A seed bank project in remote northern Australia is training Aboriginal women in horticulture to help protect plant biodiversity of the region. Source: ABC News
Nyul Nyul, Karajarri and Bardi Jawi Oorany women ranger groups are being taught to collect, store, and propagate culturally significant seeds and endangered plants so their genes can be stored forever.
“The old people in the past were using bush fruits for food sources as well as weapons,” Beagle Bay Nyul Nyul ranger Devena Cox said. “Different trees are used for different materials like spear heads, spear sticks and boomerangs, even bowls to carry water.”
The project is being facilitated by conservation group Environs Kimberley.
“It’s bringing Western science and traditional knowledge together,” Nature Project officer Kylie Weatherall said.
“We saw within traditional owner and Kimberley ranger groups a need for training and support in their seed collecting activities and learning how to process and store seed.”
The importance of collecting seeds has become more urgent as biodiversity in the Kimberley has struggled with fire, pests and development and also climate change.
“Not a lot’s known about Kimberley plants species,” Ms Weatherall said.
“Many of our plant communities locally in Broome and on the Dampier Peninsula face many threats, from human development, from feral animals, from weeds and very much from fire, so conserving plant species right across the Kimberley for those reasons are really important.”
The monsoon vine thicket is an endangered and culturally significant plant found on the Dampier Peninsula, and Aboriginal people have picked the seeds for thousands of years.
“The monsoon vine thicket everywhere here in the West Kimberley plays a big role in our people and culture,” Bardi Jawi Oorany ranger coordinator Debbie Sibosado said.
“Under our IPA plan we’re entrusted to regenerate some of the monsoonal vine thicket because in the 10-year plan we want to see an increase in monsoonal vine thicket and a 50 per cent reduction in wildfires.”
Each language group has a different name and use for the plants.
“It’s really important so we learn to know what to do in the Kartiya [White fella] way, learn the common names, scientific names, so that when we’re speaking to people we all know what we’re talking about,” she said.
Rangers will also learn to propagate plants at two on-country plant nurseries and use them to regenerate the land. Karajarri ranger and senior cultural advisor Jessica Bangu said that left rangers with long-term skills.
“For future reference, when you’re quitting your job and you go find a job elsewhere, you have something there you’re good at, that you’ve done,” she said.
The project is funded through a WA Government grant, while the ranger training is being privately funded by the Belgiorno-Nettis Foundation and WWF Australia.
