Landscape Architecture Australia
On two-way capacity building:
Rob Farnham – At GLaWAC, the joint management plan has given community members the opportunity to get through the door, especially with work. We’ve been going for 12 years now and when I first started, there were probably 11 of us staff members. Now, there’s over 50 more staff members – that’s a great thing for our community … Over time, we’ve started learning more and more, and sharing knowledge and gaining knowledge. We have a lot of mentors: Parks Victoria does a lot with our team around the project side, and we do archaeological work and cultural mapping with Monash University, and threatened species management with DELWP [Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning]. I think we will probably see GLaWAC staff members who have the opportunity to step up into roles in Parks Victoria as well.
Matt Holland – From a Parks Victoria perspective, it’s about building an understanding and a capacity within our staff to reframe how we look at landscapes and how we approach things. It’s about knowing that it’s not just ours to look after – that we need to bring GLaWAC into the conversation because we’re doing this together now. It’s not up to Parks Victoria to come up with a plan; we’re doing it in a joint way and need to ensure that we bring each other along for the journey … It’s about reframing what we’re doing and Gunaikurnai cultural values informing what we’re doing rather than having this as an afterthought. When it’s all said and done, we’re managing to protect rather than getting permission to cause harm. It’s not understanding cultural values as one area or some artefacts scattered somewhere; the whole landscape has cultural value for us.
Nick Loschiavo – From a design perspective, I think what’s new is nonAboriginal people listening. What joint management offers us collectively is the ability to listen to Traditional Owners on Country.
Nick Loschiavo – A key word that Matt mentioned was “reframing,” which allows Traditional Owners to lead the conversation. Whether we’re designing a bollard or a campground, we understand that the context is Country.
Matt Holland – One of the biggest things is to understand the areas that we’re managing better and what values they have as Country. Some cultural values are known but a lot of Country hasn’t been surveyed or looked at for a long time, so one of the main goals is to do what we’re calling cultural mapping. This involves archaeological surveys (we have a memorandum of understanding with Monash University so we can work together to use their expertise) and working with community to get oral histories.
Nick Loschiavo – The cultural mappings allow us to see what only Traditional Owners are able to see and, hopefully, we can learn. In the form of both the cultural narrative and the language that’s used to describe things, it changes the way we see. And it gives us more meaning in terms of the design response.
Rob Farnham – Identifying what’s in the landscape and its values through the cultural mapping helps us, as Gunaikurnai rangers, to identify what we want to work on and protect within those areas as well.
Matt Holland – One of the big goals in the joint management plan is that the broader community also gains an understanding of the Country that they’re on. We’re doing some other projects around interpretation plans for different parks using the cultural information that has been gathered and generously shared by GLaWAC. It’s about broadening an understanding of the significance of the place that you’re on and understanding what it means to the Gunaikurnai community. Language is a big thing and we try to reintroduce language so we can start to understand places and their significance.
Rob Farnham – Through joint management, we now get the opportunity to put what we want on Country and in the landscape. We’re getting to the point now where we’re designing stuff on Country and having that opportunity to make decisions on Country first. Changing Country based on how we want it to look empowers myself and this new generation that is going to come through GLaWAC. They get to make these decisions about what happens on Country – I think that’s the most important thing since we got joint management.
Nick Loschiavo– Our responsibility is to the Traditional Owners: understanding the joint management; understanding how they see Country through the cultural mapping; having the conversation on the ground before we do any of the work; having Traditional Owners review the brief in the governance and in the assessments embedded into the project. It’s about working out how we can really partner so that there’s joint management and codesign through every part of the process.
Rob Farnham – There’s a lot that happens outside of the nine parks and the one reserve that are currently joint-managed
– a lot of training and a lot of work with different stakeholders – because it is still Gunaikurnai Country. And I think it’s now [being recognized] that anything that happens outside of the parks is still on our Country … A lot of the people that we work with might be doing something off one of our parks, but we still get an invite to come across and have input. It’s a great opportunity for our team to get out, to see more of the countryside and to learn on Country as well, rather than just sticking to those 10 parks that we drive in and work in all the time.
Matt Holland – GLaWAC and Rob are working with East Gippsland Shire and other land management agencies, so while they don’t have a specific joint management arrangement with those parties, they’re trying to manage things in a similar way in the sense of that reframing. Hopefully, through the renegotiation of the Recognition and Settlement Agreement, more areas will become joint-managed and that will continue the growth and broader understanding.
Nick Loschiavo – That’s the promise that a joint management plan has: that it bleeds into everything else and that everything relates to Country. Parks Victoria,
DELWP, the Catchment Management Authorities, the power authorities, wind farmers – anybody who’s putting in any infrastructure or thinking about planning is starting to look to the joint management plan and Gunaikurnai for guidance.