 Participants at the Daluk (Women's) Conference
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In May, 150 women travelled from all over the Northern Territory to
participate in the fourth Annual Daluk (Women’s) Land
Management Conference held at Nimirrili on the Blyth River near
Ramininging in Arnhemland.
The Conference has become an important opportunity for women to
acknowledge their achievements and share ideas and approaches to
environmental and resource management issues.
The Djelk women rangers hosted the Conference, which provided a
good opportunity for the women to show participants their ranger
projects at Djinkarr and Maningrida township. Projects included
turtle breeding for aquarium trade, processing
Morinda Citrifolia
as a health product and the revegetation of a barge landing.
 Above, Emma Watkins, NAQS, conducted postmortems on buffalo to show
women how to look for disease and take samples. Below, women take
over the operation.
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 Photos: Kay Carvan
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Rangers from Wadeye, Minyerri, Borroloola, Bulman, Tennant Creek
and Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park, to name a few, discussed their
Ranger activities and raised many issues relating to caring for
country work, relationships to land and culture.
These included the importance of getting old people and young
people on country, keeping culture strong, collecting bush food for
aged care programs, proposed developments in the Daly River region,
the lack of resources for ranger groups, commercial and
recreational fishing and pressures on local resources, Aboriginal
owned and operated tourism enterprises and the importance of
commitment and improving skills and knowledge and the need for
recognition of ranger roles and real wages. Junior Ranger programs
are also being established to support young people’s
participation and raise awareness of traditional and scientific
land management tools.
Emma Watkins, a Northern Australia Quarantine Strategy (NAQS)
veterinary officer, performed post-mortem examination of two
buffaloes, which had been shot and transported by helicopter to
Djibalbal airstrip.
Emma demonstrated how to look for diseases and collect samples for
testing in the laboratory. The meat was later butchered by the
women and taken back to the camp kitchen. Workshops were also held
on topics such as how to use the Northern Territory Weeds
Management Tool Kit and the North Australian Fire Information
(NAFI) site.
For information on next year's conference, contact: Robin Knox,
details below.
