The way Indigenous communities manage their lands and waters is intrinsically spatial and has been for over 60,000 years. There is significant opportunity to complement their existing knowledge of the landscape with information from Earth Observation training and potentially bespoke services. There are also significant challenges that Indigenous communities face, which must be acknowledged, understood, and accounted for to best serve their needs.

The primary outcome of this project will be to create a set of evidence-based recommendations for current use and future Earth Observation capabilities and training that could best serve Indigenous communities. The recommendations will be informed by thorough consultation with Indigenous communities and will be directly tied to use cases identified during the consultation.

The Project will be led by Winyama, an Australian, Indigenous owned and operated business with extensive experience facilitating the digital engagement of Indigenous people and communities, and who will work in collaboration with business partner NGIS Australia and FrontierSI on project outcomes which recognises the inherent link between space and spatial for the management and preservation of Indigenous lands and waters.

The project will provide a foundation for building Indigenous capacity to use Earth observation technologies, and is strongly aligned with the Australian Government Closing the Gap initiative, which aims to improve outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians.