Indigenous tourism helps to reconcile the two different Australian peoples: the Europeans want to be forgiven for the tragic colonial period, and the Aborigines try to preserve their ancient roots from the present and the future. But the geographical isolation of the indigenous communities faced with problems in economic development underlines the fragile balance between tradition and modernity.
At the beginning of the 21st century, the life expectancy of a white Australian is ten years longer than that of his or her Aboriginal counterpart. Will the world’s environmental problems bring the two civilizations together? Preserving the Australian continent’s biodiversity on a short-term basis represents a sustainable, complementary interest for the two peoples - technological advances will profit from the use of ancestral knowledge.