Indigenous engagement

TRaCK recognised that that Indigenous values associated with rivers tend to be poorly understood by decision makers and that Indigenous people had rarely been effectively engaged in research on water resource management on their country.

Before TRaCK commenced, Land and Water Australia commissioned a scoping report to provide an overview of the key river management and research issues of concern to Indigenous people in northern Australia. The research was conducted by Patrick O’Leary and Sue Jackson and was designed to inform research directions for TRaCK.

TRaCK researchers then set out to gain a much better understanding of Indigenous values and discussed ways to collaborate with Indigenous communities to ensure their research needs were addressed and that their knowledge contributed to TRaCK research projects. TRaCK is now seeking to draw together a systematic understanding of its engagement as a large, multi-site, multi-disciplinary integrated program. This project will provide recommendations to government agencies and relevant research providers, including those which fund large research initiatives.

Key researchers from Charles Darwin University, CSIRO and the Northern Australian Indigenous Land and Sea Management Alliance will analyse the TRaCK model of Indigenous engagement and identify key success factors, constraints and areas for improvement.

The analysis will include the views of Indigenous participants in TRaCK research projects; its funding arrangements, employment and training protocols; and relationships with Indigenous organisations and communities.

Co-authored research papers

In addition to the evaluation of TRaCK’s Indigenous engagement, this project will bring together TRaCK researchers and Indigenous people involved in a number of TRaCK projects to write scientific publications about the research they produced together. The research areas identified as potential topics include:

• Fish and flows
• Indigenous knowledge and resource use
• Indigenous people in the regional economy
• Sediment erosion
• Reflections on cross-cultural research partnerships
• How Indigenous ecological knowledge can inform patterns of resource use and management of river flows

Seasonal calendars

Local Indigenous knowledge can tell us much about the ecology of northern Australia. Elders have expressed concern about the loss of traditional knowledge, as older people from the language groups pass away and younger people no longer speak them as their first language.

In response, previous TRaCK research documented seasonal-specific knowledge of the MalakMalak  and Ngan’gi language groups from Nauiyu Nambiyu about the Daly River (NT), and from Gooniyandi and Walmajarri language speakers in the Fitzroy River catchment (WA). Ecological, hydrological, meteorological and spiritual knowledge of the rivers and wetlands was documented, including the environmental indicators that act as cues for bush tucker collection.

Responding to the desires of Indigenous partners in the research, this knowledge was represented in the form of illustrated seasonal calendars that can serve as educational tools for future generations.

Other Indigenous communities have expressed an interest in developing seasonal calendars for their own language groups, including the Wagiman (from the Pine Creek area) and Larrakia (from the Darwin area). These new seasonal calendars will help synthesise Indigenous knowledge on river flow processes and allow for analysis of the information across northern Australia.