Gunditj Mirring Partnership Project
Project Profile
| Name of Project | Gunditj Mirring Partnership Project |
| Name of group(s) involved | Gunditj Mirring Traditional Owners Aboriginal Corporation/Glenelg Hopkins Catchment Management Authority |
| Location | Budj Bim National Heritage Landscape/Lake Condah |
| State | Victoria |
| NRM Region | Glenelg Hopkins |
| What industry does the group belong to? | Indigenous heritage conservation/land management |
Issues
A project in Victoria’s southwest is taking steps to close the gap between contemporary and traditional landcare through a partnership project between the region’s Indigenous community and catchment management authority.
The Gunditj Mirring Partnership Project, a collaboration between the Gunditj Mirring Traditional Owners Aboriginal Corporation and the Glenelg Hopkins Catchment Management Authority, has two end goals: to greatly enhance Gunditj Mirring’s capacity to record and share its Indigenous ecological knowledge, and the use of this knowledge for contemporary land management throughout the catchment .
Mary Johnson, project manager and Strategic Partnership Manager at Glenelg Hopkins CMA, says the project was formed in response to contemporary landcare techniques that look at land management from only the one angle.
“I’ve always felt that we miss other nuances and other ways of viewing our landscape – and those ways of understanding actually reside with Indigenous communities, because it’s been culturally, spiritually, and traditionally intrinsic to the way they’ve operated within the landscape for tens of thousands of years.”
“Indigenous ecological knowledge and scientific understanding, used in a complementary fashion, could provide a more accurate and deeper understanding of the complexities of natural resource management.”
To research the land management techniques practiced by the traditional owners of the area around Budj Bim, the project team subcontracted Ballarat University to undertake a literature review. Six months later, the research team, led by Dr Fred Cahir, had turned out nine volumes of knowledge recovered from over 150 years of material on Indigenous ecological knowledge.
This information, now held by its traditional owners, will be applied to practical landcare through trials of management practices and used to help manage the Budj Bim National Heritage Landscape, as well as to form an extension “tool box” for both Indigenous and non-Indigenous landholders to incorporate into their resource management strategies.
The project has also provided members of the Gunditjmara community with skills and experience. Indigenous Coordinator Len Cooper, Administration Officer Micko Bell and Field Officer Joseph Saunders have worked with ecologists, botanists, mappers, planners, and researchers to build their capacities for autonomous land management and engagement with other agencies, which then flow on to the broader community.
According to Johnson, “Through the project team working alongside community and those engaged in natural resource management, skills are transferred and build up within the community itself, and that was the whole proposition – this is all about sharing knowledge and skills. The beauty is that this is a two-way street. When consultants, academics, researchers and practitioners work with the project team and community, their knowledge and understanding is also greatly expanded.”
As well as experience, the partnership aims to enhance the working relationship between the Glenelg Hopkins CMA and the Indigenous communities in the area to support future environmental efforts: “Indigenous engagement needs time, like any community engagement, to establish relationships. It’s about how communities work with one another.”
Johnson says the project is a terrific example of the benefits of community land management. The project area covers Indigenous Protected Areas, properties owned and managed by the Gunditj Mirring Traditional Owners.
“When communities are have autonomy and they own and manage their own country – whether it’s Indigenous or non-Indigenous communities – I reckon you get the best results, because the people have a real affinity with the landscape.”
Project Detail
| Background to Project | With the launch of the Caring For Our Country program in July 2008, the Australian Government began a new push to engage Indigenous communities in landcare events and projects, both in on-ground works and in the recovery and recording of traditional land knowledge.Historically, however, the pressures faced by organisational bodies within Indigenous communities have affected their ability to co-ordinate with agencies, from state and federal departments to non-governmental organisations. The need to represent their communities across a suite of issues and challenges reduces their ability to respond to the demands of agencies dealing with any individual topic, such as the environment.
The Gunditj Mirring Partnership Project was initiated as a response to both of these factors. While it aims to engage the Indigenous community of southwest Victoria in land and resource management, it also aims to build the community’s capacity to work in natural resource management. The Budj Bim landscape in southwest Victoria is a traditional homeland of the Gunditjmara people, and is on Australia’s National Heritage List as well as in the process of being nominated for the World Heritage List. The area in and around Mount Eccles National Park has great cultural and historical significance to the Gunditjmara people, with evidence existing that their people once had a settled aquaculture society and engineered the stony wetlands around Lake Condah and Darlots Creek. This partnership is designed as a way of continuing the traditional land ownership strategies practiced by that society, as well as their contemporary techniques, as part of a broader view that Indigenous communities have the potential to provide new and unique viewpoints on land management. |
| Key Objectives | The Partnership Project has two main objectives: to research, discover, and record Indigenous ecological knowledge, and to build the capacity of the Gunditjmara community for land management and operation as an organisational body.
Through the research and recording of traditional and contemporary Gunditjmara land management practices, the project aims to create a compendium of Indigenous ecological knowledge that can be employed for land management today and in the future. This knowledge will be used to create a toolkit to be used by both Indigenous and non-Indigenous landholders in southwest Victoria that can guide sustainable land management in future. The project also aims to further enhance the local Indigenous community as a land management organisation through building its capacity to work with various aspects of environmental care. Through co-work with professionals and support from other groups, the project looks to increase the community’s abilities in both the practical and technical aspects of landcare. |
| Description of Project | The project was planned out to run for four years, with Caring for Country providing the bulk of the funds, and consists of two distinct stages taking place over two years each. The partnership is overseen by a reference group comprised of Gunditjmara Elders and co-ordinated by a project team consisting of a project manager, an Indigenous community co-ordinator from the catchment management authority, and field and administration officers from the local community. One of the benefits of this team structure is the flow of knowledge and information – the position of the field officer and the administration officer as members of the Gunditjmara community means that skills they build as part of the project are passed on to other community members.The first stage of the project consisted of information gathering and trialling. A major aspect of this stage was the literature review conducted by a research team at Ballarat University, headed by Dr Fred Cahir. Covering literature sourced over the history of European occupation of southwest Victoria, the review focused on the lands of the Gunditjmara (covering an area broadly from Warrnambool to the South Australian border) and looked for any records or mentions of Indigenous ecological knowledge. The six-month review produced nine volumes of information on Gunditjmara ecological knowledge which now reside with the Gunditjmara community and are accessible by the general public after approval from Gunditjmara elders.
In keeping with the project’s aim of building the skillset of the Indigenous community, the terms of subcontracting the review to Ballarat University enabled the project team and indigenous community members to visit and receive training in university’s library and archiving section. On-ground works, including land surveying and mapping, provided practical information about the current condition of the Budj Bim landscape and served to further build the land management capacities of the team through working alongside and receiving training from professionals. The information gathered through these channels is being collated and implemented into an extension program which will aim to test and trial land management methods. Sites on Aboriginal-owned and managed land will undertake trials of certain practices, such as controlled seasonal burning, strategic grazing to reduce exotic species at culturally-significant sites, and the mapping of plants used for food or medicine. The team is also in the process of compiling a “toolkit” of the knowledge gained through the first stage, which will be applied to an extension program engaging with area farmers who are interested in working alongside Indigenous community members to undertake on-ground works on their properties as part of the partnership. The project also aims to continue its mentoring and training of Indigenous community members to further increase their capabilities in environmental management and working with external agencies. In addition to Caring For Our Country funding, Parks Victoria co-funded the literature review. The shires covered in the project provided support with the map layers of the area, especially Glenelg Shire. The other project partners, including the Department of Sustainability and Environment, the University of Ballarat, and Monash University have helped to provide technical resources as well as training and knowledge. The project has also linked with two significant regional projects: |
| Issues encountered during the project | The primary issue faced by the Partnership is the difficulty of working in a limited timeframe. Building the capacity of the CMA and the local Indigenous community requires significant time and effort, and so too does building awareness and overcoming attitudinal and behavioural barriers to the use of Indigenous ecological knowledge by landholders. However, the existing relationship between the Gunditj Mirring and Windamara organisations and the GHCMA, as well as the constant engagement required by the Indigenous ecological knowledge aspect of the project, had a significant impact on reducing the effect of this problem.
Additionally, the selection of which Indigenous ecological knowledge will be shared must be undertaken by the Gunditjmara community, which may require much interaction between community members and elders. This takes time and must be respected. |
| Project Outcomes – Qualitative | The major outcome of the project is the development and improvement of the local Indigenous community’s capacity to engage in land and cultural management, through training and mentoring team members in technical aspects of the project. This individual training has a flow-on effect, moving on to the broader community.The relationships and partnerships strengthened and developed through the course of the project between the Indigenous community and various government and non-government agencies are also of great significance as fulfilments of the project’s aim to create a foundation for working together in future. |
| Project Outcomes – Quantitative | The production of a nine-volume literature review containing a compendium of knowledge on the traditional land management techniques of the Gunditjmara has been a major achievement of the project. Now residing with the Gunditjmara traditional owners, the knowledge base is available to the Indigenous community as well as the public and will be an invaluable resource in future land management strategies.The project has also contributed to the targets of the Australian Government’s Caring For Our Country program through its work in biodiversity protection, recording of Indigenous traditional knowledge, and habitat management:
• One partnership overseeing the use of Indigenous ecological knowledge to underpin biodiversity conservation |
