It is well known that Aboriginal people enjoy a special relationship with land. Aboriginal culture, spirituality and society all depend on the relationship that people have had to their country over many thousands of years and that many Aboriginal people in central Australia still have today.
That unique relationship entails knowledge and responsibilities to maintain that land and look after it but that knowledge is under threat as the complex forces of modern life for Aboriginal people encroach on the processes and activities necessary to the ongoing transmission of the skills and wisdom of former generations.
This knowledge is not just what people know about the things on their country like plants, animals, seasons, water, medicines, food, for example, but how they know it.
IEK also includes more cultural and spiritual aspects of looking after land like songs, stories and ceremony for country as well as the tasks that people have to do to look after their country, like cleaning up, clearing waterholes, visiting, and burning, to name just a few.
It is often said by Aboriginal people in Central Australia that the ‘land needs its people’, the land needs to be cared for to remain as healthy as it was under traditional land management practices. Indigenous ecological knowledge makes an invaluable contribution to land management today.
The Muru-warinyi Ankkul rangers won a national award with this photo of Thommy
Thompson walking on the Bonney well to Barrow Creek walk in 2008 >>read more
Knowing about country and all the relationships and responsibilities that people have to country is understood as Indigenous Ecological Knowledge.
Intergenerational transfer is talking about the ways that people who know these things teach them to younger people.
Younger people are taught by the right people, in the right way, in the right place, at the right time.
Indigenous ecological knowledge often involves the use of plants and natural resources which could provide valuable contributions to medical science or other problems we face. However, it is important that a balance is maintained between the equitable sharing of those resources and the sacred nature of some of this knowledge.
Part of the CLC’s work is to help Aboriginal people maintain this knowledge by supporting IEK through a number of programs.
The CLC was appointed by the Natural Resource Management Board (NT) in November 2007 to host a $1 million program to support intergenerational transfer of Indigenous Ecological Knowledge (IEK) across the CLC region.
With an equivalent program hosted by NAILSMA in the north, the program forms a significant component of $2.7 million of Natural Heritage Trust (NHT) funding set aside in the 2004-2007 NT Regional Investment Strategy to support the recording, recovery, maintenance and application of IEK.
After years of delay in gaining approval of Commonwealth Ministers the program faced a further hurdle in early 2008 when the original two year project period was reduced to one year but successful representations by CLC contributed to the project period being extended to December 2009.
The CLC appointed an IEK Support Officer in February 2008 to co-ordinate implementation of the program and a seven member IEK Technical Assessment Panel (TAP) with the expertise and representation required to guide the roll-out of the program and make decisions on applications for funding for on-ground activity.
The program has approved funding for IEK projects in the Wauchope, Lander River and Lake MacKay areas and there are further applications for consideration in the Alice Springs, Ti Tree, Nyirripi, Willowra, Sandover and Eastern Arrernte regions.
IEK recording kits with video, sound, camera and GPS equipment are available from the CLC for use by individuals and groups participating in IEK activities.
Planning has begun for the development of a media training program for IEK project participants to record material for ongoing community access, C&NRM activities and curriculum development.
One project involved filming four senior Alyawarre men in the Davenport Ranges region which was recorded by five young Alyawarra men trained especially in so that they could complete a film on the project.
The CLC also provided planning, co-ordination and on-ground staff and support for the “Walking and Sharing Stories from Bonney Creek to Barrow Creek” project, which focussed on traditional knowledge and management of a series of soakages along a traditional walking route.
Sixty five people from from Tennant Creek, Mungkarta, Ali Curung, Tara and Stirling completed the walk of 140 km between Bonney Creek and Barrow Creek over a period of 15 days in June 2008.
