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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2023-09-13 Daily Xml
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Nantawarrina Indigenous Protected Area

Ms HUTCHESSON (Waite) (14:33): My question is to the Minister for Climate, Environment and Water. Can the minister update the house on the recent Nantawarrina Indigenous Protected Area's 25-year celebration?

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE (Port Adelaide—Deputy Premier, Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science, Minister for Defence and Space Industries, Minister for Climate, Environment and Water) (14:33): I am very pleased to do so. It was a wonderful day spent, a couple of weeks ago, up in the Flinders Ranges to celebrate the very first Indigenous Protected Area in Australia, right here in South Australia, that being Nantawarrina. It is run by the local Aboriginal community at Nepabunna, which is in turn run by a man called Ian Johnson, who is the mayor. His wife, Dulcie, cooked a mean damper the night before.

What happened 25 years ago, as this idea of having Indigenous protected areas came into being in Australia, was that that community decided to have the courage to jump in and try something that had never been done before, which was to say that conservation could occur on private lands—not government-owned protected areas but on private lands—and be managed by an Aboriginal community, with some funding and support from the commonwealth government to provide training and also salaries for Indigenous rangers. That community decided that they were prepared to be part of that pilot program and therefore scored having the very first of the IPAs.

The 25th birthday was held first of all at Nepabunna and then in Nantawarrina itself and was attended by many people, many of whom had gone up the day before in order to do some planting around the Nepabunna community, including Rory McEwen. I wasn't expecting to see our old colleague Rory there, but it was lovely to see him. Geoff Brock, the Minister for Local Government and the member for the area, also attended, which was very well welcomed by all.

What that community have been able to do in terms of protecting and conserving that bit of land has been quite remarkable. They have not only been engaged in native vegetation protection and revegetation but they have also been protecting the habitat for the yellow-footed rock wallaby, which in Adnyamathanha language is called the 'andu'. It is called the 'warru' up in the APY, but the 'andu' in Adnyamathanha. One of the chief ways in which they have done that is a pretty vigorous feral animal eradication, including having a go at goats and foxes that infest that area, and they have been doing so very successfully.

You can, if you want, go on a guided tour run by the Nepabunna community to look at Nantawarrina and not only see the very beautiful environment up there but also be able to have a listen to what the Aboriginal rangers—the Indigenous rangers, as they are called by the commonwealth—are able to tell you about the relationship between the Adnyamathanha culture in the Nepabunna community and that piece of land.

I must say, it was a wonderful occasion to be drawn together with so many Aboriginal people, and also quite a lot of people coming up from the city, to celebrate the way in which Aboriginal culture regards country in a way that we would do well to learn from and to listen to. The fact that this has been an Aboriginal-driven program, that the Aboriginal community embraced and threw themselves into making this work, is an example of ways in which, if we just listen to Aboriginal culture and listen to Aboriginal communities, we can all benefit and, of course, the natural environment can benefit. I pay tribute to all those who were involved.

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