The Global Nature Positive Summit, which was held on Gadigal Country last week, co-hosted by the Australian and NSW Governments, sought to “accelerate collective action to drive investment in nature and strengthen activities to protect and repair our environment”.
Discussions highlighted the importance of healing, holistic approaches and the critical roles of Indigenous peoples and Indigenous knowledge, reports Rebecca Thorpe.
Rebecca Thorpe writes:
Nature is at the heart of our health and needs to be valued, respected and protected, attendees at the Global Nature Positive Summit on Gadigal land were told last week.
The Sydney gathering of more than 900 Indigenous, environmental and financial leaders invited from around the world opened with a plenary featuring five Indigenous leaders from Australia, Aotearoa/New Zealand and the Pacific. The plenary set the scene for Indigenous voices to be front and centre in the new Nature Repair Market.
Mavis Mullins, Chair of Nga Whenua Rahui, which provides funds to protect the integrity of Māori land, told the summit the way the environment is viewed has to change for us to be our healthiest selves.
She said that taking the Indigenous holistic approach to health and the environment was critical to future success in biodiversity and other nature healing in Australia, Aotearoa, the Pacific, and around the world.
“One of the challenges that we face is that we silo everything off,” Mullins said.
“We have a water quality strategy and then a land strategy and then a people strategy and never the twains meet. What’s that about? We live in a world that’s so connected, with the spiritual and the physical, and by trying to solve this [one] space we create bigger problems.
“Let’s not separate all of the issues of our life, of our ecosystem, we’ve got to address them all together. If we do want to focus on one part first, then we’ve got to make sure that there’s a connector.”
Healing
Mullins also spoke of the importance of healing “our people”.
“Our people are not well. This is often a reflection of our land, of our environment. If our environment is not well, we will not be well,” she said.
“We have got to go back to our people. We’ve got to heal our people, to heal our land, heal our waters. I know that’s what we all aspire to, and I also know that talk is cheap. We can say this all we like, but actually there is a cost…
“Sometimes we have to take a step back to go forwards, and we need to be prepared to take a step back because the long game is surely where we are going… and that’s the challenge for our political leaders. They’re there for a term. Our aspirations for our environment are intergenerational.”
Mullins highlighted the need for long-term planning.
“At home on our lands we talk about a hundred-year plan. It has to be that,” she said.
“That has to be the minimum and although that may feel and sound ridiculous, for us, it’s only three forestry rotations. It doesn’t take much for us to get to a 100-year vision. Can we just stretch that horizon? That’s going to save us instead of these very short-term views.
“We as Indigenous people stand on the shoulders of that intergenerational thinking and it’s our responsibility to ensure that this moves through… We need to humble ourselves to nature because otherwise nature will humble us and that won’t be much fun.”
Action needed
Barry Hunter, a descendant from the Djabugay and Jiddabul speaking people of Cairns hinterland and CEO of the North Australian Indigenous Land & Sea Management Alliance (NAILSMA), had a clear message for governments and other key players in the new market: it’s time for action.
“Time is short in regard to what we need to address and the amount of work that needs to be done. We as Indigenous Peoples must be at the heart of this market because 80 percent of the world’s biodiversity is found on the lands of Indigenous Peoples, and 10 percent of that global biodiversity is located in Australia,” Hunter said.
“The majority of Australia’s biodiversity exists on land, seas and in waters that is cared for by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, Country that we have deep connections to beyond just the physical.
“For a long time Indigenous Peoples have been viewed as, at best, partners and far too often just a footnote by mainstream organisations working in the environmental space.
“The time for this tokenism to end is now. We have the people, the experience and the deep connection and obligation to Country to ensure positive outcomes for everyone for the entire planet, not just our people.”
Joint statement
Hunter said the need to centre Indigenous Peoples in the new Nature Repair Market was a key driver in the formation of the new Indigenous Country and Biodiversity Alliance (ICBA).
Made up of founding members NAILSMA, the Indigenous Desert Alliance, the Kimberley Land Council, and the Aboriginal Carbon Foundation, ICBA aims to change the mainstream paradigm of how biodiversity is managed.
“We need to ensure Indigenous people are involved in every step of the Nature Repair Market’s development, implementation and accessibility to maximise the biodiversity, cultural and financial core benefits of the market,” Hunter said.
To further this aim, more than 40 Indigenous groups and individuals at the summit signed a joint statement calling on governments and business to engage Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people on all nature positive decision making.
The joint statement says the importance of Indigenous engagement is made clear both when it is present and when it is absent.
“We must move towards a nature positive future, and First Peoples play a key role in shaping this. There is no journey without us, and we are proud to reach out our hand for yours and lead everyone towards a brighter future for nature together,” the statement says.
Speaking at a breakout session at the summit, Australia’s Chief Scientist, Dr Cathy Foley AO, concurred that science funding and measurement needed to change to fully embrace the potential of the Nature Repair Market and meaningfully include Indigenous Peoples along every step of the way.
“We don’t always measure the right things in assessing success in business and research,” Foley said. “Can we change the way we measure research outcomes and become more holistic?”
“We’re not funding the “thinking part” of this science and engagement. We turn the money on when the work starts rather than at the planning stage, which is what we have to do (to get better outcomes).”
Metrics with meaning
In his presentation at the summit, NAILSMA Research Manager Justin Perry illustrated how science metrics can be done differently and capture positive outcomes that may otherwise be ignored. He talked about a recent trip to Cape York where he was working with Junjuwurra Mob.
“The monitoring there was established so that all of the work can be done by the Traditional Owners, which maximises time on Country and pays for as many jobs as possible for the 40 plus Junjuwarra people that are looking for work,” Perry said.
“We deliberately didn’t go for the lowest cost methods or the most efficient ones. We developed methods that best met the goals of the many hands on deck and gave as much time on Country as possible in places that were important to people.
“Using this context, the question is what are the metrics at national and international scales that are meaningful, trusted and easy to access so that people can focus on the things that need to get done at the local scale?
“And how can we elevate the intensive social, cultural and environmental impact that is delivered through Indigenous-led projects? Can the metrics highlight not only the aggregated biodiversity benefits but value who does the work, how it’s done and how it is governed?”
“As someone else said here, ‘when a solution is Community-led, it’s Community spread’.”
• Rebecca Thorpe is a long-term contributor to Croakey and has recently been working as a communication consultant with NAILSMA and ICBA.
Watch
See comments by Mavis Mullins, Barry Hunter, and Leah Armstrong, Regional Manager (Australia) of International Funders for Indigenous Peoples.
These videos were filmed by Rebecca Thorpe.
See Croakey’s archive of articles on the environmental determinants of health
