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Environmental leaders and Indigenous engagement in Australia: a cosmopolitan enterprise?

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journal contribution
posted on 2023-05-18, 22:16 authored by Lyn McGaurrLyn McGaurr, Bruce TranterBruce Tranter, Elizabeth Lester
The World Heritage Convention protects sites of universal natural and cultural values, sometimes in combination. In 2015, it was amended to incorporate references to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). International conventions are always in danger of becoming the hand-maidens of their signatory states. When evidence emerges that they have succumbed, it fuels criticism of cosmopolitanism. At the same time, environmental leaders sometimes clash with Indigenous people over efforts to conserve the natural values of traditional lands for the ‘global good’. This article asks how international instruments with cosmopolitan ambitions influence the discourse and practice of national and subnational environmentalists attempting to find common ground with Indigenous groups. Drawing on interviews with 25 Australian environmental leaders, it finds the World Heritage Convention and UNDRIP have encouraged a pragmatic cosmopolitan practice among environmentalists, despite continuing intercultural differences in some quarters.

Funding

Australian Research Council

History

Publication title

Conservation and Society

Volume

14

Pagination

254-266

ISSN

0972-4923

Department/School

School of Social Sciences

Publisher

Medknow Publications and Media Pvt. Ltd

Place of publication

India

Rights statement

Copyright: © McGaurr et al 2016. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Generic (CC BY 2.5) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/2.5 Generic (CC BY 2.5)

Repository Status

  • Open

Socio-economic Objectives

Communication not elsewhere classified

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