Federation of Victorian Traditional Owner Corporations

The disappointing, disrespectful and divisive decision to end Queensland’s truth-telling inquiry highlights the importance of a federal Makarrata Commission. If the new Queensland Government is to deny Indigenous peoples the right to share their truth, erase an emerging shared understanding of the harms of colonisation, and disrespect decades of work from Indigenous communities to realise the Truth-telling and Healing Inquiry QLD – the Federal Government must step up. The Federation calls on the Federal Government to commit to a national truth-telling process by supporting the proposed Truth and Justice Commission Bill (Dorinda Cox (She/Her), David Shoebridge). Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities have been calling for truth and justice for far too long. The Bill presents an historic opportunity to listen. We made a submission to the Bill, which outlines changes we believe would give a future national Commission cultural safety and authority, enables First Nations communities to lead and control their own stories, and acts as a starting point for ongoing systemic change, rather than serving as a mere historical record. LEARN MORE | bit.ly/3Y9cYOY

Tens of thousands of examples of scar trees, rock art, quarries and artefacts stud the Dyurrite Cultural Landscape – a sprawling site of cultural significance also known as Mt Arapiles. Dyurrite, also spelled Djurite, is a landscape cared for by the Djurid Baluk clan of the Wotjobaluk peoples for thousands of years, and their descendants remain deeply connected to the landscape. Barengi Gadjin Land Council Aboriginal Corporation represents the area's Traditional Owners: the Wotjobaluk, Jaadwa, Jadawadjali, Wergaia and Jupagulk peoples. Dyurrite's hard sandstone was ideal for making stone tools – the range is home to some of the largest Indigenous stone quarry complexes found in Australia, and archaeological surveys have found cultural heritage in the landscape to be around 3,000 years old. Despite colonists driving Djurid Baluk from Dyurrite in the 1800s – introducing disease, launching coordinated attacks on the clan, massacring people, displacing people to the missions – the spiritual and cultural connection to the landscape is alive and enduring. The Victorian Government’s recently announced Dyurrite Cultural Landscape Management Plan Amendment would add signage telling the area’s important cultural history, and better protect the precious cultural heritage uncovered during recent archaeological surveys. Learn more and have your say: https://lnkd.in/gAPKjYxQ (📷 Visit Victoria)

🔊 We're hosting a conference! 🔊 How can Traditional Owner groups lead the native food industry and protect cultural knowledge? First Nations' Knowledge and Economy will show the way. Our closed conference for Traditional Owner Corporations unpacks the potential of their collective intellectual property rights in native foods and plants – preserving and protecting traditional cultural knowledge, while growing the First Nations' economy – and ensures business in native plants happens in a careful and ethical way. We're grateful to be gathering on Wadawurrung Country at the end of the month with speakers including ANSTO, Storey & Ward ~ Lawyers. Mediators. Consultants., Terri Janke and Company, Trust Provenance, Barengi Gadjin Land Council Aboriginal Corporation, Saatchi & Saatchi, and the Northern Australia Aboriginal Kakadu Plum Alliance. Learn more about our work protecting and promoting Indigenous intellectual property in commercialising native plants through the Traditional Owner Native Foods and Botanicals Strategy. READ MORE | bit.ly/45thRpz

It’s good to see the government focused on First Nations tourism – now we must make sure investment happens in the right way. The just-announced First Nations Visitor Economy Partnership is welcome recognition of the vital role Indigenous businesses play in the economy, and of the rich cultural heritage that underpins so many Indigenous tourism experiences. Whether you’re walking Kooyoora State Park with DJAARA cultural guides, gliding down the Goldburn hearing Taungurung stories of tabilk-tabilk (place of many waterholes), or learning Wurundjeri tool-building and trade on a visit to the protected Wil-im-ee Moor-ring greenstone quarry – Traditional Owners’ knowledge and cultural practice drive incredible Indigenous tourism experiences. We welcome news of the First Nations Visitor Economy Partnership and its remit to establish a national peak body for Indigenous tourism, and stand ready to assist the Partnership to engage meaningfully with Victorian Traditional Owner Corporations and ensure a future peak is genuinely representative and carrying cultural authority. Because when the Federation talks First Nations, we’re talking about the Nations of Traditional Owners who are represented by their corporations – a level of community governance and cultural authority that holds Traditional Owners’ collective rights. Collective rights include those rights in traditional knowledge, lore, stories, songs and cultural practice that drive Indigenous tourism experiences: Indigenous intellectual property. Traditional Owner groups – as holders of these intellectual property rights – must not be sidelined as this industry grows. The First Nations Visitor Economy Partnership must ensure Traditional Owner groups benefit from commercial value in their intellectual property and be centred as this exciting and valuable industry grows – and the Federation is ready and willing to help see that happen. (📷 René Riegal)

The new State of the Climate report is as grim as you’d expect. But Indigenous land management practices are a secret weapon for healing damaged Country and slowing the pace of the worsening climate crisis. Centring Indigenous land management practices is already making a difference to the health of Country. And more can be done. Our submission to the Nature Repair Market Act outlined what can be done to remove barriers to centring Traditional Owner land management practices and promote positive outcomes for Traditional Owners and all Victorians. We said the Nature Repair Market – a government scheme that incentivises actions to restore and protect the environment – can be matched with Australian Indigenous land management practices, recognition of the rights and interests of Traditional Owners beyond the Native Title Act, further funding for Indigenous Rangers – all of which will contribute to improving economic, cultural, social, spiritual, health outcomes for Victorian Traditional Owners and Country. READ MORE | bit.ly/48s1xGW STATE OF THE CLIMATE | bit.ly/3YqAOpM

Nine Victorian Aboriginal groups will be funded by the Indigenous Ranger Program’s first expansion in a decade! We welcome today’s announcement of $355 million over the next four years for the Commonwealth Indigenous Ranger Program, which enables Country to be managed according to Traditional Owners’ objectives and creates culturally safe and meaningful jobs for mob. We’re particularly pleased to hear that eight of the nine funded Victorian groups haven’t received Indigenous Ranger Program funding before, which further debunks the myth that you can’t manage Country in Victoria according to cultural values: you can, and we are. Victorian Traditional Owners have managed and cared for Country over tens of thousands of years, and continue to do so today. This announcement honours their legacy, stewardship, and resilience, and is a welcome investment in seeing Traditional Owners strong on Country. READ MORE | https://bit.ly/4ftpnEF National Indigenous Times Senator Malarndirri McCarthy National Indigenous Australians Agency

Fraser Island is officially K’gari! The World Heritage-listed sand island now officially carries its Butchulla name. Butchulla Traditional Owners have inhabited and cared for K’gari for thousands of years, with as many at 500 ancient archaeological sites still present on the island today. The island’s creation story tells of a messenger, Yendingie, coming down from the sky to make the land and sea for people, helped by a beautiful white spirit: Princess K’gari. Tired after her efforts and awed by the landscape’s beauty, she asked Yendingie to let her remain. He said she couldn’t stay in the world in spirit form, so changed Princess K’gari into an island – with plants and animals for company, and knowledge and laws for people, so they’d always know how to care for and accompany K’gari. Respecting K’gari’s true name helps keep language alive and culture strong. Language itself is cultural heritage. It’s a vital part of identity and worldview, and transmits unique ways of understanding and relating to the world. It’s meaning beyond just words. We are so glad K’gari now formally carries its true name and thank Butchulla Traditional Owners for their care and generosity in sharing K’gari with the world.

What's Australia's only World Heritage-listed site chosen for its Indigenous cultural values? It's the Budj Bim Cultural Landscape on Gunditjmara Country, near Lake Condah Mission in Victoria's south-west. Budj Bim is a dormant volcano that erupted 30,000 years ago, spawning the Gunditjmara peoples’ ancestral creator, Budj Bim, meaning ‘high head’. Lava flow created new drainage patterns, which the Gunditjmara people channelled into built aquaculture systems that trapped kooyang (short-finned eels) for a year-round reliable food source. This knowledge and ingenuity has been continually handed down for millennia through storytelling and cultural practice. Culture has been passed on for tens of thousands of years and continues, unbroken, despite every colonial effort to destroy. The place we call Australia is a tapestry of interwoven cultural landscapes that reflect how Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples engage with the world. These cultural landscapes include history, practices, ontology, relationships, plants, ancestors, songlines, physical structures, trade routes and more. Cultural landscapes are holistic and alive. Budj Bim cultural landscape is mountain, creation, history, traps, story, eels, transition, relationship, ancestors, and more. We are so lucky it endures and thank Gunditjmara mob for protecting and sharing their cultural heritage. (📷 Victorian Government and Tess Kelly)

It was great to get involved with First Peoples' Assembly of Victoria Traditional Owner Forum, where our CEO Paul Paton (with the mic in the third photo!) contributed our ideas for treaty. Paul said: "It was great to be part of Monday's Traditional Owner Forum with the First Peoples' Assembly of Victoria. Many groups were interested to hear about the path to Treaty, the various pathways and considerations to be made including what a future relationship with FPAV might look like."

A second independent study has found "no evidence" of dingo-dog hybridisation in Victoria – further debunking the pervasive yet incorrect idea that dingoes are dogs. They're dingoes! And they're a culturally and significant species that has co-existed in relationship with Traditional Owners for thousands of years – yet despite that connection and importance, Traditional Owners are locked out of making decisions about dingo. New University of Melbourne research analysed DNA points on 434 samples from animals killed under Victoria's wild dog control program. All animals were pure dingo. Dingo is genetically different from its ancestors, and maintains this evolutionary trajectory, despite decades of lethal control. Previous studies that found hybridisation was the greatest risk to the survival of dingo were flawed – likely mischaracterising dogs' and dingoes' common ancestral genetic variation as breeding, not evolution. And, importantly: "The future conservation of the dingo lineage will require policies that promote coexistence pathways between humans and dingoes that protect rangeland systems and the dingoes’ evolutionary future." Traditional Owners have co-existed with dingoes for thousands of years and can again lead the way in this peaceful co-existence. The Victorian Government must commit to genuine partnership, shared decision-making, and recognition of the rights and interests Traditional Owners have in culturally significant species and their habitats. READ MORE | https://lnkd.in/g7T2pGdf