FEATURE: Indigenous insights help save coral reefs

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's first official act on taking office just over a year ago was to ratify the Kyoto protocol on climate change. That was swiftly followed with a historic apology to Aborigines for past injustices. The Australian leader's actions were warmly welcomed in Queensland - where indigenous knowledge is helping scientists at the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority manage the world's biggest coral reef system. And further afield in the Pacific, the scientific community is working more closely with indigenous stakeholders - whose input, it is now recognised, is crucial if coral reefs are to survive the expected ravages of climate change.

Corinne Podger

Last Updated: Thu, 8 Jan 2009 16:02:00 +1100

Ever since Captain Cook's fellow voyager Joseph Banks introduced the west to eucalypts, acacias and the eponymous banksia, our startling landscape and wildlife have fascinated scientists, and captivated conservationists.

But two centuries of observation and data collection are a tiny fraction of the millennia indigenous communities have spent studying this country.

They've watched it long enough, in fact, for its greatest reef to be built, millimetre by painstaking millimetre, into a glittering band 2,600 kilometres long.

Now, indigenous custodians are working side by side with scientists to manage this vast natural resource.

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