20 INDIGENOUS RANGERS NOW PROTECTING QUEENSLAND’S WILD RIVERS

Two more indigenous rangers will start work across the Gulf of Carpentaria and Cape York Peninsula regions to protect and promote Queensland’s wild river systems.

Natural Resources and Water Minister Craig Wallace and Member for Cook Jason O’Brien said the Queensland Government had delivered on its commitment to employ 20 indigenous rangers in the first phase of the wild river rangers program.

"The Bligh Government is planning for the future on Cape York," Mr Wallace said.

"We are making use of the traditional land management skills of indigenous people to manage Queensland’s wild rivers," he said.

"The skills these rangers develop will be passed on to the next generation and will ensure the Cape and Gulf’s unique ecologies are better managed and preserved."

Queensland's unique wild rivers legislation protects pristine and near pristine Queensland rivers for current and future Queenslanders and the world.

The two new rangers, the first female rangers in the program, will work with the Chuulangun Aboriginal Corporation (based at the Wenlock Outstation), bringing the number of rangers in the area to three.

Other rangers working across the region include:

• four rangers based at the Pormpuraaw Land and Sea Centre
• three rangers at Mapoon
• six rangers based in the Gulf of Carpentaria at Doomadgee and Burketown
• three rangers working with the Carpentaria Land Council, based at Normanton
• one ranger working from the Kowanyama Aboriginal Land and Natural Resource Management Office.

Member for Cook, Jason O’Brien, said the locally employed rangers would work with elders to preserve wetlands and ecosystems of high biodiversity or cultural significance.

"The program not only provides protection for the world-class natural values of the Gulf and Cape York but also creates much-needed full-time employment in remote Aboriginal communities," MrO’Brien said.

"Being locally employed, the rangers already have many skills and links with the country they will be caring for."

Queensland's first six wild rivers, which were declared last year are: Settlement Creek, Morning Inlet, the Gregory River and Staaten River, in the Gulf, and Hinchinbrook and Fraser islands.

Premier Anna Bligh and Mr Wallace announced last month that the Lockhart, Stewart and Archer river basins are being considered as the next group of wild rivers.

The Wild Rivers rangers’ diverse work program also includes visitor management, photography and data collection of local species and habitats, recording traditional stories, and managing weeds, feral animals, fire and other threats to the river systems.

The wild river rangers program is being delivered within the Looking After Country Together framework, a whole of government policy aimed at improving Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander involvement in the management of land and sea country.

The wild river rangers program is being managed by the Department of Natural Resources and Water through funding by the Department of Employment and Industrial Relations.