Scents of this land: Learnings from Australia’s iotb t s r hnc e ologiss t Written by Lucy Slip and Emily Venga
Indigenous Australians have understood and used native plants—and their essential oils— for tens of thousands of years. Essential oils are a complex mixture of molecules, including terpenoids, which play important roles inside plants1. For example, the terpenoid eucalyptol, is the main ingredient of eucalyptus oil and acts as a natural insecticide to help protect eucalyptus trees in the hostile Aussie bush2. Eucalyptol is also flammable and key to the success of Australia’s fire-suppression strategy known as ‘backburning’. This practice originates from ‘Fire-Stick Farming’, which was invented by Aboriginal Australians to, in part, promote the new germination of plants, such as eucalyptus trees, in the Aussie bush. FireStick Farming began 120,000 years ago and the practice has been passed down from generation to generation through cultural protocols 3. The demand for plant-derived terpenoids is widespread due to their diverse utility in pharmaceuticals, food additives, fragrances, flavourants, cosmetics, pesticides/insect repellents and chemical feedstocks4-6. In our Australasian Synbio Challenge (ASC) project, we were not interested in any one terpenoid per se but rather the development of a synbiobased platform technology that enhances the biological machinery inside microorganisms (i.e., cyanobacteria) to increase their capacity to produce terpenoid compounds. However, by taking a step back from the lab bench, we were able to view our science through a more sociotechnical lens; that is, we began to ponder what impact these hypothetical terpenoid-
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producing microorganisms might have in a contemporary Australian context. Recognising First Nations People’s longstanding expertise and relationship with valuable terpenoids like eucalyptol, we engaged with Indigenous plant knowledge holder, Henrietta Baird. In an interactive online workshop over Zoom, Henrietta gave us an insight into the roots of traditional relationships with native flora and shared her perspectives on synbio ventures and the importance of respectful interactions between Western and Indigenous scientists and communities. She shared her knowledge about the ancient and ongoing use of eucalyptus oil as a vapour rub and in aiding congestion and inflammation, as well as the use of native Australian paperbark trees (Melaleucas family) as an alternative natural wound covering. The latter half of the workshop was focused on the hands-on practice of weaving. Here, Henrietta showed us how to weave bracelets via traditional techniques. She demonstrated the process using the long leaves of the blue flax plant (Linaceae family) and got us to do the same with electric cables as a way to store them neatly. In this article, we share what we learnt from Henrietta during the workshop, from both a scientist’s (Emily) and designer’s (Lucy) perspective. We also reflect on how these sorts of discussions need to occur more often within the synbio community, especially during the early stages of a project.