10 deserts project

DSS is proud to have housed the 10 Deserts Project in Australia before it moved to our partners, the Indigenous Desert Alliance (IDA).

The 10 Deserts Project (the Project) enabled Indigenous peoples to realise social, cultural, environmental and economic outcomes from their desert lands. The Project sustained the largest Indigenous-led connected conservation network on Earth and helped keep Australia’s outback healthy for the benefit of the entire world.

Additionally, 10 Deserts built the capacity of Indigenous groups to look after country for a range of economic, social, cultural and environmental outcomes. It integrated contemporary natural resource management best-practice with traditional cultural and ecological knowledge and established systems and approaches to build environmental resilience across the desert landscape.

Leadership of the 10 Deserts Project transitioned from DSS to the Indigenous Desert Alliance (IDA) on 1 July 2021 with the support and endorsement of key funder, the BHP Foundation.

The transition of the Project to the IDA represented the achievement of a key milestone of the Project. One of the deliverable outcomes of the Project was to have a representative Indigenous organisation to support Indigenous land management across the desert into the future, and one which had capacity to lead the 10 Deserts Project – the IDA is that organisation.

DSS is proud of the work it undertook in successfully leading the Project over the first few years and the way the IDA has continued its work supporting traditional owners looking after their country and building positive futures.