Bee Winfield : Hi Charlie, I have no experience in Aboriginal communities but I do live near Pemberton, in Nannup, and I have a 11 year old at school who finds it hard to be a greenie kid in our town. I think your childhood must have been very charcter building. What a beautiful place is Pemby though. Wish you all the best, Bee

Rebekah Copas : Hi, the evidence is, as far as I am aware, that greenies have simply failed to comprehend how to approach Aboriginal communities in culturally appropriate ways. Your example of the gardening projects is one which had to be quite resource intensive to get up and going, but mainly because the folk with the resources available, often do not recognise how to communicate appropriately with Aboriginal communities. For example, in Aboriginal languages nobody asks questions unless they have an authority over the person they are asking. So, for somebody from an invading culture, (read invading-culture = unnecessarily-questioning-culture, whereas indigenous culture evaluates individuals by how well we learn without asking questions, since questions imply the right to demand knowledge, which in turn, implies a level of responsible existance, which Aboriginal people rarely perceive in folk who are not 100% committed to land care), to work with an Aboriginal community, on a project like a food garden, all the necessary cultural protocols need to be followed. For example, do not expect youth to be able to become involved without their elders permission, and/or acceptance, and to give that permission/acceptance, elders need be better informed that youth are, about what you are planning, about what your personal vested interests are, including your interest in working with their young people, and all about permaculture, of course. My suggestion, is that if you and/or your permaculture group (if there is one in Broome??), approach the local land council (or Aboriginal community centre, or a Church with strong Aboriginal attendance), (and maybe approach all three kinds of organisations and any others, simultaneously), with a letter making an offer of sharing skills. Offer the services of your skills and knowledge to those whose land you are in love with, and your idea could work. It could well prove the best way to learn more about permaculture very rapidly. This is no more than I might suggest to any individual involved in permaculture, who wants to engage with their local indigenous community. But first things first, any Aboriginal people anywhere, will have to ask of you yourself, why don't you begin your idea where you are already living at? Will you always find yourself wanting to move on? Maybe that will not be a barrier, but it will depend on how genuine you are in your intentions and motivation and commitment.

Rebekah Copas : If I were you, I'd just try to get the idea up and going inside Lismore itself. Approach a permaculture organisation, and the local land council, and offer yourself as a volunteer organiser. The skills you may need to bring to the role, would be an ability to listen to indigenous concerns, and fit yourself in among indigenous families, combined with an ability to communicate indigenous concerns into the permaculture sub-culture. Indigenous people do want to be involved, but even in modern urban contexts, and even among men who have been to prison etc, simply cannot be involved without cultural protocols in place. Don't ask, but offer, and offer whatever you individually have to offer, out of your own love of the same land than an Aboriginal community feel deep and commanding loving obedience towards. The land itself owns the people, not the other way around. If you belong to any lands yourself, the love you have of the land you belong to, is the only starting place you will need. You will find indigenous families to be extraordinarily protective of their children's learning processes, and that many mothers and grandmothers still find it difficult to let their children go to school, only because they have no control over the values their children will be learning. My suggestion is to use the same idea that got the ball rolling in WA, by offering your volunteer services to establish a communal permaculture and indigenous bush tucker garden, at a local primary school, and involve your local permaculture organisation, and the local land council. But remember the simple set of rules I have give you for communicating with indigenous people. Let yourself take the lead from indigenous elders, and you will find the whole thing becomes managed by the land itself.

Rebekah Copas : One more comment here from me, (three fells somewhat sillier than need be, but is as it is), is that perhaps what you might need, for yourself, is a way to learn some more self confidence in social interactions within indigenous cultural contexts. I know that in the Lismore region this is quite essential, as the Aboriginal community there is very closed to external input, (except via drug abuse, which is why others are so closed). So my advice is that, unless you are already in familiar territory among indigenous people, you might like to travel to the Balgo Women's business camp one year. Here is a link to the anthropologist who got involved in helping her community set it up: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/zohl-de-ishtar/18/65/90 , and here is their website itself: http://www.kapululangu.org/Updates.php

You never know, Balgo and surrounding communities could well better appreciate the offer of permaculture skills, and learning the ropes of Aboriginal culture via Balgo, (although it is of course a different culture than that in Lismore, the similarites will be far greater than any similarites between any indigenous Australian culture and any culture from any where else in the world), will enable you to communicate much more effectively with your local Aboriginal community in Lismore.