Finding common ground on conservation
TOO OFTEN, PEOPLE DON’T KNOW WHAT THEY HAVE UNTIL IT IS GONE Macquarie University environmental science researcher and 2017 Eureka prize winner Dr Emilie Ens is working with Aboriginal Communities in Arnhem Land to identify plants, animals and places that
Ngukurr Wi Stadi Bla Kantri (We Study the Country) Research Team is a unique collaboration between Dr Ens, Ngandi Elder Cherry Wulumirr Daniels, the Yugul Mangi Rangers, Ngukurr School and community members from the remote Aboriginal Community of Ngukurr. “We work closely with Elders, rangers and young people to meaningfully combine local Aboriginal and Western science to raise awareness of environmental threats in the remote south-eastern Arnhem Land region,” Dr Ens says. “This initiative is increasing Western understanding of regional biodiversity and helping find common ground with local people about significant plants and ecological communities. From there we develop projects and monitoring tools.” Dr Ens says that a lot of people have been living off Country and have lost both cultural knowledge and language and don’t know how to use available bush tucker or medicinal plants. “For example, cheeky yams Dioscoria bulbifera, need to be cooked, then any residual toxins leached out by placing them in running water for five days before being eaten. “This culturally significant plant is under threat from wild pigs,” says Dr Ens. “If we can get people to think about how a significant plant is being impacted, they also start to think about wider threats to Country posed by the pigs and may then welcome feral animal control measures.” The Ngukurr Community is also now helping save a newly discovered population of Leichhardt’s grasshopper. The strikingly coloured, near-threatened species eats a single species of mint ( Pityrodia) that is threatened by current fire regimes. “The grasshopper is culturally significant for the Nandi people, and rangers are now looking more closely at how they burn the remote area where these grasshoppers live.”