Black is not green

This paper critiques the notion that Aborigines purposefully are the consummate environmentalists that many, both Aborigines and others, claim them to be. It argues that such an understanding is a misrepresentation of Aboriginal cosmologies and ways of relating to country. It explains how the more traditional ways of relating to country still in evidence correspond with more recent theoretical developments in ecological science. Those that pose Aborigines as Ecological Beings manipulate superseded understandings of ecosystems. Noting the extent of environmental change to Australia post-1788, the article concludes that posing Aborigines as environmentalists ignores the structural causes of environmental change, as well as ignoring the interrelationships between epistemologies and the practices they sanction.