Securing surviving futures: Zenadh Health Science Research and Education Council

The Zenadh Health Science Research and Education Council (the Council) will be formalised as a culturally grounded physical infrastructure and holds endorsement from the tribal Elders. Hughes, the Council's inaugural co-chair, holds the Zenadh cultural paradigm as Koike of medicine of the Wagadagam tribe of Mabuyag Island and has leadership and experience of biomedical evidence-based sciences. The Council's vision was outlined to the former Minister for Environment and the Great Barrier Reef and Minister for Science and Youth Affairs in Waiben (Kaurareg nation, 5 September 2022), and marked, at a ministerial level, the policy unification of Zenadh (Torres Strait) culture, leading Zenadh and Eurocentric sciences together. The Council aims to secure locally within the region Zenadh knowledges, intellect, skills and zageth (work) by Australia's leading scientists, who will trace cultural rite to our Lagau (Islands). It is a powerful provision for Elders to make a way to formally consolidate scientists’ practice, so that cultural knowledge, tribal sciences and Eurocentric science epistemology can be maximised and beneficial, within a healthy constraint of practice that manifests enduring cultural authority of tribal governance. This is the cultural methodology of Wakanwyan (to bring in under the fold) to incorporate Eurocentric scientific practices, while steering the community away from scientific and knowledge exploitation...