This project will demonstrate a pathway to re-embed a Wadandi Songline as a conservation corridor in a socially and ecologically fragmented landscape.
The first step demonstrates how Wadandi cultural landscapes represent ecological connectivity and biodiversity management. The Wadandi cultural landscape integrates spiritual, social and ecological networks, manifested in Songlines.
Re-embedding Songlines into land management is imperative to reconnecting a fragmented landscape for social and ecological health. This stage is comprised of a series workshops to deliver a Guideline of Wadandi Knowledge Systems, outlining the parameters of collaborative and culturally guided research and planning.
Involving key personnel, this stage builds the capacity of each partner by operating in a community-based model of cultural knowledge principles and adaptive land management.
The second step applies the Guidelines to an Interactive Cultural Map and Database, which serves as a strategic planning tool. Utilising an intuitive, spatial platform will ensure community oversight and empowerment by controlling the use of sensitive information and handling multiple systems of data; including research projects and land management plans.
An interactive map and database will integrate cultural and Western knowledge systems for use by the community.
The Map will be layered by the Wadandi community with non-sensitive cultural information that integrates historical and contemporary datasets, including zoning and land use plans.
The platform embeds Wadandi Traditional Ecological Knowledge into research and planning programs across institutions, organisations and agencies. The third step is a Case Study to cement these guidelines and principles into a collaborative project.
This stage simultaneously builds the capacity of the Wadandi community, while focusing efforts to reconnect a fragmented cultural ecological corridor. Wadandi Elders and community facilitators will lead field surveys and cultural mapping, in tandem with targeted archaeological investigations, ethno-botanical studies, cultural burning case studies, and ecological mapping projects; linked by a TAFE training package.
This case study will focus on a cultural corridor that encompasses ecological zones and geological foundations. Within the corridor, the Wadandi knowledge systems are represented by the Emu and the Emu Plum which bring aspects of cultural fire practices central to biodiversity management.
The case study will highlight the importance of the symbiotic relationships between key species and cultural knowledge as the platform for conservation management.
The final step will incorporate the above learning and understandings into a Cultural Conservation Plan (CCP). The Plan will exist as both a physical document and a dynamic, educational package in the Interactive Map and Database. Within the Map, the CCP is applicable in many ways beyond this project as it serves as a living, adaptable platform managed by the Wadandi community. As a physical document, the CCP will be distributed as a resource guide and model for conservation planning and priorities.
This undertaking will build Indigenous governance and prosperity in the Wadandi Community by carrying out community-based, culturally guided, integrative research to restore a fragmented landscape. Research institutions, government agencies and other organisations will benefit by collaborating in a culturally guided environment leading to greater understandings and respect towards Indigenous communities.
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Output(s)
There are no listed outputs for this project.