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Larissa Hale, an Indigenous Australian, is the managing director and cofounder of the Queensland Indigenous Womens Ranger Network (QIWRN)—a First Nations women-led program supporting Indigenous women rangers dedicated to protecting the land and sea (Country) surrounding the Great Barrier Reef. She is also a ranger coordinator for Yuku Baja Muliku Sea Rangers.

In 2008, I was the only female ranger coordinator in our state of Queensland, Australia. Today, Yuku Baja Muliku Sea Rangers has about 124 women. The QIWRN brings together amazing Indigenous women rangers, showcases their talents, promotes their experiences and expertise, and offers a support system to encourage strong Indigenous women leaders.

The Great Barrier Reef is part of us, our culture, our family, our being. We don’t separate the land and the sea—everything works together. The reef experiences damage from local activities such as overfishing, coastal development, and watershed pollution. When poor-quality water flows from the land to the reef, it negatively impacts the entire ecosystem. Excess sediment smothers corals and reduces the amount of light reaching seagrasses and other plants, affecting their growth and survival, as well as the survival of the marine animals that depend on them for food and shelter. Keeping our waterways and vegetation healthy on land ensures that the water flowing to the reef is healthy. When Aboriginal Australians, the traditional custodians, are looking after and caring for Country and making it healthy, Country in return makes us healthy.

In my role with the QIWRN, every day is different. Tasks can range from writing grants, rescuing sea turtles, monitoring the health of the seagrass, building fences, or controlling weeds and feral animals. When Cyclone Yasi wiped out seagrass meadows at Archer Point in 2011, the turtle population was left without an essential food source. The result was critical numbers of turtles in distress. The rangers established an emergency rehabilitation team to care for the turtles. That emergency center has grown into the Yuku Baja Muliku Turtle Rescue and Rehabilitation Centre.

The biggest challenges we face are wildfires and crocodiles. Recently, at Archer Point, a crocodile attacked a man. He was bitten three times and suffered head injuries. Part of our job is to find, capture, and tag crocodiles that are pests, and then relocate them so they don’t hurt anyone else. To prevent wildfires, we conduct cultural controlled burns of the land, which I enjoy the most. It’s very cleansing and creates regrowth.

Ancient knowledge about the environment and weather conditions over the years has been passed down from generation to generation. The elders know what the land and sea are meant to look like. We are now combining traditional monitoring with modern tools and technology, such as drones to monitor coral changes, forest fires, and land degradation. This means work that would have taken us days can now be done in hours. An example is mapping fire practices with aerial drones. The maps help us understand the fire scar on the land, and where we see erosion and other vegetation changes start to occur, we can refer to the drone data and work out what is happening over time.

We are creating a future that harnesses traditional knowledge and is led by Indigenous women. The opportunity to shape the world around us, through our skills and First Nations knowledge, is honoring our past and protecting our future for our children.