Word on the Reef
Inspiring interviews with marine conservation legends.
Word on the Reef
S3 E26: The Human-Nature Connection with Tyá Dynevor
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Tyá Dynevor has always felt a special connection with animals, which has led her to becoming an ethnozoologist - someone who studies the relationship between humans and animals. It's something Traditional Owners have known about for millennia. We sat down with Tyá for a powerful discussion about how Traditional Ecological Knowledge and Western science can work together to keep Country and people healthy. We dig into reciprocity with nature, the spiritual side of Indigenous science, and practical ways to reconnect with Country through observation, community action, and food sovereignty.
Plus we honour the memory of Steve Irwin on the 20th anniversary of his passing, and form an underwater superhero team!
Further Reading:
Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance
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Introducing Tya Dynevor
SPEAKER_03You're listening to Word on the Reef, diving into marine science on the Great Barrier Reef and beyond, with Tanya Murphy and Brett Goodman. Good morning everyone, and welcome to Word on the Reef. I'm your host, diver, and marine conservationist Tanya Murphy. And joining me, as always, is Cairns Aquarium's marine educator and fish whisperer, Brett Goodman. Good morning, everybody. Welcome. Brett, today we're returning to a topic we've explored a little bit before on Word on the Reef, the relationship between Western marine science and indigenous knowledge of our natural world. For tens of thousands of years, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have developed extraordinarily deep knowledge of their country and sea country, passed down through generations of observation, experience, and connection. That knowledge includes an incredible understanding of things like seasons, tides, species, weather, currents, and the health of marine ecosystems. And increasingly, Western scientists and conservationists are recognising that there is enormous value in bringing these different knowledge systems together and finding respectful ways for them to work alongside each other. We actually explored this from a Western science perspective in an earlier episode this year when we spoke to Libby Evans Ilich, a scientist from the Australian Institute of Marine Science, who is working to build stronger relationships with traditional knowledge holders. But today we're going to look at this topic from another perspective and hear from someone with her own connection to country and traditional knowledge. Joining us today is ethnozoologist and ecologist Tia Deneva. Good morning, Tia. Welcome to Wet on the Reef. Hey, how are you?
SPEAKER_02Well, thanks. How are you guys?
SPEAKER_00Thanks for coming on. It's going to be awesome.
SPEAKER_02Thank you.
SPEAKER_03It's fantastic to have you with us, Tia. We're really excited to chat with you about how traditional ecological knowledge can help keep country and people healthy. But
Remembering Steve Irwin
SPEAKER_03first, a couple of quick announcements. Firstly, we want to take a moment to acknowledge a very significant day in Australia's conservation history. Today, September the 4th, marks 20 years since we lost Steve Irwin. Steve was one of Australia's most passionate and recognizable wildlife conservationists. He had an extraordinary ability to make people fall in love with wildlife, showing the world that our Australian animals are something to be excited about and protect. And here on Word on the Reef, we particularly remember his love for the Great Barry Reef and its marine wildlife. But perhaps the most powerful thing about his legacy is that his death didn't end his mission. The work he started with his family continues today through Australia Zoo and Wildlife Warriors. Steve was larger than life, but the message underneath all that energy was very simple. Love wildlife, respect wildlife, and do everything you can to protect it. And I think that's a beautiful message to remember today because the best way, perhaps, to honour Steve isn't only to remember him, it's to do something for wildlife.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And go outside and appreciate some Australian wildlife. Pick up some rubbish on your local beach, plant some native habitat, support a wildlife rescue or conservation organisation, make a more sustainable choice today, talk to your kids about why our wild places matter, or simply take a moment to appreciate the incredible wildlife that we share this country with. Steve spent his life trying to get people excited about wildlife because he knew that when people love something, they're much more likely to protect it. So today, 20 years after his passing, let's celebrate that legacy by doing something positive for wildlife. And Steve, wherever you are, Crikey mate, thanks for getting so many of us excited about nature.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Brett, do you have some best memories about Steve Owen?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I do, actually. I was I had the privilege of meeting him once briefly back in the day, but I was in the Northern Coral Sea at that point filming the shark feeds. And I remember coming back to the boat and being told, and I just couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe it. But I think there was a positive for that for me because I was falling into that trap of going through the motions, like being in the water every day, filming, enjoying it. But I I just sat on the back of the ship that night, watched the sunset, and it just made me change the way that I see what I do. Made me appreciate it in a whole different way. And there will never be another man like him or miss him a lot. But yeah, he's done a lot. And we use that message in our shows every day. You know, education leads to conservation, making people connect with something they can care about makes a big difference.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it's very powerful.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Tia, do you have any memories of Steve Owen?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I've been to Australia's zoo and I I haven't met any of his family, but just yeah, watching Bindy Irwin growing up like she's my age, and yeah, just watching her dad. Yeah, he's just a legend, he's just a really good guy. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. You can't fake that passion.
SPEAKER_03No.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00It should be impossible.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, as legacy lives on really well through his kids. They're doing amazing.
SPEAKER_00And as he suffered from ADHD, the comment that he made that day when the interviewer said, Do you drink coffee? He goes, No way, mate, the top of my head would blow off. I think we feel like that.
SPEAKER_03Uh yes, you can't get much more enthusiastic than that. No, you can't. No.
The Marine Superhero Team
SPEAKER_03And our next announcement is that we are taking questions from our amazing supporters. You can ask us anything by becoming a supporter. Just head to wordonthereef.com and click support. One of our supporters, Casper, has sent us this question. If you formed a superhero team, what marine animal would each of you be? What powers would you have? What would the dynamic duo be called? And what would be your first mission as this new super team?
SPEAKER_00We discussed this, didn't we? What was yours?
SPEAKER_03I love this question. Yeah, me too. So I think in terms of making a big difference in the ocean and keeping the ecosystem healthy, I would be a cleaner ras. Like more small, annoying, and obsessed with cleaning up the ocean. I like that.
SPEAKER_00I'm gonna go octopus.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, because I think octopus have ADHD because they have eight arms and they just go like crazy and they clean everything up. Yeah. And they got three hearts, and as you know, I've been through a lot with mine. And yeah, everyone listens to an octopus, they clean their den, the cheek ears all get out and they never stop.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, they can do eight things at once.
SPEAKER_00They can do eight things at once. Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_03I bet you wish you had eight arms, Brett.
SPEAKER_00I reckon the people that know me wish I didn't.
SPEAKER_03So, superpowers, uh, my superpower would be I can detect bad government environmental policies from a hundred kilometres away.
SPEAKER_00Nice.
SPEAKER_03And uh mobilise orcas to crash tackle their yachts.
SPEAKER_00I love it.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Take that chance.
SPEAKER_03You're just like sleeping peacefully at night and an octopus comes into your room and dumps a trash can of all the stuff.
SPEAKER_00It just walks in with a big bag of rubbish and throws it at you. That doesn't belong in my home. Yeah. I think that's cool. I like that question.
SPEAKER_03Well, I also think that while we are breaking into the supervillain compound, you can distract and immobilize the villains by talking to them about shark reproduction for 45 minutes.
SPEAKER_00True.
SPEAKER_03And then I will sneakily sneak in and deactivate their uh ocean destruction.
SPEAKER_00Oh, we'd be unstoppable.
SPEAKER_03Name of the duo.
SPEAKER_00The Fish Vengers.
SPEAKER_03Fish Vengers. I was thinking the Finn Credibles. Oh okay. You've always got to go one step better. Or the FinTastic Four.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Or even just the Squid Squad.
SPEAKER_00Oh god. We could we could do this all day, people, but I don't I don't think we've got time.
SPEAKER_03And so what could be our mission? You know, our first mission.
SPEAKER_00Our first mission.
SPEAKER_03So I was thinking we could try to stop the evil supervillains from building 50 gas wells around Scott Reef.
SPEAKER_00There you go. And I'll just mobilize all my Ockies to just catch people in the act of throwing their crap in the water and we can just throw it back at them.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, try to stop the supervillains, the orange joker from taking over the world. There you go. So Caspar, thanks for that. Yep. Ask us anything, guys.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_03If you want to be uh part of our Fin Club and connect with Brett and myself, just go to word on the reef.com and click support. There you go. And just another shout out to another one of our supporters who's recently come on board, Rhonda. So thanks for your support. Send us a question, we'll read it out next week or whenever we receive your questions.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_03So
Tia’s Path Into Ethnozoology
SPEAKER_03Tia, to start off, could you tell us a little bit about your background, your connection to country and sea country, and how you came to work in ecology and ethnozoology?
SPEAKER_02Thanks, Tanya. Thanks, Brett. Yeah, so just before I start, just want to give a quick acknowledgement to country. So yeah, we're in the traditional owners of um Gimway, Wallabaro, Yudinji, you're a Gangji country. I think we're more on the Gimway side of Cairns. And just pay respects to elders, past, present, and emerging. And yeah, just thank you for having me on the show this morning. So a bit about myself. So I'm a proud Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander woman. My connection to country is actually not in Cairns, but my mum she grew up here in Cairns. So on my mum's side is Guringi, so Wave Hill, Kalguringji Northern Territory, and Goodjill Charters Towers, and also Waggadem from Mobieg Island. And then on my dad's side is Colourlis, so South West Queensland, Dagominda, yeah. And my background, so I just finished my degree this year in zoology and ecology at JCU.
SPEAKER_00Congratulations. Oh, thank you. Well done.
SPEAKER_02Just yeah, waiting for that ceremony now.
SPEAKER_01Oh no, that's gonna be awesome.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. But the reason why I've become like, I guess, an ethnozoologist is last year I worked with Uncle Jerry Turpin, who's an ethnobotanist at the Tropical Indigenous Ethnobotany Centre. And so just working with him and developing those ethnobotany skills, he's mentored me in that way to be like, oh you're like an ethnozoologist because you have a big passion and understanding for wildlife. That's awesome.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, awesome. So for any listeners who aren't familiar, what is ethnobiology, ethnozoology, ethno, botany, that whole group of things?
SPEAKER_02So ethno is just the study of people and their connection to nature, and then the botany or biology or zoology is the study of that particular science. So botany is plants, biology is the molecular science of human or any animal biology, plant biology, and then zoology is just animals and wildlife.
SPEAKER_03That's amazing. So Professor Turpin is focusing on the plants, the connection of humans with plants, and you're an ethnozoologist, so he spotted in you a connection with animals, isn't it? Isn't that amazing?
SPEAKER_00That would have been a pretty special moment to have been acknowledged like that by him.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, like I've always found that within myself, but it was just nice that someone of his experience and background could also recognise that too. Yeah, that's special.
SPEAKER_03Wow. So was there any moments in life when you realize that you loved animals? Was it through particular experiences or just a lifelong love of animals?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, just long life love for animals just growing up. Yeah, I've always just had this thing that I've always wanted to work with animals, care for animals, and care for country. But I wanted to originally become a vet, so do veterinary science in high school, and I knew I had to get this particular grade, and so I was like, oh no, I can't do that. But I've always wanted to stay in that pathway of working with wildlife, so that's when I went down to more biology side of things.
SPEAKER_03Well, on that topic, you said that you previously didn't believe that you could get the grades to go to university, but now I look at you. So have you got any message for other young people that are coming up studying and might be interested in doing science?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, definitely. So with my background like going into uni, so I actually didn't finish year 12, and so I did the the bridging pathway course at JC called the Diploma of Higher Ed. And so that was that really good bridging way of going from getting introductory into like tertiary education, and that's how I got into my bachelor's of science. And so, yeah, I encourage anyone, mob or anyone who wants to like just pursue something or they've got passion and just have that drive to go to uni. Yeah, just do it. What a great message.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it's very inspiring that you didn't give up on your dream to work with animals, and I guess it's never too late either. Anyone can go and do a bridging course mm later in life if they want to, so it's a really great message. So what does country mean to you?
SPEAKER_02I think country is well first and foremost, it's like identity, and it's funny that we're talking about this because the past two days I've been listening to the Seekers song I Am Australian, and just really listening to those words and the meaning, and most of that song is actually talking about country and that we are all connected to Australia, like we are all Australian. So I think country is part of us, our identity, and just how we are as people, like how we want to care for country, but then it's also like for people who are the villains in the world, how they want to wreck country and not see that beauty and vision of how we admire country.
SPEAKER_03Wow, yeah, beautiful
Indigenous Knowledge Systems
SPEAKER_03song. How does indigenous knowledge differ from Western science in your experience and perspective?
SPEAKER_02So a bit of background for for listeners. I also worked on the Crown of Thorn Starfish project with Dr. Vincent Backhouse a few years ago as his research assistant, and so that project involved working with two traditional owner groups, Double Judgical up in Woodlewodjil Country, so near Cooktown area, and then further south, and the southern part of the reef is Darumbool, so that's Rockhampton area. And so we did two workshops with those traditional owner groups as well as individual interviews with cotz divers, other traditional owners, elders, and we got really interesting and awesome data, and basically mob really want to care for their sea country, and they want to be at the table making these governance and executive decisions about their values for the reef and stuff. So coming back to your question, Tanya, with indigenous knowledge and Western science, I think traditional ecological knowledge has always been in the forefront, like it's always been a pass-down science and way of living, because that's what science is. It's just observation and learning and adapting to how our climate is and how our seasons are. And I think Western science is complementary of that traditional ecological knowledge. It's just Western science is more digitalized and technology driven, while traditional ecological knowledge is more storytelling and sharing and singing and song lines.
SPEAKER_00Wow, that's an incredible way to describe it. That's awesome. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_03I think I mentioned in our previous episode with Libby Evans Iledge that Western science can look things up in a database, but some traditional knowledge holders, especially the elders, can recall things off the top of their head without having to look it up in a database. Their database is in their head with all the stories and songs that they use to encode that knowledge, and it's really incredible. How can indigenous knowledge and ethnobiology help our environment, both on land and also marine ecosystems?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I think just referring back to the previous question where it's just in complementary of Western science, like humans are also animals, we all play a part in the broader ecosystem of the earth. And so without us, if we think about it, most ecosystems will collapse because we are all custodians, we all caretakers of the earth, and so I think that's how we can, yeah, really careful both land and also marine ecosystems because for millennia thousands of years, so traditional owners, mob, we've been the first navigators, we've been the first marine biologists. We know what we want for our country, we know how to care for country, we know what the seasons are right for catching that particular fish or when the tides are coming in so we can do trades with other nations.
SPEAKER_00I've mentioned this on the show before because I work at the Aquarium and I do tours all the time. And there's one tour that resonated with me was when I did a tour with these elders from Groot Island, these ladies, elderly ladies, and they wanted to come on a tour and everything, and they they'd never been down there before. And we got about 10 minutes into it because one of the ladies was teaching me about the different things about the Barramundi and what to notice and everything. I said, Do you guys want to do the tour for me? By the time it had finished, it was unbelievable. It'll always stay with me. Just that connection to country is just a whole nother level. Every single tank that we went to, every reptile, every fish, every ecosystem, you could see their eyes light up, and they were just wanting to tell me about it. This is our connection to that, that's why it does this, this is what we believe with that. And I've just like, I don't want this to end. Well, it's just so incredible.
A Loving Relationship with Nature
SPEAKER_03I I recently read the work of Robin Wall Kimmerer. She's written a book called Braiding Sweetgrass, and I highly recommend it for any listeners. She's a First Nations person of North America and is a botanist and has written this amazing book about ethnobotany and all about the connection between the North American First Nations people. I feel like First Nations people all over the world have this, many of them have this connection, and there's a lot of parallels between the different countries. And one of the things that she always asks in lectures with her students is okay, who here loves Mother Nature? And everyone puts their hand up, yes. And then she said, who here feels that Mother Nature loves you? And less people put their hands up because so many, especially Westerners, just feel there's no way that Mother Nature loves us because we've done so much to harm the planet.
SPEAKER_01Jeez, isn't that powerful?
SPEAKER_03But it is a reciprocal relationship, or it can be, because the reality is most of that harm that we've done to Mother Nature has just been within the last few hundred years. And traditional owners in Australia have been here for something around 65,000 years. And over that time, I I think it has been a reciprocal relationship, hasn't it?
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03What she explained in this book is similar to what happens here in Australia in uh the North American environment. When they took First Nations Native Americans off their land, the land suffered ecological decline because they weren't doing their traditional burning, they weren't doing certain gathering practices that actually helped to propagate plants and things like that. So it is very much a two-way thing. Humans, especially in Australia, have been here for so long that the natural environment has actually adapted to have human care for it, right? So I guess some people think humans have been terrible for Mother Nature. It'd be better for her if we all just disappeared. But it's not the case, it's only a few hundred years worth of damage. The vast thousands of years of history of human interaction with nature has been a beneficial reciprocal one. Would you agree?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, 100%. It's a symbiotic relationship, right? So for example, like clownfish and the ananomy, where the clownfish protect the ananomy and the ananomy protects the clownfish. That's like us with country. In order to protect country, we gotta clean up country and make sure that, for example, if there's like leaf litter or if there's something that's not in the environment, or if there's a big overload, for example, crown of thorn starfish. It's a native species, but it's just become the population has just gone out of control, and so that's why it's become such an invasive species. And that's it. Like if we do it the right way and have that natural apex predator, which is the trident snail, then we'll be able to regulate and make those populations more stable. And that's like anywhere in our ecosystems. If we just regulate it, maintain it, continue caring for it, then ultimately country will reward everyone and us and just say, Hey, like you're doing a good job, like this is what you're gonna benefit from doing this.
SPEAKER_00If that doesn't give you goosebumps wherever you are in the world, seriously, it's a beautiful way of explaining it, isn't it?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and that concept of does Mother Nature love us back. I think whenever you feel a warm ray of sunshine or you see the rain come to water your garden and your vegetables, that's when you feel Mother Nature's love for us. Yes. If we're treating her well, then she just gives us endless gifts for free, doesn't she?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, gotta stop and smell the roses, Tanya. Yeah, you know, or go up to the Dane tree and sit on a rock when it's raining and smell all those beautiful smells and Cassimary walk past. I reckon there's not a person in the world that when you get that first rain, especially in Australia, and I notice this in Perth when I go back, if it starts raining, that beautiful smell of eucalyptus and and all of those amazing smells you get when the first rains hit.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00That's a massive gift as well.
SPEAKER_03And everyone sits there and goes, oh that's that's our remains here. That's our takeaway message for today for everyone after this. After you finish listening to this, go outside and take a deep breath and ground yourself in nature.
SPEAKER_00Take your shoes off, stick your feet in the grass, hug a tree.
SPEAKER_03So, Tia, what do you think are some of the advantages of having your traditional owner perspective or your indigenous perspective that Western science doesn't have? Do you have some different ways of looking at things that bring a different perspective to the science? I was watching uh one of your interviews on Reefcast.
SPEAKER_02Oh, yeah, with Malachi.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, we've had him on our show as well back in season one. So if anyone wants to hear Malachi Johnson, another awesome First Nations spokesperson, just check it out at where. On the reef.com back in season one. And you were talking about a research trip into the tablelands in the Dane tree where you noticed eagles. Was it moving plants around or something? You're trying to remember.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, no, that was a botany subject I took actually last year. Yeah, so I was I can't remember the specific topic or context, but I was basically sharing with one of the lecturers who was a botanist and some of my other student colleagues that I was paying attention to the specific sea eagle or eagle, and he was picking up the sticks and it was coming close to fire season or bushfire season, and so I was just sharing that connection with people, sharing with everyone saying that mob have that connection with animals in the sense that when we do cultural burns off to care for country and everything, that the eagles or apex birds also have that connection to where we're not only burning off the land to have regrowth and revegetation, but we're also providing food for the other animals that might eat. Like if they see burn-off, they'll pick up a stick and they might drop a fire stick somewhere else, and then that's their method of capturing their prey.
SPEAKER_03Oh, so you guys were doing burning.
SPEAKER_02No, no, I I just made the observation and just like sharing that bit of knowledge with my colleagues and the lecturer because that's so awesome.
SPEAKER_00So the burn-off process or pushfire breaks or burn-off for new life in the next season. So the eagles see that and he goes, I'm gonna grab that stick because it's on fire. I'm gonna drop it over there. The critters are gonna run out and I get lunch. Is that how it works? That's awesome.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, so smart. And I've heard about other symbiotic relationships between people in their canoes working together with whales and dolphins. Have you heard any of those stories?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. I um remember reading up on something with First Nations mob over in North America, either Canada or America, and how there's songs like love songs or something, like whales songs. We know that whales sing to each other for their mating, but they also carry that song also with that connection to that country with whoever that tribal First Nations mob is. And I think there's similar stories even further south, where my partner's country is a Yuan nation. They probably have those similar connections with whales and other marine animals.
SPEAKER_03Well, I'm really lucky. I just spent a week in the Gold Coast and near Talabadra Creek and was really lucky to do a tour with the local traditional owner group at Jalurgal, which is a special national park area, and they had some really great stories about how the dolphins that come into the creek chase and round up all the fish, and then the humans would work with the dolphins to round up all the fish, basically. So the dolphins were getting a feed, and the humans were getting a feed, and they were really honouring the dolphins, and then they talked about how the eagles would help them identify when there was a school of fish. Watch where the eagles are flying, where they're diving, then you can just paddle out there, and there will also be a lot of fish there. There's so many benefits from observing the behaviour of animals, isn't there?
SPEAKER_02100%.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, are there any other lessons we can learn from nature, especially from sea country and the reef?
SPEAKER_02I think nature is our biggest educator, and we are always learning, we're always observing and just taking in information and knowledge. So I think even to this day, like just being still and just paying attention to the wind or paying attention to the currents and just feeling that tempo and that rhythm of how life is, yeah, and how nature is currently operating because we're all working on energy and vibrations.
SPEAKER_03Yeah,
Spiritual Connection with Country
SPEAKER_03and I remember in that interview with Malachi, you mentioned about being able to feel or hear the trees and the animals when there was a bushfire near your place where you used to live.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, that was when the Black Summer bushfire, so that was back in 2019, 2020, when my partner and I, when we were living down the south coast, or he was in Bateman's Bay, I was in Naura, and yeah, it was really traumatic, very bad times. But yeah, when I was actually on my way coming back home here to Cairns to visit Mum, but we couldn't because the flights were delayed because of the fires and smoke. But I remember leaving because I was working as a medical receptionist at the time at an Aboriginal women's health service called Wominda, and I was the last to lock up because everyone had like families and they had to just go, so I just said, Yeah, yeah, you you mob just you know sort yourselves out, I'll lock up. And then we were gonna go to the airport, but we couldn't go to my partner's mum's property at the time because all the roads were blocked off because that fire was coming up on the Princess Highways coming south up to north, and this fire was just crazy, like it was it's like floods, it's got a mind of its own, like it was actually crossing the highway and crossing the big Shellhaven River.
SPEAKER_00Those firestorms are awfully scary, aren't they?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and I and I just remember when I was leaving that building that I could just it was so weird, like I just heard nature cry. Like I just heard this weeping of country, and I was like, wow, what the heck? Am I hallucinating? Like, what is this? But I really felt in my spirit like yeah, this country, it it's sad, it's sore, like we need to do something about this. And it was funny, I think it was like a week or two after all that fire just slowed down and came to a stop. That we had that biggest rain, and all that rain just happened to be in the spots where all the fire impacted, and so there was like this whole new rebirth and regrowth and vegetation just coming out. And if you go back down there now, it's like hey, that didn't even look like a bushfire happened.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, but I'm glad to hear that there's been a lot of regrowth. Mother Nature's amazing like that, but we really need to stop making her cry. Let's just hope that's it. Well, you nearly made me cry then.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I'm looking at Tanya and I'm trying to hold it back. I'm like, do you know what I mean? That's just so powerful. And I hope that our listeners all over the world could feel that then. That's the connection that you're talking about, right? And that was all your ancestry, everything came out in that one moment where you had that instant connection with country and you could hear the animals and you felt it within your soul, and that's something we need to take on board. Yeah, you know what I mean? It's incredible.
SPEAKER_03And I think everyone has that somewhere in their soul, a connection with nature. Some people just buried it underneath a whole lot of greed or what have you. Dolly Parton, the late and great, recently lost. She famously said that we need to show more respect for Mother Nature. That was uh great to hear that quote popping back up again recently. Have there been any more moments like that where you felt a almost supernatural connection?
SPEAKER_02Not recently that I can recall, but it just came to mind now coming back to one of your questions you asked earlier, Tanya, about what is Western science lacking compared to traditional ecological knowledge science or indigenous science is that spiritual element and that spirituality side where with us how we view science through our lens of traditional ecological knowledge or indigenous sciences is very spiritual. Like we are all very, as you mentioned, we're all very spiritual beings and people, and I feel like Western science kind of suppresses that spiritual element. And I just was thinking like the early scientists like Albert Einstein and probably all those other early scientists in that era or even earlier, they were Christians. A lot of them had that philosophical element to science, and I feel like I'd like to see that come back in that Western lens of like you don't have to be religious or anything, but just acknowledging like there is some spiritual element to it, there is more to this life.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, like spirituality and science don't have to be mutually exclusive or at war with each other, they can work together.
SPEAKER_00I don't think that there would be a better way to explain that seismic difference between your culture and the history of traditional owners and your connection to country and Western science than that what you just told us. That instant moment of connection and that should be celebrated and worked together. Wow.
SPEAKER_03It is scientific, really, yeah, when you consider that our biology has given us feelings and instincts and intuition as this super fast way of understanding things, because it takes a long time to process if the stick cracks behind you. You don't have time to think, oh, I wonder, is that a tiger coming to eat me? You just have an instant instinct, I think there's danger, or an instant knowledge, I think something's going on here. And so there are so many human intuitions and feelings that we can know things before we have time to go and put it through our frontal cortex and our and our logical Western way of thinking things. So it is scientific to take those intuitive sides of things into account, and it is good to integrate them together. And another late great Jane Goodall, she was told when she went into the jungle to study chimpanzees, she was told by the all the male scientists that she worked with, now don't get attached to the chimpanzees, don't give them names, they just have numbers, and it's all got to be completely detached, otherwise it's not science. And then she said famously, Well, I had a great teacher when I was growing up, and that teacher was my pet dog. And that's how she learned that animals do have feelings and different personalities, and they're not just objects that are to be numbered.
SPEAKER_00And that's the connection that we make with our customers and our animals at work. They all have their own personalities, they have their quirkiness. I'll walk around their work and wave at fish all day, and people would go, Did you just wave at that fish? And I look at them and go, Why didn't you? You haven't waved at one. And then they're looking at me like, Is this normal? Well, yeah, it is.
SPEAKER_03They can see us through the glass. Yeah, that's that's right.
SPEAKER_00And hopefully by the end of the show, they don't see that as a giant rubber fish with big blue lips. They call him Shane and he's a legend, and he's cheeky, and he eats everyone else's food, and he's got a girlfriend, and he's slept in last night, or Chang has got an attitude problem because no one told him there was a night function, so now he's got his cranky pants on. And Tommy, my big turtle, he's a legend.
SPEAKER_03I'm just imagining Chang getting cranky, like, I thought I was gonna have a peaceful night and you go.
SPEAKER_00Well, they had a they had a wedding in there not long ago. It was hilarious. One of my staff took the photo, had to watch everybody, right? And the bride and groom is standing there, he's putting the ring on her finger, the most sacred of moments, and in the background is Chang who's swum up and he's just got his head right between. And this is a 140 kilo Queensland grover, by the way.
SPEAKER_01Blessed.
SPEAKER_00And he's just giving them the stink eye. It's almost like he's got his flipper up checking his watch, going, mate, it is eight o'clock. I want to watch the block and I want to go to bed.
SPEAKER_03It's kind of like he's the celebrant if he's in between them. Yeah, he's like, okay, happy, happy, yadda, yadda yadda.
SPEAKER_00Everyone go home.
SPEAKER_03Uh well, I'm sure the wedding is blessed now.
SPEAKER_00Oh, we always have that photo of his giant head staring at them in between the two.
SPEAKER_03So
Food Sovereignty & Growing Your Own Food
SPEAKER_03Tia, I was just wondering before we wind up today, if you could tell us about where you're currently working and what you're doing there.
SPEAKER_02I'm currently working at an Indigenous evaluation network called Gillibang. It's a fairly new business. It's only started a few years ago, so I'm the knowledge sharing officer, and I've started that job since January this year. So yeah, really enjoying that space. And then I also work part-time for another business called the Agroecology and Food Sovereignty Alliance. They're based in Victoria, but I do remote work up here in Cairns for them, and I'm the first people's focal group coordinator.
SPEAKER_00Oh wow, that's dope.
SPEAKER_03Awesome. And this all ties into the connection between humans and nature, but it's not just about that connection protecting the environment, but it's also about how it can benefit people, how we can all be better off as a result of this. So, yeah, how does that work in in terms of ethnozoology and ethnobiology and food sovereignty? How's that all work together?
SPEAKER_02My understanding of it is having community-based healthy food available for everyone and not giving into these big corporate commercialized produce and agriculture and ways of how we go to the shop and buy our foods, and instead of doing that, starting to go back to our old ways of harvesting our own foods and growing our own backyard gardens. And so, um, my crew, my awesome deadly group down in Victoria, we're all spread out, but they're predominantly based in Victoria. Yeah, so we encourage like a lot of First Nation farmers and also from that academics and research standpoint, looking into how can we grow really healthy, well-nutrition food and feeding our population, feeding the broader communities just so people don't go without really good, healthy and access to this good food. And so we're just trying to find that scope and lens of coming back to caring for country, like we've got to source out really good, healthy land that's got good quality soil, and then just harvesting that in in the right and appropriate way rather than these manufactured destructive ways of wrecking country. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, growing your own food in your backyard is something that anyone can do to help both the environment but also your own health, because you can do it in a way that's more organic with less large-scale pesticides and herbicides and things, so you're eating healthy food, but it's also cutting down on your food miles, your carbon footprint. So we you know we have produce that's travelling hundreds or thousands of kilometres to get to us. So if everyone took up a little bit of growing your own food, which I'm currently looking at doing, among everything else, it's fun. It is fun.
SPEAKER_00It's fun because you have that moment when you're standing in your kitchen whipping up some masterpiece, and you go, geez, I could do with some thyme or some rosemary or a bit of a chili, and you look out your window and go, Oh, hello. Hello there, I've got on my own. You go out and you cut it and you bring it in. It's fun. Do it. I mean, it's right there. We're all whinging about the price of fruit and veg at our corporate supermarkets. Well, you got a backyard, you got nature gave you a son, bit of a sprinkle of rain. Yeah. Bob's your uncle, there's your veggies.
SPEAKER_03I'll tell you what, here in the tropics, sweet potatoes grow like nuts.
SPEAKER_00Things grow in three minutes up here.
SPEAKER_03Sweet potatoes, I'm all about it. It's a staple. You can pretty much live off them. There's some things that, you know, like lettuce, you're not really gonna live off that if you grow lettuce.
SPEAKER_00Well, I'm a massive chili fan. I used to have about 13 different types of chilies in the backyard. And they look good too, because they're all different colours.
SPEAKER_03So if the world really is going into a scarcity period, you're just gonna eat non-stop chilies. Just chilies. Live off chilies.
SPEAKER_00Just chilies, chili chilies and sausages.
SPEAKER_03So, a really good recommendation for all the listeners if you haven't already, the book Dark Emu, it talks about how Australian indigenous cultures all around Australia, they propagated seeds and grasses and plants, and the soil was fantastically healthy. It was all organic. This was before pesticides and herbicides, and everything was very uh fertile when uh settlers first arrived. Unfortunately, not so much now because it's just been commercially monocultured to within an inch of its life. There was a really famous plant, you know. I was just talking about how you can live off sweet potato, but there were people living off yams and something called Myrnong root, and unfortunately, when the settlers introduced sheep, the sheep ate all of the murnong root leaves, and then the myrnong root all died. So this actually killed off a staple of that culture. So it's one of the many things that unfortunately really harmed the culture and the people that were thriving so well here before.
Embracing All Cultures
SPEAKER_03There has been a certain politician who has recently been advocating for a monoculture in Australia, and that means wanting all of the people to have the exact same culture, and that has a real strong analogy to growing plants as well. Do you have any thoughts from a biological and zoological perspective? What are the possible pros and cons of a monoculture of everything just being the same?
SPEAKER_02I think in life there's pros and cons and finding that balance, but for for that particular person you're referring to, I think coming back to that song like we are Australian, I think if we're wanting that so-called monoculture, I think it's embracing all cultures as a collective voice. And that we are, we are all Australian, and that we all striving for the same things, we're all asking for the same things. As you were saying, Brett, like we're all crying out for the cost of living crisis that we're all facing. That's a collective issue. We're all complaining about that one thing, and that's I guess the same thing for country. We're all seeing the devastation and the impacts of country. So we if we all just come together and just acknowledge we are all Australian, we all have a right and say in our country, and yeah, I think it's just come to peace. Like if we all just come to peace and love each other, like we'll be right. But embracing each other's differences and other cultures, just knowing it's a collective voice and it doesn't have to be like that way of thinking.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. I feel like whenever people just get together and have a cup of tea, we all get on, well, mostly face to face. It's just the online algorithm, the keyboard warrioring, that division that people have when they've got a screen between them that they don't behave as nicely as they normally do in a face-to-face conversation. And it's honestly it's the politicians trying to divide us too for their own political gain, really. But yeah, if we sit down together and have a cup of tea.
SPEAKER_00Everyone should just adjust their algorithms, right, by watching ten videos of either fish, reef, watching rainfall, and then the algorithm goes, Oh, they like that stuff, all the other awful stuff will disappear. Yeah. And all your algorithm, all your feet's gonna be is nature.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00You can readjust it as long as you watch four of the same thing for more than ten seconds, bang.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_03So
Climate Change and Community Action
SPEAKER_03speaking of that, you've done a remarkable number of things and been involved in various advisory groups and different voluntary things for someone so young. Tia is only 28 years old, we just learned. Yes. Which Brett was amazed by because you've got a lot of experience, and I guess you've also been a volunteer leader with the Cairns and Far North Environment Centre. Can you tell us a bit about the work you've done with them?
SPEAKER_02So I started volunteering with Caf Nick back in 2019 when I first moved back home to Cairns when I first started uni. I just wanted just some that sense of community and just belonging, and so I was like, oh yeah, you know, it's related to my degree, and you know, find my my people, I guess, and then yeah, found my people. There was this campaign called the Climate Action Now campaign, and Bronwyn Opie, who's now the director of Cafnick, she was the climate campaigner at the time, community campaigner, and so I helped her do door knocking for that. And then from the door knocking, we did three workshops that was just introducing like what is climate change, have you heard of this? And then just testing the waters. So we basically started with the global scale and then made it a national scale for the second workshop, and then the third workshop was localized issues that's happening in the broader region of Cairns or Far North Queensland. And then from that, we were trying to form like a little volunteer group just to come together and we can do some more on-ground grassroots actions. And then unfortunately, that was when Cyclone Jasper came and the big floods happened in Cairns and further north, and then that was just as unfortunate of that event that did happen and the trauma that came with that. It was just a perfect example of this is why this is such an important topic to talk about climate change and how it's impacting our communities and our livelihoods. And so from that, Bron and I and other volunteers we teamed up with Centrecare, a local non-profit, yeah, non-profit business. Yeah, that helps homeless and provides that mental health support. And so we did table talks with the communities of the northern beaches at the time. We did that workshopping there, and just from those workshops, we formulated a report that was published two years ago now. And so we actually had the opportunity to go down to Canberra last year and try and present this report to our local MPs and other politicians in Canberra. That was it, that was a good trip, but we still didn't really hit the mark that we wanted for our climate target for Australia, which was disappointing, but that's okay. And so fast forward now we've furthering North and working with Woodju Woodju mob and we're just helping that community to try and get more climate resilience funding just so they don't get wiped out again from that cyclone.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, they they saw some really tough impacts from Cyclone Jasper. It was awful. Didn't your own own family uh get affected?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, my mum. So at the time when that cyclone hit, my mum was living at Holloway's Beach, and so she's got a acquired brain injury, and so she had her support worker with her at the time, and on the street that she was living on, which was Bamboo Street, was blocked off, and so thankfully her neighbor right next to us just happened to have a big car, and he just managed to just help mum and her support worker get out, and they managed to stay at that hotel in Holloway's beach. Yeah, but it was just so scary, and that's what I was also reflecting that night, too, with those heavy rains coming in at the time. I lived in Edge Hill. And the children on my street were just so happy that it was raining and they were playing in the rain. I was like, that is so interesting because 10, 15, 20 minutes up the road, there's children frightened for their lives and they're seeing their personal belongings getting washed away. Yeah. And so I just thought of that class difference. It was just so interesting that we're all in close proximity to each other, but yet literally two different worlds.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, wow.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it's true that there was a lot of life and business as usual in the Greater Cairns unaffected areas. And then there was just chaos in Major's Beach and Holloway's Beach. And I guess that's a metaphor for the whole world that there's things going on in other countries because of climate change. Or even in our own country. The Torres Strait Islands are going underwater from rising sea levels. We've got glaciers collapsing on villages in Nepal. And I mean we're we're all paying attention to it, but there's so much more going on. Out of sight, out of mind.
SPEAKER_00I had a couple at the touch tank the other day and they were from the UK and we were just chatting away. And I said, You guys have had some really hot temperatures there. And they said, Yeah, where they were in London, they're two weeks of 36 degrees. So all the grass is dead. Everything's dead, right? But they said the worst part about it is they're not set up for that. Yeah. So they've got no air conditioning. The houses are designed to trap warmth. They said it was just a nightmare. But and I said, Well, what does that tell you? And they said, Well, it's obvious. Everything's changing.
SPEAKER_03My mum travelled to, I think it was England during one of these heat waves that they've had previously. And she said, Oh, my whole life, whenever I heard uh there's a heat wave in England and it was like 36 degrees, she'll say, Oh, that's nothing compared to what we get in Australia. What are they complaining about? But then she went there during one of these bad heat waves and realized, no, it's actually so much worse for them because they don't have aircon, they don't have the right infrastructure for it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, everything just traps heat, it's like a big furnace.
Preserving Indigenous Knowledge
SPEAKER_03Tio, is there a risk of indigenous knowledge being lost? And how can we ensure indigenous knowledge is preserved? Good question.
SPEAKER_02No, thanks, Tanya. Really good question. Yes, there is a very high risk of indigenous knowledge being lost because a lot of our knowledge keepers, particularly like our elders, they're alive, we're losing a lot of our elders. But in saying that there is hope, because I see a lot of young rangers who are wanting to learn and wanting to understand and capture that knowledge. And I find it really remarkable now that we are now using technology, and that's the benefit of Western science, where we're able to record elders or like do this interviews and stuff like that, and capture that knowledge and then archive it so when grandchildren's and future generations come they can listen to these old people and talk and really embrace that cultural knowledge.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it's really really amazing to see JCU and other organisations starting to do that work more before it's too late, before more of our elders' knowledge is lost. Would have been amazing if there had been more record of everything going back a long time. There's already been so many years of not taking advantage of that amazing legacy, but it's better late than never.
Practical Ways To Reconnect With Nature & Culture
SPEAKER_03Do you have any advice for any listeners out there who would like to build a closer relationship with nature?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I think just as you were saying, Bret, just take a pause and just take your shoes off, feel the grass and smell the air and take in the sunlight.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and I think also you ask most people what would be a nice day to say I'd go down and walk down the beach. But I think that some people just see it as a walk on the beach. I think people need to just stop, take a breath, dig their toes into the sand and and realise why that's so nice, why that is so relaxing, why we love doing it. And it's that connection with nature again. Like no one goes down the beach and goes, Oh, I've left more stress than I arrived. Like who's gone down the beach and go, I'll never doing that again? I feel awful. Do you know what I mean? It's like who's gone to the rainforest and gone, I'll never go there again. I've never been so stressed in my life.
SPEAKER_03Some people, some people probably have people who have grown up.
SPEAKER_00Chased by Casswary.
SPEAKER_03People who have grown up really concrete jungle. Can you believe this, Brett? There are people out there who actually don't like being out in nature because they have grown up around being.
SPEAKER_00I'm finding that I'm finding that hard.
SPEAKER_03Being surrounded by buildings and they'll get out there and be afraid that they might chip a nail or something.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, okay. All kinds make the world go around. But just stop and smell the roses, mate. Just stop and go outside, do something, get some vitamin D into you, talk to the critters, talk to a fish. Works for me.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and I think observing nature really closely, because it would take years for any of us to get as close of an understanding of nature as what a lot of traditional knowledge holders have. They spend years observing animals, building up this knowledge over time, and one way we can do that now is by studying uh biology or botany degree so that when you go in the rainforest, you're not surrounded by strange plants. You can say, Oh, that that plant is doing that, and it has a symbiotic relationship with that, and then you can be walking among characters that you know when you go in the forest. So for us, it's the reef. We go diving in the reef, we can actually recognise all the characters. Okay, that's the cleaner ass. He's setting up his cleaning station for that fish, and this fish does that.
SPEAKER_00The shrimp goby and his little mate digging his hole on lookout.
SPEAKER_03So I think some ways is become a photographer. So when you actually go and try to photograph different animals underwater or in the forest, and then you're like, hmm, that's a really cool animal that I photographed. I wonder what it is. And then you go and upload it to iNaturalist and you learn what it is. I think taking an interactive learning approach to nature is a really good way to build your connection with it, and as we already covered, growing your own food, a really good way to have a reciprocal relationship with Mother Nature as well. So, yeah, good advice.
SPEAKER_02I was just thinking as you were sharing that insight there about connecting to nature and how we can all just learn and observe, and I was just thinking for myself, one of my pathway and journeys in life is always reconnecting to my traditional country. So, for example, I want to go back to my dad's traditional land, which is colourly, and we've only got maybe two elders, three elders left until my dad's then the next generation of elders or knowledge keepers. And that's what I was sharing with my dad recently that I want to reconnect to your father's country because I want to be that key, like that bookkeeper or someone that can translate that through now my western uh educational background. I can share from both worlds, like hey, this is what country's actually showing us, even though a lot of our elders don't have a lot of that knowledge now because of the stolen generation and stuff like that. But country is the best library as well. If you just go there and as you were saying, Tanya, like just sit and listen and just be really observant. Like it is, it will just open up a whole book of just everything.
SPEAKER_03That's true. I mean, it would have been a a lot faster to understand everything in nature if we had been better at listening to elders throughout the last couple hundred years, but we can do it the slow way, which is to go back and learn it all over again. Literally, yeah. Through observation and that connection with going back to discover your ancestry and your roots, anyone can do that. So for some people that might mean researching your English history or your Polish history or your German history, and I think that can really soften people to the importance of the ancestry that you have, the fact that even your ancestors in Poland had some traditional knowledge to do with the nature that they had in their country, and that can soften your attitude to understanding how important everyone's culture is to them, everyone's ancestors are important to them, and everyone's culture had some practices that were more connected with nature than what we have nowadays. So it doesn't matter what culture you come from, find out more about your culture because some people, whether Western or not, have a a desire to be more connected and we've lost a lot of our traditional values over time and and the fact that so many people have come from somewhere else and ended up in Australia and lost a little bit of their connection with their identity. So if you're living in Australia, it's very, very powerful to build a relationship with the traditional owners of this place and learn from them. It can also be empowering to learn about your own history and roots and the culture that you came from. Like there's people that come here who are from Scotland and they're every now and then they get the kilt out and they sing their traditional songs in Gaelic. And I think that really softens people to understand the importance of culture and roots, and hopefully that can help people to connect with the traditional owners of this country and understand how important culture is, I guess. Sadly, that's all we have time for today. Ethnozoologist and ecologist Tia Deneva. Thanks for all your amazing work and thanks for joining us on Word on the Reef today. Thank you so much.
SPEAKER_00What a great chat.
SPEAKER_03Thank you, Brett. Thanks, Tanya. And thanks to all our listeners for joining us on Word on the Reef with me, Tanya Murphy, and co-host Brett Woodman. That's all for this week. Best fishes. Safe diving. Bye.
