Joint Land Management: Iluas, Statutory Co-Governance & Conservation Sovereignty

1. The Emergence of Joint Land Management Frameworks

Joint land management across south-western Australia represents a historic shift from paternalistic state conservation monopolies toward negotiated co-governance with traditional Bibbullmun custodians.^[1] For over a century, the creation of national parks, nature reserves, and state forests by Western Australian authorities involved the systematic dispossession of Aboriginal clans, criminalising traditional hunting, foraging, and cultural burning (Karla).^[2] In recent decades, structural native title negotiations and Indigenous Land Use Agreements (ILUAs) have established formal statutory partnerships between custodial corporations and state agencies—primarily the Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions (DBCA)—creating institutional avenues for shared conservation authority.^[3]

2. Statutory Architecture: ILUAs, Joint Management Bodies & Conservation Deeds

The legal architecture of joint management is established through registered ILUAs and formal Joint Management Agreements (JMAs) entered into under the Conservation and Land Management Act 1984 (WA) (CALM Act).^[4] These statutory instruments establish regional Joint Management Bodies (JMBs) composed of equal numbers of traditional owner representatives and senior conservation officials.^[5] JMBs hold statutory authority to formulate park management plans, determine visitor access policies, license commercial eco-tourism operators, and protect vulnerable cultural heritage sites from recreational vandalism.^[6]

3. Operationalising Conservation Sovereignty on Country

On the ground, joint land management empowers Bibbullmun ranger teams to deploy millennia-old ecological science alongside modern conservation technologies.^[7] Ranger teams conduct GPS mapping of ancient gnamma water cisterns, monitor endangered marsupials such as the Woylie (Bettongia penicillata) and Chuditch (Dasyurus geoffroii), eradicate invasive feral predators, and implement traditional cool mosaic burning regimes.^[8] By replacing catastrophic late-summer wildfires with low-intensity seasonal burns, custodial land managers protect ancient Jarrah and Marri canopies, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and stimulate the germination of endemic understorey flora.^[9]

4. Structural Limitations & The Drive for Unilateral Custodial Tenure

Despite notable achievements, joint land management remains constrained by unequal statutory power dynamics.^[10] Under the CALM Act, the State Minister retains ultimate executive power to override JMB decisions on matters of state development, mining access, or forestry concessions. Indigenous legal scholars argue that joint management must be viewed as an interim transitional mechanism rather than the final horizon of decolonisation.^[11] Custodial assemblies continue to assert conservation sovereignty, demanding the unconditional return of unallocated Crown lands and full title over national parks to enable self-governed Indigenous Protected Areas (IPAs).^[12]