Indigenous peoples have responsibility for management of large areas of land and sea across Australia and hold an enormous stake in ensuring a sustainable future for their communities and natural and cultural environments. Indigenous land managers draw on their knowledge to make management decisions daily, including running businesses and enterprises based on natural resources. There is also increasing interest from non-Indigenous people in Indigenous knowledge as a management tool. The way in which knowledges are shared is therefore important.

Supported by the Australian Government’s National Environmental Science Program, and guided by an Indigenous-majority Steering Group, CSIRO and NAILSMA are co-leading the development of knowledge brokering guidelines, as a tool for supporting Indigenous knowledge to be applied in land and sea management, alongside science and other knowledge. The Our Knowledge, Our Way Guidelines are informed by over 25 case studies, supplied by Indigenous land and sea managers and their partners, which reveal: dynamic ways in which Indigenous people are using their IK to care for their country, including in the development of business opportunities and enterprises; positive experiences and good outcomes where IK has been brought into co-management and research processes; lessons learned by Indigenous land managers about knowledge-sharing; and the conditions under which good knowledge sharing can occur. We will reveal key aspects of the Guidelines, developed by and for Indigenous land managers, and discuss the implications for future partnerships and policy that can support ‘Our Knowledge, Our Way’.

Assertion by Dja Dja Wurrung People of their cultural authority provided a transformative foundation for the Joint Management Plan for the Dja Dja Wurrung Parks in central Victoria, produced by the Dhelkunya Dja Land Management Board (DDLMB) and launched in October 2018. Equitable weaving between Indigenous and scientific knowledge was facilitated by the CSIRO-led team that DDLMB contracted. Here we present multiple perspectives on how cultural authority enabled the Plan. Graham Atkinson, explains how and why the DDLMB set out to achieve an innovative, best practice, and highly executable Joint Management Plan as a blueprint for parks and natural resource management, a Plan that enable the knowledge and culture of the Dja Dja Wurrung to be recognised and incorporated into the management. Mr Rodney Carter presents the unique processes for Free Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) that Dja Dja Wurrung Clans Aboriginal Corporation developed to implement cultural authority in decision making. FPIC allowed Dja Dja Wurrung people to activate our rights to self-determination in decision-making, which are central to our Recognition and Settlement Agreement. All on Country activities that concern our lives and resources need our informed contributions.Dr Ro Hill presents the participatory planning innovations that supported the goals of Dja Dja Wurrung People, including a unique 3-day “Map-a-Thon” and the inclusion of an opportunities focus into the standard Conservation Action Planning approach. The final JMP has been acknowledged as innovative, best practice, culturally appropriate and culturally informed—and providing a new direction for park planning in Victoria.

The Incorporation of Traditional and Cultural Ecological Knowledge (TCEK) has formed the foundation for our work on culturally important threatened species and understanding threatening processes on Birriliburu and Matuwa and Kurrara Kurrara Indigenous Protected Areas (IPA's). It underpins our Science and Monitoring Plans, which include fire and weed management, feral animal monitoring, bush tucker data-basing and work on culturally important threatened species such as the Bilby, Night Parrot and Great Desert Skink. Working two-ways has facilitated the development of our program and the Birriliburu and Matuwa and Kurrara Kurrara Rangers. We have been able to conduct important land management and survey work whilst teaching, sharing and using Traditional and Cultural Ecological Knowledge. The results from 5 years of land management illustrate how a strong program has been built using right way science. For example, the tracking skills of senior knowledge holders has contributed to data collected from 107 2ha track plot surveys undertaken at the same time each year, monitoring feral animals at Katjarra (Carnarvon Range). Traditional burning techniques in the form of small, cool mosaic burns undertaken in the colder months have been mapped over 196 times at Katjarra and are contributing to the enhancement of habitat for key threatened species. The importance of incorporating TCEK has also been acknowledged strongly in the recent draft of the National Bilby Recovery Plan and Traditional Owners are being consulted as part of the new National Night Parrot Recovery Plan. Birriliburu and Matuwa and Kurrara Kurrara IPA’s are located on Martu Country.

Coastal floodplain Melaleuca spp. (paperbark) forests are iconic ecosystems of northern Australia with high eco-cultural values; however, they are undergoing widespread dieback. Previous collaborative research with the Yolŋu (local Aboriginal people) Yirralka Rangers who manage Laynhapuy Indigenous Protected Area (IPA), revealed that feral ungulates (buffalo and pig) and sea level rise were interacting drivers of Melaleuca and räkay (Eleocharis spp.) decline, coincident with mangrove encroachment. This raised questions about whether removal of feral ungulates would improve floodplain resilience to sea level rise by reducing erosion, altering soil chemistry and allowing vegetation recovery.
We have deployed mixed methods to answer questions regarding historical coastal vegetation change, current impacts on vegetation, potential methods of recovery and cultural valuation of coastal species and management preferences. We have used historical archives and satellite data to map coastal vegetation change. Semi-structured interviews have allowed Yolŋu Traditional Owners to share how they use coastal flora and their management preferences going forward. We have also used a feral exclusion experiment to determine how coastal vegetation may respond to removal of feral ungulates whilst withstanding increased soil salinisation. Our results suggest that floodplain resilience to climate change may be improved by removal of feral ungulates and that Yolŋu Traditional Owners would like to see this happen in order to protect culturally important species and sacred sites. These findings enrich our understanding of coastal flora through linked ecological and cultural prisms while providing management relevant information to inform decisions about these eco-culturally significant coastal floodplain ecosystems.

Cultural ecosystem services (CES) are increasingly recognised at global to local scales. However, there are challenges associated with characterising CES because the concept is incongruent with an Indigenous relational ontology. We describe collaborative action research that aimed to elucidate the values associated with freshwater billabongs by Indigenous people of Ngukurr community in the South East Arnhem land Indigenous Protected Area, northern Australia. The values described in relation to the billabongs mirrored (spirituality), reinterpreted (reciprocal kinship, sense of place, knowledge and education) and identified a new category (cultural subsistence) compared to those of the Millennium Assessment (MA) cultural ecosystem services typologies (2003, 2005). Importantly, the relational ontology described in this research did not neatly separate into categories like that of the MA, values were strongly related and were encapsulated in the holistic notion of connection as Country which we suggest as an overarching phrase towards understanding the relational ontology of Country in an Indigenous worldview. Furthermore, we argue that the overarching ecosystem services concept is indeed cultural and to categorise ‘culture’ as separate from ‘ecosystem’ is to undermine this ontology of relatedness. This inclusive, bottom-up method of eliciting and reporting Indigenous ecosystem values may be transferable to other contexts where marginalised Indigenous people have stakes in environmental management but are not represented in decision making. Further understanding of Indigenous and local values and perspectives is required to continue to refine the global MA framework for practical uptake in environmental decisions at local scales.

The ancient practice of Aboriginal cultural burning has shaped the Australian landscape. In northern Australia, Indigenous savanna burning projects are well established, and deliver social, cultural, environmental and economic benefits. In south-eastern Australia, cultural burning is being revitalised with many communities keen to implement Indigenous fire management projects. Government departments have declared supportive policies but how is the on-ground application of cultural burning progressing? We review current projects, policies, limitations and opportunities for cultural burning in south-eastern Australia.

Increasingly, environmental flow assessments (e-flows) are being used to address the threat to rivers and human communities posed by flow alteration. Conceptual models that underpin e-flows tend to include only biophysical interactions however, eschewing socio-cultural complexity, local eco-hydrological knowledge and governance matters. These dimensions are especially important where Indigenous people have strong connections with rivers. We used a transdisciplinary approach to develop a conceptual model based on published information on ecological values and a wider set of values held by Indigenous peoples of the west Kimberley, Australia. The conceptual model demonstrated the need to maintain hydrological connectivity to support hydro-ecological values and Indigenous use for food and amenity, and to meet religious responsibilities. Our process identified the need to recognise Indigenous and non-indigenous governance and management systems at multiple scales to build legitimacy in the e-flows process. We used the model to distill propose guiding principles for using e-flows to protect aquatic ecosystems and their dependent human cultures and livelihoods. We are now undertaking targeted field research to address gaps identified through this process.