Media Release: A call to heal our lands and waters

NRM Regions Australia, the North Australia Indigenous Land and Sea Management Alliance (NAILSMA), and Indigenous leaders are calling for urgent recognition and greater funding of the critical work being done to restore the health of Australia’s environment.

The call comes in the lead up to next week’s Global Nature Repair Summit, being hosted by the Minister for the Environment in Sydney.

It has been developed in response to a major report by the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists which maps out a thirty-year investment program to reverse Australia’s landscape decline. The Blueprint to Repair Australia’s Landscapes recommends a set of 24 practical, costed actions that have already been proven to work.

Speaking ahead of the launch of the National Statement to Heal Australia’s Land, Seas and Waterways, CEO of NRM Regions Australia, Dr Kate Andrews, said Indigenous Rangers, farmers, and natural resource managers have the skills and knowledge to deliver the work required to restore Country, but a significant escalation in funding is needed.

‘The Wentworth Group’s Blueprint reaffirms that not only do we need to restore Country, we need to do it now. Australia is facing growing challenges from extreme events and declining health and productivity of our lands, seas and waters. This seriously risks our economic prosperity and wellbeing’, Dr Andrews said. 

‘Repair work is already underway so we absolutely know how to do it, and we know Australia can afford it. What we cannot afford, is to do nothing.’

Indigenous leader and CEO of the NAILSMA, Barry Hunter said the role of Indigenous Nations in healing Country was critical. 

‘Much of what is required already exists,’ Mr Hunter said. 

‘Indigenous land, sea and water management groups and regional natural resource management organisations are already working with their local community networks with a placed-based approach.’

To build on this existing landscape repair delivery framework, the Statement identifies four essential actions:

1. Recognise that the work done in our regions and their communities to care for Country and heal our land and waterscapes is an essential service
2. Invest to establish a national Indigenous environmental voice that empowers place-based Indigenous-led decision making
3. Support Australia’s existing regional natural resource management framework as the most effective mechanism to plan, implement and scale nature repair.
4. Establish a national financing mechanism to fund the scaling and strengthening of achievements to date

Arabana Woman and Research Fellow at Curtin University, Teagan Shields, said scaling up efforts to care for our lands, seas and waters, would not only protect the environment, but also help provide social, cultural and economic benefits for Indigenous communities.

‘We all have an obligation to care for Country, to ensure it is abundant so it can sustain life. If Country is not healthy neither are we. Our environment should be full of diversity and abundance so we can all rejuvenate and heal.’

Each year Alinytjara Wilurara Landscape Board and the Far West Coast Aboriginal Corporation head to Yellabinna Regional Reserve to find out how the wildlife are faring, where they are living, and the habitat they need to thrive. Species like the Mitchell’s hopping mouse, the sandy inland mouse, the western pygmy possum and the wide-eyed sandhill dunnart all call the reserve home.

While it looks a bit like a mouse, endangered sandhill dunnarts are actually carnivores like their cousins the Tasmanian devil, living on insects, spiders and even small reptiles. They are only found in four small, isolated areas, in South Australia and Western Australia, so these surveys to find them and check their habitat are critical to helping them survive.

In May this year, students from Ceduna Area School joined the crew, helping check the monitoring traps and measuring spinifex around where the crew found dunnarts. The spiky plants help protect the dunnarts from predators, so these measurements help ensure the dunnarts have enough cover as they dart around.

Involving the students in the surveys is inspiring a new generation to consider careers in conservation and parks and wildlife.

“The camp is always a highlight as the students love getting out in the field and experiencing what it’s like to work in t

he industry,” the leader of the school group, outdoor education teacher Jonty Doudle, said of the experience. “It also gives the students the chance to see some of the lesser known native Australian animals, giving them a personal connection to the environment.”

WA farmers have been working with natural resource managers in South West NRM in a pilot to test whether a carbon market that reduces emissions and helps farmers diversify their income can also deliver benefits for our landscape.

The pilot is trialling new vegetation plantings in farming landscapes as part of the Carbon + Biodiversity pilot.

Voyager Estate, a sustainable winery at Margaret River which won a five-star rating at the Halliday Wine Companion awards for their 2020 MJW cabernet sauvignon and chardonnay, and Vasse Valley Hemp, a leading hemp food and holistic wellness company, have joined the pilot, helping to learn what can be achieved.

While a recent site visit showed that environmental plantings had done it tough in the severe drought, the project partners are upbeat about what can be achieved through investing in these kinds of initiatives.

Their efforts have played a significant role in ensuring similar outcomes can be replicated at scale across the country once the Nature Repair Market comes online.

The Australian Government’s Agricultural Stewardship Pilot was delivered by 12 regional NRM organisations across Australia from 2021 and included Carbon + Biodiversity and Enhanced Remnant Vegetation Pilots.

Solitary Southern Cassowaries roam the rainforests of Queensland’s Wet Tropics World Heritage area eating fruits and dispersing the seeds wrapped in a special ball of fertiliser ready to germinate.

Australia’s largest flightless bird easily recognisable by its casque on its head and iridescent face and neck colouring plays an important role in the continuation of rainforest ecosystems.

They are the ‘rainforest gardeners’ of far north Queensland, and a new credit scheme to invest in forest restoration has been named after them.

Terrain NRM have designed, tested and established the Cassowary credits. The credits quantify biodiversity gain from forest reforestation projects, and convert to these numbers into biodiversity credits which can be purchased by investors.

Bronwyn Robertson, Project Leader at Terrain NRM, said science shows that repairing and restoring forest areas is one of the most important things for building resilience against threats to the Wet Tropics.

“Building a resilient landscape means connecting up some of those fragmented remnants, expanding really critical high altitude upland forest areas for climate refuge, and buffering the protected World Heritage Area,” Robertson said.

‘A call to Heal Australia’s Land, Seas and Waterways’ is jointly authored by:

• Teagan Shields – Arabana Woman and Research Fellow, Curtin University
• Rachel Morgain – Climate Adaptation and Disaster Resilience Lead, NRM Regions Australia
• Barry Hunter – Djabugay man, CEO NAILSMA, Chair Terrain NRM
• Stephen van Leeuwen – Wardandi Noongar leader, BHP/Curtin Indigenous Professorial Chair  of Biodiversity & Environmental Science
• Mike Grundy – Member, Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists
• Peter Voller – Director, NRM Regions Australia
• Kate Andrews – CEO, NRM Regions Australia