Alison Barrett writes:
Remote community solutions, innovative heat mitigation technologies and frameworks for measuring the impacts of climate change on health were all on show at the Healthy Environments and Lives (HEAL) Network’s conference, from 26-28 November.
Below we report on some of the case studies presented, highlighting the need for early engagement with local community members and the importance of national and global approaches to collecting data.
Collaboration and evaluation
An evaluation of the award-winning 2013-2016 Manymak Energy Efficiency Project in remote east Arnhem land, Northern Territory, uncovered many valuable lessons for how Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples, government and businesses can better work together for mutual benefits.
The project, also known as Dharray Manymakkung Pawaw Ga Gapuw (translates to ‘looking after our power and water’ in Djampbarrpuyngu language), won several national awards, including the NAIDOC 2016 Caring for Country award.
It was created by several government agencies to support six Yolŋu communities – Galiwin’ku, Gapuwiyak, Gunyangara, Milingimbi, Ramingining and Yirrkala – to use energy more efficiently.
According to Dr Elaine Ḻäwurrpa Maypilama and Dr Petra Buergelt, who co-led the evaluation, the project design focused on only one problem – energy insecurity – rather than “taking a holistic approach and exploring the causes from the perspectives of Yolŋu and utilising Yolŋu ways of being-knowing-doing”.
The project was also created from the perspectives of the project consortium members, rather than the communities.
These systemic issues stem from the short-term targeted funding approach that is used in Australia, Maypilama, a highly respected Senior Yolŋu Elder, Professor at Charles Darwin University and Adjunct Professor at University of Canberra, and Buergelt, Associate Professor and Affiliate Researcher at the HEAL Global Research Centre and UC Health Research Institute (HRI), University of Canberra, told Croakey following the conference.
The evaluation of the project was designed with local co-researchers and included 125 narrative in-depth conversations with Yolŋu in six very remote communities, conducted together by a community-based Yolŋu researcher and Buergelt, in diverse Yolŋu languages and English depending on the choice of the participating Yolŋu.
It uncovered powerful insights into how Yolŋu people used, experienced and interpreted fire or power in the old days, during missionary times and during government days, and how Yolŋu experienced the project, according to Maypilama and Buergelt.
“While our evaluation showed that many aspects worked really well and were way ahead of their time, and that the project increased knowledge and capacity of Yolŋu for using power more wisely, we also uncovered many aspects that didn’t work from the perspective of Yolŋu and Western knowledges,” they said.
Strengths of the project include:
- being part of a nation-wide Commonwealth-government funded program, using a consortium approach with relevant Indigenous and non-Indigenous partners, including an academic research partner
- employing and training community-based Yolŋu educator and research teams who educated and collected stories from fellow Yolŋu in diverse clan languages in their homes
- supporting community-based Yolŋu teams with community-based Yolŋu and/or western supervisors
- ensuring that western project team members were regularly in the communities
- the evaluation used qualitative research and was ongoing alongside the project rather than happening at the end, enabling the project to be responsive to evaluation feedback.
Other key lessons from the evaluation include:
- the critical importance of genuinely working together two-way with appropriate Yolŋu Elders starting with the design phase
- projects need to be long-term to ensure enduring transformations and sustainability.
Buergelt told Croakey: “Yolŋu are still paying a lot for power due to the short-term nature of the project and the project not being scaled, the house designs being completely inappropriate for the tropical climate and Yolŋu culture, and Yolŋu not being able to live on their countries.”
Since the Manymak Project, Maypilama and Buergelt have been co-leading an holistic long-term Indigenist participatory action research project that was requested by senior Elders in 2020.
It is being co-designed, co-implemented and co-evaluated by a growing team of present and emerging Yolŋu clan leaders and CEO/Guardians representing nearly all 16 clans living Galiwin’ku and Western researchers.
The Waka Ŋurrkanhayŋu – Regenerating the existence of life project aims to identify and heal the cause of devastating disasters and health inequalities to restore the health of Yolŋu and Country holistically by exposing and addressing the complex web of colonising strategies that weaken Yolŋu, and identifying and strengthening what strengthens Yolŋu.
They started implementing the eight resilience pathways that emerged from the research, and are now seeking funding to support this work.
Further reading
Community solutions
Reducing the cost of healthy foods and power, and increasing employment options and social security income are key solutions to improving food security in remote Aboriginal communities, the HEAL2024 conference was told.
Community members involved in research by the Remote Food Security Project Collaborative also said that improving infrastructure, including road conditions and access to transport, would help.
One participant in the project, Fitzroy Lawrence from Kowanyama on Cape York said in a video played at the conference that “every year in the wet season we are cut off for six months…every year, we face this”.
The Remote Food Security Project Collaborative resulted from a call to action from Apunipima Cape York Health Council in Queensland and Central Australian Aboriginal Congress in the Northern Territory to address food insecurity.
Ellie Chan, Principal Research Coordinator at the University of Queensland, and Kani Thompson, Allied Health Team Lead at Apunipima Cape York Health Council, shared findings from the project at the HEAL2024 conference on behalf of the collaborative.
According to a survey of 470 people, almost three-quarters of families in remote communities experience food insecurity and healthy food is unaffordable, the researchers reported. More than 30 percent of income for residents receiving social security is spent on food.
Families with young children participated in a second phase of the study, exploring solutions for improving food security using photovoice.
“The strength of cultural practices through sharing, and traditional foods in supporting food security was evident,” Thompson said.
Chan and Thompson said the findings have been translated into policy submissions and informed meetings with governments. Two community representatives are also on the reference group for the National Strategy for Food Security in remote First Nations Communities.
Further reading
- More information and resources on the Remote Food Security Project
- Governments urged to follow Queensland lead in subsidising food costs in remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities
Local ownership
Solar microgrids offer a solution for energy access issues in rural and remote areas of India, as well as empowering community members to adopt cleaner energy sources, according to Dr Gopika Indu, Research Fellow in Climate Change, Air Quality and Health, HEAL Global Research Institute, University of Canberra.
Solar microgrids “are highly beneficial for the rural communities and remote parts of India because of their capacity to generate their electricity onsite…[and] their capacity to store energy due to the battery storage component”, Indu told the HEAL2024 conference.
In addition, they are independently operated and can be customised to the specific needs of communities, she said.
The main aim of the Clean Energy for HEAL (CE4HEAL) project, a three-year project funded by the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs since 2021, was community engagement and outreach in rural and remote Central Australia and India to promote the adoption of cleaner energy sources, Indu told the conference.
An extension of the project in southern India engaged community members in a rural village through workshops, focus groups, village visits and interviews to gain a better insight into the utilisation of sustainable practices and renewable energy sources.
“We are proud to say the CE4HEAL team has established a strong link with the village, the village elders…and the administrative unit of the village,” Indu said.
She said the project’s primary achievement was community involvement. “We hope that through encouraging local ownership and participation in the design and installation and maintenance of the microgrid, we can ensure long-term sustainability.”
Four main enablers for adopting solar microgrids in rural India were identified:
- Abundant solar resource
- Indian government subsidies and incentives can make solar projects more affordable for rural communities
- Economic benefits in the longer term, bring down energy costs and reduce reliance on polluting energy sources
- Environmental and health improvements, including better indoor air quality in homes.
Four main barriers were also identified:
- High initial cost
- Variable energy demand
- Lack of technical expertise, support and manpower to operate and maintain the microgrids
- Cultural resistance and lack of awareness of the benefits of solar energy adoptions. Indu said the traditional use of biomass fuels is deeply embedded in the community’s lifestyle.
Energy usage in rural India is characterised by low energy consumption with a predominance of biomass-based energy sources including firewood, dung cakes and agricultural residue, according to Indu.
“We are currently in pursuit of partnering with local enterprises to set up [a] solar microgrid” in the rural Indian village, as part of the CE4HEAL initiatives, she said.
Innovation
‘Super cool materials’ are one of the “most important developments” for heat mitigation, according to Scientia Professor Matthaios Santamouris, the Anita Lawrence Chair in High Performance Architecture at the University of New South Wales.
Santamouris told the conference that ‘super cool materials’ are photonic materials with very high reflectance to solar radiation and may contribute to decreased temperatures in urban environments, when used on buildings, roofs, or pavements.
In a study conducted in Mparntwe/Alice Springs, the surface temperature of the ‘super cool materials’ was on average six degrees cooler than the outdoor ambient day temperature, and ten degrees cooler during the night.
These are “natural air conditioners” without needing to use any energy, he said.
A study led by Santamouris and colleagues at University of New South Wales, in collaboration with the Royal Commission of Riyadh, found the optimal heat mitigation scenario for the centre of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, is a combination of ‘super cool materials’ on the roofs of buildings and more than doubling the number of irrigated trees.
To determine this, they used computer modelling to run heat mitigation simulations on eight different combinations of vegetation cover, energy retrofits and use of ‘super cool materials’ on roofs.
Santamouris said the simulation showed the peak summer temperature in Riyadh decreased by 4.5 degrees when ‘super cool materials’ were combined with irrigated greenery.
“Cool roofs can improve tremendously thermal comfort during the warm period of the year and decrease substantially heat-related mortality and morbidity,” Santamouris said.
Developing new technologies is important, but it is not enough because the implementation of new technologies into the market depends “very much on the economy”. New economic and political tools are needed, he said.
Further reading
Indigenous nation building
In his opening address at the HEAL conference, Professor Sotiris Vardoulakis highlighted a new project, Stronger Together as Unified Nations for Community-led Health (STAUNCH), to be led Associate Professor Veronica Matthews, a Quandamooka woman and Associate Professor at the University of Sydney’s Centre for Rural Health.
Awarded a $5 million NHMRC Synergy Grant in October, the five-year project would provide the leadership that is needed for nation rebuilding and raising the voice of Indigenous communities in Australia, Vardoulakis told the conference.
Matthews, Co-Chair of the HEAL Network conference, told Croakey the project was an idea that came after the 2023 Voice referendum loss and a “feeling that we can’t rely on government any longer” in supporting First Nations people to “determine our own path, and pathways towards Closing the Gap”.
Matthews said the project will incorporate social, political, economic and environmental determinants of health, and build on the health in all policies approach.
The research team will work with several First Nations communities across the Northern Territory, Queensland and New South Wales to generate new evidence on Indigenous nation building processes that centre on holistic health and wellbeing solutions, applying lessons from Native American groups who have been developing Indigenous nation building for over 30 years.
The Nation Building Framework has already been applied in several First Nations communities within Australia, as evidenced in this Lowitja Institute Discussion Paper, she said.
Matthews told Croakey “the unique aspect” of the STAUNCH project is that it will centre nation building activity in community health and wellbeing aspirations.
“We will also prepare governments for new relational ways of working by applying an Indigenous adapted Health in All Policies (HiAP) approach. HiAP is a key principle of the [National] Health and Climate Strategy in recognition of the need for different sectors to work together to address climate issues,” she said.
“If we’re successful, it’s going to provide a blueprint and local governance systems that foreground Indigenous ways of knowing, being and doing, and hopefully…it may even rub off on some Western governments,” Matthews said.
“Success will be measured through the development of strong local governance processes and structures that have cultural authority to drive negotiations with government over implementation of their health and wellbeing strategies and plans that are developed in full consultation with First Nation communities.”
“We’ve got an incredible team of people working together on this, nine out of the 10 chief investigators are Aboriginal leaders and eight out of the 10 are women,” Matthews said in a statement.
Chief investigators for the STAUNCH project include Associate Professor Veronica Matthews, Professor Adrian Miller, Professor Juanita Sherwood, Dr Janine Gertz, Professor Roianne West, Dr Vicki Saunders, Dr Cassandra Sedran-Price, Emma Walke, Oliver Costello and Associate Professor Carmel Williams.
Measuring impacts of climate change on health
The reporting of climate change and environmental health indicators “will provide a cohesive national approach to the collection of data and future reporting on environmental determinants of health”, according to Dr Vanessa Prescott, Head of the Prevention and Environmental Health Unit at the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare.
In addition, the AIHW Climate change and environmental health indicators reporting framework will enable the monitoring of the impacts of climate change on health, and evaluate the success of strategies, policies and measures implemented to mitigate or improve the impacts of the environment on health, she said.
Prescott told the HEAL Network conference that the framework was iteratively developed, through engagement with key stakeholders and experts, including members of the HEAL Network.
The project identified a range of reportable indicators under domains and subdomains including indoor and outdoor air quality, housing quality, water quality, climate and extreme weather – many of which are interrelated.
This image shows the reportable climate change and environmental health indicators presented by Dr Vanessa Prescott, sourced from AIHW Climate change and environmental health indicators reporting framework.
The project also identified data gaps where they may not meet all selection criteria for inclusion, or not have ongoing plans for collection, Prescott told the conference.
“One topic that we really would like to have identified an appropriate indicator for was the impact of climate change on mental health,” she said.
Prescott acknowledged social and other determinants are “highly interrelated” to environment and climate change; however, they were out of scope of this project.
She said future data development activities could address some of the data gaps, including through enhancing administrative data collection in emergency departments and hospitals and linkage to external events, such as heat exposure, or capturing injuries or car accidents, for example, that may occur during floods or bushfires.
Measuring health systems
The World Health Organization is developing indicators to measure the climate resilience and environmental sustainability of health systems, the conference was told.
Dr Carlos Corvalan, Adjunct Professor at The University of Sydney’s School of Public Health, said the WHO’s Global Health Observatory – a repository of health-related statistics for WHO Member States – includes indicators in many areas of health and has a huge section on health and environment.
However, “we don’t have a lot of indicators on climate change and health,” he said. “Everybody’s working very hard on this.”
Two examples of this work include:
- The Framework for measuring the climate resilience of health systems provides guidance on how indicators could be developed specifically to measure climate resilience of health systems. Health Canada, for example, has used the document to develop vulnerability adaptation and health international adaptation plans, Corvalan said.
- WHO Health and Climate Change Global Survey, conducted every two to three years to collect data on health sector responses to climate change in WHO member states. Not every country responds, so “we don’t have a full picture of the world”, he said.
He told the conference that the World Health Organization’s 14th general programme of work for 2025-28 will include, for the first time, strategic objectives to respond to climate change.
Measuring air and water quality
Final messages
The HEAL2024 conference Co-Chairs, Associate Professor Veronica Matthews and Professor Sotiris Vardoulakis, shared some final messages calling for everyone to value First Nations culture and knowledges, and to respect cultural differences.
For more conference news, follow #Heal2024 on X, bookmark this link for further articles at Croakey, and also follow this conference X/Twitter list.
