Contribute to caring for the Durumbura

We call on the neighbours of the Durumbura River, who care for Dharug Ngurra/Country, to come together to walk towards caring for the Durumbura Dhurabang (Lane Cove River).

Three stakeholder workshops are scheduled to address the wellbeing of the whole River, assess the current River health, and engage both Indigenous and technical methods to determine what is required to care for Country through the River sustainably in the city. This program follows the recent successful journey that saw the return of Dharug women’s-led cultural fire at Bidyiwung Badhu Nuru (Brown’s Waterhole) and an important Stockland and Macquarie University Black Snapper student research project that provided a preliminary environmental, social and geo-planning assessment of Shrimpton’s Creek.

The workshops will bring together Dharug traditional custodians, Macquarie University researchers, National Parks and Wildlife Service, local Councils, Macquarie Business Park organisations and community stakeholders to walk together and find solutions to the issues that urbanised society presents for the River.

We invite you to join us for the second of three stakeholder workshops.

Workshop 2: Sharing current stakeholder perspectives
9:30am - 2:00pm, Thursday 10th October

Connecting Waters, Reflecting Songlines - Jacinta Tobin (Dharug singer-songwriter and researcher)
Nature based swimming in cities – Dr Peter Davies (Smart Green Cities Research Centre)
How community values are shaping catchment management – Leanne Niblock and Nerida Taylor (Sydney Water)
A group discussion on what your organisation is doing, what your organisation can do in the future and how sharing information will help your organisation

Morning tea and lunch will be served.

N.B. You do not need to have attended workshop 1 to join workshop 2. For a summary of the discussion at workshop 1 - please see this summary. More information on workshop 1 can be provided upon request.

The other workshops in the series are:

(PREVIOUS) Workshop 1: Introducing perspectives on the river
9:30am - 2:00pm, Friday 16th August

Indigenous Knowledges, ontologies and practices – Dr Jo Rey and Dharug Community
River and waterway knowledges - Dr Tim Ralph
Caring for the Durumbura – Group discussion on hopes for the future

(UPCOMING) Workshop 3: Pathways session: Co-designing long-term care for the river
9:30am - 2:00pm, Tuesday 10th December

We will develop an agreed plan to work together on projects of collective interest such as collaborative research, placemaking strategies, education programs or regeneration projects.

This Dharug-led initiative has received seed funding from the Macquarie University Consilient Partnerships Grant scheme, and supported by the Department of Critical Indigenous Studies, Faculty of Arts, Macquarie University (MQU).