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Aussies' broken rules

12 January 2003 - More than 20 million didgeridoos are sold each year, but can the bush they're made from sustain such a booming trade?

Dreamtime Berlin 2002

It's a cultural icon whose rasping, eerie sounds evoke the mysteries of Aboriginal Australia, but now the didgeridoo has become a victim of its own success. The tubular instruments have become so popular with tourists that large areas of bushland are being illegally harvested for the wood from which they are made.

A genuine didgeridoo is made from a tree branch that has been naturally hollowed out by termites. It takes skill to find such branches, a skill that was until recently the preserve of Aborigines. Likely looking limbs are now being taken by white Australians, who often damage several trees in order to find one suitable branch to make an instrument which is usually about 5-6 feet long.

The axes used by Aborigines have given way to chainsaws. There are stories of didgeridoos being made by non-Aboriginal Australians and painted by backpackers. So widespread is the 'poaching' that Aborigines in the Northern Territory are calling for tight controls on who is allowed to make didgeridoos.

Colin Howard, an Aboriginal man from the Arrente tribe of central Australia, runs an indigenous cultural centre in Alice Springs selling didgeridoos. He estimates up to 20 million didgeridoos are sold each year -- more than the total population of Australia.

'It's an enormous amount. We have clients who buy three or four each. There's got to be a restriction. It's a big worry that such a large amount of timber is leaving the country. It's putting a lot of pressure on fragile desert areas,' he said.

In the Northern Territory, where didgeridoos are known as 'yedaki' non-indigenous Australians are only allowed to harvest suitable branches if they have a permit from the Parks and Wildlife Service. But experts say the number of didgeridoos being sold from souvenir shops in Darwin, Alice Springs and elsewhere far exceeds the small number of permits issued.

Glenn Edwards, from the Parks and Wildlife Service, said: 'Our concern is that the resource is not being used at a renewable rate. Didgeridoos are basically made by nature and there's a limited number of suitable branches out there in the bush.'

Aboriginal leaders say permits should either be reserved for Aborigines, or granted on a limited basis to white Australians on the understanding that part of the profits from the sale of the didgeridoos is ploughed back into indigenous communities. The problem has become so acute in Western Australia that two years ago the state government introduced a tagging system. Licensed woodcutters label each harvested branch, which remains on the wood during the didgeridoo-making process. Selling or owning a
didgeridoo without a tag is an offence.

Dr Ken Atkins, the principal botanist of the Department of Conservation and Land Management, said: 'Less scrupulous people were taking timber from nature reserves and conservation areas. The new system has severely curtailed the amount of illegal harvesting. We are no longer getting the reports of illegal harvesting that we did in the past.'

In Western Australia around 2500 branches are cut each year from mallee trees, a kind of eucalyptus. Stems are sold for about A$50 (£18) while a finished didgeridoo fetches at least A$150. Each one is unique, with its own distinctive sound.

Many Aboriginals say the system, no matter how well intentioned, misses the point. They say that didger-idoos should not be cut or made by non-Aboriginal Australians at all, and are offended by the appropriation of the instrument, which is considered sacred. Cave paintings indicate Aborigines have been playing didgeridoos for at least 20,000 years, with the instrument originating in northern Australia. Traditional didgeridoos generally sport minimal decoration, but souvenir shops are stacked with brightly coloured didgeridoos made of bamboo or even fibreglass.

Along with dot art paintings, they represent a multi-million pound business. Tourists can even buy mini-didgeridoos, small enough to fit in a handbag, a pale imitation of the genuine article.

Source: Sunday Herald

related links :

• Didgeridoo craftsmen under threat
  13 March, 2003 - BBC - Manyallaluk, Northern Territory, Australia - The Didgeridoo is both the cultural icon of Aboriginal Australia and a keepsake for thousands of tourists each year.
• Didgeridoo popularity cuts both ways
  19 December, 2002 - As demand grows, so too does poaching for the prized didgeridoo timber on traditional Aboriginal land, particularly in the Northern Territory, the Top End, where it's known more as the "yedaki". Now Aboriginal leaders are looking at ways to wrest back some control of their cultural icon.
• We must be careful to preserve the value of Australia's Indigenous art
  13 December 2002 - Earlier this month, the Australia Council for the Arts (OzCo) announced a series of protocols for dealing with Indigenous cultures. Developed to guide non-Indigenous artists and the wider community in how to interact respectfully with Australian Aboriginal identities, imagery and ancestral myths, the Oz Co's Indigenous Protocols are a major step towards protecting the status of native Australian's cultural heritage.
• Ancient didgeridoo adopted by the digital generation
  June 23, 2002 - For aborigines, the music of the didgeridoo is less an art in itself than a conduit to Dreamtime, the ongoing creation story that is the center of Aboriginal ritual and myth. For Goma, the challenge was fitting the ritualistic, transcendent possibilities of the instrument to his own particular background.
• Was the didgeridoo a bit of Irish to the Aborigines?
  June 23 2002 - Faith and begorrah! The linguistic origins of Australia's most iconic musical instrument, the didgeridoo, have been called into question with an academic claiming the name is of Irish derivation rather than from an Aboriginal dialect.
• Arnhem land family on didgeridoo tour to Germany
  April 26, 2002 - Members of an Aboriginal family from east Arnhem land will take their culture to Germany in July.
• Stolen Identities
  29 January 2000 - As Aboriginal people transferred their visions onto canvas, buyers swiftly began to recognise their value. Aboriginal painting is now recognised as one of the most important movements in modern art. It generates around 200 million Australian dollars a year: some canvases are worth as much as A$40,000 each. For a while it looked as if the sale of art would be a means by which the Aborigines could start to recover some of the self-respect of which they have been deprived, as well, of course, as some of the resources. As soon as their painting became valuable, however, white marauders began to steal even that.
• Didgeridoo & Co Magazine carrys news and dates for Didgeridoo lovers in Europe. English version. German version

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