First Nations wisdom plays key role in saving critically endangered Philippine eagle
Charles Darwin University Media Release
A First Nations conservation and land management program from the Northern Territory is playing a key role in saving the national bird of the Philippines, the critically endangered Philippine eagle.
A group of Philippine rangers and Indigenous leaders have been in Gove this week taking part in extensive field work and learning on Country with Yolŋu rangers from the Dhimurru Aboriginal Corporation (DAC).
Aimed at diversifying approaches to caring for ancestral lands in the Philippines and identifying culture and nature-based enterprise opportunities, the learnings are informing efforts to restore the native habitat of the Philippine eagle and include fire management and wildlife monitoring.
Pushed to the brink of extinction by deforestation and illegal hunting, the eagle is one of the rarest birds in the world, with less than 400 pairs remaining in the wild.
“The forest is very important for the eagle and for Indigenous culture because it’s the foundation of biocultural diversity,” explained Philippine Eagle Foundation (PEF) Director of Operations, Dr Jayson Ibañez.
“Fire management has been an issue on ancestral domains because of climate change and prolonged droughts, but no one is investing in managing the landscape with respect to fire.
“The Dhimurru Rangers will assist us with their knowledge and experience to create proof-of-concept models on indigenous land management that we can take to the Philippine Government and National Commission on Indigenous Peoples to hopefully replicate across as many ancestral domains as possible.”
A trained zoologist and biologist, Dr Ibañez completed his PhD in Natural Resources Management at Charles Darwin University’s (CDU) Research Institute for the Environment and Livelihoods (RIEL) in Darwin in 2015, with this week’s visit marking a full-circle moment in his research career.
“I made a promise to Mandaka Marika (former DAC Managing Director) that I would bring my Indigenous leaders here so they could experience what I’ve experienced and now it’s happening – so it’s very exciting,” he said.
With 80 per cent of remaining Philippine eagle habitat on ancestral lands, Dr Ibañez said biocultural conservation also provided an entry point for more co-benefits, including cultural and financial empowerment.
“That’s where I focused my whole PhD program, finding ways to better engage the knowledge of Indigenous owners, while also making sure that they get equal and tangible benefits from conservation.”
DAC Executive Officer Stephina Salee said the cross-cultural visit had been mutually beneficial, with the lessons imparted by the Philippine rangers and Indigenous leaders set to serve as, “more than just memories.”
“Our Filipino family has instilled in us a deep reverence for the land and sea – an understanding that the soil beneath our feet and the waters that surround us are not just resources, but sacred ties that bind us to our ancestors,” Ms Salee said.
“Through their stories and the teachings passed down through generations, we’ve come to understand that honouring our heritage means honouring the earth and the generations that cared for it long before us.
“These lessons are a living connection to the past that guides us in the present, reminding us of the responsibility we carry to protect and nurture the land and sea for those who will come after us.”
The group of Philippine rangers and Indigenous leaders are in Australia for a month as part of an Australia Awards Fellowship and are being hosted by CDU’s RIEL.
Image at top: (From left to right) Australia Awards Fellow (AAF) Warnit Lumista; Dhimurru Ranger Kayla Wanambi; Philippine Eagle Foundation’s Jimbea Lucino; Dhimurru Cultural Adviser Maxine Gumbula; AAF Agnes Gabuat-Donato; and Dhimurru Ranger BJ Mununggurr.
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Michael Taylor -
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Michael Taylor -
B Sullivan
Return to home pageMeanwhile, PM Albanese has interceded to scuttle, without debate, any chance of implementing the ALP election promise of establishing an EPA capable of interceding to delay/halt mining (or forestry) projects likely to cause destruction of native biodiversity and/or indigenous cultural heritage.
https://thenightly.com.au/politics/australia/nature-positive-anthony-albanese-intervenes-to-scuttle-epa-deal-with-greens-overruling-tanya-plibersek-c-16892271
Special mention must also go to senator Fatima Payman for “firing a hypersonic missile at the capital” helping to ixnay the proposal
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-11-29/fatima-payman-helped-sink-key-environmental-laws/104664940
Starting to get resigned to the idea of the Dutton creature becoming our next PM.
I share your disappointment/dismay with Albanese, cb.
He’s doing everything in his power to ensure an election loss.
MT,
I’m kinda hoping that broad disillusionment and disappointment with Albo’s ALP will not reactively bleed straight to the coalition, but instead flow towards decent indi (& saner minor party) HoR and senate candidates,
but,
That would require an engaged and informed electorate capable of examining future consequential repercussions and looking beyond the traditional colour coded corporate brandnames and examining each candidate based on pedigree & policies.
On the bright side, the current dose of rain is swelling local rivers nicely, which bodes well for some whitewater frolicking over the next few days.
The rain is welcome, cb. I’m sitting on the deck, coffee in hand, watching droplets of water fall from the leaves.
I’m easily amused.
Five days ago, in readiness for the flight to Australia, I just wore trackies and a t shirt. Winter clothes were all packed away.
Two days in a row the flights were cancelled… so there I was walking around in sub-zero temperatures in clothes more suited to 35°.
The South Australian University author of “Odyssey Down Under” describes the traditional Aboriginal hunting practise of destroying native forests with the use of fire as, …”gradually over time the forests ‘expanded’ into grasslands”. That strikes me as a kind of odd take on deforestation.
The fact that the forests were more and more reduced to grasslands is clear evidence that Aboriginals did not act as custodians of the forests. They had no way of knowing the ecological damage they were doing with their fires. All that they would have been aware of is that fire can be used to flush out prey, and that their preferred prey was attracted by the regrowth of vegetation that grew in the open of cleared forests but not in the undergrowth of uncleared forest. It isn’t easy to spear or follow an animal when there is a lot of undergrowth in the way so they would have had no qualms about getting rid of it with fire. After all to them it just a bit of forest and there was plenty of that around and so few of them burning it. And yet there can be no doubt to modern eyes that they had an environmentally destructive impact on the land. The forests were reduced to grasslands. The biodiversity of forest species were also reduced with the removal of the undergrowth and its complex ecology. The grasslands were more susceptible to climate change, drought and erosion and thus be more inclined to be reduced to desert than the former forests were. How can it be argued that such drastic alteration of the environment is evidence of being at one with the land? Why are there constant calls to acknowledge the perpetrators of this negligent deforestation as traditional custodians of the land?
Take a look at that well known painting by Lycett that exists as one of the earliest historical records of Aborigines burning the forest just to flush out kangaroos. Think how many plants and animals would be killed by those flames, the collateral damage of the hunt. Hardly evidence of efficacy of traditional custodianship of the environment.
But still we get these ill-informed arguments about the correct way to deal with the need to preserve species and environments is to adopt traditional primative practices as if we are dealing with a cultural issue instead of an environmental issue. Traditions are no substitute for science. Environmental science is a modern phenomenon that we are only beginning to comprehend. Traditional environmental lore by comparison is woefully ignorant in pretty much every culture in the world. It is only over the last couple of centuries that humans have developed any true understanding of the natural world and how humans have impacted and how they are interacting with its fragile ecosystems.
I am worried that we are being given another example of government failure to effectively deal with environmental decline, in this case by imposing an inappropriate social and traditional cultural solution instead of implementing a scientifically objective appropriate solution. Is government policy on the environment going to be ‘Perception is Better than Cure’?