Central Land Council

19-21 April 2005
Ross River

• Conference Home
• Conference Results and Resolutions
• Keynote address - David Ross
• National Landcare Council
• Irati Wanti - The Poison, Leave It!
• Cultural mapping in the centre
• Life on the Barwon
• Ngukurr Rangers are ready and waiting
• Land management in Tasmania
• Conference Picture Gallery

Land management in Tasmania

Indigenous Land Management Facilitator Rocky Sainty is passionately committed to involving young Aboriginal people in land management in Tasmania.

The handback of some land, including Cape Barron Island and Clark Island, and the creation of Indigenous Protected Areas in Tasmania has allowed organisations to access funds which until recently were unavailable.

"Basically I'm there to engage all the Aboriginal communities in the state in this natural resource management framework and as part of that I have a passion to get young Aboriginal people into land management and just recently we have got a Greencorp team together down there with ten participants.

"Out of that group, three go on to training with the Tasmanian Parks. In Greencorp they get a great basic training : these guys have done brush cutting, chainsaw training, map routing, site identification and site types, personal development, weed identification and seed collecting. It's been a very broad range of jobs in six months," says Mr Sainty.

Land in Tasmania was first handed back to Indigenous people in 1995 in Tasmania .

"Two parcels have very recently been handed back - Cape Barron Island and Clark Island . Prior to that we had 12 areas handed back, although they are only small like cave sites.

"Cape Barron was the most significant because that's where a lot of people come from and the population are still living there so that was a very significant achievement . To reflect that our land council have just changed their name to Tasmanian Aboriginal Land and Sea Council.

A land management priority on Cape Barron is the mutton birding industry.

"Each year between about 40,000 and 60,000 mutton birds are caught out of an Australian population of some18 million.

"There are land management problems - a problem with water rats which is a native animal to Tasmania , but they attack the chicks. However, they are seasonal.

"The biggest problem is a New Zealand weed called fireweed, and that's taken over in the rookery and we will have to get the scientists to come and see because its hard for the birds to get in and hard for people to catch them," Mr Sainty said.

"Mutton birding is a tradition which has been going for thousands of years and it was a food source. When Tasmania was invaded, when our women met up with the sealers and they worked out that Aboriginal people could catch mutton birders better than they could, it evolved into an industry.

"As a kid I grew up going mutton birding on the islands. The school would close down for five weeks because there would be no kids there. All the mums and dads would go mutton birding, the whole family would go. Sadly though, it's a tradition which is getting harder and harder to get the young ones involved because its hard, dirty work. You're up at daylight and you come out of the bush just on dark then you have to process the birds: pluck them, clean them, open them and package them," he said.

"It's a hard dirty slog and the money's not good, but I still go because it's just that chance to meet with family and friends that you haven't seen for 12 months. It's still a strong tradition

"The conference has been fantastic and I'm really pleased the Central Land Council took the initiative and got it away from conference centres and hotels and developments so people could sit down around the fire and chat. At the end of the day, when you're having a cup of tea and sitting around taking to these old fellas, that's where a lot of business gets done. I take my hat off to the CLC and hope the next one is done in the same way," Mr Sainty said.