Seasonal Calendars with DDAC

Over the past year, we have had the privilege of working closely with the Duduroa Dhargal Aboriginal Corporation (DDAC) on the co-creation of seasonal calendars grounded in Duduroa knowledge, Country, and governance. This work has been about much more than documenting ecological change. It has been a process of listening, walking, mapping, and carefully navigating cultural protocols to ensure that knowledge remains in the right hands.

Seasonal calendars are powerful cultural tools. They express relationships between plants, animals, water, winds, soils, and people across time. Unlike the fixed four-season Gregorian model, Duduroa seasonal knowledge reflects subtle shifts in flowering, animal behaviour, temperature, rainfall, and river flows. These patterns are not simply observational data; they encode responsibilities, harvesting practices, ceremony, and care for Country.

Our collaboration unfolded through six fieldtrips on Duduroa Country, particularly at Ryans Lagoon. These visits allowed us to walk with Elders, knowledge holders, and community members, observing key indicator species and places firsthand. Being on Country together grounded the project in lived experience rather than abstract data collection. Each fieldtrip opened conversations about change: what is arriving earlier, what is no longer seen, how water flows differently, and how climate pressures are reshaping seasonal cues.

Four of these visits included structured co-design workshops with DDAC. In these sessions, we worked collectively to identify seasonal indicators, discuss how they interrelate, and explore how best to visually represent them. Rather than imposing a predefined template, the calendars were shaped through dialogue. Community members determined what could be shared publicly, what required restriction, and how cultural meaning should be represented. This iterative co-design ensured that the calendars reflect Duduroa priorities and governance.

Beyond the community workshops, we convened a broader meeting that brought together researchers, citizen scientists, and catchment management authorities: a multidisciplinary network of work done at Ryans Lagoon. The purpose was not to validate Indigenous knowledge through Western science, but to create a space for cross-referencing and careful mapping. Participants worked collaboratively to map ecological indicators and compare long-term monitoring datasets with community observations. This process revealed both alignments and gaps, highlighting the value of Indigenous seasonal knowledge in strengthening regional environmental management.

A crucial dimension of the project has been ongoing discussions about cultural protocols and data sovereignty. From the outset, DDAC made clear that knowledge is not simply “information” to be extracted or circulated. It is relational, governed, and situated. We therefore held dedicated meetings to clarify permissions, storage, access rights, and future use. Decisions about what is published, how data is archived, and who can access specific layers of information remain under Duduroa authority. These conversations have been essential in building trust and ensuring that the calendars support, rather than undermine, Indigenous governance.

The seasonal calendars project demonstrates how collaborative environmental research can operate differently. It shows that respectful partnerships require time on Country, iterative design processes, and careful attention to governance. It also highlights how Indigenous knowledge systems offer sophisticated frameworks for understanding ecological change at a moment of accelerating climate uncertainty.

Most importantly, this work affirms that seasonal knowledge is not a relic of the past. It is living, adaptive, and central to caring for Country today and into the future. 

By: Dr Ana Lara Heyns