Healthy Country Plan
We Wunambal Gaambera people have made our Healthy Country Plan to help us look after and keep our Country and culture healthy, and build the capacity and wealth of our families to live on and secure futures from our Country.
Wunambal Gaambera Country is the only place in the world where our life, languages and culture are forever anchored to our ancestors. We are implementing our Wunambal Gaambera Healthy Country Plan to help us meet the challenges we face to live on our Country, to look after our Country, skill our workforce, educate our children and secure our wealth and well-being so that we can enjoy and use the two worlds – traditional and modern – that we live in today.
While the Plan is for ten years to 2020, it is the starting point for our future beyond ten years. In making the Plan, our Elders and young people sat together and came up with our Uunguu Vision to be our goals to reach in ten years time and beyond.
It is our vision that in ten years time:
- our people will secure sustainable livelihoods on and from our country
- we will be looking after our country in the way of our Wanjina Wunggurr Law
- we will be living on and making business from our country
- we will be protecting and sharing our cultural places as our traditional Law says
- we will be using our traditional knowledge and Western science to care for our country so that no plants and animals are lost
- we will be respected as the proper owners and managers of Wunambal Gaambera Country
- we will have ranger stations on country to help us look after country
- we, and our future generations, will have the cultural knowledge of our elders
- our country will be giving us and our future generations a healthy life
To help us reach our Uunguu Vision goals, we have chosen ten Targets (most important things) from our Uunguu – living home – to look after. We know that if we look after these Targets we will also look after all other things in our Uunguu.
Managing the Healthy Country Plan
Wunambal Gaambera Aboriginal Corporation (WGAC) has responsibility to Wunambal Gaambera people to implement the Healthy Country Plan. WGAC’s Healthy Country Team, headed by a natural cultural resource management (NCRM) professional (Healthy Country Manager) and the Uunguu Rangers, lead our work and implement Our Operations and activities focused on looking after the Targets, reducing Threats and building Wunambal Gaambera healthy country management capacity. Partners assisting WGAC include Bush Heritage Australia, Australian Government Department of Environment, National Indigenous Australian Agencies, Kimberley Land Council and Western Australian Department of Parks and Wildlife, providing financial, personnel and technical assistance to the Healthy Country Team.
Management Standards
Wunambal Gaambera people have a Healthy Country strategy to declare Wunambal Gaambera Country the Uunguu Indigenous Protected Area managed to International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) standards and registered on Australia’s National Reserve System. The Uunguu IPA commits Wunambal Gaambera people to protect at least 75 percent of Wunambal Gaambera Country and the remainder for multiple-use (e.g. community, communal needs, resource and enterprise use) to provide resources to maintain the protected area, without conflicting values.
Wunambal Gaambera Healthy Country Plan 2010-20 is the Uunguu IPA plan of management.
Monitoring Progress of the Healthy Country Plan
WGAC has established the Uunguu Monitoring and Evaluation Committee [UMEC] to check on the Healthy Country Plan progress and provide expert advice to the Healthy Country Team. The UMEC has five senior Wunambal Gaambera Traditional Owners and five independent scientists from relevant disciplines. UMEC provides an annual Healthy Country progress report to Wunambal Gaambera people. A mid-term Healthy Country evaluation report was presented to Wunambal Gaambera people in November 2015.Our operations.
During 2021 (2020 delayed by COVID19), WGAC, UMEC and our plan partner, Bush Heritage Australia will be helping Wunambal Gaambera people review and assess the health of the first 2010-20 Healthy Country Plan. We will use this to set the Targets and Operations for the Wunambal Gaambera Healthy Country Plan 2021-30.