The Lama Lama Rangers undertake a variety of natural and cultural resource surveying, monitoring and research across our Land and Sea Country, to support informed decision-making about the management and future of our Country.
We team up with experts and research institutions who assist with building skills and experience within our team. Our projects include ‘two-way’ learning and bridging scientific and Indigenous knowledge.
Our key motivations for undertaking natural resource assessment and monitoring include:
- Gaining a better understanding of the existing knowledge. Over many years researchers have been collating and gathering information from the Princess Charlotte Bay area. Most of this has been done without Lama Lama’s involvement. We wish to build on this knowledge by incorporating our Indigenous Knowledge of country, and of contemporary natural and cultural resource management. We want to ensure that Lama Lama people are aware of, and involved in, all research conducted on Lama Lama Country by educational institutions (such as universities) and other research organisations.
- Undertaking information gathering projects, aligned with our priorities and protocols, and building on our traditional knowledge. With such a diversity of habitats in our natural environment (including mangroves, wetlands, sublittoral rainforest etc), and an array of conservation and management issues, it can be challenging to decide where to focus our attention. However, our experiences living on, working in and looking after country guides us. We now look for opportunities to team up with individuals and research institutions with similar interests or priorities to assist us.
- Monitoring of key species, habitats and sites of natural and cultural importance, and monitoring for significant changes to Country – including from the impacts of climate change or past and present development pressures. Monitoring is carried out to observe and document changes that are occurring throughout our Country. Our current focus is on climate change where saltwater incursion into freshwater lagoons and seasonal wetlands and changes to mangrove communities is occurring. We also monitor changes within our freshwater wetlands including the impacts of feral animals and weeds and subsequent management, and changes to water quality.
