Mandy JEAN, in association with former members of CAPAC
“By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion.” (Psalms 137)
Nowhere is the pathos of romantic pastoralism, felt more keenly than in the post-colonial world. In Australia, pastoral stations are the very large sheep and cattle properties, held by families, pastoral companies, Aboriginal groups, mining companies and conservation groups. Stations operate on Crown land, which is leased to pastoralists as a ‘pastoral lease’. Pastoralists manage the natural vegetation on the lease to breed and run their stock in a sustainable manner. Pastoral leases are used for grazing of livestock on native vegetation, because the rainfall in these areas is too low and erratic for agricultural cropping or improved pastures. In Western Australia these stations are located in the Kimberley, Pilbara, Gascoyne, Murchison, Goldfields and Nullarbor regions of the State. What is the future of this agricultural practice when all pastoral leases expire on 30 June 2015?
Steeped in Australian history, the theatrical imagination has often come to the creative assistance of romantic pastoralism, symbolised by epic films such as ‘Australia’ and re-enactments of the Great Outback Cattle Drive with images of the aristocratic English station owners and handsome Aboriginal stockmen in Akubra hats. For most Aboriginal owned stations, people want to live on these stations so they can exercise and re-new their cultural attachment to land, land that may have been inaccessible to them for generations. However, almost all Aboriginal stations are located in rangelands, which are the most economically and environmentally marginal of all lands. This paper investigates the ten year practice of the Central Agricultural and Pastoral Aboriginal Corporation (CAPAC) for Aboriginal pastoral enterprises in the Pilbara, Gascoyne and Murchison and traces the history, management practices, achievements and philosophy of this organisation, many members of whom participated in the Pilbara pastoral strike of 1946.