Assessment of the potential changes in wellbeing of key interest groups in the Fitzroy river catchment under alternative development scenarios: Traditional Owners’ workshop

This report presents the preliminary results of a workshop held on 10 and 11 September 2019 with Traditional Owner groups in Fitzroy Crossing, aiming to develop a way to identify and assess the positive and negative effects of different future scenarios on the wellbeing of Traditional Owners across the Fitzroy River catchment. Participants discussed how several categories of wellbeing are currently satisfied in the Fitzroy catchment; and then assessed scenarios 1, 2 and 4 against those categories. Participants’ ratings generally had scenario 1 with the most positive ratings, and scenarios 2 and 4 with mostly negative ratings. The negative ratings seem to be linked with an aversion to large-scale irrigated agriculture and its perceived potential impacts, especially the withdrawal of water, pollution, and limited access to country. Participants perceived positively an increase in ranger jobs and the potential for Indigenous owned enterprises in scenarios 1 and 2. However, many emphasised that making these jobs satisfactory required training initiatives to build Traditional Owners’ capacity. Next steps include a more comprehensive analysis of participants’ comments, reporting back to participants and to a broader audience.