Katungal: Managing archaeological sites threatened by sea level rise

Untold numbers of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander coastal archaeological sites and landforms are being destroyed around Australia by accelerating rates of erosion caused by sea level rise, changing storm patterns and encroaching coastal developments. The vast majority of such threatened coastal archaeological sites and landforms have not been documented or investigated, so that their stories remain untold and what is being lost forever remains largely unknown. Mitigation strategies need to be developed before it is too late. Working in close partnership with Aboriginal representative organisations with significant areas of coast and sea Country, the Katungal research programme intends to transform how coastal archaeological sites and landscapes are studied, and to build management capacity through a new generation of Aboriginal Sea Rangers to map, monitor and manage priority coastal sites and landscapes threatened by erosion.

This research-with-education programme will investigate Aboriginal coastal archaeological sites and landforms endangered by sea level rise. It will generate new knowledge on the distribution, characteristics and antiquity of GunaiKurnai archaeological sites in vulnerable landforms of the Gippsland coast. A key outcome is development of a new, nationally and internationally applicable method to predict and monitor the susceptibility of coastal archaeological sites and landscapes to erosion, and the training of a generation of Aboriginal Sea Rangers in land-and-sea Country research, monitoring and management. This will provide significant benefits for the management of coastal archaeological places by Indigenous organisations and land management agencies.

This partnership will document and safeguard vulnerable coastal sites and landforms that connect Aboriginal peoples to Country, and share in culturally appropriate ways the importance and cultural values of these coastal places with the broader Australian and international public.