Cape York Peninsula, Australia: A frontier region undergoing a multifunctional transition with indigenous engagement
Within Australia’s tropical savanna zone, the northernmost frontier regions have experienced the swiftest transition towards multifunctional occupance, as a formerly flimsy productivist mode is readily displaced by more complex modes, with greater prominence given to consumption, protection and Indigenous values. Of these frontier regions, Cape York Peninsula has become the focus for increasingly entrenched, complex contests about regional futures, with the transition towards complex multifunctionality demonstrated in the 1970, 1990 and 2010 tenure maps.