Djelk: Land and sea management history

Land and sea management history

Djelk Rangers on marine patrolThe Djelk Ranger program established by the BAC, like many other Indigenous Caring for Country programs, is built on the extensive knowledge and skills that already exist within traditional land owning groups.

The Djelk Rangers began in 1991 with a grant from the Community Employment Program for Aboriginal Natural and Cultural Resource Management. In 1995, under a feral pig eradication program in the Cadell region, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) and Australian Quarantine Inspection Service (AQIS), paid community rangers a bounty for pigs that were collected and sampled for diseases that potentially threaten pastoral industries. This successful project led to the early detection of Mimosa on the floodplains of the Tomkinson and Blyth Rivers. The rangers' efforts to control the invasive weed assisted in developing the groups capacity for understanding and engaging in contemporary land management issues.

Recognising that Aboriginal people's ecological knowledge, land and culture was their greatest asset, the BAC engaged a New South Wales National Parks and Wildlife Service Ranger to work with the rangers on buffalo and weed eradication. The parallel development by traditional owners across the Northern Land Council (NLC) region of establishing the Caring for Country Unit (CFCU) within the NLC afforded the Djelk Rangers and other emerging Caring for Country programs, such as Dhimurru, in the tropical savanna of the Northern Territory with important support and advocacy resources.

Over the past 19 years the Djelk Rangers land-based management activities have focused on maintaining biodiversity and productivity of the homelands by, working with people on country, addressing the interrelated issues of fire, weeds, feral animals and the exercise of Indigenous ecological knowledge along with western science.

A key innovative land management and monitoring tool now used by the Djelk Rangers involves use of CyberTracker software. The Djelk Rangers are at the forefront of the application of this technology which they are using to record their land and sea management activities, including the timing, number and location of management burns, feral animal culls and turtle sightings for example. This information can be used to promote accountability in Ranger work and for adaptive management and planning of Ranger activities.

The Rangers are divided into three groups, Male Rangers (17), Female rangers (11) and Sea Rangers (9); these 37 positions are funded by 14 (full-time equivalent) Working on Country (WoC) positions through the Department of Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts (DEWHA), five Flexible Positions through the Working on Country Flexible employment program (DEWHA),and 13 CDEP positions. A further four fulltime equivalent positions are funded be Bawinanga Aboriginal Corporation through the operation of various fee for service agreements.

 

Updated:  4 December 2017/Responsible Officer:  Centre Director/Page Contact:  CASS Marketing & Communications