Kowanyama carbon

Kowanyama carbon

• 8 Indigenous Rangers on country for ground burns and aerial support
• 3 TOs employed as part-time advisors
• Balancing cultural outcomes with carbon outcomes
• Generating ~$1M per year cashflow through the local economy

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What’s next?

Kowanyama carbon

• LRF Contract for co-benefits (AfN / Ecological Fire Method)
• Requires a shift to avoidance + sequestration (2018? 2024?)
• Increase on-ground activity by Ranger team and TOs
• Better cultural outcomes, incorporation of traditional burning

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Then what?

Markets for nature

…and other nasty surprises

NOTICE: OPINIONS NOT ENDORSED BY MY EMPLOYER

Where is an example of money delivering the goods?

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• if you can feed yourself and your family from the land, and
• if you can live in a place of your choosing, and
• if you can talk with whoever you want to, then

You’ve already got 95% of life sorted.

Why do we get paid?

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1. Mainstream society really wants to see Indigenous people taking care of their own country, in their own way, at their own pace.
2. Mainstream society is a bit worried about climate change, and support politicians who “do something about it”
3. The industrial/consumer/capitalist construct is being forced to shave a fraction of their cashflow off to a new expense category (ESG, PES, …) and will fight at every step to ratchet that expense downwards over time.

Why do we want to get paid?

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1. Indigenous economic advancement.
2. To keep doing the work of caring for country
3. Because there seems to be no alternative

Markets for nature

Indigenous view:

• My bones are Country. Country is family.

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Western view:

• I am separate from things. Land is an asset class.

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Money is the air you breathe� in a land we should all be reluctant� to live in.

Money is the air you breathe� in a land we should all be reluctant� to live in.