"If I show you correct land management and you learn this, wouldn't that create a great relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people?"

Our Research

Chuulangun Aboriginal Corporation conducts a range of research activities and projects across the Kaanju Ngaachi Wenlock and Pascoe Rivers Indigenous Protected Area (IPA). All research activities undertaken are initiated and led by the rightful Kuuku I’yu Traditional Custodians and are under the umbrella of our Land and Resource Management Framework. Importantly, scientists and research institutions interested in conducting research on the Kuuku I’yu Northern Kaanju Ngaachi must make contact and obtain the consent of the correct Traditional Custodians for those particular areas. For the IPA, contact should be made with the Chuulangun Aboriginal Corporation.

We have established Research Guidelines to guide research activities on our Ngaachi. These guidelines include protocols for the development of collaborative research projects and agreements with the aim to protect Indigenous intellectual and cultural property rights and involve Traditional Custodians as initiators, leaders and full collaborators and beneficiaries of research rather than as mere subjects of research, guides, gatekeepers or bystanders to the research process.

Chuulangun Aboriginal Corporation has long-standing partnerships with a number of western science experts and research institutions that work with us on a range of research projects on the IPA and surrounding Kuuku I’yu clan estates. These include:

• Dr Simon Kennedy, ecologist and GIS specialist, provides advice, expertise and support, coordinates fauna survey projects on the IPA and supports the Chuulangun Rangers with surveys and management in a two-way learning process.
• Dr Susan Semple, Clinical and Health Scientist at the University of South Australia (UniSA), has worked with us for over a decade on a number of Australian Research Council (ARC) funded projects investigating Traditional plant medicines. This well-established collaboration with UniSA has become a model for equitable partnerships and benefit sharing between Indigenous and western scientific researchers.
• Dr Michael Morrison, an archaeologist based at the University of New England has worked as a consulant on Chuulangun’s cultural heritage projects which surveyed rediscovered rock art on the Kuuku I’yu Ngaachi.
• Dr Don Hankins has expertise in Indigenous stewardship and environmental planning and is collaborating with Chuulangun Aboriginal Corporation on a project investigating the impact of fire on biodiversity.
• John Locke, Biocultural Strategist, collaborates with Chuulangun Aboriginal Corporation in a number of areas including digital sequencing for our Indigenous plant medicines projects, indigenous spatial identities and cultural mapping as well as providing expert advice and support. For more information on John’s work visit Biocultural Consulting.

Chuulangun Aboriginal Corporation Founder and Kuuku I’yu Northern Kaanju Traditional Custodian the late David Claudie was a member of the Traditional Knowledge Roundtable which provided expert advice to the Queensland Government on reforms of the Biodiscovery Act 2004. In 2020, reforms introduced the traditional knowledge obligation to better align with international standards such as the Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit Sharing. The Nagoya Protocol requires that biodiscovery be conducted only with the prior informed consent of Indigenous communities who possess traditional knowledge about the resources. It also mandates that the benefits of biodiscovery are shared fairly and equitably. The traditional knowledge obligation necessitates that biodiscovery entities take all reasonable and practical steps to ensure that traditional knowledge used for biodiscovery is utilized under an agreement with the custodians of the knowledge. For more information visit: Traditional Knowledge and Biodiscovery.

Kuuku I’yu Rock Art ->

Traditional Plant Knowledge ->