Category Archives: Aboriginal Land

The beautiful Moro gorge, part of the Nantawarrina IPA and home to a thriving colony of yellow-footed rock wallabies.

The Sentimental Bloke was commissioned to do a photographic presentation on the Nantawarrina project when the Nepabunna Communithy hosted IPA delegates from all over Australia.

This photos and the ones in the previous postings were just a few of the pictures displayed.

Nantawarrina’s a big place. 580 square kilometres and there’s some beautiful gorges, waterholes, springs and fine geological formations.

When it was made an IPA, the Adnyamathanha people used their knowledge of the land to bring back the native flora and fauna.

They removed all feral and pastoral animals but left the man-made watering points. This was vital to helping the native animals survive and through their activity help regenerate the hammered vegatation. Rabbit warrens were ripped up and large areas furrowed by bulldozer to assist germination of seeds when rains fell.

The children of the community have had hands-on experience with land management too, learning about different plants, their flowers and fruit. as well as everything from euros, kangaroos, birds and spiders.

The Nepabunna people took on a project eleven year ago which was to become the forerunner to a land rehabilitation program right around Australia.

This is a place called Nantawarrina not far from Nepabunna. It was a pastoral lease and to say the land was ‘stuffed’ was being kind. I used to fly over it years ago and even from the air I could see the devastation from overstocking and feral animals.

It became the first Indigenous Protection area (IPA) in the country. There are 25 now. And its been a resounding success here at Nantawarrina.

There’s still some way to go, perhaps another decade or two but you can already see how beautiful the country is. That’s Wayanha or Mt McKinlay in the background again.