Main Event | Federation Square, Melbourne
Sat 20th February 12.00 pm - 1.30 pm
Venue: The Edge
Hosted by: Homelands Heroes - Remote Indigenous Communities Working For Country
The Homeland Heroes Key Forum will profile success stories of remote Indigenous communities living and working on country in North East Arnhem Land. Yananymul Mununggurr, CEO Laynhapuy Homelands Association Inc, Wanyubi Marika, Manager Yirralka Ranger Program and Professor Jon Altman, Director, Centre for Aboriginal Policy Research, ANU, will showcase programs that enable traditional owners to manage their land and sea country, protect their culture, strengthen their communities and conserve precious environmental resources in the nation’s far north. With growing threats to Australia’s natural environment, climate change and increasing disadvantage within Indigenous communities it is more important than ever to promote successful models of sustaining community and country.
Presenters
Wanyubi Marika Manager Yirralka Ranger Program Wanyubi’s father Milirrpum was a clan leader of the Rirratjingu clan in North East Arnhem Land and represented his people in the country’s first land rights case. Wanyubi has been involved in community management since the 1980s. In the 1990s Wanyubi was the leader of the Yirrkala Dhanbul Community Association Council and is currently the Manager of the Yirralka Ranger Program operating over the Yirralka Indigenous Protected Area . Wanyubi has gained recognition for his bark paintings and is represented in public and private collections around the country.
Yananymul Mununggurr, CEO, Laynhapuy Homelands Association Inc. I am from the Yirrkala community in North East Arnhem land NT and I am a Djapu woman. I have been with Laynhapuy Homelands Association for nearly 21 years. Laynhapuy Homelands Association provide services to 26 Homelands. Today I am the Chief Executive Officer for the organization. I do alot of advocacy for Indigenous people's political and cultural rights, especially for the people of the Homelands. I am an elected Councillor on the North East Arnhemland Shire and I am a member on the North East Arnhemland Health Reform Steering Committee. I once sat on the North East Arnhemland Communities for Children Committee and was a member on the National Indigenous Representative Body Steering Committee with Tom Calma and others. I once co-chaired NT Customary Law Reform. Last year, I was recognized for my contributions to the NT community, through the ‘2009 Tribute to Northern Territory Women’ award. This award took me by surprise! My greatest achievement in my life is my son. My personal vision is to be healthy and have a good quality of life. My other personal vision is to become a Homeland Activist and Homelands Policy Advisor working with Governments - maybe one day. My vision for the organization is to be more and more successful in providing service delivery to our homelands if Government can only get their act together and see our needs when it comes to Homelands and Homelands Service Providers such as us. And I love to go hunting with my family when I’m out bush (at Garrthalala – my mother’s country).
Altman is Professor and the Director of the Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research (CAEPR). He has a disciplinary background in economics and anthropology. In 1990, he was appointed the foundation director of CAEPR and since 2001 has been an adjunct Professorial Fellow at the School for Environmental Research at Charles Darwin University in Darwin. In 2003, Professor Altman was elected a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia. Professor Altman has also been awarded an Australian Research Council (ARC) Australian Professorial Fellowship focusing his research efforts on the project 'Hybrid Economic Futures for Remote Indigenous Australia'.
Hosted by Dr. Katy Auty, Commissioner for Environmental Sustainability. Born in Brisbane, Kate Auty is a graduate of the University of Melbourne (Arts (Hons)/Law), Monash University (Masters in Environmental Science), and La Trobe University (PhD in Law and Legal Studies). She has worked as a lawyer for the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service and the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody (Victoria, Tasmania and Western Australia); as lecturer and project coordinator in the Graduate Certificate in Environment and Heritage Interpretation at the Institute of Koori Education, Deakin University; as a barrister (Victoria), established the first Victorian Koori Court and acted as inaugural magistrate; and as a magistrate in Western Australia in the western desert goldfields region. She has undertaken a number of consultancies including a project on local government and climate change for the National Environmental Law Association and in 2008 Dr Auty was appointed a Charles Joseph LaTrobe Fellow with the Centre for Sustainable Regional Communities, La Trobe University. The fellowship involved a three year research project consulting with Aboriginal women about justice issues including heritage and environmental concerns. In 2008 and 2009 she was the Chair of the Ministerial Reference Council on Climate Change Adaptation and also a member of the Premier's Reference Committee on Climate Change. Victorian Minister for the Environment and Climate Change, the Hon Gavin Jennings announced the appointment of Dr Kate Auty as the new Commissioner for Environmental Sustainability effective from the 19th June 2009.
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