THE KNOWLEDGE NETWORK NEWSLETTER

Welcome to our first edition!

The Knowledge Network is designed to support BHP Foundation Environmental Resilience GSP Projects to succeed. 

The Newsletter is a space to showcase project achievements, share strategies, provide Network activity updates and connect you with external resources. Our aim is to cross pollinate ideas, share learnings and provide the information and inspiration to support you and your team to be successful.

PROJECT STORIES

10 Deserts Project Site Visit

From the 6-9 August BHP Foundation and 10 Desert Project visited the Katiti-Petermann Indigneous Protected Area (IPA) with Traditional Owners, Rangers and young fellas from the Mutitjulu community. We were hosted by the 10 Deserts Project partner Central Land Council.  

10 Deserts Project site visit group pic at Lake Amadeus

Over three days we travelled through the IPA camping each night, glimpsing Uluru and Kata-Tjuta from a different spot each day, hearing stories from the Elders. We watched the young fellas on country lighting fires as part of the traditional burning practices and learnt from women about the impact of camels on waterholes and cultural places. We were immersed for three days - traveling on country - as active participants in the IPA activities.

10 Deserts Project site visit video

LandScale Initiative

Time is running out to solve the complex and far-reaching environmental and socio-economic challenges facing our planet.  

Issues such as climate change, biodiversity loss, and water depletion will affect us all. Yet no individual, community, business, or government can tackle them alone. We need to look beyond our own borders—be that of a farm, village or supply chain—to fully understand these challenges and implement effective actions to address them.

The LandScale initiative is aiming to help those who are ready to think big and collaborate between sectors or across an entire landscape to address these challenges and drive sustainability at scale. 

The first phase of public consultation for the LandScale Assessment Guidelines is open until 15 October 2019. You can support Sophie and the LandScale team by providing comments and sending the link onto others in your networks who would be interested in contributing to the design.

KNOWLEDGE NETWORK ACTIVITIES

Project Exchange

The first cross project exchange will showcase the incredible work being done by Aboriginal people, who live and work in some of the world’s most remote communities in the heart of the Australian desert. 

Indigneous Desert Alliance Southern Deserts Ranger Forum 2018 

The 10 Deserts Project is the largest Indigneous-led conservation network on Earth and aims to build capacity of Indigneous groups to look after country for a range of economic, social, cultural and environmental outcomes.  You can watch the project video here.

The Indigneous Desert Alliance (IDA) plays a vital role in securing the projects future by strengthening the existing connections between desert people, empowering desert people to look after country and connecting the desert story with the story of the Australian nation.

The exchange is timed to align with the annual Indigneous Desert Alliance Conference from 5 - 7 November 2019, with a lead-in program to be co-designed with participants.

During the IDA Conference at Yulara we will experience:  

•  Welcome to Country
• On country visit with Traditional Owners in and around Uluru
• An expo showcasing the unique work of desert ranger groups
• Workshops on fire, threatened species, weeds and feral animals
• Indigneous leadership and empowerment program
• Key learnings from IDA on-country training events 

A lead-in program in and around Alice Springs will showcase Indigneous enterprise, women’s leadership, wellbeing, tourism and governance. The program will be co-designed based on the interests of participants to ensure we spend our time with the people and initiatives that will benefit the project work at home. 

The exchange is designed for BHP Foundation Environmental Resilience projects that work in partnership with Indigneous communities. With only six places available, this unique opportunity will provide the chance to connect, share experiences and dive deep into topics of mutual interest.

Registrations are open until 20 September 2019

Online Knowledge Network Portal

We’re working with Mikaela Jade, founder of Indigital, who will guide us as we start to build the Network’s online activities. Mikaela will join us for a webinar to explore web collaboration tools and share her experiences in developing online communities and digital enterprise platforms. During the research and design phase there will be an opportunity for you provide feedback on the features that would make your experience of connecting online easy and useful. We’ll provide more information on the portal design via a webinar – stay tuned for updates to come!

Mikaela Jade, Ariadne Gorring and Digital Custodians from the Wilinggin Indigneous Protected Area at the Microsoft Offices in Sydney Sept 2018

Annual Program Workshop

Alto Mayo Project CI Peru

The Annual Program workshop for BHP Foundation Environmental Resilience program partners will be hosted by the Conservation International Alto Mayo team in Peru, scheduled for early April 2020. A field experience prior to the workshop will provide the opportunity to learn more about the Alto Mayo Project and Conservation International’s strategy.  We’ll also create the space for LandScale to showcase the approach to data collection and landscape monitoring being trailed in Peru. 

In the lead up to the workshop we’ll ask for partners to nominate to work with the organising team to co-design the workshop agenda.  The aim of the workshop is to collectively review progress and impacts across the Environmental Resilience program; to share knowledge; and to design the best ongoing mechanism to support Projects to succeed, based on information from the Knowledge Network pilot.

Project M&E Learning Group

A Project M&E learning group will be setup, based on a request from program partners to share project monitoring and evaluation strategies. The group will provide a two-way learning space to: 

• share approaches to Project M&E 
• discuss ways to align reporting across the Environmental Resilience GSP 
• consider how to track and showcase the collective impact 

Hannah from 10 Deserts, Amy from Resilient Reefs and Braulio & Cecilia from Alto Mayo have nominated for the group with a date for the first meeting to be agreed in the coming month. The invitation remains open to other team members working on project monitoring and evaluation to join the discussion. Send me an email if you’d like to participate.

Feel free to reach out about newsletter content and send stories to include in next month’s edition, I’m keen to know what external resources would be of interest to you and your team. Until then stay tuned for more details on the first topic based webinar.

Warmly,

Ariadne, The Knowledge Network                                

If you’re interested to know more about my story and what shapes me, listen in to the Atlantic Fellows podcast.

If you would like to receive future newsletters and updates from The Knowledge Network please click the subscribe button below.