Welcome to 100 Climate Conversations and thank you so much for joining us. I’d like to start by acknowledging the Traditional Custodians of the ancestral homelands upon which we are recording today, the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation. We respect their Elders past and present and recognise their continuous connection to Country. Okay, so this is 84 of 100 climate conversations. Now the series presents 100 visionary Australians that are taking positive action to respond to the most critical issue of our time climate change. We are recording live today in the Boiler Hall of the Powerhouse Museum. And before it was the museum, this space was the Ultimo Power Station. It was built in 1899 and supplied coal-powered electricity to Sydney’s tram system. Then that went through into the 1960s. In the context of this architectural artefact, we shift our focus away from that coal-powered past forward to the innovations of the net zero revolution. My name’s Nate Byrne. I am a meteorologist, oceanographer, science communicator, former naval officer and current ABC News Breakfast weather presenter. Ricky Archer is chief executive of North Australian Indigenous Land and Sea Management Alliance (NAILSMA). It’s an organisation dedicated to creating partnerships with business and government to improve sustainability of land and sea management practices, while also creating jobs for local Indigenous people. A Djungan man from the Western Tablelands region of North Queensland, Ricky has a background in geographical information systems, Indigenous knowledge management and natural and cultural resource management. We are so thrilled to have Ricky with us today. Please make him feel very welcome. Ricky, you’ve been working on Country for your entire career. What does it mean to you?

Good opening question. I think there are two parts that make this important to me. One is trying to get the story across that the work that I’m doing in my day job is closely connected to what I’d be doing as an Indigenous person who has an underlying cultural obligation or responsibility for looking after Country. I just think I’m lucky enough to find a job that pays me to do the same things that I do otherwise. In terms of that, you know, being on Country, I don’t get to do it as much as I’d like now. I normally get stuck behind a desk too much. But the great thing is having that ingrained in your upbringing and your cultural teachings. And then looking at, I think, ways forward to how you can sustain that in an economic sense suits me in the role I’m in. I’m lucky and privileged to have learned of Elders before me and I think as part of a challenge and an opportunity, but to find out better ways of how we can make sure that legacy is continued in the contemporary context of what we’re talking about. Love being on Country, as I mentioned, get stuck at the desk too much. So, wherever we can make that connection between what happens in circles like this, connecting with what’s happened on the ground, and then from a strategic perspective, how it all ties in together is something I like doing.

What did that look like for you as a young person learning the importance of Country? I mean, set the scene.

As I mentioned, I was lucky enough to have been brought up on Country with teachings of generations before me are really, really privileged to be able to work with my father and his older brothers and that extended family to just to have the on-ground component of what some people don’t have. Fast forward, it probably is a bit more relevant now in the roles that I find myself in and then the different settings of how important that upbringing was. But I suppose from a really basic perspective, there weren’t any secrets about why it was important or what it involved. It was just that was normal. Being on Country was normal. You know, we were living in a tin shed with a generator that I had to start and stop every night. A pump down the river to pump water that was probably full of pesticides and the rest of it but, built some immunity up. But it all kind of came with the package of being lucky enough to be on Country. So, this is living on the banks of the Walsh River up on Djungan Country on the Tablelands, and having cultural natural resources at your feet was something that I probably didn’t realise how important it was, but that was just normal at the time. A lot of different Indigenous groups and people have different assets at their disposal in terms of the Country they live in or if they’re living a long way away from that Country. There’s a common thread that we’re always connected somehow. Some people have different definitions of how they’re connected. I’m connected in a way that I know no matter where I go in Australia or around the world, that home is on Djungan Country and that will never change. So, maybe a long-winded explanation, but one aspect beyond Country was normal. Now I wish I had that same amount of on-ground, just being on Country. But we have to look at opportunities, how we can make sure that isn’t lost.

You have, for decades in several of your jobs, been able to maintain a connection with Country, and it’s really informed the work that you’ve done. How have you seen the conversation about climate change shift in those decades?

There would be two parts I think that we can focus on in response to this question. And that’s something that in my current role at NAILSMA we deal with a lot, and that’s maybe unpacking Western science and what some of the indicators of what’s happening there are, but then also from a traditional knowledge or cultural knowledge, Indigenous science perspective of what some of those indicators are that tell us things are changing. You know, we don’t have to go into detail with the science, the data, the evidence, because it’s there. What I’m more interested in is how we can add some weight behind cultural knowledge and Indigenous science values that back up what Western science is telling us. One of those examples, say, if we’ve got climate events that cause changes in plants or animals — that may be what we call an indicator species for certain plant flowers — that then tells us that that triggers another event happening. And that was all part of a cultural system where it was food or whatever it was to know that when something happens, there’s going to be something else that comes from it. If we’re seeing changes to our environment that affect that, that means a lot to some people. The same way it would if we had a totemic species that was lost or an iconic species that was high in ecological values being lost. But we don’t have as much of that value mapped from an Indigenous perspective as we do from a science perspective. And I think that’s one of the interesting things that I’m keen to look at how we strengthen in the discussion around climate and what’s changing. Maybe some of those other practical examples, you know, saltwater incursion, changing weather systems, extreme weather events — just differences in what’s happening on the Country. And going back to your first question, the importance of being on Country. That’s actually something else we forget is that when you’re on Country, you can monitor these things ongoing. Whereas if we only have a visit to Country once or twice a year, we’re getting that small perspective. So, I suppose in what I’m trying to get at is show the importance of not only having well-informed science to help us make decisions in developing policy, etc, but don’t forget about being on Country and seeing these things happening firsthand. Otherwise, we’re going to rely on scientists to tell us everything in the future. Let’s support people as well to be on the Country to see these changes so they can be part of the first response to those changes.

Those changes, I imagine they have been recorded for a long time because they’ve also had this overlay of the Western calendar on top. So, you can say, oh, that thing never used to arrive this early or that late. Are you seeing that?

Yes. One of those examples and to back up what you’re saying is that those accounts of, you know, calendar plants or triggers in the environment, they were passed down through oral histories and written on cave paintings in a wall. They weren’t in an archive textbook at the library. And that’s part of the difference between how Western science is used to validate something because it’s been documented by 100 scientists before. Whereas traditional knowledge has had 60,000 years of practitioners developing this knowledge. But it’s not held in the same regard as Western sciences. And this is not to have a crack at scientists and the Western science framework. It’s just that there’s an underlying opportunity that if you can have both systems better valued, you’ve got two knowledge streams that should give you a more robust product or end goal. If we could find a system that captures our oral histories and the importance of intergenerational transfer of knowledge is in the climate context, I think we’ve got more tools at our disposal, you know, to address it. But, an example on our Country is, you know, when a certain wattle tree flowers that tells us that a certain species of fish is right to eat because it’s fat. You go and catch a fish, you gut it, it’s full of wattles. It makes sense. If there are changes to those regimes or systems and that isn’t the case, there’s going to be a flow-on effect. Not just fish that aren’t fat, but people not eating that fish. I like to try and take a commonsense approach to some of the things we talk about. And in that example, it’s we don’t need science or data or evidence behind it. It’s like you catch a good fish or you don’t.

You’ve been the CEO of the North Australian Indigenous Land and Sea Management Alliance, which is NAILSMA, you just mentioned it before, since 2018. Can you tell me a bit about what is it? What are the goals of the organisation?

So, to provide the context, NAILSMA is about 22 years old now, they are an Indigenous-led organisation, not-for-profit. We don’t receive core funding. We aren’t a statutory body in nature. This provides us, I think, some opportunities to do the type of work we do in the way we do it. So, we’ve got an overarching goal to improve Indigenous livelihoods but through the land and sea management lens. We’ve got some core focal areas that we think are sensible ways to reach our strategic goals. At the crux of these focal areas, we want to develop the Indigenous land and sea management sector as a formalised sector, if you will, because it isn’t recognised as such now. This is where you see the examples of Indigenous Ranger programs across Australia. You know the work Indigenous practitioners are doing in fire management, pest management, water management and the like. We need to do this through, I think, three underlying factors. One is, things cost money. We’ve set about an ambitious target to really change the setting around direct Indigenous investment. Basically, finding rich people and making sure their maximum amount of dollar gets to on the ground to fixing things, whether that’s climate related, conservation, environment, cultural. Separate to that is, we don’t want to rely too much on external investment. So, looking at how we develop resources for Indigenous people to develop their own economies. So, looking at thriving diverse economies is one of those underlying focal areas. One of those examples is maybe, you know, in say, the carbon market emerging blue carbon methodologies, etc. And lastly, we need this to be coupled with proper capacity building and capability building. And I think there are different things. It’s not just sending someone to a university and doing a cert II and III and whatever, but actually underlying factors that don’t get addressed through building people’s capacity so they can run the show for themselves in the next 10 to 20 years and not be reliant on organisations like NAILSMA or other organisations that are alike.

The thing when it comes to talking about Indigenous land management in Australia. We’re not talking about one group, we’re talking about a diverse hundreds and hundreds of essentially completely different nations. Especially when you’ve then got to talk to government and to these big monoliths. How do you bring all of those voices and all of those — and it’s not even just that it’s different opinions, right? Our country is so huge. Our nation is so huge that there are so many different biomes, like it looks different across this continent. And the individual people have shaped the evolution through those hundreds– tens of thousands of years of land management. Like this is a mammoth job. How do you bring it all together?

Good question. Hard question. In part of answering that is also acknowledging that we don’t know everything. We’re still learning as well, and probably giving that broader context I should have said I’m not a scientist. Which is good in some regards, but I don’t need to be because I work closely enough with them, there’s plenty of them out there. What we are finding is that whether it’s general opportunities for partnerships or collaboration — again, using that commonsense approach — is start from a trust perspective. Build relationships based on respect, integrity, honesty. The same way you would doing anything else. If we can translate that into the way organisations engage with potential partners, colleagues, other groups. At least we’ve got a good starting point. Sometimes we don’t always have that to our advantage. And we are fixing up things that weren’t so good in the past. It’s a fairly big point you mentioned in terms of the complexity of Indigenous groups across the country. You know, 400 plus languages, different clan estates. We are lucky in the north to have some alignment and synergies across, you know, from the Kimberley to the Cape and in between. But we also need to look at how we have that broader discussion at a national perspective. And an easy one, like, there are a lot of challenges, but I think an easy one to pick up is that common aspect that Indigenous groups have to look after Country. That’s at the crux of every group I’ve talked to around the country in terms of land and sea management, conservation, environmental, ecological challenges, climate. They do it for the same reason. They want to look after Country. They want to look after culture. Sometimes it’s not as clear when we partner with the broader space corporates, private institutions, because they may not share the same values. And that’s completely fine. We just have to find the mechanisms that reflect what other people hold as important. And once we make that, you know, we figure out what that is. It’s easier then to have that bigger national discussion and that complex discussion. It’s not solving all the problems. We can do that in the next 10 years, but at least start on a good playing field.

I sense here that there’s actually two things we’re kind of talking about at the same time. One is land management, which is something that has been done forever in this country, or as long as any cultural memory can go. That’s the baseline. But now we’ve got this climate change overlay on top. How are you seeing climate change affecting your work?

This question is really important because what leads on from it is something that then enables groups to say what’s important to them. So, I’ll use the North Australian example, but I think we could reflect it to a national scale, is that remote Indigenous communities across North Australia a lot of the times climate change isn’t at the top of their list of priorities, we hear enough about a lot of the negative aspects and things that are outlined in, say, Closing the Gap for example. We know, data tells us, Indigenous people are more likely to die earlier, more likely to not get an education, more likely to go to jail than non-Indigenous people. So, basically, we’ve got all these bad things there. Then we translate that to the land and sea management subject and all of a sudden, the way caring for Country is talked about is it’s leading. You know, you’ve got Indigenous Rangers, practitioners leading the way in looking after Country. So, going back to that initial challenge is that some Indigenous groups want to have a house before they worry about climate change. They want to have a health system that is appropriate. They want an education system. They want, you know, just basic needs in life met before worrying about climate. I think it’s not to say that climate isn’t important because all we need to happen is for something that affects some culturally significant practice or place and it’s at the top of the priority list again. But I think– I try to ask the public to be mindful that there are some other issues that need addressing in remote parts of Australia. But it’s not to say that Indigenous people don’t want to be part of solving this climate crisis. They’ve just got some other things they want to sort out first.

Are you hoping to make opportunities for Indigenous Australians in your work?

I think we’ve gone beyond hoping and now we are testing and developing.

Yes.

Reflecting on an earlier question around, and giving some outline of the work NAILSMA does, and that point about we’re seeing more success in economies that are developed on traditional practices. This is where there’s been so much success say in the savanna burning in the carbon farming space. The quick kind of intro to that is, you know, you’ve got a traditional knowledge management or traditional fire management regime that’s been coupled with Western science. Had some other scientists throw in some work and basically fast forward to an approved methodology under the government’s carbon emissions policy, and that now is worth something on the market. For a snapshot of that it’s worth about $40 million across North Australia, which is through the sale of Australian carbon credit units and is also contributing to Australia’s global emissions targets. Sounds all good. I don’t really care about what our global emissions targets are. What’s important for me in that aspect of that example is you are giving people the opportunity to be on Country, to look after Country. There’s an income through it. Well, a co-benefit is contributing to lowering emissions nationally and globally. But that’s not the main kick. The main kicker is having the ability to get out on Country, get kids out on Country, look after your Country and just be there. And it happens to be based on a closely linked traditional practice such as fire management. So, if we can look at other opportunities to replicate that, I think we’ve got a system in place. So again, when you mentioned are we hoping for that? We still are hopeful for those opportunities, but we’re at that stage where, you know, let’s do the on-ground testing. Let’s invite partners, invite investment. And I think we can do that in the current context with climate change and using some of these emerging economies to help address climate change as well.

So, here we’re talking about carbon farming. What impact is that currently having across the land and sea management sector?

From the perspective of landscape management, what that does– so, specifically now in fire management, you see across North Australia there’s been a well-established practice in place of burning country at the right time for the right reasons. Ultimately, that’s then led to a decrease in wildfires that come later in the season when conditions are harsher, temperatures are higher, there’s more humidity and ultimately, you’re making more smoke, you’re killing more animals from bad regimes and there’s more negative effects on bad fire. And not to say that some fires need to be done at certain times — because a fire isn’t just a fire, there’s plenty of different types of fires with different outcomes if you apply them well. I think what we’re trying to get across here is that the fires that aren’t applied, late dry season wildfires or bushfires or fires that cause damage to either humans, infrastructure or land are less desirable. And then if we put that in the context of climate change, we are reducing those emissions from having those lower-intensity fires earlier in the year compared to those bigger fires. I suppose the easiest way to explain it: small fires, small flames, less smoke, good. Big flames, lots of smoke, bad. But again, depending on what Country you’re in, the people next door, that Traditional Owner group may have a different regime that works for them and the way they manage their resources, and that has to be respected. But from the perspective of a North Australian economy, savanna burning has been pretty good. And we look at ways on how we can improve it and increase output for those same practices.

Let’s talk the Nature Repair Market. So, it’s a new initiative from the federal government aimed to reward landholders for restoring and protecting nature. What potential do you see for Indigenous landholders here?

From– Sorry, I paused because I want to say how much of an opportunity this is, but also how many challenges there are that need to be addressed, because I think we can do a number of things through this new policy platform. It’s great that we’ve got a government that have an appetite for nature-positive outcomes. I think we can do more to incorporate culture-positive outcomes in the same discussion. Because we see there’s a missed opportunity to incorporate the importance of plants and animals from a cultural perspective, not just an ecological or a biodiversity perspective. What we are looking at, the Nature Repair Market as an opportunity, is Indigenous Australians own about almost 80% of North Australia. This is from the 26 degrees south line and up, either in exclusive native title or Aboriginal freehold. If we or the Government are developing opportunities to look after nature, we should be in the best position because we own most of the land where that nature is. But it isn’t necessarily translating to that. So, one, we’ve got an opportunity through if we look after Country, if we protect biodiversity, that there is an economic output in the form of a biodiversity certificate. We don’t know yet what that certificate is going to cost. But similar to, say, the carbon market, there’s been a developing group of financial experts that figure out how that’s done. We know the need is there because there’s a lot of corporates around the world that are doing not necessarily good things to environment, and they want to offset that. If we’ve got an opportunity to provide them that through a biodiversity certificate, through the nature repair, then that’s a good way there but it’s not solving everything. One of the key points within this discussion is, let’s add some more value around that traditional knowledge component for the way we develop methodologies under the Nature Repair Market. And that’s what I’d have as an open invitation to our governments to form those partnerships, as I said, based on trust and respect, not based on data or science or what happens to be in a legislation. So, we’re looking forward to the opportunities that the Nature Repair Market can bring. But we don’t want to fully rely on that to solve all of our problems based on what we’ve talked about.

There are a lot of initiatives going on and potential. Tell us about the I-Tracker. What’s it doing?

I-Tracker is evolving. So, I-Tracker is short for ‘Indigenous Tracker’. It was one of NAILSMA’s foundational programs set up for practitioners to have that tool to capture the data they needed for the things that they were doing. It was adapted out of Africa, I think, and had been translated then into a tool that Indigenous Rangers, practitioners could use to record how they looked after Country. How they managed marine debris, how they managed weed spraying or pest management, how they managed the data systems for fire management, for example. We are at an exciting time at NAILSMA where we’re entering into this phase of digital transformation and there’s a lot of different organisations, companies now that have set about, you know, a digital transformation strategy. I think half of them don’t even know what it means. Well, I certainly don’t. Not yet anyway. It’s, I think, a complicated way to say we need to keep up with technology. But we need to have technology that actually solves problems we’ve got, and we have had for a long time. You know, new technologies to solve old problems, not new technology that creates more problems. We don’t need to do that. And this is something that I-Tracker did. It solved the problem that was there. We don’t want to create new problems and then find new technologies to do it. So, we’re setting out a challenge within this digital transformation phase to see, okay, how do we need to update this? What other platforms do we need to incorporate that we’re on the cutting edge of the work we’re doing, but we also need to be mindful of hey, it still needs to do what it was first meant to do. So, I-Tracker is an evolving piece, and we are working with a lot of Ranger groups across north Australia to help inform what the future of that looks like.

Do you see a future where you’re using AI and combining with Indigenous knowledge?

Yes, we’re lucky enough to have an opportunity through some projects now where we’re testing AI, where we’re applying it. And we need to be mindful but that there are some clear expectations set whenever we enter into anything where we incorporate AI. There’s always concerns whenever you hear the term ‘artificial’ in anything that you’re doing, and it’s certainly something that we get pulled up on the ground from that application perspective. So, this is again where we’re using these new technologies to actually give us solutions to existing threats or things that are happening on Country that are important for people to look after. A good example of AI in practice has been in Southern Cape York where working with Normanby Aboriginal land management group, this is just outside of Cooktown. They’ve got problems with feral cattle causing gully erosion there in the eastern catchment, so that gully erosion then turns into reef sedimentation and then fast forward it turns into coral bleaching events and all the other things that scientists tell us. What we are using AI to do is develop a predictive model of where gully erosion can happen — and this is based on Rangers having the tools, the training one to be out there putting satellite eartags on feral cattle, using drone technologies to help monitor that. But then putting it through an AI platform to show us, okay, in six months or 12 months’ time, you may have a big chunk of gully erosion over here. So, let’s get onto it now. Put some management practices in place, fence this off, do this. So, you’ve just stopped that happening. That’s not from a perspective of decreasing sedimentation. That’s just from the perspective of looking after Country. You know, you’ve got gully erosion there. How can we stop it? I want to use AI for those types of problems, but not to solve the problems of the global workforce shortage or whatever else it might be. Just fix up some easy stuff first before you try and do all the other stuff.

I’ve had previous conversations here with people about blue carbon, and actually we’ve spoken to somebody who you’ve worked with, Catherine Lovelock, who talks about feral animal management. It’s a big problem and it’s contributing a lot. Can you talk about your work with Catherine?

Exciting piece of work and really lucky to be working with Catherine as an expert in that field. This is one of those other opportunities that reflect that baseline value of looking after Country, caring for Country. So, there’s that link straight away — we identify that, okay, Indigenous Rangers, people on Country have already set about how they can reduce threats to their cultural assets, their natural assets. And one of the biggest threats are feral animals. In the Cape we look at the examples of feral pigs. In the Top End we might look at feral buffaloes. So, the example here and the concept is that we get a mob of smart scientists around the place. We look at the different emissions that these animals cause and we can develop a methodology that shows if you manage them or eradicate them or keep them out of a certain area, there’s a scientific equation that says how much we’re saving in terms of emissions. And on the carbon market, there is a price for that. So again, it’s a good opportunity because the practice in looking after them is easy. Shoot a pig, shoot a buffalo, it’s out of the environment. And look, the realities of feral management, without sounding unethical in terms of the management, that is the reality of feral management in north Australia. And in terms of where we’re taking that directive from, that’s from traditional owners on the ground that have already said our cultural values, our environmental values are worth more than whatever a feral animal might provide. So, we look at the examples now working with Cath Lovelock, that is providing a blue carbon methodology and it’s giving us that scientific validation. We need to participate in that carbon market, but it’s based on a simple management practice of fencing off country, fencing off waterhole. Large-scale removal or management of feral threats.

There are also simpler solutions to some of the big problems we’ve got in other places like renewable energy stands out to me. How is your feeling on how we’re doing with that in the north right now?

I think there are a couple of fundamental things that we deal with in Northern Australia, namely access and infrastructure that we have to be mindful of in that bigger discussion. It’s been a challenge when we look at the political landscape as to where the appetite has been over the last 10 years or so. Without going into detail on that, we are happy that there’s a renewed appetite around developments and opportunities that align with what people have been telling us on the ground. I think we’ve got– you know, again, the human aspect with animal management, feral management probably translates into these new developments such as renewable energies and trying to get the communication out there effectively of what our Country needs. From a development perspective, NAILSMA, we are also mindful that we work with Traditional Owners for Traditional Owners on the ground and we need to provide them with informed decision-making tools, data for them to decide what happens on their Country. Ultimately, we want to empower those groups that they can make those decisions. There are some really great examples now, say, in the Kimberley, with colleagues of mine over there looking at renewable energy hubs and a lot of really cool opportunities. That suits their purpose and that’s really great because regardless of what the opportunity is, at least it’s based on informed decision-making processes and the strong level of Indigenous leadership is within that. If we could replicate that with other groups, not just across the north but nationally, I think, you know, we are on the right track. Just to unpack, just a really good example, just say, renewable energies and things like Elon’s cars — I’d love to drive one around. There’s probably one power plant in Darwin that, I don’t know, can we have a steady supply of power first? Every cyclone — and again, going back to those remote Indigenous communities — a cyclone comes in, power could be cut for more than a month. The communications network goes down and you don’t have contact with the outside world for, you know, more than a month. No emails, no social media, none of it. I think we’ve got some other priorities to sort out before we put in a Tesla charging station in some of these areas. But again, we are strongly supportive of renewable energies of, you know, less fossil fuels. There’s enough holes around the country digging up stuff. Let’s do something else. But again, you have to make sure the things you’re talking about are solving problems at-scale on the ground, and sometimes we don’t get that opportunity. Investment, really important. We love doing the work we’re doing and to do it properly, effectively, and at-scale, it costs money. One thing we are really excited to talk about now is we’re not 100% reliant on government funding to do the things we do. As I mentioned NAILSMA, we don’t get recurrent funding, we don’t get corps funding. Every dollar we get in the organisation I have to go out and find it. So, we work with– through competitive grants processes, through private, through corporate, a lot more with the philanthropic sector. Really good timing now because philanthropists have an increased interest in Indigenous land and sea management practices, and we are looking at how we can influence the broader sector on that. Something exciting we are working on now, NAILSMA is partnering with Firesticks Alliance and the Aboriginal Carbon Foundation. And we are developing and setting out a challenge to develop an Indigenous fund. And the concept of this fund is– you know, there’s investment funds popping up every day of the week, I can’t keep up with them. None of them have been developed from an Indigenous perspective, valuing the importance of cultural knowledge. The things that we’ve been talking about — fire management, water management, pests and weed management — systems that rely on really complex and longstanding cultural knowledge. There is an appetite nationally and globally to get investment into this space. So, the stage we’re at now is early on in its concept. But it’s a one of a kind. And we are looking at this as a potential platform to solve the problems we’re talking about over the next 20 to 30 years and ongoing. You know, we’ve had enough of looking at these opportunities that run for 1 to 3 years and then they stop. I think we’re at the point now where we can do it ourselves. And the broader appetite is there to invest in that. So, as it develops, we hope that the audience, the broader public will be hearing more and learning more about our development of these investment funds from an Indigenous perspective, can solve the problems we are talking about, can get us off the reliance of government funding or competitive funding, but can also enable groups to be self-sustaining, to be in control of their own affairs into the future.

Where is NAILSMA in a decade?

We want to see real outcomes. And we can track that and measure that over a course of 10 years. We would not be in a position to even do this if we didn’t have that broader investment discussion and an investment from philanthropic sector, investment from private and corporates and not just reliant on government. We want to use these other investments not to rely on them every year. So, no matter how much a philanthropist might have, the government has always got more. We’re developing a cycle or framework that– let’s use that more flexible, less-structured philanthropic investment, do the things we want to do, create the evidence and the data. Take that back to government and use it against them, in a nice way, ‘I told you so. You should have let me do that before.’ Hopefully now they take some influence in the way they design policy to be in line with not just what NAILSMA is saying, but what the groups on the ground are telling us. So, it goes hand in hand with this broader investment discussion. So, over the course of 10 years rather than focusing too much on the on-ground outcomes, I’d want to look at how we can measure how we’ve influenced these other policy settings, how we can influence government, and again, the importance of that human aspect. We need to influence people and attitudes because the evidence and the data isn’t doing it. That’s already there, why aren’t they listening to it? And that’s what tells me it’s not so much a data perspective, it’s an attitude perspective that needs to be changed. So, short answer to that is, I’d want to change people’s perceptions in 10 years. Change their attitudes, change the way they look at the work Indigenous groups are doing. It’s a hard question because there’s a lot of different answers we can say.

I guess what I’m getting it from it, though, is look after the land and the sea Country and look after the people. Listen to them. And we might have a shot at fixing some of this.

Yes, well there has been that well-established, you know, notion that you look after the land, look after country, it’ll look after you. And that’s something, again, that’s one of those ingrained values in all the different groups I talk to around Australia, different Indigenous groups, different clan of states, is that underlying, you know, obligation to look after Country. Because if you do it properly, there’s a return and it will look after you.

Ricky Archer, please join me in thanking him. To follow the program online you can subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. And visit the 100 Climate Conversations exhibition or join us for a live recording, go to 100climateconversations.com.

This is a significant new project for the museum and the records of these conversations will form a new climate change archive preserved for future generations in the Powerhouse collection of over 500,000 objects that tell the stories of our time. It is particularly important to First Nations peoples to preserve conversations like this, building on the oral histories and traditions of passing down our knowledges, sciences and innovations which we know allowed our Countries to thrive for tens of thousands of years.