Growing appetite for nutrient-rich native Indigenous Australian foods

03/10/2023 0 Comments read Climate Change, Environment & Development, Health & Science, Indigenous, Travel

Lilly Pilly and Davidson Plum are some of the native Indigenous Australian produce being used in traditional and modern cuisine, cosmetics, pharmaceutical and nutraceutical industries. Photo Credit: ©Neena Bhandari

By Neena Bhandari

Sydney, 03.10.2023 (IPS): Growing up in Sydney, Kalkani Choolburra, a Girramay, Kuku Yalanji, Kalkadoon and Pitta Pitta woman from Far North Queensland, would frequently travel with her family up and down Australia’s eastern seaboard. Her grandfathers and uncles would bring fresh catch of dugong, her favourite bush food, and she would go hunting for the short neck turtle with her aunties and female cousins.

The traditional or subsistence hunting of dugongs and turtles has been an important part of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (Indigenous Australians) people’s social and cultural lives. Its meat has been a vital source of protein for these communities, who have sustained themselves on the native flora and fauna for thousands of years.

Now, national and international chefs are incorporating some of these native Indigenous produce — notably Kakadu plum, Davidson plum, lemon myrtle, wattle seed, quandong, finger lime, bush tomato, muntries, mountain pepper, saltbush – into their dishes ranging from sushi and samosa, pizza and pies to cakes and muffins.

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Protect biodiversity to secure traditional medicine sources

25/08/2023 0 Comments read Climate Change, Environment & Development, Health & Science

Fostering conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity, empowering indigenous communities, and building evidence on the efficacy and safety of traditional medicine knowledge could help with narrowing the health gap. Photo Credit: ©Neena Bhandari

By Neena Bhandari

Sydney, 25.08.2023 (SciDev.Net): Traditional medicines and their natural sources must be protected from threats such as illegal wildlife trade to secure their role in narrowing the global health gap, say scientists.

For millions of marginalised communities, traditional medicine is the only recourse for meeting their primary healthcare needs, especially in remote and rural areas that lack access to formal healthcare systems. The World Health Organization (WHO), which held its first-ever Traditional Medicine Global Summit in Gandhinagar, India, last week (17-18 August), estimates that 80 per cent of people in most Asian and African countries use some form of traditional medicine for primary healthcare.

“Developing countries need not look towards developed countries to provide solutions, rather they can embrace what they already have – indigenous knowledge…grounded in generations of experience,” said Ritu Bharadwaj, principal researcher in the UK-based climate change research group of the International Institute for Environment and Development. Continue reading →

Pacific Island Countries to develop Advanced Warning System for tuna migration

19/04/2023 0 Comments read Climate Change, Environment & Development, Health & Science

By Neena Bhandari

Sydney, 19.04.2023 (IPS): Climate change and warming ocean waters are causing tuna fisheries to migrate to international waters, away from a country’s jurisdiction, thereby putting the food and economic security of many Pacific Island countries and territories at risk. Now a Pacific Community (SPC) led regional initiative will help ensure that these countries are equipped to cope with climate change-induced tuna migration.

“All the climate change projections indicate that there will be a redistribution of tuna from the western and central Pacific to the more eastern and towards the polar regions, that is not Antarctica or the Arctic, but to regions outside of the equatorial zones where they primarily occur at the moment,” says SPC’s Principal Fisheries Scientist, Dr Simon Nicol.

“This has really important implications for the Pacific Island countries. Our projections suggest that about one-fifth or about USD 100 million of the income derived from the tuna industry directly is likely to be lost by 2050 by these countries,” Nicol tells IPS.

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