Our social impact is articulated around three pillars:

• economic empowerment
• connection to country
• health and wellbeing.

Economic empowerment

Maningrida Wild Foods has been established to develop culturally-appropriate and locally-driven economic development opportunities for the people of the Maningrida homelands.

100% of Maningrida Wild Foods’ income stays in the Maningrida region, supporting people living on their homelands or in Maningrida. The majority of the income from our business goes directly to harvesters and fishers.

The sale of bush foods has involved over 150 harvesters in the Maningrida region since 2018. Our wild harvesters collect foods that are highly significant to local cultures and they collect foods directly from their country.

Connection to country

The fishing and crabbing crews are proud to be working on their country, continuing thousands of years of managing and looking after traditional lands. We believe that local saltwater people should be in charge of their marine resources and given the opportunity to enjoy the economic opportunities they create.

Our bush food harvests encourage traditional owners to spend time on their country, usually with entire families harvesting together in the afternoons and evenings, encouraging inter-generational knowledge sharing.

Maningrida Wild Foods also supports cultural preservation through several language projects, ensuring that the essential and deep local knowledge of native foods stays strong.

Environmental sustainability is a key consideration of Maningrida Wild Foods. Our activities encourage Traditional Owners to spend time on country to look after it while ensuring that the resources will be kept for future generations.

We are also proud to be sharing our culture and educating the rest of the country about native foods.

Health and nutrition

Another key mission of Maningrida Wild Foods is to promote healthy and nutritious foods in Maningrida.

In remote communities, there are only very limited healthy food options. It makes a huge difference to sell seafood and bush foods directly to community members, who are thankful that traditional foods are made available to those who do not have access to their country.