Indigenous

Emma Pritchard. Stunning drawings and paintings by First Nations artists from the Clarence Valley will be projected onto the Sunshine Sugar building in South Grafton each night from October 22 until November 6. Celebrating the life cycle of the endangered coastal emu, glorious creations by proud Yaegl artists Kahlua Charlton, Gareth Charlton and Aneika Kapeen, proud Bundjalung artist Maisie Monaghan, and proud Gumbaynggirr and Bundjalung artist Deborah Taylor have been delighting spectators who have been stopping to admire the impressive visual display.  

Tom Zaunmayr, National Indigenous Times. It may be hard to believe for outsiders conditioned by years of negative national headlines, but Sean-Paul Stephens is adamant the Pilbara town of Ieramagadu (Roebourne) is one of the safest, most beautiful communities he has lived in.

The Tennant Creek Brio artists have recently returned from a successful exhibition in Byron Bay in New South Wales. Simon Wilson, Joseph Williams and Rupert Betheras showed off their cutting-edge artistic talents to the eastern states which was received with much applaud at Byron Bay’s Thom Gallery.

Samuel Davis. Striding past Buckingham Palace, Joyrah Newman felt a burst of energy as she neared the London Marathon’s finish line. “It’s this painful happy thing,” Ms Newman said. “It’s one of the best experiences" ... The Canberra-based public servant, who still calls Bamaga home, joined the Indigenous Marathon Project in April, 2021. Started in 2009 by Aussie champion, Robert De Castella, IMP uses running to create inspirational First Nations leaders.

Murray-Darling Basin Water Ministers met on Ngunnawal Country (Canberra) to discuss the next steps to deliver the Basin Plan, delivery of water market reforms, the impacts of climate change on water resources, and opportunities to strengthen First Nations' role in water management and ownership. Most of the Murray–Darling Basin is the wettest it’s been in a long time.

The Outback Arts region gains another valuable cultural asset today as the Standing Stories Sculpture Walk in Bourke is opened to the public through the release of the brochure for the self-guided tour ... The project, which has seen 8 sculptures installed at the Back of Bourke Exhibition Centre (in Bourke) has been over 5 years in development.

Samuel Davis. Empowering Traditional Owners to create new economic opportunities and improving consultation with mining companies will be two key areas of focus for Cape York Land Council’s newly appointed CEO. Dion Creek wasted little time settling into the role, serving as master of ceremonies at an event recognising the Native Title rights of Traditional Owners in the Northern Peninsula Area last week.

It was a great turnout to the Family Violence March on Wednesday, with local residents, community groups, police and service providers taking part to show their stance against violence in the community. Senator Jacinta Nampijimpa Price and Minister for Prevention of Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence Kate Worden were also in attendance to support the message of NO MORE!

Tennant Creek’s Sarah Goddard has been crowned the best Indigenous doctor in Australia for 2022 in the Australian Indigenous Doctors’ Association (AIDA) awards. Dr Goddard works at the Tennant Creek Hospital and local general practice, as well as the Ali Curung Health Clinic.

The new gallery, Djaa Djuwima, which means to ‘show, share Country’, will become a permanent branded space at the Bendigo Visitor Centre. Djaa Djuwima is an exciting and important cultural step in reconciliation, to better understand, recognise and respect the living culture and creativity of our Traditional Custodians of the land.

World Cassowary Day  has arrived at a significant moment for the  Ipima Ikaya Traditional Owner clans with the news that at least 10 Wadthuuny (cassowaries) have been discovered living on their Country in the remote section of the Cape York Northern Area Peninsula.  The findings are part of the first formal Wadthuuny survey to be conducted on Gudang Yadhaykenu Country in the Ussher Point section of  the newly renamed  Apudthama National Park.

Catastrophic floods and droughts are currently being experienced across the world. Paul Wyrwoll and Quentin Grafton argue that our existing approaches to managing water are not working. We need a new paradigm for how we manage water, a rethinking where human societies work with and nurture the hydrological cycle, instead of trying to master it.

Patricia Gill. Noongar cultural burning may offer historical cues for contemporary fire protection but these cannot be relied on to produce a fire resilient landscape. So said environmental historian Professor Andrea Gaynor at the Royal WA Historical Society Conference ... Prof. Gaynor said Noongar burning practices belonged to a mobile culture and were never intended to protect a sedentary society in a landscape which had been subjected to logging, farming and urban development.

The Chief Executive Officer of an Aboriginal corporation in Tennant Creek has labelled Westpac’s sudden closure of its branch as an abandonment of the Barkly’s Indigenous community. Papulu Apparr-Kari Aboriginal Corporation (PAK) has been a long-time customer of Westpac, also helping out its Indigenous customers without identification to use its bank services.

The topic I want to raise is one that in the last few decades has grown to become an Australian norm, performed at major and minor cultural, political, and sporting events. Unfortunately, this new norm is at risk of being overused by zealot government bureaucrats, attempting to force reconciliation through repetition, instead of accepting slow community adoption.

A mural depicting the history of fishing on the Fraser Coast has been painted on the side wall of the Urangan Fisheries cold store which faces Fishermans Park ... “It links the Butchulla and European history of fishing in the region,” Councillor Zane O’Keefe said ... Watch the video.

I was unexpectedly, and in the end pleasantly, surprised to find a story that is as much about 1950s and 1960s Australia as it is about one young woman’s experiences. It is the north-west Western Australia of Aboriginal missions, of cultural clashes, of extremes in temperature and of distance, of hardships tempered by moments of joy, of connections made and still treasured more than half a century later.

After the release of OBE Organic's Sustainability Report 2022 earlier this year, Australian Rural & Regional News found out a little more about what's involved in farming organic beef in the vast Channel Country and how it came to be Australia's oldest organic beef company from OBE Organic's Managing Director, Dalene Wray.