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Abstract:
Through extensive consultations undertaken with regional EM agency and Indigenous community partners across northern Australia under the banner of the BNHCRC, it has been established that an ongoing priority is to support the building of more effective EM agency-community partnership arrangements in remote communities, based on empowerment of and better engagement with community governance structures. One identified key EM issue for remote communities is the need to be able to empower customary governance structures as a basis for developing and articulating community priorities and needs. To complement this, an identified key issue for EM agencies is to better understand how to effectively engage with community governance arrangements. This project explored community governance issues and aspirations among Bininj and Yolngu in two major communities of central and east Arnhem Land NT. In recognising persistent and systemic marginalisation issues, such as poor communication and engagement, both Ramingining and Galiwin’ku project leaders sought to provide a stronger foundation for partnerships at community level and a clear direction to EM and other agencies to adopt for more effective and mutually beneficial partnership arrangements in service delivery. The project in Ramingining, central Arnhem, was facilitated by and undertaken through the engagement of community based Indigenous researchers from the Aboriginal Research Practitioners Network (ARPNet) at Research Institute for Environment and Livelihoods (RIEL) at Charles Darwin University. In Galiwin’ku, east Arnhem, Yalu (a community developed research organisation) partnered with the North Australian Land and Sea Management Alliance Ltd. (NAILSMA) to start the project, later joined and directed by senior Yolngu leaders. All work was conducted on Country, whether in the town areas or at regional homelands.
