Standard Presentation Australian Marine Sciences Association Annual Meeting 2023

Cultural guidance and historical context informing the management of Wadandi Sea Country (#136)

Wayne Webb 1 , Tim Langlois c/o Gibbons 2 , Nicole Middleton 3 , Andrew McGregor 4
  1. Undalup Association, Margaret River, WA, Australia
  2. The University of Western Australia, Margaret River, WA, Australia
  3. Marine Parks Branch - Parks Australia, Kingston, TAS, Australia
  4. Seabird Films, Margaret River, WA, Australia

Wadandi, People of the Sea, are the Custodians for the far southwest region of this continent. With obligations to protect, manage and monitor their Sea Country, a partnership was developed between Wadandi-led project team, Parks Australia and researchers at the University of Western Australia and in collaboration with the Australian Government’s NESP Marine and Coastal Hub to provide cultural guidance and historical context to benchmarks and monitoring of Wadandi Sea Country.

Through the leadership of Wadandi knowledge holders this project, extending the previous NESP Marine and Coastal Hub partnership, provided cultural and historical guidance on ecosystem components for the Geographe Bay region on Wadandi country, providing context for managing the culture and ecosystem within the marine parks into the future.

We will outline the co-design and co-delivery process and lessons learned through our partnership and present a new short film documenting the project.