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Paper short abstract:

Land managers in Cape York hold different understandings of climate variability that emerge from particular environmental knowledges, values and practices. These framings come to the fore during the wet season when land managers must grapple with a changing duration and intensity of rainfall.

Paper long abstract:

Land managers in Cape York hold different ideas around the causes of climate variability. Their varied understandings of changes in climate are underpinned by particular kinds of environmental knowledges, values and practices. How people explain and deal with seasonal shifts and climate variability come to the fore in the context of the wet season, when land managers must adapt to the changing duration and intensity of the rainfall each year. Cape York land managers – particularly graziers – rely heavily on the wet season to ensure the wellbeing of waterways and pastures and to extinguish any wildfires that may be burning. For all land managers, the wet season initiates a different rhythm of life from the dry, with changes to work schedules and impacts on how mobile people can be. Cape York land managers’ talk about the wet season frequently shifts into discussions of climate change. While some land managers, like many Aboriginal traditional owners and park rangers, are comfortable with the language of climate change, others draw on the explanatory model of ‘natural cycles’ to talk about variability in the wet season. I contend that the explanatory models different land managers draw on to understand climate variation are linked to their livelihoods and claims to be appropriately situated to care for land. Discussions around climate change emerge as a way for land managers to position and make claims about their own environmental knowledge and right to care for land.