Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples carry substantial responsibilities for managing Australia’s ecosystems and biodiversity, yet Indigenous perspectives, data, and authority remain marginal within the spatial infrastructures that underpin natural resource management, conservation planning, and emergency response. Intensifying climate pressures alongside accelerating ecological degradation are placing Indigenous biocultural landscapes under growing stress, exposing a critical misalignment between Indigenous governance responsibilities and the mainstream spatial systems through which Country is managed.

Drawing on collaborative geospatial research with the Manilikaar and Bunitj Traditional Owners of Western Arnhem Land, the Arakwal Bundjalung Peoples of the Byron Bay region, and Aboriginal organisations across Australia, this thesis examines how cultural values mapping, digital heritage conservation, and environmental modelling can support Indigenous governance of Country. Case studies demonstrate that governance arrangements, rather than the technical properties of geospatial tools, are the primary determinant of whether digital cartography distorts and extracts from Indigenous geographies or strengthens stewardship and cultural resurgence.

The thesis argues that realising spatially enabled Indigenous governance requires strategic investment in Indigenous geospatial expertise and community-controlled spatial data infrastructure, and that government agencies and research organisations must fulfil their obligations to support this work. More than inclusion or participation, what is required is Indigenous authority over the spatial information and infrastructures that produce, represent, and shape decisions about Country.

About the Speaker

Sam Provost is a PhD candidate at the Fenner School of Environment and Society, Australian National University. A Yuin scholar with Irish and Scottish settler heritage, Sam has a background in Environmental Science, GIS, and natural resource management. His research investigates how digital spatial technologies can bring Indigenous and settler understandings of place into dialogue to improve the management of biocultural landscapes. Sam engages collaborative, community-led research to support Indigenous peoples and communities to leverage digital tools in the pursuit of self-determination. Drawing on remotely sensed imagery, repatriated geospatial data, and 3D world-building, his projects aim to produce rich digital cultural heritage assets grounded in Indigenous Data Sovereignty and Governance. Sam is an Executive Member of the Maiam nayri Wingara Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Data Sovereignty Collective.