Southern Aboriginal Corporation rangers complete drone training to map and discover the Great Southern

Six rangers from the Southern Aboriginal Corporation recently undertook a five-day course to gain their remote pilot’s licence in an effort to map and explore the Great Southern. The rangers underwent 40 hours of training, 35 of which were theory while the other five hours were practical application. SAC partnered with Global Drone Solutions to run the course in a first of its kind in the Great Southern. “We wanted to play with the capacity of our rangers, they’re so good in caring for country and it would be really good to do cultural mapping for things like weed eradication,” SAC chief executive Asha Bhat said. “It’s a really great program and qualification for these rangers to be able to protect the country and do cultural mapping of the area to compare differences from year to year.” Local ranger Henry Jones found the drone training incredibly helpful in completing his work. “It makes our job a lot easier, especially around freshwater sources or places like that,” he said. “And it gives us a bit of extra safety as well, not having to endanger ourselves when exploring and trying to move foreign and cultural objects, like signs or tools.” Mr Jones said he was hopeful that his new ability to fly a drone would allow him to discover undiscovered artefacts and paintings in caves currently inaccessible by human exploration. “There’s a couple of caves that would be great to explore and find out what they hold,” he said.