Australia sets aside massive area for conservation
Date: 11-Oct-02
Country: AUSTRALIA
The area covers over 98,000 square kilometres (38,000 square miles) - more than twice the size of Switzerland - in Australia's remote red centre, where European settlers have had little impact and Aboriginal landowners live a traditional life.
The recognition of the protected area, called Ngaanyatjarra, follows five years of lobbying from Aborigines for funds to save the area from feral animals and non-native plants which have spread across Australia since Europeans settled in 1788.
While the lands have always been managed by Aborigines, the official status as a protected area will give the traditional owners money to help trap non-native animals such as foxes, fence off waterholes and develop eco-tourism ventures.
Parliamentary Secretary for the Environment, Sharman Stone, said the women of Ngaanyatjarra have already begun to nurture native vegetation for food - dubbed "bush tucker" in Australia - on a commercial basis to help fund further protection.
"The Ngaanyatjarra lands are unique.... The continuity of traditional land management practices and absence of European impacts over such a large area has afforded local flora and fauna a high level of protection," Stone said in a statement.
The remoteness of the area, on the border of Western Australia, South Australia and the Northern Territory, has saved the area from the ravages of grazing or pasturalism that has hit other areas of the country.
It is the 15th indigenous protected area proclaimed in Australia, and the largest ever, incorporating sections of the Gibson, Great Sandy and Great Victoria deserts.
Some 150 bird, 103 reptile, 47 mammal and 11 frog species are found throughout the region, while almost 650 plant species have been catalogued. At least five threatened species lived in the area, Stone said.