Greetings!  My name is Nick Chesterfield.  I am a human rights and investigative journalist, digital journalism safety trainer and OpSec consultant, and co-founding Editor and of the clandestine witness journalism project WestPapuaMedia.

Welcome to Manukoreri, a site to showcase my work and services.  This site is currently undergoing an upgrade to bring it in line with the services and experience I offer in 2023 and beyond.  Thank you for your patience.

Over the last 20-odd years of field work, I have provided support, capacity building, fixing and training to indigenous journalists, environmental and human rights defenders across Indonesia, Timor, Melanesia and Aboriginal Australia, specifically focusing on the provision of credible information collection, citizen media safety, and civil resistance journalism.

I also have lived experience as a journalist living and working with disability, and will be writing further on these topics throughot this year.

I am also a photojournalist and landscape/nature photographer.  You can view some of my work at 500px.com/NickChesterfield

My OpSec work specifically focuses on the experience gained in training frontline witness journalists across the world as part of (one of several side projects I work on) the eyeSafeMoJo – The Safe Witness (Mobile) Journalism Project and in formulating the groundbreaking Project FiveARM Secure Crisis Journalism Reporting Tools.

During 2023, Project FIveARM will be undertaking renewed focus incorporating a more collaborative approach to creating Secure Field Source information and verification technologies.  Using new Machine learning integrations, these tools will enable witnesses to crises to provide legal standard evidence, protected by blockchain anti-tampering accountability, that journalists and other users can rely on to prove the facts on the ground remotely.  These technologies can predicate the voices of the people that live there, decolonise journalism praxis, and ensure access issues to the field do not prevent reporting of critical stories.

I am also currently engaged in finalising geographically approriate editions of both Broadcast Training, Data Journaliam and  Operational Security Guides for Witness Journalists, based on frontline and clandestine jouranlism fixing, and day-to-day work in a number of civil resistance contexts in repressive environments.  This knowledge is also appropriately transferred into bespoke guides produced under several consultancies I have been doing for a variety of ethical social enterprise, corporate and cryptocurrency clients.

I have also worked as a journalist, grassroots security analyst and witness journalism practicitioner, media activist and trainer, focusing on journalistically amplifying and educating on the inalienable Rights of Indigenous Peoples across the Asia-Pacific Region, specifically focusing on Melanesian issues.Some of my services include Independent investigative Human Rights & Human Security Journalism, OpSec Consultancy, Field Investigations, Safe Witness Journalism & Civil Resistance training, and Strategic Planning and Advocacy across Melanesia, Australia & the Pacific.

If you need to know anything at all about me in the public domain, I have an online presencee, and you should get a rough idea of what I get up to.

So what is Manukoreri?

anukoreri is an amalgam name that symbolises the connection of my heritage and way of life to the struggle for indigenous liberation and respect, especially in the Melanesian region. Fundamentally, it is a name that is used with full permission of its Origin Custodians.  Whilst it is not from my own mixed indigenous blood heritage, Manu comes from a highly honoured name given to me in ceremony by Law Elders now passed of the Guugu-Yalanji Baama of the jungle of Far North “Queensland”. I can provide these bona-fides privately if required.

The full name – Bubumanu – means “the neck of the land”. As in messenger, the pathway of nourishment and conduit between head and heart. It is a name I wear with pride.Koreri, of course, is a Biak name for the law belonging to the Morning Star. The Morning Star is the most sacred symbol for all Melanesians, one that unites us all in a common identity, our ancestors. It is a story that unites our Land as it was before the waters rose only 8000 years ago, a very sacred story. It tells the stories of our songlines and helps us navigate. It guides our messengers and our travellers. It allowed our fishermen to come home from hundreds of kilometres out to sea. It enabled our ancestors to populate the ocean of peace – The Pacific.The Manukoreri artwork at top of the page shows this connection clearly, and it symbolised the truth that I walk.. It is of our land before the waters separated us, and shows the key sacred dreaming of our one land. One People, One Land, One Soul.

Manukoreri is about bringing that all back together, to enjoy peace and prosperity with sustainability and respect for the Land from which we come.

I am of mixed indigenous and decolonised colonist heritage, and I am currently based in Meanjin (Brisbane) in geographic Australia, on Yuggera land.