Episode description

It is my great pleasure to welcome  Ross William to the Sense-making in a Changing World show. Ross, who's traditional name is 'Tummulba' means lightning, is a proud  Bindal person of Townsville to Burdekin regions (on his father’s side). Bindal people are star people.  On his mother’s side he is connected to the Islands and peoples of Erub and Mer Islands of the Torres Straits. He is part of two indigenous led initiatives here in Australia - Future Dreaming Australia and Regenerative Songlines Australia.   

I loved talking with Ross and so grateful for how generous he was in helping us to understand indigenous land management practices and perspectives and ways of restoring and regenerating Australian ecosystems and ways of knowing too. We talk about regeneration, governance models, Australian food, dance, energy, the stars, dark matter, the unseen, water, climate change, continuing semi-subsistence lifestyles of remote indigenous communities. He describes songlines too - the stories of country, ways of sharing and connecting knowledge for survival  and how the first law for everything was always the environment.

I was really thrilled to hear him say "Permaculture is a modern version of the way we watched and looked after land, and how the land provided".

Grab your notebook and listen in. So much richness here.

Future Dreaming Australia offers an opportunity for us to rethink specialised cross-cultural courses, to help non-indigenous people understand and support Aboriginal approaches to caring to country. 

Regenerative Songlines Australia is working to create a continent-wide network, that connects regenerative projects and practitioners. It is led by First Nations peoples and inclusive of all Australians; focused on amplifying local and bioregional initiatives, and connected to international “regenerative roadmap” partners.

Ross has over 40 years working with Traditional Owner groups, Elders and Leaders in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander   environmental, social, cultural, economic and planning matters. 

NB: You can watch our youtube conversation here.

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