By Kay
Carvan, Public Awareness Officer, AQIS NT
Working together, community
ranger groups across northern Australia and the Australian
Quarantine and Inspection Service — AQIS — are
combining traditional skills and knowledge of country with western
science to enhance quarantine monitoring for exotic pests and
diseases.
In 2006 AQIS set up a team
to work with coastal Indigenous communities for providing
quarantine monitoring and surveillance and to train and support
participants.
Less than two years later,
AQIS is working with more than 40 Indigenous groups across northern
Australia.
AQIS remote area team
co-ordinator Lyndall McLean says, “Fee for service
contracting means Indigenous land and sea managers can generate
income for their ‘on-the-ground’ efforts. The contracts
set out the work to be done and the training to be
given.
“Together, AQIS and
the rangers work out what quarantine work can be done in their area
and draw up a work plan. AQIS then trains the rangers for work such
as mozzie trapping and ant collecting, weed patrols or beach
patrols where rangers collect insects from timber that may have
washed ashore from illegal foreign fishing vessels, then dispose of
the timber,” Lyndall says.
Getting involved can have
longer-term benefits, too. AQIS currently employs thirty-five,
full-time Indigenous staff across northern Australia. They are
located in Broome, Darwin, Gove, Bamaga, Cairns and across the
islands of the Torres Strait.
Gove-based liaison officer
Mangatjay Yunupingu says: “The contract scheme helps extend
community recognition of the role of AQIS, provides skilled
‘eyes and ears’ on the ground when we can’t be
there and offers much-needed training and financial benefits to the
community.”
For further information
contact, Kevin Langham, Assistant Regional Manager AQIS NT,
(08) 8920 7020
