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Abstract

Conservation and environmental management have been reported as offering opportunitiesto substantially improve the wellbeing of Indigenous people. Using the holistic wellbeing impactevaluation (W-IE) approach—well suited for use in Indigenous communities—we interviewed190 Indigenous Australians across four communities. All communities were involved in theIndigenous land and sea management programs (ILSMPs). Our study explored the conceptualisationof ‘wellbeing’ by participants. In particular, we were interested in the aspects of wellbeing perceivedto be affected by ILSMPs. Out of the 26 wellbeing factors explored, ‘Health centres’; ‘Language’;‘Schools’; and ‘Safe community’ emerged as being of highest importance to the largest percentage ofthe respondents. When grouped using principle components analysis (PCA), the ‘Community andsociety’ domain emerged as the most important; accounting for 52% of the overall importance of allwellbeing factors. The second most important domain was the ‘Country and culture’, contributing31%. Lastly, ‘Economic aspects’ contributed only 17%. Respondents believed that ILSMPs have playeda considerable causal role in improving wellbeing, by positively changing factors most important tothem. Specifically, 73% of perceived causal links were related to improvements in the ‘Country andCulture’ and 23% to ‘Community and Society’ domain. We thus conclude that land managementfor Indigenous people is much more than ecological or environmental management with ILSMPs,perceived to cause a wide range of cultural and social benefits. We also propose ways in which thefuture design of such programs could be improved to further increase benefits.

Item Type:	Article
Authors/Creators:	Larson, S and Stoeckl, N and Jarvis, D and Addison, J and Grainger, D and Watkin Lui, F
Keywords:	Indigenous land and sea management programs, wellbeing, impact evaluation, environment, country
Journal or Publication Title:	International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
Publisher:	M D P I AG
ISSN:	1661-7827
DOI / ID Number:	10.3390/ijerph17010125
Copyright Information:	Copyright 2019 The Authors. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Related URLs:	Google Scholar: Stoeckl, N
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