This paper explores how Indigenous community-based natural resource management can generate both conservation benefit and economic development opportunity. We begin by noting that much of the Indigenous estate in north Australia is either thinly populated or unpopulated. There is emerging evidence that, in situations where Indigenous people live on their country, ecological and wider benefits are generated via favourable fire regimes, control over weed infestations, and potentially through feral animal harvesting.

A study of the Tangentyere Bank Pilot Project is important, as it is often cited as a ‘best practice’ model of financial service provision and financial literacy training (see McDonnell and Westbury 2002). For this reason, this report focuses on aspects of the Tangentyere project that may be applied to other Aboriginal communities in central Australia.

This Issues Paper is a first step in the development of an Indigenous Arts Strategy (IAS) for the Northern Territory (NT). It aims to do two things. First, to assess the current state of Indigenous arts in the NT. Second, to canvass issues for consideration by arts stakeholders and to facilitate the development of an Indigenous arts support framework for the NT. It should be noted at the outset that the development of such an Indigenous arts strategy is unprecedented in the NT, and possibly in Australia.

When Centrelink was established in 1997, it inherited from the Department of Social Security a model of service delivery for Indigenous communities in remote areas built around relatively large social security offices based in urban centres and agents based in Indigenous communities. Some dissatisfaction with this model has led Centrelink to experiment with additional ways of delivering services to remote Indigenous communities.