A change high in a catchment can be felt far beyond it. For Traditional Owner Trevor Meldrum, that connection is central to restoring waterways and coastal ecosystems on Cape York – and to understanding why local knowledge must shape the work.
Speaking at Voices from the Bush 2026 in Mparntwe (Alice Springs), the National Landcare Network representative drew on more than 30 years of natural resource management to describe what sustained, community-led action can achieve.
His approach begins with a simple observation about Country.
“There is no such thing as land, there's no such thing as sea, there's no such thing as air. Our land, sea and water are together because they are our mother and father,” Meldrum said.
“We don't look after them, we cannot look after ourselves.
“If we listen hard enough, our Country and ancestors will tell us what we need to do. Especially if we are to leave it in a better state than what we found it, for futures generations.”
Meldrum’s work across Cape York includes coastal and river restoration and the control of invasive species. He said these challenges cannot be understood by looking only at the place where an impact becomes visible.
Sediment reaching the Great Barrier Reef, for example, has a story that begins further inland. Invasive plants and damage to ground cover can affect rivers, which carry those impacts towards coastal habitats. Decisions about where restoration money is spent need to follow those connections.
“Where does that start?” Meldrum asked of the sediment and erosion affecting the reef. “It starts right at the top of the catchments.”
Meldrum said work in remote parts of Cape York could be overlooked when attention and funding focused on better-known coastal areas. Understanding the full system meant recognising what was happening upstream and supporting people to address it there.
That perspective has guided decades of work against pond apple, an invasive tree that spread along parts of the Cape York coastline. Meldrum said it crowded out other vegetation and affected the freshwater flows and habitats that support seagrass, turtles and dugongs.
The work began in the 1990s and required persistence well beyond a single project or funding cycle. Its value became tangible to Meldrum years later, when he saw a dugong cow and calf in an area where dugongs had previously disappeared.
The encounter showed him what long-term restoration could make possible. It also reinforced a point he returned to throughout his address: change depends on people being able to keep doing the work on Country.
Meldrum said approaches developed for one part of Australia could offer lessons elsewhere, but each place needed its own response.
“One size does not fit all,” he said.
“So our story is that we are trying to get our knowledge out but we also want to learn from you fellas, as well, and to try and share our knowledge for the betterment of the whole of Australia not just one part of it.”
The challenge, he said, is that much First Peoples work takes place on homelands and receives little attention beyond the communities involved. Opportunities to bring people together, visit one another’s Country and learn from practical experience could help that knowledge travel further.
Meldrum described projects where Traditional Knowledge and scientific methods had worked together, including trials to control invasive plants. He also stressed that technical expertise needed to be communicated in ways people could use.
“The main thing for me is to talk plain and talk from the heart,” he said.
Asked what listening looked like in a group involving First Peoples and non-Aboriginal people, Meldrum began with the different experience each person brings.
“You've got a story, I've got a story, the person down the road has a story,” he said.
For him, listening meant asking how others understood a problem, what they had learned and how they thought it should be approached. It also meant leaving room for Country to guide decisions about restoration, including when and how fire should be used.
Meldrum said caring for Country also had to support livelihoods. His group brings producers together to discuss water use and land management, while its restoration work creates opportunities for local people to apply their knowledge and skills.
He described the difficulty of securing consistent investment for remote projects, even when the environmental need was clear. Funding could help communities control invasive species, restore land and create income that supported further care for Country.
“We know that we can restore our land we can make a living and we can also make our Country better for the people that come after us,” he said.
The motivation to continue is personal as well as practical. Asked how his group kept returning to difficult restoration work, Meldrum spoke about seeing turtles hatch and the dugong cow and calf after years of effort.
Those moments mattered because they showed change that could be seen on Country. But Meldrum’s account also made clear that results of that kind take time, local commitment and support that lasts long enough to make a difference.
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