It's hard to disagree. However, it cannot be said that had the British not arrived and colonized when they did, another colonial power would not have, with equal or worse consequences for the native population. The expansion of colonialism, and then early industrialization, would have made this inevitable. To imagine that the indigenous population of Australia could have been left untouched in an undeveloped land to the present time defies the reality of the growth and spread of global evolution. So the inexorable forces of history are to blame, I suppose, not that that gives any comfort. I'm old enough to remember how indigenous people were treated in the past, not just the people, but the utter disregard of the culture. A lot has changed since then. It started to change after Whitlam, in my view. I can't speak with authority about how to solve all the problems. But at least we remember the history and want to correct it, and that's the difference between imperfect liberal democracies and authoritarian regimes, which black out or rewrite the past.

It's a vast oversimplification to say that Australian aborigines "nurtured and developed the environment". As has been the case on every continent humans have migrated to, they attempted to shape the environment to their preferences. In Australia, as in most of the world, the arrival of Homo sapiens led quickly to the extinction of megafauna and widespread environmental disturbance. Compared with Europeans at the time of first contact, the environmental damage was constrained by technological limits, not by a superior relationship with the natural world.

Sad but true....our glorious past was far from glorious. The Australian government should be ensuring that the Aboriginal people are looked after properly, it is now their responsibility. The Aborigines are the true guardians of the land and knew how manage the forces of nature long before we arrived. The British are long gone now, it was shameful how they treated the native people everywhere they colonised, but history cannot be changed and we can only try and make sure that we don’t repeat mistakes of the past.

Yeah so sad forrthe native

Sounds familiar. But here in the US, the French are responsible for wiping out more than 70% o the native population in the early 1600s before the Pilgrims arrived. When they got here, they found literally dozens of empty villages with intact houses, farms, storage packed with grain, corn, firewood. The French and Spanish wiped out literally millions of natives over the next century until the English had established a foothold, and then they picked up the charge. It's truly horrific what people do to each other.

Yaeh so sad for the bnatives \

Someone else read Dark Emu Agriculture or accident by Bruce Pascoe?

Yes, been going on for centuries.