scholarly journals Of Lightning Brothers and White Cockatoos: dating the antiquity of signifying systems in the Northern Territory, Australia

Antiquity ◽  
1994 ◽  
Vol 68 (259) ◽  
pp. 241-251 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruno David ◽  
Ian McNiven ◽  
Val Attenbrow ◽  
Josephine Flood ◽  
Jackie Collins
Keyword(s):  
Rock Art ◽  
Northern Territory ◽  
Northern Australia ◽  
The World

Northern Australia is one of the very few regions of the world where an established tradition of rock-art has continued and extends into present-day knowledge. Excavation of deposits under the painted surfaces allows the age of the paintings to be estimated, by linking across to these deposits and their dateable contexts. One can begin to assess the antiquity of those systems of knowledge and of ‘signifying’.

New species of Drymopsalta Heath Cicadas (Cicadidae: Cicadettinae: Cicadettini) from Queensland and Northern Territory, Australia, with overview of genus

Zootaxa ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 3620 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-42
Author(s):  
A. EWART ◽  
L. W. POPPLE
Keyword(s):  
New Species ◽  
High Frequency ◽  
Similar Pattern ◽  
National Park ◽  
Northern Territory ◽  
Allopatric Species ◽  
Temporal Structures ◽  
Cape York ◽  
Three New Species ◽  
Tree Foliage

Three new species are described in the genus Drymopsalta Ewart, previously known only from D. crepitum Ewart and D. daemeli Distant. The three new species occur in Southern Queensland and Northern Territory. D. wallumi sp. nov. occurs along coastal S.E. Queensland, whereas D. hobsoni sp. nov. is restricted to the Bringalily State Forest, near Inglewood, southern inland Queensland. D. acrotela sp. nov. is found in the Litchfield National Park and other locations near Jabaluka, Cahills Crossing, E. Alligator River and Nourlangie, all across the northern Northern Territory. D. crepitum occurs on the Cape York Peninsular extending into the southern Gulf, while D. daemeli occurs in two localised regions in central coastal N.S.W. Each of the species inhabits heath vegetation, often spilling-over into adjacent tree foliage. The species of Drymopsalta are small and inconspicuous cicadas (<15 mm body length) with relatively high frequency songs (~15 to 22 kHz). The temporal structures of the normal calling songs follow a similar pattern in each species, consisting of the emission of short chirps (comprising 2–16 ticks). Between the chirps are emitted one (D. wallumi, D. hobsoni, D. acrotela), two (D. daemeli) or 1–9 (D. crepitum) intervening single ticks. The species can be distinguished by the timing and the number of these single ticks relative to the adjacent chirps with the notable exception of D. hobsoni and D. acrotela. The calling songs of these two allopatric species are indistinguishable, an unusual feature in Australian cicadas. Two additional song variants are described, a more unstructured chirping song without intervening single ticks observed in each of the species except D. crepitum, and periodic extended buzzing echemes emitted within the calling songs (excepting the D. wallumi song).

Fire regimes and interval-sensitive vegetation in semiarid Gregory National Park, northern Australia

2010 ◽  
Vol 58 (4) ◽  
pp. 300 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeremy Russell-Smith ◽  
Cameron P. Yates ◽  
Chris Brock ◽  
Vanessa C. Westcott
Keyword(s):  
National Park ◽  
Fire Regime ◽  
Woody Species ◽  
Fire Regimes ◽  
Stem Density ◽  
Northern Australia ◽  
Juvenile Period ◽  
Climate Conditions ◽  
Fine Fuels ◽  
Ecologically Sustainable

Few data are available concerning contemporary fire regimes and the responses of fire interval-sensitive vegetation types in semiarid woodland savanna landscapes of northern Australia. For a 10 300 km2 semiarid portion of Gregory National Park, in the present paper we describe (1) components of the contemporary fire regime for 1998–2008, on the basis of assessments derived from Landsat and MODIS imagery, (2) for the same period, the population dynamics, and characteristic fine-fuel loads associated with Acacia shirleyi Maiden (lancewood), an obligate seeder tree species occurring in dense monodominant stands, and (3) the fire responses of woody species, and fine-fuel dynamics, sampled in 41 plots comprising shrubby open-woodland over spinifex hummock grassland. While rain-year (July–June) rainfall was consistently reliable over the study period, annual fire extent fluctuated markedly, with an average of 29% being fire affected, mostly in the latter part of the year under relatively harsh fire-climate conditions. Collectively, such conditions facilitated short fire-return intervals, with 30% of the study area experiencing a repeat fire within 1 year, and 80% experiencing a repeat fire within 3 years. Fine fuels associated with the interior of lancewood thickets were characteristically small (<1 t ha–1). Fine fuels dominated by spinifex (Triodia spp.) were found to accumulate at rates equivalent to those observed under higher-rainfall conditions. Stand boundaries of A. shirleyi faired poorly under prevailing fire regimes over the study period; in 16 plots, juvenile density declined 62%, and adult stem density and basal area declined by 53% and 40%, respectively. Although the maturation (primary juvenile) period of A. shirleyi is incompletely known, assembled growth rate and phenology data indicated that it is typically >10 years. Of 133 woody species sampled, all trees (n = 26), with the exception of A. shirleyi, were resprouters, and 58% of all shrub species (n = 105) were obligate seeders, with observed primary juvenile periods <5 years. Assembled data generally supported observations made from other northern Australian studies concerning the responses of fire-sensitive woody taxa in rugged, sandstone-derived landscapes, and illustrated the enormous challenges facing ecologically sustainable fire management in such settings. Contemporary fire regimes of Gregory National Park are not ecologically sustainable.

Encounters on the Frontier: Banteng in Australia’s Northern Territory

2014 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 26-41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vanessa deKoninck
Keyword(s):  
Introduced Species ◽  
National Park ◽  
Genetic Resource ◽  
Northern Territory ◽  
Nonhuman Animal ◽  
The North ◽  
Bos Javanicus ◽  
Environmental Threat ◽  
Tropical Australia ◽  
Over Time

Abstract This paper considers the case of an introduced species that resides in what is now a jointly managed national park in the north of tropical Australia. Banteng (Bos javanicus) are a peculiar feral nonhuman animal in that they constitute a potential environmental threat within the domestic conservation goals of the park, but they also hold the prospect of being a major genetic resource in the international conservation of the species. Thus, perspectives on the use and management of these animals are varied between different actors in the park landscape, and are subject to fluctuations over time, especially in response to wider social and political circumstances. This paper argues that seemingly objective views of these animals are actually a series of subjectivities, which have less to do with any concrete aspects of the animals themselves and more to do with the way that particular people orient themselves toward, and within, the landscape.

High Accuracy Photogrammetry of Historic Rock Art

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marla MacKinnon
Keyword(s):  
National Park ◽  
Rock Art ◽  
Glass Plate ◽  
Measurement Data ◽  
Mining Industry ◽  
3D Models ◽  
High Accuracy ◽  
Heritage Recording

The petroglyphs of Petroglyph Park, Peterborough, created by the Algonquin Peoples between 900 and 1400 A.D., were documented in 1983 by the Heritage Recording Directorate of theGovernment of Canada. With the aim of rerecording the glyphs again at a later date to monitor the conditions and weathering, several sets of photogrammetric stereo pairs were taken of the site using Zeiss UMK and a Wild P-31 film cameras. After this project was completed, the site became designated as sacred and photography was no longer permitted, thus rendering the completion of a second recording of the site all but impossible. Therefore, the photographs taken of these magnificent petroglyphs in the 1980s are the most recent documentation available. Using the ADAMTech Mine Mapping Suite, developed in Perth Australia for the mining industry, I was able to bring these archival photos to life by creating dense 3D models that rival those produced by LiDAR. I used the photos, digitized in Ottawa on a Wehri RM-6 photogrammetric scanner, to create 3D models of the glyphs. A similar Federal project from Writing on Stone National Park in Alberta also used film photogrammetry to record the glyphs at that site in 1982. From these images as well I was able to compile 3D models. It is hoped that by scanning the original glass-plate negatives from the 1980s, and not the film copies, as we have done thus far for both projects, measurement data of even greater accuracy (down to 60um) and density can be achieved.

scholarly journals Spatial Dynamics of Invasive Para Grass on a Monsoonal Floodplain, Kakadu National Park, Northern Australia

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (18) ◽  
pp. 2090
Author(s):  
Boyden ◽  
Wurm ◽  
Joyce ◽  
Boggs
Keyword(s):  
Satellite Imagery ◽  
Wild Rice ◽  
National Park ◽  
Fire History ◽  
Spatial Dynamics ◽  
Gradient Boosting ◽  
Native Vegetation ◽  
Northern Australia ◽  
Stochastic Gradient Boosting ◽  
The World

African para grass (Urochloa mutica) is an invasive weed that has become prevalent across many important freshwater wetlands of the world. In northern Australia, including the World Heritage landscape of Kakadu National Park (KNP), its dense cover can displace ecologically, genetically and culturally significant species, such as the Australian native rice (Oryza spp.). In regions under management for biodiversity conservation para grass is often beyond eradication. However, its targeted control is also necessary to manage and preserve site-specific wetland values. This requires an understanding of para grass spread-patterns and its potential impacts on valuable native vegetation. We apply a multi-scale approach to examine the spatial dynamics and impact of para grass cover across a 181 km2 floodplain of KNP. First, we measure the overall displacement of different native vegetation communities across the floodplain from 1986 to 2006. Using high spatial resolution satellite imagery in conjunction with historical aerial-photo mapping, we then measure finer-scale, inter-annual, changes between successive dry seasons from 1990 to 2010 (for a 48 km2 focus area); Para grass presence-absence maps from satellite imagery (2002 to 2010) were produced with an object-based machine-learning approach (stochastic gradient boosting). Changes, over time, in mapped para grass areas were then related to maps of depth-habitat and inter-annual fire histories. Para grass invasion and establishment patterns varied greatly in time and space. Wild rice communities were the most frequently invaded, but the establishment and persistence of para grass fluctuated greatly between years, even within previously invaded communities. However, these different patterns were also shown to vary with different depth-habitat and recent fire history. These dynamics have not been previously documented and this understanding presents opportunities for intensive para grass management in areas of high conservation value, such as those occupied by wild rice.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document