Building the bush

Santa Teresa Titjikala Wallace Rockhole Amoonguna Uruna Yatesman Bore Iwupataka Hermannsburg Tjuwanpa

Walatjata Imanpa Areyonga Finke Docker River Mutitjulu Kings Canyon Tempe Downs

Bamboo Springs Mistake Creek Daguragu Outstations Dagaragu Lajamanu Outstations Lajamanu

Nyrripi Yuendumu Yuendumu Outstation Tanami Downs Willowra Mt Barkly Mt Dension

Papunya Haasts Mt Liebig Walungurru Mbunghara

Mungalawurru Ngurratiji Kunayungku Karlanjarriyi Epenarra Tennant Creek Canteen Creek Wunara Alekerange Imangarra/Murray Downs

Alpurrurulam Ampilawatja Urapuntja Alparra Irrultja Derry Downs Atnwengerrpe

Bonya Urlampe Alcoota Irrelirre/no 5 Mt Eaglebeak Akarnehe Well Atitjere

Woola Downs/Adelaide Bore Yuelamu Ti Tree Station Wilora Stirling Ti Tree 6 Mile Laramba Tara Thangkenharange

The Central Land Council is one of the largest organisations in Alice Springs but many people know little about our role.

The CLC is a Commonwealth statutory body which operates under both the Aboriginal Land Rights Act and the Native Title Act. It represents more than 24,000 Aboriginal people in the southern half of the Northern Territory.

For many years the main job of the Central Land Council has been to help traditional owners reclaim ownership of their land under the Aboriginal Land Rights Act or to help traditional owners win recognition of land they have traditional links to under the Native Title Act.

But the CLC also has many other tasks and functions, including land management and community development. These areas have significantly expanded in recent years due to increasing demand from Aboriginal people in our region for assistance to help them gain more benefits from their land.

The CLC area covers 775,963 square kilometres - 381,792 square kilometres of it is Aboriginal land. More than 15 language groups are represented in the region. The CLC is a council of 90 Aboriginal people elected from communities in the southern half of the Northern Territory who meet three times a year in various bush locations.

Cover image. Justin Dickerson during cattle handling training this year.

Santa Teresa Titjikala Wallace Rockhole Amoonguna Uruna Yatesman Bore Iwupataka Hermannsburg Tjuwanpa

Walatjata Imanpa Areyonga Finke Docker River Mutitjulu Kings Canyon Tempe Downs

Bamboo Springs Mistake Creek Daguragu Outstations Dagaragu Lajamanu Outstations Lajamanu

Nyrripi Yuendumu Yuendumu Outstation Tanami Downs Willowra Mt Barkly Mt Dension

Papunya Haasts Mt Liebig Walungurru Mbunghara

Mungalawurru Ngurratiji Kunayungku Karlanjarriyi Epenarra Tennant Creek Canteen Creek Wunara Alekerange Imangarra/Murray Downs

Alpurrurulam Ampilawatja Urapuntja Alparra Irrultja Derry Downs Atnwengerrpe

Bonya Urlampe Alcoota Irrelirre/no 5 Mt Eaglebeak Akarnehe Well Atitjere

Woola Downs/Adelaide Bore Yuelamu Ti Tree Station Wilora Stirling Ti Tree 6 Mile Laramba Tara Thangkenharange

90

Prescribed burning in the Northern Tanami IPA - 2009/2010

0 20 40 60 8010Kilometers2009 prescribed burning

2010 prescribed burning ¯

Clockwise from below. Satellite map of prescribed burning areas in the Northern Tanami 2009/2010. Wulaign Ranger Dylan Gordon learns to use the Raindance machine at the CLC’s ranger camp this year.Doris Martin doing burning along the Lander River. Opposite page. Aerial burning in the Tanami last year.

Bushfires NT CEO Steve Sutton says 2010 looks like being a significant fire season for Central Australia and Aboriginal people “are better placed to manage this fire season than they have been for decades”.

“In the last six years the Land Council has really stepped up to the plate regarding fire management on Aboriginal land and led the way on traditional fire practices as well as working closely with Bushfires NT,” Mr Sutton said.

“It has also been very successful building relationships across land tenure boundaries.”

Big, hot fires which rage across our landscapes destroy everything in their path, including precious habitats and rare species of plants and animals.

Soil at those temperatures can take decades to recover.

In the past, the main problem facing good fire management in the bush was the inaccessibility of the country. But last year the CLC bought an aerial

our land

Challenging times for fire controlAboriginal land owners in remote parts of the Territory are embracing the latest technology to manage fire on Aboriginal land and protect some of Australia’s most valuable areas of biodiversity.

incendiary device which allows traditional owners to light lots of small fires from helicopters across hundreds of square kilometres of remote country.

Already some key areas in the Tanami have been burnt using both the Raindance machine and traditional Aboriginal knowledge which had managed fire for thousands of years before settlement.

Gina Broun is the CLC’s fire officer and is responsible for implementing the project across nearly 400,000 square kilometres of Aboriginal land.

“The beauty of the Raindance machine is

that it enables Aboriginal traditional landowners to travel in the chopper and direct Aboriginal rangers, who are trained to use the machine, where to drop the incendiaries,” she said.

“We still do a lot of ground-based burning and traditional owners are always interested in fire management because it’s fundamental to traditional practices involving bush tucker.

Now we have a Tanami regional committee which meet to talk about fire management. It works very well and we envisage more of these types of committees in other regions,” Broun said.

Sutton says there is still a lot of work to be done. “It will require innovation and the use of aircraft and the CLC has been exemplary in finding effective ways to carry out fire management,” he said.

“I understand older traditional owners were a bit doubtful about using the aerial incendiary devices but the CLC has taken their concerns on board and gently coaxed people along so that they see they can be in complete control of it and that it’s a good way to manage fire.”

Estimates have suggested that at the current rate of population increase, there’ll be 2.2 million feral camels in Central Australia across the Northern Territory, South Australia and Western Australia within 10 years. Currently there are 1.1 million.

Feral camels are increasing their numbers by 100,000 a year with harvesting for export or abattoirs taking out only 10,000 a year at best, meaning a control program must include culling if numbers are to be reduced.

The Central Land Council has committed to working with governments and communities to help prevent the population increasing and to reducing the number of unmanaged camels on country over the next three years.

The CLC’s project officer Jude Prichard said many problems have been created by the explosion in camel numbers.

“In times of drought many sacred sites have become grave yards as camels perish because the conditions are dry. A mob of camels can drink a waterhole dry – outcompeting native animals - and in an arid environment like Central Australia where waterholes are limited, this can have a great affect on emus and kangaroos,” Ms Prichard said.

“Camels contaminate water sites with urine and kuna (faeces), which can make it unsafe for drinking, swimming or playing. They also damage water sites as their feet push in dirt and sand while accessing the water. The water sites then fill with mud – not water.

High camel numbers have led to the local extinction of plants on land trusts. Species favoured by camels such as the Quandong have been obliterated in most areas.

The CLC is a partner in the Federal Government’s Caring for our Country initiative aimed at decreasing the impacts of feral camels by reducing their numbers over the next three years.

“The CLC recognises that the success of the program in the NT depends on Aboriginal land managers developing their capacity to manage feral camels as both a pest and a resource,” Ms Prichard said.

“As a result the CLC is committed to the window of opportunity the Caring for our Country program presents and is developing regional and site specific strategies and responses, the skills, capacity and contracts necessary to utilise harvesting and culling methods to reduce camel numbers.

“It’s the CLC’s responsibility to check that any proposals that are presented to it are viable, meet land management objectives, are within capacity and consented to by traditional owners of the land trusts affected. However, despite three harvest agreements being created, none of them, as yet, have resulted in a harvest being undertaken from Central Australian Aboriginal lands.”

Over the next two years, if successful, planned camel reductions will see the current Australian feral camel population of 1.1 million fall to 700,000 - 800,000. In the final years of the Caring for our Country program, it’s hoped the population will be reduced to about 550,000 to 670,000 camels.

The CLC’s main objective is to develop models of management that then support an annual national population reduction of 50,000 to 70,000 camels a year, preventing further population increases.

Camel crisis engulfs Central Australia

There’s an estimated 360,000 camels in the Northern Territory and most of them are on Aboriginal land trusts.

Name: Harold Howard (Chongy)

Years working with the CLC: 10 years

Role: Coordinator Employment Unit

Best bits of the job: Helping people to achieve their dreams.

Hardest part of the job: Convincing people to have a crack at their dreams.

Favourite place in the CLC region: Mistake Creek Station: good people, great country and fantastic food.

Favourite moment in your life: Too many moments to pick one

so there is the top four. Birth of my children, Collingwood winning the grand final in 1990 and 2010 and meeting my missus.

How would you change the world: It’s not that bad at the moment would be good if we had a three day weekend.

for country

TennantCreek

Aputula

DockerRiver

AtitjereKintore

Nyirripi

SantaTeresaUlpanyali

Camel Management Meetings

Consent for Camel Management

Camels per km2

>2.01.5 to 2.01.0 to 1.50.5 to 1.00.25 to 0.50.1 to 0.25CLC RegionAboriginal LandVacant Crown (claimed)

Camel cullThe case of Docker River, a community in the far south-west of the Northern Territory, is an example of the seriousness of the feral camel problem.

An emergency cull of camels was organised after thousands of feral camels moved into the community, knocking over taps and pipes in a desperate search for water during a dry spell in the region. The community was literally surrounded by thirsty camels, placing undue stress on the lives of residents.

At the time, many people made claims suggesting great possibilities for the harvesting of camels but most claims did not consider the community’s immediate right to a safe environment.

Subsequent proposals for harvesting camels have been presented to the CLC. Many rely on maintaining high camel numbers to make it easier and cheaper to capture them; don’t factor in the costs of fuel, availability of transport and lack of roads in remote areas; don’t take into account the size of the regions and the roaming nature of camels; some want to buy camels but aren’t proposing to muster them or provide paid roles for local people in their proposals while others are highly selective about the type of camels.

Only one proposal has demonstrated an understanding that the land management goals are to reduce damage to country by reducing camel numbers fast and providing benefits to remote communities such as employment.

CLC project officer Jude Prichard said culls are planned for remote areas with limited road access, where harvesting them is unviable or failed to get off the ground, and in critical situations where numbers have grown to be an environmental, safety and cultural concern.

“Sacred site clearances are being undertaken for a huge area in the Petermann region under a harvesting licence,” she said. “But harvesting camels is only possible when a buyer can be found and the sale is still profitable allowing for the costs of mustering, holding and transportation.

“There have been three fatalities of Aboriginal people because of camels and a lot of near misses and non fatal accidents that weren’t reported,” Ms Prichard said.

The CLC is using the Caring for our Country program to develop community mustering and trapping skills in communities. Seven sites in the Simpson Desert, Petermann and Haasts Bluff land trusts are being investigated for the suitability of mustering and trapping camels. These sites are considered essential to the long-term management of feral camels. Most of these sites need roadwork to support camel harvesting ambitions.

Aboriginal rangers will be an integral part of the camel control program, which will open up a range of skills for them to develop – including aerial surveys, mustering, butchery and water, vegetation and predator monitoring.

Another camel management officer is being appointed by the CLC to help train Aboriginal rangers and other community members for opportunities under the camel management program.

The new role will build the capacity of people in remote areas to work within the various programs being used to control and reduce camel numbers in Central Australia.

Opposite page. A large herd of camels surround a bore at Docker River. Far left. The camels are a real road safety hazard. Left. The Tjuwanpa rangers lend a hand to the Docker River rangers to process a camel carcass.

Below left. Talking about camel management in the Simpson desert at Santa Teresa. Below. A map showing the density of the camel population throughout southern Northern Territory and communities that have talked about camel management.

After once being the labour force that allowed the Northern Territory pastoral industry to prosper, in recent decades the number of Aboriginal stockmen has dwindled.

opportunities

Clockwise from top. Horsemanship training at Mistake Creek Station.

Low-stress cattle handling at Mistake Creek Station last year.

Young cattlemen train in understanding horses.

Audrey Rankin and Alfie Brown monitoring the state of their country at Mungkarta.

But enthusiasm for the industry among Aboriginal men and women is growing again.

The industry is desperate for workers and the rate of unemployment in Aboriginal communities is unacceptably high, so it is an ideal match.

A partnership between the Central Land Council, Northern Territory Cattlemen’s Association (NTCA) and Indigenous Land Corporation (ILC) is helping to bring the numbers back.

A course designed to get Aboriginal workers up to speed for work in the cattle industry and jointly sponsored by the CLC, NTCA and ILC is helping to overcome some serious challenges such as poor education levels and a lack of work experience.

During one intake for the course, 10 men from around Central Australia undertook the two week pastoral training course at the Bohning Stockyards south of Alice Springs this year.

They were trained in safety around horses, starting horses, occupational, health and safety on stations and animal welfare.

The NTCA’s Tony Freshwater said the training is helping to bring benefits to the industry on two fronts – building up the capacity of the participants themselves and filling a skills gap on stations in the Northern Territory.

“They all seem pretty happy,” Mr Freshwater said. “Some of these blokes have been around the traps for a while. The gap in our workforce is a third or fourth year ringer. It’s about filling that third year gap.

“Our focus is on those blokes who’ve got a bit of experience. Not just so they can get a job and stay in it but climb up the ladder.”

He said the partnership with the CLC is working well.

“It’s been great for us working with the Land Council, the employment unit’s done a lot of work identifying these blokes and getting them here,” Mr Freshwater said.

Project officer with the CLC’s employment unit, Becky Mack, said the Land Council recruited the participants and is helping to mentor them.

“We’ve been spending days with them, helping them out with the organisation of a variety of matters, and working through any issues they have,” she said. “Just generally helping them build up their confidence to go out there and continue with it.

“It’s been a good partnership with both the NTCA and CLC aiming for the same thing, which is getting Indigenous people employed in the pastoral industry and keeping them there.”

For other Aboriginal stockmen just starting out, the CLC runs a course every year at Aboriginal-owned Mistake Creek station in the far north-west of its region.

“This year we had 23 participants from Tanami Downs Station, Mistake Creek Station, Kalkaringi, Alice Springs and Tjuwanpa,” CLC project officer Becky Mack said.

“The first two days of the course is about understanding horses, why they do certain things, why they react the way they do and so on and then the rest of the week is working with your horse on the ground and in the saddle.

“Over the week people became more patient and more self-controlled and I think they really enjoyed it.

“For the whole week we just rode with a lead rope and halter and on the last day we looped the lead rope to make two reins, but up until then it was one rein riding,” Ms Mack said.

There are a large number of Aboriginal people who wish to be pastoralists in their own right running their own herds on their own country.

Central Australia is a fragile environment and grazing can quickly degrade the country if it’s not monitored.

For Aboriginal pastoralists who wanted to learn more about grazing, the CLC ran its second Indigenous grazing land management workshop this year at Bluebush Station near Tennant Creek.

CLC land management worker Kate Crossing said more than a dozen Aboriginal pastoralists turned up to talk about cows, soil quality and everything in between.

“On the first day we learnt about understanding the country that we’ve got, from rainfall to land types to grasses,” she said. “We did some thinking about how plants grow and how cattle get fat from eating them.

“Out in the paddock, we looked at lots of different grasses and which ones were good food and which weren’t.

“We talked about how to check if your land is in good condition or if it’s run down and learnt some ways to manage stocking rates to look after country. For example, spelling a paddock for a few months after rain to let the good grasses set seed.

“Everyone went home armed with grass and weed guides and some new ideas to take back to their own properties.”

In recent years a number of grazing licences over Aboriginal land have been granted to non-Aboriginal Central Australian pastoralists keen for some good feed for their cattle during the drought. Most of the licences are for five years and in exchange Aboriginal landowners will often get some improvements like fencing and bores or training and jobs.

“The ungrazed condition of a lot of Aboriginal land meant that native grasses are abundant and terrific feed for cattle, but these grazing arrangements do need to be monitored because overstocking can be disastrous so we have been teaching Aboriginal people how to do that themselves,” Ms Crossing said.

Those reasons highlight why the ranger program has been so successful so far in Central Australia’s remote communities.

Ranger jobs allow men and women in Aboriginal communities to be employed in roles that focus on caring for their country and learning some of the old ways with the elders, while earning money.

As much as the money they earn is welcome, that usually isn’t at the top of the list of their reasons for doing it.

While Dylan Gordon from the Wulaign rangers in Lajamanu suggested, “It’s good to work with the elders out in the bush learning more things that we never knew like stories, Dreamtime stories and all that, teaching us how to live in the bush, showing us the waterholes that we usually don’t go out to, but learn more. It’s good to learn more about bush with all our elders.”

Colin Joseph from the Tjuwanpa rangers near Hermannsburg said he likes the variety of the work.

“I like working as a ranger because we go out on country,” he said, “You see different things, work. It’s just good to go out instead of staying on one spot.”

The rangers concept is proving a success in Central Australia because it brings the combined benefits of environmental work and personal and professional development of the rangers.

Rangers carry out a variety of work, including weed and feral animal monitoring and eradication, surveys of threatened species, rehabilitation and protection of waterholes from feral camels and the construction of infrastructure at tourist camp grounds.

In the process they’ve been gaining tickets for the operation of earth moving equipment and a variety of machinery - skills that can be transferred to many other jobs if they choose.

The job takes in the strengths of the rangers and works on improving their weaknesses.

Strengths are theirs and the elders’ knowledge of their country and traditional practises, including fire management and an intricate knowledge of plant and animal species, while weaknesses can be a limited education and lack of work experience.

The CLC provides the rangers with a mentor to help them settle into a working regime and deal with any personal or professional challenges that might affect their prospects.

“For a lot of these rangers, it’s the first time they’ve been employed in full-time employment and with them comes a lot of issues so my job is to support them and assist them in sustaining that full-time employment,” CLC mentor Don Mallard said.

“There’s cultural issues, there’s financial issues that have been with the rangers for a while. If they owe money I would try and help them organise some repayments, talk to the people they owe money to and help them find a way to start becoming accountable and paying their debts back.

“Cultural issues are business or law and family issues. Father’s away all day working, sometimes the partners don’t really understand where they’re sort of going and what they’re doing so there’s stuff put in place to talk to the families.

If you ask any one of the Central Land Council’s 120 or so rangers what they like about their job they’ll most likely say two things – looking after country and learning from the elders.

culture & country

Above. Warlpiri Rangers walk through the sandhills to Yinapaka (Lake Surprise).

“They may have to go for other cultural reasons and if they’re just taking off and not letting their supervisors know then they need to know that they are expected to let people know and get it cleared.”

Richard Furber is a ranger with the fledgling Santa Teresa rangers. He sees the job as a long-term prospect.

“It’s been alright because last year we just started off new stuff and we got courses. It’s been alright. I want to keep going.”

Richard had previously worked on a CDEP program, picking up rubbish around the community.

“I reckon it’s better because you can go out bush and learn about country, whose country it is and respect it,” he said.

“Old people tell stories and we learn the old ways. Feels good and feel proud too. Makes you feel good.

“They (the old people) always go out with us and learn us the old ways and make us feel happy and tell us, ‘Oh, we used to do this,’ and we didn’t even know that and hey, that’s wow, they used to do this. We didn’t know that.

“So we learned new things about the law, the culture. About the land too, about the trees, what you can get off the trees, bush tucker and everything you know.”

Elders and traditional owners are often taken out on work trips to advise on the location of sacred sites and the distribution of plants and animals.

Senior ranger with the Warlpiri rangers, Madeline Dixon said she’s learnt a lot about Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal methods in the field.

“I worked as a teacher before and decided to work as a ranger. I wanted a different job just to try it out and then I tried it out and decided to stay and work with the rangers,” she said.

“It’s really good you know, going out bush, looking at different animals, naming the animals, learning both ways, yapa (Aboriginal ) and kardiya (non Aboriginal) way, for the flora, fauna.

Right. Map showing CLC ranger groups in Central Australia. Below left. Recording knowledge of flora and fauna for future generations. Below right. A pilot ranger group from Papunya plans a field trip.

CLC ranger groups in Central Australia

Far left. Traditional owners look at an exploration map at Rover 1 south-east of Tennant Creek.

Left. Mining manager Julie Ann Stoll showing a Geiger counter to traditional owners as part of the CLC’s uranium education strategy to enable them to make informed decisions when it comes to thinking about uranium exploration on their country.

Right. Rangers at the ranger camp doing quad bike training.

Far right. Warlpiri Ranger Richie Williams with a nyinjirri (spiny tailed goanna).

In the last financial year, the number of applications for consent to grant exploration licences and exploration permits increased by more than 30 percent to 128 applications.

Mining operations on Aboriginal land account for much of the Territory’s mineral production and under the Aboriginal Land Rights Act the CLC must consult traditional owners of the land and negotiate on their behalf.

The CLC region contains the second largest underground gold mine in Australia, the Granites Gold Mine, in the Tanami Desert, some 500 kilometres north-west of Alice Springs.

Also, the Northern Territory’s only on-shore oil and gas production occurs at Palm Valley and Mereenie west of Alice Springs. All these sites operate under agreements made by the CLC on behalf of traditional Aboriginal owners.

Under the Land Rights Act the CLC must ensure that traditional Aboriginal owners are fully informed when making decisions over exploration and mining.

CLC Director David Ross said people often get confused when they are talking about mining and Aboriginal people.

“When the exploration or mining is on Aboriginal land it is under the Aboriginal Land Rights Act and Aboriginal people can only say no at the exploration stage. Once they have agreed to that they have to agree to the possibility of a mine in the future,” Mr Ross said.

“So you can see that we have to take the provision for informed consent very seriously because there may be a huge mine down the track and people need to understand that right up front if they are going to say ‘yes’ to exploration.

“But under the Native Title Act, Aboriginal people only get the right to negotiate – they can’t say ‘no’ to

exploration but they can try and negotiate to get jobs and sacred site protection for instance,” he said.

The agreements reached under the Land Rights Act provide for positive outcomes to traditional Aboriginal owners which may include compensation payments, employment, training, sacred site protection and environmental protection.

“Those agreements also give the mining companies certainty for the future, they know the job of talking to people has been done properly and that nobody is going to turn around later and say we didn’t agree to that,” Mr Ross said.

Of the exploration applications received by the CLC last year, around 95 percent were aimed at discovering uranium, along with other metals.

Julie-Ann Stoll who manages the CLC’s mining unit, said that has meant the CLC has needed to be even more vigilant about the issue of informed consent.

“Proposals for uranium exploration raise specific issues unique to uranium mining and the downstream supply chain,” Ms Stoll said.

“Traditional Aboriginal owners need to be aware of these in order to make fully informed decisions.

“For instance, understanding that uranium mining in Australia remains a contentious and contested issue is important, as is knowledge of the unique properties of uranium and the implications radiation poses at the mine site.

“Giving people balanced information about uranium exploration and mining, radiation protection, the regulatory regime and the nuclear industry is fundamental to informed consent of traditional Aboriginal owners,” she said.

Name: Julie Ann Stoll

Years working with the CLC: 20 years

Role: Manager Mining Unit

Best bits of the job: Running around out bush with the old people. The interaction with elders and culture and understanding the country from their perspective has been amazing. And the people at the CLC.

Hardest part of the job: Getting the mining companies to understand the traditional owners viewpoint especially when your’e negotiating agreements. Another part is seeing some of the old people I’ve worked with for years pass away.

Favourite place in the CLC region: Hatches Creek. It’s beautiful country and the traditional owners have fantastic anecdotes about their history. There’s great rocks and old mines there and so it also has a fascinating geological history.

Favourite moment in your life: Having my son River.

How would you change the world: Wave a wand and make everybody happy and more compassionate.

Aboriginal land delivers mineral wealthA large part of the CLC’s job involves talking to traditional owners about mining exploration on their country and with the mining boom of the last few years this job has become a whole lot bigger.

This year the ranger camp was held at Ross River, east of Alice Springs, with about 120 rangers from 11 groups throughout the Central Australian region attending, including two groups from outside the CLC system.

The annual camp provides rangers and their coordinators with the opportunity for some professional development and networking. By getting together with other rangers they are able to share experiences about their work and what they have done in the last 12 months.

Training undertaken at the camp relates to rangers’ work in remote locations such as the monitoring and removal of feral animals and weeds, fire management, water monitoring, restoration and protection of waterholes and the development of tourism infrastructure.

The CLC is also employing tutors to help rangers improve their numeracy and literacy to prevent any deficiencies from hindering their work prospects.

Cecelia Martin from Willowra works with the Warlpiri rangers and took part in the fire control training at the ranger camp.

“We just finished our training, fire management,” she said. “How to use the (aerial incendiary) machine when we get on the helicopter. So if maybe the TOs wanted to burn with sites then we go out with the TOs to the country.

“First we have to check on the map and the TOs have to show which part we have to burn, but not big fires, little fires.”

Snake handling, quad bike riding and abseiling were popular courses for the rangers and Colin Joseph, from the Tjuwanpa rangers near Hermannsburg, was one to take on those challenges.

“Yesterday I did abseiling and today I’m doing snake handling,” he said. “We go up the top of the hill and just abseil down. Scary.

“We see a lot of snakes where we’re from. We’re learning how venom works through our blood stream and learn how to catch the snake.

“We found out which snakes are more venomous in Australia, especially the NT. Working as a ranger you need a lot of training.”

A ranger with Lajamanu’s Wulaign rangers, Dylan Gordon, said he was learning a lot from the other groups.

“Just having a good time and getting to know the mob down here,” he said. “It’s really fun out here. It’s good to know how other rangers are doing it in their community and what we are doing in our community, doing all the presentations, showing them all those things.”

A senior traditional owner from Santa Teresa, Veronica Dobson, said she’d seen the ranger program bringing benefits to her community.

“Seeing there is a ranger program happening out at Santa Teresa, I think it is a good thing for the young people because they have been on CDEP and that’s a meaningless job,” Ms Dobson said. “They seem to have pride in themselves and want to go out and do the work as rangers. They seem to be learning a lot from it.”

She said the ranger camp built on that enthusiasm.

“I reckon it gives them a good advantage to learn off each other, for the ones that have been doing it for a long while and the ones that are just learning, I think it’s a good idea to have a get together like this so they can share one another’s knowledge,” Ms Dobson said.

Camp focus on education and trainingThe Central Land Council has placed a heavy emphasis on education and training for its ranger groups and that approach is on display at its annual ranger camp.

new skills

And if you’re lucky, you may come across some tools left long ago by the Aboriginal people who lived there or some petroglyhs on a rock face. You’ll certainly see some of the most spectacular landscapes in the country and learn a lot about Aboriginal culture and Aboriginal people’s connection to land.

So while the workload is gruelling, the life of the anthropologist is undoubtedly exciting, especially if you come from the city.

Sidrah McCarthy left Melbourne and joined the CLC a little over a year ago and loves the lifestyle.

“The weather is hard and driving a troopie takes a bit of getting used to but it’s a great job and really fascinating.

“The bulk of what I do are sacred site clearances for all sorts of different things like mining works, roadworks or any other sort of work where they need to build something or use something on Aboriginal land.

“I did a bit of site work in the Simpson by helicopter which was great.

“We also do research into historical documents and talk to people in the field so we’ve got a good sense of what rights and interests people have in the area

“There’s usually a genealogy and we constantly need to update them and add children to it,

work out when people became adults and want to speak up for country, or when people have died ”, Sidrah said.

CLC Chairman Lindsay Bookie has worked extensively with anthropologists on two land claims for his country in the Simpson Desert.

“They do a great job. The anthropologists did a lot of work for us in the Simpson Desert claims,” Mr Bookie said.

“In a land claim, the judge asks questions and it can be hard, some people don’t understand if you haven’t done it before.

“Sometimes its hard to tell some of the stories, the secret ones.

“You can’t tell young kids about them until they’ve been through the law. We don’t allow that.

“The anthropologists did a lot of work to get everything ready for the court. They really did,” he said.

“They came out and talked to people to find out whose country it is and we looked at the sites and made sure we had the right people for the area,”

Mr Bookie says that Aboriginal people still practice their traditional law and anthropologists are required to know a lot about traditional kinship and culture which can be very complicated to the layperson.

“All that area’s (in the Simpson Desert) my mother’s country and I’m the kwertengerle for it and every time they want to do something there they need to get me to go along,” Mr Bookie said.

The kwertengerle is like the manager for the country, they look after it. It’s like if you bought a property and you put a manager there, well that’s that job.

“If anything is missing or different, like a track to a sacred site then the kwertengerle would have to go back and report that to the bosses and they would decide what to do about it.

“They have to make sure the sacred places are clean, make sure nobody has cut a tree and that sort of thing.

“There would be a few for each like my son, my sisters’ sons, my brothers’ sons, they’re all kwertengerle,” he said.

“All Aboriginal people in Central Australia have kwertengerle – Warlpiri, Pitjantjatjara, everybody.

“That’s how we were taught from the old people and we’re still learning.

“I teach my cousins, the younger ones about the country so that they can take over later on,” Mr Bookie said.

Below left. CLC anthropologists Sidrah McCarthy and Luke Kelly look at a map back in the CLC office Below. CLC Chairman Lindsay Bookie.

A taste for adventure: the CLC anthropologists One day you might be delving into genealogies or historical documents and the next you might be jumping in a ‘troopie’ and heading cross country through some of the most remote bush in Australia, if you’re a CLC anthropologist.

The money is divided up between nine GMAAAC communities depending on how big they are. The communities then choose community organisations they think should be funded. The Land Council’s community development unit works with the GMAAAC community committees and local organisations to make sure the money goes to lasting projects that help a lot of Aboriginal people in the region.

One example is GMAAAC’s continued funding of the Jaru Pirrjirrdi youth development and leadership program run by the Mt Theo Program at Yuendumu.

Jaru Pirrjirrdi takes young people from the community through six levels of development and responsibility that help build life and career pathways and involves nearly 100 young adults who are all

building skills and confidence in themselves.

GMAAAC has also provided funds to support PAW (Pintupi Anmatjerre Warlpiri) Media’s video production unit, providing it with more than $500,000 worth of funding in the last three years.

Money has also been put toward a new store at Mount Allen (Yuelumu) which is on track to be finished towards the end of this year.

Traditional owners in the Tanami region have recognised the role sport can play in promoting a healthy and active lifestyle by committing money to the support of a variety of sporting clubs.

Through the Granites Mine Affected Areas Aboriginal Corporation, communities have funded buses for transport to sporting events, the purchase of uniforms, equipment and trophies and the provision of umpires to name a few.

Sports clubs in Yuendumu, Lajamanu, Willowra, Nyirripi, Mt Allen, Balgo, Bililuna and Ringers Soak have all benefited from the money.

By the end of this year there will be 14 GMAAAC-funded sports buses across the nine GMAAAC communities and the Yuendumu Magpies have finally got their own bus to attend the 30 or so games they play a season.

Communities in areas affected by the Granites Mine in the Tanami region are compensated by Newmont through the Granites Mine Affected Areas Aboriginal Corporation (GMAAAC).

Above. Players contest the ball in an under 17’s game in Yuendumu.

communitiesIn recent years, a number of community development projects have been developed by the Central Land Council and traditional owners using royalty, rent and income from land use agreements to fund them.

The aim is not to replace government funding for basic services and infrastructure that any Australian would expect, but to do the things governments won’t do or to encourage governments to become partners in well-planned, community-based projects.

This can make the money go further and help make remote Aboriginal communities better places to live and give young Aboriginal people more opportunities.

The projects follow up on the success of land claims and the agreements the Land Council has made between traditional owners and those using their land.

The work involves Aboriginal people making the development decisions in large and small meetings all over Central Australia, their involvement meaning a personal investment in the project and a greater likelihood of success. Their participation is essential to bring wide community benefits that last.

Granites royalties spent wisely

Kurra Aboriginal Corporation, which is made up of traditional owners of these mining areas, is the WETT trustee. It decides what WETT programs to spend the money on and has made the Land Council its agent to work with the four communities – Yuendumu, Willowra, Lajamanu and Nyirrpi - and other organisations that can help.

The four communities decided one of the main projects they wanted to work on was an early childhood program of health and education for really little kids so they can grow up strong, healthy, happy and ready for a life of learning and opportunity. Kurra has

so far put $2.4 million towards this program and is looking at funding it for another two years.

World Vision Australia is managing the program and has contributed some money but for the initiative to last local people must be trained up to take the lead in the communities. WETT money is helping with that too.

There are now more than 20 young women enrolled in Certificate 3 in Children’s Services in the four WETT communities. Most of them participated in a study trip to Perth.

“It was a really good thing to get all the communities together, Willowra, Nyirrpi, Lajamanu and

Yuendumu,” said Veronica Poulson who made the trip. “It gave me new ideas that I can take back to my own community.”

Each day for five days the women spent the morning studying at the Central Institute of Technology in Perth, finishing the Care for Children unit of their certificate. In the afternoons they visited Noongar Aboriginal children’s services and childcare centres.

“We were really impressed with our visit to the Aboriginal children’s service Collabaroo, that they had Noongar workers and that the little kids learnt to sing in Noongar, but also learnt in English,” Robyn Lawson said.

The WETT youth and media program is a partnership between WETT, Mt Theo Youth Program, and PAW Media, which provides diversionary activities for young people with an emphasis on media training in the four Warlpiri communities.

A couple of years into its life, the program is expanding to include new types of media training which aim to help Warlpiri youth re-engage with education, enrol in media and other courses with Batchelor and Charles Darwin University or to get a job in their own community.

Taking the lead from the Warlpiri, traditional owners of the Wunara

phosphate mining area aren’t waiting for mining to begin before starting some community development.

They have decided to use some of the money they get from phosphate exploration to help fix up the Wunara community along the Barkly Highway to make it more liveable by improving the power supply and repairs and maintenance of the houses.

Traditional owners have also agreed on community development steps to follow if and when mining starts and royalties are paid to them so any benefits will last.

Mining money goes towards early educationSome royalties paid by the mining company Newmont from its operations in the Tanami region are paid into the Warlpiri Education and Training Trust (WETT) Project and must be spent on education and training.

Moved by seeing their people having to spend all their time in Alice Springs to receive treatment away from family, community and country or falling ill when they returned to their communities to see family or for cultural events, Warlpiri people have taken action to support dialysis patients.

With help from Western Desert Nganampa Walytja Palyantjaku Tjutaku Aboriginal Corporation (WDNWPT) and the Central Land Council’s community development unit, the Warlpiri have set up a Yapa Kidney Committee.

The Kurra Aboriginal Corporation has provided $1.6 million of royalty money from The Granites and Dead Bullock Soak mining operations to a dialysis unit in Yuendumu.

Dialysis treatment started in the Yuendumu centre in August this year.

The thoughts of one Warlpiri renal patient anticipating the opening of the facility are shared by many.

“I want to go back to Yuendumu to live, sometimes I go for one day and need to come

back for renal, miss my family there. Too boring in town,” they said.

The Yapa Kidney Committee has overseen the building of the facility and nurses’ accommodation and return to country programs as well as patient and family support services in Alice Springs.

The new program will enable dialysis patients from Yuendumu, Nyirrpi, Willowra and Yuelamu to stay in Yuendumu for three week blocks a number of times each year to spend time with family, take part in community activities, sorry business and ceremony before returning back to Alice Springs.

The facilities don’t have enough capacity to allow Warlpiri patients to remain living full-time in their communities and receive their care in Yuendumu.

A full-time nurse is now based in Yuendumu and can support four patients for three week blocks.

Kurra traditional owners are extremely proud and happy to see this project get off the

ground. It has been talked about and planned for a number of years and the hard work of the Yapa Kidney Committee, WDNWPT and the CLC is now bearing fruit.

Following on from the success of a facility at Kintore and progress at Yuendumu, the Lajamanu community has recently participated in a feasibility study funded by Kurra and facilitated by the CLC’s community development unit and WDNWPT.

Renal patients from Lajamanu and Kalkaringi are currently forced to live in Darwin and Katherine to receive treatment and have few, if any, opportunities to return home to visit family and participate in important community cultural activities.

The results of this study were very positive and in August 2010, Kurra approved additional funding so that WDNWPT can employ a project manager to develop a dialysis service in Lajamanu.

Now those old people, some in their late 80s, have signed up to learn to write their signatures at a literacy course in the new community learning centre in Nyirrpi.

The centre is paid for by money from the Warlpiri Education and Training Trust (WETT) and run by the Batchelor Institute of Indigenous Tertiary Education (BIITE) as a partnership. The community learning centre is also a hub for informal learning as well as culture and language activities and a library.

The centre opened in August 2010 with a big celebration. Nyirrpi local, and learning centre coordinator, Fiona Gibson, told the 100 or so guests that it was an exciting day.

“This is using Yapa money for the four Warlpiri communities to give education to our kids. It’s really good and we’re really proud.”

Warlpiri commit royalties to renal careRenal dialysis patients from the Warlpiri regions have started benefitting from a new treatment centre in Yuendumu.

For some old people in Nyrripi, west of Alice Springs, signing their own name instead of just marking papers with a cross has been a lifelong dream.

Forty three people have already enrolled in a course which teaches literacy and numeracy, computer and internet use, wellbeing and life skills. This course is a good one for people who didn’t finish school but want to get a job. The students’ ages range between 16 and late 80s.

“The Nyirrpi Learning Centre will provide all community members with a range of learning options,” CLC Director David Ross said.

“Adult education is extremely important and resources to support these sorts of programs are thin on the ground. Adult education can get overlooked in the emphasis on early years education but it is an essential part of the overall education picture.

“I congratulate the Warlpiri on these wise investment decisions which provide long-term benefits for everybody,” Mr Ross said.

Below. Fiona Gibson and Valerie Morris at the launch of the community learning centre in Nyrripi. Oppposite page. Boys perform a traditional dance at Nyrripi.

Along with the Mutitjulu community, the traditional owners nominate three different communities and outstations each year to give rent money to. The three communities are spread over a large area as they are wherever the traditional owners live, including South Australia.

The Land Council’s community development unit then meets with the traditional owners and others who live in these communities to plan and then find project managers to complete the rent money projects chosen by it.

In recent years this has included rebuilding the Ernabella church, helping to train community members to run the Yunyarinyi store and building a store at Imanpa.

The Ernabella church was built in 1952. One of the people to help build it was Ernabella church reverend Peter Nyaningu, who hung the church bell. Another was Gordon Ingkatji, who laid the church’s bricks. Both took part in the church’s reopening in 2010.

The $70,000 rent money contribution by Uluru Kata Tjuta traditional owners to the rebuilding of the church helped get the Federal Government to contribute some money to the project too.

A sign at the church now lists the traditional owners and others who helped bring the church back to life.

At the reopening, park traditional owner and Ernabella resident Milyika Carroll said: “All sorts of things were damaged in the building. We are rejoicing today seeing the church restored and we’re reflecting on the old days and the days when we were young.”

The Land Council’s Uluru Rent Money Community Development Project is not just about putting up or fixing up buildings, it is also about supporting communities to run services set up under the project.

Yunyarinyi (Kenmore Park) community in South Australia has set up a small store under this project and a Land Council community development unit trainer has been working with community members to get them ready to run the store.

The three trainees Lois, Marianne and Hazel Fraser have been learning about ordering, pricing, record keeping, mark-ups, covering costs, storing produce and counting money.

The ladies said: “It’s much harder than we thought to keep prices down. We have learned that having a store is a lot of hard work.”

A new store was opened at Imanpa in 2009 after $660,000 of Uluru Kata Tjuta rent money was committed to its construction.

Other contributors to the store project have been the Federal Government with $220,000 and the Northern Territory Government with $30,000.

At the time of the opening the chairwoman of Imanpa’s store association Tanya Luckey said the use of rent money is making a real difference in the community.

“I reckon that’s a really good idea using rent money,” she said. “It’s making the community stronger.”

Ms Luckey said the new store will include a greater range and fresher food.

“Fresh variety every week rather than having a truck go out there every fortnight and bring out a heap of stuff where it just goes off,” she said. “A lot of kids at school are getting fresh fruit and vegies every day.”

Park rent money put to good useTraditional owners of Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park have been working with the Central Land Council through the Uluru Rent Money Community Development Project to put their park rent money to good community projects.

communities

Opposite page. Warlpiri man Gary White at work at the Granites mine. Below left. Imanpa Store association chair Tanya Luckey is proud of the new building. Below. Uluru Kata Tjuta traditional owner Amanyi Haggie outside the restored Ernabella church.

The partnership includes the “Prevoc” training course and the “Yapa Crew” labour force. Both help Aboriginal workers who may have limited education or work experience settle into the rigours of 12 hour shifts and 12 days on and seven days off routines.

Manager of the CLC’s employment section Harold Howard said Newmont recognises that if more local Aboriginal people from the Warlpiri communities become long-term employees then it will benefit the mine’s operation and the Land Council’s employment programs help prepare people to meet that demand.

“At the CLC we’ve been working hard, in cooperation with Newmont and its contractors, for 10 years now to get Aboriginal people from Central Australia into employment at The Granites,” Mr Howard said.

“We’ve managed to get more than 500 people placed into jobs in that time. Schemes such as the prevoc course and the Yapa crew help people make the adjustment to a lifestyle that’s very different to what they have experienced in the past.

“Given the work schedule and the long periods away from family some find the jobs aren’t for them, but the prevoc course and the Yapa crew programs allow them to get a taste for what’s expected and the type of job they will enjoy and so that’s helped our retention rates.”

Robert Janima is a Kaytetye man from Barrow Creek region, but travels down to Alice Springs for his flight out to the mine for each work deployment. He’s been making the trip for three years.

“You see a lot of our mob working out here, makes it alright,” he said.

Mr Janima said it is possible to maintain his Aboriginal culture and work at the mine, although it can be a challenge.

“I try not to lose interest in my culture,” he said. “Try to do everything that my elders tell me to do. Then come out here (the mine) and it’s different again. Try to listen to the bosses and what they want me to do.”

Steven Collins is from Yuendumu, the closest Aboriginal community to The Granites, and would like to see more people from the Warlpiri communities take up jobs at the mine.

“I want more people, especially my tribe,” he said. “The mine site is really good and different from the community and more jobs. Work here and get more tickets. Sometimes it’s hard to get tickets in a community. I’ve got a few – loader ticket, dozer, grader, cranes and fork lift.”

Sarah Hudson has worked at the mine twice for a total of three years.

“This time around I came back as an underground truck driver. It’s good, better than the office,” she said.

Newmont employs a mentor, Murray Liddle, who cooperates with the CLC’s staff to help Indigenous employees settle into the lifestyle at The Granites mine.

He said the changes they face can be difficult for anyone to cope with, but especially for people who have limited education or work experience.

“I think a lot of Aboriginal people, when they’ve had enough, just walk off or don’t say anything and just let it build up,” Mr Liddle adds. “My role is a first option to get in contact with and if anything comes up they can run it by me.”

He said many of The Granites’ longest serving employees are Aboriginal

people, some for about 20 years.

“They’ve been here for a long time and I think once you’ve got over that first year the rest comes a bit easier.”

Mr Liddle said workers’ self esteem rises as they settle into the job.

“I think that’s a huge thing. People walk a little straighter with their nose a bit higher without looking down and at the end of the day say, ‘Yeah, I’ve done some hard work today’.”

In for the long haulThrough perseverance and innovative programs a partnership between Newmont Mining and the Central Land Council is seeing a gradual increase in the number of Aboriginal workers employed at the company’s Granites mine in the Tanami Desert.

partnerships

Without them work comes to a stop. Their job is to make sure that Aboriginal people in the CLC’s region are taken to all sorts of meetings about issues on Aboriginal land ranging from sacred site clearances and mining exploration to talks about camel numbers or to cook up a feed for up to a couple of hundred people and to take care of everything in between.

Manager of the regional services unit Lawrie Liddle has spent 16 years at the CLC.

“I was bred and born in the bush. Born at Angus Downs 350 kilometres west of Alice Springs,” he said. “I’ve been plant operator, a contractor, bulldozer driver, stockman and yard builder and the CLC is the best job I’ve ever had. I like the people that work at the Land Council, both black and white.

“It’s mainly on-the-ground logistics coordinating and providing support for the other units within the Land Council.

“The CLC provides transportation, support to the professional officers and like a mediation between the traditional owners on the ground and the professional staff because most of them come from the cities so they appreciate the assistance we can give because the unit is 100 per cent Aboriginal,” Liddle says.

He’s the man who coordinates his staff to transport and cook for the CLC’s 90 delegates when they meet three times a year, often in some of the remotest parts of Central Australia.

“Prior to even leaving town Kathy (Booth) has to do all the purchasing of food, getting the quantities right, making sure we buy food that will be eaten so there’s no waste,” he said.

Behind the scenes with the CLC fieldiesThey drive thousands of kilometres a year and know the bush of Central Australia like few others. They are the CLC’s regional services staff, more commonly known as the ‘fieldies’ and their services are in high demand by the rest of the staff of the Land Council.

the job done

“Just the food alone is a huge job. We’ve got a road train which all up is 25 or 30 tonnes when its fully loaded,” he said.

“The field kitchen staff leave a few days before to drive to wherever it is, rig up the tent and unload the facilities to make sure there’s a meal cooked before the meeting even starts. They get up around 4.30am to get breakfast ready at seven and they can do this anywhere – it doesn’t matter how remote.”

Marty Darr is the coordinator of one of the CLC’s nine regions and came to the CLC eight years ago from Queensland where he’d worked in education for the government for 15 years.

“I love my job and I love my region. It’s the diversity of it all,” he said. “I feel privileged working for the CLC because it’s the cutting edge.

“I’ve found the delegates are becoming really good speakers and they get me to follow up on issues like dogs and mustering feral animals and stuff like that. Then I contact the staff who might deal with it and act as a feedback.”

Another long-term fieldie and Alice Springs bushie, Laurie Presley, is one of those guys you can’t do without after a long day travelling rough country with traditional owners.

“You find a camp and sort out wood for them and cook up whatever and make sure they’ve got water for their billy cans and make sure they’ve got tea and sugar and all that sort of thing,” Presley says.

“I’m pretty fair at cooking BBQ but when it comes to other things I’m not so great.

“It’s a bush lifestyle. You can go from between two to 10 days without a shower so you don’t change your clothes because there’s no point in putting clean clothes on a dirty body so you just say that’s the way it is and who cares.”

Presley says the importance of four wheel drive training shouldn’t be underestimated.

“Those vehicles can get a bit top heavy especially with swags on top. You just learn what speed you can do. You’ve got to be careful, they’re pretty big machines. A blowout in the front can be scary and they can just drag you off and touch wood no traffic coming the other way,” Presley said.

“Yeah I like to brag to my mates how good I am,” he laughs.

Liddle manages 17 staff who are scattered throughout the CLC’s region which extends as far north as Kalkaringi and covers around 750,000 square kilometres.

“For somebody who likes the bush and can manage living in the bush for long periods of time it’s a fantastic job,” he said.

“The staff have fantastic local knowledge and there is a great mix of people within the unit. One of my staff members can speak at least four languages and I’m not too bad at Luritja and a bit of Anmatyerr.

“If the field officer’s good at their job they can be great help to the staff,” he said.

Name: Gordon Butcher

Language group: Luritja/Warlpiri

Years working with the CLC: One year

Role: Regional coordinator

Best bits of the job: Learning to become proficient in IT.

Hardest part of the job: Working on and completing paperwork.

Favourite place in the CLC region: Haasts Bluff and surrounding country.

Favourite moment in your life: When West Coast defeated the Swans in the 2006 AFL grand final. I was so happy. I was shouting in the streets. It was payback (for the loss to the Swans the year before). I let all Swans supporters know.

How would you change the world: Maybe try to end all poverty in third world countries, war, pollution. Stop uranium mining.

Far left. Regional Services manager Lawrie Liddle.

Left: CLC members collect lunch from the camp kitchen at a CLC meeting.

Opposite page. Field officers Joseph Williams and Laurie Presley cooking up a storm on the BBQ.

More recent hand backs have included one of the biggest parks in the NT, Gregory National Park, and parks in the eastern MacDonnell Ranges. Karlu Karlu (Devils Marbles) and the Davenport Range National Park south of Tennant Creek have also been handed back in the past couple of years.

The hand backs followed a decision by the Northern Territory Government to negotiate the return of the parks to traditional ownership rather than pursue years of legal action through the courts.

Access to the parks and the general public’s use of them will essentially remain the same, but ownership of the parks and the resultant joint management by traditional owners and the Northern Territory Parks and Wildlife Service will bring some changes.

Traditional owners, who had been responsible for these significant sites for thousands of years but locked out of any involvement in the last hundred or so years, are finally having their interests considered in the development of new joint management plans.

CLC director David Ross said the hand back of the southern part of Gregory National Park (to now be known as Jutpurra National Park) in the CLC region’s

north-west is extremely significant to the Ngarinyman, Bilinarra and Malngin traditional owners.

“For years people have had to stand on the sidelines while other people made decisions about their traditional country,” Mr Ross said.

“Now, with these joint management arrangements, people will be asked – asked about future developments on their land, about the use of it, about access to it – this is the crux of joint management.

“To be finally recognised as the traditional land owners is an enormous step forward for these peoples.

“In addition, as we have found in other parks, which have been handed back in the Central Land Council region, a number of opportunities for employment and involvement have arisen,” he said.

A pilot ranger program has been supported down the road in Daguragu and is preparing to take advantage of the opportunities presented by the hand back of Jutpurra.

Those are expected to include the protection of sacred sites, weed and fire management, the protection of native flora and fauna and the development of tourism opportunities.

Two tracks one roadIn recent years, the handing back of ownership of Northern Territory national parks has opened up new economic and employment prospects for their Aboriginal traditional owners.

hand back

Above left. Governer General Quentin Bryce and traditional owners at the hand back of the Jutpurra National Park.

Above. Billy Bunter Jampajinpa stamps the lease-back documents during the handback of Jutpurra National Park. Opposite page. Rangers Colin Joseph and Damien Williams worked for six months on secondment with the Northern Territory Parks and Wildlife Service.

The Central Land Council and Northern Territory Parks and Wildlife Service have combined to provide two Western Arrernte men with an opportunity to work as park rangers.

The two men, Colin Joseph and Damien Williams, were already working as rangers with the CLC’s Tjuwanpa ranger group near Hermannsburg (Ntaria), which involves carrying out various land management roles, including fire, weed and feral animal management, erosion control, sacred site protection and monitoring work.

Their six month placement with Parks and Wildlife saw them take on the roles of park rangers in the Finke Gorge and Watarrka national parks.

The placement was designed to trial a concept allowing CLC rangers to try out working within the Parks and Wildlife system to find out if they’d like to make the transition into the Parks and Wildlife workforce at some time in the future.

Mr Joseph lives at the Yakala outstation near Hermannsburg and said he’d been enjoying the different challenges of working for Parks and Wildlife.

“It’s been going good,” he said. “A big difference in working for Parks. Parks came and asked us because one of the workers here had to go overseas. We’ve been here for about four months now. It’s going alright.”

“We were down at Watarrka last week just to help out and see how they control stuff in their parks. It’s been pretty good coming here to work in parks, getting to meet other parks staff.”

Mr Williams said the work placement will enable the pair to take some new ideas back

with them when they return to work with the Tjuwanpa group.

“Originally it was just to help the mob out at Finke Gorge here where we’re working we just came out to give a hand,” he said.

“Another part was to see how Parks operates and maybe one day one of us could stay here and be a full-time park ranger and if not, take the knowledge that we’ve got here, to take back to Tjuwanpa Rangers and better them even though they’re doing really well, get some extra skills in there and try to make it work for everyone.”

Mr Williams said he’d one day like to see local Aboriginal people holding supervisor roles in their local parks.

“That would be awesome,” he said. “I was talking to some of the other Indigenous rangers that were from other parks around here and we’d like to have a T3, which is like the main supervisor in each area to be an Aboriginal person from that area. ”

The handing back of ownership of Northern Territory parks to their Aboriginal traditional owners has led to a joint management arrangement between Parks and Wildlife and the traditional owners under a 99 year leaseback deal.

Chief district ranger with Parks and Wildlife, Chris Day, shares the goal of having traditional owners holding down senior ranger positions.

“That’s what the goals of joint management are,” he said.

Mr Day decided to approach Tjuwanpa rangers to take on a trial when he realised it would be hard to fill a six month posting in Finke Gorge National Park from within Parks’ own staff.

He said the pair has been fulfilling all the tasks regular park rangers carry out such as maintenance, fencing, fire management and weed work. They’ve also been making presentations to tourists under the Territory Parks Alive program.

“It is a very positive and rewarding experience for visitors to have a local Aboriginal person talking about their country and how important looking after that country is for them,” Mr Day said.

“We know from Tourism NT market research that engaging with Indigenous people and experiencing their culture through opportunities like the Territory Parks Alive Program is a very big motivator for people visiting the NT.

“I’ve got no doubt I think we’ve identified with these two they are quite capable of working as park rangers in the government system,” Mr Day said.

Mr Joseph said he’d like to see more Aboriginal people from CLC ranger groups given the chance to experience what he and Mr Williams have.

“I think there’s a couple of other fellas that want to do this as well and might have a chance in the future,” he said.

Mr Williams said the CLC ranger groups are doing a good job at getting men and women into work while also carrying out important maintenance of the land.

“Hopefully our group will go good, the Tjuwanpa rangers, and all the CLC rangers. It’s awesome to see people wanting to look after their land now,” he said.

The Northern Territory Parks and Wildlife Service says it hopes a trial by two Central Land Council rangers will encourage others to seek out positions within the government system.

This has helped protect the fragile landscape in certain areas and in many cases the Aboriginal land is some of the last country in the nation to be in a relatively undisturbed natural state.

There is increasing recognition that the region contains natural environments of national significance. Not only are these areas often dynamic cultural landscapes, but they support many of Australia’s most threatened species and have an extremely high conservation value.

However, there are a number of complex and difficult management issues facing Aboriginal landowners in Central Australia, including the vast size and remoteness of the areas, the impacts of mineral exploration and mining, tourism, weed infestations, feral animals and fire and their effects on biodiversity.

One of the CLC’s main natural resource management objectives is to build traditional landowners’ on-ground capacity to deal with the challenges and opportunities involved in the sustainable management of their country rather than rely on outside assistance.

This approach ensures that core environmental and cultural values are protected and managed, while participation in employment and training are increased and community development progressed. The land needs its people as much as the people need thier land.

Indigenous Protected Areas are one initiative where the CLC is partnering the Australian Government to preserve these areas and to provide livelihoods in land management for Aboriginal people. The Northern Tanami Indigenous Protected Area was declared in 2007, Angas Downs in 2009 and now the Southern Tanami and a region around Docker River are undergoing IPA feasibility assessments.

That means that the Australian Government supports Indigenous communities to manage Indigenous Protected Areas for conservation as part of Australia’s network of protected areas so the plants, animals and cultural sites are protected.

The CLC works with traditional landowners to enable them to manage their land using a combination of traditional practices and Western science. The ranger groups are an integral part of this initiative.

environments

Central Australia is a vast landscape and about half of it is Aboriginal land. Most of the land that Aboriginal people now hold title to was considered by Europeans to be of little economic value as it is arid and too marginal for pastoralism.

Left. Christine Michaels inputs data on a CyberTracker which uses a graphical interface.

Above right. Warlpiri people cleaning a rockhole on a recent field trip.

Data collected by Willowra’s Warlpiri rangers from Yinapaka (Lake Surprise) in August during a biodiversity monitoring survey in the area is helping to build a picture about the health of the area’s wildlife.

A highlight of the survey was the rangers finding bilbies at the lake, concentrated on areas rich with Janmarda (bush onion) and important seed grasses.

Although the area didn’t get the same amount of rain as parts of the Tanami further south and west, it looks healthy and green with lots of new growth in areas burnt by rangers and traditional owners over the past three years.

Traditional owners, rangers, CLC staff and Bushfires NT staff used a helicopter for the second year in a row to undertake aerial incendiary burns of over 40,000 square kilometres of country.

Ranger Richie Williams was able, for the first time, to use skills operating the Raindance aerial incendiary machine he’d learnt at this year’s CLC ranger camp.

By burning in winter, traditional owners and rangers aim to ensure destructive wildfires, known to sweep across the Tanami during the hot months, are kept at bay.

Throughout the visit, traditional owners worked to map their country. Aided by a collaboration with WETT media trainees, the traditional owners travelled to different habitat types to record the different plants, animals, Jukkurrpa, hydrology and landforms found there.

Rangers will work to collate this information and develop maps and resources documenting Warlpiri land types that can

be used by the rangers in the field and as educational resources for Warlpiri people.

Other highlights included walking 15 kilometres through the sand hills to reach Yinapaka (Lake Surprise).

The idea came about when rangers started talking up the idea of walking country after revisiting soakages that had not been visited in 20 years or more.

The helicopter was used to ferry the rangers to an isolated place marked by Ngapiri trees (river red gums) in the steep reticulate dunefield that cannot be reached by 4WD vehicles.

The walk took six hours – they are keen to follow it up next year with a walk north from the lake to an important soakage.

Indigenous ecological knowledge is a term you might have heard of but not know what it means.

For thousands of years Aboriginal people survived in the Australian landscape relying on their intricate knowledge of the land and its plants and animals.

Traditional fire management practices stimulated new growth for preferred animal species and increased the abundance of favored bush medicine and bush tucker plants. Tracking, hunting and digging soakages and maintaining other surface waters were just some of the other ways that people survived the harsh environment and in turn contributed to key ecological processes.

These practices are bound up with Aboriginal culture and spirituality and offer critical insights increasingly appreciated to be invaluable to the way we manage the environment now. But that priceless knowledge is under threat for a whole host of reasons and once gone can never be retrieved.

In an effort to preserve some of this environmental knowledge the CLC has given priority to facilitating and documenting these practices and insights so that they can continue to be available to future generations.

It has trained people to record their older relatives on visits to traditional country, supported intergenerational land management field trips which combine Western scientific methods with traditional knowledge and generally tried to ensure that all of its work enables younger generations to be involved and benefit from older people’s experience and understanding of the Central Australian environment.

Name: John Wilson

Language group: Warlpiri

Years working with the CLC: One year

Role: Regional coordinator region four

Best bits of the job: Checking up on people in communities in region four, helping them out, learning new things and looking around the country.

Hardest part of the job: Travelling long distances.

Favourite place in the CLC region: The CLC office and the people who’ve been kind to me. We work equal and share the work.

Favourite moment in your life: Getting the job.

How would you change the

world: I don’t know.

Surprise wildlife survey

Some ranger groups now include bird surveys regularly in their work plans.

The Warlpiri Rangers put their skills to good use during a trip earlier this year with the CLC to Karrinyarra (Mt Wedge) as part of the Southern Tanami Indigenous Protected Area development process.

Traditional owners, CLC staff and an ethno-ornothologist worked together to train rangers in ‘two-way’ knowledge about birds and conduct a bird survey of the area.

More than 50 birds were recorded in both English and Warlpiri.

Knowledge related to birds was recorded and will form the basis of an educational

resource about birds in the Warlpiri region, which is being produced in conjunction with the Yuendumu School.

Elders shared information about particular birds, including the critically endangered night parrot.

Senior traditional owners’ knowledge of bird habitats, behaviours and other important cultural and ecological information will be included in the Warlpiri bird book.

This trip also provided an opportunity to meet traditional owner aspirations to visit important sites on their country and conduct customary land management.

Two-way knowledge brought together in one book

Women in the CLC region are just as keen on land management activities as men and are adamant that traditional skills be passed on to younger people.

This year, women from Nyirripi travelled with the CLC to the Pilinyarnu area to conduct land management work and pass on knowledge about country.

On this trip older Warlpiri women passed on knowledge about Warlpiri names and important features of plants and animals to the younger people on the trip.

They showed the young people tracking techniques, bush food and medicine and talked about important knowledge of country embedded in Jukurrpa (Dreaming) for important sites.

The women also learned and used ranger skills including biodiversity monitoring fire management and cleaning rockholes. They saw

first hand the problems camels are causing for their country and visited important sites in the area.

Above. Warlpiri rangers conducting a bird survey.

Clockwise from below. Bush raisins collected to help pass on knowledge about bush food.

Recording knowledge of country.

Alice Nampijinpa with her yarla (bush potato).

The mural, painted in 1990 by well-known Melbourne muralist Bob Clutterbuck and a number of Aboriginal artists as a community arts project, is on the CLC’s Tennant Creek office wall in Patterson Street.

Last year the CLC decided to restore the mural but the state of the wall and the maintenance needed for a painted surface made it difficult to recreate the mural by painting it again. So it turned to modern technology.

The renovation involved using a tiny photo of the mural taken when it was just finished and blowing it up more than a thousand times. The image, which required hours of painstaking work to digitally enhance it so it matched the original, was then put on to metal panels and screwed to battens on the wall.

The 15 metre tableau includes traditional dreaming designs done by senior men and women of the Jurnkurakurr sacred site and other traditional designs such as the flying fox, the white cockatoo, lightning, rain, the crow and more. Bush foods, traditional bush lifestyle and struggles to protect sacred sites against mining companies such as the battle for Kunjarra and Mt Samuel are also depicted.

The original project was coordinated by Julalikari Council and involved 10 organisations and more than 50 people in discussions before it was begun late in 1989.

The four local painters T. Nelson Naparurla, P. Dickenson Naparurla, Ronald Plummer Jupururla, and D Williams Jupururla, assisted by a number of others, laboured through the hot summer and over Christmas and finished it in January 1990.

Clutterbuck’s role was to coordinate the project and by the end of the three months he declared it to be the most difficult project he had ever done.

Some of the artists were accomplished in the traditional style but “everything from basic brush control to complex artistic requirements were totally new, and predictably they were often over-awed by the task. A comparison would be trying to teach someone a new language in three months” Clutterbuck wrote in a report on the project’s completion. In addition, some of the painters were very elderly and unwell.

Alice Springs signwriter Adam Levot took on the project last year and said while it was technically challenging it was well worth the hard work.

“The support was overwhelming – right through the age groups – old men and young people alike all took an interest,” he said.

“Groups of young Aboriginal men walking down the street, who wouldn’t normally stop and talk, would stop and ask about the mural.

It really broke down barriers. It was great and it’s very rarely that I get those sort of positive feelings from a job. “

“And nobody has graffitied it. Anything else would have been vandalised.”

Unfortunately the original mural was vandalised in 1992. CLC lawyer Virginia Newell was working at the CLC’s Tennant Creek office at the time and she remembers: “One morning we woke up and found that somebody had graffitied “Abos Go home – KKK” all over it.

“It was a terribly sad chapter in the mural’s history and in the history of Tennant Creek. We had to go around and explain to people what had happened.”

“Anyway, we repainted the mural and refreshed the colours and everybody was happy,” Ms Newell said.

Modern technology brightens up old muralA mural painted as a community arts project in 1990 has been given a new lease on life after nearly fading completely away under the harsh sunlight in Tennant Creek.

Above. The newly restored mural at the CLC Tennant Creek office.

Head Office 27 Stuart Highway, Alice Springs Post PO Box 3321 Alice Springs NT 0871

Phone (08) 8951 6211 Fax (08) 8953 4343 Web www.clc.org.au ABN 71 979 619 393

Alparra (08) 8956 9955 Harts Range (08) 8956 9555

Kalkaringi (08) 89750885 Mutitjulu (08) 8956 2119

Papunya (08) 8956 8658 Tennant Creek (08) 8962 2343

Yuendumu (08) 8956 4118

Pictured. The 90 members of the CLC at Tennant Creek in 2010.