Doing Business on Country

Join the The Land Back Foundation to explore key questions for social enterprise leaders, including:

• Do First Nations’ worldviews of business differ and why?
• What does it mean to do business on Country?
• What is your relationship and your business's relationship to Country?
• How do you engage with your communities with the correct protocols?

In the first of two sessions to be convened by the The Land Back Foundation, we invite you to deepen your understanding of First Nations' worldviews, Country, and the need to address 'blind-spots' as part of social enterprise commitments to social, cultural and environmental wellbeing.

Madonna Thomson

Indigenous cultural integrity and governance specialist (Goori society & south east Queensland ecosystems)

 

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Madonna is a member of the Jagera People and a grand-niece of the late Senator Neville Bonner. She has worked extensively for more than 20 years in native title, cultural heritage and natural resource management, and was instrumental in developing a regional engagement framework in consultation with Traditional Owner groups of south east Queensland. Madonna is an experienced founding operator of a successful and respected Queensland Indigenous cultural heritage business and co-owner and director of Nyanda Cultural Tours. She is a founding member of the Independent Indigenous Tourism Operators of Qld and chair of the University of Queensland Indigenous Enterprise Group (comprised of Indigenous native food business across Australia), working with chemical engineering students and food scientists in the ethical research of Australian native foods.

Adam Byrne

Co-founder and co-owner of Bush to Bowl

 

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Adam is a Garigal (Garu) descendent living on Kamay Country on the northern beaches of NSW. He is passionate about connecting mob to their traditional foodways as a form of healing. Adam is a qualified landscaper and designer who is inspired by food sovereignty and traditional land management. He is a co-founder and co-owner of Bush to Bowl - a social enterprise that connects First Nations people to Country and traditional foodways.

Birdy Bird

Co-Founder and CEO of The Land Back Foundation

 

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Birdy is an entrepreneur and architect with a background in community arts, social enterprise and Indigenous community development. Their experience as a fifth-generation colonial-settler descendent whose family’s intergenerational wealth started on a dairy farm on the Mid North Coast of NSW inspired them to start a movement to fundraise via voluntary reparations more than $200 million in the next two generations. They say: “The story I tell myself is, that my family has gained wealth, health, education and opportunity because of our ability to own land, at the expense of First Nations people. I am giving land back."