We’re here with the Maasai rangers and we’ve got our Australian Indigenous rangers with us.
I feel happy, you know, excited.
I've never been in Africa before in my life, leave Australia in my life
The indigenous ranger exchange is an idea to have rangers from different parts of the world
from different cultures, from different ecological settings to come together
and discuss how they look after both the environment, but in tandem their communities and culture.
I thought it would be more cleaner and greener.
Our country have a lot of water, green, always green
you don’t have to be thirsty like here in Africa.
My name is Steven Andrews, I’m from Australia and Katherine region and I come from a tribe called Jawoyn.
I came on this trip to learn different experience in Africa with the Maasai rangers
This is my first time overseas. I was nervous from the start but I got talked into it.
Bit scary to leave from Perth yeah and long flight and land in a airport
and seeing people walking with guns and stuff, just made me more scared.
I feel privileged to be here and excited you know.
Different countries, especially away from Australia for the first time. I feel a bit nervous also.
So the Australian rangers are from three different ranger groups.
The Martu desert rangers in the Western Desert
we’ve got the Kimberley rangers from North West Western Australia.
Exhausting!
And we've also got the Jawoyn rangers from the Southern edge of Kakadu near Katherine.
We brought an ambassador of ours and a musician friend Dan Sultan
So, a mixture of different personalities
including one amazing elder Muuki from the Western Desert
who has brought a lot of that elder wisdom to the trip as well.
I became a ranger to look after my country.
Because our people was looking after our country long time ago.
It’s your mum?
Yeah it’s my mother.
You guys eat snakes? You can eat snake. Really?
I’ve seen the foods that we eat is totally different. Especially the snakes. No, we can’t.
If I don’t come back, love youse.
We’re here with the biggest tusker in Africa with the biggest mountain in Africa in the background.
It’s all a bit too beautiful but it’s one thing to realise that
it doesn’t exist without the rangers hard work day after day month after month.
Sometimes risking their life against poachers, just amazing.
Pretty exciting boys, eh? Your first elephant?
Yeah.
And a big one too.
It’s a different experience for us all I suppose
you know just learning about how they live, what sort of job they do.
So camera traps we normally set, it will capture the poacher
We have catched many, many, many, many poachers there before.
They’ve been on out on outstations where the rangers are on out there for 23 days a month continuous
and I think that’s woken them up to how hard the rangers here do it.
We took a walk with the three rangers.
Good little walk, pulled a sweat out. Get the leg bit shaken up there.
The ranger work here, it's a little bit, a little bit same.
But in their work they've got a lot of walking and a bit scary, you know, you've got dangerous animals.
Early this morning they found a poacher on the side of the road
heading towards our way and yeah, they’re just having a few questions with him.
This guy looks like he’s from Tanzania. He hasn’t yet told me but he sounds like a Tanzanian accent.
He might be a poacher, maybe. I’m yet to confirm.
Scary for us because we don’t get like poachers like this back at home. Bit of drama.
Watching Steven and Virgil, Steven was probably one of the first guys to be proactive on this trip.
Together they’ve come forward and the whole group has come forward and really participating strongly.
It was nervous. Seeing different people. Yeah I was afraid.
Frightened. Now, it's changed. There are some good people in Africa.
Maybe next time we come back, we might bring a kangaroo back.
I really am impressed with how much they’ve taken from this trip
and they're actually asking themselves more questions, which is great too.
They said, "When I go home I've got to speak to the elders about knowing more about my culture."
"So when I come back next time, I can say more."
So that’s the idea. It’s embracing conservation and culture in the one.