Our Story

Australia’s post-colo­nial food sys­tem has seri­ous­ly degrad­ed the envi­ron­ment — a result of both the wil­ful and acci­den­tal neglect of the com­plex inter­con­nec­tions between food sys­tems and the wider ecosys­tem. This has been com­pound­ed by the forced aban­don­ment of the Indige­nous Aus­tralian prac­tices of car­ing for Coun­try. As seen in Dark Emu: Black Seeds: Agri­cul­ture or acci­dent?, tra­di­tion­al agri­cul­tur­al prac­tices worked in har­mo­ny with the land to pro­vide for peo­ple, while also main­tain­ing Coun­try. The chal­lenge for Aus­tralia is to accept Indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties re-engag­ing and empow­er­ing them­selves with the util­i­ty of these pre-colo­nial food sys­tems and land stew­ard­ship prac­tices, and for us to sup­port Indige­nous Aus­tralians lever­ag­ing their own tra­di­tion­al cul­ture and knowl­edge for eco­nom­ic ben­e­fit and envi­ron­men­tal stewardship.