Project to harness desert knowledge
by Geraldine Hinter
Indigenous
people from desert communities are being encouraged to use their
traditional knowledge of native plants to identify, grow and market
plants for use as food, medicine and other products for their long-term
livelihood.
UniSA is a key researcher in the South Australian study of the national Plants for People project. The project supports Indigenous communities to establish and manage business enterprises to commercialise native plant products, developing community members' skills in areas such as plant identification, cataloguing, classifying, propagating and growing native species.
The project is one of the areas being studied by the Desert Knowledge Cooperative Research Centre, led by the CSIRO in Alice Springs. UniSA and Curtin University are core partners in the Plants for People project, along with Tjutjunaku Worka Tjuta Inc (TWT) and the Tapatjatjaka Community Government Council.
Associate Professor Brian Cheers, director of UniSA's Centre for Rural and Regional Development at Whyalla campus, is the team leader for the South Australian site. Other study sites are located in Western Australia and the Northern Territory. Aboriginal people in the Ceduna region have accepted the invitation to be South Australian partners through a steering committee established through TWT at Ceduna and many of them will be community researchers in the project.
Selected arid-land plant species from all sites with market potential are being collected and analysed in laboratories at UniSA and around Australia to determine their nutritional and medicinal properties.
“Our study will focus initially on nutritional, rather than medicinal, properties of the plants. We are working with the communities involved to enable them to document traditional knowledge of the cultural uses of local plants so that they can use the information on the nutritional and medicinal properties of plant species to develop a range of initiatives for their use, including community health. Each community retains full ownership of their knowledge and will decide which knowledge they make available for the project,“ Prof Cheers said.
“We are committed to communities producing culturally and environmentally appropriate business development plans, and conducting relevant skills training programs with the aim of establishing at least one plant-based business enterprise in the Ceduna region.
“This project will enhance cross-cultural understanding and increase recognition of Aboriginal traditional knowledge, while ensuring that Indigenous communities own and gain the benefits of this knowledge,“ Prof Cheers said.
Some of the project’s aims include developing field studies on plant distribution and ecology, establishing local herbariums containing specimens of selected plants, developing appropriate technologies for cultivating plants, laboratory evaluation for food and medicinal value, ecological restoration, and applying the knowledge and new technologies in health and training programs and business enterprises. One project being considered is establishing a 'native plant trail’ in the region surrounding Ceduna.
Prof Cheers is supported by UniSA team members Dr Susan Semple (pharmacy), Ian Gentle and Colin Weetra (Spencer Gulf Rural Health School), Joan Gibbs (natural and built environment), Dr Mary Oliver (nursing and rural health), and Martin O'Leary (state herbarium, Department of Environment and Heritage).
The national Plants for People project has been awarded CRC funding of $448,130, with more than $1.5 million in-kind support from partner organisations.