This website captures research that Leonore Hanssens has conducted over the past ten years into Indigenous suicide in the Northern Territory. Leonore has created the site in response to approaches by fellow researchers, students and other interested parties for information about her research and how to access it. More recently, she provided input to parliamentary discussions of the issues of youth suicide (NT Parliament, 2011) which brought the  need to share information to the forefront.

Leonore hopes the website can be a useful tool and resource for laypersons, students, academics and others and will contribute to the discussion on suicide in Australia and identify ways to alleviate the tragedy in our community.

Visit the site -http://www.promotelifent.com.au

Strengthening leadership to ‘Close the Gap’ – conference at Citigate Central, Sydney, 15-16 February 2012.

Further information visit http://indigenousleaders.com/

Eat Strong: Good Food for Health Program – Indigenous Nutrition Project,  14 February

The Rural Health Education Foundation (RHEF) will broadcast the second program in their Indigenous Nutrition Project on 14th February. It will be a half hour documentary showcasing health promotion and community development programs in rural and remote Australia. Watch it via the Rural Health Education satellite television network, on NITV, or webstreamed.

You can also go to the RHEF website – register for the webcast and view the 1.5 hour Good Tucker: Improving Indigenous Health program that broadcast on December 6. … the program includes Dr Andy Hume and Anthea from RIG Network in the panel discussion.

Visit www.rhef.com.au/programs for further information and to register and view the above programs.

National Close the Gap Day – Thursday 22 March

Get involved and join thousands of people and organisations around Australia holding events to raise awareness about Indigenous health issues and the need for action! You can register your event at http://www.oxfam.org.au/nctgd . Register online and Oxfam Australia sends you posters, a DVD specially made for the day and Close the Gap T-Shirts. Resources will be sent out in February. Events can take place in homes, workplaces, schools, universities, medical centres or wherever you think people may be interested in finding out more about the Close Gap campaign. Events can be large or small, formal or informal, and can follow whatever format best suits you!

Why not build an event with community members to link with and celebrate your local food and garden projects?!!!

Qualifications for Carbon Offset Providers and Aggregators

The Australian Government has introduced a carbon tax of $23/tonne which will come into force from 1 July 2012.

Although the carbon price will not apply to agricultural emissions, it will enhance opportunities for farmers and land managers under the Carbon Farming Initiative (CFI).

The CFI provides new economic rewards for farmers and landholders who take steps to reduce carbon pollution. It will do this by creating credits for each tonne of carbon pollution which can be stored or reduced on the land. Farmers and land managers will be able to generate income from credits for actions including reforestation and revegetation, reduced methane emissions from livestock digestion, reduced fertilizer emissions and native forest protection.

A significant feature of the implementation plan is carbon skills. In collaboration with the Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency (DCCEE), AgriFoods Skills Australia is developing a qualification for carbon offset providers and aggregators to ensure the quality of advice given to farmers optimizes the environmental and economic benefits they derive from participating in the CFI. It is anticipated the training package will be available in the latter half of 2012.

The carbon skills component of the Implementation Plan will ensure that Australian farmers are informed how to integrate carbon farming across current farming practice.

Through the Indigenous Carbon Farming Fund, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders will receive assistance to participate in the CFI. Indigenous Australians manage around 20 per cent of Australia’s land mass, drawing on traditional knowledge of the landscape and its responses to fire, flood and drought.

Complementary to the CFI is the new Biodiversity Fund which has been allocated $946 million over the first six years to support projects that establish, restore, protect or manage biodiverse carbon stores. The Biodiversity Fund will increase the resilience of Australia’s flora and fauna to the impacts of climate change, enhance the environmental outcomes of carbon farming projects, and help landholders to protect biodiversity and carbon values on their land.

Story and image kindly provided by Di Dibley, Consultant, Policy and Program Development, AgriFood Skills Australia.

From: RIG News #16 – December 2011

Training for Collecting & Selling Native Seed

Over the years Greening Australia has developed training modules on how best to collect and handle native seed for revegetation (http://www.greeningaustralia.org.au/index.php?nodeId=106).

Courses are tailored to a range of needs.  GA, through its Florabank service (http://www.florabank.org.au/) offers a four day course for professional seed collectors seeking to upgrade their skills with the latest from CSIRO and other researchers. GA also offers a one day course for community groups in farming areas of southern Australia.  With support from AgriFoods Skills Australia (http://www.agrifoodskills.net.au/), GA has developed and piloted a two day course for seed buyers targeting the mining sector. Once the materials are finalised and approved by AgriFood Skills Australia, GA will market the course widely.

For Indigenous Groups, Greening Australia has developed a seed collection unit as part of their Aboriginal Landcare Education Program (ALEP) (http://www.greeningaustralia.org.au/our-projects/people/aboriginal-landcare-education-program). This unit covers the collection, cleaning and storage of seed and is aimed at a 20 nominal teaching hours module. A useful companion module is ALEP Learning Guide # 3 which is about recognizing plants. The set of 14 ALEP Learning Guides were developed through many years of delivering land management training in remote Indigenous communities in the NT. The “Safe Houses” project is a recent example of where the training was provided in 16 remote NT communities in conjunction with the on-ground landscaping around the houses.

The Learning Guides are aimed at Certificate Level 2 students but the content is relevant to other levels and informal training situations. A number of Indigenous communities have set up plant nurseries and collect their own seed to propagate through the nursery. There is an increasing interest in developing ‘bushtucker’ gardens both in communities and in schools. Greening Australia in Darwin has recently assisted a number of Darwin schools in the development of gardens that feature traditional food plants.

Indigenous communities are in an excellent position to do contract seed collecting. They have access to their land and they are on the spot to monitor fruiting and seed ripening. This can be quite variable from year to year. Cleaned seed is quite variable in price and dependent on how easy it is to collect and how heavy the seed is. Hard to collect species can fetch up to several hundred dollars per kg of seed. Greening Australia NT is interested in purchasing local seed from Indigenous groups provided the seed meets our requirements.

There are clear opportunities to partner in the provision of training and the development of income streams based on the natural resources on Indigenous land.

Story thanks to Dr Greg Leach, CEO, Greening Australia NT & David Freudenberger, Chief Scientist, Greening Australia.

For further information on the ALEP Learning Guides contact GA in Darwin (info@nt.greeningaustralia.org.au or 08 89473793).

From: RIG News #16 – December 2011

EcoMushroom micro-enterprise training and development

Slay and Jasmin Herro are innovators for food sustainability. They are the proprietors of iSustainable Indigenous Corporation, a company that tackles ‘food security’ by providing training and inspiration to disadvantaged people in urban, rural and remote Australia. Their latest venture is EcoMushrooms, a 100% owned and operated Australian Indigenous business that is developing mushroom production using environmentally sustainable systems that use coffee grounds as the base growing medium.

In 2010 Jasmin and Slay were inspired by a presentation by Dr Gunter Pauli from the ZERI Foundation that was broadcast at the Australasian Permaculture Convergence in Cairns. In 2011 they had the opportunity to meet with Dr Pauli in Australia. This led them to arrange and sponsor a visit by Ms Chido Govera to provide training in simple, effective mushroom growing techniques. Chido, an exceptional young woman from Zimbabwe, has pioneered techniques that ‘work’ in disadvantaged and often very remote contexts by utilizing available organic mediums to grow and harvest mushrooms. Community members lead and facilitate local ‘train the trainer’ community learning. As Chido explained at a seminar she gave at Sydney University, many organic mediums often considered waste can be used to grow mushrooms – palm and banana leaves, straw, sawdust, cassava leaves, water hyacinth, coffee grounds….and you can start very ‘small’ with very modest mushroom houses.

Chido visited Sydney in November to provide training in the simplified techniques of growing mushrooms that she has developed through her work with the ZERI Foundation working with disadvantaged communities in Africa, Europe, South America and elsewhere. Chido worked with Slay and Jasmin and the team at the University of Sydney’s mushroom research unit with support from the Australian Mushroom Growers Association to demonstrate the step by step processes involved from planting the seed to harvest (a process that takes about six weeks). Two key stages are involved requiring different levels of technical skill – learning how to grow mushrooms from seed on the chosen medium; and then learning how to grow the mushroom seed in your local context. Diverse groups were involved in the training, including participants from Sydney’s TAFE Outreach Program, the Indigenous Communities Alliance and the Cabramatta Migrant Centre.

In addition to developing their own EcoMushrooms business, Jasmin and Slay are keen to work with and provide training support services to like minded groups who are looking to develop a business that can create employment and business opportunities for communities that really want and need them.

To learn more about EcoMushrooms visit http://www.ecomushrooms.com.au/index.html.

To read about Chido Govera’s amazing personal journey and support the Foundation she has established visit http://www.ecomushrooms.com.au/chido.html and http://zeri.org/ZERI/Chido_Govero.html.

Pictured below: Jasmin Herro, Chido Govera and Slay Herro in Sydney during Chido’s visit in November, 2011.

Sustainable innovation – to reduce food miles & support community bush plant gardens

The Desert Farm and Power Plants program

By Scott Pullyblank, Curator Botany, Alice Springs Desert Park – for RIG News #15 – October 2011

The Alice Springs Desert Park is a Botanic Garden with a difference; in fact, there are many differences from those one might normally associate with a Botanic Garden. Firstly we are wholly Australian arid zone with regard to plants and animals. The park is set out in habitats and sub habitats, strictly following what is found at actual reference sites around the southern Northern Territory.

The animal collection is displayed within these habitats, adhering to the habitat philosophy just as closely as the botanical collection.

Professional Guides offer a range of nature and culture based experiences to our visitors. The majority of the Guides are local Aboriginal people who interpret the cultural landscape with an authentic voice. Fixed interpretive panels, and an audio guide also, have powerful central Australian Aboriginal themes.

One of the park’s latest projects is Desert Farm and its offshoot Power Plants. This project enhances the Desert Park’s strong community focus and commitment to environmentally sustainable practices.

Using skills accumulated by our staff over fourteen years of arid land horticultural practice, a Desert Farm has been created. Desert Farm was initially created to:

• reduce the Desert Park’s food miles and carbon footprint i.e. grow all of the food for the animal collection locally rather than buy food from other parts of Australia.
• Provide opportunities for tourism and
• Deliver more interesting and healthy food to the animals in our collection

While there is an increase in the amount of labour and time required to propagate, grow and harvest the plant material, there will be financial savings, as the need to purchase some foods decreases.  Desert Farm provides a unique opportunity to engage with tourists. Partnerships are vital to the success of this project. The Desert Park is working with: local and national voluntary organisations, local individual volunteers and is in the process of securing partnerships with local organisations to expand the potential of the Desert Farm Project.

Desert Farm provides opportunities for education, training, local involvement and cultural experiences for visitors. Most importantly it will produce a large proportion of the food that our animal collection requires. If we cannot grow it ourselves, we will find local sources or substitute it with something we can grow. What we grow in the farm is, and will be, in keeping with our philosophy of growing plants of local provenance to avoid the unwitting introduction of weed species.

In 2009 I attempted to calculate the Desert Park’s carbon footprint with regard to the purchase of food items to support our animal collection. However, there was difficulty measuring factors such as greenhouse emissions at the point of cultivation, emissions brought about through transport of the produce from the farm to the regional commercial centre. Another major addition to green house is the refrigeration of food. In the end there were so many unknowns that the accuracy of the calculations I made were just too questionable. We know that our purchase of food from interstate brings about greenhouse emissions and, put simply, we know that growing locally will save on emissions.

The next step was to research what we should grow. There was very little information about what animals eat. Most of the information with regard to bush foods was naturally about people.

I consulted with local Aboriginal people and made extensive use of the reference Bushfires and Bushtucker, Aboriginal Plant use in Central Australia by Peter Latz (1996). The internet has also been helpful. The author of Bushfires and Bushtucker (Latz, 1996), Peter Latz, can often be found working in the Herbarium of Central Australia which is on the Desert Park site and so Peter has been an advisor on this project.

Having decided what we could start to grow there were some logistical considerations such as how to:

• grow the species effectively (they come from a wide range of ecosystems
• harvest the produce
• provide an ongoing supply of food from highly seasonable crops that often have a very short season of supply (an ongoing challenge)
• effectively store produce over time.

It is to be noted that:

• a number of these species have not been grown in cultivation before
• seeds and cutting are not always available for propagation (though the recent wet conditions have assisted in these endeavours
• none of the species selected have had any genetic manipulation at all which means:
  • seed producers have evolved to shed and disperse seed rather than retain it
  • produce ripens over an extended period of time making cropping difficult or it ripens suddenly and disperses suddenly
  • there is great variation in the actual product (not necessarily a disadvantage to us)
  • the ‘storage life’ of the produce can be very short
  • seeds and fruits are often quite small
  • In certain seasons or years very little of the product wanted is produced by the plants.

Despite these challenges, we are well on the way with this project.

Initially there was some concern expressed with regard to the nutritional content of the food items. It has taken some investigation to unearth this information however now we have some data. Most of the information comes from researchers looking into the food value of traditional bush tucker with human consumption in mind so sources researching human diets have revealed far more than have animal diet research sources. It is interesting to note that the diets of species less often kept in captivity have not always had the benefit of scientific research. Data on nutritional values and volumes consumed in wild diets is often sparse.

A major challenge is, and has been, people. None of the staff on the Zoology section had any experience in the use of produce with these characteristics and the collection of food from a ‘farm’ was a totally new experience. Few of the Botany staff had any experience in growing plants for production in a farm situation. Team work and communication have been important.

We have experienced success in growing root vegetables and for most of winter produced all of the park’s requirements. Expansions to garden beds will see us return to this self sufficient state in the near future. Likewise leafy greens are now within our scope. Various species of chenopod have proven successful with Old Man Saltbush (Atriplex nummularia) proving to be very productive, palatable to the animals and easy to grow. Locally grown sources of leafy greens from commercial growers are also available to us.

One area of production remains a challenge and that is the production of seed. Native grasses can be difficult to collect seed from and the process can be very time consuming. We have partially overcome this by collecting semi ripe and green seed. This is done by cutting the whole seed stalks and placing them into aviaries – a practice commonly carried out by backyard bird breeders.

Another way we are working on overcoming the seed problem is by substitution. Most birds will not eat acacia seed after the testa has hardened (some members of the parrot family being the exceptions). More species will eat the seed when it is green. Seed is difficult to collect in this green state as timing is all important. ‘Hard’ acacia seed has two major advantages: it is easier to collect as timing is not quite as critical and it can be stored for a very long time – years in fact. We have been experimenting with some success using ‘sprouted’ acacia seed in the bird mixes. Consequently around 200 acacias of mixed species, selected for seed production and ease of seed collection, have been propagated and are being planted into the Desert Farm (Oct 2011). Sprouted seed is being added to the bird mixes and can substitute for seed and greens.

Records are extremely important. Keepers record the amounts of food they feed out and which animals are eating the food items. As project manger I record what is available both for the keepers to use and as part of our long term records so that we can increase, and retain, knowledge.

I also do weekly observations and report to the keepers what I find is available or what will be available soon. I confer regularly with Zoology staff re animal diets and Botany staff with regard to further development of Desert Farm. All produce is weighed and the measures recorded. These records are crucial to future planning and knowledge retention.

We started Desert Farm in 2008. To date the seasons have been so variable that there is little correlation between one year and the next. A plague of grasshoppers left us with very little in the summer of 2009/10 though we did find that grasshoppers do not like Bush Cucumbers (Cucumis melo). We produced around 8kg of Bush Cucumbers a week between November and the end of March from two trellises about 25m long (see photo). In the next summer (10/11) humidity reduced this crop to almost zero through fungal infections. So far this year is looking like really good for most of our produce including Bush Cucumbers (Cucumis melo). These elements of life plague every farmer – no pun intended.

Power Plants

Since commencing work on the Farm, we have been approached by a number of remote communities keen to develop their own gardens. The program we have consequently developed is called Power Plants.

Power Plants is specifically designed for people in remote communities.

The major goals and outcomes of the program are:

• a landscaped garden of around a 1 000sq metres with automated irrigation
• a garden in which the community decides what will be grown and the purposes of the garden. Reasons behind the selection of plants could be cultural, medicinal, nutritional, or aesthetic.
• a garden containing plants local to their area
• training towards a Certificate II in Conservation and Land Management.

The propagation material, from which the plants will be grown, will be collected from within the community’s ‘country’ and propagated at the Desert Park by the trainees with Desert Park staff training and assisting them. The Desert Park, with its Registered Training Organisation partner, Batchelor Institute, will train people so that they can create and maintain a garden, then mentor people so they have support into the future. All training will be accredited towards a Certificate II in Conservation and Land Management.

The Desert Park recommends that each project is linked to an existing community organisation to increase the likelihood of long term success. The gardens have the potential to be cultural hubs within these localities as they will be a wonderful place to relax in, share stories and harvest culturally important plant material. The Alice Springs Desert Park is taking a slice of itself into remote communities.

The Desert Park has a smaller version of the farm which has been growing since 2000 – a Bush Medicine/Bush Tucker Garden. The garden, and the produce from it, is used in our Aboriginal cultural presentations. It is also a good example for people to see what might be possible in their own communities if they decide to team with the Alice Springs Desert and create a Power Plants garden.

Desert Farm has also offered opportunities for tourism and community involvement. Community involvement is one of the Desert Park’s central charters.

Desert Farm model for volunteers gives participants a choice; to work with our staff or, if they prefer, to work independently after an orientation and OH&S induction. A daily activities board, sign in book and printed procedures enable people to achieve this.

Ecotourism activities where participants are able to assist with the daily operations of Desert Farm such as cropping and planting are in place. As a reward and ‘magic moment’ people will then have will be the opportunity to feed some of the animals with the produce they have cropped. Our Guides have also developed activities where participants collect and sample bush tucker – an authentic outback experience.

Future Desert Farm planning and planting includes the provision of bushtucker samples to every visitor and provision of bushtucker to the Desert Park catering franchise. Estimated yields also include the potential of partnerships with other tourist operators or caterers to provide bushtucker experiences. The Desert Park believes that tourist experiences, in particular ecotourism, still have some way to go in terms of their development and ability to satisfy the demands of tourist market segments.

Desert Farm is still a work in progress and like all projects will evolve over time. In some ways, we still feel that we are in the exploratory phase and yet we have planted over 12 hectares with mixed crops, developed tourist experiences and opportunities for voluntary involvement and begun to replace purchased foods with produce from our own farm.

When we set our goals we knew these were heady aspirations and yet our footprint on planet earth is reducing.

Acknowledgements: This article appeared in the newsletter of BGANZ ‘The Botanic Garden’, Issue 31, November 2011’ and was kindly provided for RIG News #15 by Scott Pullyblank, Curator Botany, Alice Springs Desert Park. Scott is a member of RIG Network’s Advisory Group.

References

Australian Government Department of Resources, Energy and Tourism: Tourism Snapshots and Fact Sheets 2009.

http://www.ret.gov.au/tourism/tra/snapshots/culture/Pages/default.aspx

Gabella, S., and Abraham, A. B., 2008. Food Miles in Australia: A preliminary study of Melbourne, Victoria

http://www.ceres.org.au/sites/default/files/CERES_Report_%20Food_Miles_in_Australia_March08.pdf.

Gabella, S., and Cranley, L., 2008. Food Miles in Australia: A comparison of emissions from road and rail transport

http://www.ceres.org.au/sites/default/files/FoodMiles_A_comparison_of_emission_from_road_and_rail_transport.pdf

Salem, L., Thompson, E., Elvin, H., (no date of publication). Bush Tucker in Kidney Failure and Diabetes. Canberra: Aboriginal Studies Press

Latz, P., 1996. Bushfires and Bushtucker: Aboriginal plant use in Central Australia. Alice Springs: IAD Press

Australian Government Department of Resources, Energy and Tourism : Tourism Snapshots and Fact Sheets. 2009

http://www.ret.gov.au/tourism/tra/snapshots/culture/Pages/default.aspx

Note: A detailed map of the Desert Farm is included in ‘The Botanic Garden’ article. Further images, including a diagram of the PowerPlants program, are included in RIG News #15 – October 2011, as published and distributed. This can be downloaded from this website from the Useful Resources section.

Pictured below: Native Millet, Bush Cucumber, Bush Bananas – flowers, fruit and roots which are all edible.

The Napranum Community Farm

Susan and Phillip Bonaccorsi, from Community Enterprises Australia, and the Napranum community and CDEP team are growing and cooking up a storm on the west coast of the Cape York Peninsula. The community farm is fast becoming a local ‘food hub’.  It provides a successful focal activity upon which the community is building a range of other food services and activities that together, are making a real difference to local people by helping to make fresh food more readily available and affordable in a variety of ways. Susan and Phillip kindly provided an update from the Napranum Community Farm and spoke with RIG Network for the following story.

‘It has been an exciting year for us all here and we’ve been very busy with many new projects on the go. At the farm, which is about 22 acres in size, we have had a good year of cropping with high yields. We successfully grew watermelons, tomatoes, capsicums, zucchini, cherry tomatoes, chillies, pumpkin (both Kent and Butternut), honeydew melon, eggplant, sweet corn, paw paw, passionfruit and rock melon. The rock melon was good early in the season but once it gets ‘hot’ forget about trying to grow them as they stew on the ground before they are ready! But otherwise, everything else grew really well. We were able to get two plantings in of everything and in some cases three. We are still picking and will be until the rains come.

Because of the successful crops we have found that we have quite a surplus – even though we sell our fruit and veg from the farm we still have excess produce. So we are in the process of building a registered kitchen. This will be up and running in two more weeks and it will include a servery that is connected through to our veggie stall. We are all very excited about the kitchen as it will enable us to make pickles and jams that we can also sell on the farm at our store. Two of our participants have achieved their HACCP certificates (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point Procedures for Food Safety) so it will all be done safely and above board. This will eliminate waste and add a new dimension to the farm. We already dry fruit with our dehydrator and our dried bananas are very popular. We have enough bananas to cater for the whole Cape. So, we have a lot of excess fresh bananas that we dry. This helps stop waste and provides a product that is selling like hot cakes!’.

RIG: How does the farm sell its produce?

Susan: We have a farm store and fruit and veggie stall. The stall operates four days a week on weekdays. We also run a fruit and veg market every second Saturday at which we sell farm produce that we top up with produce sourced from elsewhere and is delivered by Seaswift (that we make sure is ‘ready for sale’ within an hour – so its fresh!). This enables us to ‘guarantee’ a reliable supply of the range of fruit and veg that local people want. The produce we source from elsewhere we sell at wholesale rates plus 30% to cover freight. We price produce grown at the farm at the wholesale rates of the day at other markets. So, in this way we keep all of the produce as affordable as possible while also making a profit on the fruit and veg produced locally at the farm.

RIG: Who buys the produce?

Susan: We have lots of customers and they include local people from the community, tourists, and people from Weipa who travel the 14kms or so to Napranum community to buy fruit and veg from our market.  A key group of consumers are pregnant young women who receive Apunipima (the local health service) Food Vouchers to the value of $40.00. At our prices, $40 buys a lot of fruit and veg and the market and voucher system really helps these girls and their families eat well. At last Saturday’s market – that only went for two hours – we sold $1200.00 in fruit and veg. That’s quite a lot when you factor in that everything we sold that weekend was priced at $6.00 a kilogram or less.

RIG: Who works in the garden?

Susan: We have a fantastic team, and the farm operates with community and CDEP participant support. Up to 14 people on CDEP work in the garden, it varies, but it’s around 10 people at 4 days per week.

Other developments….

‘We have started some exciting new ventures. One of them being a project for the new Western Cape Campus being built here in Weipa just outside Napranum. We won the contract to supply all the plants for the campus site. This has given us a new large nursery and has enabled many of the participants to achieve Horticulture 2 Certificates. This is still ongoing but the participants have worked hard and all that had to be repotted has been. We are talking about hundreds of plants and trees. It has been hard work but we have done most of the hard part now and we are looking forward to the rain to help with the vigour of all the plants.

We are a team here and we would never have achieved what we have this year without the hard work put in by everyone’.

Below: Pictures from the Napranum Farm and Napranum Nursery project activities for the Western Cape Campus project.

Story and images kindly provided, Susan and Phillip Bonaccorrsi; images with permission from Susan and Phillip and Brendan Hodson and Robert Woosup. Many thanks.

Thanks to everyone who has participated in RIG Network events and activities or contributed stories for RIG News in 2011!

Christopher Thiesfield & Associates Pty Ltd (CTA) – New Supporting Sponsor in 2012

Warm welcome and thanks to CTA who have recently become a Supporting Sponsor of RIG Network’s core programs. CTA is a majority indigenous owned company that specialises in accredited training in rural and remote parts of Australian in the areas of Horticulture and Rural Operations. They also supply and install solar powered home and community hydroponic units for the consistent year round supply of fresh vegetables.

In-Scape-Out Living Systems – New RIG Advisory Group member and Partner Organisation

In-Scape-Out is an NT based landscape design and construction business specialising in sustainable and productive landscapes. They possess qualifications and experience in Horticulture, Architecture, Permaculture, Training and Assessment and Community Gardens design and development and believe there are incredible opportunities for Indigenous communities to engage in and develop local food production at many levels from individual gardens to productive enterprises.

The Rural Health Education Foundation has been funded by the Australian Government Department of Health and Ageing with additional funding from the St. George Foundation and The Marian and E.H Flack Trust to produce two educational television programs looking at health and nutrition amongst Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. These programs are part of the Foundation’s Indigenous Nutrition Project which also includes an education resource DVD on healthy nutrition for the use of Aboriginal Health Workers and other community health workers in their communities.

The first program is a live and interactive webcast and simultaneous satellite television broadcast entitled Good Tucker: Improving Indigenous Health which will air nationally on Tuesday 6^th December 2011 at 8pm AEDT. The panel discussion and Q & A session will air across the Foundation’s satellite network and on NITV as well as online.

Pre-register for the webcast and submit questions to the panel.

Visit the Foundation website www.rhef.com.au for detailed information.