Looking back on an exciting and challenging 2024

2024 was another big year collaborating with numerous Indigenous organisations to support a range of different projects. Highlights include:

• Completing one Healthy Country Planning project from start to finish and initiating another planning project with an Indigenous community.

• Facilitating the full-term review of an Indigenous Protected Area Plan of Management.

• Supporting the development of a regional MERI project involving multiple Indigenous Ranger Groups and creating several stand-alone MERI frameworks.

• Assisting an Indigenous organisation with strategic planning.

• Helping numerous Indigenous communities prepare grant submissions to secure funding for land management initiatives.

• Leading workshops to inform cultural and environmental impact assessment frameworks for Indigenous communities.

I feel privileged to work with so many incredible communities, strong Indigenous leaders, and innovative thinkers. Thank you for the opportunities in 2024! I’m looking forward to another year of collaboration, where together, we push boundaries for Indigenous People and Local Communities around the world.

MERI Frameworks help Indigenous Protected Areas and Indigenous Ranger Programs tell their story

MERI frameworks are crucial to adaptive management, identifying critical indicators describing how we evaluate and improve management. The development of MERI plans is straightforward when the underlying adaptive management framework has a structure that links inputs with outputs and outcomes.

A good MERI framework helps projects to better tell their story by explaining the Theory of Change of proposed conservation interventions. They ultimately create confidence in a project’s ability to achieve the outcomes it proposes – important both for a project’s ability to access funding and comply with funding requirements.

This FLYER outlines how the clear and transparent structure of Healthy Country Planning allows projects to develop robust MERI frameworks that help us respond to three crucial questions:

·        Are we following our plan? Are we implementing the actions and strategies for our work plan?

·        Are the things we are doing leading to the expected results -  are we achieving the intended outcomes?

Healthy Country Planning: Strengthening Indigenous Ranger Programs and Indigenous Protected Areas

Indigenous Land Managers across Australia are leveraging Healthy Country Planning (HCP) to drive the success of Indigenous Ranger Programs and Indigenous Protected Areas. Rooted in the Conservation Standards, HCP provides a structured approach that links inputs to outputs, outcomes and impact, helping land managers build a clear program logic for their projects. This alignment not only meets funders' requirements but also ensures that every dollar invested contributes to meaningful, long-term impact on the ground.

Scorecards built on the MERI framework derived from a HCP, help projects communicate their achievements and milestones effectively with both funders and the community. These tools foster transparency and accountability, keeping everyone informed on the project’s journey towards sustainable outcomes.

Curious about how the Conservation Standards and HCP are helping projects close the adaptive management loop? Discover more here on our website and learn how these frameworks are supporting impactful land management initiatives.

Healthy Country Plans: A Strong Foundation for Impact Assessments

Healthy Country Plans (HCPs), driven by participatory planning with local communities, offer a powerful framework for integrated impact assessments. By capturing critical information about values, assets, and their viability, HCPs help align impact assessment and mitigation efforts with the priorities of local communities. This expands traditional assessments to include environmental, cultural, and socio-economic values—ensuring a more comprehensive and community-centered approach.

Curious to learn more? Check out our publications or watch this short video showcasing the Nyikina Mangala Development by Design project!

🌳 🌳 Healthy Country Plans: A platform for better engagement 🌳 🌳

Healthy Country Plans (HCP's) express an Indigenous community’s aspirations and provide a powerful tool to engage more meaningfully with stakeholders and partners, allowing them to integrate a community’s priorities from the outset of their engagement.

Experiences from across Australia have shown how HCP's helped Indigenous communities engage more meaningfully with Government Departments, philanthropy and research institutions. Conservation organisations could better align their priorities with those of local communities, and HCP's allowed science programs to address real-life knowledge gaps on the ground with their research.
To learn from a real-life example, have a look at this case study to hear from the Bardi Jawi Rangers in the Kimberley region of Western Australia and their experience engaging in marine research projects.

Funding Opportunity Australia: First Nation International Fellowships and Partnerships Grants

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) is offering a unique opportunity for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander experts, practitioners, advocates, and traditional knowledge holders. This grant supports building sustainable partnerships across the Indo-Pacific on key issues like reconciliation, economic empowerment, climate change, and environmental management.

Grants can fund small delegations for in-person collaborations with organizations or First Nation communities in regions such as the Pacific, Southeast Asia, the U.S., and Canada.

Application Deadline: November 15th.
For guidelines and access to the application portal, visit GrantConnect.

Boost Conservation Impact with Community Engagement

A lack of community ownership can be a major barrier to the success of conservation projects. That's where participatory planning approaches like Healthy Country Planning come in.

By engaging local communities from the start, Healthy Country Planning — adapted from the Conservation Standards — offers a powerful framework to link non-Indigenous conservation programs with community priorities. This collaborative approach expands a project’s impact and fosters long-lasting success.

Curious about how this could work for your conservation projects? Learn more HERE

PBC Capacity Building Funding extended

Native title-holding corporations are known as Prescribed Bodies Corporate (PBCs). PBCs can access funding through the National Indigenous Australian Agencies (NIAA) Indigenous Advancement Strategy (IAS), called ‘PBC Capacity Building grant funding’. The funding can assist PBCs to grow their organisational capacity and generate economic benefits from their land.

This on-going funding opportunity has now been extended to the 2027/28 Financial Year. Check the funding guidelines and application form HERE and contact your local NIAA office to discuss your proposal.
Please don’t hesitate to get in touch if you need assistance with a funding application

Australian Heritage Grant funding available

Application are open for the new round of Australian Heritage Grant funding to conserve National Heritage Listed places. AHG funding helped many Indigenous Groups develop and review management plans and conserve listed places around Australia.
Submissions close on 25/10/2024. Please see the link for more information. If you need assistance with a grant or project please feel free to reach out.

FOLLOW THIS LINK TO THE HOMEPAGE OF THE FUNDING BODY

Mid-Term and Full Cycyle Review of Indigenous Protected Area Management Plans

Addressing complex systems like the environment, community and culture, plans of managements for Indigenous Protected Areas need to be adaptive - and as such reviewed from time to time to ensure that the plan is still appropriate for the context.

This PDF resource (DOWNLOAD HERE) shows how the tools of the Open Standards for the Practice of Conservation / Healthy Country Planning can help Indigenous Protected Area projects through the process of monitoring, evaluation, reporting and improvement (MERI).

New publication: Incorporating uncertainty in indigenous sea country monitoring with bayesian statistics: Towards more informed decision making

The Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) have been engaged with the Bardi Jawi Rangers for many years and in this project explored how Bayesian statistics can help to incorporate uncertainty into viability rankings and indicators ratings of their Healthy Country Plan.

You can download the open source article in the Ambio magazine HERE. Many thanks to Katherine Cure, Jim Underwood and the Bardi Jawi Rangers to be part of this exciting publication.

New publication: Integrating Social Value in Landscape Planning: Experiences from Working with Indigenous Communities in Australia

Together with David Hinchley, Damien Parriman, Mike Heiner and James Fitzsimons we wrote a book-chapter titled “Integrating Social Value in Landscape Planning: Experiences from Working with Indigenous Communities in Australia” for the publication Social Value, Climate Change and Environmental Stewardship: Insights from Theory and Practice.

In this article we explore how Healthy Country Planning and Development by Design can assist Indigenous Groups in Australia increasing the Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) in the land-use decision making process.

Conservation Planning in the Dawna Tanintharyi region of Myanmar

Back from a very exciting Healthy Country Planning project in the Dawna Tanintharyi landscape of Myanmar to facilitate the development of the Kawthoolei Forest Department Strategic Conservation Management Plan

The strategic conservation plan will support the Kawthoolei Forestry Department, the Karen Wildlife Conservation Initiative and Karen communities to manage a culturally and bio diverse rich landscape strategically.