Ports Australia launches ‘Ports on the map of Indigenous Australia’

Ports Australia has launched its ‘Ports on the map of Indigenous Australia’, an online resource which locates ports on an Indigenous map of Australia.

With the new resource, ports are able to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land on which they operate.

The map will be accompanied by information on Ports Australia’s Sustainability Hub showing how ports are taking reconciliation action or engaging with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.

Australia’s ports are located in some of the world’s most beautiful locations, all rich with the history and culture lived by the traditional custodians of the land.

For this reason, it is essential to identify the partnerships between ports and First Nation’s peoples and consider how to empower one another to do more as an industry.

Ports taking on reconciliation action and engaging with Traditional Owners is a critical part of business on an acute port and local community level, but also on a far greater scale, contributing to the growth of unity between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and non-Indigenous peoples across Australia.

Ports Australia’s CEO, Mike Gallacher, spoke about the origins and meaning behind the map.

“A major focus of Ports Australia for a number of years now has been understanding and sharing the sustainable practice and planning mechanisms of our ports… this project merely directs that focus closer towards reconciliation action and acknowledgment of Traditional Owners,” Gallacher said.

“It’s important we share what we’re doing right as individual businesses and an industry which inevitably informs and empowers us to do more for the betterment of the sector and nation as a whole,” he said.

“Most importantly, this map provides one central location where we can acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land on which our ports do their business every day.”

Ports Australia also acknowledged the work of Scarlett Cheesman, who interned with the organisation in 2021, bringing with her a wealth of knowledge from her studies helping to drive the development of this project.