Highlights of 2007/08

• An economic analysis of the primary health care benefits gained from land management found that helping people stay ‘on country’ could cut health bills by up to $2 million over a 25-year period through reductions in heart disease, diabetes and kidney disease.
• Modelling of the relationships between land management and outcomes for other sectors drew on field data from the project’s engagements with Aboriginal people to develop indicators that communicate between the worldviews of desert Aboriginal people and those of funding agencies.
• Collaboration with Warlpiri educator Steven Jampijinpa Patrick, and his coauthors Miles Holmes and Lance Box, to progress Steven’s explanation of Ngurrakurlu, a way of working with Warlpiri people that supports pathways for management that account for cultural principles and relationships.
• PhD candidate Jane Walker’s study of management effectiveness of the Northern Tanami Indigenous Protected Area (IPA), highlighted the ways in which ‘managing country’ is different to ‘managing the IPA’.
• Research analysing the relationship between Aboriginal land management and CDEP identified some of its benefits and drawbacks. Incompatibilities between data from different sources explains why much Aboriginal land management activity is invisible to policy-makers.
• Success factors identified for Aboriginal employment in the Alice Springs Desert Park are the combination of a workplace where Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people work together across a wide range of specialist functions, plus respect for the park’s traditional owners.
• Skills development of young Anmatjere men for natural and cultural resource management and associated research benefited from a tailored approach to curriculum and cultural mentoring.
• School of the Air bases in Meekathara and other places engaged enthusiastically with DustWatch researchers and educators to scope out pathways to the adoption of DustWatch in their curriculum.
• An Indigenous Environmental Service Provision Policy Forum in Darwin facilitated discussion between Yuendumu ranger representatives and their counterparts from the Top End and with members of the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists.