Caring for Country
Supporting and resourcing First Nations people to continue to care for and protect Country as a fundamental and urgent climate solution.
This grant round supports First Nations led climate initiatives and is led and run by Groundswell’s First Nations team – Tishiko King and Lille Madden.
The application process is supported by our First Nations committee members – Louis Mokak, Alexander Dirksen, Lisa Viliamu Jameson, and Roxy Moore.
In 2023 we are distributing $320,000 to First Nations organisations protecting Country. Applications for our next grant round will open in 2024.
Criteria
The Caring for Country Grant Round supports the work of Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander and Pacific Islander people:
Protecting Country: Prevention of fossil fuel expansion eg. advocacy and campaigning.
Caring for Country: Land, sea and water management eg. preserving and protecting carbon sinks.
Climate solutions: Supporting Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander and Pacific Islander led climate solutions eg. agriculture to sequester carbon and energy transition initiatives.
Preserving culture: Strengthening community to ensure ongoing generational care for Country, eg. protecting cultural heritage.
This grant round is proudly supported by the Eisen Family Private Fund, the Oranges & Sardines Foundation and the Dusseldorp Forum.
Grant winners 2023
Gudanji for Country
Gudanji For Country was formed to help elevate the voices of their Clan group, the Kurrunjini Rrumburriya (part of the Gudanji Nation), in speaking for and caring for Country. As a grass roots First Nations organisation, they are fighting to protect our Country from the damaging effects of overgrazing, mining and now fracking. This grant will help bring a team of researchers out on Country to document the interconnectedness of our people, culture, Country and and demonstrate how important it is that we protect Country from imminent destruction through fracking.
The Veilomani Project
With it looking more like COP31 will to be held in Australia in 2026, co-hosted with the Pacific, the Veilomani Project is an opportunity to mobilise Pasifika youth based in Australia via a series of events and empowerment workshops held throughout 2024-2025, fostering climate collaboration and strategic planning with the youth to amplify Pacific voices and ensure we are able to shift the narrative and provide Pacific Islands with the best possible chance of survival.
Karrkad Kanjdji Trust
The Karrkad Kanjdji Trust brings together First Nations ranger groups, communities and philanthropists to address some of our nation’s most pressing issues. These include regenerating our natural environment, taking action on climate change, creating meaningful and equal employment opportunities, and supporting the continuation of the world’s oldest living culture This grant will support a dedicated team of Warddeken rangers are working to protect what is believed to be the largest body of undocumented rock art in the world.
Protect Binybara
Binybara (Lee Point) is a location of sacred Larrakia law, Dreaming and cultural significance that is currently under threat of being destroyed by Defence Housing Australia to build 800 houses for the military and privatisation of Aboriginal land. This grant will support Larrakia young people and Elders stop the military housing project at Binybara and protect Country and strengthen relationships across Larrakia Nation through movement building.
Willum Wurraun Pun Pun Project
Willum Warraun Pun Pun is an Aboriginal gathering place in Hastings on the Mornington Peninsula with over 600 members, creating a safe cultural space for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people living locally to connect around culture. This grant will support the revegetating of a creek at the back of their property, which is an important ecological wetland habitat for endangered species under threat from climate change.
Currie Country Social Change Aboriginal Corporation
CCSCAC is deeply committed to preserving and stewarding Country and have identified two historically significant fish trap sites – Cabarita and Fingal Head in Bundalung Country NSW– that face degradation, endangering delicate ecosystems. Their objective is to restore and safeguard these sites, ensuring their significance for Traditional Owners and the wider community and this grant will support two weekend projects, led by Traditional Owners, focused on rebuilding and revitalising these fish trap sites. This hands-on approach ensures ancestral knowledge is passed down, deepening our connection to the land, sea, and waters.
Martuwarra Fitzroy River Council
The Martuwarra Fitzroy River Council is an entirely Indigenous led organisation, guided by a diverse representation of senior elders with cultural authority and knowledge holders on the front line, defending against the destruction of cultural heritage, ecological damage, poverty, and climate change. They’re working together to ensure Martuwarra – a living ancestor and a global treasure – retains a right to live and flow through education, research, storytelling, community outreach, legal and policy venues.
Weaving Waterways
'Weaving Waterways' is a program that will empower First nations people to reinvigorate weaving practices through the restoration of their waterways. One of the limiting factors for this revival has been the lack of access to traditional weaving materials and this grant will go towards procurement of plants, fencing of riparian areas where necessary and maintenance of these areas, helping restore health to Country, supporting the revival of cultural practices and empowering community.
Grant winners 2022
Pertame Language School
A community-led language program working with Pertame Elders to pass their language and cultural knowledge down to the next generation. Their goal is to grow the next generation of Pertame speakers and create a thriving, connected community, with increased mental, spiritual and physical wellbeing through language and cultural renewal.
Running Water Community Press + Arid Lands Environment Centre
An independent, community-controlled publisher run by writers in Mparntwe Alice Springs. Centring First Nations storytelling and truth-telling from remote areas, this funding will support an initiative to promote the sharing of intergenerational knowledge and showcase the ongoing fight for water justice.
Southern Ocean Protection Embassy Collective
A community led campaign against the expansion of the Otway Basin, an offshore gas and oil basin that sits south of Victoria’s South-West coastline, on Gunditjmara Sea Country. This area holds significant physical and cultural significance to revived southern clans and coastal people’s identity and belonging.
Martuwarra Fitzroy River Council
An alliance of Elders and emerging leaders from six independent nations of the Fitzroy River Catchment in the Kimberley, Western Australia. With this grant they will record First Nations knowledge systems and develop a documentary showcasing sustainable economies for Indigenous People that re-stablishes the value of their cultures.
Pasifika program,
Environmental Defenders Office
A Pasifika lawyer-led program within the EDO that works with partners throughout the Pacific to represent Pasifika-Indigenous peoples and customary caretakers to protect their rights and the lands and waters of the blue continent.
Our Islands Our Home
A campaign led by a team of Torres Strait Islanders to protect their culture and Island homes from climate change. Their advocacy, strategic litigation and grassroots organising is building a Torres Strait Islander led climate movement.
Teppethiggi Ni-Ripono x Cairns and Far North Environment Centre
A highly strategic campaign to slow gas development in Cape York by collaborating with Traditional Owners, increasing awareness of the Bamaga Basin and its associated pipeline development, providing opportunities for connection to Country and making legal interventions to gas development applications.
Gateebil Gurrnung Aboriginal Corporation
With a vision to revive Yugara culture through language, song and dance and caring for Country, this grant will support a series of workshops focussed on upskilling Yugara peoples to confidently administer cultural burning practices to restore natural landscapes for future generations.
Darkinjung Culture x Country
Darkinjung Ngura (Country) is home to tens of thousands of significant cultural sites, many which are at risk of damage. This funding will help identify and maintain culturally significant engravings and cave artworks across Darkinjung Ngura and support local knowledge holders to pass on knowledge to educate the wider community and ensure no more Sacred Sites are destroyed or lost.
Seisia Beach Clean x KKY Language Rejuvenation Project
The Seisia community regularly volunteer to pick up and collect rubbish from their local beachfront. Volunteers often ask about the Kalaw Kawa Ya language terms for many of the beach flora, fauna, birdlife, tide patters, weather, winds and marine life. With this funding, Elders will be invited to the beach so language can be learnt on Country, while cleaning and caring for country.
Why a First Nations-led grant round
By Lille Madden, First Nations Director
Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander and Pacific Islander people have sustainably cared for Country for millenia, and we continue to do so today.
Indigenous people globally only make up 5% of the population but care for 80% of the world's global biodiversity. By caring for and protecting Country we have been able to preserve priceless natural areas that are our answers for our futures. But invasion and colonisation have devastated this system.
Western systems of land and water management have degraded our ecosystems to such an extent that within 200 years we have arrived in a climate crisis.
Here in Australia, that destruction is particularly obvious. Australia ranks world number 1 for mammal extinction, and world number 2 for biodiversity loss. We also hold the title as the world’s largest exporter of coal and the 2nd largest exporter of gas, and are ranked dead last on climate action among UN nations worldwide.
From rising sea levels to dangerous heat waves in remote communities, Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander and Pacific Islander people are feeling the impacts of the climate crisis first and worst, whilst holding the frontlines of resistance by protecting Country from the threats of fossil fuel extraction.
Climate justice demands that those most affected by the climate crisis – Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander and Pacific Islander people – are empowered and resourced to continue our leadership protecting and defending Country, as we have done since time immemorial.
Today there is so much that young mob are doing with the help of their elders and communities to continue to lead the way towards a sustainable future.
Yet First Nations led advocacy is still chronically underfunded.
Supporting and resourcing First Nations people to continue to care for and protect Country is a fundamental – and urgent – climate solution.
