Gi4DM Panel 1: First Nations
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Major, David
Walker, Stephen
Fisher, Rohan
David Major Founding Director Thirriwirri David is a Yuin Maneroo man and co-founder of Thirriwirri. David has spent twenty five years working in land and heritage management in the ACT, NSW and Victoria, and along with his Thirriwirri co-founder Jason Ardler, are the only First Nations people in Australia to have sat on the executive of a Government land management agency. Thirriwirri supports innovative approaches to partnerships between First Nations communities and Government/Corporates, building shared capacity and capability, and advocating for connection to Country and a primary role for Traditional Owners in the management of their cultural landscapes. Stephen Walker Geospatial Data Analytics and AI Advocate / Supporter - Indigenous Opportunity / Strategist / HealthTech / PropTech As a Certified Indigenous service provider focusing on occupational health, Spartan First promotes indigenous opportunity and welfare, and are leveraging location intelligence to enable increased social, cultural, and economic benefits for indigenous communities. Rohan Fisher is lead satellite-derived fire information analyst for the North Australian Fire Information service at the Darwin Centre for Bushfires research and current PhD candidate Charles Darwin University. Satellite image analyst for 27 years, and subsequently for the Northern Territory government. His current research and training development work is focused on developing Projection Augmented Landscape Models; using low tech tools to create dynamic spatial holograms of country.
 Hello everyone, my name is Dr John Barton. I'd like to show my respects and acknowledge the medical people who are the traditional custodians of the land and the elders past and present on which this meeting takes place, or at least my side of the meeting. We're joined by a group of experts from all across Australia actually between them. I think we've got a good coverage of the whole continent and beyond. We're joined by David Major who's the founding director of TheoryWeary. David Zayun Manero, man, co-founder of TheoryWeary, he spent 25 years working in land and heritage management in the ACT in New South Wales, in Victoria, and along with his TheoryWeary co-founder Jason Adler, they're the only first people in Australia to have sat in the executive of a government land management agency. TheoryWeary supports innovative approaches to partnerships between First Nations communities, government corporates, building shared capacity, capability, advocating for connection to country, and a primary role for the traditional owners in management of their cultural landscapes. Welcome, David. Yep. And also we're joined by Rowan Fisher. Rowan is the lead satellite-derived fire information analyst for the North Australian Fire Information Service at the Darwin Centre for Bushfires Research and the current PhD candidate at Charles Darwin University, satellite image, and he's a satellite image analyst for 27 years and subsequently for the Northern Territory Government. His current research and training development work is focused on developing projection augmented landscape models using low-tech tools to create a dynamic, spatial holograms of country. We're also joined by Stephen Walker. And Steve, if you're there, turn your video on, please, in your microphone. Steve Walker's Geospatial Data Analytics and AI Advocate is a supporter of Indigenous Opportunity. He's a strategist in health tech and prop tech. He's a certified Indigenous service provider. His company, Spartan First, focus on occupational health and promote Indigenous opportunity and welfare and their leveraging location intelligence to enable increased social, cultural, economic benefits for the Indigenous communities. So, without further ado, we'll move on to the panel session. Brohan, so could you tell us a bit about your background working up in the top end and how you've been working with the traditional owners of the land and working with also quite high-tech applications? Can you tell us why the traditional aspect is so important to land management in Australia? Oh, thanks very much, Jack. Yeah, so I think it's probably good to realise that the most fire-prone landscapes in the world are those in Northern Australia. So about 70% of fires that occur across the Australian continent occur in the tropical savannas in the north and about, I guess, another 20, 25 in the range lands. So relatively few fires occur in the sort of southeast coastal region of Australia, although when those fires do occur, as they did earlier this year, they have a fairly severe impact. But, yeah, so fire is really an incredibly important part of all of the landscape of Australia, but particularly the north, where we on average get about 30% of the tropical savannas burned each year. And that's primarily due to the fact that we have a wet, dry, monsoonal climate, and every year we get massive fuel loads, grass fuel loads, and every year they will burn, regardless of whether or not there is human management of fire in those landscapes. Fortunately for approximately 70, 80,000 years, there has been human management of fire in those landscapes and the co-evolution of those ecologies are really quite significant. And what's occurred over the last 15, 20 years has been this really groundbreaking partnership between Northern Australian scientists and traditional landowners and traditional knowledge holders across the North to start to reinstate some of the traditional fire management practices. All bear with some new technology. There's a lot of helicopter and cendry drop work that's done across the North now, as well as ground-based fire management. But it's really building off a basis of supporting that traditional knowledge and traditional understanding of good land management. And what has happened with work with Northern Australian scientists has been the understanding of the impacts of good management. And one of the impacts has been a radical reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. And that's led to the development of what's called now the savannah burning carbon farming industry, which is part of the national legislation around carbon abatement, the federal government. So that's then led to a $30 million a year industry across Northern Australia, largely led by Indigenous land managers on Indigenous lands. So incredible success. What we've seen in Northern Australia is a reduction in fire severity and extent of approximately 150,000 square kilometres per year, area less burnt. This is despite increased climate change challenges in the North as it is elsewhere in Australia. So what we're seeing in Northern Australia is, I would, I think, argue is probably the best fire management in the world at the moment. And it's really based, importantly, on that strong link between local Indigenous knowledge and land managers and their incredible hard work on land. And linking that in with the science then links in with these support mechanisms, largest of climate change work. My role in all of this is relatively small, but supporting quite a significant piece of technology which assists that, which is, as you mentioned, Jack, the North Australia Fire Information website, where we provide burn area mapping on a weekly basis for all of Northern Territory, most of Queensland and the vast majority of Western Australia. That now covers, that burn area mapping covers 70% of Australia and provides updated hotspots about a five to 10, sorry, about half an hour to two hour interval. And the real focus of that Fire Information website is on providing a resource which is very easy to use. You find a lot of technology-based disaster response sites, particularly fire, is either based for emergency service personnel or developed by a sort of a technology-focused group. This is really based on feedback from land managers, for land managers to be as easy as used and possible to support the NN management activities. So what we find across Northern Australia, through all the different range of groups, one of the first things that they will do in the morning is they'll wake up, have a cup of coffee, turn on the computer and have a look at NAFI. So NAFI is the shorthand for North Australia Fire Information, but across the North it's been going for 20 years, so it's become part of the deep culture of land and fire management amongst indigenous and non-indigenous land managers across the whole of Northern Australia, a key resource. And I think that, I want to emphasise there, that the key thing is not being focused on the technology, the key thing is being focused on how to augment those sort of land management knowledge. That's fantastic. That's really strong, thanks, Rohan. As one of the things about climate change is that, you know, it's often the frog in the boiling pot analogy where you've just got such small incremental changes, but having been active in the scene for 20 years, over 20 years, and to actually be on top of that, where you're working with the carbon cycles with a full evidence-based program that's connecting multiple users across the area, it's, yeah, a remarkable initiative. And we'll try to circulate some of those URLs to the people who are joined in the chat and a bit later. I'm just getting a message from Steve saying, am I here? He might be having some trouble logging in, but I will deal with that in a second, because they're in the background. So, David, how are you going? Can you turn yourself off, Mith? You're on mute. How's that? Good, good, good. Can you tell us a bit about theory worry? Yeah, look, I've been lucky enough for 25 years to work in primarily public land management in South Eastern Australia, and primarily in supporting partnerships between traditional owners and land managers in looking after country, whether that be through formal recognition or through joint management or through just partnerships in areas like fire or weed management or coastal erosion or all those other areas. So, theory worry as a company is just an extension of that for me. For me, in being able to do that with not only public land management organisations now, but also with private conservancy organisations, community landholders and other government departments who are regulators or influencers in the way policies get put in place around the management of country. Fantastic. And what's been the... Oh, good. Here comes Steve. I've just got a little pop up. So, what's been some of the experience you've had with the different community groups going right from the high-level government? I can imagine there's a lot of energy you're putting into that. But what about sort of the younger communities and bringing together different groups that might not have worked together before in this issue? What are some of your experiences there? I reckon our communities, our elders and our young people, have been one degree in this game for as long as I've been in the game myself. It's just been government not really being ready to understand the difference between science and knowledge. That's one of the strongest things for me. So, I think getting people... Getting land managers primarily to understand that knowledge and 60,000 years plus of knowledge and connection with country is a valuable resource in looking after country. And as the journey around recognition and rights and native title has shifted and lands being returned to traditional owners, whether it be through freehold ownership, through native title or through joint management, through Indigenous land use agreements, that knowledge is being put at the front of the conversation and that the people making the decisions are not just the land managers or the scientists, it's also the traditional knowledge holders. So, just like Rowan said, I think the thing for me is in techniques, it's knowledge, because our culture has always been an adaptive and evolving culture and you use whatever the best techniques you have available to you at the time. So, that's why I often rail against the word traditional being used in this kind of... People think it means old stuff from the past, you know? Yeah. You know, you don't be the oldest living culture without being able to adapt and change and use the best techniques in front of you. Yep, yep, sure, sure. Also, what power have you been using technology in that capacity? Is it... What are some of the most useful technologies you've been dealing with? I think GIS is the thing I'm most excited about and have been for 20 years, you know, right from the start of that being used in land management and it almost feels like technology is catching up with the way our old people saw country. So, that bird's eye view of country, which you see through our artwork across Australia and probably around the world, is its own form of GIS. You know, so I think that our elders and our knowledge holders have taken really well to GIS and the way that you can map country. There are some challenges in that around tangible and intangible cultural values and how you can record intangible values using a point-and-polygon type system. But I think the technology is adapting to cope with that. Probably the two areas that we still need to keep working on is around data sovereignty. So, who owns the information and how is it used? And then the challenge of GIS is an awesome tool, but it's quite IT heavy in that you've got to be able to have the hardware and the software at its most up-to-date level and you've got to be using it all the time to be adept with it. And that's not something that our community organisations necessarily are able to equally take part in. So, they're the things that, you know, whilst I advocate for GIS, we need to make sure that we take everybody with us in the way that it's used and the way that it influences strategy and policy. Great. Thanks. So, Rohan, I see you're nodding your head there. The... The... What you've done with the web-based information streams, really good that people, as you say, they go up there and have their cup of coffee and then they're informed about what's going on around them, that's really important for the... I've found generally the accessibility of these tools is improving, but still they're very much sort of expert things that you need to understand. How have you found it with the visualisation side or engaging with the broader community using these tools? Oh, you're on mute. You're on mute. You're on mute. Yeah. The old... Exactly. For what David said, I mean, for me, the technology, those technology skills are transferable. They're relatively easy and the science is doable. But the key that underpins all of this is the knowledge. And I think that's one thing that we've done well in the North, where the science has been there to augment to support the knowledge as opposed to the other way around and the tech also. Yeah. And also, just to comment on what David said as well, I mean, a lot of my work over the last 20 years has really been trying to decentralise geospatial skills and capacity, because there is a learning curve to learn some of the GIS skills, but anyone can do it with patience and mentoring. But what you can't easily transfer is many generations of knowledge. So I think that's where there needs to be more work, is to sort of integrate the transference of some of these technical skills to those real... People actually hold the knowledge. Yeah. That's where the true power is. In terms of data visualisation, information visualisation, I mean, there's something that you mentioned earlier around the work that I've been doing, using sort of 3D landscapes to try and help transfer geospatial knowledge understanding. And this is really trying to bring some of the fuel load accumulation information that comes from the North Australian Information website into a sort of a 3D interactive format, which enables people to really sort of visualise how fire might behave over the landscapes. So this is using what I call pretty blunt-edge technology. It's essentially 3D printed landscapes, and I project over top of that simple fire simulations. But it creates a physical and tangible space on which local knowledge holders can once again sort of share their understanding of fire behaviour and sort of facilitate those conversations. And for me, that's what the technology is all about, how you can use the tech to bring together people who really have that deep understanding of a country and the way that landscape works. And there's some neat things that we can do to support that now. But yeah, for me, the key is not to be obsessed by the tech. It's just how the tech can really underpin that local knowledge. Sure, excellent. And I mean, yeah, that knowledge is something that's pretty unique and able to be well communicated at times. It's certainly not a trivial thing to be able to just put it into some... You can't put it into a database and share it or whatever, but I think that certainly, as you say, having the technology that you can put on the table, the outputs of that technology, and be able to start those conversations. So Rohan, getting back to David's point too, what are some of your biggest challenges with regard to working with the government up there? Would you say, and the federal... and federally, would you say everything's rosy or are there particular challenges that you'd... Northern Territory governments are very good in terms of their work across jurisdictions. I mean, there is a very strong understanding in the Northern Territory, generally, that the dominant landowners and land managers are traditional owners. Sure. And the majority of parks, NT parks, are jointly managed. The main issue in the Northern Territory is lack of resources. You know, we're a very small in terms of population, and we really just don't have the resources to support the sort of land management activities and support activities we'd like. So the North Australia Fire Information website, because it covers 70% of Australia, essentially needs to be a federally funded tool. However, because it's not focused on the sort of immediate emergency response needs of southeastern Australia, where the majority of people live, and where the majority of interest is, particularly after last year's fires, we continue to sort of battle for sort of substantial ongoing support after 20 years, what has become a critical tool for land managers over most of Australia, and particularly indigenous land managers are achieving sort of incredible results. So I think that's the battle we have, is trying to raise the platform, particularly if you're looking at fire, as something which is only really becomes an emergency and disaster response issue if you haven't had decades of good land management proceeding that. So in the first instance, we see it as a land management, more of an NRAM issue. Yeah, sure, sure. Yeah, so David, what are you resonating with some of that, coming from the eastern seaboard, where you've got much more attention, and you certainly, we've had the 19, 2020 bushfire season, which although it got a lot of media, there were certain newspapers and conglomerates that were saying climate change isn't even happening, it's not a problem. Do you say you've been, how have you been reacting to all that attention? I think that despite all the climate denies out there, I reckon there's a much bigger shift in the community, and certainly within government land management agencies, to recognise Aboriginal culture knowledge. It's quite ironic, I think, for some of our Indigenous-led cultural management processes that now people are listening, after all the fires have happened. But I think our communities will take whatever chance we can get in there and be part of the conversation. And I think, I agree with Rowan absolutely about knowledge being the priority, but our community is because we're in such a complex situation, with massive communities living in forested areas, and the challenges around managing a country that's so heavily used, is that technology is essential. So I think our communities will embrace this stuff, and are embracing the technology, as long as they feel like they're in the driver's seat. I think gone are the days when someone came and took your knowledge and put it in a box and took it away somewhere, and you didn't hear from them again. We're not doing that anymore. It's about having a seat at the table and being able to make the decisions. And then you use the techniques and specialists to provide you the support you need to make good decisions. Yeah, sure. Look, just anecdotally, I mean, have you been, when you're out in the bush, have you been sensing anything different? You know, have you been sort of speculating yourself saying, hang on, I haven't seen them there before, is this something to do with climate change? Or, you know, is there anything you're sort of concerned about that you've been seeing happen in the natural environment that might be unusual? Yeah, look, everything's massively out of whack. Look, and I think that this is the challenge around using our cultural knowledge systems, when the system's been broken. And, you know, having to use the knowledge we've got, but adapt it to the situation that we're in now, and our communities are struggling with that on a daily basis. But it's not an op-inum with that absolute commitment to look and after country and heal on country. You know, I mean, we spend a lot of time talking with organizations like Fiastix, the Fiastix Alliance. And, you know, despite all the challenges in front of our communities, not only with the health of their country, but the way that their knowledge is respected, they're going to keep moving forward. And the big change on scene is that we're getting young people in our communities now who are tech natives. Yeah. They're being able to translate and work with their elders to be able to use the knowledge in the sharpest way that they can. Very deadly. Great. And Rohan? I guess in terms of, say, fire management across northern Australia, I guess the clearest impact has been greater variability with the sort of onset of monsoon and length of the monsoon, but also some fairly severe sort of fire with the conditions as well. So it really requires more, not less intensive land management under these sort of situations. I mean, we've seen fires spotting in central Arnhem land in contexts where you really wouldn't have seen that before. And we've just also gone through a few years of drought across the north and the Kimberley, particularly, suffered with some large fires and poor monsoon related events. So, yeah, the challenges in fire management will keep getting greater, but it also means that this sort of proactive fire management work becomes more and more important as we go forwards, even as it becomes more challenging. Absolutely. I might just mention as well, I mean, some of the things we're trying to do with the technology, particularly the North Australia Fire Information website is try and find different platforms that we can share that information. So we're currently developing the mobile app, trying to keep that as simple as possible, but also allowing sort of offline use of it. So people have this land management fire information tool in their pocket at all times. So, I mean, more and more people are moving away from accessing their technology through a computer onto a mobile phone. So trying to move with that. And we've also launched a QGIS plugin quite recently as well. And part of that will be trying to get people who, particularly Indigenous land managers, already sort of used to using the website, NAFI, and trying to build capacity around using QGIS as a platform to accessing that fire information. Yeah, very cool. We've got a question from the audience. And it's from the boss, actually, Sissy, who a lot of you might know. She's asking a very good question. Would you like to work with researchers to advance technology? Feel free to say no. Are there any sort of little things that are kind of frustrations that you're not able to get around to in the normal work day and the work environment? I know you're doing your PhD, Rohan. What are some of the collaborations that you've... How about we talk about outside your area of expertise? Like, what are some of the areas that you might be able to cross over with outside of your direct area of focus? With our work, I think what we're trying to do is how we can take the information that we have developed, 20 years worth of fire history, and working with researchers to understand particularly some of the ecological implications of different fire regimes across northern Australia. How we can then produce ecological metrics based on these fire data, which then go into a really easily understandable format for fire managers. So I might just segue off this. Mention another tool that we've got, it's called SMIRF, the Savannah Metrics Evaluation Research Framework. It's a bit long-winded, but if anyone goes to Google and types in SMIRF dashboard, they will come up with a sort of a fire information portal, which is using the 20 years plus information from NAFI to then produce a whole range of fire information metrics. So this is directly derived from the research, but it's also in a form that land managers, indigenous land, non-indigenous, can really easily sort of understand to get a bit of a snapshot on where they're going on their own country fire management. So yes, we do already work extensively with researchers, but that is also really very much driven by the requests from land managers on the ground, what they want to see. Very applied focus. Yeah, a great example of, like you say, it's not about the technology, it's about the people and the knowledge. So yeah, okay, well thanks, Rohan. We're down into our last three minutes. So David, what's your crossover been like with the research community? Yeah, look, I think there's some opportunities for some good work in this space, but I think the space that we're moving into is trying to find a middle ground. And I think one of the most successful tools that I used during my time at Parks Victoria, you know, in a landscape that's got everything from snow to desert to coast to and massive issues around fire and water, is that we've, what we tried to arm our land managers with down there is the ability to use a GIS fronted access database for the one of another term to be able to identify who are the right people to talk to when you're in different parts of country. So the technology doesn't have to hold the knowledge. The technology can just point you to who has the knowledge. Yeah, in this area, there are sensitivities. Talk to this small. In this area, you have to be careful of this. Speak to this person. And now communities are feeling much more comfortable with that because that's sort of like a halfway point to get everyone used to working closely with each other because it's about relationships and trust and respect in this space. That's the most important thing. I don't think we can take the technology pathway that we're going to take. People are up to. Yeah, sure. Sure. And but and also, I mean, really, you know, when you think about it with the technology is we've never had it in our history of humanity. You know, we're at set now where we can just communicate globally and in an instance. It's pretty exciting as to how we will be able to use it, I think, in the future. But yeah, I used to do a lot of work at national parks doing very similar things. We would have those, you say, the points and lines and things, but also say, you know, this this hatched area is is talk to that person, you know, and yeah, it's a good way to read the protocols of cultural knowledge. Yeah, but I think that's really important. Hey, look, I think, Steve, are you online? I got a message saying that you're here. Good. Yes. Yes, I am here. Sorry. Sorry for coming in late. I teams was telling me that I was on on, but I obviously wasn't so I switched to the web version. I just want to make a couple of a couple of points about things that David Merrill were talking. I think Geospatial is now becoming a little bit more democratized and for everyday use, and especially the the uncrow that are coming through who use their mobile phones and other technologies, which is which is a benefit. The second point is that the use of that technology is not the panacea. It can it can help visualize, but what we should be doing is is modeling with that technology rather than looking to the past, looking to the future, and then aligning that with the cultural knowledge. Now, that sounds like it's an easy thing to do, but not necessarily. But then once we've got that, then we can go to government. Government are very, very poor at dealing with dealing with things that might happen. They're very good at, it's like the old saying about economists, they have a 50% accuracy in predicting the past. So it's a matter of what you take to government and taking David's point. There are so many vested interests across Indigenous communities that there's no single voice. You have to deal with different people and different strategies in different geographies right across Australia. So there is no simple answer here, but I think we're heading down the right path. I really do. I think we've got the technology to align with cultural knowledge and we have the ability to make governments listen. I think we have that. That's what we need to do.
 Hello everyone, my name is Dr John Barton.  I'd like to show my respects and acknowledge the medical people  who are the traditional custodians of the land  and the elders past and present  on which this meeting takes place,  or at least my side of the meeting.  We're joined by a group of experts  from all across Australia actually between them.  I think we've got a good coverage  of the whole continent and beyond.  We're joined by David Major  who's the founding director of TheoryWeary.  David Zayun Manero, man, co-founder of TheoryWeary,  he spent 25 years working in land and heritage management  in the ACT in New South Wales, in Victoria,  and along with his TheoryWeary co-founder Jason Adler,  they're the only first people in Australia  to have sat in the executive  of a government land management agency.  TheoryWeary supports innovative approaches  to partnerships between First Nations communities,  government corporates, building shared capacity,  capability, advocating for connection to country,  and a primary role for the traditional owners  in management of their cultural landscapes.  Welcome, David.  Yep.  And also we're joined by Rowan Fisher.  Rowan is the lead satellite-derived fire information analyst  for the North Australian Fire Information Service  at the Darwin Centre for Bushfires Research  and the current PhD candidate at Charles Darwin University,  satellite image, and he's a satellite image analyst  for 27 years and subsequently  for the Northern Territory Government.  His current research and training development  work is focused on developing  projection augmented landscape models  using low-tech tools to create a dynamic,  spatial holograms of country.  We're also joined by Stephen Walker.  And Steve, if you're there, turn your video on,  please, in your microphone.  Steve Walker's Geospatial Data Analytics and AI Advocate  is a supporter of Indigenous Opportunity.  He's a strategist in health tech and prop tech.  He's a certified Indigenous service provider.  His company, Spartan First,  focus on occupational health  and promote Indigenous opportunity and welfare  and their leveraging location intelligence  to enable increased social, cultural,  economic benefits for the Indigenous communities.  So, without further ado,  we'll move on to the panel session.  Brohan, so could you tell us a bit about your background  working up in the top end  and how you've been working with the traditional owners  of the land and working with also  quite high-tech applications?  Can you tell us why the traditional aspect  is so important to land management in Australia?  Oh, thanks very much, Jack.  Yeah, so I think it's probably good to realise  that the most fire-prone landscapes in the world  are those in Northern Australia.  So about 70% of fires that occur across the Australian continent  occur in the tropical savannas in the north  and about, I guess, another 20, 25 in the range lands.  So relatively few fires occur  in the sort of southeast coastal region of Australia,  although when those fires do occur,  as they did earlier this year,  they have a fairly severe impact.  But, yeah, so fire is really an incredibly important part  of all of the landscape of Australia,  but particularly the north,  where we on average get about 30%  of the tropical savannas burned each year.  And that's primarily due to the fact  that we have a wet, dry, monsoonal climate,  and every year we get massive fuel loads,  grass fuel loads, and every year they will burn,  regardless of whether or not there is  human management of fire in those landscapes.  Fortunately for approximately 70, 80,000 years,  there has been human management of fire in those landscapes  and the co-evolution of those ecologies  are really quite significant.  And what's occurred over the last 15, 20 years  has been this really groundbreaking partnership  between Northern Australian scientists  and traditional landowners  and traditional knowledge holders across the North  to start to reinstate some of the  traditional fire management practices.  All bear with some new technology.  There's a lot of helicopter and cendry drop work  that's done across the North now,  as well as ground-based fire management.  But it's really building off a basis  of supporting that traditional knowledge  and traditional understanding of good land management.  And what has happened with work  with Northern Australian scientists  has been the understanding of the impacts  of good management.  And one of the impacts has been  a radical reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.  And that's led to the development  of what's called now the savannah burning  carbon farming industry,  which is part of the national legislation  around carbon abatement, the federal government.  So that's then led to a $30 million a year industry  across Northern Australia,  largely led by Indigenous land managers  on Indigenous lands.  So incredible success.  What we've seen in Northern Australia  is a reduction in fire severity and extent  of approximately 150,000 square kilometres per year,  area less burnt.  This is despite increased climate change challenges  in the North as it is elsewhere in Australia.  So what we're seeing in Northern Australia is,  I would, I think, argue is probably  the best fire management in the world at the moment.  And it's really based, importantly,  on that strong link between local Indigenous knowledge  and land managers and their incredible hard work on land.  And linking that in with the science  then links in with these support mechanisms,  largest of climate change work.  My role in all of this is relatively small,  but supporting quite a significant piece of technology  which assists that, which is, as you mentioned,  Jack, the North Australia Fire Information website,  where we provide burn area mapping on a weekly basis  for all of Northern Territory,  most of Queensland and the vast majority of Western Australia.  That now covers, that burn area mapping covers 70% of Australia  and provides updated hotspots about a five to 10,  sorry, about half an hour to two hour interval.  And the real focus of that Fire Information website  is on providing a resource which is very easy to use.  You find a lot of technology-based disaster response sites,  particularly fire, is either based  for emergency service personnel  or developed by a sort of a technology-focused group.  This is really based on feedback from land managers,  for land managers to be as easy as used and possible  to support the NN management activities.  So what we find across Northern Australia,  through all the different range of groups,  one of the first things that they will do in the morning  is they'll wake up, have a cup of coffee,  turn on the computer and have a look at NAFI.  So NAFI is the shorthand for North Australia Fire Information,  but across the North it's been going for 20 years,  so it's become part of the deep culture of land  and fire management amongst indigenous  and non-indigenous land managers  across the whole of Northern Australia, a key resource.  And I think that, I want to emphasise there,  that the key thing is not being focused on the technology,  the key thing is being focused on how to augment  those sort of land management knowledge.  That's fantastic.  That's really strong, thanks, Rohan.  As one of the things about climate change is that,  you know, it's often the frog in the boiling pot analogy  where you've just got such small incremental changes,  but having been active in the scene for 20 years,  over 20 years, and to actually be on top of that,  where you're working with the carbon cycles  with a full evidence-based program  that's connecting multiple users across the area,  it's, yeah, a remarkable initiative.  And we'll try to circulate some of those URLs  to the people who are joined in the chat and a bit later.  I'm just getting a message from Steve saying, am I here?  He might be having some trouble logging in,  but I will deal with that in a second,  because they're in the background.  So, David, how are you going?  Can you turn yourself off, Mith?  You're on mute.  How's that?  Good, good, good.  Can you tell us a bit about theory worry?  Yeah, look, I've been lucky enough for 25 years  to work in primarily public land management  in South Eastern Australia,  and primarily in supporting partnerships  between traditional owners and land managers  in looking after country,  whether that be through formal recognition  or through joint management  or through just partnerships in areas like fire  or weed management or coastal erosion  or all those other areas.  So, theory worry as a company  is just an extension of that for me.  For me, in being able to do that  with not only public land management organisations now,  but also with private conservancy organisations,  community landholders and other government departments  who are regulators or influencers  in the way policies get put in place  around the management of country.  Fantastic.  And what's been the...  Oh, good. Here comes Steve.  I've just got a little pop up.  So, what's been some of the experience you've had  with the different community groups  going right from the high-level government?  I can imagine there's a lot of energy you're putting into that.  But what about sort of the younger communities  and bringing together different groups  that might not have worked together before in this issue?  What are some of your experiences there?  I reckon our communities, our elders and our young people,  have been one degree in this game  for as long as I've been in the game myself.  It's just been government not really being ready to understand  the difference between science and knowledge.  That's one of the strongest things for me.  So, I think getting people...  Getting land managers primarily to understand that knowledge  and 60,000 years plus of knowledge and connection with country  is a valuable resource in looking after country.  And as the journey around recognition and rights  and native title has shifted  and lands being returned to traditional owners,  whether it be through freehold ownership,  through native title or through joint management,  through Indigenous land use agreements,  that knowledge is being put at the front of the conversation  and that the people making the decisions  are not just the land managers or the scientists,  it's also the traditional knowledge holders.  So, just like Rowan said,  I think the thing for me is in techniques, it's knowledge,  because our culture has always been an adaptive and evolving culture  and you use whatever the best techniques you have available  to you at the time.  So, that's why I often rail against the word traditional  being used in this kind of...  People think it means old stuff from the past, you know?  Yeah.  You know, you don't be the oldest living culture  without being able to adapt and change  and use the best techniques in front of you.  Yep, yep, sure, sure.  Also, what power have you been using technology in that capacity?  Is it...  What are some of the most useful technologies  you've been dealing with?  I think GIS is the thing I'm most excited about  and have been for 20 years, you know,  right from the start of that being used in land management  and it almost feels like technology is catching up  with the way our old people saw country.  So, that bird's eye view of country,  which you see through our artwork across Australia  and probably around the world, is its own form of GIS.  You know, so I think that our elders and our knowledge holders  have taken really well to GIS  and the way that you can map country.  There are some challenges in that around tangible  and intangible cultural values  and how you can record intangible values  using a point-and-polygon type system.  But I think the technology is adapting to cope with that.  Probably the two areas that we still need to keep working on  is around data sovereignty.  So, who owns the information and how is it used?  And then the challenge of GIS is an awesome tool,  but it's quite IT heavy  in that you've got to be able to have the hardware and the software  at its most up-to-date level  and you've got to be using it all the time to be adept with it.  And that's not something that our community organisations  necessarily are able to equally take part in.  So, they're the things that, you know,  whilst I advocate for GIS,  we need to make sure that we take everybody with us  in the way that it's used  and the way that it influences strategy and policy.  Great. Thanks.  So, Rohan, I see you're nodding your head there.  The...  The...  What you've done with the web-based information streams,  really good that people, as you say,  they go up there and have their cup of coffee  and then they're informed about what's going on around them,  that's really important for the...  I've found generally the accessibility of these tools  is improving, but still they're very much sort of expert things  that you need to understand.  How have you found it with the visualisation side  or engaging with the broader community using these tools?  Oh, you're on mute. You're on mute.  You're on mute.  Yeah.  The old...  Exactly.  For what David said, I mean, for me, the technology,  those technology skills are transferable.  They're relatively easy and the science is doable.  But the key that underpins all of this  is the knowledge.  And I think that's one thing that we've done well in the North,  where the science has been there to augment  to support the knowledge as opposed to the other way around  and the tech also.  Yeah.  And also, just to comment on what David said as well,  I mean, a lot of my work over the last 20 years  has really been trying to decentralise  geospatial skills and capacity,  because there is a learning curve to learn some of the GIS skills,  but anyone can do it with patience and mentoring.  But what you can't easily transfer  is many generations of knowledge.  So I think that's where there needs to be more work,  is to sort of integrate the transference  of some of these technical skills to those real...  People actually hold the knowledge.  Yeah.  That's where the true power is.  In terms of data visualisation,  information visualisation,  I mean, there's something that you mentioned earlier  around the work that I've been doing,  using sort of 3D landscapes to try and help transfer  geospatial knowledge understanding.  And this is really trying to bring some of the  fuel load accumulation information  that comes from the North Australian Information website  into a sort of a 3D interactive format,  which enables people to really sort of visualise  how fire might behave over the landscapes.  So this is using what I call pretty blunt-edge technology.  It's essentially 3D printed landscapes,  and I project over top of that simple fire simulations.  But it creates a physical and tangible space  on which local knowledge holders can once again  sort of share their understanding of fire behaviour  and sort of facilitate those conversations.  And for me, that's what the technology is all about,  how you can use the tech to bring together people  who really have that deep understanding of a country  and the way that landscape works.  And there's some neat things that we can do to support that now.  But yeah, for me, the key is not to be obsessed by the tech.  It's just how the tech can really  underpin that local knowledge.  Sure, excellent.  And I mean, yeah, that knowledge is something  that's pretty unique and able to be well communicated at times.  It's certainly not a trivial thing to be able to just put it into some...  You can't put it into a database and share it or whatever,  but I think that certainly, as you say,  having the technology that you can put on the table,  the outputs of that technology,  and be able to start those conversations.  So Rohan, getting back to David's point too,  what are some of your biggest challenges with regard to working with the government up there?  Would you say, and the federal... and federally,  would you say everything's rosy or are there particular challenges that you'd...  Northern Territory governments are very good in terms of their work across jurisdictions.  I mean, there is a very strong understanding in the Northern Territory,  generally, that the dominant landowners and land managers are traditional owners.  Sure.  And the majority of parks, NT parks, are jointly managed.  The main issue in the Northern Territory is lack of resources.  You know, we're a very small in terms of population,  and we really just don't have the resources to support  the sort of land management activities and support activities we'd like.  So the North Australia Fire Information website,  because it covers 70% of Australia,  essentially needs to be a federally funded tool.  However, because it's not focused on the sort of immediate emergency response needs  of southeastern Australia, where the majority of people live,  and where the majority of interest is, particularly after last year's fires,  we continue to sort of battle for sort of substantial ongoing support  after 20 years, what has become a critical tool for land managers  over most of Australia, and particularly indigenous land managers  are achieving sort of incredible results.  So I think that's the battle we have, is trying to raise the platform,  particularly if you're looking at fire,  as something which is only really becomes an emergency and disaster response issue  if you haven't had decades of good land management proceeding that.  So in the first instance, we see it as a land management, more of an NRAM issue.  Yeah, sure, sure.  Yeah, so David, what are you resonating with some of that,  coming from the eastern seaboard, where you've got much more attention,  and you certainly, we've had the 19, 2020 bushfire season,  which although it got a lot of media,  there were certain newspapers and conglomerates that were saying  climate change isn't even happening, it's not a problem.  Do you say you've been, how have you been reacting to all that attention?  I think that despite all the climate denies out there,  I reckon there's a much bigger shift in the community,  and certainly within government land management agencies,  to recognise Aboriginal culture knowledge.  It's quite ironic, I think, for some of our Indigenous-led cultural management  processes that now people are listening, after all the fires have happened.  But I think our communities will take whatever chance we can get in there  and be part of the conversation.  And I think, I agree with Rowan absolutely about knowledge being the priority,  but our community is because we're in such a complex situation,  with massive communities living in forested areas,  and the challenges around managing a country that's so heavily used,  is that technology is essential.  So I think our communities will embrace this stuff,  and are embracing the technology,  as long as they feel like they're in the driver's seat.  I think gone are the days when someone came and took your knowledge  and put it in a box and took it away somewhere,  and you didn't hear from them again.  We're not doing that anymore.  It's about having a seat at the table and being able to make the decisions.  And then you use the techniques and specialists to provide you the support  you need to make good decisions.  Yeah, sure.  Look, just anecdotally, I mean, have you been,  when you're out in the bush, have you been sensing anything different?  You know, have you been sort of speculating yourself saying,  hang on, I haven't seen them there before, is this something to do with climate change?  Or, you know, is there anything you're sort of concerned about  that you've been seeing happen in the natural environment that might be unusual?  Yeah, look, everything's massively out of whack.  Look, and I think that this is the challenge around using our cultural knowledge systems,  when the system's been broken.  And, you know, having to use the knowledge we've got,  but adapt it to the situation that we're in now,  and our communities are struggling with that on a daily basis.  But it's not an op-inum with that absolute commitment to look and after country and heal  on country.  You know, I mean, we spend a lot of time talking with organizations like Fiastix,  the Fiastix Alliance.  And, you know, despite all the challenges in front of our communities,  not only with the health of their country, but the way that their knowledge is respected,  they're going to keep moving forward.  And the big change on scene is that we're getting young people in our communities now who are  tech natives.  Yeah.  They're being able to translate and work with their elders to be able to use the knowledge  in the sharpest way that they can.  Very deadly.  Great.  And Rohan?  I guess in terms of, say, fire management across northern Australia, I guess the  clearest impact has been greater variability with the sort of onset of monsoon and length of  the monsoon, but also some fairly severe sort of fire with the conditions as well.  So it really requires more, not less intensive land management under these sort of situations.  I mean, we've seen fires spotting in central Arnhem land in contexts where you really wouldn't  have seen that before.  And we've just also gone through a few years of drought across the north and the Kimberley,  particularly, suffered with some large fires and poor monsoon related events.  So, yeah, the challenges in fire management will keep getting greater,  but it also means that this sort of proactive fire management work becomes more and more  important as we go forwards, even as it becomes more challenging.  Absolutely.  I might just mention as well, I mean, some of the things we're trying to do with the technology,  particularly the North Australia Fire Information website is try and find different  platforms that we can share that information.  So we're currently developing the mobile app, trying to keep that as simple as possible,  but also allowing sort of offline use of it.  So people have this land management fire information tool in their pocket at all times.  So, I mean, more and more people are moving away from accessing their technology through  a computer onto a mobile phone.  So trying to move with that.  And we've also launched a QGIS plugin quite recently as well.  And part of that will be trying to get people who, particularly Indigenous land managers,  already sort of used to using the website, NAFI, and trying to build capacity around  using QGIS as a platform to accessing that fire information.  Yeah, very cool.  We've got a question from the audience.  And it's from the boss, actually, Sissy, who a lot of you might know.  She's asking a very good question.  Would you like to work with researchers to advance technology?  Feel free to say no.  Are there any sort of little things that are kind of frustrations that you're not able to get  around to in the normal work day and the work environment?  I know you're doing your PhD, Rohan.  What are some of the collaborations that you've...  How about we talk about outside your area of expertise?  Like, what are some of the areas that you might be able to cross over with outside of your direct  area of focus?  With our work, I think what we're trying to do is how we can take the information that we  have developed, 20 years worth of fire history, and working with researchers to understand  particularly some of the ecological implications of different fire regimes across northern Australia.  How we can then produce ecological metrics based on these fire data, which then go into a really  easily understandable format for fire managers.  So I might just segue off this.  Mention another tool that we've got, it's called SMIRF, the Savannah Metrics Evaluation Research  Framework.  It's a bit long-winded, but if anyone goes to Google and types in SMIRF dashboard, they will come up  with a sort of a fire information portal, which is using the 20 years plus information from NAFI  to then produce a whole range of fire information metrics.  So this is directly derived from the research, but it's also in a form that land managers,  indigenous land, non-indigenous, can really easily sort of understand to get a bit of a snapshot on  where they're going on their own country fire management.  So yes, we do already work extensively with researchers, but that is also really very much  driven by the requests from land managers on the ground, what they want to see.  Very applied focus.  Yeah, a great example of, like you say, it's not about the technology, it's about the people  and the knowledge.  So yeah, okay, well thanks, Rohan.  We're down into our last three minutes.  So David, what's your crossover been like with the research community?  Yeah, look, I think there's some opportunities for some good work in this space, but I think  the space that we're moving into is trying to find a middle ground.  And I think one of the most successful tools that I used during my time at Parks Victoria,  you know, in a landscape that's got everything from snow to desert to coast to  and massive issues around fire and water, is that we've, what we tried to arm our land managers with  down there is the ability to use a GIS fronted access database for the one of another term  to be able to identify who are the right people to talk to when you're in different parts of country.  So the technology doesn't have to hold the knowledge.  The technology can just point you to who has the knowledge.  Yeah, in this area, there are sensitivities.  Talk to this small.  In this area, you have to be careful of this.  Speak to this person.  And now communities are feeling much more comfortable with that because that's sort of like a halfway  point to get everyone used to working closely with each other because it's about relationships  and trust and respect in this space.  That's the most important thing.  I don't think we can take the technology pathway that we're going to take.  People are up to.  Yeah, sure.  Sure.  And but and also, I mean, really, you know, when you think about it with the technology is  we've never had it in our history of humanity.  You know, we're at set now where we can just communicate globally and in an instance.  It's pretty exciting as to how we will be able to use it, I think, in the future.  But yeah, I used to do a lot of work at national parks doing very similar things.  We would have those, you say, the points and lines and things, but also say, you know,  this this hatched area is is talk to that person, you know, and yeah, it's a good way to  read the protocols of cultural knowledge.  Yeah, but I think that's really important.  Hey, look, I think, Steve, are you online?  I got a message saying that you're here.  Good.  Yes.  Yes, I am here.  Sorry.  Sorry for coming in late.  I teams was telling me that I was on on, but I obviously wasn't so I switched to the web version.  I just want to make a couple of a couple of points about things that David Merrill were talking.  I think Geospatial is now becoming a little bit more democratized and for everyday use,  and especially the the uncrow that are coming through who use their mobile phones and other  technologies, which is which is a benefit. The second point is that the use of that technology  is not the panacea.  It can it can help visualize, but what we should be doing is is modeling with that technology  rather than looking to the past, looking to the future, and then aligning that with the cultural  knowledge. Now, that sounds like it's an easy thing to do, but not necessarily. But then once  we've got that, then we can go to government. Government are very, very poor at dealing with  dealing with things that might happen. They're very good at, it's like the old saying about  economists, they have a 50% accuracy in predicting the past. So it's a matter of what you take to  government and taking David's point. There are so many vested interests across Indigenous communities  that there's no single voice. You have to deal with different people and different strategies in  different geographies right across Australia. So there is no simple answer here, but I think  we're heading down the right path. I really do. I think we've got the technology to align with  cultural knowledge and we have the ability to make governments listen. I think we have that.  That's what we need to do.
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