In partnership with the Great Barrier Reef Foundation, Traditional Owners are at the heart of the largest ever co-designed effort to protect the Reef. The investment in the Traditional Owner Reef Protection Program, under the Reef Trust Partnership (RTP), has enabled a focus on removing barriers to Traditional Owner participation and leadership in reef protection and restoration activities.
One key barrier identified early in the program’s design was the use of Western scientific approaches to natural resource management, and the jargon associated with technical focus areas like water quality. These factors can inhibit Traditional Owner involvement by creating communication barriers, reinforcing power imbalances and ignoring the deep cultural and ecological knowledge that Indigenous communities have developed over generations.
In one example of addressing this challenge, the Traditional Owner Healthy Water Technical Working Group (HW TWG) identified the need to equip Traditional Owners with the skills, tools, and connections necessary to manage water on Country and be competitive in mainstream water quality funding. In response, a Healthy Water Literacy Toolkit has been developed, offering resources that translate and simplify Western scientific concepts into accessible language and tools, making them easier for Traditional Owners working on Country to understand and apply.