Three new #Indigenous Protected Areas declared in WA, paving the way for more cultural protection
"The animals that we used to see when I was a child, they've become more and more scarce."
By Charlie Mills
Posted Wed 10 Jul 2024
In short:
Yindjibarndi, Nyamal and Wudjari lands in Western Australia have been announced among 12 new Indigenous Protected Areas (IPA) today.
IPAs trigger funding for traditional owners to manage land and sea country, including threatened species and feral animal management.
What's next? The groups will now undertake consultation to determine where the funding should be directed.
"The federal government has announced a significant investment into protecting and managing cultural heritage in Western Australia's north, a first for the west Pilbara region.
"The government will invest $14.6 million to establish 12 new Indigenous Protected Areas (IPAs), with three of those in WA.
"The protected areas have been announced for #Yindjibarndi Country near Roebourne and Nyamal Country near Marble Bar in the #Pilbara, and #Wudjari Country near Esperance on WA's South Coast.
"CEO of Yindjibarndi Aboriginal Corporation Michael Woodley said the move will help #revitalise the land and protect cultural heritage.
"'There's a real need and urgency to put [flora and fauna] back on the land,' he said.
"He said the newly proclaimed protected areas will allow rangers to reverse those impacts.
'"This gives us a really good opportunity to make sure we can revitalise those particular elements, and continue to sustain them as well,' he said.
"Indigenous Protected Areas are vast areas of land and sea country directly managed by #traditional owners such as Indigenous rangers, who work to protect #CulturalHeritage and #biodiversity.
"More than 90 million hectares of land across #Australia are currently covered by #IPAs, and the newly announced areas will add another eight million."
How Returning Lands to Native Tribes Is Helping Protect Nature
From California to Maine, land is being given back to #NativeAmerican tribes who are committing to managing it for conservation. Some tribes are using #TraditionalKnowledge, from how to support #wildlife to the use of prescribed fires, to protect their ancestral grounds.
By Jim Robbins • June 3, 2021
"Now the [Salish and Kootenai] tribes are managing the range’s #bison and are also helping, through co-management, to manage bison that leave #YellowstoneNationalPark to graze on U.S. Forest Service land. Their Native American management approach is steeped in the close, almost familial, relationship with the animal that once provided food, clothes, shelter — virtually everything their people needed.
"'We treat the buffalo with less stress, and handle them with more respect,' said Tom McDonald, Fish and Wildlife Division Manager for the tribes and a tribal member. The tribes, he noted, recognize the importance of bison family groups and have allowed them to stay together. “That was a paradigm shift from what we call the ranching rodeo type mentality here, where they were storming the buffalo and stampeding animals. It was really kind of a violent, stressful affair.'
"There is a burgeoning movement these days to repatriate some culturally and ecologically important lands back to their former owners, the Indigenous people and local communities who once lived there, and to otherwise accommodate their perspective and participation in the management of the land and its wildlife and plants.
"Throughout the United States, land has been or is being transferred to tribes or is being co-managed with their help. In California, a land trust recently transferred 1,199 acres of redwood forest and prairie to the Esselen tribe, and in Maine, the Five Tribes of the #WabanakiConfederacy recently reacquired a 150-acre island with the help of land trusts. Other recent land transfers to tribes with the goal of conservation have taken place in #Oregon, #NewYork and other states.
"The use of Indigenous management styles that evolved over many centuries of cultures immersed in nature — formally called Traditional Ecological Knowledge (#TEK) — is increasingly seen by conservationists as synergistic with the global campaign to protect #biodiversity and to manage nature in a way that hedges against #ClimateChange.
"The #NatureConservancy, for example, one of the world’s largest conservation organizations, has institutionalized the transfer of ecologically important land with its Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities Program in both the U.S. and globally."
On #Oneida#Wetlands, Bird Surveys Affirm Tribal Conservation Success
A recent collaboration between #Wisconsin birders and the #OneidaNation demonstrates how the tribe's decades-long habitat restoration paid off.
Words by Xian Chiang-Waren
Senior Associate Editor, #Audubon Magazine
Published Winter 2021
"Twenty years ago, Tony Kuchma took charge of restoring the Oneida Nation's wetlands in northeastern Wisconsin. The land was marked by old mills and farm operations. The water was #polluted. The fields were overrun with non-native plants.
"Since then, Kuchma and his team have rehabilitated about 3,000 acres of the reservation. 'Large-scale #restoration is an accumulation of years of effort,' he says. 'We’re looking at the land: Some wants to be prairie, some trees, some wetland. The land tells you what it wants to be again.'
"Now streams flow where ditches stood, and there's a renewed #wildlife presence. 'We’ve had eagles come back,' says Randy Cornelius, a cultural representative of the tribe. 'I’ve seen ospreys, cormorants, ducks I’ve never seen before.'"
"The #OneidaNation has restored wetlands that help to improve water quality in Wisconsin’s Green Bay while creating valuable habitat that attracts many birds."
Words by Andy McGlashen
Senior Editor, Audubon Magazine
Published June 17, 2024
"In the ongoing effort to bring the problem under control, the region’s leaders are increasingly reaching for a primitive but proven tool for capturing and cleaning water before it enters the lake: wetlands. No one believes that #swamps and marshes alone can starve the algae blooms, but experts say they are an important part of the solution. 'Wetlands are wonderful filtration systems,' says Richard Stumpf, an oceanographer with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric administration who monitors #algae outbreaks. And because wetlands around the Great Lakes offer vital habitat where birds can rest during migration or raise their young, restoring them not only improves water quality but also brightens the outlook for vulnerable avian species.
“'There’s momentum building behind #NatureBasedSolutions,' says Kyle Rorah, regional director of public policy for Ducks Unlimited. 'There’s a huge opportunity to get serious about taking a chunk out of the problem.'"