Kabulwarnamyo, Western Arnhemland

Kapulwarnamyo is a small community in the stone country high in the escarpment in western Arnhemland not far (as the crow flies) from the border to the Kakadu National Park. The Bininj Aboriginal people there are represented by the Northern Australian Indigenous Land and Sea Management Alliance (NAILSMA), auspiced at the onset of our research, by the Northern Land Council. NAILSMA supported a Tropical Savannas CRC project called Strengthening Indigenous Knowledge Conservation in Central and Western Arnhemland. Peter Cooke, at Kapulwarnamyo was a project leader.

In this work (quoting from their website at http://www.savanna.ntu.edu.au/research/projects/kimberley_
ecological_knowledge.html) "effort is directed to developing methodologies for developing co-existing management regimes based on dual knowledge systems... The complex cultural bases of ecological knowledge are intrinsic to its integrity and unless collection systems support the cultural framework for knowing they erode the things that they aim to protect. Knowledge is entwined with customary Law, and people carry important legal and social obligations in sharing and maintaining knowledge.... Conserving Aboriginal knowledge of species and ecological processes includes: histories of environmental change; perceptions of present environmental condition; impacts of potential or actual resource use change; contemporary resource use patterns." We were particularly interested in the group's aims of "mapping needs of indigenous land managers and developing an appropriate template for storing and retrieving maps, images, text files, sound files, video files".

In July 2004, a group from IKRMNA travelled to Kapulwarnamyo to talk to the people there about their work and ways in which the work we are doing may support their efforts.

Genevive Mehan, Gary Scott, Peter Cook and Michael Christie

Recording place and cultural stories

Power and satellite infrastructure at Kabulwarnamyo