Wondering about Alice

Alice Buhrich is a PhD candidate at James Cook University, Cairns, studying under the supervision of Dr Shelley Greer. She is the recipient of a 2013 Student Research Grant from the Wet Tropics Management Authority for a project she is currently working on looking at carved trees in the central Wet Tropics region. The project aims to understand the long term preservation needs of the carvings and how they were impacted by Cyclones Larry and Yasi and was developed jointly with Jirrbal and Mamu Traditional Owner representatives. She is undertaking this project alongside her PhD which is looking at rock art in the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area.

Alice grew up in Sydney and moved to north Queensland around 20 years ago after falling in love with the area’s rainforest, savannah, sandstone and coastal environments. Growing up with access to the Sydney-Hawkesbury Aboriginal sandstone engravings and awareness of Australia’s strong Aboriginal heritage, she developed an early interest in Aboriginal rock art and cultures.

After moving north, Alice worked as a tour guide in the rock art-rich Laura escarpment country of Cape York Peninsula. This work encouraged her to study archaeology so that she could learn more about the background of the rock art and to understand more about Aboriginal cultures. Her subsequent work as a researcher, teacher and consultant has provided many opportunities to work with Traditional Owners to identify, document and manage Aboriginal cultural.

Alice’s favourite projects are directed by Traditional Owners. Cultural mapping is a particular favourite, where community members, young and old, collect oral histories, conduct site recordings and make maps of places significant to the community. The information gathered from cultural mapping can be used for land management and for future generations of Traditional Owners. Alice says that the best thing about her job is the privilege of being taken to special places and talking about why they are important and how to best look after them.

Alice is passionate about cultural management and assisting Traditional Owners to meet their own objectives in looking after country and culture. She believes that research in the cultural heritage field should be about sitting together and talking to develop mutually beneficial methods and outcomes.

Alice’s PhD

Alice’s PhD project, Investigating rock art of the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area, involves identifying how rainforest rock art styles differ between Traditional Owner estates. The project entails working with rainforest Traditional Owners to:

• update the rock art records

• understand the major threats to preservation

• identify rock art styles and how they change in different cultural estates.

It is an opportunity to understand some of the preservation issues affecting rock art and other cultural sites in the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area and to work with Traditional Owners towards best practice management of these significant places. Some of the significant threats to the preservation of rock art in the region include:

• Damage caused by insects and other animals

• Constant wet/dry cycles from the high seasonal variability in rainfall

• Lack of bonding to the granite and metamorphic parent rock

• Site damage due to people visiting the sites, although this tends to be limited due to the difficulty in accessing the sites.

National Heritage recognition

In late 2012, the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area's Indigenous heritage values were included as part of the existing Wet Tropics of Queensland National Heritage Listing. The listing recognises that Rainforest Aboriginal heritage is significant and unique, with the Wet Tropics the only place in Australia where Aboriginal people have permanently inhabited a tropical rainforest environment. National Heritage listing is an important step towards achieving the goal of World Heritage listing of the Wet Tropics for cultural values.

Alice hopes that National Heritage listing will deliver funding opportunities to Traditional Owners and lead to better management practices and greater joint management between Traditional Owners and other organisations.