Aboriginal people caring for country: good for all of us

Aboriginal people caring for country: good for all of us
Jocelyn Davies CSIRO, DK-CRC 12th Sept 2008 Aboriginal people caring for country: good for all of us This talk is about research from the Desert Knowledge CRC Core Project: Livelihoods inLand™ . Further information about the project and its various research activities is available on the research and publication web pages of The photo here represents what this research is about overall: Science and traditional knowledge working together The title reflects in everyday language what this talk is about. But I plan to talk to the policy implications of some of the underpinning science – hence an alternative title is Dr Jocelyn Davies CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems, Alice Springs Desert Knowledge Cooperative Research Centre 12 September 2008 Livelihoods inLand™ research FaCHSIA Policy ThinkTank

Jocelyn Davies CSIRO, DK-CRC
12th Sept 2008 Critical understandings from land management systems for ‘closing the gap’ in desert Australia I will talk to some insights from systems, and what they mean for ‘closing the gap’. Dr Jocelyn Davies CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems, Alice Springs Desert Knowledge Cooperative Research Centre 12 September 2008 Livelihoods inLand™ research FaCHSIA Policy ThinkTank

Aboriginal land management – desert Australia
Jocelyn Davies CSIRO, DK-CRC 12th Sept 2008 Aboriginal land management – desert Australia Uniquely placed for sustainable livelihood outcomes (health, well being, income) Smaller settlements have a key role Cultural motivations are foundational Public investment is important to enterprise viability – ‘social enterprise’ Planning needs to join up land management, health, education and arts ‘Aboriginal land mgt’ encompasses other terms including ‘caring for country’ and ‘working on country’: Aboriginal people exercising their responsibilities in varied ways to maintain a relationship with traditional country. – I will talk more later about what this involves. Key messages from this talk are in this slide. FaCHSIA Policy ThinkTank

Complementary benefits from Aboriginal land management
Jocelyn Davies CSIRO, DK-CRC 12th Sept 2008 Complementary benefits from Aboriginal land management Health and well being of Aboriginal people Bush food production, including commercial Cultural heritage, contributing to: national cultural life of Australia, local and export income through tourism and art Biodiversity conservation, including the protection of threatened species Greenhouse gas mitigation, carbon sequestration. I will talk about Aboriginal land management as a sector that produces a number of complementary benefits. This paper focuses on the health and well being outcomes for Aboriginal people which are important given that improved Aboriginal health is a national priority. By pursuing Aboriginal health and well being through engagement in land management, the complementary outcomes indicated on this slide can also be pursued – in an economically efficient way. FaCHSIA Policy ThinkTank

Closing the gap needs systems thinking
Jocelyn Davies CSIRO, DK-CRC 12th Sept 2008 Closing the gap needs systems thinking ECONOMIC PARTICIPATION HEALTH BUDGET 08 BUILDING BLOCKS FOR CLOSING THE GAP The slide shows the budget 08 building blocks for closing the gap. Systems thinking – or a systems approach – is concerned with relationships amongst or between these building blocks – how one relates to another and how the interactions between these things and others promote positive feedbacks. The economic participation building block includes Commonweatlh government investments in Aboriginal land management through the Indigenous Protected Areas and Working on Country programs. GOVERNANCE & LEADERSHIP SCHOOLING EARLY CHILDHOOD HEALTHY HOMES SAFE COMMUNITIES FaCHSIA Policy ThinkTank

Engaging land management to close the gap
Jocelyn Davies CSIRO, DK-CRC 12th Sept 2008 Engaging land management to close the gap ECONOMIC PARTICIPATION HEALTH Land management Caring for country Working on country Land management can be envisaged as sitting at the centre of a system that produces these outcomes. A strong land management sector certainly needs the building blocks set out in Budget 08 for “closing the gap”. But land management is also an important strategy to contribute to these ‘closing the gap’ outcomes Land management does impact positively on health outcomes (solid arrows). And on economic participation, though generation of monetary income is constrained due to market failure (hard to capture market value from outcomes such as improved biodiversity that benefit all Australians. I will talk to these cross sectoral impacts. Also, harnessing the same motivations and world views that drive Aboriginal land management generates motivations for schooling and educational outcomes Potentially land management may impact positively on other sectors – early childhood, governance and leadership, and maybe more widely. The fundamental reason for land management having a key role is that it has a foundational positive impact on social determinants of health. This is through recognition of strengths of remote Aboriginal landowners in traditional knowledge, ways of organising productive activity that are based on still-strong social norms of customary owner/manager rights and responsibilities. These foundations engender participants’ sense of control over their lives, bring outside recognition, and form or strengthen new skills, confidence, and a sense of identity, particularly important for young people. These things are all linked together and are social determinants of health GOVERNANCE & LEADERSHIP SCHOOLING EARLY CHILDHOOD HEALTHY HOMES SAFE COMMUNITIES FaCHSIA Policy ThinkTank

12th Sept 2008 WHO framework for social determinants of health The diagram shows the WHO framework for Social Determinants of Health from their August 08 report. The report says : Globally it is now understood better than at any moment in history how social factors affect health and health equity. While information is always partial and the need for better evidence remains, we have the knowledge to guide effective action. The report also comments that standard approaches to assessing evidence – randomised controlled trials – are not very helpful in relation to social determinants of health. The social and psychological factors that impact on health outcomes are very complex and it is not possible to control for all the variables. Yet – we can assemble the picture of a system. As WHO have done here. It’s a bit scary because it says everything affects everything else The health care system is a tiny part of what drives health outcomes (which should be no surprise to people working in family and community services and housing). If we are to close the gap, we have to understand systems. WHO Commission on Social Determinants of Health, final report August 2008 FaCHSIA Policy ThinkTank

Health follows a social gradient
Jocelyn Davies CSIRO, DK-CRC 12th Sept 2008 Health follows a social gradient * * * * Health follows a social gradient, in all nations or regions. On average, people who are richer, and better educated have better health. Graph shows the differential if life expectancy between rich and poor areas of UK and US. UK- red asterisks Poor areas of Glasgow have worse health than average for India, Poland, Mexico. Average Rich areas of the same city has best health. USA – Yellow asterisks. USA poor black neighbourhood of Washington has worse health than is average for Phillipines, Mexico. White affluent neighbourhood. In each country, these health gradients are correlated with income and education. (ie healthiest people have highest incomes and education) So what??? We know that Aboriginal people in Redfern, have poorer health than non-Aboriginal people in nearby gentrified Surry Hills. And Aboriginal people in town camps of Alice Springs, have worse health than the average for the town. The implication is that Aboriginal life expectancies will match non-Aboriginal or average Australian patterns of life expectancy when Aboriginal people have the same distribution of income and education as the rest of the Australian population. * * WHO Commission on Social Determinants of Health, final report August 2008 FaCHSIA Policy ThinkTank

Health gradient in work roles
Jocelyn Davies CSIRO, DK-CRC Health gradient in work roles 12th Sept 2008 Wilkinson & Marmot. 2003 Social determinants of health, WHO Europe 2nd Ed There is a also gradient in health/ life expectancy related to work roles. Graph shows women have longer life expectancy than men. And that for both men and women, professional occupations have a longer life expectancy than managerial, who have longer life expectancy than skilled non-manual etc. Again we could se this pattern as being correlated with income and education. And we might conclude that when Aboriginal people have the same pattern of job roles as pattern of the Australian population, then we will have closed the gap in health. FaCHSIA Policy ThinkTank

12th Sept 2008 But one issue about this for me is that – as the Warumpi Band song would put it - : “I’m talking to you from the bush” Nationally, Aboriginal people might on average attain the same pattern of life expectancy as the rest of the nation. But there will be a social gradient. Within the Aboriginal population, some people will be at the bottom of the social gradient, with the poorest health. Will that be the desert people? The lives of today’s remote kids are not ever going to be the same as those of their grandparents, But there is still a very long road before Aboriginal people in the remote regions have the same profile in occupation, income and education as the rest of Australia. And we might consider what we (as a nation) will have lost if and when that is indeed the case. 70% of Australians say, when polled, that Aboriginal culture is absolutely essential to the future of Australia. That’s from a sample of 50,000 people. (Roy Morgan research 2006) Like a lot of big surveys we can only speculate what images those Australians conjured up by the words “Aboriginal culture”. However we can take a reasonable stab at guessing that they associate it most strongly with the remote regions of Australia. Photo: Earthbound Consultants FaCHSIA Policy ThinkTank

Strong languages in desert Australia 12th Sept 2008 All 18 of the Australian languages that continue to be strong are in remote regions of them are in desert Australia, as indicted by the square colours on this map. Language is important – the traditional ecological knowledge of Aboriginal people is maintained most strongly through local languages with their specialised vocabularies for plants, animals, climate, ecological phenomena and processes. FaCHSIA Policy ThinkTank

12th Sept 2008 Photo: Karissa Preuss Even Aboriginal people in the more densely populated places of Australia look to remote Australia’s Aboriginal people for spiritual leadership, and aspire to hold onto or regain the strength of culture that they perceive in remote regions. If closing the gap for desert people depends on the income and education levels of remote Aboriginal people matching the profile of the rest of Australia, what will be the tradeoffs for time and knowledge that desert Aboriginal people need to make? Putting less time into maintaining connection to and knowledge of the land, and more into other education, for example. What might be the tradeoffs for maintenance of ecological knowledge and its role in biodiversity conservation, as recognised in Australia’s national strategy for biodiversity conservation and the International Convention of Conservation of Biological Diversity? Photo: Karissa Preuss Photo: Paul Hastings FaCHSIA Policy ThinkTank

Aboriginal population and settlement pattern 12th Sept 2008 Desert Australia is also a region with hugely problematic settlement patterns – very many remote settlements, with mostly tiny populations; where Aboriginal populations are growing, and services are already woefully inadequate and where every service costs twice as much or more to provide than in cities. How can we possibly achieve a distribution of income and education, social standing or job categories in these regions that matches the rest of the Australian population? Will it require people to move from the bush to towns and cities? What will be then be the place of the Aboriginal culture that Australians say they value? Before we can sensibly approach questions like this, we actually need to unpick the conclusion that the social gradient in health means the people with the best health and longest life expectancy are always the richest, better educated. This does hold for majority populations because in contemporary societies, it is money and education that gives most people greatest access to choice – or in other words, the most control over your life. For indigenous and other minority peoples there is a fair amount of evidence to say that the same relationship does not hold. Rather than better health being driven by income and mainstream education, it seems to be driven by the softer variable, that is harder to get a handle on – that variable is ‘control over your own life’, tied to opportunity and choice. So let’s look at the impact that control over one’s life has on health. The strongest evidence is from non-Aboriginal culture –from health in the workplace. FaCHSIA Policy ThinkTank

Control at work & heart disease 12th Sept 2008 Ferrie (ed) 2004. Work, stress and health. Whitehall II study,CCSU/Cabinet Office, London The Whitehall 2 study in England found among civil servants (>7,500 in the sample) that control at work is a powerful predictor of disease. Control at work is degree of authority over decisions and use of skills, including opportunity for developing skills. This graph shows how people self reported their level of control at work. People’s likelihood of coronary heart disease was medically tested. The sample was adjusted for age, sex, length of follow-up, effort/reward imbalance, grade, and behavioural coronary risk factors (smoking, exercise, diet etc). It was found that people who reported low control at work have more than twice the likelihood of coronary heart disease than those who report high control Also for women it was found that those who reported low control over their how home life was organised and managed, had a much higher risk of coronary heart disease. It’s a long way from the British public service to remote Australia and Aboriginal land management systems. Or is it?. What follows from this strong study is that it is “control over ones life” that is a very powerful factor in health outcomes. So what gives people control over their lives? In mainstream society it generally is income and education. And what gives one control in the extremely unpredictable environment of Australia’s deserts?. Where the whole system is driven by unpredictability, starting with the rainfall. I will return to these health issues, but I first want to take you through some features of the desert system FaCHSIA Policy ThinkTank

12th Sept 2008 CLIMATE VARIABILITY Variability & extremeness In primary drivers (Rainfall, other weather) SCARCE RESOURCES Widespread low soil fertility & patchy natural resources SPARSE POPULATION Sparse, mobile & patchy Human population LOCAL KNOWLEDGE Limited research, local/traditional knowledge relatively important CULTURAL DIFFERENCES Particular types of people, cultures & institutions REMOTENESS Distant markets, business education & political centres The number one characteristic of deserts is CLIMATE VARIABILITY It’s not just that deserts are hot and dry. Irregularity and extremes matter. It’s hot and it’s cold. Rainfall is irregular, driving pulsating productivity, permitting storage of water for dry times, ensuring there are often dry times. It drives boom and bust responses in some plant and animal species (quick maturuty and reproduction) and some businesses (early era pastoralism, some tourism). It necessitates conservative slow growth and husbanding of resources in other species, and in some other businesses . Unpredictable rainfall, drives a whole lot of other characteristics of the desert environment. and to varying extent, other desert environments overseas and other remote regions I commend to you Mark Stafford Smith’s article The Rangeland Journal 2008 (Vol 30, No 1) from the Desert Knowledge CRC Science of Desert Living project, for a full discussion of these desert drivers. Climate variability drives SCARCE RESOURCES – low soil fertility, plus resources that are not only scarce, but are unevenly distributed in space and time. Water, run-on areas of higher productivity. Also mines, tourist places, etc. And resource variability in time is extreme – driven by rainfall. SPARSE POPULATIONS – because resources are sparse, people are sparse. Because resources are patchy, people are mobile. REMOTENESS – driven by sparse populations. Of course the desert is home to many – if you live there it is hard to see home as ‘remote’. But it is remote from major markets, and business and education centres, and desert people are a distant voice in policy Local KNOWLEDGE is important – partly because not much science knowledge or investment in science knowledge. Hence people have had to continue to rely on local knowledge and develop it. CULTURAL DIFFERENCES – cultures that have co-evolved with the environment (Aboriginal, long term pastoralists) now juxtaposed with those who venture there for other reasons, often a bit ‘on the edge’ since its not mainstream Australia. SOCIAL VARIABILITY – markets, policies are uncertain – people who can’t cope with that don’t stay, the unpredictability generates a feedbacks to sparse, mobile population. All these things are true to a greater or lesser extent in other regions, but they are extreme in deserts. Also what is also extreme is the complexity of the systems. Complexity is defined mathematically by degree of interdependence between elements of the system (in this case people, or people and place). Interdependence is high in deserts because of sparse populations. People interact and have to interact a lot with each other because there are not many people – individual people do multiple roles, making interdependence and complexity high. So what has given people control over their lives in this uncertain environment?. SOCIAL VARIABILITY Unpredictability in, or lack of control over markets, labour, policy Stafford Smith, Mar 2008 Rangeland Journal, Vol 30 FaCHSIA Policy ThinkTank

12th Sept 2008 CLIMATE VARIABILITY Variability & extremeness In primary drivers (Rainfall, other weather) SCARCE RESOURCES Widespread low soil fertility & patchy natural resources SPARSE POPULATION Sparse, mobile & patchy Human population REMOTENESS Distant markets, business education & political centres Principally – local knowledge, and cultures and institutions that have co-evolved with that environment. ie social networks, kinships, local norms and accepted ways of doing things, People have developed these features to make the environment relatively more amendable to prediction and control – to give some more certainty in their lives, allow themselves more control over their lives. Let’s look a little closer at these factors through the lens of an Aboriginal world view. SOCIAL VARIABILITY Unpredictability in, or lack of control over markets, labour, policy LOCAL KNOWLEDGE Limited research, local/traditional knowledge relatively important CULTURAL DIFFERENCES Particular types of people, cultures & institutions Stafford Smith 2008 Rangeland Journal Vol 30 FaCHSIA Policy ThinkTank

12th Sept 2008 Land (‘country’) is central to Aboriginal world views, livelihood assets & outcomes Land Law Language Kinship Ceremony Plants & Animals MK Turner: “Everything Comes from the Land” IAD Press In world views of desert Aboriginal people, land cannot be separated from customary law, ceremony and kinship – the institutions of customary governance in their society. Aboriginal elders and leaders say that these things cannot be separated from the health of their people and society. They say that ‘everything comes from the land’ (as depicted in elder MK Turner’s painting/photograph). People don’t see these institutions in the past. For example the framework developed by Warlpiri educator Wanta Jampijinpa Pawu Kurlpururnu (see DKCRC report No 41, 2008) is about how principles from customary law, language, kinship and ceremony and land relationships, and the interrelationships between these provide a clear direction for the future, one which will protect Warlpiri people and their country for the benefit of all Australians. Wanta says that when a person internalises all of the principles and the responsibilities and behaviours that come from these Ngurra-kurlu principles, they become like a shield for their people and their country. Their strength of character metaphorically covers people and country and protects them from damage, in the same way a shield protects a fighter from attack. This is one illustration of how in the Aboriginal world view, local knowledge and cultural institutions are held to be responsible for keeping people healthy and strong. We know from community development practice that people’s social and community well being will be more assured if their development is built from cultural strengths and motivations, and customary institutions. Also that development processes will be more efficient, with fewer perverse outcomes. Also we know that the actions of outsiders – governments or others - lack legitimacy if they introduce something new, rather than building on existing institutions. So it is important to pay attention to these messages from Aboriginal people about what they see as important to their health and well being “Country and people and land and health and [customary] Law cannot be separated. They are all one.” (Atkinson 2002) SEE ALSO: Pawu-Kurlpurlurnu WJ, Holmes M and Box L Ngurra-kurlu: A way of working with Warlpiri people, DKCRC Report 41. Desert Knowledge CRC, Alice Springs. FaCHSIA Policy ThinkTank

Remote regions with strong Aboriginal property rights 12th Sept 2008 Yet we have a health paradox: Now as a result fundamentally of the Aboriginal arguments that ‘everything comes from the land’ the customary property rights of Aboriginal people are very widely recognised in the arid and semi-arid rangelands (and also in parts of the tropical savanna regions). The yellow shaded circles show the areas where Aboriginal property rights to land and resources are widely recognised. The very smallest settlements in these regions were started by Aboriginal people from the 1970s to the 1990s as part of their fight to have these customary property rights recognised. In setting up these small family based settlements (outstations or homelands) Aboriginal leaders said it was important to their well being and health: to move out of the centralised settlements where government policy had encouraged or forced them to live. To move back to living on or close to their traditional lands and to exercise their customary responsibilities to care for that country. Yet we have the paradox that rather than Aboriginal people being in better health where land rights re granted, on many indicators Aboriginal health and wellbeing is worst in these remote regions FaCHSIA Policy ThinkTank

Very poor Aboriginal health & well being
Jocelyn Davies CSIRO, DK-CRC 12th Sept 2008 Aboriginal life expectancy (national): years less than national average Rangeland Australia: Aboriginal mortality rate: 3 x national average Aboriginal incidence End Stage Renal Disease: 30 x national average Aboriginal incomes: 25% non-Aboriginal incomes Community wellbeing? Serious interlinked social issues including alcoholism, domestic violence, child abuse, low literacy Social opportunity cost $1.5 billion p.a. or $27,000 p.a. per Aboriginal person, in one jurisdiction Some selective indicators for Aboriginal health in remote desert Australia are summarised here – these are selective indicative statistics and comments. We are all aware that this poor individual, family and community ill-health carries a very high social opportunity cost. So how do we explain the paradox of a settlement pattern created to respect Aboriginal attachment to land, and Aboriginal views of the importance of this for health and well being, with an outcome that is almost the opposite. FaCHSIA Policy ThinkTank

12th Sept 2008 Explaining the paradox of remote Australia: strong Aboriginal property rights but poor Aboriginal health & wellbeing State transition in the social-ecological system (land degradation, and loss of traditional knowledge and know-how). Barriers to accessing traditional lands for ‘caring for country’: poor health & social dysfunction, distance, poverty, reliance on larger centralised settlements for health & education services. Lack of a systems understanding: not accounting for interrelationships between sectors There are many interrelated reasons for the paradox of strong property rights and poor health. A systems view explains this by observing that the social-ecological system has transited to a different state characterised by ecological degradation, loss of traditional knowledge and skills; and of economic links to land. From ecology we know that this kind of state transition happens quickly, and it is not readily reversible. Ecologically the big shift was with the extinction of native mammals which was driven by livestock and feral animal pressures and changes to fire regimes when Aboriginal people moved away from traditional management. On the social side, it has not just been change of diet that has impacted on health. There is also the psychosocial impact on people of loss of those animals and plants they used to hunt and eat that were also central to custom and customary law and kinship – to people’s responsibilities to care for each other and the land. The impacts on people from ecological change have been rapid and are continuing– the extinction of so many mammals, the spread of buffel and its impact on native food species, etc. This kind of unexplained and ‘invisible loss’ really highlights the cultural shift from a situation where local knowledge and culture supported people’s health through controlling uncertainty, to one where they had limited value. On the economic side, the relationship between ‘effort’ and ‘benefit’ has been severed for Aboriginal people. This relationship is important in every human society – we need to have the effort we make balanced by a return of benefits to us for us to feel we have control over our lives. If benefit comes without effort, or if effort leads to no apparent change or benefit, then the economic relationship is profoundly disrupted. Once a social-ecological system has transited to a different state, It may be amendable to some kick starting to shift it to a more effective state – we hope so. 2) Only a small proportion of Aboriginal people are actually actively engaged in management of land – or ‘caring for country’. There are many barriers to increasing that participation- such as poor health and social dysfunction. These barriers are much greater in desert than in top end. They stem from the desert drivers. (irregular rainfall, patchy productivity, sparse populations, high uncertainty) 3) There is a policy mismatch: agencies concentrate in their own sector on improving health and education facilities, or increasing job opportunities, (including jobs in natural resource management) without good tools to understand and account for key cross sectoral interrelationships. I’ll talk now to two aspects of our research are directed at improving policy understandings of systemic relationships. Measurement and economic modelling of economic efficiencies to health care budgets from Aboriginal engagement in caring for country. It’s Important to show costs and benefits of engagement in land management in $ terms. Yet this is difficult because of many factors that impact on health status. Participatory systems modelling to establish key policy interventions and robust indicators of outcomes that can catalyse and support transition to more healthy social-ecological systems. FaCHSIA Policy ThinkTank

Relationship between ‘caring for country’ & chronic disease
Jocelyn Davies CSIRO, DK-CRC 12th Sept 2008 Relationship between ‘caring for country’ & chronic disease Building on previous research (health benefits of traditional diet, better health at smaller settlements) Adult health checks of a representative sample (c300) in a northern Australian settlement + triangulated self-assessment of the time the people sampled spend in caring for country activities (living at outstation, hunting, art, ceremony). Correlations between time on country and markers for three chronic disease conditions, some pre-symptomatic Estimated probable change in severity for chronic disease conditions per unit increase in engagement in ‘caring for country’: Analysed primary health care costs Concluded there are significant economic efficiencies for securing improved health outcomes if engagement in land management is increased, even by a relatively small amount. Now analysing generalisabity of these findings, inc in desert areas (Campbell et al in prep; Burgess et al in prep and see Garnett, S and Sithole B 2007, Sustainable Northern Landscapes and the Nexus with Indigenous Health: Healthy Country Healthy people. Land and Water Australia, Canberra;) Our economic modelling of economic efficiencies to health care budgets from Aboriginal engagement in caring for country builds through collaborations on work by Paul Burgess of Charles Darwin University/Menzies School of Health, and Stephen Garnett of CDU. This body of work also builds on evidence of the health benefits of going back to traditional diet (O’Dea’s research in the 1980s) and McDermott et al (1998)’s comparative analysis of health outcomes between a large desert settlement and smaller dispersed desert settlements which showed that people in the latter have better health. The steps in the research are shown in the slide. Dollar figures on cost savings are not available quite yet because the research is still in peer review to check the robustness of its methods and findings. In general terms Burgess et al have found that the more Aboriginal people are involved in caring for country, the less likely they are to develop some chronic disease conditions. The health impacts derive in part from improved diet and exercise. They are also due to impact of caring for country on the psychological and social factors that are determinants of good health: people’s capacity to act on their own motivations, realise strong identity and pride through their own skills, and be in control of their own lives. Importantly the ‘caring for country’ activities that people self-reported doing and that were correlated to relatively better health were ‘culturally motivated activities’. That is, they were not jobs, working as a ranger. Rather they involved living at outstations, art, hunting, ceremony. FaCHSIA Policy ThinkTank

Engagement in land management and chronic disease risk. 12th Sept 2008 HYPOTHETICAL Drawing from this research, I’ve shown in this graph a HYPOTHETICAL relationship that we might one day recognise exists between chronic disease risk for remote Aboriginal people and their engagement in land management. It is hypothetical, but there is a growing appreciation that this kind of relationship exists all other things being equal – such as diet, exercise, family history. Such is the impact of stress (which is the impact of lack of control over one’s life) on health, particularly chronic disease. Chronic disease risk Control over life (self assessed) through engagement in land management FaCHSIA Policy ThinkTank

12th Sept 2008 WHO framework for social determinants of health Engagement in Aboriginal land management targets a number of social determinants of health (indicated in yellow on the diagram) that are not so powerfully targeted for desert people by Budget 08 investments in housing, education or the health care system. It has a powerful impact because it draws from strengths of remote people in knowledge, language, and their own cultural norms and values. Social position is enhanced, because of this: people who are strong in land management get respect from others in their community, and form relationships with outsiders such as scientists, which also gives them enhanced social position. Engagement in land management impacts on the psychosocial factors, as noted before – control over life, identity and self esteem. The point is not that these things are more important than the other investments that governments are making into schooling, health services and housing. Rather that investments in health care and these other services will be more efficient in producing health outcomes when engagement in land management exists – in this sense it is a complementary input. Economic efficiencies from this are generated through economies of scope in that the same inputs – engagement in land management and provision of health services - produce more than one set of outputs. In this case, healthy people plus good management of the environment – generating the ecosystem services (such as biodiversity, clean water, etc) on which life of all people depend. WHO Commission on Social Determinants of Health, final report August 2008 FaCHSIA Policy ThinkTank

Understanding ‘caring for country’ as a social – ecological system
Jocelyn Davies CSIRO, DK-CRC 12th Sept 2008 Understanding ‘caring for country’ as a social – ecological system Agency Assets More Activity Improved Health More Food Harvested In our research, Michael LaFlamme (CSIRO Alice Springs) is using participatory systems modelling as a tool to understand the relationships between actions and interventions in Aboriginal land management and the range of inputs (blue) and outputs (white) that result. Modelling is an appropriate approach because a wide range of variables affect outcomes, and it is virtually impossible to undertake empirical research in this area that controls for these variables. The diagram is based on one case study example/community data set. Caring for country activities and projects are shown in the red box. Inputs are shown by blue. In this example, land management (‘caring for country activities and projects’) were linked by the people involved to improved health and more exercise and more food harvested. It was also linked by them indirectly to increased knowledge and motivation to participate in more land management activities (back to the red box) and also, importantly, in other kinds of work. In this sense engagement in land management provides ‘pre-vocational’ outcomes. Local Assets Caring for country Activities & Projects New Skills More Species Higher Income More Art Other Work Stronger Knowledge Educated Youth Participant Motivation FaCHSIA Policy ThinkTank

Youth knowledge of country is a key variable
Jocelyn Davies CSIRO, DK-CRC 12th Sept 2008 Youth knowledge of country is a key variable “The old words tell us where we come from” Shane Jupurrula White We conclude from our participatory systems modelling work that the key variable that is important for effecting a state transition to a healthier social and ecological system is youth knowledge about country. Our analysis of data that is basically stories and experiences of people in land management projects/activities, indicates that educational and job-readiness outcomes (which are important to control over life) are enhanced by an initial focus on engaging youth through knowledge of their traditional country. We conclude that the key driver for a state transition to healthier social-ecological system is youth visits to country with elders, The chance to learn from elders on country, and to combine this with learning new skills and ‘cool’ multimedia technologies (see photos), transforms the identities and confidence of young people and their motivation to go on learning. It’s all about having a sense of control over one’s own life. It’s also about developing the bonding, empathy and social intelligence that is important to development of sectors of the human brain that we share with other mammals. People with scientific training in land management are also typically a valuable part of this learning on country process, adding new dimensions to youth learning. But they cannot substitute for youth engagement with elders – don’t provide the same benefits for establishing youth identity and sense of responsibility/accountability. In the words of Shane Jupurrrula White (see slide): ‘the old words tell us where we come from”.. Photo: Michael LaFlamme Photo: Karissa Preuss Shane Jupurrula White recording knowledge of his responsibilities from elders FaCHSIA Policy ThinkTank

12th Sept 2008 Many factors affect how youth knowledge increases. Our research is exploring how increases in youth knowledge can be monitored, and establishing optimal rates of youth country visits to support youth knowledge increase. Without the systems view that the modelling supports, youth visits to country with elders and the family based teaching and learning that happens during these visits, tend to be seen as a private activity, with solely private benefit, and hence not an activity that warrants investment of public resources. Modelling optimal rates youth engagement with elders & country FaCHSIA Policy ThinkTank

Systemic impacts from youth engagement with elders & country
Jocelyn Davies CSIRO, DK-CRC 12th Sept 2008 _ TIME SPENT ON COUNTRY More income Systemic impacts from youth engagement with elders & country More job opportunities More other opportunities Natural resource management contracts Shop food match to bush food seasons Technacy, literacy & numeracy Improved nutrition Positive spinoffs for health and youth knowledge and changes in behaviours and practices are reported to us by Aboriginal participants, local agency staff and are also apparent through our own observations and tracking of initiatives. The white cycle shows outcomes for youth knowledge, and the yellow for physical health, both generating motivation for more country visits. The purple cycle shows other spinoff outcomes. These are important since not everyone is going to be able to make a living from traditional lands in the desert, and not everyone is going to want to do this. Some of the indirect outcomes from learning about country are access to other opportunities for youth, through motivation to go on living and confidence to pursue opportunities away from traditional lands. As Elder Rose Kunoth Monks observed (speech at Desert Knowledge symposium 2006): Young people draw their identity from understanding their connection to land and hence their place in the world, and this identity and confidence is the foundation for young people to go on to do other things in life, to have options and opportunities. Importantly, I am not implying that every desert person has to engage in land management as their only choice, all their lives. Rather, what our work strongly suggests is that young people of remote desert regions will have stronger lives, better health, and more choices and opportunities if they spend time on country learning from elders. Aboriginal land management is a mixed bag of activities, involving many age groups, often together, and often with knowledgeable outsiders, that contributes to health, and educational engagement, and with much more potential to do so. The smaller settlements are important in this. A lot of what happens in land management does happen out of larger remote settlements, but outstations and homelands provide the social cohesion of primary trust networks (that is, small social groups, typically kinship based that can work together without outside efforts at organising them more effectively than groups brought together by outside impetus from amongst the populations of larger settlements) Outstations and homelands are also dispersed close to the country that needs managing, and with better food resources than around large settlements where plants and animal populations have typically been depleted by the impact of many people hunting, getting firewood etc. + YOUTH KNOWLEDGE + PHYSICAL HEALTH Recording information: GIS & multimedia Country visits Seasonal changes learned Observations named, shared in local language and English More physical activity Country-based learning Better fitness FaCHSIA Policy ThinkTank

12th Sept 2008 Troubled questions…. What do Aboriginal people actually do in land management? Do we (society) really need that? Where is income going to come from? And isn’t education – literacy, numeracy - actually very important? Does everyone out bush actually want to do land management? What about all the other jobs that need to be done in remote settlements? Who is going to pay for it? And how does it get organised? In case you think I am naïve, or lost in some utopian fantasy, I will anticipate some of the questions that you might be thinking at this point… And I’ll address some of them in the rest of this talk. FaCHSIA Policy ThinkTank

12th Sept 2008 Photo: Karissa Preuss What do Aboriginal people actually do in land management? Part of Aboriginal land management is formalised engagements in natural resource management – resourced by governments, generally for biodiversity outcomes – eg finding and managing threats to threatened animal species. These are somewhat different to other Aboriginal land management activities because they have a relatively close interface with Natural Resource Management (NRM) policy. Aboriginal engagement in NRM is the most vibrant and growing movement in remote Aboriginal Australia, particularly for young people’s engagement – most visibly through the work of younger people such as these in ranger groups – Where local capacity is strong, (eg parts of the Top End of NT) Aboriginal people involved in this work are moving into contracting roles and Working on Country full time positions. Ranger groups have proliferated in top end over past 10+ years. It’s an incredibly vibrant movement, that has developed from the ‘bottom up’. It’s been slower to get going and harder to build momentum and visibility in the desert though there is a lot of activity going on much of it coordinated through Central Land Council and the large landholding bodies in WA and SA. The lag between the desert and top end is due in no small way to the desert drivers of variable rainfall, patchy resources, sparse populations (people, scientists, educators, coordinators), mobility (coordinator staff turnover) and remote voice in policy (difficult to get attention of education institutions). Aboriginal people say things like: “Yapa like to work..do a job they like…Ranger is a good job” Yet there is little cultural motivation for some NRM work that is the kind of things that rangers do in other places and is thought by scientists to be important for biodiversity - eg weed control. Feral animal culling is also problematic for engagement. In such cases, a lot of the motivation for young Aboriginal people to want to be involved in NRM comes from the working environment: learning new things, getting some respect for skills, and new relationships forged with others like the ranger group coordinator, plus that the work is out bush: being out bush is a good life for yapa, it makes us strong…happy and healthy and strong” Public funding for these NRM activities recognises that they have public good outcomes. - primarily for biodiversity, though this is moving into management for carbon sequestration and greenhouse gas mitigation through the medium of fire (to be supported with public funding under a new program through the Caring for our Country Commonwealth government initiative). Photo: Karissa Preuss Photo: Lucas Jordan FaCHSIA Policy ThinkTank

Do NRM programs follow principles of customary Law?
Jocelyn Davies CSIRO, DK-CRC 12th Sept 2008 Do NRM programs follow principles of customary Law? “The IPA needs to not be afraid of being adopted by Ngurra-kurlu” Steven Jampijinpa Patrick, Lajamanu There can be something of a tension between contract and outcome based work in Aboriginal land management and the outcomes or motivations for Aboriginal people to engage in land management. There is a risk that motivation will drop off as ranger work moves more and more into a contracting model. As this slide indicates, some Aboriginal people who see the actual or potential tension, suggest that NRM engagements have nothing to lose and much to gain by recognising the foundational role of cultural motivations and principles in Aboriginal land management. IPA (Indigenous protected area) Ngurra-kurlu – a way of working with Warlpiri based on foundational cultural organising principles and practices. See Desert Knowledge CRC Report #41. Signing North Tanami IPA Agreement FaCHSIA Policy ThinkTank

12th Sept 2008 Photo: Karissa Preuss Burning, and also management of natural water sources, are two activities with strong customary motivations, and also recognised public good outcomes through biodiversity. They are the overlap between formal NRM policy and project engagements and Aboriginal perspectives on land mgt – that is, they are the most obvious places where the private motivations and private benefits to Aboriginal people from engagement in land management overlap with public benefits from improved management of the environment. Customary patch burning improves conditions for customary food production In some parts of the desert, particularly north and west of Alice Springs, Aboriginal people undertake burning all the time when they are on country: it’s an integral part of hunting and gathering. Burning also acts to prevent the incidence of major wildfires. Customary Aboriginal burning patterns have benefits maintaining habitat diversity, protecting threatened species, In Western Arnhem land, a link has been forged to greenhouse gas mitigation through an agreement for carbon equivalent offsets that is now returning a private income stream to Aboriginal people to resource traditional owners to burn country. Can this be extended to other places? – yes in theory, but there are a number of challenges to doing so, and some cautions – it has involved a long term partnership between research and development of on the ground capacity to get to remote areas and burn, and to monitor progress. These elements need to be developed in other areas also if carbon/greenhouse gas management projects are to be developed on Aboriginal lands. In the desert development of livelihoods through fire management needs a lot of underpinning biophysical research. Arnhem land experience cannot be directly applied because climate and vegetation and Aboriginal social/land management systems are different. Also fire mgt costs are higher (as a result of bigger areas, and smaller biomass per hectare). As a result, carbon outcomes alone may not pay for all the costs of land management, but could make a valuable contribution to landowners’ income, coupled with other sources. FaCHSIA Policy ThinkTank

Pictures – caring for country
Jocelyn Davies CSIRO, DK-CRC 12th Sept 2008 Photo: Karissa Preuss Pictures – caring for country Customary production, through hunting and gathering foods, is fundamental to Aboriginal approaches to land management. It’s a foundational motivation, and source of private benefit. Some of this customary production – of plant foods in the desert, and also some animals in the Top End - is now commercialised. Interesting thing about the commercial production of bush plant foods in desert areas: it developed as a small scale industry – at least in central Australia – with no government assistance or involvement. And has 30 year history. It is almost a unique example of market engagement by Aboriginal people without public investment of resources into coordination etc or building structures for engagement. Through the Desert Knowledge CRC bush food project, we do now understand what has made this possible and there are lessons here for other business. Essentially, it happens because Aboriginal people build on the assets they have already, and can be in control of how production happens. Traders make direct connections with Aboriginal harvesters; Aboriginal harvesters broker access themselves to the plant resources, which may be on land where they are not the traditional owners; Terms of trade are very clear (ie a cash price per kilo for cleaned, harvested, fruits or seeds). The industry is also vulnerable – socially, economically, ecologically, culturally: DKCRC bush foods research is working to make it stronger by strengthening Aboriginal engagement with value chain to market and understandings of how return of benefit to Aboriginal people can be assured in transactions along the value chain.. Photo: Karissa Preuss Photo: Jane Walker FaCHSIA Policy ThinkTank

12th Sept 2008 Teaching youth about country and culture is a critical part of land mgt - passing on knowledge to those who must take up the responsibilities . Photo: Karissa Preuss FaCHSIA Policy ThinkTank

12th Sept 2008 Photo: Karissa Preuss This necessary learning certainly includes knowledge and responsibilities that are encoded in ceremony and song. . Photo: Karissa Preuss FaCHSIA Policy ThinkTank

12th Sept 2008 In some schools, this cultural learning is being linked in to formal education through the language and culture programs in schools. Our research is finding that language and culture programs in schools are motivators for children, and parents and grandparents to be involved with the school. Also that they are especially important for kids who are not from strong families - since strong families tend to go out on country together themselves. Language and culture is important to youth identity, while land management as a growing industry sector offers an economic role for language and culture. Photo: Josie Douglas FaCHSIA Policy ThinkTank

12th Sept 2008 There isn’t much in the curriculum of remote schools that links Aboriginal people’s location on remote desert lands, and their customary knowledge and social norms, to science education. One important thing is the Tangentyere Council language and culture program – which has been going since the mid 90s. Its quite insecurely funded, but continues steadily with support of long term staff, elders and other supportive networks. FaCHSIA Policy ThinkTank

Track based monitoring
Jocelyn Davies CSIRO, DK-CRC 12th Sept 2008 Track based monitoring track plots experienced trackers = meaningful data Engagements between traditional knowledge and science are extended in some schools through involvement of the kids in wildlife survey. Hand held data loggers are used to record observations, and data can be downloaded to make maps and graphs, such that kids learn traditional skills of tracking and plant knowledge, and also an introduction to ecological science and spatial science. There is big potential for educational transformation using these tools, and links into livelihoods for some desert people through payments for these monitoring services. Haphazard and one-off data collection can provide learning opportunities in schools, but are not as powerful as repeated data collection, and not much good for scientific environmental monitoring. A recently completed study (see slide) recommends on how Aboriginal knowledge and tracking skills can generate meaningful data for environmental monitoring in the sandy deserts. The best learning will involve not simply data collection by remote people – eg to monitor wildlife or feral animal populations – but building a learning system through people seeing how their data contributes to the big picture of environmental change. In top end observations by sea ranger groups of dugong and turtle, marine debris and other coastal management issues is about to be coordinated into an environmental monitoring system using data loggers and data sharing, through the NAILSMA turtle and dugong project, recent winner of Banksia Environmental Award. What can be the dugong or turtle that will catalyse the desert environmental monitoring system – perhaps bilby management, or feral camel population monitoring and control efforts???. . Southgate and Moseby. 2008 Track based monitoring for the deserts and rangelands of Australia. NHT funded, Report to WWF, TSN. FaCHSIA Policy ThinkTank

School DustWatch 12th Sept 2008 School DustWatch Also in relation to extending science engagement in schools and livelihood opportunities in environmental monitoring, Dustwatch, a national system for monitoring wind erosion, has just completed a pilot in 5 NT remote schools. The education links here are to measurement, numeracy. Additional value is provided to the children involved by being recognised as part of a national network of wind erosion monitoring (and likethe Tangentyere Council land for learning program, the Dustwatch network, and the extension of the schools’ pilot, lacks secure funding such as for coordination and data management.) The picture overall is that desert Aboriginal land management is multi-faceted in its activities. It draws strength from being driven ‘from the bottom up’ but this also means it struggles to scale-up from successful small initiatives. It builds from traditional knowledge, but this is not a replacement for literacy and numeracy education. In fact we are finding it to be a catalyst for learning, and providing important pathways to engage kids in science education, including literacy and numeracy, and to re-engage youth (teenagers/school leavers) in learning – the latter is coming through strongly in participatory systems modelling research, particularly where learning is linked to multi-media and spatial tools. FaCHSIA Policy ThinkTank

Potential public sector demand, given capacity 12th Sept 2008 State/Territory NRM responsibilities (Contracted/facilitated) Other research and monitoring AREA Threat-ened species Water Park mgt Pastoral land condition monitoring Feral animals, weeds Wind erosion Bio-security Climate change A ** * B C D E Who will pay for Aboriginal land management? There is demand for some environmental mgt services from public sector, including some govt functions that could be contracted, though the full potential would require changes to the way govt does business, and there are capacity limitations at local level (eg in contracting capacity, management of a ranger workforce, or capacity amongst homeland groups to do the enterprise side of land management). The requirements/’demand’ for specific environmental services vary between places. (We are completing some pilot work on them with NT Dept of Natural resources Environment and the Arts). FaCHSIA Policy ThinkTank

Potential private sector demand, given capacity 12th Sept 2008 Private sector (Marketable, based on outcomes) Labour or outcome-based contracts AREA Burning- Green-house Gas mitigation, Carbon offsets Feral animals Fencing Burning Weed control A * B ** C D E There is also a private sector demand…..eg contracting to landowners and engaging with offset markets. In this kind of range of activities, land management jobs for Aboriginal people are not just about building fences: Potentially, there are significant work roles for: Ecological experts – traditional, science Field operators (‘rangers’, outstation group) Logistics support (vehicle management etc) Data management Financial management Business development HR management IT support Because of costs of capacity building and the mix of public and private investments that will be needed to sustain land management and sustainable livelihood outcomes from it – and they wont ever really go away in a young population, – there is a need for a new kind of structure of ‘social enterprise’ to engage the potential in environmental management. Social enterprise is entrepreneurial activity, which draws from public sector and philanthropic support as well as commercial activity, in order to pursue local development. To allow this kind of enterprise to thrive, it is important to pay attention to the provisions in National Competition Policy that allow exemptions from the NCP requirements that public sector funding not be used in enterprises. There is a balance that needs to be struck, or lose the motivation and the underlying drivers for health, by moving too fast or too relentlessly into policy or commercial drivers for ALM – lose the underlying cultural imperative. Even with IPA which recognises and builds from cultural attachment to land and cultural motivation, some Aboriginal people see a risk that it may not properly follow law – and caution that actually there is no other sustainable way. FaCHSIA Policy ThinkTank

12th Sept 2008 Application of the cost-effectiveness plane in joint production of health and environmental services 1B: Positive incentives No policy action Campbell, Davies & Wakerman Desert Knowledge CRC, Working Paper #11; and forthcoming in Rural & Remote Health Online Journal PUBLIC NET BENEFIT + 2 1A 3A 3B _ 4 How is it possible to determine where public sector investment is warranted into Aboriginal land management? It depends on the balance of public and private benefit. We have published on the use of the cost effectiveness plane as a policy tool to aid decision making about when positive incentives (investments of public funds in paid work or other facilitation of Aboriginal land management) should be put in place. The graph shows private net benefit (that is benefit to the person doing a land management activity minus their costs) along the horizontal axis and public net benefit (that is benefit to the general public minus costs to the general public) along the vertical axis. The white shaded area is where the social benefit (that is the combination of private and public net benefit) is positive. If the private net benefit of an action is high, a person does not need any public support or funding or other incentives to do that activity – they will tend to do it just because of its benefit to them. Burning along desert roads is an example. It returns private benefit by improving hunting and gathering opportunities. It may also have a public benefit, in burning fire breaks that will help stop more intense wildfires, and in improving habitat. However it is not likely to need, or warrant invetment of public resources, since Aboriginal people have strong private motivation to do it. So this is an example in sector 2 of the diagram, where no policy action is required. However….for burning away from desert roads, the costs to Aboriginal people are much higher, because of lack of easy access. Private net benefit is not high enough for Aboriginal people to undertake this burning, and positive incentives (such as improving access, paid work in burning/fire management etc) is warranted. This is an example in sector 1B of the diagram. For burning in pastoral areas, there may be a private net benefit to Aboriginal people, but public net benefit may well be negative because of damage to pastures and social conflict. Such activity would fall in Sector 3B, where negative incentives (fines, and enforcement) apply. etc Negative incentives _ + PRIVATE NET BENEFIT FaCHSIA Policy ThinkTank

12th Sept 2008 Principles for land management to produce health & wellbeing outcomes, covering… Authority structures accountable to customary governance of land Intergenerational learning Partnerships for two-way learning about environmental change Management approaches that promote social learning and account for community and investor aspirations How do we get some assurance on outcomes from public investment? Scientific engagements with Aboriginal land management contribute to setting clear standards for outcomes and hence contribute to investors have confidence that Aboriginal land management is delivering to what they want. The track based monitoring report (slide 41) is an example of such standards development. As is the West Arnhem fire management program and agreement for greenhouse gas mitigation. Desert Knowledge CRC research is contributing to development of other standards, by articulating principles from our own research and other documented experience for how land management should be done in order to generate health and well being outcomes for Aboriginal people. These will encompass the areas indicated on the slide. Planning is also important. Developing management as an adaptive learning system, requires integration between planning, action, and monitoring/observation of the impacts of action, and further planning, in a cyclic process. Two things – pricniples And planning. FaCHSIA Policy ThinkTank

Planning for cross-sectoral outcomes for local people and investors
Jocelyn Davies CSIRO, DK-CRC 12th Sept 2008 Planning for cross-sectoral outcomes for local people and investors Planning systems and indicators need to be relevant across sectors and outcome areas if they are to properly engage the potential for Aboriginal land management to contribute to health and well being outcomes. Importantly they also need to talk to the world view of Aboriginal people – the local assets, cultural and other motivations that are the keys to the enthusiastic engagement of Aboriginal people into land management. This example, from work in progress (LaFlamme, CSIRO Alice Springs) maps between the key aspects of Aboriginal cultural motivations for land management (land, law, language etc, on the horizontal axis) and more mainstream conceptions of asset categories – the things that public funding for remote Aboriginal development tends to invest in. The example highlights how indicators may be developed through participatory planning processes, that are relevant to outside investors and to Aboriginal landowners themselves. Using the same kind of participatory mechanisms – potential for developing tools to engage Aboriginal people in predictions of how policy change will be received ‘on the ground’ – how people will respond. Examples of outcomes FaCHSIA Policy ThinkTank

Aboriginal land management – desert Australia
Jocelyn Davies CSIRO, DK-CRC 12th Sept 2008 Aboriginal land management – desert Australia Uniquely placed for sustainable livelihood outcomes (health, well being, income) Smaller settlements have a key role Cultural motivations are foundational Public investment is important to enterprise viability – ‘social enterprise’ Planning needs to join up land management, health, education and arts To return to the key messages, as summarised in this slide, now also stated below as policy initiatives that our research indicates are important to ‘closing the gap’ : recognition of Aboriginal land management as an industry sector uniquely placed to contribute to sustainable livelihood outcomes (health, well being and income) in remote Australia; development of an outstation/homelands policy that recognises the key role of smaller settlements in addressing social and psychological determinants of remote Aboriginal health and in producing other public goods including environmental services; recognition that culturally motivated land management activities are foundational to the motivation of remote Aboriginal people to produce these public goods; exemptions from national competition policy, using existing provisions of that policy, for development of enterprises that engage Aboriginal land managers with markets for these public goods, such that public funding is able to be used in operational subsidies where justified by social outcomes from the enterprise, and long term support for community based country planning as part of a flexible system of cross-agency engagement in collaborative adaptive management approaches with landowners, involving environment and other sectors particularly health, education and arts. FaCHSIA Policy ThinkTank

Thankyou 12th Sept 2008 Collaborating & support organisations: CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems Centre for Remote Health Charles Darwin University Northern Territory Government Central Land Council Community members and staff: Lajamanu, Yuendumu, Anmatjere, Wilowra, Ntaria, Nepabunna, Hay Warlpiri Media Australian Government Department of the Water, Environment, Heritage and the Arts Australian National University Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation Land and Water Australia Collaborating researchers including: David Campbell, Paul Burgess, Stephen Garnett, John Wakerman, Michael LaFlamme, Jane Walker, Karissa Preuss, Josie Douglas, Fiona Walsh, Miles Holmes, Steven Jampijinpa Patrick., Lance Box,. Photos: Earthbound consultants, Karissa Preuss, Paul Hastings, Michael LaFlamme, Jocelyn Davies, Josie Douglas, Lucas Jordan, Jane Walker This research is supported by funding from the Australian Government Cooperative Research Centre Program through the Desert Knowledge CRC; the views expressed do not necessarily represent the views of Desert Knowledge CRC or its Participants. FaCHSIA Policy ThinkTank

Aboriginal people caring for country: good for all of us

Similar presentations

Presentation on theme: "Aboriginal people caring for country: good for all of us"— Presentation transcript:

Similar presentations

About project

Feedback

Log in

Auth with social network:

Aboriginal people caring for country: good for all of us

Similar presentations

Presentation on theme: "Aboriginal people caring for country: good for all of us"— Presentation transcript:

Similar presentations

About project

Feedback