Rangers of the Victoria River

Seven young women have become rangers to help manage natural resources better in the dry Victoria River District south west of Katherine in the Northern Territory - a sparsely populated area of 7,800.

The women, from the communities of Myatt, Galady and Gilwi, are involved in weed management, biodiversity surveys, controlled burning, cultural visits and cane toad control.

Funding

Their work has been supported with $91,100 from the Australian and Northern Territory Governments and additional support from the Ngaliwurru Wuli Association Community Development Education Program.

Activities

Aboriginal Elder Elaine Watts, provides leadership and training and coordinates everything the rangers do.

One of the rangers, Roberta Raymond, said the team had just carried out weed control work at Timber Creek Race Course.

"This meant cutting grader grass, bagging seed, burning and basal barking neem trees and spraying and hand pulling belly ache bush along Timber Creek," Roberta said. "Weed experts from Weeds Branch and Charles Darwin University taught us about weed identification and chemical mixing."

Weed control can involve the rangers in marathon efforts like an eight kilometre walk along Humbert River over three nights and a 52 kilometre walk along Bulita over five nights to help control devil's claw at Gregory National Park.

"We spilt into two groups of nine and followed the river on each side," Roberta said. "We used a GPS and a map to record every plant we found, as well as for directions. Each day we all walked a couple of kilometres and set our camps in the afternoon."

Other tasks included fauna surveys at Drovers Rest and Mt Sandford, where survey sites were established in each area with 20 traps.

Cultural visits are also regularly carried out with children and Traditional Owners.

Achievements

The increased skills and awareness about land management issues has contributed to active participation in weed control, feral animal control, survey work and sacred site management.

In 2005, the rangers hosted the 2005 Aboriginal Women's Land and Sea Management Conference, which was attended by more than 150 Aboriginal women from Queensland, the Northern Territory and Western Australia.

The entire project also involved many stakeholder groups including the Northern Land Council with mentoring and equipment, Charles Darwin University with training, Parks and Wildlife with employment opportunities and Timber Creek School with a culture camp.

More information

• Madonna Mackay, Regional NRM Management Facilitator: (08) 8973 8106 or Madonna.Mackay@nrmbnt.org.au

Australian Government NRM Team
GPO Box 787
Canberra ACT 2601 Australia
1800 552 008 (toll-free)

DEWHA  | DAFF  | Australian Government  | NAP  | NHT 
NRM, NHT and NAP are jointly administered by the Australian Government departments of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry and the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts