Protecting Country Against Invasive Species — Indigenous Ranger-Led Control (Northern Australia)

Since 2007, the Australian Government's Indigenous Rangers Program (originally "Working on Country") has funded Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander ranger groups to manage Indigenous Protected Areas and other Country, with invasive species control as a core task. Government investment now exceeds AUD 1.3 billion for 2021-2028, supporting roughly 770 full-time-equivalent ranger positions across 108+ ranger groups nationally.

Within this framework, the "Protecting Country Against Invasive Species" (PCAIS) initiative, coordinated by NAILSMA and boosted by a further AUD 2 million Australian Government grant (2025), channels direct funding to more than 40 Indigenous ranger groups across Western Australia, the Northern Territory and Queensland. Rangers combine traditional ecological knowledge with aerial surveys, GPS-collared feral pigs (27 collared under the programme), trapping, shooting and baiting to control feral pigs and cats and invasive weeds such as Siam weed and gamba grass.

A 2016 Social Return on Investment (SROI) analysis commissioned by the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet found Indigenous Protected Areas employing rangers generated up to AUD 3.40 of social, economic, cultural and environmental value per AUD 1 invested; a site-level SROI study of the Girringun and Tjaltjraak ranger programmes independently found ratios of roughly 3:1.

Feral pig and gamba grass populations continue to expand faster than control capacity in many regions, and most published evaluation to date is programme-level (jobs, capacity, SROI) rather than population-level (measured hectares or animal-density reduction) - ecological outcomes are more strongly evidenced for employment and governance than for quantified biodiversity or fire impact.