Aboriginal Rights

» woorama - Sweet Spot - Native Land Action

Native Land Action - "Sweet Spot" first report.
There have been a number of responses already, and so we hope to have the first project up and running soon. My brother-in-law Colin and I have just spent the day in planning. His expertise in native forest regeneration and environmental action planning processes will be the driving force behind these projects. Will be posting results of initial planning later. For now, here are some excerpts from emails people have sent in response to the article.

Judith Chestnut wrote: Tyson, my husband Gary Chestnut, is the principal environmentalist with Gosford City Council. They have some projects going that you might be able to link to. There's more info here: http://www.gosford.nsw.gov.au/environment and you are welcome to contact him if you think he can help. He knows some of the members of the Aboriginal lands council here too. Best, Judith >
Tyson Yunkaporta wrote: > fantastic judy, you're a marvel. i'll get in touch with gary as soon as i'm back on line - crappy old 300 dollar computer is all i can afford right now, and it's playing up. hope to get it sorted this week. will be in touch.

Thanks Tyson, Gary's looking forward to hearing from you. He's read your blogs and webpages so that's a start. Another contact for you is Jose Calarco from Descendance Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Dance Theatre. He has contacts all over the place. He sends me news on a regular basis. Jose is a member of CID too and has performed at UNESCO and UN events. You can begin a conversation with him by mentioning my name and/or CID if you need to. Good luck with the computer. Judy

There have been other statements of interest internationally too, such as this from the states
"I want to write lots, but I have
> > limited internet time. I speak Hebrew Spanish
> > and Maori, all pretty shakey, but enough to
> > pretend. I just returned from NZ learning as
> > much Maori (and preMaori)
> > culture/plants/healing/environment/history. Now
> > I'm back in Tucson to learn more with/from the
> > natives of my own area and I'm intending on
> > coming to OZ to see if I can do similiar either
> > this Nov or next. "

Another group is doing similar things on Native American land, and are interested in sharing what they have learned about doing such projects. Not a bad start.

-- posted by woorama

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» woorama - first meeting notes

rough objectives

1. Access short term and long term income sources to enable work on the land in a custodial role.

2. Creation of digital, print and oral texts recording the process, that have value beyond the activities themselves as guidelines for others. That way, even failures will be productive as "what not to do" guides, and an indicator of factors that contribute to reconciliation failure.

3. Designing an holistic approach to land management integrating land, language, culture, riparian work, reconciliation, social reform, education, technology, texts.

4. Creating educational texts and action learning experiences for schools through hands-on environmental activity on country with tradtional owners and traditional knowledge.

5. Facilitating reconciliation through environmental and cultural activities restoring significant areas of prime land.

6. Demonstrating an effective socio-environmental planning process.

The planning process we are using is from an ex-military friend of Colin's. More on this later.

We identified reconciliation as our main goal and key value. We defined reconciliation as "shifting to synergy rather than conflict between opposites".

The main binary oppositions within which we will need to create synergy are

Indigenous vs Non-Indigenous
Synthetic Systems vs Natural Systems
Government vs Community
In-office vs On-country
Local vs Global
Salary vs Residual Income
Individual vs Communal
Linear vs Circular
Static vs Fluid
Reductionist vs Holistic
Holding vs Sharing

We are currently debating the suitability of a local privet-infested property as an appropriate initial program.

We also would like to avoid where possible words like "program" and vocabulary that carries overtly bureaucratic or colonial undertones. We know that we need to change discourses to shift paradigms, and this work is done just as much through language as it is through action.

Constraints we identified included honouring local Indigenous ownership of knowledge, cultural mismatches in approaches to land management, pay for local Indigenous consultation and work, availability of funding, time constraints involving our having to find income to support family, the need to define what is appropriate content for public texts and private texts.

-- posted by woorama

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» woorama - correspondence with gary chestnut

hi gary

your wife judith referred me to you. basically, i am looking to find some funding to begin environmental projects that foster reconciliation by fusing education, riparian work, native language and culture, and negotiation of land access (and hopefully stewardship employment opportunities) for local indigenous people.

our grand vision is to try and link these sites together along traditional songlines and trade routes by making dreaming trails combining bush food plants and art works. our hope would be that the projects gather momentum, are not owned by anybody in particular, and start a bit of a community action revolution resounding along ancient songlines nationwide.

i don't know if that coincides with any of the projects or aims in your organisation. but if it does, i would certainly be prepared to come down and make a start in gosford.

one of my main concerns is in education, so i would be happy to do some work in the schools, and create literacy texts from the hands-on action-learning experiences the project will provide.

i've spent ten years as a teacher - if you want to know more about my history you can check out my cv at http://www.suite101.com/profile.cfm/woor...

thanks for your time gary. hope to hear from you soon.

tyson yunkaporta

-- posted by woorama

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» woorama - Sweet Spot - Native Land Action

In response to Sweet Spot - Native Land Action posted by woorama:

Colin's talked me into putting this into the context of a grander vision.

So we've come up with the idea of linking our project sites together along traditional songlines, making dreaming trails along these lines incorporating bush food plants and artworks. gradually, these would link to other sites as well, and other projects through land councils and organisations.

here's some of my thoughts on the vision.

eventually, it will spread, web-like, across the land. it has the potential to be a very organic process, owned by all who participate, with no bureacracy to mess it up. diversity in society and nature is what keeps things going and prevents stagnation - shouldn't the same principle be applied to management? i'm very firm on this - i don't want us to "own" the project (although i would like it to sustain us, and the participants). each component of the web needs to be led by the traditional owners of the territory upon which it lies. (that way, destructive egos and management interference only have the potential to destroy part of the web, rather than all of it).

the ramifications of this will be enormous. to have the songlines in the public domain, valued and known by all australians - this would really publically negate the idea of terra nullius... it would indicate a strong indigenous presence on the land, and place our sovereign rights in clear view. and to be able to travel these ways again when approaching a different language group's land - this will be very empowering.

but anyway, first things first. we still need to start with the first site, which would be like a phase one.

phase two would be to establish multiple sites, or form partnerships with existing sites.

phase three might be to find songlines that connect some of these sites, and work to build dreaming trails linking them.

phase four would be to publicise and grow this network, building a platform for social reform as we go.

-- posted by woorama

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» woorama - correspondence with gary chestnut

In response to correspondence with gary chestnut posted by woorama:

Tyson

The concept of your grand vision to work towards reactiviting nationwide songlines sounds interesting. However, I have no direct access to any source of funds. Gosford Council does however have an Aboriginal Extension Officer. If you agree I would like to refer your e-mail to him as he may be interested in your concepts to see whether or not they could be considered in our local area.

Please let me know.

Regards Gary

-- posted by woorama

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» woorama - correspondence with gary chestnut

In response to correspondence with gary chestnut posted by woorama:

update:

colin currently has a broken foot and a new baby daughter called molly, so is understandably out of the thick of things for the time being. however, he is still writing articles like the river flats one posted last week. next article will be posted this week.

our hope is that if we don't attract funding or backers, then we will end up with a publishable body of work that can bankroll the project.

in the meantime, we are still exploring leads for connecting to projects and particularly funding or backers. judith chestnut is a great help - forwarding our ideas through her vast networks.

we are still welcoming feedback, ideas and opinions on the project.

tyson

-- posted by woorama

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» woorama - correspondence with gary chestnut

In response to correspondence with gary chestnut posted by woorama:

i'm currently working on clearing privet from a creek and planting back natives. we still haven't found support or funding for the project, but i had to start something active or go crazy.

patience is important. these things take time to get off the ground, but as long as we're living it, i'm sure the dream will stay alive.

am currently working on building a relationship with the local aboriginal land council - this, like all worthwhile things, takes time.

perhaps the ground i'm now working on will be the site from which the project is launched. who knows?

in the meantime, keep the suggestions and moral support coming in.

-- posted by woorama

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» woorama - correspondence with gary chestnut

In response to correspondence with gary chestnut posted by woorama:

the creek is looking good. yabbies and eels have returned to the creek - it is a joy to see them. the day the first eel came back was a peak experience for me. the bird life has also increased exponentially - the fairy wren flock has gone from a dozen to about fifty.

that's just from getting the privet cleared, mulching up, setting logs about for shelter in the creek, planting and freeing native plants, and generally just giving the place attention.

it's good work to do. i am sure that in time we will be enabled to build on these efforts and make the dream of connecting ecological restoration sites through songlines a reality.

-- posted by woorama

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