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NintiNews - February 2012

Dear friends and colleagues,

Ninti One News	CRC-REP News	Camel News
All about Ninti One	Research roll-out	Satellite collars
Fairer elections	Climate Change Adaptation	AFCMP team: Glenn Edwards
Report with a difference	Our tourism leader
Inpirational	Great career opportunities	Remote diary
Bushfire warnings	Literacy success
	Value of education

All about Ninti One

2012 is already shaping up as an important year for Ninti One Limited, with a number of major research projects underway. For the benefit of our new friends and to update our partners on who we are and what we do, here are some basic facts about us.

Ninti One is a not-for-profit national company set up specifically to tackle social and economic disadvantage, and to improve the lives and economic opportunities of people living in the remote and desert regions of Australia.

Our business is the discovery, management and delivery of knowledge aimed at achieving a brighter future for desert and remote people and their communities.

Originally set up to manage the intellectual property and deliver results from the former Desert Knowledge CRC, Ninti One now also manages the CRC for Remote Economic Participation and the Australian Feral Camel Management Project, and other related research. We manage research aimed at protecting the natural desert environment, at understanding the impact of climate change on remote Australia, and at building economies in remote Australia. Through our subsidiary RemoteBiz PL, we train and employ Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Community Researchers who assist with our research, as well as many postgraduate students.

Ninti One is a nationwide company, headquartered at the Desert Knowledge Precinct in Alice Springs, NT, alongside some of our partners such as Desert Knowledge Australia, the Desert Peoples Centre and CSIRO.

We originated in the desert, and we remain committed to the future of its people, communities, industries and landscapes. We operate according to high ethical principles, especially for respectful knowledge sharing with our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander partners. We have a strong belief in the value of partnering for solving major challenges, and wide experience in this area: we currently have 60 partners (listed at http://crc-rep.com/partners/partners-list) and always welcome opportunities to form fresh partnerships.

Areas of current activity include research about bush plants and foods; remote tourism; better remote education; precision pastoralism; Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art economies; regional economies; population and workforce mobility; climate change in the deserts; development of new enterprises; new pathways to employment; the links between health, education and employment; feral animal control; energy and carbon futures; the contribution of mining; and governance in remote areas. For more information, see our website: http://crc-rep.com/research. back to top

Fairer elections

^{Dr Will Sanders}

In a remarkable illustration of the impact of our work, Ninti One has helped make the Northern Territory local government electoral system fairer. Back in 2009, Dr Will Sanders, a researcher in the former Desert Knowledge CRC and in Australian National University, published a study that pointed out basic inequities in the existing electoral system. The points he made were taken up in a subsequent official review by Professor Benjamin Reilly and, on 24 November last year, the NT Minister for Local Government announced major changes to the vote counting system for multi-member wards in local government elections.

Dr Sanders explains that under the old system, minority groups such as the residents of Alice Springs town camps, for example, might vote in local elections but had little or no chance of electing any representatives at all. Another example is where small and large settlements are placed in multi-member wards in the remote area shires and people vote largely for candidates from their own place. Under the new system, settlements will win council positions in rough proportion to their number of votes, so having 20% of the votes will get a small settlement one council position in a four member ward. Under the old system , by contrast, more than half the votes in the ward were needed to win each seat, so large settlements would win them all.

The electoral changes will ensure a more equitable value to votes in all NT local elections. Australia prides itself as the land of the fair go – and this work by Will, DKCRC and Ninti One takes us a step closer to that ideal. back to top

Report with a difference

^{Ninti One Annual Report 2010/11}

Remote Australia is helping to build our nation – and Ninti One is here to help remote Australia achieve greater economic, social and environmental success through research. How we go about that is detailed in our new Annual Report for 2010/11, which has just been published.

Our Communication team has come up with a short, snappy report that is bright and beautifully illustrated; we hope you find this a real pleasure to read. Go to http://www.crc-rep.com.au/resource/NintiOneAnnualReport2010-11.pdf or ask us for the neat, hand-held print version for your bookshelf. back to top

Inspirational

Communicating science and sharing knowledge effectively are vital throughout remote Australia. I’m pleased to report that Ninti One has received a grant from the Federal Government’s Department of Industry, Innovation, Science, Research and Tertiary Education under its Inspiring Australia program to Chair and coordinate the Expert Working Group for Desert Regions on behalf of the department. Many of our partners are represented on this Working Group.

Inspiring Australia aims to build a strong, open relationship between science and society, underpinned by effective communication of science and its benefits. The national strategy has broad objectives that call for the widespread support of science and research agencies, education providers, industry and the business sector, cultural and community organisations and many others working together to promote understanding of science. The Government provided $21m over three years in the 2011–12 Budget towards the program. See: http://www.innovation.gov.au/Science/InspiringAustralia/Pages/InspiringA... and http://www.innovation.gov.au/Science/InspiringAustralia/ExpertWorkingGro...

If you have any views about ways to improve science communication in desert and remote regions of Australia, or promising projects you’d like to suggest, please feel free to contact our Communications Manager, Linda Cooper, at linda.cooper@nintione.com.au. back to top

Bushfire warnings

Brenda Mackie, a second-year BushfireCRC PhD student, is looking at how people interpret bushfire warnings. She has developed an online survey to test some ideas that have come out of two rounds of interviews and an in-depth literature review. Brenda urgently needs interested participants to do her survey several times during the fire season. Survey volunteers should be aged 20–60, have lived for three years (or more) in a semi-rural or rural area, be internet-savvy and not be overly involved in local CFA or community fire-mitigation groups. Please contact Brenda at: bmackie10@gmail.com. back to top

Research roll-out

^{CRC-REP Research Team}

Seven out of CRC-REP’s 10 major research programs are scheduled to get underway during the next three months, following value-adding and approval by our Board at its December meeting (see last NintiNews for details). Most of these are now in the process of gaining ethics approval from their university and stakeholder partners, recruiting research scholars and students, and completing literature reviews to ensure we are building on the latest work in the field and not duplicating work already completed elsewhere in the world. The other three programs – energy; tourism; and pathways to employment – will follow shortly (see below).

This means the backbone of our main research effort is now at the start-line and the real work of the CRC can begin. My warmest thanks and sincere congratulations to everyone whose inspiration and commitment have got us to this important point. back to top

Climate Change Adaptation, Energy Futures and Carbon Economies in Remote Australia

We are in the process of recruiting a leader for our combined research program into Climate Change Adaptation, Energy Futures and Carbon Economies in Remote Australia. We’re looking for an exceptional individual with experience and a PhD across one or more of the following fields: natural resource management or economics; carbon sequestration and emission; biological, engineering or socio-economic research related to climate change adaptation; renewable energy; or systems science. The person we seek must also have strong cross-cultural communication skills. Details at:

http://crc-rep.com/news/seeking-principal-research-leader back to top

Our tourism leader

^{Left to right: Dr Jim MacBeth and Dr Damien Jacobsen}

CRC-REP has recently appointed Damien Jacobsen to lead our research into Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island Tourism Products. Together with the appointment of the Climate Change Adaptation, Energy Futures and Carbon Economies in Remote Australia project leader (above), this will complete the full suite of CRC-REP’s proposed research program.

Damien, who is well-known for his pioneering research into aspects of 4WD outback tourism in the DKCRC, is now hard at work developing the detailed proposal for this research. Damien is being assisted by Southern Cross University vacation student Ms Cherise Addinsall, who has conducted a review of literature on tourism and Indigenous people in remote areas around the world. The review will help generate a broad understanding of international experiences that will inform the project. Cherise has also been selected as the Honours candidate for the project, beginning from February. Her work is titled ‘Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Tourism in a Remote Area: Do the Principles of Entrepreneurship Differ in a Remote Tourism Concept?’ During this work, Cherise plans to conduct a case study exploring the issues and challenges faced by an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander remote tourism entrepreneur, and how these realities differ from existing theories of entrepreneurship. back to top

Great career opportunities

A number of CRC-REP scholarship places are still available for students wishing to shape a challenging and exciting career in the issues of remote Australia. These include scholarships in:

Population Mobility and Labour Markets
Climate Change Adaptation, Energy Futures and Carbon Economies in Remote Australia
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Economies
Plant Business
Enduring Community Value from Mining
Interplay Between Health, Wellbeing, Education and Employment
Remote Education Systems
Precision Pastoral Management Tools

Those wishing to apply should go to http://crc-rep.com/news/scholarship-opportunities-still-available. back to top

Literacy success

I’d like to pay tribute to the outstanding success and recent expansion of an educational program in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander literacy and numeracy, which was developed by our partners at the University of New England (UNE).

QuickSmart, developed by Professor John Pegg and his team at SiMERR (National Centre for Science, Information and Communication Technology, and Mathematics Education for Rural and Regional Australia) is a visionary program designed to help students and adults with low levels of literacy and numeracy catch up quickly and so overcome learning disadvantage.

Martin Trotman at SiMERR says that Aboriginal students at around 50% of NT schools using QuickSmart have achieved a dramatic three years’ worth of literacy gains in a single year – and, for the first time in their lives, many are tasting academic success. “This has an enormous impact on their self image and confidence, and benefits the entire class by bringing all students on faster,” he adds.

As a result of this success in schools, the program is now being extended to adults in two vital areas – in NT correctional centres, where inmates are being trained as literacy and numeracy tutors for their fellows, and in the Federal Government’s (FaHCSIA) Community Development and Employment Projects (CDEP), where QuickSmart is helping Aboriginal communities develop the skills of workers in their projects. back to top

Value of education

^{Dr Mike Dockery}

Evidence from both international and Australian research suggests that the wellbeing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people is enhanced when they maintain their traditional culture. A new paper by CRC-REP research leader Mike Dockery and colleague Simon Colquhoun uses qualitative data from the Longitudinal Study of Indigenous Children to explore this relationship in the context of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians. Specifically, they analysed responses to two questions: ‘What is it about Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander culture that will help your child to grow up strong?’ and ‘Apart from health and happiness, what do you want for your child?’

‘The responses to these two questions highlight that Aboriginal parents place great importance upon education, but also upon their child maintaining and learning about aspects of their culture for identity development, upon the positive experience of traditional culture and the significance of support from the community to which they belong. These are preconditions to the achievement of success through education,’ Mike says.

Their paper The link between Indigenous culture and wellbeing: Qualitative evidence for Australian Aboriginal peoples by Simon Colquhoun and Alfred Michael Dockery is published by the Centre for Labour Market Research and School of Economics and Finance, Curtin University as Discussion Paper 2012/01. back to top

Satellite collars assist operational planning in SA

^{Example of satellite collar tracking data received from a feral camel in SA's Simpson
Desert}

Satellite collars deployed onto 25 feral camels in South Australia’s remote Simpson Desert are assisting operational planning during 2012.

The collars, which transmit a camel’s location via satellite to an internet service twice daily, are revealing how environmental factors such as rainfall and bushfire influence feral camel movement. Information gleaned from this satellite tracking also helps determine where operations – including aircraft use, surveying and reducing feral camel impacts – can be best targeted.

Feral camels have been shown to be very mobile, with some moving up to 70 kilometres in a single day, although their movement is highly variable.

There are plans to deploy another five satellite collars to camels in western South Australia later this year. Once deployed, the collars are expected to continue transmitting data until batteries run down in 3–4 years’ time. back to top

AFCMP team: Glenn Edwards

^{Dr Glenn Edwards, NRETAS}

Few Australians are as knowledgeable about feral camels as Dr Glenn Edwards. Glenn is a Principal Scientist working for the NT Department of Natural Resources, Environment, The Arts and Sport (NRETAS) in Alice Springs.

The NT Government and NRETAS are key partners in the Australian Feral Camel Management Project (AFCMP), and Glenn makes a vital contribution with his knowledge, expertise and over 22 years’ experience in arid zone ecological research. He holds a BSc Honours Degree and a PhD in Ecology from the University of NSW.

Glenn has conducted extensive, original research on native Australian mammals over many years, publishing 27 peer-reviewed research papers and contributing to state and national policy dealing with the management of threatened species and vertebrate pests in Australia.

His work took a new focus in 2001 following his aerial survey of feral camels in the southern NT: ‘When we analysed the information from that survey and compared it to the previous surveys we were alarmed to see that it looked like the camel population was doubling about every 8 years.’

In the past ten years Glenn has published extensively, in collaboration with other experts and the Desert Knowledge Cooperative Research Centre, on the management of feral camels in Australia.

‘The good thing is that we do have management options, ranging from aerial culling of camels, to mustering of camels to use them for meat, for pet meat, and so on,’ he says.

‘There is a diversity of views out there but one thing is quite clear now: the impacts that camels are having on people and the landscape are becoming quite apparent to a whole range of people who are living out there.’

In terms of managing feral camels into the future, he says, ‘I think we have a crisis and we need to deal with it. We need to reduce the camel population immediately and get it down to a more manageable level. Once we’ve got the population down it opens up a whole range of other management options that we can have into the future.’

Away from feral camels, Glenn’s personal interests include spending time with his family and running half marathons.

NRETAS plays an important role in conserving, enhancing and ensuring best possible access to, and enjoyment of, the Territory’s natural and cultural assets. This includes native wildlife and habitats; renewable natural resources, including water and natural landscapes; historic buildings and places; scientific, literary and cultural collections; sport and recreation development opportunities; as well as promotion and development of strong, creative communities. back to top

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With my best wishes to everyone for a productive and prosperous 2012 in which we aim to achieve some real results for Remote Australia.

Jan Ferguson

Managing Director

Ninti One

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