Healthy Country Planning and its application for landcare

Tuesday 6 August 2024 1.30-2.30 pm online on Zoom

Join WALN and its special guests to explore the world of healthy country planning and its application for landcare. Understand more about what healthy country planning is, how First Nations groups are using it and how landcare groups might develop co-planning processes.

We will also explore how healthy country planning approaches might be applicable to community landcare groups, enabling them to establish a good planning process, regularly check in on how much progress is made against core objectives, and continually adjust efforts to achieve those objectives.

Hear from Paula Deegan, a planning practitioner, about what the healthy country planning process looks like and her observations over many years of working in this space. She will be joined by Darryl Kickett, a Director of Wilman Dryandra People Corporation Ltd, to talk about the process from the perspective of First Nations people wanting to continue their ancestors’ work on strengthening cultural and ecological connection to Country. And Carol Dowling who is the former Chair of Badimia Bandi Barna Aboriginal Corporation and was pivotal in the development of the Badimia Bandi Barna Healthy Country Plan.

Our Speakers

Paula Deegan has around 40 years of experience working in various land and water conservation roles in both the government and not for profit sectors. Based in Albany/Kinjarling for the past 24 years, she has supported conservation action planning with groups associated with Gondwana Link and, since 2012, has worked on supporting First Nations people from around Australia to develop and implement healthy country plans. She thinks she might be starting to get the hang of how to do it.

Darryl Kickett is a Wilman Noongar man who grew up living in tents on road verges near Dryandra. After obtaining a BA in Social Science he worked in many government and community organisations in developing policies and structures for delivery of health and other community services designed by and for Aboriginal people. His achievements in these roles were acknowledged when he received the NAIDOC Person of the Year Award in 2013. He is currently Senior Research Fellow and Project Leader for the Australian Research Council project “Healing Land Healing People: Novel Nyungar Perspectives”. Through his work with Wilman Elders on this project, he initiated the formation of the Wilman Dryandra People Corporation Ltd of which he is a Director, while guiding the development of the Wilman Dryandra Healthy Country Plan with the participation of around 60 Wilman people.

Carol Dowling is a proud Badimia (Yamatji) woman (nyarlu) knowledge holder (marja) whose family comes from the Central West of WA. She has worked as lecturer in Aboriginal Studies for over 32 years at Curtin University, Edith Cowan University and University of Western Australia specialising in Aboriginal arts, indigenous research methodologies/postgraduate studies, human rights, sustainability, politics and culture. Carol holds a Bachelor of Arts (Aboriginal & Intercultural Studies) from Edith Cowan University and a Master of Arts (Indigenous Research and Development) from Curtin University. Carol has a doctorate in Social Sciences from Curtin University with her PHD research involving an auto-ethnography of five generations of Badimia women in her maternal family. Dr Dowling has also won two national Australian Human Rights Commission awards for radio in 2013 and 2014. As inaugural Chair of the Badimia Bandi Barna Aboriginal Corporation (BBBAC), Carol along with committee members and elders wrote a healthy country plan that led to a $15.2m joint management agreement with the WA state government for 114,000 hectares including two former pastoral leases and reserves.

This event is generously supported by the WA Government's State Natural Resource Management Program and the National Landcare Network.