Listening and advocating for
Yanyuwa visions of a healthy, protected and culturally safe seascape

The Yanyuwa families of the south-west Gulf have a legacy of fighting for their land and sea rights. Their representative body - Mabunji Aboriginal Resource Corporation - have a strong and long lasting relationship with many non-Yanyuwa researchers and scientists. For this project, I was engaged by this team to deliver a marine spatial planning (MSP) analysis. This will be one of the first Traditional Owner led, negotiated and implemented sea Country management plans in Australia. I have had the immense honour to work with the Yanyuwa families and our collaborative team to design new ways of doing MSP. Our collaborative team is expertly steered by the incredible and legendary Li-Anthayirriwarra Sea Ranger unit, alongside Dr Rachel Groom and Dr Jackie Gould (CDU), the iconic Assoc. Prof John Bradley, many amazing collaborators within the Northern Territory Government and AAPA.

This is a multi-disciplinary project, within which there are collaborative ventures and responsibilities of Kuril & Currawong alone. We support this project by:

• Collaboratively building new frameworks for designing management interventions in sea Country oriented around Yanyuwa ontologies of value and threat

• Creating and delivering analysis pathways that spatially summarise where Yanyuwa sea Country values are concentrated, where they are exposed to the highest perceived threats, and how that impounds to create risks to healthy seas across the Yanyuwa sea Country estate

• Collaboratively working with other interest holders in the design of sea Country management interventions with the intention of highlighting areas of consensus and shared values

• Communicating the approach, its findings and the resulting asks of the Yanyuwa families to a wide range of academic, policy, land manager and Traditional owner groups

Yanyuwa Country