Report prepared for Ninti One Limited The Martuwarra (Fitzroy River) catchment is a place of outstanding natural and cultural significance, both to Traditional Owners and the broader Australian public.The Western Australian Government is currently implementing an election commitment to ensure the health of the river and support sustainable economic development. Traditional Owners are also working together on the same goal through the Martuwarra Fitzroy River Council that represents most of the Native Title groups in the catchment.Allocating water for irrigated agriculture is being investigated as a sustainable development option for the Martuwarra catchment. Through a benefit cost analysis, we find that irrigation enterprises are likely to be mostly unprofitable, create a poor return on public investment and create few jobs. This argument is supported by the review of past regional irrigation projects. Prospects for positive benefits in our analysis were limited to centre pivot irrigation from ground water where high prices can be achieved, such as through targeting high value niche markets. We also find that an inclusive benefit cost analysis would have to factor in costly negative public good externalities including increased carbon emissions from land clearing; reduced subsistence food provision and increased social welfare costs from lost social capital. Published evaluations to date haven’t factored in these costs. Through a review of the literature on Indigenous economic development we outline a development pathway based on developing the human, cultural and social capital of Martuwarra Traditional Owners and connecting the natural and cultural capital of the catchment with existing and emerging markets. Together with the existing pastoral and services base of the economy we find this represents a stronger pathway to sustainable development, economic growth and improved workforce participation than irrigation.Through the collection of information on existing enterprise activity in the Martuwarra (Fitzroy River) catchment we find that Aboriginal enterprises in the region are already significant and responding to demands across a wide range of sectors in the regional economy. The sectors that the regional Aboriginal enterprises are already targeting have market demand worth in excess of $245b and domestic industries with markets worth approximately $234 – 344m. In some markets such as Gubinge (Kakadu plum) and Aboriginal tourism, industry growth is constrained by supply rather than demand. We find that public investment in research and development for Aboriginal enterprises lags significantly behind that spent on irrigation and pastoralism; with over $35m in funding identified for research and development to support irrigation and beef industry growth compared to less than $1m in similar funding for Aboriginal-led market sectors.Finally, we make recommendations on how targeted public investment in direct job creation, human capital development, governance capacity and product marketing through economic development strategies co-designed with Aboriginal organisations and businesses can represent good investments with the potential to increase supply chain value capture by Aboriginal enterprises and create sustained regional economic growth.