Land management activities

To date, Waanyi/Garawa rangers have been involved in the following activities:

 Gulf Fire Abatement Project

Since the land management planning meeting in 2005, Jack Green, also the Waanyi/Garawa and Garawa and fire coordinator has been active in developing numerous partnerships to assist with fire management in the southern Gulf region. One innovative project that is swiftly evolving through these partnerships is the Gulf Fire Abatement Project (GFAP).

The Gulf Fire Abatement Project is a partnership between traditional owners of the southern Gulf of Carpentaria (on both sides of the NT/ Queensland Border), the Garawa, Waanyi/Garawa, Yanyuwa and Ganggalida peoples. It also includes the Northern Land Council, the Carpentaria Land Council, the North Australian Indigenous Land and Sea Management Alliance (NAILSMA), Bushfires NT, Tropical Savanna CRC and a number of private investors.

The aim of the project has two components. The first is fire abatement, which seeks to manage fire and reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions (GHG) to the atmosphere over a specified period of time. The second, and equally important, component is Aboriginal traditional owner engagement and reconnection with country. Here, the project seeks to build traditional owner capacity in strategic fire management and combine 'two-way' knowledge about fire for the southern Gulf region.

To date the Waanyi/Garawa rangers working with Bushfires NT have established 53 fire fuel monitoring sites across NT lands in the southwest gulf. These sites will provide traditional owners and Bushfires NT with scientific data to measure fuel loads and develop methods to measure savanna fire abatement offsets in the region. The Gulf Fire Abatement Program has seen an increase in road and track maintenance on the last trust. This has made it easier for land management activity to be undertaken and it has also improved access for traditional owners to visit country. It has resulted in more people visiting country and residing on country for longer periods of time.

In 2009 there was a six-fold increase in the amount of early dry season burning undertaken by the Garawa and Waanyi/Garawa rangers in the southern Gulf. Senior traditional owners were involved in planning meetings with Bushfires NT and the NLC Caring for Country Unit to decide where and at what scale burning was to occur in the region. This exercise has become a regular event since the establishment of both land management groups in the Gulf. Both groups put in place, via aerial burning from helicopter, over 5800 kilometres of fire breaks as well as undertaking some 250 km of roadside burning along the Savanna Highway and 150 km of fire breaks at strategic points along land trust boundaries and neighbouring pastoral stations (Benmara, Calvert Hills, Greenbank and Seven Emu). Early season burning was also undertaken around a number of outstations and sacred sites. In addition to the 7 WoC positions involved in the project the fire abatement project provided part-time work for an additional 37 traditional owners.

Threatened species

In July and August 2008 traditional owners undertook a fauna survey in the China Wall region. This region, recognised as a site of conservation significance, has had no significant fauna surveys undertaken. It is considered to be habitat for threatened species such as Carpentarian Rock-rat (Zyzomys palatalis) and Carpentarian Grasswren (Amytornis dorotheae) and other species of fauna and flora that are fire sensitive.

Traditional owners surveyed the country around the Fish River and Dry Creek outstation along with scientists from NT Parks and Wildlife Biodiversity Unit and CSIRO to establish what threatened species were present in the region. The survey found no evidence of Carpentarian Rock-rat or Carpentarian Grasswren. Much of the survey work was undertaken in the small area in the vicinity of the outstations that had remained unburnt for at least two years. Such unburnt areas were few and far between. Data collected will be used to develop a management plan for the area of conservation significance to determine how it will be managed in the future.