'an assessment of the commercial and non-commercial use…’ of the Great Barrier Reef Region, s 54(3)(c) of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Act 1975 (Cth)
“When tourism occurs on Country, with First Nations traditional Custodians driving innovation and sustainable culturally safe practices, it is beneficial for our people. I want to build a legacy for our next generation and tapping into some of these industries and opening up corridors for some of them to walk through the world with ease. Tourism creates a corridor for young people to get a job and move into other industries.”
— Victor Bulmer, a Mandingalbay Traditional Owner and collaborator with Mandingalbay Indigenous Tours in Far North Queensland
“Pretty nice hey! It’s a sea cucumber. This one here is called a pineapple sea cucumber because the skin of it looks like a pineapple. You have about three main types, a pineapple cucumber, a black sea cucumber and the local red sea cucumber. What you’re looking at here is something that was traded between our people and other cultures for thousands of years.”
— Jacob, cultural guide with Dreamtime Dive and Snorkel
Indigenous employment is important for young mob to find their way to stable employment pathways. Jacob, a cultural guide on Cairns-based Dreamtime Dive and Snorkel, exemplifies how culturally safe tourism is a vehicle to building capability. It is a culturally safe workplace for First Nations professionals. Young cultural guides are mentored by a senior First Nations employee. Jacob shares knowledge handed down over the generations and gives tourists a more direct experience of First Nations Culture and his own relationship to Sea Country.
“My passion for the Reef and the marine life it holds will never go away because it is a part of me and makes me who I am. Being a Master Reef Guide and an Indigenous Australian, I can be a role model and show them no matter how hard that it may be, if you carry yourself with pride for your culture and the respect of your family, your buma (people) and your Country, you can be all that you can be.”
— Dustin Maloney, Master Reef Guide
“This is one way to come back on Country, and to bring my family and other mob back on Country, to where we belong. Sometimes when our people come back, it is the first time in their lives that they have been back to their own Sea Country.”
— Robert Congoo, an entrepreneur and Ngaro, Gia and Kalkadoon man who runs cultural tours in the Whitsundays region
Source: Caring for Sea Country – Traditional Owner Stories from the Great Barrier Reef 1
References