S05-E36: Implementing First Nations knowledge to heal country

So that brings up an important point, Derek, and that is passing this knowledge on.

Because I'm going to address the elephant in the room, and I'm sure it has been brought up at some stage.

Why is this just a free course for blackfellas, for mob? Because it seems to me that whilst people in the background may have that whinge and moan about that, they're not really thinking about the broader picture.

And the employment of these people who graduate from the course, who will then be taking that knowledge out to local governments, to Parks Victoria and to traditional owners themselves.

Let's explore that a little bit.

Yeah, so the traditional owners, obviously, with Narup and Bunurong and Tungurong Land and Waters Council, Wadawurrung with their areas, they've obviously got their own spaces that they look after through their funding from the state governments and different things like that.

I think there's an opportunity for water authorities and local councils to really start to look at having their own First Nations ranger teams and looking at the biodiversity within their own areas.

There's a great opportunity for them to actually start getting some of these graduates to come through this course and then going on to the next course.

and getting that higher education.

And then from there, it's really about them becoming the leaders again and sharing that knowledge to the next generation again and continuing that knowledge sharing and also that education because we want to see young voices.

We want to see young people coming through and we want to develop that self-determination.

And it's not just within councils.

We're seeing it in different areas as well.

There's a girl that I know who did the course previously and there's a couple of girls actually, I should say.

They're actually running a junior ranger program now.

This is Maya Koff.

Maya Koff and Carissa Watts, yeah.

So they do that down on the Mornington Peninsula and it is amazing when you think that we're working with students that are 17, 18 plus up to an older age, like I said before, which I won't say what it was, but...

We're now looking at early education and we're teaching kids in primary schools about the importance of caring for country and understanding the ecosystem and understanding the environment and working within your natural environment as well.

So you've got people like that out there educating at the start.

It's only going to create more education opportunities further down the track.

So that brings up an important point, Derek, and that is passing this knowledge on.

Because I'm going to address the elephant in the room, and I'm sure it has been brought up at some stage.

Why is this just a free course for blackfellas, for mob? Because it seems to me that whilst people in the background may have that whinge and moan about that, they're not really thinking about the broader picture.

And the employment of these people who graduate from the course, who will then be taking that knowledge out to local governments, to Parks Victoria and to traditional owners themselves.

Let's explore that a little bit.

Yeah, so the traditional owners, obviously, with Narup and Bunurong and Tungurong Land and Waters Council, Wadawurrung with their areas, they've obviously got their own spaces that they look after through their funding from the state governments and different things like that.

I think there's an opportunity for water authorities and local councils to really start to look at having their own First Nations ranger teams and looking at the biodiversity within their own areas.

There's a great opportunity for them to actually start getting some of these graduates to come through this course and then going on to the next course.

and getting that higher education.

And then from there, it's really about them becoming the leaders again and sharing that knowledge to the next generation again and continuing that knowledge sharing and also that education because we want to see young voices.

We want to see young people coming through and we want to develop that self-determination.

And it's not just within councils.

We're seeing it in different areas as well.

There's a girl that I know who did the course previously and there's a couple of girls actually, I should say.

They're actually running a junior ranger program now.

This is Maya Koff.

Maya Koff and Carissa Watts, yeah.

So they do that down on the Mornington Peninsula and it is amazing when you think that we're working with students that are 17, 18 plus up to an older age, like I said before, which I won't say what it was, but...

We're now looking at early education and we're teaching kids in primary schools about the importance of caring for country and understanding the ecosystem and understanding the environment and working within your natural environment as well.

So you've got people like that out there educating at the start.

It's only going to create more education opportunities further down the track.