Community participation has become something of an orthodoxy within natural resource management. In the absence of an explicit strategy for democratization and capacity-building the notion of community participation is potentially meaningless and its application likely to mask decisions made in the interests of elite groups. This article examines the shortcomings of participatory processes in coastal resource management and seeks to identify and overcome constraints to democratization and capacity-building for Indigenous Australians. Using two coastal catchments in Central Queensland as a case study, we explore relations of power among stakeholders using Stakeholder Analysis to provide a platform for more effective deliberative participation by this group of stakeholders. Discussion of the specific barriers to participation identified by Aboriginal stakeholders will demonstrate the need to adopt notions of capacity-building that focus not only on the attributes of the individual stakeholder that might facilitate their participation, but on the characteristics also of the decision-making environment.