‘Too many trees!’: Aboriginal woodcarvers in Australia

In remote regions of Australia (particularly north and central Australia), large tracts of structurally intact and sparsely populated land are owned by Aboriginal people under land rights or native title law. Currently 740,000 square kilometres or 53 per cent of the Northern Territory is under Aboriginal freehold title or under claim, and is home to about 40,000 indigenous people (72 per cent of the Northern Territory’s Aboriginal population; Taylor, 2003). In these regions, Aboriginal people have a long history of plant use and management. Before European settlement, hundreds of different plant species were used by Aboriginal people in the customary economy and many groups carved wooden sculptures from local timber for ceremonial or mortuary purposes (Berndt et al, 1982). However, over the last few decades a growing
number of indigenous harvesters have utilized naturally occurring tree species to produce wooden carvings for the art market. Despite this growth, there has been little research that has assessed the social, ecological and economic determinants of the sustainability of sculpture production in a combined way. In this chapter we look at historical aspects of Aboriginal woodcarving in Australia, the development of the Aboriginal art industry and the production of wooden sculpture for the art market.1 Finally, we use a case study from the Maningrida region of central Arnhem Land to examine aspects of the woodcarving industry in relation to the available resource base.