Tropical Topics is a six to eight page educational newsletter used by the tourism industry and schools.

Tropical Topics contains detailed information about wet tropics, savanna and reef ecosystems and their numerous plants and animals.

A series of resources to promote arson awareness in Cape York.

Project Number: CY PA 13 - Crab Island

Project Name: Crab Island Flatback Turtles

Organisation: Cape York Peninsula Development Association

Project status: Funded by NHT 

Amount provided: $13,800

Date started: April 2008   Date completed: December 2008

MATs from Cape York Peninsula NRM Plan:  CB3.2; RA2.1; RA2.3; CB3.3; CB1.4

Summary

Words Ben Lister and Robyn May

Who Plans Here is a Cape York NRM tool accessible on our website. The tool enables users to locate plans that are in place across the region. Plans are updated regularly, with over 150 plans currently available.

Plans that Cape York NRM has permission to share can be located by searching a selected area on the site’s Cape York map—plans within that selected area will be displayed. Users will then have the option to download, or to contact the plan owner for access.

Words Robyn May | Photo provided

When Cape York NRM’s Systems Analyst and Program Support Officer Ben Lister isn’t busy turning data into knowledge, he’s training for triathlons and perfecting the art of roasting – and consuming – coffee.

Ben’s role involves developing data collection and storage systems that support decision making for the organisation and Cape York land managers.

Cape York NRM have installed the last of three internet – enabled weather stations in Lakeland in order to provide the local producers with more reliable weather information to help them make important decisions around nutrient and water use.

Regional Extension Coordinator Oliver McConnachie, who is leading the initiative, said gathering weather information accurately at the local level and integrating it with Bureau of Meteorology data will lead to more reliable weather predictions.

We want the Cape York Healthy Country Newsletter to include you—the Cape York community.

There are some very talented story tellers, artists, photographers, plus wonderful land manager projects, across the Cape community—and we have hundreds of readers who’d love to read, or see, your work.

Or maybe your school or community group has something exciting to showcase, or an event coming up that you’d like to promote more widely. They may be innovative online events!

Words Robyn May | Photo Jessie Price-Decle

Cape York grazing families didn’t let a little thing like a Cat 1 cyclone deter them from heading to the 2019 Cape York Grazing Forum held in Laura recently

Cape York NRM ran the event in partnership with South Cape York Catchments, Rural Financial Counselling Services North Queensland, AgForce, Queensland Department of Agriculture and Fisheries, and was a great success. 

Contemporary Indigenous fire practice is based on ancient knowledge and culture. But contemporary science proves its effectiveness. Science and traditional knowledge are very different ways of knowing, and the two approaches are still learning to work together. Meet Dean Freeman, whose work puts him right at the intersection of traditional fire practice and contemporary fire and land management methods. Dean Freeman is a Wiradjuri man – he’s the Aboriginal Cultural Fire Officer with the A.C.T Parks and Conservation Service.

Two Kuku Thaypan elders are at the heart of the story of the national revival of Indigenous fire practice. Dr George and Dr Musgrave had long been determined to take care of their country as their culture required, using the right fire at the right time, as their ancestors had done for tens of thousands of years. They overcame legal and bureaucratic obstacles, and inspired a new generation to learn and understand how fire could be a medicine for the earth.

Indigenous fire practice is based on the deep cultural understanding that the right fire at the right time maintains or restores environmental balance. It’s very old knowledge, increasingly supported by contemporary science. As the revival of cultural burning spreads, scientists and land managers are increasingly interested, even though science and traditional knowledge are very different ways of knowing. It’s crucial scientists and academics learn to work appropriately and respectfully with Indigenous people.

For tens of thousands of years, Australia’s Indigenous people managed environments with fire, using fire sticks to light carefully timed burns in the right places. That traditional practice now gives its name to the organisation helping to revive it – The Firesticks Alliance.

The traditional burning movement has many supporters and advocates all over Australia.

Talk to any of them and it won’t be long before you hear them mention “Victor”, The man who learned about fire from those two Cape York old fellas, the bloke who does the fire workshops.

Victor Steffensen is a central figure in the revival of Indigenous fire practice.