Northern Australia Aboriginal Kakadu Plum Alliance

14/05/2026

NAAKPA has just wrapped up its drone training program in the Northern Territory, with nine participants achieving their CASA certified Remote Pilot Licence (RePL). This brings the total number of RePL qualified participants supported across NT and WA to eleven.
Participants included rangers from Thamarrurr and Larrakia, along with Kakadu Kitchen, all building new capability to support wild harvest operations on Country.
Supported by the Climate Smart Agriculture Capacity Building Grants, the program strengthens the use of drone technology for bushfoods — from surveying access to Kakadu plum sites during the early dry season to monitoring fruit availability and mapping resources across homelands.
This training opens the door to new applications of drone tech that can improve efficiency, support cultural land management, and grow the native foods sector.
https://naakpa.com.au/blog/naakpa-drone-training-program--building-new-capability-on-country

14/05/2026

Professor Eddie Pang has spent the week in the NT sharing his deep plant science knowledge with communities as part of the Climate Smart Agriculture Capacity Building Program.
In Darwin, he joined NAAKPA staff at the NT Herbarium and along the Casuarina Coastal Reserve to collect Kakadu plum samples for the Kakadu Plum Genome Project — an important step in strengthening future cultivar development led by Traditional Owners.
He then travelled to Maningrida to run a hands on workshop with the Bawinanga Aboriginal Corporation nursery team, covering air layering, grafting and cutting techniques. NAAKPA Director and Traditional Owner Leila Nimbadja also took part, reinforcing the importance of community driven science and knowledge sharing.
For more information: https://naakpa.com.au/blog/building-climate-smart-skills -for-kakadu-plum-cultivar-development

17/01/2025

The Northern Australia Aboriginal Kakadu Plum Alliance Cooperative (NAAKPA) is working with Australia’s Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO) to introduce gubinge growers to xray fluorescence (XRF) technology to determine the provenance (geographic location) of gubinge samples. It is a portable scanning unit which can plug into a laptop. This technology can be applied to gubinge growers and harvesters, conservation managers, regulators and other agricultural producers. ANSTO has develop the technology for applications in the seafood sector.

NAAKPA & ANSTO will run a demonstration workshop in Broome, on January 21, 2025 from 9:00am until 12:30pm at Liyan-ngan Nyirrwa Cultural Wellbeing Centre, (Yawuru), Reid St, Broome.

The demonstration workshop is free to attend, however, we ask participants to register. For more information and registration:

Demonstration workshop showing how portable xray fluorescence technology can be used to develop elemental fingerprints for gubinge.

30/10/2024

A team from the National Measurement Institute recently visited Mamabulanjin’s Fruit Farm as part of an initiative to build plant breeding capacity for Indigenous growers. The project has been made possible by the Climate Smart Agriculture grant through the Natural Heritage Trust managed by the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, and is part of a suite of initiatives to build capacity for Indigenous bushfood producers across northern Australia over the next two years.
More info:

A team from the National Measurement Institute recently visited Mamabulanjin’s Fruit Farm as part of an initiative to build plant breeding capacity for Indigenous growers. The project has been made possible by the Climate Smart Agriculture grant through the Natural Heritage Trust managed by the De...

12/09/2024

NAAKPA delivered two cosmetic workshops in Wadeye in September, one for the Wadeye Women’s Centre and a second for Thamarrurr Youth. It was an opportunity for participants to learn some of the basic features of cosmetic formulation as well as try out cosmetic products.

15/01/2024

Observing insects in Kakadu National Park. Entomologists workshops which involved going out into the field to photograph insects visiting Kakadu plum trees and other bushfoods and recording them onto a database managed by MyPestGuide. The workshops also showed participants how to collect, observe and preserve insect specimens for further study. Further information.

05/01/2024

In late 2023 NAAKPA launched its insect identification project for Aboriginal bushfood producers in Broome and Jabiru, funded by the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (Biosecurity) with workshops to come in 2024 in Wadeye and Maningrida.
The objective of the workshops is to build a network of bushfood producers monitoring insects visiting kakadu plum trees as well as other bushfood producing trees. As many NAAKPA members operate on remote homelands, in areas with high levels of unique biodiversity, having an understanding of insect monitoring and collection from a western perspective builds on the knowledge many Aboriginal people and rangers have of their environment and contextualises it into mainstream science knowledge.
https://buff.ly/3RIpnX4
For more information on NAAKPA projects: https://buff.ly/4aSPwv8

27/11/2020

Traditional Owners from Wadeye and Maningrida visited the Berrimah Farm Science Precinct to see stingless native bee hives research horticulturalists are using for rambutan pollination. https://naakpa.com.au/traditional-owners-visit-berrimah-science-precinct

20/11/2020

NAAKPA participated in an IP Australia Expert Reference Group to discuss whether disclosure requirements for genetic resources and traditional knowledge should be considered for patent and Plant Breeder’s Rights (PBR) applications. The workshop included a number of specialists in the field of IP law along with researchers as well as traditional owners. https://naakpa.com.au/disclosure-requirements-for-traditional-knowledge-and-genetic-resources

13/11/2020

The Gubinge harvest season is approaching with many Gubinge trees in Western Australia already flowering in what promises to be a productive harvest season for the beginning of 2021. https://naakpa.com.au/gubinge-harvest-season-approaching