In this episode of Voices of Transformation, DPI Executive Director Florence Drummond speaks with Nikita Hunt and Zac James, the Tjiwarl delegates who joined DPI’s Youth Salon delegation to the First Nations Major Projects Coalition (FNMPC) 9th Annual Conference in Vancouver and Toronto in April and May 2026. Nikita is from Tjiwarl country and is currently studying nursing while working in community health administration. Zac is a Wongutha, Yamatji and Murri man, a member of the Tjiwarl Native Title Group, and a heritage advisor working alongside mining to protect sacred sites.

Their participation in the delegation was a direct extension of DPI’s Regional Catalyst work on Tjiwarl lands, where DPI, Tjiwarl Aboriginal Corporation, and ARCA have been exploring the opportunity to turn mine rehabilitation into a carbon removal industry.

Tune in to understand:

• What it meant to be in a room of over 2,000 delegates—many of them First Nations peoples from across the world—where culture came first, leadership was conducted in culturally appropriate ways, and the conference was opened with smoking and song.
• How both delegates’ understanding of leadership shifted through the experience. Nikita arrived thinking a leader was someone at the top of a hierarchy. She left understanding that leadership means carrying culture, supporting community, and thinking about future generations.
• The seven generations framework that shaped the conference’s thinking: that decisions made today carry consequences for seven generations to come, and that accountability to the future is inseparable from leadership in the present
• Why Zac frames Indigenous participation in mining and energy transition projects as a question of timing, not method. Indigenous peoples understand what Country needs, how it looks, and how it feels when something is going wrong. That knowledge belongs in project decision-making from the start, particularly with young people whose ideas can change how processes work
• The connections formed outside the conference rooms: conversations with First Nations and indigenous delegates from Canada, South Africa, and beyond, and what it revealed about how communities globally are navigating the same pressures around resource development, health gaps, and economic sovereignty
• What Nikita and Zac would say to Tjiwarl youth considering the program: “Don’t be shame, be game.” And to sponsoring organisations: trust what comes across your desk, even if it falls outside your usual scope of work

Throughout the conversation, both delegates reflect on the intensity of the experience and the significance of returning home carrying perspectives from across the globe.

Read more about the Youth Salon program here.