Much is made of the need for outside help for remote indigenous communities in Australia. It's not all one-way. My post Burning Forests a Solution to Climate Change last year looked at how:

Aboriginal rangers in Australia are helping to combat global warming in an innovative project with a natural gas producer by applying traditional indigenous knowledge.

I've been looking at the latest online about this project. It’s a classic win-win situation:

Two groups of aboriginal rangers are involved: the Djelk Rangers based on the coast at Maningrida and Wardekken Rangers at inland Kabulwarnamyo. They receive $A 1 million per year for fire management in an area of 28,000 square kilometres situated to the east of the iconic Kakadu National Park. Kakadu is a World Heritage area. A reduction of more than 100,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide per year offsets greenhouse gas emissions from the natural gas plant in Darwin.

It’s a program close to my heart as some of the Djelk rangers are former students of ours from Maningrida aboriginal community in Arnhem Land.

Image: Bawinanga Aboriginal Corporation

The Carbon Project of the North Australian Indigenous Land and Sea Management Alliance (NAILSMA) webpage has interviews with Otto Campion, one of the Djelk rangers. He speaks about fire management and the importance of staying on country for young people.

Please visit the website or listen to one of Otto’s interviews here.

Programs like this one have lots of positives. WALFA:

• is a local initiative rather than being paternalistic and topdown
• draws on and values traditional knowledge and practices
• provides local employment for indigenous people
• involves real training
• helps young people to stay on and care for their land.

They can act as models for change in the developing world, especially regarding climate change.

Featured Image: Courtesy NAILSMA