Is Australia in a ‘sweet spot?'

We also overestimate the 'trickle down effect' of the mining boom. The mantra that massive mining projects will extricate indigenous communities from the deplorable living standards many endure in northern Australia is dubious. This path has a poor track record and comes with the unacceptable trade off that Traditional Aboriginal Owners should never be forced to make – that development must come with the destruction of their country.

But there is a way forward if we exercise courage, innovation and political leadership. It involves a departure from the development model of southern Australia – a conservation economy with a large, interconnected network of protected areas at its core, complimented with viable and sustainable industries and enterprises.

This world-class reserve system would be a mix of World Heritage, National Parks, Indigenous Protected Areas and nature refuges.

Compatible industries may involve low impact grazing on native pastures, eco and culture based tourism, fishing, mining projects with a small ecological footprint, biosecurity, defence, providing health, education and other government services, information technology, small scale agriculture, horticulture and forestry plantations. Indigenous industries include bush food and medicines, tourism and maintaining sustainable fisheries.

Indigenous people employed in conservation and management of country is critical to maintaining the natural and cultural values of northern Australia and job creation in indigenous communities in remote areas. These jobs are not welfare. Indigenous knowledge and skills are crucial to the long-term management and protection of this precious environment.

Building a considerable workforce of indigenous rangers across Northern Australia must be a priority as Aboriginal people stand to own up to 30 per cent of Northern Australia. Perhaps their most important task is to maintain traditional ecological burning practices across the north, to maintain habitat for wildlife and maximise carbon carrying capacity of this vast savannah woodland, as a major plank of Australia's climate change response.

It's an ambitious plan but it's not beyond us. A 'sweet spot' to last not just for the next fifty years of the mining boom but Australia's first carbon based economy, positioned for the twenty-first century.