Governance

At the meeting in 2005 when traditional owners decided to establish the land management program (the Waanyi/Garawa Rangers) to work on caring for country projects on the land trust they also established a 'board' of senior traditional owners with representatives from each of the Waanyi/Garawa clans (Wurdaliya, Rrumbarriya, Mambaliya, Wayaliya) to guide the caring for country program, represent Waanyi/Garawa on caring for country issues at meetings with government and other agencies and to ensure that Waanyi and Garawa culture remains strong and sacred sites are protected. They, like the Garawa people, described their job as keeping Aboriginal law strong, solving environmental problems and passing knowledge to younger Waanyi/Gawara people (NLC 2005).

There are on-going discussions about what type of governance model should be developed to further support the Waanyi/Garawa land management program. The Waanyi/Garawa face some unique challenges in land management governance as their country is divided by the Northern Territory/Queensland Border. There are also some large logistical barriers that need to be worked through. For example, the Gulf fire coordinator currently lives in Borroloola and supports both the Garawa and Waanyi/Garawa rangers living in communities over 500 km apart. Furthermore, with only two vehicles to undertake land management work across an area of approximately 20,000 sq km, and a limited number of licensed drivers, this places an enormous workload on the Fire Coordinator. To date, the NLC assists by administering grant monies, providing an office, in Borroloola, for the fire coordinator and some storage space for equipment.