For more than 600 generations and over 20,000 years, the Great Victoria Desert has been occupied by Southern Pitjantjatjara people, known as the Spinifex People.
The Anangu Tjutaku (many Aboriginal people) Indigenous Protected Area (IPA) represents the latest, but not the last, step in the Spinifex People’s articulation of their traditional and cultural connection and ownership of the region. The IPA comprises three native title determination areas:
- Spinifex
- Pilki
- Untiri Pulka.
The IPA is in overwhelmingly pre-European condition. It consists of native vegetation and contains threatened fauna species and endemic flora. The IPAs landscape-scale biodiversity values are immense. In the north are the Nullarbor Plain and mulga woodlands of the Great Victoria Desert Nature Reserve. In the south, there is sand hill and salt lake country, moving into the breakaways and hills of the Central Ranges reserved in the Nganyaatjara IPA. East to west, the IPA extends from the edge of the Greater Western Woodlands to the geographic centre of the Great Victoria Desert.
The IPA is also dense with culturally significant sites and Tjukurpa (dreaming or creation storylines). These include some of the most significant Tjukurrpa in the Western Desert, two occuring predominantly within Spinifex Country. Knowledge of Tjukurrpa is alive and well among Spinifex People and has supported a connection to country that remained largely unbroken through the contact era.
The Spinifex Land Management Rangers are working to protect and manage the environmental and cultural assets across the Anangu Tjutaku IPA. The team also contract their land management services to the Mamungari Co-management Board for the 21,000 km2 Mamungari Conservation Park in South Australia. Spinifex Rangers are based in the Tjuntjuntjara community. The rangers:
- organise opportunities for community members to visit country and continue intergenerational knowledge transfer and cultural practices
- are re-introducing traditional burning practices into the landscape
- protect important cultural landscape features
- survey and manage endangered flora and fauna
- mentor school children through participation in the ‘Bushranger Program’
- manage remote community safety infrastructure.
The Spinifex Land Management program works with a targeted group of partners, including the:
- Indigenous Desert Alliance
- Rangelands NRM
- Great Victoria Desert Adaptive Management Partnership
- Department of Parks and Wildlife (DPaW)
- Ten Deserts Initiative (through the Buffel Free GVD program).
State: WA - Central and Southern region
Administration Organisation
Pila Nguru Aboriginal Corporation RNTBC