It was wintertime in the desert country of Maralinga Tjarutja people, and properly aru (cold) too. Camping out, we were lucky to have shelter from a shed tank as we woke up to thick fog and then rain. The Oak Valley Rangers were hosting several schools from the area for a two-way science camp, talking and learning about weather and seasons. We were also there to continue planning for the proposed Indigenous Protected Area; recording the important things to look after (targets), and the threats impacting on those targets.
As we have talked about previously, the Covid-19 pandemic has meant that we’ve had to adapt the way that we deliver training and workshops, and support teams and communities across the world. Working with Conservation International (CI) in Timor-Leste has been an enlightening experience of how we can work together to share the Conservation Standards adaptive management framework in Covid times and in another language – Tetum. Neither of our facilitators Heather Moorcroft or Pip Walsh speak Tetum but with the CI in-country team both translating and helping out with the in-room facilitating, we were able to successfully run the first training block on the Conservation Standards from our homes in Australia.
Marine Protected Areas tend not to get the same air-time as their terrestrial cousins, but Conservation Management is working to change all that. We have recently been working with Parks Australia staff on adapting the Conservation Standards for use in the Australian Marine Parks context (see blog post here).
