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| Nitmiluk National Park,
near Katherine, is one of the Territory’s big
success stories, not only as an attraction
for tourists,
but also for the way its joint management
arrangements
with traditional owners have worked so well.
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The Park is
managed jointly
between the traditional owners, Jawoyn, and Parks and
Wildlife. The Nitmiluk joint management arrangements
were developed under the previous
government in a rare
display of progressive thinking that has
reaped rewards
not only for traditional owners but also
for the wider
community. |
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It is no wonder, then,
that traditional owners of the Gregory National Park,
in the north west of the Northern Territory, decided
to visit Nitmiluk’s traditional owners to hear
about their experiences with joint
management. |
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The traditional owners
of Gregory, who are constituents of both the NLC and
the CLC, talked to the Nitmiluk Board about what had
worked and what hadn’t in joint
management. Discussions
included tourism, employment opportunities,
maintenance
of cultural and sacred sites as well as
land and visitor
management. With over 15 years’ of experience
the traditional owners of Nitmiluk provided
some significant
insights to successful joint management of Aboriginal
lands. |
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The Gregory traditional
owners toured up the spectacular gorge to see first
hand some of the park’s main tourist
attractions.
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The Northern Territory
Parks and Reserves (Framework for the
Future) legislation
will return Aboriginal freehold title to
the land (under
the Aboriginal Land Rights Act) to the
traditional owners
of Gregory National Park - in return for incuding a
significant area of existing Aboriginal land into the
park. The arrangements will see the land
leased to the
Northern Territory Government for 99 years. |
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Both the
traditional owners
and the Parks will jointly manage the park
on a similar
basis to the highly successful Nitmiluk
National Park.
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Similar
arrangements will
be in place for the remaining areas of the
West MacDonnell
National Park, Elsey National Park and the proposed
Davenport Range National Park.
Other parks will differ slightly but all
will incorporate
joint management. |
Introduction
