Indigenous artists, major arts organisations and Aboriginal health services are calling for a road map to protect Indigenous elders from dying from COVID-19 and the irreplaceable loss of culture and knowledge that would cause.

The organisations are worried that as Australia opens up and travel restrictions ease, the virus could reach more vulnerable remote communities.

Lily Roy is a prominent senior weaving artist, traditional owner and also sits on the board of the Arnhem Land Progress Association and she founded the Milingimbi Art and Culture Centre on Milingimbi (Yurrwi) Island.

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But Ms Roy, a grandmother to at least 35 children, is very concerned about what could happen to Indigenous people if COVID-19 spreads in remote communities, especially with some vaccine hesitancy still in the community.

"[Of] course there's a danger," she said.

Ms Roy is also a board member of ANKA, the Arnhem, Northern and Kimberley Artists Aboriginal Corporation, the peak advocacy body for Aboriginal artists and art centres across northern Australia.

ANKA is one of the Indigenous arts groups calling for a road-map to protect Aboriginal artists living on their traditional land. 

The organisation's chief executive Christina Balcombe Davidson said there was a serious risk of losing culture, and even the extinction of languages, if elders die from COVID-19 in remote communities, which have little infrastructure, limited health services and overcrowded housing. 

"We are extremely concerned about safety for Aboriginal people and with them, for the culture that they are the custodians of," she said.

"The loss of any one elder can be the loss of absolutely irreplaceable, invaluable cultural knowledge.

'An enormous loss to the community and to the world'

Leading artists and major arts organisations recently held a webinar to discuss the situation.

On that call was Bruce Johnson McLean, the assistant director of Indigenous Engagement at the National Gallery of Australia.

"The death of an elder, a senior cultural person — a senior cultural practitioner; a senior artist — is an enormous loss to the community and to the world," he said.

"For a place like the National Gallery, we need to understand how to work with communities going forward, to make sure that we are doing everything that we can to at once protect community, but share culture as well."

Also in attendance on the webinar was an emotional Dr Hugh Heggie, the Northern Territory's chief medical officer.

"If we don't get vaccination for Aboriginal people, I'm going to say this, and this makes me upset because these old people they will die if the virus gets into our remote communities," he told participants.

Northern Territory considers internal travel restrictions as borders open

The Northern Territory government has flagged internal travel restrictions could be introduced as soon as next month, to isolate remote communities where vaccination rates are below the 80-90 per cent target.

However, last week NT chief minister Michael Gunner told the ABC that he did not think that biosecurity zones previously put in place to protect remote communities against COVID-19 were effective and instead said they could encourage people not to get vaccinated because they felt safe. 

"Biosecurity zones might be quite resource-intensive and not deliver the outcome we're looking for, so we're working through what those public health measures will be," he said.

Ms Davidson said a higher vaccination threshold was needed for Indigenous communities, and that restrictions on visitors to communities would be important.

"The Aboriginal-controlled health services are saying that there needs to be at least 100 per cent vaccination or between 95-100 per cent vaccination before opening up and it's not there," she said.

She said ANKA supports classifying all staff at remote arts centres as essential workers.

"Art centres in many communities are the heart of the community, they do much more than just produce art, or run an art shop," she said. "They do a whole range of social and cultural support for communities."

"[At] Lily's art centre at Milingimbi, they had a vegetable garden going that they were supporting people with, they had all sorts of cultural activities that were keeping people's morale up, and also [they] we're recording the invaluable cultural knowledge that is... one of the potential things to be threatened."

Mr McLean from the National Gallery agrees a roadmap would be useful for organisations that want to work with remote Indigenous artists.

"What are the things that we need to keep in mind when we're visiting communities? And how might we apply that approach, broadly, to a range of different Indigenous communities when we want to work with them?

 "I think a roadmap for reopening, but also a set of protocols for engaging with communities through this period is going to be really important to ensure that we're protecting our people, our culture, and the livelihoods of those communities."