by Sonam Lama Hyolmo on 18 July 2024
- Aboriginal elders in the far north of Australia’s Queensland state are preparing the next generation of junior rangers to conserve endangered southern cassowaries, take care of their traditional land, safeguard their culture, and hold on to millennia of acquired knowledge.
- Along with declining southern cassowary numbers, traditional knowledge and values are diminishing in youth who put more attention on Western knowledge and technology.
- The young rangers not only spend time learning in classrooms; they also go out into the traditional country with elders who help shape their character and identity as caretakers of their people, land, Mother Earth and themselves.
- Ranger Manni Edwards says the way to effective conservation in his community, and in Australia, is by bringing together scientific and traditional ecological knowledge, which includes wisdom and values that forge a connection between people and nature.
Manni Edwards credits his journey to preserving the wisdom of his elders to an encounter with goondoi 40 years ago.
At the age of 8, Edwards says, he saw up to 14 colorful goondoi, or southern cassowaries (Casuarius casuarius) moving together in herds, socializing and breeding across the vast wetlands of the cassowary coast in Dyirribarra Bagirbarra Country, what is today the far north of Australia’s Queensland state.
But over the years, these sights have become rare. Along with the bird’s declining numbers, traditional knowledge and the cultural significance of cassowaries have diminished among the young. Also fondly known as a “rainforest gardener” for spreading the seeds of the fruits that it eats, the southern cassowary is listed as endangered in Australia, with only 4,400 left in the wild in the wet tropics region there.
To stop the ongoing loss of knowledge and culture, local leaders bought part of their ancestral land from the state in 1982. They then created a conservation area where the young act as rangers and are taught the traditional ways to conserve it.
