WEST KIMBERLEY PLACE REPORT
DESCRIPTION AND HISTORY
ONE PLACE, MANY STORIES
Located in the far northwest of Australia’s tropical north, the west Kimberley is one place with many stories. National Heritage listing of the west Kimberley recognises the natural, historic and Indigenous stories of the region that are of outstanding heritage value to the nation. These and other fascinating stories about the west
Kimberley are woven together in the following description of the region and its history, including a remarkable account of Aboriginal occupation and custodianship over the course of more than 40,000 years. Over that time Kimberley Aboriginal people have faced many challenges and changes, and their story is one of resistance, adaptation and survival, particularly in the past 150 years since European settlement of the region. The listing also recognizes the important history of non-Indigenous exploration and settlement of the Kimberley. Many non-Indigenous people have forged their own close ties to the region and have learned to live in and understand this extraordinary place. The stories of these newer arrivals and the region's distinctive pastoral and pearling heritage are integral to both the history and present character of the Kimberley.
The west Kimberley is a remarkable part of Australia. Along with its people, and ancient and surviving Indigenous cultural traditions, it has a glorious coastline, spectacular gorges and waterfalls, pristine rivers and vine thickets, and is home to varied and unique plants and animals. The listing recognises these outstanding ecological, geological and aesthetic features as also having significance to the
Australian people.
In bringing together the Indigenous, historic, aesthetic, and natural values in a complementary manner, the National Heritage listing of the Kimberley represents an exciting prospect for all Australians to work together and realize the demonstrated potential of the region to further our understanding of Australia’s cultural history. The listing enriches and extends our understanding of the diverse histories and heritage values of the west Kimberley, perhaps in ways we are yet to fully understand and appreciate, potentially leading to unimagined benefits and new partnerships.
Given the scale of this assessment it is impossible to tell all the stories about the west
Kimberley. The extensive bibliography of the National Heritage listing, including histories, personal accounts, academic treatise and scientific literature, will provide a resource for those interested in delving further into their specific areas of interest.
These are living stories, about living places: they tell of the forces that continue to shape people's lives, and have made the Kimberley what it is today. The National
Heritage listing of the west Kimberley opens the way to the discovery, by the
Australian public, of these and many more stories, that have yet to be told.
A remarkable land- and sea-scape
The Kimberley occupies more than 420,000 square kilometres on the north-western margin of the Australian continent. Its rocky coastline edges the Indian Ocean, and off the coast lie thousands of islands, many fringed with coral. In the wet north-west, the
Mitchell Plateau ( Ngauwudu ) rises to nearly 800 metres above sea level at its centre,
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in places dropping into steep escarpments, and losing altitude as it approaches the sea.
Further south, Yampi Peninsula lies in a transitional area between the high-rainfall of tropical north Kimberley and the drier conditions characteristic of central Western
Australia. These different environments meet in a complex landscape of plains, dissected sandstone plateaus, and rugged mountains. The central Kimberley, which includes the periphery of north Kimberley plateau country and the King Leopold
Ranges, is very rugged; the physical structures here were formed by significant geological events which folded rocks intensely, many thousands of millions of years ago. That such evidence of a distant past can today be seen so clearly in the landscape is due to the region's remarkable geological stability. This stability has also allowed the much more recent appearance of extensive limestone ranges, built from the remains of an extraordinary reef complex which, over 300 million years ago, rivalled the Great Barrier Reef in size. The ranges have since eroded to form complex networks of caves and tunnels. Dinosaur footprints and tracks are another remarkable remnant of past life in the Kimberley; they are exposed in many places in the Broome
Sandstone, along the western length of Dampier Peninsula. This coastline is subject to one of the highest tidal ranges anywhere in the world, and many of the fossil footprints can only be seen for short periods during very low tides. Inland of Dampier
Peninsula, south of the broad floodplains of the Fitzroy River, the distinctive red of the pindan country opens onto a vast expanse of desert.
Throughout the Kimberley, where water meets land – in estuaries, mangroves and mudflats, in moist vine thickets, along the banks of rivers and creeks, around waterholes or soaks – there is an abundance of plants and animals, some of which live only in the Kimberley, while others may have travelled from the far side of the world to nest or breed here. Animals rely on these refuges to congregate, feed, rest and reproduce. Such places also sustain Aboriginal people: for millennia these places have had important subsistence and sacred values, and have been the focus of ecological knowledge and traditional practices over seasons and lifetimes, for millennia (Pannell
2009).
European settlers saw the Kimberley's vast tropical landscape as the last frontier: a remote place with lush river floodplains ideally suited to pastoralism. To the
European eye, this untapped, undeveloped wilderness was rich with opportunity and ready for exploitation. But the Kimberley was already occupied by Aboriginal people who were the country's owners and custodians, and regarded the land and its natural resources as having been created and maintained by their Dreamtime ancestors who gave them responsibility to look after country and abide by its rules.
Indigenous foundations of the Kimberley
The Dreaming
Like other Indigenous societies across Australia, Kimberley Aboriginal people believe that their traditional countries have been formed during an era of creation often described in English as 'the Dreaming' or 'the Dreamtime'. During the Dreaming both the natural and human world are formed coterminously by ancestral creator beings who are manifestations of powerful spiritual forces that permeate the cosmos
(Blundell and Doohan 2009). The Dreaming is not a theory of creation out of nothing: before the Dreaming, the world was already in existence, but it was unformed or 'soft' as some Kimberley Aboriginal people explain (Lommel 1997).
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In contrast to ontological views of the West, the Indigenous story of creation is nonlinear in the sense that aspects of the present are considered both to affirm and to reenact the events of the Dreaming. The Dreaming exists in a continuous past-presentfuture continuum, in what Stanner (1987) calls 'the everywhen'.
Each Kimberley Aboriginal society has a rich body of religious narratives that concern the Dreaming. While such narratives are distinct for each of these societies, they all contain accounts of creator beings who 'gave' them their laws and customs.
Importantly, across the Kimberley, these narratives describe how ancestral creator beings have 'made' the Indigenous countries that comprise the west Kimberley region.
During their many travels and other exploits, such beings are said to have carved out the rivers, lifted up mountains and transformed themselves into rock formations and other features of the land, the sea and the sky.
Some of the ways in which these Dreaming-derived laws and beliefs are transmitted from generation to generation are in the form of traditional narratives, art forms, and enactments through dance and song. Aboriginal children are taught these laws through
' wudu ' or observation and practice. These verbal and visual expressions tell the history or stories of Kimberley Aboriginal people. In the words of one Bardi woman 'they are living stories; they are the spirit of us'. As integral strands in a broader corpus of
Aboriginal being and knowing, stories are forceful social expressions. Explaining this relationship between power and knowledge, a senior Wunambal man stated, 'the story can't be told just anyway, anytime, people can get killed if they have the wrong information, and do not know how to respect the place, the place is still alive'. As this
Traditional Owner's comments imply, the reproduction of stories has serious implications and sometimes dangerous consequences. So while some stories are public, others are more restricted in their use. Kimberley Aboriginal people have carefully considered the kind and nature of the stories they have contributed towards this National Heritage listing of the west Kimberley.
'Making' the country
The Wanjina-Wunggurr people of the north-west Kimberley – which includes the language countries of the Worrorra, Ngarinyin, Unggumi, Umida, Unggarrangu,
Wunambal, and Gaambera – explain that one of the most important activities of the powerful creator beings, Wanjina (Wandjina) and the Wunggurr Snake, is their role in
'making' the country. Like other aspects of their belief system, the Wanjina-Wunggurr people and indeed all Aboriginal people's concept of 'country' stands in stark contrast to Western views.
In Western thought, country is often described with reference to its geology and topography, its climate, and its characteristic animal and plant forms. Country is considered an aspect of nature. It is a geographic space, often seen as untapped wilderness that becomes transformed into a culturally meaningful place through the actions of its human inhabitants, for example when humans create an agricultural or urban landscape.
Such a Western perspective differs markedly from Indigenous views, including those of the Wanjina-Wunggurr people. For them, country is far more than a geographic location with particular topography, flora and fauna. Marcia Langton, one of Australia’s leading Aboriginal scholars, explains that while White settlers in
Australia 'see an empty wilderness, Aboriginal people see a busy spiritual landscape, peopled by ancestors and the evidence of their creative feats' (Langton 2000:14).
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The relationship between Aboriginal people and country is one of reciprocity. While country is the source of their spiritual and physical well being, indeed their very identity, it is the responsibility of Aboriginal people to ‘look after’ or ‘care for’ it.
Such responsibilities are defined by the traditional laws of each Kimberley Indigenous society. They include acknowledging and respecting their country’s resident spiritual beings, and extracting their country’s resources in a non-wasteful way.
'Country' is not limited to dry land. 'Saltwater country' is a term that Kimberley
Aboriginal people, and other Indigenous people around Australia use, in their efforts to demonstrate to others that their country—no matter what its component parts—is meaningful. Saltwater country is meaningful through the events of Lalai , the
Wanjina-Wunggurr term for the Dreaming. Country is an undivided and enlivened space, regardless of its material composition. It includes land, fresh waters, islands, rivers, reefs, sea, and the heavens. As such, country is both the consequence of, and consubstantial with, the ‘everywhen’ that is Lalai.
There are many accounts across the west Kimberley of the role of creator beings in
'making' the country. One such narrative from a senior Worrorra/Wunambal woman describes how the Lalai Wunggurr Snake opened up the space where the Prince
Regent River now flows by travelling from the inland toward the sea. Rock Cod and the Baler Shell, as Wanjina in their animal forms, then created Malandum (the
Prince Regent River) by swimming upstream through this space. At the place known today as King Cascade, Rock Cod was forced to stop abruptly by the Lalai
Bowerbird. As Rock Cod 'put on the brakes', she was thrust against the soft mud. In this way she created the step-like formation where today water cascades into the
Prince Regent River from a stream atop the plateau where Bowerbird now lives.
Travelling back toward the sea, but unable to go any further, Baler Shell became tired and swam around in a frenzied way. She was 'looking for a home' where she could 'stop,' and in the process created a huge basin (St. George Basin). Finally
Baler shell 'stopped' and transformed herself into St. Andrews Island, which takes its Worrorra name of 'Ngarlangkarnanya' from Baler Shell. Meanwhile, Wanjina in the form of a Flat-Headed Fish lifted up part of the land that adjoins this basin, thus protecting Mt. Trafalgar from Baler Shell’s frantic activities (Blundell et al. 2009).
Kimberley Aboriginal people share this remarkable Australian land- and sea-scape with the animals, birds and plants that are found in the region; all these living things are intrinsically linked to the actions and travels of creator beings, and the ongoing rituals and ceremonial actions of Traditional Owners. Speaking of this living, interconnected world, a senior Wunambal man and senior Wunambal/Worrorra woman explain what it means for those Aboriginal people who identify as members of the Wanjina-Wunggurr community: 'we call it a gift, it's all been brought to us from Wanjina . That's the Law, we have always had it. Wanjina gave it in a way for us to appreciate it. The stories can't be put in and out, this is religion. It's the very highest point, what we are, what created us. It's religious country' (Wunambal and
Wunambal/Worrorra Traditional Owners pers. comm. May 2010).
Images in rock and other physical manifestations of Creator Beings
In many parts of the Kimberley, ancestral spirits have transformed themselves into paintings in the numerous caves and rock shelters that dot the region’s landscape.
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These painted images have attracted much interest from the outside world since the arrival of the first European explorers and are considered to be one of the longest and most complex rock art sequences anywhere in the world. For the Wanjina-Wunggurr community these painted images play a crucial role in demarcating social boundaries, connecting individuals and local groups to local countries, which anthropologists call clan estates; and connecting Wanjina-Wunggurr people to their conception sites and language countries. Capricious and harmful spirits whose painted images often occur at these rock art sites are a constant reminder of the disorder that failure to follow traditional laws can bring (Layton 1992a; Blundell et al. 2009).
To outsiders the paintings of the Wanjina are most prominent: the large-eyed, mouthless, anthropomorphic beings depicted with a halo-like ring encircling their heads that appear alone or in groups, some of them walking the earth, others floating in the sky. Painted with natural earth pigments often on a white background that is typically a wash of the mineral huntite, some Wanjina are truly monumental, extending up to six metres across the walls and ceilings of rock shelters. The humanlike paintings of Wanjina were first brought to the attention of the outside world by
Lieutenant (later Sir) George Grey during his explorations in the Kimberley in 1837
(Grey 1841, Blundell and Woolagoodja 2005). According to McNiven and Russell a painted figure reproduced by Grey "was to become the most historically significant
Aboriginal rock painting recorded by Europeans in the nineteenth century"
(2005:133).
Perhaps equally well known are the elegant human-like painted images of the Gwion
Gwion/Girrigirro, commonly referred to as Bradshaw figures, named after Joseph
Bradshaw, another early European explorer who encountered the images whilst looking for pastoral land in 1891. Bradshaw, like Grey before him, was the first
European to record and publish examples of these images. Like the Wanjina paintings encountered by Grey five decades earlier, Joseph Bradshaw's 'stylized recordings' of these figures were interpreted by Europeans as non-Indigenous in origin (McNiven and Russell 2005), a view that was supported by the late Grahame Walsh, who spent many years recording the Gwion Gwion/Girrigirro painted images (see Walsh's 1994 publication "Bradshaws: Ancient Paintings of North-West Australia"). The claims of
Walsh and others of a non-Indigenous origin for these paintings have been strongly challenged by members of the Wanjina-Wunggurr community and many specialist commentators, starting with André Lommel in the 1930s, whose work with
Wunambal Traditonal Owners connected paintings of Gwion Gwion with a Lalai bird called Kujon [gwion] (Lommel 1997). Other researchers including Shultz (1956),
Crawford (1968), Layton (1990, 1992a), Redmond (1998, 2002), Blundell and
Woolagoodja (2005), McNiven and Russell (2005) and Welsh (2007) have placed the
Gwion Gwion/Girrigirro painted images strongly within Indigenous tradition and with an Indigenous origin.
For Wanjina-Wunggurr people, the Wanjina and Gwion Gwion paintings are of significance to them in accordance with their practices, observances, customs, traditions, beliefs and history. For Balanggarra people, the Girrigirro painted images are also an important component of their contemporary belief system. However, unlike the Traditional Owners of the Wanjina-Wunggurr country, Balanggarra do not associate Gwion Gwion/Girrigirro with Wanjina. Nor do they consider them to be paintings that were 'put there' by spirit beings during the Dreaming. Instead, they
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believe that these paintings were produced by their own human ancestors and that they depict the aspects of their earlier everyday life (Blundell et al. 2009).
Wanjina and associated paintings found in caves and rock shelters across the
Wanjina-Wunggurr homeland are ritually repainted in order to ensure the regeneration of country as well as the ongoing continuity of Wanjina-Wunggurr society. Ritual repainting or 'freshening' of painted images has been recorded since the early decades of the twentieth century. Wanjina-Wunggurr and Balanggarra people continue to pass on their traditional knowledge to the next generation through the production of contemporary art in community art centres across the region.
Paintings in rock shelters are not the only physical manifestations of creator beings.
For Wanjina–Wunggurr people, Wanjina have made their mark all across the country; they have shaped the course of rivers, raised mountain ranges, and changed themselves into other features of the land, sea and sky, where particular events took place. One such event was a battle between a Wanjina known as Namarali and local coastal Wanjina at a place called Langgi . After Namarali arrived on the coast in
Worrorra country he established his dominance and the Wanjina with whom he was doing battle transformed themselves into the elongated stone boulders that dot this rocky coastal beach today (Blundell 2009). Sometimes Wanjinas leave their image on boab trees. Wanjina are also seen as cumulo-nimbus clouds, which are a dramatic presence in the sky during the build-up to the wet season (Crawford 1968). They also appear in the night sky, for instance as Wallanganda, the Milky Way Wanjina
(Redmond 2001). Like Wanjina, the Wunggurr Snake also appears in the form of numerous rock formations and manifests as islands, reefs, and waves in the sea.
Geikie Gorge: more than just a beautiful place...
Many visitors to the region are drawn by the Kimberley's dramatic and beautiful scenery. One place that is well recognised for its aesthetic values is known as Geikie
Gorge or Danggu by its Bunuba Aboriginal Traditional Owners. Danggu lies in the south-west Kimberley, at the junction of the Oscar and Geikie ranges, where limestone that was once a reef is cut by the flow of the Fitzroy River into a 30-metre deep, sheer-walled gorge. This permanent pool on the Fitzroy is an important wetland and refuge area for freshwater and marine fish, especially in times of drought (WWF
2007). It is a spectacular place, with colourful cliffs and sculptured rock, its deep waters lined by lush vegetation. The gorge features in many tourist brochures and travel itineraries, and because of its easy accessibility receives over 30,000 visitors each year.
A visitor to Geikie Gorge can gain a sense of the great antiquity of the Kimberley landscape and the complex history of its formation. The limestone ranges, formed from the ancient barrier reef system, wind across the country between 50 and 100 metres above the surrounding plains, in much the same way that the reef would have reared above the ancient Devonian sea floor more than 370 million years ago. From the air, it is easy to imagine that the sea has just withdrawn, leaving the reefs uncovered. Fossils of ancient reef fauna can be seen in the rocky outcrops, showing glimpses of life from the time before reptiles or mammals evolved. In the gorge itself, the reflective surface of the water hides and reveals an abundance of life – fish, turtles, yabbies and freshwater crocodiles swim here, and birds nest in forest alongside the river and take what they need from its pool and banks.
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But Geikie Gorge is much more than a beautiful national park. For the Bunuba people, Danggu is a cultural refuge within the catchment of the Fitzroy River, a place of deep spiritual significance created by its resident Rainbow Snake or Wunggurru.
The gorge is located in a section of the river known as Bandaralngarri, which extends north from the 'Old Crossing' in Fitzroy Crossing to Dimond Gorge. The name is derived from bandaral , the silver-leafed melaleuca which lines the river in this area and was used to construct log rafts for travelling short distances.
Danggu is also the name given to the large limestone boulder (another name is
Linyjiya) located in the middle of Geikie Gorge – this is a Dreamtime place associated with a resident Wunggurru, or Rainbow Snake (KLRC 1998). The boulder is a malay , an increase place, critical to maintaining the abundance of fish in Geikie
Gorge, and is an important ceremonial and fishing spot for Bunuba people. At sand patches within Danggu, Bunuba people camped and held ceremonies with other river people from the surrounding region. Such ceremonies are still held today. Like many places in the Kimberley, Danggu has darker resonances too. A massacre of Bunuba people took place here in the late nineteenth century, and stories of this event are still recalled by the living (Pannell 2009).
Geikie Gorge is described here not for its undeniable uniqueness and aesthetic appeal, but because it is like so many places in the Kimberley – complex, layered in meaning, valued by different people for different reasons, and associated with many and varied stories.
Throughout the west Kimberley, geological activity and geological stability have spectacularly shaped and preserved the landscape over hundreds of millions of years, and scientists identify significant biodiversity values. While visitors are struck by its ancient beauty, the land, sea and sky of the Kimberley, and the diversity of life there, hold profound spiritual meaning for its Traditional Owners. Aboriginal law and culture remain strong across the Kimberley, even in the face of a shared history of violent disruption brought by colonisation.
Cycles of life
In the Kimberley, as in other parts of Aboriginal Australia, traditional life revolved around variations in the weather and the seasons. Movements of family groups were based on the availability of food, and on obligations to relocate to particular areas for ritual business. During the dry, from about April to August, the weather was a little cooler and there were abundant resources. The most critical time for food supplies was the build-up, before the onset of rains. Once the wet season broke, more food became available. The coming of the wet with the north-east monsoons brought oppressively humid weather, and some Aboriginal groups moved to rock shelters and more substantial huts on higher ground at this time. Seasonal movements differed between groups living in the desert, near the coast, and in the wetter north Kimberley, and were often determined as much by the need for water as for food.
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Many groups managed their food and water resources to maximise availability and variety throughout the year: people stored foodstuffs in dry places in different locations, so that they could always have access to a range of food, even when it was not in season. The ritual business necessary for the maintenance and increase of food sources and the arrival of the rains was the responsibility of both men and women, and at times was undertaken cooperatively and at times exclusively, depending on the ritual (Choo 2001).
Knowledge was the primary tool used by Aboriginal people to occupy and manage the Australian continent (Rose 1991). Aboriginal knowledge systems, which support sustainable relationships with the land, have developed through many millennia of observation, experimentation and teaching (Horstman and Wightman 2001).
Kimberley people lived and prospered in country where having enough to eat and drink year round depended on intimate, exact knowledge of country.
Each year the Kimberley, subject to the monsoonal patterns of the tropics, is transformed by the passing seasons. As the wet season breaks, the landscape changes.
Where the ground is sandy and porous, water soaks through to recharge underground aquifers, and spreads out forming broad seasonal floodplains, renewing plant and animal life. In the higher, rockier country of the north Kimberley, water masses and pours into mighty rivers that gush to the sea with tremendous force, carrying huge volumes of sediment, reshaping beaches and mudflats. It is not just the visible landscape that changes: during the oppressive build-up to the wet, the volume and variety of bird calls increases, and the piercing drone of cicadas fills the humid air.
When the rains start, frogs greet them with raucous song (Gueho 2007).
Six seasons in Nyikina country
Nyikina people, whose country encompasses the lower reaches of the Fitzroy River, follow a calendar which describes six seasons. Like all Kimberley Aboriginal groups, the Nyikina seasons are defined with reference to their particular country:
Wilakarra (December to February): Wilakarra, around Christmas time, is the wet season. When it starts to rain, it's spinifex time, moordoon , when all the spinifex turns green and Nyikina people use it to make wax, called limirri , for fixing spearheads and other tools. Koongkara (conkerberry) and magabala (bush banana) start flowering.
Around February, when green berries are growing on the koongkara, little orange beetles climb all over the koongkara bush, making the berries ripe. In March or April, when the beetles have done their job, the conkerberries are ripe and people can start to eat them.
Koolawa (March to May): 'Knockem down rain' comes at the end of the wet season, before it goes into Koolawa time, the start of winter. Yabooloongarra is the name for grass after it's knocked down. During koolawa, the colour of the morning sky changes, so that it looks like the colour of the ground, of the sand. After knockem down rain the smaller birds start nesting: honey birds and little parrots, kinykiny
(budgerigar). The bigger birds start to mate, and they look for hollow trees to nest in.
Going into May the wind changes, the Seven Sisters start to appear again, and some of the wattle trees begin to flower, going into Jirrbal (Milgin et al. 2009).
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Jirrbal (May to June): At this time the Seven Sisters come out early in the morning.
The bright pinpoint light of these stars warns that cold weather is on the way.
Wilbooroo (June to August): Trees begin to flower. Warimba (bohemia), nganybarl
(bush orange) and koolbarn (a kind of wattle) are all in bloom. Some of the flowers tell you it's time for crocodile eggs, and that birds are starting to nest. At the end of
July, when koolbarn leaves turn green, the cold weather is coming to an end.
Barrkana (September): Warimba flowers dry up, and kardookardoo (whitewood) flowers begins. Kardookardoo flower is the main food for cockatoos while they're nesting. Crocodiles and snakes are laying eggs and soon their young will hatch. The pods on the warimba tree go red, and when they start to dry that's the start of Lalin .
Lalin (October to December): This is the build up to the rainy season. White gums and coolibahs, walarriy (white river gum) and majala (freshwater mangrove) are all in flower.
Dampier Peninsula – resources from the land
Because of its proximity to Broome, Dampier Peninsula is one of the best-researched areas in the west Kimberley for ethnobiology – traditional knowledge about native species and natural systems. Over the past 70 years, researchers have collaborated with elders, particularly Bardi elders who live in and near Broome, to record details such as plant names, and the methods of preparation and use of important species.
They have also recorded information about the seasons and seasonal cycles of plant and animal use (Kenneally et al. 1996b; Smith and Kalotas 1985). On Dampier
Peninsula, as throughout the Kimberley, plants have provided Aboriginal people with food and medicine, and the raw materials used to construct weapons, ornaments and shelters.
A range of important food species have been recorded from Dampier Peninsula.
Acacia, the most broadly distributed and abundant plant group, is an important and versatile resource. Acacia seeds can be roasted and eaten, or collected dry and ground into flour. Acacias are also a source of medicine, and their branches are used by the
Bardi and other groups for making spears, boomerangs and shelters (Lands 1997;
Paddy and Smith 1987; Kenneally et al. 1996b). One species – Acacia wickhami – has strong-smelling leaves that are tied through a hair belt when swimming, and reputedly act as a shark repellent, which people wear when recovering turtles (Paddy and Smith
1987).
A number of Terminalia species are highly prized for their fruit and seeds, and some also have medicinal properties. Kakadu plum ( Terminalia ferdinandiana ), known as
Arungal, Mador or Gubinge in Bardi and Gabiny in Nyul–Nyul, is thought to have the highest vitamin C of any known food: its fruit contains more than 50 times the vitamin C of oranges. The fruit, seeds and gum are all eaten, and an infusion is made from the bark to treat rheumatism, sores and itchy bites (O'Dea et al. 1991; Paddy and
Smith 1987). Another tree called Joolal in Bardi and Jilangen or Joolangen in Nyul–
Nyul ( Terminalia canescens), produces a highly-prized edible gum. Branches are used in constructing shelters, and are a good source of hot-burning firewood (Paddy and
Smith 1987). The pindan quondong ( Terminalia cunninghami ), known as
Jamdalngorr by Bardi people and Gumpja by Karrajarri people at Bidyadanga south
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of Broome, also has an excellent tasting edible seed. This tree has recently been cultivated, along with Kakadu plum, in an orchard south of Broome (Kenneally
1996b; ABC 2008).
Species of fig, which grow in and around Broome and elsewhere on Dampier
Peninsula, provide many useful resources. Shields are made from mature tree trunks, and string is woven from the outer bark of aerial roots. Fruit is eaten raw when ripe
(Paddy and Smith 1987). One species ( Ficus opposita , the sandpaper fig) shares its
Bardi name with the rough-skinned black swordfish, Ranyja . Ranyja has a sweet edible fruit and, as its common name suggests, its leaves can be used as sandpaper
(Lands 1997).
Some plant species are highly regarded for their medicinal properties. Eucalypt gum is used to treat sore teeth and gums (Paddy and Smith 1987; Kenneally 1996b). The bark and wood of Lysiphyllum cunninghamii (Kimberley bauhinia) known as Jooma or Jigal in Bardi, are an antispectic, and a remedy for headache and fever (Kenneally
1996b; Paddy and Smith 1987). Owenia reticulata (desert walnut), known as
Lambilamb in Bardi and Limbalim in Nyul–Nyul, is reputed to have powerful medicinal qualities, and is used to treat rheumatism, cuts and sores (Kenneally et al.
1996a). The Bardi rub their feet with leaves of Wudarr ( Gardenia pyriformis ) to protect them against cuts from the reef and stonefish stings (Lands 1997).
Caring for and regenerating country
There are a number of important rituals regularly performed by Kimberley Aboriginal people that maintain the ‘brightness’ of country, including the 'freshening' (repainting) of Wanjina rock art, burning off the bush, cleaning certain places (for example, the graves of deceased relations), and ‘talking to’ resident spirit beings. Kimberley
Aboriginal people also regularly visit places in the country so that country does not
‘get lonely’ or, in the case of shelters and caves along estuarine river systems, ‘hide themself’ from traditional owners. Caring for country also requires the asking and giving of permission to access country, as well as rituals that welcome, introduce, or re-introduce people to country. When traditional owners invite outsiders to visit country with them, they smoke their guests. This eliminates foreign scents and allows the country to recognize the visitors. These rituals reflect the sentient nature of country which will protect people it recognizes as belonging to it, or people who have been properly introduced and smoked by the country’s traditional owners (Blundell and Doohan 2009; Blundell et al. 2009).
In the Kimberley, the diversity of the biological environment is paralleled by the diversity of the cultural and linguistic environment. Linguists have shown that languages spoken north of the Fitzroy River are different from those classified as the
'Pama–Nyungen' languages, spoken everywhere else on the Australian continent
(McConvell and Thieberger 2005). Kimberley Aboriginal people typically have multiple affiliations based on their language groups and their numerous connections to country: ranging from specific sites to large tracts of country. These connections include knowledge of Dreaming stories across the Kimberley that tell of the creation of country and its features, plants, animals and people by ancestral creation beings.
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GEOLOGICAL HISTORY
Geologists explain the formation of the Kimberley in terms of physical forces which have shaped present landforms over thousands of millions of years: the movement of continental plates; shifts in climate and sea level; and the action of wind, water and ice on rock. Geologists situate change in geological periods, which are defined with reference to global geological and evolutionary developments. These explanations are published in written form, are sometimes disputed, and may be revised or refined over time on the basis of new evidence, or new methods of interpreting existing evidence.
The geological origins of the Kimberley reach back to a period when life was first evolving in Earth's oceans, before the appearance of multicelled organisms.
Geologists believe that the oldest rocks in the west Kimberley, which now lie in the
Lennard Hills, were formed between 1,920 and 1,790 million years ago (Tyler 2000).
During much of this time, a significant portion of the west Kimberley was part of a separate, larger continent located to the north of what would become the Australian continent, but drifting towards it.
About 1,880 million years ago, these two continents collided in an event now known as the Hooper Orogeny, causing major upheavals in Earth's crust and forming a mountain range – the King Leopold orogen – not unlike the modern Andes. Today, rocks which were part of the Hooper Orogeny are spectacularly exposed along the
Kimberley coastline. The collision produced huge volumes of molten rock (magma).
Much of this magma spewed as lava from erupting volcanoes, while some remained within the crust and over time solidified to form granite and gabbro. The tremendous forces created by the collision were enough to buckle rocks into folds and break them along faults. Some rocks were buried deep in the crust, where the intense pressure and temperature transformed them into minerals such as garnet and mica. Where conditions were most intense, the rocks melted. Over time, the mountain range created by this collision was weathered by wind and rain. Huge amounts of sediment washed or blown into the shallow seas and rivers of the Kimberley Basin hardened through temperature and pressure into extensive sedimentary rocks (Tyler 2000;
Maher and Copp 2009).
Around 1,000 million years ago, the southern edge of the ancient Kimberley landmass
(represented by the rocks of the greater Kimberley Plateau) moved south against the
Pilbara Craton, heating, folding and faulting rocks. The renewed contact again led to the formation of a series of mountains. Rocks showing evidence of this event can be seen on Yampi Peninsula.
From around 850 to 630 million years ago, during the 'Cryogenic' period of the
Neoproterozoic era, a series of intense ice ages gripped much of Earth, interspersed with episodes of runaway greenhouse conditions. Glacial deposits from approximately
700 million years ago are well preserved in the Kimberley. About 630 million years ago at the beginning of the Ediacaran period, the glaciers thawed. An array of complex multicelled organisms is preserved in rocks from this period, known as the
Ediacara biota. The Ediacara biota bore almost no resemblance to modern organisms; it appears to have been dominated by soft-bodied animals resembling segmented worms, fronds, disks, and immobile bags. The fossil remains of these organisms have been found in all parts of the world. As waves of evolutionary change were washing
11

over life in Earth's oceans, the southern supercontinent Gondwana was also under construction, and was finally assembled by around 520 million years ago (Johnson
2009).
Between 600 and 500 million years ago, the Halls Creek Fault system formed, which today extends across much of northern Australia, from Darwin to the Great Sandy
Desert. Movement on either side of the fault resulted in the spectacular folding of the
King Leopold Range. As the range rose, the epicontinental sea in the Kimberley and
Pilbara basins to the south deepened.
Around 540 million years ago, the Ediacara biota rapidly disappeared, and was replaced by a new suite of organisms, which may have arisen very suddenly in what is known as the 'Cambrian explosion', although there is evidence that a number of
Ediacara fauna were ancestral to Cambrian species. During the Cambrian period, life in Earth's oceans seems to have undergone an exceptional increase in diversity and complexity, as seen in the fossilised remains of many different forms of plants and animals which have been preserved from this time. Most of the increase occurred in shallow seas, such as that which filled the Kimberley and Pilbara basins (Tyler 2000).
The Canning Basin formed as a result of intracratonic sagging in these basins during the early Ordovician period. Another series of global extinction events occurred between 448 and 443 million years ago during the Ordovician and Silurian periods, with the loss of more than half of the Cambrian marine genera (Geoscience Australia
2008).
The Devonian period, from 416 million years ago to around 359 million years ago, was characterised by a great increase in diversity of fish. The first fossils of rayfinned and lobe-finned bony fish are dated to the Devonian. From around 397 million years ago, there is evidence that some fish evolved limb-like structures and began to move onto land. Vascular plants diversified and became more widespread on land. In the late Frasnian to early Famennian stage of the Devonian, around 364 million years ago, many fish species became extinct. A second, strong extinction pulse closed the
Famennian, and the Devonian period. These extinctions primarily affected organisms that lived in shallow, warm water marine environments – most significantly, the reefbuilders of the great Devonian reef systems. The reasons for these extinctions are not known.
Even more than an 'age of fish', the Devonian was the age of reefs and reef builders.
The Lennard Shelf, a tropical carbonate shelf which formed part of the shallow continental sea filling the Canning Basin, was the site of one of the most remarkable, rich and abundant barrier reef systems of the Devonian period. From about 390 million years ago, reefs fringed three sides of the Kimberley Plateau landmass. The main reef may have been as much as 1,400 kilometres long – comparable to today's
Great Barrier Reef, which extends for just over 2,000 kilometres. Today, the remains of the Devonian reef are preserved in outcrops up to 50 kilometres wide, which occur for 350 kilometres along the northern margin of the Canning Basin, in the Oscar,
Napier, Emmanuel and Pillara ranges. These ranges run parallel to the King Leopold
Ranges from near Derby to Fitzroy Crossing, and extend almost as far as Halls Creek
(Long 2006). The King Leopold Ranges represent the ancient continental coast.
Limestone outcrops, which reach heights of up to 300 metres above sea level, give a sense of the magnitude of the reefs that once occupied this part of the Kimberley
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(Playford et al. 2009). The features they preserve are diverse, and include shores and inlets, islands and archipelagos, platforms and atolls (Johnson and Webb 2007). The
Lennard and Fitzroy rivers expose spectacular reef cross sections at Windjana and
Geikie gorges (Long 2006). The Proterozoic rocks of the Oscar Range, an outlier of the King Leopolds, was an archipelago during the late Devonian, and preserves many reef features in intricate detail (Johnson and Webb 2007).
As well as providing a sense of the grandeur of the Devonian reef system, fossils also preserve intimate and exact details of the individual organisms that built and occupied these reefs and the shallow seas that supported them. In particular the Gogo
Formation, a limestone formation of the Lennard Shelf, contains spectacular and abundant fossils of fish that lived in deeper water, seaward of the reefs. Nearly 50 species have been described so far, and work is ongoing. The fish fossils mostly occur below the surface of the formation within 'Gogo nodules' that sometimes become exposed when the surrounding rock is weathered out (Playford et al. 2009). The preservation of these fish is exceptional: their fossils are near-complete, with threedimensional skeletons. Soft tissue features of the fish have been preserved here, intact, for over 300 million years.
Following sea level retreat around the world, between 310 and 270 million years ago glaciers of the Permo–Carboniferous ice age, which covered much of Earth in sheets of ice, buried the remains of the Devonian reef and laid down sedimentary rocks in the Canning Basin. As sub-glacial ice melted, water reacted with the carbonate structures of the reef and began to hollow out the maze of caves and tunnels which now form the extensive karst systems of the Kimberley limestone ranges. The reef was buried under glacial sediments for millions of years, before uplift eventually exposed it once more.
The end of the Permian is defined by a mass extinction of an unprecedented scale, informally known as 'the great dying'. More than 90 per cent of all marine species disappeared from the fossil record and 70 per cent of terrestrial vertebrate species.
However, it ushered in the Mesozoic era, the 'age of dinosaurs'. By the Triassic period, beginning around 245 million years ago, the grip of cold, arid glacial conditions had given way. From around 200 million years ago, in the early Jurassic period, the Kimberley Plateau once again formed part of a large island landmass, separated from the Northern Australian and Pilbara cratons by an inland sea. During the Cretaceous period, many species of dinosaurs occupied the area. As dinosaurs walked over swampy ground about 130 million years ago, they left tracks, some of which are preserved as fossils in the Broome Sandstone and exposed along the west coast of Dampier Peninsula. Fossilised remains of plants and pollens are found along with the tracks, which allow geologists to estimate their age. Plant remains and depositional features of the sandstone show the range of environments that these dinosaurs inhabited, which included rich lagoonal forests, estuaries, swamps and riverine areas.
The early Cretaceous coastal plain and drainage were roughly parallel to the existing
Dampier Peninsula coastline: 'on the landward (eastern) side of the coastal plain a few small lakes and swampy areas intervened among groves of ferns, while on higher ground there was open forest dominated by cycads. In a few places there were stretches of flood debris (pebbles and boulders) and sheets of sand blown out from the
13

continental interior. On the seaward (westward) side of the coastal plain there was a series of open lagoons, with very shallow water, intermittently drained free and exposed to the air' (Thulborn 2010).
Today, the Broome Sandstone is exposed discontinuously for around 200 kilometres on the western coast of Dampier Peninsula, from the bird observatory at Roebuck Bay north to Cape Leveque. At most places where this rock formation has been uncovered, whether by gradual erosion or the pounding of cyclonic seas, dinosaur footprints have been found. At least 15 different types of footprints are recognised, making this one of the most diverse collections of trace fossils in the world (Thulborn et al. 1994; Molnar
1996; Long 1998; Tyler 2000; Long 2004). At some sites, short sections of trackways
(sequences of prints recording the movement of one or more animals) can be detected.
Sauropods are the most common source of the prints found in this region. Sauropods were four-legged herbivorous dinosaurs, best known in the form of Diplodocus or
Brachiosaurus (both found in the western United States). The sauropod prints found at
Dampier Peninsula include some of the largest in the world, at 1.75 metres long, as well as some of the smallest. They are the only sauropod tracks known in Australia.
The most publicised footprints, however, are the three-toed (tridactyl) prints, which can be seen at low tide in the intertidal zone of the rocky shore at Gantheaume Point, near Broome (Thulborn et al. 1994; Thulborn 1997). Vertebrate palaeontologists and trace fossil experts consider that the range of prints and trackways found along the
Kimberley coast, together with their environmental settings, is internationally outstanding. The dinosaur traces and other fossil prints in the area are culturally significant to Aboriginal people. Public statements and scientific access has been restricted due to fear of theft, after a slab containing footprints was stolen in 1996
(Long 2002; Cook 2004). Study has been limited by the difficulty of reaching the tracks, which are often located in the intertidal zone, and are intermittently buried and uncovered by storm surges shifting large quantities of sand (Thulborn pers. comm.
2009).
Around 160 million years ago, as Gondwana began to break apart, rift valleys formed down the western Australian coast and between Australia and the Indian continent.
Sea levels rose, flooding the Great Artesian Basin. As Gondwana fractured over tens of millions of years, rifting opened wide areas of ocean between the previously joined landmasses of India, Antarctica and Australia. The Australian landmass has been a separate island continent since about 55 million years ago (Maher and Copp 2009).
At the end of the Mesozoic, the non-avian dinosaurs vanished all over the world, along with the winged reptiles and many marine species. Inland seas once again retreated and Australia migrated north to its current position following separation from Antarctica. Despite these changes to Australia and the world, the topography of the Kimberley has remained essentially the same as when it formed part of
Gondwana. Geologists believe there has been only limited tectonic movement and deformation in the Kimberley since the Devonian period began, over 400 million years ago, although there has been some uplift. This means that features such as the
Devonian reef system, the glaciated landscapes of the late Carboniferous period and the varied environments of the Mesozoic era (including dinosaur trackways recorded in the Broome Sandstone) have been relatively undisturbed in the landscape (Maher and Copp 2009).
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In the absence of any major mountain-building events, water, wind and ice work to wear down the surfaces of a landscape, eventually producing a nearly-flat topography only broken by isolated hills. Geologists refer to this process as 'planation'. In the
Kimberley, the oldest planation surface – the Kimberley High Surface – is thought to have formed around 200 million years ago (Wright 1964 and Hays 1967 in Ollier et al. 1988; Tyler 2000), though some researchers have argued that this surface predates the Neoproterozoic glaciation, which would make it as much as 700 million years old
(Ollier et al. 1988). The remains of the High Surface can be seen today on the highest mesas of the plateaus of the north Kimberley, such as Mount Hann at 776 metres.
Peaks within the King Leopold and Durack ranges, including Mount Ord at 937 metres, were once hills which stood above this surface.
Between 200 and 100 million years ago, uplift and then erosion of the Kimberley
High Surface formed a second, lower planation surface – the Kimberley Low Surface.
From 70 to 50 million years ago Australia moved into tropical latitudes, and the warmer climate and heavy rain leached the soil of the Kimberley Low Surface and led to the formation of laterite, a hard capping of minerals. Twenty million years ago, as
Australia continued its journey north towards Asia, the Kimberley Low Surface was uplifted. Fast-flowing water rushing down these newly created steep slopes cut deep gorges and other features that are visible today in the northern coastal regions of the
Kimberley, including the spectacular cliff walls and waterfalls of the lower reaches of the King George and King Edward rivers (Maher and Copp 2009). The uplifted
Kimberley Low Surface has been gradually worn down to form the hills and valleys found in the lower altitude country around the edge of the North Kimberley plateaus, while the original Low Surface is preserved in the vicinity of Halls Creek. A new planation surface has not yet developed.
HUMAN ARRIVALS
It is still unknown when and from where humans first appeared in this country. The contemporary scientific explanation is that, after leaving Sundaland (the southern extension of south-east Asia drowned by rising seas of the Holocene, with
Sundaland's remnants comprising the Malay Peninsula and islands of Sumatra, Java,
Borneo, and surrounding smaller islands), the first arrivals made short voyages between islands, mostly remaining in sight of land, before setting off on the longest stretch of the journey. They navigated sea channels up to 100 kilometres wide to reach the Sahul, the conjoined landmass of Australia and New Guinea (Mulvaney and
Kamminga 1999; Gillespie 2002). We do not know what sort of craft they travelled on, or whether the journey was made by accident or intention, once or many times.
Archaeological evidence suggests that by at least 40,000 years ago humans had occupied all, or nearly all, parts of the Australian continent. Scientists identify the
Kimberley as one of the most likely entry points for the initial migration of people from Asia to Australia. Archaeological investigations may show the Kimberley to be the first area in Australia to be inhabited by modern humans (O'Connor 1999).
Archaeological finds from rock shelters indicate that early Kimberley people had a varied diet. They ate many different plants, shellfish, fish, tortoises, lizards, rodents, wallabies, possums, bandicoots and goose eggs (McConnell and O'Connor 1997;
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O'Connor 1999; Balme 2000). Marine remains, including what appear to be decorative pieces of baler shell and sections of dentalium or tusk shells (called barrgayi by Bardi and Nyul Nyul people, who still make necklaces from them), have been found in rock shelter deposits up to 500 kilometres from their source, providing evidence that trade routes linked the inland to the coast from perhaps 30,000 years ago (Balme and Morse 2006). In addition, archaeological excavations in the west
Kimberley have provided the earliest evidence of the intentional application of ochre onto a rock surface presently known in Australia, and one of the earliest examples anywhere in the world. Sometime before 39,700 BP, ochre was blown onto the roof of a rock shelter in a similar method to that used by Aboriginal people in Australia today
(O'Connor and Fankhauser 2001; O'Connor and Marwick 2007).
The most dramatic change to the Kimberley landscape since people arrived began after the Last Glacial Maximum of the late Pleistocene, around 22,000 years ago
(Tyler 2000). Australia remained largely free of permanent ice during this period of global glaciation, except in a small area of the Snowy Mountains and parts of
Tasmania, but in the northern hemisphere, glaciers advanced to high latitudes. As the ice age ended glacial ice melted, sea levels rose and the Kimberley coast was flooded, with seawater reaching up to 80 kilometres inland. Mountain ranges became islands, and river valleys were inundated and now lie beneath the sea. The Fitzroy River floodplain, which was to be an important centre of life for many generations of
Kimberley Aboriginal people, started to form. Sea levels stabilised at around their current levels by about 9,000 years ago.
These changes occurred over a number of human generations, transforming the landscape and resources available to people living in many parts of the Kimberley.
Archaeologists have studied rock shelters which were occupied during this time, and found that people adapted to change in a range of ways, including by altering the species of plants they consumed. Further study of such sites in the Kimberley could assist in better reconstructing how people responded to this environmental transformation, as well as to subsequent cycles of climatic change associated with la
Niña and el Niño events, experienced over the past 10,000 years (McConnell and
O'Connor 1997; O'Connor 1999).
Scientists believe that the Kimberley landscape formed both by gradual processes of geological and climate change, and by much more rapid events. Evidence along the north-west coast of Australia suggests that, as recently as the seventeenth century, a powerful tsunami hit the Kimberley coast, generating waves that travelled up to 35 kilometres inland, with water reaching as far as the Great Sandy Desert (Bryant and
Nott 2001; Nott and Bryant 2003; Bryant et al. 2007). This may have been the result of a meteorite falling into the Indian Ocean. The whole Kimberley coastline shows the after effects of being swamped by a catastrophic wave (Nott et al. 1996; Bryant et al.
2007). The tsunami's impact on the many Aboriginal groups who lived along the coast, and even those well inland, must have been immense, and this impact may be reflected in stories that still tell of this terrible event (Mowaljarlai and Malnic 1993;
Blundell and Woolagoodja 2005).
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A NATURAL AND CULTURAL REFUGE
For the people who live here, whether Traditional Owners or more recent arrivals, the west Kimberley is home; for scientists, it is largely a tantalising unknown. The
Kimberley is vast and remote from southern centres. Travel is difficult during the wet season, and many parts cannot be reached by ordinary means of transport at any time of year. Along the coast, there are saltwater crocodiles and massive, powerful tides.
The west Kimberley coast, particularly at King Sound and Roebuck Bay, has the greatest tidal range of any coastal area in Australia, and one of the greatest in the world. Spring tides can reach up to 12 metres, and there are two tidal cycles each day.
The west Kimberley is also remarkable for having the most convoluted coastline in
Australia: it is comprised of an enormous number of islands, bays, coves and inlets, which appear as an impossible tangle of lines on a map.
While most of the region has not yet been studied in detail, what survey work has taken place indicates that the Kimberley is home to a highly diverse range of plants and animals, and includes many species that live nowhere else (endemics), as well as species that are under threat or have now disappeared elsewhere in Australia. Some of the factors that make the Kimberley most challenging to study also make it a refuge – providing greater resilience from introduced species and human actions, from seasonal scarcity, and from longer term changes in climate – allowing unique communities of species to thrive.
Kimberley country ranges from coastal mangroves and eucalypt woodlands, through rugged ranges, flat-topped mesas and deep gorges, to rich pockets of rainforest and savanna grasslands. Rainfall, geology, topography, soil types, and associated plants and animals all vary significantly between the coast and inland, and from north to south. For descriptive purposes, the west Kimberley mainland is divided into four regions, reflecting changes in rainfall and geology: the north Kimberley, including the
Mitchell Plateau and the northern and north-western coastline; Yampi Peninsula; central Kimberley, which includes the King Leopold, Napier, Oscar, Pillara and
Emmanuel ranges; and the south-west, made up of Dampier Peninsula and the catchment of the Fitzroy River. The multitude of islands and reefs and other outstanding marine features which lie off the coast are also described.
North Kimberley
The north Kimberley is an extensive area of rugged tablelands and distinctive flattopped mesas stretching from Cape Londonderry in the north to Harding Range in the south, and includes the Carson Escarpment, Mitchell Plateau ( Ngauwudu to its
Wanjina–Wunggurr Traditional Owners) and Gardner Plateau. This is the wettest part of the Kimberley: between 1,100 and 1,500 millimetres of rain falls on average each year, mostly in the summer months. The area has high biodiversity values, including the richest mammal populations in the west Kimberley, and is home to many endemic species. The greatest diversity of plant and animal species in the Kimberley is found in the coastal strip from the Mitchell Plateau north-east to Drysdale River.
The geology of the north Kimberley is dominated by sandstones, dolerites and other volcanic rocks. Ancient rocks usually buried deep below Earth's surface are exposed here. In places, these basement strata have been worn through by rivers, showing both the long geological stability of the region which has allowed such features to be
17

retained, and the power unleashed by the annual wet season. Unlike the more porous, sandier country in the southern Kimberley, the rocky landscapes of the north continue to hold surface water during the dry season: pools are common in creeks, and both springs and rivers continue to flow year round (McKenzie 1981). These are important dry season refuges for many animals, particularly birds and fish.
In the north Kimberley, the King George River provides a dramatic corridor of access from the ocean to the foot of the King George Falls, about 12 kilometres upstream from Koolama Bay. The river has cut a deep gorge in the surrounding rock, creating striking orange sandstone cliffs, between 80 and 100 metres tall. Two high waterfalls spill from a rocky plateau down vertical, rocky cliff faces into deep water in the river; in the wet season these falls carry spectacular volumes of water, and the sound of their deluge can be deafening.
The soils of the north Kimberley are sandy and sparse. Where there is enough soil, grassy woodlands grow: woollybutt ( Eucalyptus miniata ) and Darwin stringybark trees ( E. tetrodonta ) shade high Sorghum and hummock grasses ( Plectrachne schnizii ). Many large, open, flat pavements are formed from sandstone and laterite, and carry little or no soil. These pavements seem sterile, lifeless places during the long dry season, but the deluge of wet season rains turns the pavements into temporary pools. After the rains, many annual plants grow quickly from seed: ephemeral species such as triggerplants, bladderworts, small sedges and insectivorous sundews appear suddenly and live for only a short time, producing abundant seeds before once more withering under the harsh dry season sun.
Areas with more reliable dry season moisture, such as the edges of creeks and drainage lines, support closed forests of paperbark and spiny, spiral-leafed pandans. In estuaries, sheltered bays and inlets, extensive mangroves occur (referred to as
'mangals' when they grow as a group of mixed species). Significant stands of mangroves are found at the head of major rivers of the north Kimberley: the Prince
Regent, King Edward and Lawley rivers (Kenneally 1982; Zell 2003). On the edge of sea cliffs, a tropical laterite flora dominated by cabbage palm ( Livistona eastonii ) forms part of a spectacular landscape. While cabbage palm species are found throughout northern and eastern Australia, this particular community is unique to the
Kimberley (Burbidge et al. 1991; Rodd 1998). Cycad species including Cycas basaltica and C. lane–poolei are recorded only on the Mitchell Plateau.
Punamii–Unpuu (Mitchell Falls)
Punamii–Unpuu is considered by many visitors to the Kimberley to be a place of exceptional beauty, featuring a cascading series of water falls and rocky water pools along a section of the Mitchell River on Ngauwudu (the Mitchell Plateau). Punamii–
Unpuu includes four separate waterfalls which cascade into a stepped series of rocky pools. Each pool also has a rugged, rocky setting. The rock walls surrounding the pools increase in height along the line of the water course. The third pool is enclosed on two opposing sides by high, rocky, cliff walls about 24 metres high. The pools are oriented in such a way that afternoon and early morning light enhances the appearance of the pools, and the setting sun brings out the red colour of the rocky cliff faces to dramatic effect.
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Punamii–unpuu is a very important place to its Aboriginal Traditional Owners, the
Wanjina-Wunggurr people, who are concerned that tourists, drawn by these well– recognised aesthetic values, must behave correctly while they are there. They say that people visiting Punamii–unpuu need to be very careful, and should be accompanied by a Traditional Owner:
* * * *
'Like many water places in our country, Punamii–unpuu is a powerful story place, with great cultural and spiritual significance. For whitefellas, it would be like a big cathedral. Punamii–unpuu is a large sacred site, entire area, not just one place – it includes all of the creeks (eg. Mertens Creek), rivers (eg. Mitchell River), waterfalls
(eg. Little Mertens Falls, Mitchell Falls), and surrounding outcrops and woodland.
'Wunggurr, or creation snakes, travelled from different points with Wandjina, the creators, making rivers and creeks, and creating all living things. The snakes meet and show each other (punmii–unpuu) at Punamii–unpuu, travelling from the sea (leaving paintings at Arrun on the tidal stretch of the Mitchell River), and from inland, like
Wumbulbrii, the one-eyed snake. Punamii–unpuu is an important part of the
Wunggurr travels, and is now one of the main homes for Wunggurr.
'The powers and creation story of Punamii–unpuu are fundamental to our beliefs, and to our life. It is a very important place to all Wandjina–Wunggurr people, for the
Worrorra side, the Ngarinyin side, and the Wunambal–Gaambera side.
Punamii–unpuu is an important link for our Wunggurr dreaming tracks. We have a really strong responsibility in our Law to make sure those links are not broken'
(Wunambal Gaambera Aboriginal Corporation 2001).
* * * *
Kimberley vine thickets
Scientists have only recently realised that rainforest is an important, if restricted, element of the vegetation of the Kimberley. Rainforest traditionally provided many resources for Aboriginal people in the Kimberley. Until the 1960s, however, the presence of rainforest patches had gone largely unnoticed by non-Indigenous researchers. Unlike the more extensive forests of North Queensland, which blanket mountain ranges and cover coastal lowlands, Kimberley rainforests occur as scattered, isolated vine thickets. While small patches are found as far south as the coastal sand dunes near Broome, they are most extensive in remote and rugged parts of the mainland and islands of the North Kimberley region. Many of these vine thickets are very small – some are less than a hectare in size. The largest, on south-west Osborne
Island, is 100 hectares. While only occupying a small portion of the area of the
Kimberley, vine thickets are critical to the biodiversity of the region: they contain around a quarter of all recorded Kimberley plant species, many of which do not survive outside the rainforest environment, and are an important refuge for animals in the late dry season (Kenneally et al. 1991; Kenneally and McKenzie 1991; Black
2001). The food and shelter they provide is particularly important after surrounding, drier vegetation has been burned. However, few of the plants found in these vine thickets are endemic to the Kimberley: most also grow in rainforests in other parts of northern Australia. Their seeds are transported long distances by birds and bats, and quickly colonise areas of suitable habitat. This ease of dispersal is crucial for the continuation of small, isolated patches of vine thickets in a vast and largely
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inhospitable landscape (McKenzie et al. 1991; Liddle et al. 1994).
Vine thickets in the Kimberley have a precarious existence: they cling to rough scree slopes; grow at the base of sheer rocky cliffs and in narrow gorges; and follow the moisture provided by drainage lines or groundwater seepage. Larger patches with greater structural complexity and species richness are found in high rainfall areas
(Kenneally and McKenzie 1991; Chester et al. 1999; ANRA 2007c). These thickets are often found alongside mangrove communities. Small patches of vine thicket also occur along the Dampier Peninsula coast amongst Holocene sand dune systems
(Kenneally and McKenzie 1991). These coastal thickets, while simpler in structure and possessing fewer plant species, offer important dry season refuge and food resources for birds such as the rose-crowned fruit dove ( Ptilinopus regina ) and great bowerbird ( Ptilonorhynchus nuchalis ) (Black et al. 2010). Rainforest plants are more vulnerable to damage from fire than the more abundant savanna woodlands, and as a result they tend to be restricted to fire-protected niches within the landscape.
Wunambal people traditionally maintained vine thickets by burning the surrounding grassland early in the dry season, to prevent more damaging, late season fires from taking hold (Mangglamarra, Burbidge and Fuller in McKenzie et al. 1991).
While the birds and mammals that occupy or use these areas are easier to observe, vine thickets are also home to many lesser known creatures. The rainforest's moist soil, varied vegetation and regulated temperature are particularly important for land snails, earthworms, leeches, ants, spiders and pseudoscorpions (arachnids that resemble scorpions in body shape). The qualities that make rainforest patches such important invertebrate habitat also prevent invertebrate populations from moving through, or occupying, surrounding non-rainforest areas, which tend to be drier and more open. Because of this, many invertebrate species live only in a single vine thicket patch, and some have evolved as rainforest specialists (Harvey 1989, 1991).
Throughout the north Kimberley, many more invertebrate species are found in vine thickets than in any other vegetation type (Main 1991).
North Kimberley: a haven of biodiversity
The north Kimberley is home to many small to medium-sized mammals that weigh between 50 grams and five kilograms. The weight range is not incidental: mammals within this range (referred to by ecologists as 'critical weight range') have been hardest hit by predation or competition from introduced species, and are now absent or severely reduced from much of the rest of the continent (Burbidge et al. 1991).
Fifty seven mammal species have been recorded on the north Kimberley plateaus, including endemics such as the golden bandicoot ( Isodon auratus ), scaly-tailed possum ( Wyulda squamicaudata ), monjon ( Petrogale burbidgei ), nabarlek
( Peradorcas concinna ), golden-backed tree rat ( Mesembriomys macrurus ) and the
Kimberley rock rat ( Zyzomyz woodwardi ) (Strahan 1983; ANRA 2007c).
Scientists have also found that the rocky, broken terrain of the north is rich in reptiles and amphibians. Dragon species that are found nowhere else include Diporiphora superba and D. convergens , which is only known from Crystal Creek. Two cavedwelling species of geckos ( Pseudothecadactylus cavaticus and P. lindneri ) are restricted to the north Kimberley region, and a velvet gecko ( Oedura gracilis ) has only been identified from the Mitchell Plateau. The Mitchell Plateau is also the onlyknown home of the rough-scaled python ( Morelia carinata ) (Cogger 1992).
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Researchers have found that a number of frogs are endemic to the wettest parts of the north Kimberley (Tyler and Doughty 2009). Endemic tree frogs include Litoria splendida and Cyclorana vagita ; and L. cavernicola is found only on the Mitchell
Plateau (Cogger 1992). Endemics from the southern frog family include three very restricted species: Uperoleia minima, U. micra and U. marmorata, only known from their original collection site near the mouth of the Prince Regent River (Tyler and
Doughty 2009). It is highly likely that further survey work would add significantly to the record of unique or unusual species that live in this richly diverse region.
While scientists lack detailed knowledge of the birds of the north Kimberley, preliminary surveys recorded 69 passerine species (that is, perching birds, many of which are songbirds) and 92 non-passerine species, and ongoing research continues to add to these numbers, with around 220 bird species now listed for Mitchell River
National Park alone (DEC 2010). Rugged sandstone supports the rare black grass wren ( Amytornis housei ), white-quilled rock pigeon ( Petrophassa albipennis ) and lavender-flanked wren ( Malurus dulcis ) (Burbidge et al. 1991). Vine thickets are important habitat for rainbow pitta ( Pitta iris ), Torres Strait pigeon ( Ducula spilorrhoa ), figbird ( Sphecotheres flaviventris ), cicada bird ( Coracina tenvirostris ) and koel ( Eudynamys scolopacea ) (Chester et al. 1999; Johnstone and Smith 1981 in
Burbidge et al. 1991). Mangals are also an important bird habitat. North Kimberley mangals support 12 of the 13 bird species that are entirely confined to mangroves in
Western Australia, including the chestnut rail ( Eulabeornis castaneoventris ), greatbilled heron ( Ardea sumatrana ) and brahminy kite ( Milvus indus ) (Burbidge et al.
1991).
The rivers of the north Kimberley support a range of freshwater fish and turtles found nowhere else. There are endemic or near endemic populations of gudgeons and grunters, as well as of the rare pygmy rainbowfish ( Melanotaenia pygmaea ). Both the northern river shark ( Glyphus sp. C) and freshwater sawfish ( Pristis microdon ) are found in river mouths and creeks. The freshwater sawfish is listed as vulnerable and has not been seen in Queensland, where it used to also occur, for over 20 years
(Mustoe and Edmunds 2008). The north Kimberley is an important region for freshwater turtle research: most populations of the recently described bearded longneck turtle ( Macrochelodina walloyarrina ) and another turtle species which shares its range, ( M. kuchlingi) , are found in the Mitchell, King Edward and Drysdale river systems (McCord and Joseph-Ouni 2007). The Kimberley is the only region in
Australia where the widely-dispersed freshwater crayfish does not occur, a niche occupied there by giant freshwater shrimps known as cherrabun (Tappin 2005).
Yampi Peninsula
At Yampi Peninsula, the climate shifts from the high rainfall of the northern
Kimberley into drier conditions characteristic of central parts of Western Australia.
Though Yampi Peninsula is much smaller than the other regions described here, it has unique characteristics as a transitional zone. Yampi Peninsula has not been extensively surveyed, but researchers expect further study to confirm that the area supports very high levels of biological diversity (KPBG 2001).
Yampi Peninsula houses a unique combination of community types, including ecological communities typical of both northern and southern parts of the Kimberley.
Many forms of vegetation occur here at the limit of their range. This is the north-west
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outpost for acacia woodland and for many pindan and arid-zone species; and it is the furthest south-west that rainforest grows over sandstone. Mallee scrub-heath is found on a rare outcrop of Devonian sandstone, about ten kilometres south of Kimbolton homestead. This unusual rock formation, which is isolated from the King Leopold
Range, was probably once an island that developed a distinctive flora before a change in sea level rejoined it to the mainland (KPBG 2001). Because of the diverse range of ecosystems that are present on Yampi Peninsula, at least a third of the entire
Kimberley flora is represented in this relatively small area.
Yampi Peninsula is bounded by Collier Bay to the north, the King Leopold Ranges to the north-east, and King Sound to the south. Aside from the pockets of diverse flora, much of the peninsula is bare rock: surface sediment is largely limited to sandplains, floodplains and tidal flats. Alluvial plains and sandplains occupy the region's centre and south-east, and include areas of pindan, red clay soils and black cracking clays.
The north-east is characterised by low, rounded, boulder-strewn hills often referred to as 'choc chips' because of their distinctive chocolate brown colour. To the west, near the sea, stands a high, broken, rocky plateau. To the north and south-west of the peninsula, there are mudflats dissected by winding tidal channels and creeks, fringed with mangroves. Yampi Peninsula's rocky coastline is both dramatic and intricate: it is incised by long, narrow inlets, and opens onto broad embayments. Offshore, there are rich and diverse marine and insular environments, which are discussed in greater detail below (KPBG 2001; Wyrwoll 2001).
One feature of Yampi Peninsula of particular interest to geologists is the
Lillybooroora Conglomerate. This geological structure, which lies approximately 20 kilometres south-east of Talbot Bay, is formed of weakly-cemented rock fragments dating from the Devonian era. The fragments are well-rounded and clearly visible, and range in size from pebbles to boulders. In the area where the Lillybooroora
Conglomerate forms the most extensive outcrops, it completely covers the underlying rocks. Some geologists suggest that when the conglomerate is eroded away, it reveals an intact pre-Devonian 'fossil' landscape. In some places, it appears the conglomerate formed when a valley was gradually filled with rocky debris, and its presence today suggests an essentially unmodified landscape over some 350 million years. Further research may show the Lillybooroora Conglomerate to be of considerable scientific importance (Wyrwoll 2001).
Significantly less biological survey work has been undertaken at Yampi Peninsula than in the north Kimberley. However, it is likely that Yampi Peninsula's importance as a biological refuge, a place supporting communities with high levels of diversity and endemism, has been underestimated. Following surveys in 2001, 802 plant species were recorded from Yampi Peninsula, and botanists suggest it is likely that the area contains more than 1000 species, including undescribed, rare, and fire sensitive plants that are declining elsewhere in the Kimberley (KPBG 2001).
Zoologists have only been able to make opportunistic visits to Yampi Peninsula, and their work there is hampered by the region's remoteness, rugged terrain, and limited access for vehicles. Thirty seven species of mammals have been recorded, with a very high probability that more than 50 species occur, including the restricted scaly-tailed possum ( Wyulda squamicaudata ) (ANRA 2007a). Yampi Peninsula is also rich in reptiles and amphibians, with 77 reptile species known, and at least 17 species of
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frogs – a richer assemblage of frogs than has been found at Prince Regent Nature
Reserve, and the same number as recorded for the Mitchell Plateau. Although the area has not been well surveyed for birds, it is known to support the rare and threatened
Gouldian finch ( Erythrura gouldiae ), red goshawk ( Erythrotriorchis radiatus ), purple-crowned fairy wren ( Malurus coronatus ) and partridge pigeon ( Geophaps smithii blaauwi ) (ANRA 2007a).
Kimberley coastline: islands and reefs
Sea country
Before the most recent sea level rise in the Holocene, many of the islands off the
Kimberley coast were part of the landmass of mainland mountain ranges, sloping down to river valleys and floodplains. Aboriginal people lived here, fished in the rivers and hunted on the land, before rising seas drowned their country, creating what geologists refer to as a 'ria coastline' (Nix and Kalma 1972). Only the highest altitude surfaces of the old coast remain, standing above the sea, isolated now from the landmass of which they were part. Where rivers once swelled with fresh water, there are now channels in the seafloor – a lost landscape of the Kimberley clearly visible in the region's underwater topography.
The lives of many Aboriginal people of the west Kimberley were, and continue to be, intimately connected with the sea. Evidence suggests that people lived along the coast, using and trading or exchanging marine resources with inland groups almost
30,000 years ago. A well–developed marine economy had developed by 10,550 BP
(O'Connor 1999).
A number of coastal sites in the Kimberley provide evidence of this long history of
Aboriginal occupation or visitation. Archaeological evidence indicates that people lived on Koolan Island, in the Buccaneer Archipelago, more than 25,000 years ago during the Pleistocene, with human occupation continuing into the Holocene.
Aboriginal people also visited the High Cliffy islands, near Montgomery Reef, more than 6,000 years ago, and have continued to use these islands since that time.
Hundreds of stone structures that stand on the largest of the High Cliffy islands, including circles, pathways, standing stones and cairns provide evidence of the islands long term use (Hiscock 2008; O'Connor 1987).
Aboriginal people, often in family groups, travelled along the coast between islands on double log rafts, using the powerful tides and rips to propel them from one place to another. The craft goes by various Aboriginal names, including [g]kalum (by the
Worrorra), biel biel (by the Jawi) and [g]kalwa (by the Bardi) (Vachon 2009). There were different sorts of double log rafts: some rafts were specifically designed for hunting; others were for short trips; while some were made to transport larger groups of people from island to island. Baler shells were used to carry water on long voyages, which were planned around the travellers' comprehensive knowledge of the tides, the currents and the winds. At night people used the stars to navigate. They travelled to hunt and to maintain important relationships with neighbouring groups (Choo 2001;
Vachon 2009).
The Traditional Owners of the land and sea along the north and west Kimberley coast, including the Bardi, Jawi and Worrorra continue to utilise fish and marine products for food, and their linguistic heritage and vocabularies reflect their complex dependence
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on the sea. Dugongs and turtles were, and still are, important food resources.
Stingrays, crocodiles, crabs, sea birds, shell fish and oysters form part of their diet.
From October to November, people harvested turtles and their eggs and ate shark and whales which they sang ashore and stranded (Smith 1997). Aboriginal people also used traps to capture fish and poisons to stun them. Poisons were made from the roots of three species of pea – Tephrosia crocea , T. aff. flammea and T. aff. rosea – as well as from sea cucumbers, which contain a potent substance called holothurin. The
Worrorra built fish traps and lit fires to attract fish into them at night (Smith 1997).
Long before the arrival of Europeans, Aboriginal people along the west Kimberley coast collected pearl shell ( Pinctada maxima ) for use in rituals and ceremonies, and for exchange. The large, luminescent shell was collected from coastal reefs exposed during low equinox tides from Bidyadanga in the south to Cape Londonderry in the far north (Moore 1994; Doohan 2009). In the north Kimberley, the Kwini believe that the area off Cape Londonderry is the source of rinji – pearl shell that is especially brilliant, and is said to have 'fallen down, like a star' to this reef system (Akerman et al. 2010).
From the 1920s, the pearl shell trade became more widespread as the expansion of the pearling industry increased access to shell (Ackerman and Stanton 1994).
Recognisable geometric designs developed, and contemporary events and relationships were incorporated into figurative designs which ranged from symbols to increase luck in card games, to depictions of planes to assist spirit travel.
Kimberley pearl shell is highly valued by Aboriginal people of the west Kimberley and beyond; and it continues to be used in rituals and ceremony (Akerman and
Stanton 1994; Bornham 2009). Even in areas such as the Gulf of Carpentaria or East
Arnhem Land, where local pearl shell is available, it is the Kimberley pearl shell, which arrives through traditional systems of trade and exchange, which is most highly prized (Akerman et al. 2010). A Mayala elder says that carving pearl shell is 'for my country, for my tribal people and all the Mayala people… the designs are our history'
(Aubrey Tigan, pers. comm. June 2010). Carved pearl shells are passed on from generation to generation, from father to son. According to a senior Bardi man 'It's part of the family'. He explained that today, when pearl shell is used for ceremony, it is also in remembrance of all the Kimberley Aboriginal people who were forced to dive by European pearlers, and of the many who died working in the pearling industry
(KLC 2010).
A rich archipelago
Two thousand six hundred and thirty three islands lie off the Kimberley coast, including those forming the Buccaneer Archipelago in the south, and the Bonaparte
Archipelago in the north. This is a remarkable number: there are about 8,330 islands within the Australian jurisdiction overall, therefore almost a third of Australia's islands are found in the Kimberley, a very high proportion relative to the length of coastline (Burbidge pers. comm. Dec 2009). Biological and archaeological survey data are available for only a very small fraction of Kimberley islands, and even for those that have been surveyed, findings are not comprehensive. Further surveys will add greatly to the known values of Kimberley islands.
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The sheer number of islands along the Kimberley coastline, as well as their remoteness and the powerful tidal flows around them, mean they are as yet little known to science. Their scientific and conservation significance is becoming increasingly clear as survey work continues. The islands of the Kimberley today support complex communities featuring many mammals, reptiles and invertebrates that are either endemic or largely restricted to the region, and in some cases to the islands themselves. These islands are very important refugial habitat, free of many of the threatening processes which commonly effect mainland communities. In particular, Augustus Island (17,952 hectares) and Bigge Island (17,190 hectares) are large, near-coastal and uninhabited, with no known feral animals, and a diverse, intact terrestrial fauna.
Many seabirds nest on the islands of the Kimberley coast, including the masked booby ( Sula dactylatra ), brown booby ( Sula leucogaster ), red-footed booby ( Sula sula ), great frigatebird ( Fregata minor ), lesser frigatebird ( Fregata ariel ), lesser crested tern ( Sterna bengalensis ) and the common noddy ( Anous stolidus ). The Adele
Islands are home to important colonies of lesser frigatebird, brown booby, and masked booby (ANRA 2007a).
A winter retreat for whales
Each year, in one of the longest known vertebrate migrations, a genetically-distinct population of humpback whales ( Megaptera novaeangliae ) travels from feeding sites in Antarctica along the west coast of Australia to the warm tropical waters of the
Kimberley to mate and calve. Researchers who study these whales refer to them as
Group IV, and more is being learned about them each year. Humpback whales feed in summer in Antarctic waters, and spend the winter fasting, living off their fat reserves.
As they follow the coast, they rest at Shark Bay on their way north and at Exmouth
Gulf on their journey south(Jenner et al. 2001). Most cows and calves are seen in
Kimberley calving grounds between mid August and mid September, but the exact timing of the whales' passage varies by as much as three weeks from year to year
(Jenner and Jenner 1996; Jenner et al. 2001). This variability is thought to reflect changes in the timing of food availability in the Antarctic (Chittleborough 1965).
Until recently, researchers believed that the Kimberley's Camden Sound was Group
IV's critical calving destination (Jenner and Jenner 1996; Jenner et al. 2001; Costin and Sandes 2009a). However, surveys suggest that whales also calve in other locations along the Kimberley coast between Broome and the Lacepede Islands.
Humpback calves have been seen in the waters around Roebuck Bay, and along the coast of Dampier Peninsula (Costin and Sandes 2009a, 2009b).
In 1963, fewer than 600 whales were recorded on the Kimberley coast
(Chittleborough 1965; Bannister and Hedley 2001). In 2008, the estimated number of
Group IV whales migrating north was 22,000. This represents a significant recovery since the end of commercial whaling in 1966. In fact, Group IV may currently be the largest population of humpback whales in the world (Costin and Sandes 2009a,
2009b; DEC 2009). In a six week survey from 1 July 2009, 969 whales were sighted between Broome and Camden Sound, and almost a hundred of these were calves
(Costin and Sandes 2009b).
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Populations of several other cetacean species also inhabit Camden Sound and the
Buccaneer and Boneparte archipelagos, including the recently described Australian snubfin dolphin ( Orcaella heinsohni) (Beasley et al. 2005). Snubfin dolphins have been observed to hunt in groups, working together first to chase fish to the surface of the water, and then to round them up by shooting jets of water from their mouths.
This unusual and complex behaviour was first recorded off the Kimberley coast.
Remarkable reefs
Along the west Kimberley coast, remarkable coral communities thrive in extreme conditions, posing researchers many puzzles. South of Camden Sound, Montgomery
Reef is a sandstone platform encrusted with coral, which extends for around 300 square kilometres. As the tide drops, water cascades spectacularly from where it is held in lagoons atop the reef, roaring as it pours over the platform's sheer edge. At very low tides, Montgomery Reef is exposed above sea level by as much as four metres. As water is lost from the lagoons, small pools are created, filled with coral and algae. Dugongs, turtles, fish, clams and starfish can be seen in these pools, waiting for the rising tide to release them. Montgomery Reef is one of many places in the Kimberley where coral grows abundantly in an extreme tidal environment, buffeted by strong currents and high water temperatures. The dynamic tidal currents at Montgomery Reef have also made it possible for coralliths and rhodoliths to survive here. These unusual organisms are comprised of coral or corraline algae, and are rolled around relentlessly by the currents until they form balls of living matter, detached from their original rock substrate. They float free, alive on all sides. Much remains to be learned about Montgomery Reef.
Other submerged and fringing reefs and unusual coral communities occur along the
Kimberley coast, including at Cape Bougainville, Cape Londonderry, the Maret
Islands, Murrangingi Island and Napier Broome Bay. High water temperatures, strong currents and high nutrient availability from wet season runoff contribute to rapid coral growth. The outer parts of the fringing reefs around the Maret Islands appear to have grown very actively in the past 6,000 years, following the Holocene sea level rise.
Corals are present on the platform and edges of the reefs. Beyond the reefs, between
12 and 30 metres below sea level, major filter feeding communities, including sponge gardens, grow (C. Simpson, pers. comm. January 2008).
South-east of Montgomery Reef and north of Derby on Yampi Peninsula, the narrow
Yule Entrance links Walcott Inlet to Secure Bay. The tidal range here can be as much as 11 metres, and results in turbulence, strong tidal flows and whirlpools (Burbidge et al. 1991). Beyond Yule Entrance the tide drives straight out into the ocean, carrying silt laden waters some six kilometres into Collier Bay, and creating a cloudy brown river in a brilliant aquamarine sea (Chester et al. 1999).
A little south of Yule Entrance, Talbot Bay is virtually enclosed by vertical sandstone cliffs, with only two narrow gaps allowing sea water to enter. Massive tidal movements between the bay and the sea result in what are known as the Horizontal
Waterfalls. As the tide rises and as it drops, there can be up to 10 metres difference between the water levels of the bay and of the ocean. Water held back by these narrow gaps rushes through and is spectacularly expelled in a churning, roiling mass.
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Central Kimberley
Stretching east from Yampi Peninsula, the landlocked central Kimberley region encompasses the King Leopold Ranges, the rugged limestone country of the Napier,
Oscar, Pillara and Emmanuel ranges and the headwaters and upper reaches of the
Fitzroy River (although the Fitzroy River catchment as a whole is described below in the context of the south-west Kimberley).
The central Kimberley is drier than the country to its north. Most of the 800 or so millimetres of rain it receives each year falls during the few months of the wet season.
While much of the region is mountainous, with scant soils and sparse vegetation, plains and low hills support extensive, varied tropical savanna woodland. Curly spinifex ( Plectrachne spp.) grasslands are dotted with low eucalyptus trees;
Eucalyptus brevifolia grows on ridges and in drier areas, and E. tectifica – E. grandifolia in the valleys, and a range of other eucalypt species also occur. Where there is moisture, shrubs such as acacia and grevillea, boabs and Kimberley bauhinia are found. Richer volcanic soils support ribbon grass ( Chrysopogon spp.
) and scattered trees. Forests of river red gum ( E. camaldulensis ) and pandans follow drainage lines. In the region's south there is semi desert spinifex steppe, and patches of vine thicket occur in the west, closer to the coast.
The King Leopold Ranges stretch for 300 kilometres along the south-western edge of the Kimberley Plateau. The geology of these ranges is often exposed, and with dramatic rock and landform features. The ranges consist mainly of white to pale brown cross bedded quartz sandstone intruded by dark grey dolerite which provides a marked visual contrast on steep hillsides. Sides of valleys are generally steep and have only sparse vegetation; some are nearly vertical with precipitous bare rock cliffs. As a result, panoramic views of ranges, valleys and plains are obtained from many scarps.
In the wet season, water roars through a series of rocky gorges: Silent Grove and the
Lennard, Bell, Mt Matthew and Yellowman gorges include waterfalls, pools, rock ledges and palm groves.
The Oscar, Napier and Geikie ranges stretch for 150 kilometres between Napier
Downs Station in the north to the Fitzroy River at Fitzroy Crossing. They are the remnants of a barrier reef complex which has stood, largely unaltered by tectonic processes, since it was formed almost 400 million years ago (Jennings and Sweeting
1963 in Sutton 1998). The upper surfaces and slopes of the ranges are predominantly bare limestone, with scattered grasses and the occasional boab or small tree perched on a rock or clinging to a ledge. What lies below the surface also makes these ranges truly remarkable: water has dissolved the limestone into an intricate network of clifffoot caves and tunnels, deep narrow gullies, intersecting corridors, narrow fissure caves, and razor-sharp ridges (Sutton 1998). In the Napier Range, Windjana Gorge is a popular tourist destination. The Gorge is four kilometres long, and its colourful limestone walls rise vertically to a height of 100 metres in some places. The Lennard
River flows intermittently through the Gorge and during the wet season sometimes rises metres above its winter levels. In winter, water is confined to deep, clear pools in the main channel.
The limestone karst systems of the central Kimberley are home to a diverse variety of terrestrial and subterranean fauna. The Tunnel Creek cave system, for example, is important for bat colonies, most notably for the ghost bat ( Macroderma gigas ),
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Australia's only carnivorous bat, which is listed as vulnerable under Commonwealth legislation. Other subterranean environments support a range of invertebrates which have evolved in isolation over millions of years, and are sometimes unique and restricted to very small areas. While subterranean fauna are amongst the most poorly studied faunal groups worldwide, such organisms can help researchers to understand how evolutionary processes unfold in relation to changes in climate and geology, over geologically significant time scales (W. Humphreys pers. comm. quoted in Sutton
1998).
However it is not only the subterranean fauna that is little known: the terrestrial flora and fauna of the central Kimberley region has not yet been systematically surveyed, and data on species is limited. Records indicate that the region supports more than
200 bird species, including small populations of Kimberley endemics, and that it provides moderately important habitat for at least two threatened species – the
Gouldian finch ( Erythrura gouldiae ), one of Australia's rarest birds, and the painted snipe ( Rostratula benghalensis australis ). At least 37 mammal species are recorded as occurring in the central Kimberley (ANRA 2007a; AWC 2010).
The Kimberley's largest permanent natural wetland, Lake Gladstone, also lies in this region, and is listed as a wetland of national significance in the Directory of Important
Wetlands in Australia. Lake Gladstone provides critical habitat for many species of plants and animals, including threatened species like the red goshawk
( Erythrotriorchis radiatus ) and Gouldian finch, as well as for listed migratory bird species.
South-west Kimberley
In the south-west, the rugged plateaus and undulating hill country of the north and central Kimberley meet the arid sand ridges and iron-rich soils of the Great Sandy
Desert. This area, which includes Dampier Peninsula, is considered by geologists to be part of the Canning Sedimentary Basin. The south-west is the driest region of the west Kimberley, and receives between 300 and 800 millimetres of rain each year, mostly during the two to four months of the wet season (McKenzie 1981). In contrast to the north-west, much of the landscape here is comprised of sandstones and mudstones, which are porous and seldom hold surface water. Combined with the south-west's drier climate and higher evaporation rate, this reduces even major river courses such as the Fitzroy to an intermittent string of pools in the dry season.
Permanent water sources throughout this region, including mound spring and freshwater seepages, have great cultural significance for Aboriginal people, and are important refugia, helping birds and animals survive through the dry. There are significant groundwater aquifers and groundwater dependent ecosystems in the southwest Kimberley, and many of these are associated with the floodplains of the Fitzroy
River (WWF–Australia 2007).
The south-west Kimberley is characterised by distinctive vegetation and landscapes.
A key visual feature is the boab ( Adansonia gregorii ) – an iconic, long-lived tree for which the Kimberley is renowned, though it also occurs in the east Kimberley and western reaches of the Victoria and Daly rivers in the Northern Territory. Related to the baobabs ( Adansonia species) of Madagascar and the African mainland, boabs are particularly common in low-lying areas, and often occur on alluvial flats in association with bauhinia ( Lysiphyllum cunninghamii ) and beefwood ( Grevillia
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striata ), above a layer of ribbon grass ( Chrysopogon ) (Sutton 1998). The boab has significant cultural value and utility for many Kimberley Aboriginal people. Some trees are also historic memorials to confronting events in early contact history and record the visits of explorers like King (the 'Mermaid Tree'), Hann and Brockman
(Jebb 2009). Like other animals and plants, the boab tree is inextricably linked to
Kimberley Aboriginal people's social and spiritual world. Kimberley Aboriginal people carry the boab 'totem'; some are born into the boab tree or boab flower 'section'
(Von Brandenstein 1982 cited in Jebb 2009).
Boabs have uses ranging from the mundane to the sacred. They are important as a source of water, and also as a material manifestation of the powerful forces of the cosmological world across the whole Kimberley region (von Brandenstein 1982 cited in Jebb 2009). Boab trees provide twine, food, medicines and shelter, and may be increase sites for particular resources. Boabs are 'a valuable resource for traditional
Aboriginal healthcare practices, both in terms of the provision of medicines and as a resource for health-related rituals' (Heaver 2007). Boab nuts are carved in traditional and contemporary designs by Aboriginal people.
Some trees are believed to harbour extremely severe and potent powers, like Jilapur, a boab on the outskirts of Derby, more commonly known as the Derby Prison Tree.
This tree is believed to be about 1,500 years old, and it has an opening into its hollow trunk large enough for a man to enter. There is speculation that prisoners were locked inside, and other accounts recall prisoners being chained around the outside of the tree. This tree is also a camping place for the Nyikina Creation Being Woonynoomboo
(Akerman 2008).
Another distinguishing feature of the south-west Kimberley is the bright red soil of the pindan country. 'Pindan' describes both the vivid red sandy soils that are common here, and the seemingly-homogenous low woodlands and shrublands which grow on them. South of Beagle Bay, the pindan is dominated by Acacia tumida , A. holosericea and A. eriopoda . North of Beagle Bay there is an abrupt change: Acacia eriopoda is almost absent and A. holosericea is reduced in frequency. Taller eucalypt woodlands dominate in the north, particularly Darwin box ( Eucalyptus tectifica ) and ochre bloodwood ( Corymbia dampieri ). Carnivorous plants are found on the pindan in damper areas of black soil; white-flowered sundews such as Drosera broomensis are found growing near Broome, and D. derbyensis , a similar species, occurs further east.
While pindan may appear homogenous, the coastal and near coastal environments of the south-west are visibly rich and varied. Mangroves, samphire flats, grasslands, coastal dunes, freshwater swamps, monsoon forests, Melaleuca thickets and creekside vegetation are all found in close proximity to one another, clustered near the coast.
Outcrops of limestone and sandstone dot the landscape. Vine thickets occur on limestone on the far southern perimeter of Yampi Peninsula, adjoining the south-west region, as well as at the northern tip and western edge of Dampier Peninsula. They do not extend as far inland here as in the wetter areas further north. On the white coastal sands of Dampier Peninsula, the striking green birdflower ( Crotolaria cunninghamii ), which can grow up to three or four metres tall, is very common; it also occurs far inland on the red sand dunes of the desert.
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Biodiversity of the south-west Kimberley
While the south-west region as a whole is not as rich in amphibians, reptiles or mammals as other parts of the west Kimberley, it nonetheless contains places which support important biological diversity: in particular, Roebuck Bay and the Camballin floodplains provide habitat for significant populations of birds; and the Fitzroy River contains a diverse array of fish.
Across the south-west Kimberley, 69 species of reptiles and amphibians have been recorded, of which at least three are endemics: the skinks Lerista apoda and L. separanda, and the venomous Dampier burrowing snake ( Simoselaps minimus )
(Burbidge et al. 1991; Storr et al. 1983). While Dampier Peninsula's pindan country possesses few resident birds, it is often used by nomads: birds come to nest and breed, and others follow the path of seasonal flowerings (Johnstone 1983). Permanent residents of the pindan woodland include rufous whistlers ( Pachycephala rufiventris ), grey shrike thrushes ( Colluricincla harmonica ) and singing honeyeaters
( Lichenostomus virescens ). Dampier Peninsula vine thicket patches contain many fewer species of plants than vine thickets further north, and also fewer bird species
(Johnstone and Burbidge 1991). However, the red-crowned pigeon ( Ptilinopus regina ), which is confined to vine thickets, is more common here than in other parts of the Kimberley. The mangals which grow on the peninsula's shores are home to 20 species of birds, many of which do not occur outside of mangroves, and some of which, such as the mangrove kingfisher ( Halcyon senegaloides ), do not live any further south in Western Australia (Johnstone 1983).
Roebuck Bay
The greatest attraction for birds in the south-west Kimberley is the extensive coastal mudflat system to the south of Broome at Roebuck Bay. The Roebuck Bay mudflats lie within a large, irregularly curved embayment. The northern shores of the bay are lined with crumbling red pindan cliffs above narrow sandy beaches; to the east and south there are mangroves surrounded by deep, soft mud. Tidal creeks flow into the bay from the east, and divide into the intricate network of smaller streams that wind through the mudflats. A dramatic tidal range (including spring tides reaching between eight and 10.5 metres) alternately exposes and inundates the low gradient mudflats to an extent only recorded elsewhere in Australia at King Sound near Derby. At low tide a flat expanse of mud and sand stretching for kilometres separates the sea from the shore; at high tide seawater covers the mudflats, floods the mangroves which fringe the bay, and rushes into the salt marshes and claypans beyond (Rogers et al. 2003;
Ramsar 2008).
Roebuck Bay is a rare example of a significant intertidal mudflat system which occurs in the tropics – most mudflats are found in temperate regions. The Roebuck Bay mudflats are also unusual because they are not obviously associated with any large river system. They were formed by the early Fitzroy River system, in the time before the river's flow diverted north to its present position at King Sound (Brunnschweiler
1957; Graham 2001a).
In recent years, surveys have revealed a rich invertebrate fauna living in the mudflats
(de Goeij et al. 2003; Piersma et al. 2006). Every year, as survey work continues, researchers continue to find new species at Roebuck Bay (Rogers et al. 2003). These invertebrates are an important source of food for the many migratory shorebirds that
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visit the bay each year.
The Roebuck Bay mudflat system is best known because it is one of the most significant sites for international migratory waders on the Australian continent, and its protection under the Ramsar Convention confirms that status. While each migratory species' population follows its own particular annual migration path, there are nonetheless generalised global migration routes that connect breeding areas in the north, via stopovers in temperate and subtropical zones, to non-breeding areas in the south. These routes are called flyways. The East Asia–Australasian Flyway, of which
Roebuck Bay is part, is one of eight major migratory waterbird flyways around the world. From August each year, at the end of the northern summer, shorebirds make a journey across oceans and continents to reach Roebuck Bay, sometimes flying for stretches of up to 8,000 kilometres without landing.
Roebuck Bay has been known to hold as many as 170,000 birds at one time (Rogers et al. 2003). Sixty four waterbird species have been recorded here, and 34 of these are listed under international conservation treaties. The site supports more than one percent of the national population for 21 species of wader, including pied oystercatchers ( Haematopus longirostris ), Mongolian plovers ( Charadrius mongolus ) and ruddy turnstones ( Arenaria interpres ). Australian shorebirds also make Roebuck
Bay home for part of the year, and for many it is their main breeding ground. Redcapped plovers ( Charadrius ruficapillus ) and black-winged stilts ( Himantopus himantopus ) occur in large numbers; more than one per cent of their flyway populations may spend time at Roebuck Bay each year. Twenty-two of the 24
Australian raptor species also live around the shores of Roebuck Bay (Rogers et al.
2003).
While the mudflats are spectacular at the height of the wet season, the best time for birds is at the end of the wet, when the ground starts to dry out. As surface water is absorbed and evaporated, mud is exposed and a rich feast begins. Birds feed on the multitude of invertebrate fauna, which have reproduced rapidly during the wet
(Rogers et al. 2003). Because little rain falls during the dry season, for much of the year surface water at the mudflats is restricted to a few permanent or semi-permanent waterholes and streams. Most of these are not supplied directly by rainfall, but are maintained by water seeping from underground aquifers – these in turn are replenished each wet season, when the whole area is once more immersed.
The rivers of the Kimberley: a haven for fish
Researchers have found that a number of fish species in the northern and western rivers and in the Fitzroy system are endemic and have distributions restricted to the
Kimberley. This is thought to be the result of a number of factors: the varied habitats throughout the river systems, including areas of extremely rugged topography in the upper catchment; the periodic very high flows which occur, and the large area covered by the Fitzroy catchment (Morgan et al. 2002). Recent surveys recorded 37 species of fish in the northern and western rivers, including 23 freshwater species and 14 estuarine or marine species. Three of the freshwater species did not have scientific names at the time of the survey, but researchers recorded names of fish, where available, in Bunuba, Gooniyandi, Ngarinyin, Nyikina and Walmajarri. The researchers found that the range of fish species varied significantly between the lower, middle, and upper reaches of each river, and was different again in billabongs, smaller
31

permanent tributaries, and the upper gorges (Morgan et al. 2002).
Many remarkable fish species are found in the rivers of the Kimberley. An eel
( Anguilla bicolor ), known in Bunuba as Lanyi , is believed to migrate from the freshwaters of the upper reaches of the Fitzroy, along with other rivers of the
Kimberley, to Indonesia to breed and die, with juveniles returning to the Kimberley to continue their lifecycle (Allen et al. 2002 cited in Morgan et al. 2002). This eel was found by researchers hundreds of kilometres inland, above the Margaret River.
Another fish has the evocative common name 'mouth almighty' ( Glossamia aprion ) because of its unusual breeding habits: the male fish carries fertilised eggs in his mouth. The mouth almighty's name in Bunuba and Gooniyandi, Thamali/Thamarli , means 'little brother of the Barramundi', and the fish is commonly used as bait when
Aboriginal people fish for barramundi. The Kimberley archerfish ( Toxotes sp .), which is widespread throughout the Fitzroy River catchment, gains its name from its habit of spitting water at insects to knock them into the river, where they make easy prey. The freshwater whipray ( Himantura chaophraya ) is a rare and elusive ray that reaches up to one metre in width, and has been collected from only a few sites in the Fitzroy catchment, though it is reported to occur in the Fitzroy River above Geikie Gorge.
Marine species also use the river – the aggressive bull shark ( Carcharhinus leucas ) occurs in the lower reaches of the river and is anecdotally reported to have been sighted near Fitzroy Crossing, and the ox eye herring ( Megalops cyprinoides ) has been found up to 400 kilometres upstream. The Fitzroy River and its estuary also support freshwater sawfish ( Pristis microdon ), and the dwarf sawfish ( Pristis clavata ) occurs in the river's lower reaches (Morgan et al. 2002). The Fitzroy River estuary is the only known Western Australian habitat for the critically endangered northern river shark ( Glyphis sp. C ) (Morgan et al. 2002).
The Fitzroy River: living waters
In Aboriginal Australia, ‘living water’ is the term generally used to describe permanent water sources. As Rose (2004) notes, the term conveys both the sense of water having a life of its own and also its contribution to the life of others — humans, animals and plants. Water sources are often at the centre, or the heart, of a person or group’s country and are frequently conception sites. An association with a particular water source provides one of the prime markers of individual identity; and the collective identities of Indigenous groups, and the relationships and links between them (McFarlane 2004).
The Fitzroy River is a centre of life and diversity in the Kimberley. It is a mighty river system with a catchment of over 90,000 square kilometres that collects water and channels it into the longest river in the Kimberley. The Fitzroy stretches 733 kilometres from its headwaters in the central Kimberley to Moorrool Moorrool (the
Nyikina name for King Sound), where it reaches the ocean. Along the way, it is fed by 20 tributaries and numerous smaller, ephemeral creeks and waterways.
Water brings with it particular rights and responsibilities under Indigenous law. Most importantly, as noted by McFarlane (2004) water and waterscapes are inseparable from the land on which people live. The cultural systems and languages of ten
Aboriginal groups whose traditional country principally falls within the Fitzroy catchment area include the Kija, Wurla, Andajin, Ngarinyin, Gooniyandi, Bunuba,
Unggumi, Walmajarri, Nyikina and Warrwa people. The Bunuba people, whose
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traditional country is located above Fitzroy Crossing on the upper Fitzroy, know the river as Bandrarl Ngadu . The Nyikina people call the river Mardoowarra and themselves Yimardoowarra : 'belonging to the river'. As one Nyikina Traditional
Owner explains, 'The river is a central place in Nyikina cultural belief and spirituality.
It is also a place for fishing and hunting, where we gather medicine and bush tucker and take our children to learn cultural stories, language and law' (A. Poelina pers. comm. 27 April 2010). While the permanent pools on the river are very important culturally; they also provide refuges for animals, birds and fish during the dry season.
The river also provides a rare living window into the diversity of the traditions associated with the Rainbow Serpent, a narrative across Aboriginal Australia that was once more pervasive and is recurrent in art, myth, ritual, and social and economic life.
Four distinct expressions of the Rainbow Serpent are found within the Fitzroy River's catchment. Each tradition is intrinsically tied to Indigenous interpretations of the different way in which water flows within the one hydrological system, and all four expressions converge into one regional ritual complex, called Warloongarriy Law or
'River Law' that serves to unite Aboriginal people and their Rainbow Serpent traditions.
In the jila-kalpurtu domain (the term jila refers to permanent sub-surface water sources and kalpurtu are said said to be the rain-giving snakes occupying these sites) of the Fitzroy catchment on the northern edge of the Great Sandy Desert, water flows are principally underground and the Rainbow Serpent is said to exist in the underground structure of the channels, linking excavated waterholes and other water sources of significance (Vachon 2006; Pannell 2009). Places like Kurrpurrngu
(Cajibut Springs), Mangunampi and Paliyarra are exemplars of this expression of the
Rainbow Serpent. The phenomenon of Galaroo (Galeru, Kalaru), on the other hand is linked to flowing surface water, in the form of major rivers, and to long and deep permanent waterholes in broad river channels, like Geikie Gorge (Danggu). In the upper reaches of the catchment, the Rainbow Serpent of the Wanjina-Wunggurr belief system known as Wunggurr or Ungud is linked to discrete pools of water and the movement of the sea, and is often associated with the painted image of Wanjina.
While the Woonyoomboo-Yoongoorroonkoo narrative of the lower Fitzroy primarily tells the story of the creation of the lower Fitzroy River and its floodplains and also has links to the sea.
The Fitzroy River is one of the largest unregulated rivers in Australia, and its flow varies significantly over the course of a year, and between years. Both the river channels and the floodplains, which lie below Fitzroy Crossing, are highly dynamic, shaped by the floods which pour through the system after heavy cyclonic rains. As water flows, the river branches; splitting and rejoining around large alluvial islands.
Floods flush the deep permanent pools of the main channel, and water spreads across the plains, creating billabongs and anabranching channels, and renewing groundwater aquifers (Sutton 1998). The link between the river and the floodplains is vital to the health of floodplain wetlands, which are important habitat for many water birds.
The main channel of the river is fringed by forest, including river red gums, freshwater mangroves, native figs and pandanus. The purple-crowned fairy wren
( Malurus coronatus ), which is listed as threatened under the WA Wildlife
Conservation Act , is restricted to the forest's understorey (WWF–Australia 2007).
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Fish, eels, turtles, mussels and cherrabun , or freshwater shrimp ( Macrobrachium rosenbergii ) live in the river. Freshwater crocodiles bask on the riverbanks and swim in pools. At the river's mouth, brackish water is used by many species of fish, prawns and crabs to spawn. Nearby, areas of healthy vine thicket provide shelter for birds and bats, and waterbirds feed in the mudflats along the river and at the river mouth.
The Fitzroy River is a rich source of food for both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people who live in the region. Barramundi ( Lates calcarifer ), a highly valued eating fish, is found up to 500 kilometres upstream of the river mouth. Another fish which is commonly eaten is the lesser salmon catfish ( Arius graeffei ), which occurs in both the freshwater reaches and estuarine areas of the river. Black bream ( Hephaestus jenkinsi ) live throughout the main channel of the Fitzroy and major tributaries, where they like to dwell in deep holes in the riverbed, and congregate around submerged roots, logs and rocks. Spangled perch ( Leiopotherapon unicolor ) are a small, hardy and aggressive species that are sought-after for eating, and are also often used as bait for catching barramundi and lesser salmon catfish. Turtles, mussels and freshwater shrimp are also eaten (Morgan et al. 2002).
Cherrabun , or freshwater shrimp, use different parts of the Fitzroy River at different stages of their life cycle. Adults live upstream, hundreds of kilometres from the river's mouth. But while the cherrabun's eggs can last between 3 and 5 days in freshwater, the newly-hatched larvae only survive in the brackish estuary. Some female cherrabun release their eggs into fast-flowing water to try and ensure they will be carried down to the estuary before the larvae hatch; after which the young must make the long return migration upstream. Other adults take the journey themselves, travelling downstream to spawn, and then returning up the river with their young (Robertson
1983 in Sutton 1998). For cherrabun , as for many other species of fish, birds and invertebrates, the whole of the river and its tributaries form a chain of living connection: the variable patterns of the river's flow are crucially tied to the cycles of these species' lives.
About 100 kilometres south-east of Derby, in Nyikina country, adjoining the Fitzroy
River and extending to its north, is Kunjaninguru , the Camballin wetlands. The
Camballin wetlands are extensive blacksoil floodplains consisting of two large claypan swamps – Le Lievre and Moulamen – as well as many smaller swamps, creeks and deep billabongs that are important refuges for birds and animals, as they hold water long into the dry season. The area is of great cultural and historical significance to Nyikina people, who continue to visit and utilise Kunjaninguru today.
Over 38,000 waterbirds have been recorded there, including EPBC listed seabirds: the
Australian pratincole ( Stiltia isabella ), the wood sandpiper ( Tringa glareola ) and marsh sandpiper ( T. stagnatilis ). Of 67 bird species which are known to occur at the
Camballin wetlands, 19 are listed migratory species that travel between Australia and
Asia. The wetlands are also an important breeding refuge for plumed whistling-duck
( Dendrocygna eytoni ), wandering whistling-duck ( D. arcuata ), Pacific heron ( Ardea pacifica ), great egret ( Egretta alba ), glossy ibis ( Plegadis falcinellus ) and magpie goose ( Anseranas semipalmatus ). Two threatened species have been found at
Camballin: the yellow chat ( Ephthianura crocea ) and freckled duck ( Stictonetta naevosa ). It is also an important breeding area for long neck turtle ( Chelodina sp.
) and freshwater crocodile ( Crocodylus johnstonii ). The wetlands are listed on the Directory
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of Important Wetlands of Australia (Sutton 1998; A. Poelina pers. comm. 2010).
North of the Fitzroy River, alluvial plains are bounded by the ranges of the Devonian reef. These black soil plains support grasslands, with scattered trees and shrubs. To the south, the floodplain abuts the Great Sandy Desert. The dune vegetation of the
Great Sandy Desert is simple in species and structure. The sides of dunes sometimes support thick growth of hummock grass ( Plectrachne schinzii ) and scattered shrubs, but the crests are kept bare by the harsh climate and the action of the wind.
Traditional Owners relied on their detailed and intimate knowledge of the availability of permanent and seasonal water sources to survive here; these water sources have been used for generations. Freshwater soaks and springs hold intense spiritual significance for desert people, and these water sources also have high biodiversity values. Each place where water can be found is individually named and known, and has many stories associated with it, although some of these stories may be secret or culturally restricted. Permanent water sources are called 'jila' and are all connected through the underlying groundwater system, which is known as kurtany , or mother.
Through performing their obligations, Traditional Owners maintain the water levels
(WWF–Australia 2007; Yu 2000).
CONTACT HISTORY
Although permanent European settlement occurred later in the Kimberley than in most other parts of Australia, the coastline was the site of sporadic contact between
Aboriginal people and outsiders since at least the sixteenth century. The region's recent history has been shaped by the ambitions and fears, curiosity, hope and needs of these diverse newcomers; as well as by the broader political and economic circumstances which led them to the region, and the institutional structures they imported or created. Central to the post-contact history of the Kimberley has been the capacity of Kimberley Aboriginal people to resist, adapt to and survive the changes outsiders have brought.
From the 1870s, Aboriginal people have been coerced or forced into the pastoral and pearling industries, and institutionalized in missions, prisons, hospitals, ration depots and reserves. Colonisation has had a severe impact on the lives of Kimberley
Aboriginal people and forced dramatic changes to traditional ways of life - many lost their lives or were dispossessed of their country and homelands. But throughout the intense disruption wrought by colonisation, over time Aboriginal people have devised strategies that have enabled an accommodation with the new regime and which has ensured their long-term survival as a distinct and proud people. The effectiveness of these strategies is demonstrated by the success in the Federal Court of Australia of fourteen applications for the determination of native title throughout the Kimberley since the passage of the Native Title Act in 1993 (Jebb and Allbrook 2009).
The southernmost shore
Before European settlement, Australia's north coast was the southernmost shore of a network of trade and travel which connected south-east Asia with the marketplaces of
China. The Kimberley lies within 400 kilometres of the south-eastern limit of the
Indonesian Archipelago. For perhaps hundreds of years, Indonesians came to Kayu
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Jawa , their name for the west Kimberley coast, to harvest its rich marine resources; including pearl and trochus shell, turtle shell, clam meat, shark fin and the valuable beche-de-mer, a delicacy highly sought after by the Chinese (Crawford 2001;
Morwood 2002;).
Beche-de-mer, also known as trepang, sea cucumber, or sea slug, is a large marine invertebrate commonly described by observers as unattractive. Almost 200 species are found in Australia, but the nine or ten which are edible live only in the tropics, along the north and north-western coast. The earliest reference to what the Chinese called hai–sen , or 'sea ginseng', is reputedly found in a medicinal treatise from the sixteenth century (MacKnight 1976). By the seventeenth century, beche-de-mer developed a reputation for its culinary use and aphrodisiac properties. It is not clear when it began to be collected from the Kimberley region. Trade through the Indonesian port of
Makassar appears to have evolved in the late seventeenth or early eighteenth centuries. However Chinese junks certainly sailed annually to nearby Timor by 1600, and it is possible that beche-de-mer from north Australian waters was traded to the
Chinese by this date, or perhaps even earlier (Crawford 2009).
The relative calmness of the seas, the regularity of the monsoonal winds, and the short distances between landmasses made travel by sea a natural mode of transport in southeast Asia. The rhythms of trade were the rhythms of the monsoon. The monsoons are winds made for travellers: they blow consistently along the same route, swinging around for the return journey at half-yearly intervals (Ammarell 1999).
Fleets left Makassar in late January, arriving at the Australian mainland some weeks later. Along the way, they collected beche-de-mer and other marine resources from offshore reefs. A senior Wunambal man reported that, each season, a fleet of perahus would arrive at Cape Bougainville, before separating into two. Some would sail east along the northern coast, and others would sail south to the west Kimberley coast
(Crawford 2009). Between the rich fishing areas of Arnhem Land and Kayu Jawa, there was a comparatively barren stretch of water. The zone of contact associated with the industry in the Kimberley appears to have ranged from near Cape Londonderry in the far north to the Lacepede Islands, off Dampier Peninsula (Crawford 2009).
Evidence of Indonesian presence in the west Kimberley is found in documentary sources, Aboriginal oral traditions and material remains. The earliest documentation was by the French voyager Baudin who noted that, in April 1803, members of his crew encountered a fleet of fishermen at Cassini Island (Baudin 1974; Crawford
2001). Aboriginal oral traditions describe these fleets' visits and provide narratives of events associated with their stay. Accounts of journeys to the Kimberley coast, and of contact with Aboriginal people, may have similarly been passed down in parts of
Indonesia; but to date insufficient resources have been dedicated to locate or record any such accounts (Crawford 2009).
Today, the most conspicuous remains of the places where Indonesians camped and worked during their months ashore are their stone hearths, still found at a number of locations along the Kimberley coast. The hearths are arranged in roughly parallel lines to support the iron dishes in which beche-de-mer was boiled. Small sites usually have three or four lines of hearths, and the larger sites have twelve to fifteen (Crawford
2001). Other material remains found with the hearth sites include fragments of pottery. At some places, tamarind trees grow as a living record of past contact.
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Indonesian fisherman brought tamarind seeds with them, and planted them at the places they returned to each season; as the tree grew they could use its fruit in their cooking. The tamarind would have provided not only nutritional value, but also a welcome taste of home during their months away.
In contrast to the situation in Arnhem Land, all known oral and written accounts indicate that the relationship between Indonesians and Aboriginal people in the west
Kimberley was hostile. There is no evidence that west Kimberley people provided
Indonesian fishermen with any assistance. Oral traditions recalled by old people today describe fights between Aboriginal people and Indonesians, and ascribe hostilities to the Aboriginal theft of canoes. Stories also tell of creation beings fighting Indonesians and sinking their perahus, and being shot in revenge (Crawford 2009).
Despite the hostilities, there were some exchanges. Aboriginal people adopted the dugout canoe from Indonesian prototypes, and it allowed them to voyage to more remote islands and reefs including Cassini Island and Long Reef, far offshore. The history of this contact is also recorded in language: for example, the word for canoe in the Wunambal language, namandi , is derived from Indonesian.
European voyagers
In the west Kimberley, as elsewhere in Australia, first contact between Aboriginal people and Europeans occurred along the coast. The outcomes of these meetings were mixed; fear often led to misunderstandings on both sides, and sometimes to violent retribution. Early travel accounts included narratives of such encounters between
Europeans and Aboriginal people, and some accounts circulated widely after the voyagers returned to Europe. In the case of men such as William Dampier, his accounts of his voyages around the world, including at Karrakatta Bay on the western coast of Australia, gave him a degree of personal celebrity, and influenced European perceptions of, and fascination with, the non-European world. Such accounts were one reason why the settlement of Australia was long regarded as unattractive by
Europeans: the west coast was described as barren and few resources were seen which had potential value for trade or commerce.
European travellers involved in imperial expansion were motivated by desire for wealth, adventure and renown, and for knowledge and experience of what lay beyond the borders of Europe. For centuries, Europeans believed in the existence of a great unknown southern land: Terra Australis Incognita . The mapping of the coastline of
Australia played an essential part in the unfolding European understanding of the southern hemisphere, and the delineation of the coastline by successive generations of
Dutch, French, and British navigators caused a quantum shift in European worldviews. The observations and collections made by such voyagers formed a key element of a grand Enlightenment endeavour, which aimed to develop comprehensive scientific knowledge of the entire world. Voyages were also inspired by competition between European nations to establish trading and territorial dominance. These multiple factors propelled fleets of ships, with their vulnerable human cargoes, from the far ports of Europe onto vast and dangerous oceans spanning the globe.
China and south-east Asia have been connected through trade, cultural exchange and migration for more than 2000 years. From the sixteenth century, European voyagers also began to take a keen interest in south-east Asia as a valuable source of spices and
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other tropical commodities. The Portuguese, seeking to expand their empire, began to explore the region from the beginning of the sixteenth century, and in 1511 captured
Malacca, which had been a key trading port for both China and India. In the seventeenth century, the Dutch also entered the region; in 1669 Makassar, previously an important commercial centre for the Portuguese, was taken by the Dutch.
The first discoveries and rough charts of the Australian coastline were made as a result of the Dutch crossing the Indian Ocean to engage in lucrative trade in the 'Spice
Islands' of Indonesia. In 1616, Dirk Hartog made accidental landfall on the Australian continent and mapped part of the western Australian coastline. Such sightings by
Dutch navigators enabled them to establish the form of the west coast of 'New
Holland', but as these early encounters were haphazard and the coastline was not accurately charted, Dutch ships continued to be wrecked there (Pearson 2005). The first concerted attempt to gain a more detailed understanding of the region came in
1644, when Abel Tasman sailed with a fleet of three Dutch East India Company
( Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie , or VOC) ships to map Australia's northern coastline. This was Tasman's second voyage to Australia: on his first, in 1642, he had charted Tasmania (then Van Diemen's Land), New Zealand, Tonga and Fiji. Tasman landed on the west Kimberley coast just north of Broome, where he and his crew reportedly came under attack from local Aboriginal people (McGonigal 1990).
Although Tasman charted large portions of the coast on this second voyage, he discovered no new trading routes. No material remains associated with Tasman are known in the region, but maps of the coast still carry the names he and his crew gave to places and features as they travelled.
The next European vessel to reach the Kimberley coast was the Cygnet, a British privateer on a voyage made famous by William Dampier. A privateer was a private vessel which carried 'letters of marque': formal documentation that it was authorised by its government to attack and raid foreign shipping during times of war. Following the marooning of its Captain, Captain Reed, in 1688 the Cygnet , en route to raid the
East Indies, was careened at Karrakatta Bay on the Kimberley coast for over two months, while the crew undertook maintenance and repairs on the ship. Dampier recorded his observations of plants and animals, including dugongs and dingoes, and of Aboriginal people. Dampier and his companions satisfied some of their curiosity about the local people by capturing Aboriginal people and taking them on board the
Cygnet . Referring to four men who were seized whilst swimming amongst the islands,
Dampier wrote:
* * * *
To these we gave boiled Rice, and with it Turtle and Manatee boiled. They did greedily devour what we gave them, but took no notice of the Ship, or any thing in it, and when they were set on Land again, they ran away as fast as they could (Dampier
1998 [1697]).
* * * *
Nyikina man Butcher Joe Nangan recalled a story told by the old people about a sailing ship coming across the Roebuck Plains, south of Broome, while the plains were under the sea. It was just one ship and it appeared long before the white man came to the country. The ship landed at Biyarrugun, a place located 20 kilometres
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inland from the coast today. According to the old people the ship had three masts and the sailors had shot at the Aboriginal people. Could Dampier have sailed his ship over the Roebuck Plains on his second visit to the region, in 1699? Geological evidence suggests that the area has been subject to periodic tidal inundations in the recent geological past. Shell middens found close to Biyarrugun also suggest that the sea level may have been slightly higher 300 years ago (Benterrak et al. 1984).
Dampier published an account of his voyage in a very popular book, A New Voyage around the World , which established him as an authority on the South Seas, and contained the first detailed account of the Australian continent to be widely circulated
(Dampier 1699). Dampier's observations of nature were regarded as extraordinary for their scientific focus and accuracy. His botanical collections, the first to be taken to
Europe from Australia, remain in England at the Oxford Herbarium, with some also held at the British Museum (ABC 2002). His account of the winds and currents of the
Pacific earned the respect of navigators and meteorologists to the present day. He set an entire fashion in travel literature, and influenced writers such as Defoe and Swift.
Though he travelled widely, Dampier was a man of his time and of his culture. His descriptions of the people he met were overwhelmingly negative, and had a strong influence on later explorers such as Sir Joseph Banks and James Cook. Sir Joseph
Banks would write, almost a hundred years later, on seeing people ashore as the
Endeavour sailed up the south coast of New South Wales that 'so far did the prejudices which we had built on Dampier's account influence us that we fancied we could see the colour when we could scarcely distinguish whether or not they were men' (quoted in Pearson 2004).
After Dampier, the only European visitors to the north-western coast of Australia for more than half a century were crew of two Dutch East India Company ( Vereenigde
Oost-Indische Compagnie or VOC) ships en route from the Netherlands to Batavia
(now Jakarta, Indonesia), both wrecked well south of the Kimberley: Zuytdorp (1712) and Zeewijk (1727) (Pearson 2004). By the turn of the seventeenth century the Dutch had explored the Australian coastline from the top of Cape York across the northern, western, and southern coasts to the eastern end of the Great Australian Bight, as well as the south-east coast of Tasmania. Although Dutch navigators had brought the first information about this 'new land' back to Europe, the VOC kept the information confidential in order to protect any trading advantage that might come from their discovery. However in reality, the results of these voyages were disappointing to the
VOC; the land appeared bleak and barren, and nothing profitable was found. The
Dutch established no settlements or trading posts, and the VOC lost interest in continued exploration (Schilder 1988). The north-western coast of Australia, although closest to the Dutch sphere of influence in Indonesia in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, would remain isolated and largely unsettled by Europeans until late in the nineteenth century.
Dampier was the first to suggest that New Holland should be explored by the British, and the initial mapping and settlement of eastern Australia may be viewed as the indirect conclusion of his voyages and published work (ADB 1966c). British and
French expeditions would continue the process of delineating the extent of the new continent; expeditions were driven by the desire of each nation to gain a strategic advantage over the other, and to increase their knowledge of unknown and unclaimed regions. By the late eighteenth century, Cook and his British and French
39

contemporaries had made several voyages through the South Pacific and Southern
Ocean.
The French remained keen to find new colonies, and they mounted expeditions with expressly scientific intentions but underlying territorial goals. The British responded in kind, in an attempt to preserve their strategic and commercial dominance. Anglo-
French political rivalry centred on Australia's northern and western coastlines, an area still unclaimed, unsettled, and unknown to Europeans. From 1801 to 1803, Baudin and Freycinet made detailed surveys of the Western Australian coast. They concentrated their efforts around Shark Bay, well south of the Kimberley. Freycinet undertook surveys as a cartographer and surveyor in Baudin's expedition. Peron, the expedition's naturalist, collected an extraordinary 100,000 animal specimens over three voyages. Among the locations named during this voyage were Cape Cuvier, the
Lacepede Islands and the Bonaparte Archipelago. Many of the places named by the
French along the west Kimberley coast commemorate Napoleon's generals (Edwards
1991). There is no evidence in the literature of the specific locations of any landings that may have been made.
The colonies look north
Following British settlement of southern Australia, the British Admiralty sent a number of hydrographical expeditions to chart the northern coastline in greater detail.
These expeditions sought to identify locations for future settlements, and to find suitable sites for northern ports which would help to build stronger trading links between the Australian colonies and the rich markets of Asia (Bolton 1963). Phillip
Parker King took part in four hydrographical expeditions: three in the ship Mermaid and one in the Bathurst . King's instructions included that he should make a detailed investigation of rivers, and obtain information on climate, landforms, fauna, flora, wood products, minerals and the 'character of coastal tribes' (Frawley 1982). His instructions had been hurriedly compiled by the Admiralty in response to renewed interest by the French in returning to the north-west coast to complete the investigations begun by Baudin. King was directed to stake out England's claim on the continent, particularly in harbours and river mouths (Hordern 1997).
On his third voyage in July 1820, King sailed north from Sydney, and passed through the Torres Strait, before making for where his previous survey had ended: Montague
Sound, just west of Admiralty Gulf on the Kimberley coast. The Mermaid had suffered damage earlier in the trip so, after charting Prince Frederick Harbour in
September 1820, King decided to careen the ship at nearby Port Nelson for repairs.
The damage was more extensive than he originally thought, and the men spent the next 19 days at a place King named Careening Bay. While they were there, the crew carved the words 'HMC Mermaid 1820' in large lettering into the bark of two stems of a boab tree, a carving that remains clearly visible today. A copper plate, similarly inscribed, was attached to a tree.
When repairs were complete, the Mermaid sailed out of Careening Bay and survey work continued: King charted Brunswick Bay and its inlets, travelling from St George
Basin into the Prince Regent River, which he followed upstream in a boat for more than 40 kilometres. At Hanover Bay, Aboriginal people confronted King's party, spearing his surgeon. An Aboriginal man was shot, and the crew took what weapons and boats they could in the melee. From here, King began the long return journey to
40

Sydney; the Mermaid was barely sound, and on return was condemned for further northern work.
King is recognised as one of Britain's leading hydrographers, and in 1824 he was made a fellow of the Royal Society. He took great pride in undertaking very detailed coastal surveys: while previous French navigators had stayed so far offshore that they had taken Gantheaume Point for an island, King had not only hugged the dangerous coast, he had taken a whale boat up the Prince Regent River (Edwards 1991).
King's work contributed significantly to British knowledge of the Australian coastline.
He is regarded as the greatest of the early Australian marine surveyors and near the end of his life, he was promoted to the rank of Admiral. He undertook detailed and methodical charting, and named many locations along the Kimberley coast (Baytte
1915). Among the names he gave, some were clearly messages for the French: he dubbed the two most conspicuous mountain peaks 'Mt Trafalgar' and 'Mt Waterloo', a pointed reminder of two British victories, one on sea, the other on land (Edwards
1991). King was the first person born in the Australian colonies to achieve such renown in Britain, and it would be years before another 'native born' would rise to similar public stature (ADB 1967).
The first British investigations of the interior of the west Kimberley were made by
Lieutenant George Grey in 1837, as part of a survey sponsored by the Royal
Geographical Society. Grey and his twelve men set up camp at Hanover Bay, the site where Aboriginal people had confronted Phillip Parker King and his crew 17 years earlier. Grey's party came with seed to plant crops and stock for food. However despite their best efforts to prepare themselves, they were illequipped for the conditions they would encounter, which were like nothing they had ever experienced before. Grey wrote in his journal:
* * * *
'I soon found that we had landed under very unfavourable circumstances… The country … was of a more rocky and precipitous character than any I had ever seen before. Indeed I could not more accurately describe the hills, than by saying that they appeared to be ruins of hills, composed as they were of huge blocks of red sandstone, confusedly piled together in loose disorder, so overgrown with spinifex and scrub that the interstices were completely hidden. Into these one or other of the party was continually slipping or falling' (Grey quoted in Edwards 1991).
* * * *
Grey and his men had landed in December, during the build-up to the wet season, when the heat was unbearable and there was little permanent water to be found. On their very first foray inland, three of their dogs died and the men, succumbing to dehydration, made themselves ill drinking brackish water: 'A feeling of thirst and lassitude, such as I had never experienced, began to overcome all of us' (Grey quoted in Edwards 1991). Their attempts to travel inland were hampered first by not enough water and then by too much. Once the rains started, Grey's party had to cross dangerously swollen rivers, and they suffered from sleeping each night in wet clothes on damp ground. Many of the stores which they had so carefully transported from the other side of the world had to be abandoned after being ruined by floodwaters. Their sheep and goats ate poisonous plants and died. Not only did the men confront life-
41

threatening dangers; they were also worn down by the niggling discomforts and difficulties of the strange environment. Grey recalled:
* * * *
'Whenever a tree was shaken, numbers of a large green sort of ant fell from the boughs on the unhappy trespasser, and making the best of their way to the back of his neck gave warning by a series of the most painful bites that he was encroaching on their domain. Yet it was sometimes ludicrous to see one of the party momentarily stamping and roaring with pain, as he cried out to a companion to hasten and assist him in getting rid of an enemy at once so diminutive and so troublesome' (Grey quoted in Edwards 1991).
* * * *
What incursions the men were able to make were resisted by the local Aboriginal people, who on a number of occasions engaged the explorers in battle. In one of these conflicts Grey was wounded, and he did not fully recover before they left. He shot and killed an Aboriginal man in the same attack, and later recorded his regret and sorrow at the necessity of his actions in his journal. In April, Grey and the rest of the crew were picked up from Hanover Bay, and taken to Mauritius to recuperate (ADB
1966d). Grey wrote:
* * * *
'Our whole residence in this country had been marked by toil and suffering. Under these circumstances it might be imagined that we left these shores without a single regret. But such was far from being the case. I was very loathe to leave the spot' (Grey quoted in Edwards 1991).
* * * *
As he travelled up the Glenelg River, in Worrorra country, Grey had come across painted images of Wanjina. He was the first European to record these images, which he described as being 'far superior to what a savage race could be supposed capable of' (Ryan and Akerman citing Grey 1841). Grey's reproduction 'was to become the most historically significant Aboriginal rock painting recorded by Europeans in the nineteenth century' (McNiven and Russell 2005). These Wanjina images fascinated
Europeans; they were recorded and circulated at a time when the cave art of Europe had not yet been discovered in France, 'Bushman' art in South Africa was still unknown, and the most spectacular tombs of the Egyptian Pharoahs had not been excavated (Edwards 1991). Early European observers interpreted the Wanjina figures as representations of foreign visitors to the Kimberley coast. Theories about who these visitors may have been pointed to the Japanese, eleventh-century Moors, and south-east Asian fishermen. As well as recording Wanjina images – and despite the difficult environment and his experience of being speared – Grey also identified some areas he had explored as promising pastoral land. He gave a widely-read account of this journey in Journal of two expeditions of discovery in north-west and western
Australia during the years 1837, 38, and 39 which, on its publication in 1841, made his name as an explorer.
42

EUROPEAN SETTLEMENT OF THE KIMBERLEY
Broome: a pearling place
Pearl shell is of great cultural significance to Aboriginal people from the Kimberley.
For thousands of years, Aboriginal people have harvested the shell from accessible reefs along the coast for food, decoration, cultural activities and trade. Long before
Europeans arrived, pearl shell was exchanged through social and economic networks stretching from the Kimberley across the continent to Queensland and South
Australia. Kimberley pearl shell is the most widely distributed item of trade in
Aboriginal Australia. During the advent of European settlement, Kimberley
Aboriginal people traded pearl shell with settlers and pearlers for rations and goods
(Akerman et al. 2010).
In the Kimberley, European pearling preceded and supplemented the pastoral activities of European settlers. Early pastoralists had to bring herds over long distances to unknown lands, and struggled to grow and maintain them, often in difficult conditions. They faced the challenge of transporting meat to distant markets with little supporting infrastructure. In contrast, pearl shells could be readily shipped and sold: they provided a very good return for their weight and bulk; they had a ready international market; and they did not have to be introduced to the region the way sheep and cattle did. Although pearling was dangerous and sometimes deadly work, pearl shells were an abundant resource found along a significant portion of the west
Kimberley coast. Pearl shell generated much of the wealth that led, in 1880, to the establishment of Broome, and the spread of services in Australia's north-west, including communications, public services and small business (Sickert 2003).
The first European report of pearl shell on the west coast of Australia was by William
Dampier in 1699, who noted its occurrence at Shark Bay, south of the Kimberley.
From 1850, European pearlers began to collect small Pinctata sugillata shells in that area. When the world's largest pearl oyster shell was discovered in Roebuck Bay in
1861, it caused an international sensation. People flocked from many nations, hoping to make their fortune. The larger Pinctata maxima shells were soon found to be widespread, and pearling began at Nickol Bay (near Karratha) in 1867, spreading north from there (Moore 1994). By 1870, European pearling was becoming well established on the Kimberley coast.
Pearlers initially came to the Kimberley coast from Cossack, about 750 kilometres to the south, and later began to arrive from Thursday Island in Queensland, with some luggers from as far afield as Singapore. In the early years of pearling, before the establishment of Broome, Cossack was used as a base for the provision of communications and stores, pearling licenses and other necessities, and much of the fleet regularly made the journey from there to the Kimberley (Edwards 1991).
As the pearling industry expanded, conflict arose over the pearlers' demands for fresh water and Aboriginal women (Sickert 2003). Young Aboriginal men from the coast were lured aboard schooners and taken to islands that were used as illegal depots, where they were locked into serving a season contract in return for rations. The kidnapping of Aboriginal people who were forced to work for pearlers occurred along the coast and also targeted Aboriginal people inland, including in the Fitzroy Valley and the Pilbara (Sickert 2003).
43

Guano
Another profitable, though short-lived, venture in the Kimberley region was the mining and export of guano from the Lacepede Islands off the Kimberley coast. The
Lacepedes, a group of four low sandy islands approximately 50 kilometres west of
Beagle Bay, have long been a nesting ground for seabirds; the phosphate-rich deposits of guano found on them were formed from the accumulation of the birds' droppings.
Guano was used as an agricultural fertilizer and was sold internationally: some went to Mauritius; most went to Hamburg, Germany (Willing 2006). Settlers struggling to grow crops and pastures on nutrient-deficient soils in the south of Western Australia, however, for the most part couldn't afford to purchase guano (Bolton 2008).
In May 1876, a Melbourne company began to export guano from the Lacepedes, with authorisation from the Western Australian Government. A few months later, an
American named Gilbert Roberts landed on one of the islands, and refused to pay the mining levy to collect guano. He sparked an international dispute by planting an
American flag on the shore and claiming the island group as a territory of the United
States of America. His claims, described by the Perth press as 'another piece of
Yankee audacity', were supported by the American Vice Consul General in
Melbourne, Samuel Perkins Lord, who argued that Britain had failed to formally stake their claim on the islands. As the controversy escalated, the US President Ulysses
Grant had to step in and rescind his countrymen's claims (Willing 2006).
By April 1878 there were reported to be 165 people stationed on Middle Island for the purpose of mining guano, though far from this being a scene of productive industry they were apparently mostly drunk and on strike. In 1878 the Surveyor General recorded that 57 vessels had received guano licenses, and 24,715 tons (around 25,112 metric tones) had been exported, with a royalty of £12,357 paid to the Crown.
By the end of 1879, the supply of guano had been exhausted (Willing 2006). The islands were not abandoned by Europeans, however. By this time, pearlers were moving north, and increasing their operations along the Kimberley coast. The
Lacepedes were used illegally as depots, where Aboriginal people who had been kidnapped were held captive by 'blackbirders' until they were forcibly signed on to work on a pearling boat. In 1878 Captain Pemberton Walcott visited the Lacepedes and described what he saw of the treatment of Aboriginal divers there, who worked around 10 hours a day. He wrote that they:
* * * *
'were only allowed to get out of the water into the boat during diving hours, once or twice a day… There is no limit whatever with regard to depth of water… it is a common thing for natives to be dived in water from 8 to 9 fathoms or 40 to 50 feet – and from personal observation I can testify to the exhaustive and injurious effects of this deep diving' (quoted in Akerman et al. 2010).
* * * *
Race, labour and pearling
Throughout much of Australia's history, race and labour have been connected issues.
Following the end of transportation of convicts (1840 in New South Wales, 1853 in
Tasmania and 1868 in Western Australia), labour shortages led some Australian
44

colonies to import indentured labour from Asia and the south Pacific, to work in specific industries such as the sugar industry or pearling for which there were not enough European labourers (Bach 1955). By the second half of the nineteenth century, indentured labourers were predominantly sent to northern Australia – there was a strong medical belief in the nineteenth century that white men were ill-suited for work in the tropics. Nonetheless, concerns were raised by people outside these industries that the conditions in which indentured labourers were 'recruited' and kept were akin to slavery, which had been illegal in England since 1772 and had been banned by law throughout the British Empire in 1833 (Willard 1923). Concerns focused particularly on allegations of kidnapping and abuse of Pacific Islanders
(referred to as Kanakas). There were also fears that indentured labourers, for instance from China or India, would drive down white labourers' wages, discouraging British migration, and that they would introduce an alien culture and dilute Australia's 'racial purity' (Willard 1923; Curthoys 2003).
Aboriginal and other non-European labour played a pivotal role in the pearling industry. Aboriginal men and women worked as divers from the early days of pearling in the Kimberley, before diving apparatus was introduced. Without any protective equipment or oxygen, they descended to depths of up to ten metres to collect pearl shell. Aboriginal divers were credited with outstanding underwater sight, diving ability and local knowledge:
* * * *
'The powers of natives in diving, especially the females, are spoken of as something wonderful. They go down to depths of seven fathoms and remain below a time that astonishes their white employers' (McCarthy 1994 citing Perth Gazette and WA
Times 1868).
* * * *
In 1883, the Native Commission Report stated that Aboriginal labour was a key factor in the pearling industry (Ryan 1993).
Historian John Bailey argues that the era of skin diving was 'to prove one of the most brutal and bloody businesses in Australia's history' (Bailey 2001). Report of abuses in the early days of pearling led to legislation in 1871 and 1875 regulating native labour and prohibiting the use of women as divers (Bach 1955; Edwards 1983; Burton 2000).
This encouraged the increasing employment of indentured Malays (Indonesians or
Malaysians), who in 1876 made up around 800 of 1,200 divers. The legislation was inadequately policed, however, and provided little real protection for Aboriginal people (Bach 1955; Edwards 1983; Akerman and Stanton 1994). Blackbirding still occurred in the Kimberley into the 1890s. Aboriginal women continued to work in pearling, collecting significant amounts of pearl shell as 'beachcombers'. Pearlers also used Aboriginal women and girls for sexual relations, with or without their consent
(Sickert 2003; Kwaymullina 2001). Children as young as ten were 'employed' by
European pearlers, with girls working in pearlers' homes and boys on the luggers.
Like many industries employing Aboriginal people, payment was made in the provision of rations including clothing, foodstuffs and tobacco, not wages (Sickert
2003).
45

Technological changes were perhaps more significant than legislation in shaping the early pearling industry, and these changes affected not only the viability of the industry, but the lives of all those who worked in it. Helmeted diving (also known as
'dress' diving or 'suited' diving) was introduced into Western Australia by the
Thursday Island fleet in the 1880s, and this enabled the collection of shells from deeper waters off the coast (Bach 1955; Edwards 1983). With the introduction of diving apparatus, Aboriginal divers were largely displaced by Asian divers who were experienced at this style of pearling. However Aboriginal people continued to be integral to the industry, working as boat crews, boat builders, shell openers, shell packers, onshore store hands, cooks and servants.
The rise of Broome as the centre of the Western Australian pearling industry roughly coincided with the introduction of helmeted diving in 1885, and the recruitment of indentured Japanese divers and tenders (Bach 1955). Koepangers (Timorese) or
Manilamen (Filipinos) generally worked as pump hands and deck boys; cooks were
Chinese; Malays (Indonesians or Malaysians) worked as carpenters and sail makers; while Aboriginal people worked in the most lowly paid shore jobs (Edwards 1983).
By 1901, the total pearling workforce in Western Australia comprised 98 Europeans,
51 Aboriginal people, 271 Japanese people, 705 Malays and 382 Filipinos. By 1901 most pearl luggers were owned and run by white Australians, and employed a white shell opener who was responsible for the security of pearls among a mixed Asian crew (Bach 1955).
In the Kimberley, Asian lugger crews regularly came ashore to stock up on supplies and to rest in 'lay-up camps', and Broome was unique in Australia, from the late nineteenth to mid twentieth centuries, for being a predominantly Asian town.
Aboriginal people, especially those living in coastal areas, worked, traded and socialised with Asian pearling crews, and found that they could get much better terms of reimbursement for goods and services from them than they ever had from the white pearling masters. Trade with Asian crews, which occurred outside the control of the authorities, enabled some groups of Aboriginal people to stay on their own country for longer than would have otherwise been possible, and to avoid working for harsh station managers or dealing with police at ration depots. The government was concerned that the independence this trade allowed Aboriginal people would reduce pastoralists' and pearlers' access to cheap Aboriginal labour (Ganter 2006) .
In 1901, the desire of the colonies to preserve their British–Australian identity was a significant motive in forming the Commonwealth (Willard 1967). The Immigration
Restriction Act 1901 , informed by the White Australia policy, contained the first dictation test that was applied selectively to Asians and other individuals identified as undesirable. The Australia Act 1901 aimed to maintain racial purity and to uphold national characteristics based on British ideals of the Queen, God and country. It was also intended to protect wages and resources, which white Australians believed were rightfully theirs, from foreigners. Together, these pieces of legislation were foundation documents in the new Commonwealth Parliament (Sickert 2003;
Stephenson 2007).
Pearling, however, was an industry underpinned by access to cheap non-European labour. Pearling masters raised concerns about the potential economic impacts of the
White Australia policy on their businesses. The Western Australian Government
46

feared that the policy might lead pearlers to relocate their bases from Australia to
Dutch Timor or Indonesia (since most pearling took place in international waters). In
1902, the Commonwealth appointed two investigators to consider the implications of the policy for the pearling industry. They reported that the level of pay necessary to attract white labour to pearling would make the industry uneconomic. In response, the
Commonwealth Parliament agreed to exempt pearl divers from the Immigration
Restriction Act, provided that they were later repatriated. In 1905, the exemption was reconsidered but upheld, with the addition of a permit system for divers (Bach 1955).
In 1908, the Mackay Commission recommended the establishment of a training school for white divers, and approaches were made to Scottish fishermen to work in the Torres Strait pearl fields. The use of fishermen from Norway and Sweden, and of
Greek sponge divers, was also unsuccessfully mooted.
Although Broome was granted an exemption from the White Australia policy, indentured workers in the pearling industry could still readily be deported if they did not work as directed or were rebellious (Sickert 2003). Divers who had been born in
Australia, or had arrived in Australia before the implementation of the White
Australia policy, were nonetheless in a vulnerable position. Despite the fact that they were legally naturalised Australians and not subject to deportation, by law they could be committed to a lunatic asylum for refusing to work, or for other behaviour deemed
'antisocial'. Chinese people and other Asians who arrived prior to the White Australia policy were further restricted by legislation which prevented them from owning land, pearling licenses or pearling fleets (Yu and Tang Wei 1999). The many headstones in the Japanese and Chinese cemeteries in Broome bear witness to the danger and high mortality rate of the pearling industry (Akerman et al. 2010).
The Aborigines Act 1905
The Western Australian Aborigines Act 1905 , like the South Australian Aborigines
Act 1911, was based on the Queensland Aboriginal Protection and Restriction of the
Sale of Opium Act 1897, and controlled all aspects of Aboriginal people's lives. The main features of the Act related to employment, the powers of the Chief Protector and police, cohabitation and the establishment of Aboriginal reserves. The Chief
Protector's powers over Aboriginal people became extensive. He was now legal guardian of every Aboriginal or 'half-caste' child under the age of sixteen, had the right to intervene for the general care and protection of any person who came under the Act, including the management of property, controlled the marriage of Aboriginal women to non-Aboriginal men, and could initiate proceedings to force the father of an illegitimate child to pay maintenance costs if the child was in care. A range of offences relating to marriage, cohabitation and the supply of alcohol were created and the police were empowered to arrest without warrant any Aboriginal person suspected of offending.
Employment provisions were a major feature of the Act, including the prohibition of employment of Aboriginal children under the age of sixteen, reiteration of the contract system of employment and the introduction of compulsory employment permits to be renewed annually. Employers were compelled under the Act to provide adequate rations, medical care, clothing and blankets. Finally, the Governor was given the power to reserve areas of Crown land up to a limit of 2,000 acres in any magisterial district, and to order the removal of any unemployed Aboriginal person to such a reserve (Biskup 1973; Haebich 2000).
47

The connections between Aboriginal and Asian people that grew out of their involvement in the pearling industry were far from being purely economic.
Authorities were concerned that an increase in the 'coloured' population in Australia would undermine the new nation's 'racial purity'. Under the 1905 Aborigines Act and successive amendments, an Aboriginal woman was required to get the permission of the Chief Protector of Aborigines to marry a non-Aboriginal man, and it was an offence for mixed race couples to live together. The terms of the Aborigines Act, which operated in Western Australia until 1963, reflected a longstanding and profound fear among officials about racial mixing. Ordinary Asian-Aboriginal families were obsessively regarded as a threat by the authorities, and the community they formed in Broome occupied the attention of government administrators and police for decades (Skyring 2003 quoted in Akerman et al. 2010). Many Asian men were prosecuted for living and raising a family with Aboriginal women. The legislation was enforced to the extent that police surveyed Broome and surrounding areas and even carried out home raids to prevent Asians and Aboriginal people interacting. To get around being prosecuted, people had to negotiate with police.
Lay-up camps were regularly inspected for breaches of the Aborigines Act , even though this involved police wading across mudflats and trudging through crocodileinfested mangroves along the La Grange, Roebuck Bay and Dampier coastlines.
Aboriginal and Asian people were arrested for camping together (Stephenson 2007;
Akerman et al. May 2010). Broome, and other towns throughout Western Australia, were declared 'prohibited' to Aboriginal people, unless they applied for 'citizenship' – a demeaning process that involved individuals publicly renouncing their cultural ties and families in exchange for the rights enjoyed automatically by other Australians.
Many people refused to participate, including Cissy Djiagween, who declared: 'No way! I'm not gonna get a license for my own country. I want to be a free person!'
(quoted in Akerman et al. 2010). If an unemployed Aboriginal person was found in
Broome after the curfew at sundown, they would be driven out. Even employed
Aboriginal people had to supply a note from their employer if they were found in town after dark. A fence line around Broome originally to keep out cattle was the physical boundary for the prohibited area, and this became known as the Common
Gate (Sickert 2003; Skyring 2007).
Cosmopolitan Broome
A rich Asian-Australian society built up in Broome around the pearling industry: there were Asian storekeepers and noodle shop owners, doctors and market gardeners. The
Asian population settled in the part of town now called Chinatown, which was originally called Japtown and was reminiscent of villages in China and Japan.
Chinatown was where many Asians established retail stores, boarding houses, import agencies, laundries, market gardens, brothels and hotels. During the wet season, when luggers returned to shore, the indentured workers moved into Chinatown and Broome became a bustling town, full of activity, festivals and excitement. This part of Broome looked, smelled and sounded like Asia. Some say that during the pearling days, visitors to Broome had to check whether they were still in Australia (Sickert 2003).
Over time, representative community organizations emerged such as the Broome
Chinese Association, Japanese Club, and Malayasian Association (Akerman et al.
2010).
48

The Broome community reflected the hierarchy of the pearling industry, which was based on occupation and ethnicity: Europeans held positions of power as master pearlers, businessmen and administrators. Asians and mixed-race people
(predominately Asian-Aboriginal people) were in the middle, and 'full blood'
Aboriginal people were at the bottom (Dalton 1964). These hierarchies were reflected for many years in the different locations occupied by various groups in and around
Broome (Akerman et. al May 2010). Class distinctions also existed within ethnic groups, usually based on occupational status. Among the Asian population for instance, the Japanese divers and Asian business owners had higher status, while the
Timorese were at the bottom (Sickert 2003). For Aboriginal people, social position was largely determined by their ability to adapt to the dominant European way of life and by the nationality of an Aboriginal person's marriage partner (Dalton 1964;
Sickert 2003).
Charles Flinders, who visited Broome in the 1890s and 1900s, described what he saw:
* * * *
'Broome is one of the most cosmopolitan towns in the whole of Australia. There one can see coloured people from all parts of the globe, their colour ranging from olive skinned South Sea Islanders to the jet black Australian Aborigines' (Flinders 1933 quoted in Akerman et al. 2010).
* * * *
Racial segregation was a part of everyday life in Broome. Many places within
Broome were segregated until well into the 1970s, including residential areas and streets, the cinema, hotels and sporting clubs. The Sun Picture Theatre, for example, had designated areas for Europeans where no Asian or Aboriginal person was allowed, an area for 'coloureds' including Asians and mixedrace people, and a designated area for Aboriginal people that was separated from the others by a wire or fence (Dalton 1964). Within these areas there was further segregation according to economic status (Sickert 2003). A 'colour line' also existed which did not permit interaction between Europeans and others. Anyone who breached this would find themselves ostracised (Sickert 2003).
Despite the legislative prohibitions, there were many long term relationships between
Asians and Aboriginal people, and in Broome in particular, there are many prominent
Asian-Aboriginal families today. Some families can trace their heritage through up to four or five different nationalities; people shared common experiences and accepted
Asian divers into their families and community (Hamaguchi 2006). It is a testament to the resilience of the Broome community that the unique fusion of families and cultures had not only survived, but thrived, making Broome a dynamic and exceptional society (Akerman et al. 2010).
Pearling in the twentieth century
Until the 1950s, the Kimberley pearling industry was based on the collection of mother-of-pearl shells for export to Europe, mainly for button manufacture, although the harvesting of valuable natural pearls was also significant. From 1900 to 1914,
Australia supplied between half and three quarters of the international market, and the
Western Australian pearl fields dominated Australian production. Broome produced
80 per cent of the world's mother-of-pearl shell (Bach 1955). Pearling was the fifth
49

largest export industry in Western Australia with 950 tons shipped annually (Burton
2000).
As with all primary production, the pearling industry was volatile. The establishment of the submarine cable from Broome to Java in 1889 (which Cable Beach was named after) enabled quick international communications on fluctuating pearl and shell prices (Western Australia Heritage Commission 1988). In 1905 the industry experienced a depression because of an over-supply of pearl shell, followed by a boom by 1910, by which time floating stations operating in international waters had largely replaced land-based pearlers in Western Australia (Bach 1955). Pearling in
Australia halted during the First World War and never fully recovered. Of the 225
Broome men (mainly white shell openers) who enlisted, 54 were killed (Sickert
2003).
From the 1920s buttons began to be made of plastic rather than mother-of-pearl, and by 1928 an increasing number of foreign boats (especially Japanese owned) working outside Australian territorial waters had flooded the already-diminished world markets with cheaper shells and pearls. The Great Depression, following the 1929
Wall Street crash, caused the market to collapse.
Broome was severely impacted by a cyclone in 1935, which destroyed the pearling fleet at the Lacepede Islands, killing around 140 men. From 1937 to 1938, Japanese and Australian production again flooded the pearl markets (Bach 1955; Burton 2000).
In recognition of its dependence on pearling, in 1938 government assistance was provided to the struggling town of Broome (Bach 1955). However this assistance was to be short-lived: the Second World War would be the the most significant disruption northern Australia had faced since the arrival of Europeans in the region around a century earlier. It would affect not only the pearling industry, but all aspects of people's lives.
Pearling has always been a dangerous industry, and both boats and lives have been lost throughout the history of its operation: of the 350 known shipwrecks in the
Kimberley region, the majority of vessels were engaged in pearling at the time they were wrecked (Souter 2009). Shipwreck sites physically document the many technological and social changes that occurred on pearling luggers, and so represent a unique opportunity to study the physical proofs of the past. Only 15 wrecks have so far been discovered; as with other endeavours in the Kimberley, difficulties in access and remoteness have hampered the pursuit of this rich heritage resource, which is still to be further investigated (Souter 2009).
Images of the pastoral industry
From its early days, pearling drew a mixture of races to northern Australia. The industry was very mobile, and was based at sea rather than on land. Pastoralism, on the other hand, was regarded as a way to extend the reach of more permanent
European occupation. During the nineteenth century it was widely believed that, if the
Australian colonies were to survive, Europeans had to fully occupy the Australian landmass. In the mid-nineteenth century, Western Australia's population was less than
10,000 – significantly lower than the eastern colonies, which had been boosted by the discovery of gold. From 1863, the Western Australian Government provided incentives for Europeans to settle areas north of the Murchison River. To bring people
50

and wealth to the west, the government offered twelve month's free pasture in the north of the colony for settlers who wished to select a 'run'. After the first year, those who stayed were able to take up as much as 100,000 acres of land (more than 40,000 hectares), and were eligible for three years rent free (Edwards 1991). Despite this assistance, early attempts to set up pastoral stations and settlements in the Kimberley failed. Settlements at Roebuck Bay in 1863 and Camden Harbour in 1864 encountered sustained Aboriginal resistance.
Camden Harbour and Roebuck Bay
The settlement of Camden Harbour by shareholders of the 'Camden Harbour
Association' was short-lived: settlers sailed from Melbourne and began to arrive in the district in December 1864 and they left, defeated, less than a year later. The Camden
Harbour Association's choice of location for the founding of a pastoral settlement had been based on their reading of Grey's enthusiastic assessment. However, they failed to take account of his record of the many and severe difficulties he and his men had faced: the discomfort, sickness and danger. The settlers arrived on the Kimberley coast at the worst time of year, just as Grey had done, during the build-up to the wet season. Stock began dying as soon as they were disembarked, and so did people.
Captain Brown described the Calliance 's arrival in Camden Harbour on Sunday 25
December 1864:
* * * *
'Air close, sun very hot. Thermometer 89 deg. About 5pm Mr Hart, passenger, found insensible, having had a sun-stroke; at 7pm buried him on Sheep Island, the Rev. Mr
Tanner reading the burial service at 7am. Found from the report of the passengers previously arrived on the Stag and Helvitia , there was apparently very little food, and no water within a few miles of the ship for the sheep' (quoted in Edwards 1991).
* * * *
To add to the difficulties, the ship Calliance was wrecked only a few days later while being careened, when it was caught in sudden strong winds and blown onto rocks on the shore. More ships arrived, bringing with them thousands of pure merino ewes.
Shortly after they were landed, the sheep began dying in droves.
People also suffered from the difficult conditions. A graveyard was established on
Sheep Island, and by the time the settlers withdrew, nine people had been buried there. Some settlers died of fever or heatstroke, others drowned, or were speared and died of their wounds. One grave belongs to Mary Jane Pascoe, who died on June 4 th
1865 of an infection after giving birth, aged 30 years; her headstone still stands on the island today, a grim reminder of the difficulties faced by women and children in such early settlements. Her baby only survived her by a short time.
Resident Magistrate R. J. Sholl, who was sent by the Western Australian Government to administer the new settlement, left at the end of October 1865, by which time
Camden Harbour had all but been abandoned: all the stock had perished and most of the supplies had run out. He described the place as 'an ungodly hole' (Edwards 1991).
In 1866 Cape Villaret, near Lagrange Bay, a small inlet located in the southern part of
Roebuck Bay, was the scene of the region's first recorded massacre of Aboriginal people, in retribution for the killing of three European explorers (Battye 1986; Skates
51

1989). Oral traditions of the Karajarri people, whose traditional country extends from just south of Broome to the Anna Plains station at the northern end of Eighty Mile
Beach, preserve stories of the massacre. It took place to avenge the killing by
Karajarri people of three explorers: Fredrick Panter, James Harding and William
Goldwyer who were in the area looking for good pastoral country on behalf of the
Roebuck Bay Pastoral Company. These traditions speak of the explorers meeting their deaths because they desecrated a sacred place and ignored warnings to leave the area
(Battye and Fox 1985; Skates 1989). The subsequent punitive expedition led by
Maitland Brown exacted a fearsome revenge on the traditional owners of the area, and an unknown number of people were killed.
The Forrest expedition
In the 1870s grazing runs were tenuously established in the Fitzroy Valley, Meda and
May River areas. In 1879, the Western Australian surveyor Alexander Forrest was sent on an official expedition to look for fertile land and gold in the northern part of the colony. Unlike Grey, Forrest was a bushman of much experience. He had been born and grown up in Bunbury, Western Australia, and had done long trips before through difficult terrain, including surveying the route for the Overland Telegraph
Line with his brother John. He was methodical, and well prepared for the conditions he would encounter. His party included his brother Matthew Forrest; a cadet from the survey department; a government geologist from Victoria; and two Aboriginal men,
Tommy Pierre and Tommy Dower, who were outsiders from Nyungah country in the south, and who accompanied the expedition as trackers and horse men. Forrest also hoped that they would help his party to negotiate passage through country with
Kimberley traditional owners .While Pierre had accompanied both Alex and John
Forrest on previous expeditions, as far as can be known this was Dower's only such venture. Tommy Dower is also notable as an important spokesman for his Ngyungah people around Perth and is the subject of a number of photographs. Alex Forrest paid for an elaborate gravestone to mark Dower's grave after he died in 1895.
The expedition lasted for six months, and resulted in the mapping and naming of much of the Kimberley district. They found fertile land surrounding the Fitzroy River, and followed the river north for almost 400 kilometres before reaching a place where they could cross with their horses – today's Fitzroy Crossing. Forrest was very impressed by the promise of the Fitzroy to support future settlement. Hicks, a member of his party, wrote:
* * * *
'Our arrival at the Fitzroy was heralded with great rejoicing. Its bank being covered with eucalyptus, banksia, and acacias Mr Forrest described it as a magnificent river…
Ducks, turkeys, and cockatoos were there in countless numbers. We were able to economise in our provisions with the help of our guns. When game was plentiful and on the menu, our flour and bacon remained intact' (quoted in Edwards 1991).
* * * *
After turning north, the men found themselves in very different country. Hicks wrote that the mountainous region of the Central Kimberley seemed to 'completely shut us in with bold, high, ranges.' Forrest named the Oscar and Napier ranges and the King
Leopold Range. Supplies ran down and his men began to fall sick, and they could not find a pass through the mountains: no European would until Frank Hann in 1898.
52

Hicks wrote: 'We found ourselves near the coast again in some of the most rugged country one can conceive… Nothing but disaster and disappointment attended our efforts' (quoted in Edwards 1991).
Forrest named the whole region he explored 'the Kimberley' after the Secretary of
State for the Colonies, the Earl of Kimberley. On his return to Perth, via the Overland
Telegraph Line and Port Palmerston, Forrest claimed that the Kimberley had great potential for tropical agriculture, and his report of the journey foreshadowed the possibility that gold would be discovered there (ADB 1981b). He also noted that
Aboriginal people who lived in the region might provide a source of labour to support the development of colonial industries (Bolton 1958). His descriptions, particularly as used subsequently in promotions by the Western Australian
Government, led to a wave of interest in the Kimberley from southern squatters and investors. According to Forrest's account, his party had surprisingly little contact with
Aboriginal people, despite the length of time they spent in the Kimberley. His records note that encounters between his party and Aboriginal people near Beagle Bay were friendly (Clements 1990). Oral history accounts by Kimberley Aboriginal people report that assistance was given to European explorers like Forrest as a way to manage their incursions. Aboriginal people would guide explorers through their country so as to lessen the strangers' impact upon traditional ways of life, and to ensure their time on country would be as brief as possible (Jebb and Allbrook 2009).
But the strangers would not be leaving. Throughout the 1880s, pastoralism became more widespread in the Kimberley, buoyed by significant levels of political promotion and support. The Victorian gold rush had resulted in a period of economic prosperity and rapid development in the southern colonies. Despite the early failures in the region, the Western Australian Government used the Melbourne Exhibition of
1880 as a forum to advertise for settlers for the northern parts of the colony, with the aim of capturing some of the available capital and enthusiasm for expansion.
Alexander Forrest's expedition reports were used as evidence of the area's potential. In
1881 the Western Australian Government followed up on the interest it had created by offering land in the Kimberley by ballot. By 1882, 77 people held leases to eighteen million hectares of Aboriginal lands (Bolton 1958). From the early 1880s, based on both increasing movement of pastoralists into the region, and the growth of the pearling industry, the number of permanent European camps and settlements in the
Kimberley began to increase dramatically. In 1880 pearlers made their base at Minyirr
(Roebuck Bay) on the land of the Yawuru people, and in 1883 they renamed the site
Broome. A little north, on the mudflats of King Sound, the township of Derby was gazetted that same year.
Most of the early settlement of the western areas of the Kimberley took place by sea, with new arrivals landing with their flocks or herds at makeshift ports such as Derby and Point Torment before traveling inland. In 1881, the first pastoral station on the lower Fitzroy River in the west Kimberley, Yeeda Station, was established by a group who formed the Murray Squatting Company. By 1883, there were eight stations running a total of 22,000 sheep along the lower valleys of the Meda, Fitzroy and
Lennard Rivers. Stocking the stations with sheep was seen as a quicker way of complying with the pastoral lease conditions: land leased from the Crown had to be stocked within two years at a rate of either twenty sheep or two cattle for every 1000 acres (around 400 hectares) (Schubert 1992). Initially, a relatively small number of
53

large pastoral station leases were developed, primarily by family dynasties. Land speculation was rife. Many leases were purchased and managed by absentee landholders or profiteers who had no intention of occupying or working on the land.
The promotion of the Kimberley by the colonial government as a promising pastoral district, and the ballot for pastoral leases, also sparked a series of epic 'overlanding' expeditions: long distance droves to the Kimberley by colonial squatters from
Queensland and New South Wales. These included some of the longest such journeys recorded in Australia. Overlanders seeking pasture pushed the boundaries of white settlement out into unknown country, and in doing so they established routes that would later be used by other settlers travelling in their wake. The most famous outback stock routes were the Murranji Track, originally established between western
Queensland and the Kimberley by Nathaniel Buchanan; the Birdsville Track; the
Strzelecki Track; and the Canning Stock Route, between Halls Creek in the
Kimberley and Wiluna.
Nat Buchanan was the first overlander to arrive with cattle in the Kimberley, taking a route that would be followed by prospectors travelling to the Halls Creek gold fields only a few years later, and arriving at what was to be known as the Ord River Station in June 1884. He is noted for this venture, and for his role in establishing many properties in the Northern Territory and central and western Queensland (Pearson and
Lennon 2008).
During 1886 and 1887, a new coastal stock route came into use, and cattle were shipped north from Roeburne, in the Pilbara, to the Fitzroy. In 1886 Noonkanbah was established as a sheep station at the edge of the Fitzroy Basin: the property totaled
216,311 acres (around 87,538 hectares). Cattle were brought to Roebuck Plains in
1888. By 1889 over 100,000 sheep were grazed in the south-western Kimberley; almost five times as many as had been there six years earlier (Pearson and Lennon
2008). Stations remained vulnerable, however, to the difficulties and unpredictability of the environment and climate: in 1894, flooding resulted in the entire Fitzroy plains being inundated as far inland as the edge of the ranges, and around 30,000 sheep were drowned along the Lennard and Fitzroy rivers. For some pastoralists the loss was more than they could take, and they abandoned their holdings altogether (Edwards
1991).
The drove to Fossil Downs
In 1886, the MacDonald and McKenzie families, who were close friends and related by marriage, took up the lease of Fossil Downs station at the junction of the Fitzroy and Margaret rivers in Gooniyandi country, in the central Kimberley. Donald
MacDonald had written to Alexander Forrest just after he returned from his expedition in 1879, enquiring about the pastoral prospects of the region. On the basis of Forrest's favourable reply, Donald sent his son Dan to lead a small party to investigate the area. The party travelled to Derby by ship and then rode up the Fitzroy
Valley to look at possible selections (MacKenzie 1985). On his return, Dan
MacDonald's description prompted his father to contact the MacKenzies, and together they developed plans to secure a pastoral lease and take stock overland from inland
New South Wales to the Kimberley. Donald MacDonald would not live to see his sons reach their destination: he died just before they set out, after falling from a horse while mustering cattle.
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The drove began near Goulburn in 1883, with 500 cattle, two teams of bullocks and
50 horses. It would be the longest droving trip across the continent, covering a distance of around 5,600 kilometres. The journey was beset by difficulties. Before they left New South Wales the party had to cross the Barwon River while it was in full flood. When they reached southern Queensland, they found it in the grip of severe drought, one of the worst in that region's history. Their progress was delayed and the condition of the cattle deteriorated; many of the original party withdrew (MacKenzie
1985). Those who continued waited out the drought near Winton, and after three months watching their cattle die, when the rains broke, they resumed their journey. At
Bourketown the leading mobs came down with pleural pneumonia, caused by feeding on the plentiful young spring grass brought by the rains. Sickness also struck the human members of the party: two people were so ill from malarial fever they had to leave the drove. The Chinese cook was killed when Aboriginal people attacked their camp one night. Two years into the trip, Charles MacDonald, the expedition leader, became so sick with malaria that he had to leave. His brother Dan travelled out from
New South Wales and took over until Charles was well enough to return.
On 3 June 1886, having travelled more than 5,600 kilometres, what was left of the party finally arrived, with around half the original head of cattle, and 13 of the original 60 horses, at the junction of the Victoria and Margaret rivers. They stopped near a tree which Alexander Forrest had marked F136 (MacKenzie 1985). The trip had taken them three years. They renamed the land Fossil Downs Station after the many fossilised shells they found there (remnants of earlier higher sea levels). In the years to come it would become the largest privately-owned cattle station in Australia, at over a million acres (404,685 hectares) (ADB 1974).
While these initial droving ventures are prominent in recorded history, for many years, long droves were made as a matter of course to get cattle from stations to market. Major Kimberley stock routes follow defined tracks along water sources and associated Aboriginal sites from pastoral stations to ports. Kimberley pastoral owners relied on small numbers of highly skilled Aboriginal stockmen who worked extremely long hours but took pride in mustering and safely delivering all their stock to port
(Munro 1996). Droving sometimes provided Aboriginal stockmen with opportunities to fulfil custodial duties on their own country and interact with others outside the annual wet season holidays. Long droves to ports have now been replaced by motorised transport, but stock work is still associated with the custodial responsibilities of looking after and keeping country healthy (Harry Lennard, pers. comm. 25-26 May 2010).
Gold
It was not just the chance of good pasture that drew Europeans inland in the
Kimberley. In 1882 the Western Australian Government had offered a reward of
£5000 for the discovery of gold in the colony. In 1883 and 1884, the government temporarily employed a geologist to participate in two survey expeditions to the north-west of the colony (unlike the eastern states, the colony couldn't afford its own permanent geologist). During the course of these expeditions, Edward Townley
Hardman, who came directly from working with the Geological Survey of Ireland, found the fossilised remains of a diprotodon in a cave at Windjana gorge, and named
'Geikie Canyon' after famous British geologist Sir Archibald Geikie. After his second
55

traverse of the region he declared 'auriferous country' in the East Kimberley, though it was not until the following year that a group of prospectors following the lead found payable quantities of gold. The rush brought thousands of men from across Australia to the Kimberley region, most travelling through the ports of Derby or Wyndham.
Fred Cammilleri was in Derby at the time, and recalled what it was like there when the Fitzroy was in flood and men couldn't get through to the diggings:
* * * *
'Things were fast and furious and the pubs did a roaring trade… The flies and mosquitoes were damnable. The breaking-in of horses that had never had a collar on, and others that had never had a saddle on, or packsaddle, was a daily amusement for the crowd; also scratch races, and buck-jumping contests were well patronised'
(quoted in Edwards 1991).
* * * *
At its peak, there were reported to have been up to 3,000 men on the incredibly remote diggings at Halls Creek, but the finds there had largely petered out by the mid
1890s. Although the gold stopped flowing, the infrastructure it had required and helped to create remained: police stations and post offices, an extension to the telegraph line, and much improved port facilities at Derby and Wyndham. A number of people claimed the government reward for the discovery of gold, including
Hardman, but because of the conflict that arose the Western Australian Government decided not to pay it to any of the claimants (ADB 1972b; Edwards 1991).
A final frontier
Pastoral expansion into the area north of the Napier and King Leopold ranges took much longer than it had in the south-west of the Kimberley, and it was not until the late 1890s that stations were established at Leopold Downs and Mount House (Jebb
2002; Pedersen and Woorunmurra 1995). Stations came still later in the very north of the Kimberley, and it was only at the end of the 1920s that most of the region was subject to pastoral lease (Jebb 2002; DIA 2004). By 1929, Kimberley pastoral stations were on average between 50 and 250 per cent larger than other Western Australian stations.
This final expansion was largely made possible by Queensland cattleman and bushman, Frank Hann, who in the winter of 1898 found a long sought after passage through the King Leopold Ranges. Hann's station in the Gulf Country had become worthless in 1894, after a series of poor seasons and low prices for cattle. He had set out for the north of Western Australia in search of new opportunities. What made his exploration of the region particularly remarkable was that, at the time he undertook this difficult feat, he was over 50 years of age and was suffering from the painful after effects of a broken thigh bone. The King Leopold Ranges had previously formed a formidable barrier to European expansion, their rugged and difficult terrain halting the northward spread of pastoralism and, like the limestone cliff terrain of the Oscar and
Napier Ranges, offered a tactical advantage to Aboriginal people who were able to use the ranges as a base to maintain their resistance against European settlement. In the course of his expedition, Hann named the Charnley and Isdell rivers and identified some areas he considered to be promising pastoral country. Hann himself took up a lease of over 2,590 square kilometres, but because of his poor finances he was not able to stock it. The area he had identified and made accessible was ultimately
56

pioneered by already-established Kimberley pastoral families (ADB 1972a).
On 9 May 1901 Frederick Drake-Brockman and a party of 11 men departed from
Wyndham, followed the Pentecost River south, and then pushed north-west through the King Leopold Ranges to Walcott Inlet and returned along the Drysdale River, reaching their depot on 26 November 1901. Along the way, Drake-Brockman attempted to validate reports of many topographical features of the region made by previous explorers, including Grey and Hann, and in the process he named the
Princess May Ranges and the Calder and King Edward rivers. Drake-Brockman's party collected specimens of plants, animals and rocks, and also Aboriginal artefacts, for the Western Australian museum. His collection included the previously unknown black grass wren ( Amytis (Amytornis) housei ). Drake-Brockman's report of the expedition was published in 1902 in the Western Australian Parliamentary Papers
(ADB 1981a).
As pastoralism slowly spread across the rugged terrain of the north-west, so did the dispossession of Aboriginal people from their traditional lands. Competition for water and food, encroachment or violation of sacred places, mistreatment and brutality were all catalysts that contributed to the onset of hostilities between Aboriginal people and
European settlers. The conflict resulted in loss of life on both sides, though numerous contemporary reports indicate that Aboriginal people suffered far greater losses through the violence than did European settlers.
Attacks by Aboriginal people on livestock were common. Large numbers of stock were speared, bludgeoned, crippled or driven off runs (Jebb 2002). Stock supplied much-needed food for Europeans, but it also fed Aboriginal people, who were denied access to their traditional land and resources. From 1892, police and settler recruits were granted greater discretionary powers to disperse Aboriginal people, and life outside the stations became increasingly difficult and dangerous. Spearing of cattle was made a criminal offence, and jail terms were increased for cattle theft. Aboriginal people could be whipped for certain offences (Broome 2010).
Despite these measures Aboriginal people continued to successfully resist expansion of pastoral interests, particularly in the rugged limestone country of the Oscar and
Napier ranges. The threat posed by the Bunuba resistance in this region brought a severe response from the authorities, who threw enormous resources into efforts to capture the perpetrators, particularly after Jandamarra joined the resistance in 1894.
Jandamarra and the Aboriginal resistance
Born in 1873, Jandamarra moved to the Lennard River Station to work at the age of ten, and was soon regarded as the fastest shearer and best horseman in the district
(Nicholson 1997; Newbury 1999). He learned English and became popular with the
Europeans (Lowe 1994; Grassby and Hill 1988). Jandamarra grew up in two worlds; he was Bunuba by birth but spent a significant part of his short life living and working with the new settlers. In 1889 he was arrested on a charge of stock killing and was imprisoned in Derby where he was put into service looking after horses and working as a police assistant and tracker. Jandamarra learned how to use firearms and was involved in a number of operations against his own people until the arrest of his uncle and brother-in-law in 1894. To release the Bunuba prisoners, Jandamarra was forced to shoot his police boss, William Richardson: his fate was sealed.
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Jandamarra's ability to understand and pre-empt European police strategies, including the use of weaponry, was a fundamental element of the Bunuba resistance. He shared his skill in using European weapons and knowledge of tactics with others. After a fierce and long-running police campaign, resulting in Bunuba, Warrawa, Worrorra,
Nyikina, Mangala and Gooniyandi deaths, Jandamarra was killed at Tunnel Creek in
1897.
Contemporary accounts say Jandamarra's legendary status was gained from his
Jalnggangurru power, the power of his culture and knowledge. He could '[f]ly like a bird and disappear like a ghost…he was two separate beings. His body was a physical manifestation of a hidden spirit living secretly in a small water-soak near his Tunnel
Creek sanctuary' (Pedersen and Woorunmurra 1995). These references to
Jandamarra's ability to appear and disappear relate to his intimate knowledge of the
Napier Range, a rugged limestone landscape riddled with narrow passages, chimneys and caves that allowed Jandamarra and others to avoid capture. This twisted, convoluted terrain also prevented the police and pastoralists on horseback from physically entering the place. The unusual nature of the landscape, coupled with the accounts of Jandamarra's 'power' must have created a psychological barrier for the
European settlers and a sense of foreboding about what lay beyond the limestone bastions.
Contested histories
Throughout Australia, the history of pastoralism displays some common patterns, though the various participants have different memories and interpreations of this history. One legacy of pastoral history is a sense of identity valued by many
Australians today. In a land where rain falls unpredictably and few rivers run, anyone who lived or worked in the bush, particularly in those early years, developed skills to cope with the vagaries of drought, fire and flood. Drovers and overlanders had to survive in tough and unpredictable conditions, and they were second to none in selfsufficiency. Drovers in particular became a symbol of adaptation to a harsh environment, and of the adventure of the unknown in distant and isolated places. They became the stuff of legend, reflected in Australian folklore and balladry. Ion Idriess and Mary Durack are two writers whose work contributed a great deal to the popular imagery of life and work in the Kimberley region. More generally, the image of the drover is described in poems like Henry Lawson's 'The Ballad of the Drover' and
'Andy's Gone with the Cattle', and in Banjo Patterson's 'Clancy of the Overflow' and
'The Travelling Post Office'. Aspects of droving life are described in Judith Wright's poem 'South of my Days' and in Adam Lindsay Gordon's 'The Sick Stock Rider'. In song, the drover is celebrated in Rolf Harris' 'Tie me Kangaroo down, Sport!' and
'Diamantina Drover', the song of Hugh McDonald of the band Redgum. In film, the image of the drover has been depicted in the 1946 historical film 'The Overlanders' starring Chips Rafferty, and more recently Hugh Jackman portrayed the drover in Baz
Luhrmann's 2008 film 'Australia'.
Many Aboriginal people have a different view of this history. In the Kimberley, as throughout Australia, the expansion of pastoralism was founded on the violent dispossession of Aboriginal people from their lands. Within the Kimberley, the northwest was in a sense the last frontier: it was extremely inaccessible, and its remoteness and initial lack of police presence meant there were few restraints on settler's
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responses to Aboriginal resistance. New gun technologies were available at the time the north-west Kimberley was settled. Settlers had accurate, multi-shot, rapid fire weapons in an era when the colonial administrators took a much more hard-line approach to relations with Aboriginal people (Broome 2010). The latter half of the nineteenth century saw an evolution in western views about Indigenous people, who came to be seen as 'primitive', an inherently lower type that did not have the right to stop settlement by more 'progressive' races (Broome 2010). Even so, the Western
Australian government remained extremely sensitive to criticism from London that it was not able to 'protect' Aboriginal people in the north, and sought to defend practises such as neck-chaining to the imperial authorities until well into the twentieth century
(Jebb and Alcott, pers. comm. 2010).
When the King Leopold Ranges were eventually settled after 1900, a cycle of cattle spearing, resistance, pacification, clearance of Aboriginal people from their land, and arrests occurred. Scores of Ngarinyin, Worrorra, Wunambal and other Aboriginal men were rounded up and transported to court in neck chains. The police received a ration payment per head per day, so they profited from the clearances – though as historian
Geoffrey Bolton notes, this at least provided motivation for them to bring their prisoners in alive (Broome 2010; Bolton 2008).
Station life
The initial frontier conflict in the Kimberley resulted in large numbers of Aboriginal people losing their lives, and the active conflict was followed by a period of huge readjustment. The terms 'quietening down' or 'coming in' are still used by old people in the Kimberley to describe the early days when individuals, families and large groups of people moved in from the bush to live and work on stations. A rich oral tradition tells of the entry of Aboriginal people into station life (Munro 1996;
Chalaremeri 2001; Richards et al. 2002; Marshall 1988). Jebb characterises this as a process by which Kimberley Aboriginal people learned 'the rules of occupation' and found 'a place that ensured their survival' (Jebb 2002). Coming in was an ongoing process rather than a single event, and it did not mean that people would no longer have contact with the bush or with bush life. While Aboriginal people who were associated with pastoral settlements were not free to continue a traditional way of life, many groups who lived on stations were able to maintain and adapt their traditional
Law and culture to new circumstances, and continue living on or near their traditional country.
From 1905, the permit system created by the Aborigines Act bound Aboriginal people to the pastoral station where they worked and lived. If an Aboriginal person left a station without the manager's permission, they could be returned by force, jailed or sent to a mission or government ration station. Police patrols of bush areas helped to bring people into the stations.
Generally speaking, Aboriginal resident populations were seen as a fixed asset of a station, available as a pool of labour to undertake the many tasks associated with station life. Aboriginal workers were considered part of the property, and stations sold with an Aboriginal workforce fetched a higher price (Jebb 2002). Everyone who could work was required to do so: men, women and children. Labour contracts, under which Aboriginal people were tied to a station, were an early feature of station life, as reflected in the 'master and servant' laws and later Aboriginal 'protection' laws
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introduced by the West Australian legislature in 1898 and 1905. Those unable to work because of old age, injury or illness were required to be looked after by pastoralists, although many pastoralists complained about this expectation. Payment was principally in rations and, as the twentieth century wore on, attempts by Aboriginal people and their supporters to establish a cash wage were repeatedly resisted by most
Kimberley pastoralists and influential lobbyists. On many pastoral stations,
Aboriginal people endured harsh living and working conditions, and stories of excessive corporal punishment are common (Marshall 1988; Jebb 2002; Smith 2000).
Aboriginal women were subject to sexual exploitation and mixed-descent children were removed, often forcibly, to missions and institutions.
Although the changes brought by European settlement were dramatic, Aboriginal people found ways to adapt that were in accordance with their traditional Law, and that gave the new settlers a place in that Law also. Within the Wunan ( Wurnan ), which refers to a system of exchange and sharing of resources, Aboriginal people classified pastoral bosses and their families as 'strange relatives' giving them a similar status to non-local Aboriginal people, thereby creating distant kin obligations and reciprocations, as well as clearly defined rights and associations (Redmond 2005).
Aboriginal station workers considered themselves to be the land owners, and considered the white bosses as the land managers (Redmond 2005). Managers were responsible for looking after owners, and maintaining and interacting with country.
Aboriginal workers saw and still see themselves as being productive and autonomous, and are proud that they 'made a good worker out of the boss… and settled the missus properly', though they express mixed emotions at the huge amount of work they contributed for so little reward (Redmond 2005). Some Aboriginal people have fond memories of their former pastoral lives, and their role as station workers forms an important part of their contemporary identity. Much pastoral work required highly developed skills, which were taught and prized within the Aboriginal community.
Aboriginal people excelled at droving large herds of cattle safely over long distances to fresh pastures, and for sale and slaughter. Stock work was seen as '…an important part of Aboriginal men's identity' (Bird Rose 1991). Smith notes that 'working with cattle replaced hunting as an activity where men acquired prestige…Their use of this work to continue ritual ties with the land challenged colonial ownership' (Smith
2000). It was not only men who provided the labour: if they were physically able, women, children and old people from the camp also worked around the homestead, maintaining the gardens and undertaking daily chores such as collecting firewood, cooking, washing and cleaning. Some women also worked alongside men, droving and managing stock, as Daisy Angajit, a Ngarinyin elder, recalled:
* * * *
'We were ringers, not proper big house girls. We wore trousers and a proper man's shirt, boots, leggings, spurs, whip, hat, handkerchiefs around our necks, just like a cowboy. We worked cattle, made ropes, carried the branding iron. Jumped up quick too, not walking or we got a whip behind us' (quote by D Angagit inMunro 1996).
* * * *
Some Aboriginal people stayed outside station life, avoiding contact with European settlers. Others lived in the bush for most of the year and made only occasional visits to a station. In Ngarinyin, Worrora and Wunambal country in the north Kimberley, in jila country in the Great Sandy Desert to the south, and Tjurabalan country in the
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south-east around Lake Gregory ( Paraku ), some Aboriginal groups continued to live in the bush until the 1950s (Jebb 2002).
During the wet season, work would often slow on the stations, and some managers would stop providing basic rations, though many would send workers off on holidays with some rations. Many Aboriginal people could return to the bush at this time of year, to take part in ceremonies and other community activities (Jebb and Allbrook
2009). The wet season break gave people 'opportunities to pass onto their children skills and knowledge at many levels, as hunting and gathering was also an expression of spiritual attachment to land with many complex meanings' (Young and Doohan quoted in Smith 2000). However this occurred only at the discretion of the white boss: some station workers were not given time off at all, or had their holidays shortened regardless of their desire to join friends and family in the bush.
A Kimberley station manager informed a Royal Commission in 1928: 'If our native labour were done away with we should have to walk out of the country. We depend on our native labour and we find it dependable' (Bolton 1953). Despite the crucial role
Aboriginal people played in the industry, they continued to receive few of the allowances or rights enjoyed by their non-Indigenous co-workers. In the period following the Second World War, people from outside the region would become increasingly concerned by the lack of wages and the poor living conditions that were common on northern stations. The evolution of the station system had created a delicate situation: in lieu of paying wages, station owners had taken on the responsibility for providing rations to their workers and to the larger family groups that lived on the station. The government was concerned that any attempts to enforce stricter wages and conditions would result in thousands of local people being thrown off stations and onto government welfare. An agreement was reached in 1940 that there would be no government interference in pastoral wages, and that station hands would be 'discouraged' by police and protectors from leaving their employment, in return for pastoralists continuing to look after all station people, regardless of their status as employees (Biskup 1973). By 1954, Western Australia was the only state to retain penal sanctions for breach of an employment contract (Biskup 1973).
Missions and institutions
The structure of work in the pastoral and pearling industries dictated daily and seasonal rhythms of life for many Kimberley Aboriginal people. Over time, most of those who were not working in these industries came to live in institutions such as missions, government reserves or settlements. Missions began to be established in the west Kimberley from 1884, and were resisted in some areas. However as European settlement expanded, Aboriginal people took whatever option best allowed them to stay on their traditional land: missions initially attracted those people whose country they were established on, but over time other groups joined voluntarily or involuntarily, as independent living became harder, or when missions were relocated onto their country (Crawford 2001).
The first Aboriginal mission in the west Kimberley was the Point Cunningham
Catholic mission (Goodenough Bay) on King Sound. It was short-lived, lasting only from 1884 to 1887, partly because of Aboriginal people's fear of being 'blackbirded' by the pearl operators who were active in the area at that time, but also as a result of
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illness of the missionaries, their failure to make progress with the local people, and attacks by Aboriginal people on mission facilities (Choo 2001). Other major west
Kimberley missions included Beagle Bay Mission (1890–1976), established by
Trappist then Pallotine monks; Lombardina Mission (1911–1984), an outpost of
Beagle Bay; the East Kimberley Forrest River (Oombulgurri) Anglican Mission
(1897–1899 and 1913 – 1968); Sunday Island Mission, established independently
(1899–1923); and Drysdale River Benedictine Mission at Pago, which moved to
Kalumburu (1908–1982).
The Port George IV Presbyterian Mission was established at Walcott Inlet in 1911 before moving to Kunmunya, where it functioned until 1950, until its merger with
Munja government station at Wotjulum United Aboriginal Mission (1951–1956), before moving again to Mowanjum, near Derby. Worrorra, Wunambul and Ngarinyin residents moved from Kunmunya, to Munja, Wotjalum, then Mowanjum Old Site, finally and reluctantly the current location, Mowanjum (which means 'settled at last') in 1977, a long way south of their traditional lands. Elkin Umbagai reflected that: 'It was because the best of our traditional ways were maintained throughout those years that we had the strength to stand up to all the moves and became welded into one community' (Elkin Umbagai 1980 quoted in Jebb 2008).
The lists of mission children which are held by the WA State Records Office and church archives give a sense of the longevity of some of the missions, but say little of what they meant to those who occupied them. Some missions were places where cultures met and mingled; at others, traditional practices, languages and relationships were suppressed. Mission inmates, as they were known, worked hard to build and maintain the missions, and to ensure that they were viable and self–reliant. Missions were home for significant numbers of Kimberley Aboriginal people over many years.
Sacred Heart Church, Beagle Bay
The Beagle Bay mission was established by the Catholic Church in 1890, at Ngarlun
Burr (which means 'place surrounded by springs'), the site of a large Nyul Nyul community. It was originally set up by Trappists monks but in 1901 was taken over by the German Pallotine order. The St John of God sisters arrived in 1906 to establish a school for the growing number of Aboriginal children at the mission. Paddy
Djiagween recalled that on the night they arrived, a big corroboree, with twenty to thirty men, was held to welcome the sisters. One of the boys pointed out to the newly arrived Mother Antonia that Father Bischofs was among the dancers. Bishchofs stood out from the other dancers because he was dressed in shorts and decorated with white cockatoo feathers (Paddy Djiagween quoted in Nailon and Heugel 1990).
The Sacred Heart Church at Beagle Bay was built while the German Pallotine priests and brothers were confined to the mission during World War 1. The priests, brothers and local Aboriginal people worked tirelessly: a kiln was constructed to bake the
60,000 clay bricks they needed; and Aboriginal people collected thousands of shells from the beaches in bullock carts to be burned for the lime mortar and render. Local pearl shell and other beautiful shells were used to decorate the interior of the church.
Some pearl shells were given to the mission for that purpose by Broome pearlers,
Clarke and Co. The roof was originally mangrove wood and brush and the ceiling was decorated with shells to represent stars. This was destroyed by termites in the 1920s and was replaced with flattened kerosene tins and later with corrugated iron.
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The church's exterior is in the inter–war Gothic style. The interior is extraordinary.
Initial work on the altar was undertaken by Father Droste and two Aboriginal boys,
Joseph Neebery (Niada) and Joseph Gregory (Rosie Victor quoted in Nailon and
Heugel 1990). The main altar was decorated by Father Droste, Sister Raymond and a number of skilled Aboriginal people. They used hundreds of pearl shell, cowries, volutes and olives, and the side altars are inlaid with the lids, or 'trapdoors' from the opening of mollusc shells. Whole pearl shell inlays of Pinctada maxima , of great spiritual significance to Aboriginal people, were used to decorate the main altar and are featured throughout the church. For many, the use of pearl shell on the altar was a symbol of the close relationship between the Catholic church and the local Aboriginal people (Akerman et al. 010). The altar is a place of great beauty, imbued with the shimmering power of the shell, as the luminescent surfaces reflect the light. Pearl shell inlays of Christian and Nyul Nyul, Bardi and Nimanborr tribal symbols are also incorporated into the altar's tiled floor.
Former resident Rosie Victor, a Nyikina woman, remembered being taken in a canoe by her parents from Sunday Island, via Lombardina Mission, to Beagle Bay Mission in 1918. 'I had to do the shell work. They had done three altars in the church already… at the age of twelve I helped in the church putting the shells around the
Stations of the Cross' (Stanley Victor Senior 1, unpublished pamphlet). Aboriginal people and their descendents often express an ongoing relationship with their former missions, and speak with fondness of their times there as children. Rosie Victor left, but later returned to Beagle Bay to bring up her children with her husband, Stanley
Victor Senior, a Nyul Nyul Traditional Owner for the area. Three of their four children and later Stanley developed leprosy and lived at Bungarun, where Stanley was known as a medicine man. At the leprosarium, 'the Sisters admired Dad's trustworthiness and reliability – he was there when he was needed, always involved as a peacemaker and organiser – and he never complained through his long illness…[he]
…was a competent musician and played the violin and the cello and was a leading member of Sister Alphonse's orchestra (Stanley Victor Senior 2, unpublished pamphlet). The family continued to have a long association with Beagle Bay mission.
Their son Stephen returned to the mission to work in various jobs as an adult. He married his wife Dorothy when she was moved to the mission from Broome in 1962.
In 1964 he re-cemented the Church floor with pearl shells.
The years have brought a number of changes to the Sacred Heart Church. A 12-metre bell tower was added in the 1920s, and houses the original bell brought by the
Trappist monks, as well as two other bells donated by a German parish. The bell tower collapsed in September 2001 and was restored in 2002. The church retains a high degree of authenticity despite the original floor and ceiling finishes being replaced. Currently the mission is leased to the Beagle Bay Aboriginal community and the church is the centre of a large and vibrant community under the control of the
Spiritan Missionaries. The church is also a beautiful and unique focal point for the thousands of visitors touring the Kimberley during the dry season each year.
Some of the missions were initially established to provide protection and rations for local populations. The twentieth century brought increasing government intervention in the form of removal of Aboriginal children from their home environments, and this, along with the offer of per capita subsidies, led missions to cast a wider net in their
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search for inmates. From 1910 to 1960, many full and mixed descent children were removed from their families to different missions and institutions (DEH 2004; Pocock
2007). Places such as Beagle Bay, Lagrange and Forrest River drew or received against their will, people from around the region, and thus acted as a significant driver of dispossession for many Kimberley people. The treatment of Aboriginal people in the missions and other institutions varied depending on the denomination of the church and, more critically, the attitudes of the superintendent or manager. Some mission staff were supportive of Aboriginal culture and others had attitudes and practices that were considered extreme and not aligned with mainstream Christian beliefs or denominations (Loos 2007). A former resident at Beagle Bay Mission, where many Kimberley Aboriginal children were sent, recalls nuns taking Aboriginal children in the only mission car to visit places and allowing them to gain knowledge of Nyul Nyul country from the local residents. They attended corroborees with the nuns, although speaking language and participation in ceremonies were forbidden
(Esther Bevan, Gija and Nyul Nyul pers. comm. 24-25 May 2010).
Some children were accompanied by their families to the missions and many have fond memories of mission life. Phillip Cox recalled: 'Beagle Bay was a happy place…even though the place was very poor… it was just like one, big happy family – everybody together. Caring and sharing…they were strict, but they were kind, and they believed in discipline' (Mr Phillip Cox, quoted in Mellor and Haebich 2002).
Children were educated and, like the adults, assisted in doing jobs to help make the missions self reliant. Ex-students were taught trades and were involved in other mission building projects.
Some missions, reserves and government stations gave their inmates not only rations but also additional fresh food grown in their own gardens. For many Aboriginal people, though, supplementing rations with bush foods was essential to their survival
(DIA 2004: Biskup 1973). At Kunmunya, where Reverend Love was superintendent from 1927 until 1940, the mission supported itself raising cattle and goats for meat and milk, and growing vegetables for people to eat. While those who were not able to work were provided for, those who could were either paid for the work they undertook, or supported themselves through traditional means. Far from forbidding
Worrorra from being spoken, Love studied the language of the Worrorra people, translating sections of the Bible into Worrorra, and some Worrorra stories into
English (ADB 1986).
Government feeding depots and stations such as Lombadina, LaGrange, Munja and
Udialla were established to feed, train and isolate Aboriginal people, as well as to develop a labour reserve that could be assigned to pastoralists. Reserves were created with the rationale of preserving Aboriginal culture through isolation, and to reduce the tension between Aboriginal people and pastoralists over cattle killing. Use of
Aboriginal reserves changed over time subject to Government policy. In 1913, part of the original 1.6 million hectare Marndoc reserve, which had previously been set up in
1911 near the Cambridge Gulf, became the Anglican Forrest River Mission
(Oombulgurri). In 1922, the southern half of the reserve was excised for World War 1 soldier resettlement blocks (Biskup 1973; Loos 2007; DEH 2004). In 1926, the
Forrest River massacre took place in the vicinity of the mission. The findings of the subsequent WA Royal Commission are still the subject of ongoing debate (Loos
2007).
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Bungarun
Bungarun (the Derby Leprosarium) functioned for fifty years as a place where
Aboriginal people suspected of having or carrying leprosy were isolated, segregated and treated. Between 1936 and 1986, 1,400 people from across the Kimberley were sent to this institution, where they were incarcerated for compulsory treatment. More than 300 people are buried in the Bungarun cemetery. Bungarun was the last operational leprosarium in Australia (Jebb and Allbrook 2009).
The first cases of leprosy in the Kimberley were diagnosed in 1908. Between 1908 and 1914 leprosy carriers were sent to Bezout Island in the Pilbara region and, within a few years, to fenced compounds at Beagle Bay Mission and the old Derby
Residency, which became a native hospital in the 1920s (Jebb and Alcott 2009).
In 1934 an increase in the incidence of leprosy, and the work of leprosy patrols, brought Aboriginal malnutrition and mistreatment to government and public attention.
The Moseley Royal Commission, which was held in response, found that a local leprosarium was necessary to protect public health. The report stated that because '… the natives are deeply prejudiced against removal from their own country the government has come to the conclusion that a leprosarium must be erected at Derby'
(NAA A461/1347/1/10). On this basis Bungarun was established in 1936, around 20 kilometres from Derby. Further surveys of the extent of leprosy amongst Aboriginal people in the Kimberley were undertaken by Dr Musso, between 1938 and 1940, under financial grants from the National Health and Medical Research Council (NAA
A659/1/1945/1/2887). Musso was accompanied on some of his trips by Reverend
Love from Kunmunya mission (Briscoe 1996).
The Sisters of St John of God cared for the inmates of Bungarun, a closed community, under the supervision of a government superintendent. Operational policies included not allowing mothers to touch their babies, who were removed at birth and sent to the
Native Hospital to be fostered out (Derby Extra 13/03/2003). Despite the nuns' opposition, harsh punishments were meted out to anyone who attempted to escape, or who was considered to be involved in other misdemeanours (Jebb and Allbrook
2009). Aboriginal leprosy sufferers worked in the gardens at Bungarun, tended the livestock, cooked, cleaned and made traditional crafts for sale. Nuns taught them music, creative arts and held sporting competitions. An orchestra practiced at night to lift inmates' spirits, and people were encouraged to produce artefacts to keep their hands agile (St John of God Relationships exhibition 2009). Like many of the
Kimberley missions, Bungarun was a self-contained community supplying most of its own needs.
Following the bombing of Darwin in the Second World War, Bungarun was extended at Commonwealth expense to house 50 leprosy sufferers evacuated from the Channel
Island Leprosarium (NAA A659/1/1945/1/2887). After Broome too was bombed,
Bungarun was evacuated several times, and makeshift camps were set up in the bush.
While many non-Aboriginal people were evacuated from the region, Aboriginal people stayed in the Kimberley, and lepers in particular were unable to go south of the
Leper Line, which had been established by the 1905 Aborigines Act , and amended in
1936. The Leper Line was a geographical boundary which had originally restricted full blood Aboriginal people from moving south, and convicted labour from moving
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north. The line was in place until 1963, and aimed to stop the spread of the disease to the southern white population.
After the war, in 1947, leprosy became the responsibility of the state Health
Department (NAA A659/1/1945/1/2887). In 1948 the use of chains was outlawed
(Jebb and Allbrook 2009). The number of inmates at Bungarun peaked in 1951, following the development of antibiotics which made treatment increasingly effective.
As the destructiveness of the disease became clear it became known as the 'big sick', and many Aboriginal people chose to go to the leprosarium for treatment (Jebb and
Allbrook 2009). During the 1950s and 1960s, the Bungarun orchestra gave concerts to audiences from visiting passenger ships (Jebb and Allbrook 2009). The use of new drug therapies in the 1960s quickly made leprosy non-contagious once treated.
In the 1970s, a new building program extended and increased Bungarun's capacity.
This was arguably a response to a lack of alternative housing, welfare support, or medical services, which left Aboriginal residents unable to leave Bungarun. Many people, especially long term inmates, stayed on into the 1980s and considered
Bungarun their home. Bungarun was closed in 1986 (Jebb and Allbrook 2009).
The removal of so many people from across the Kimberley to Bungarun, often by force, resulted in families being separated and people disappearing from their country, sometimes never to return (Jebb and Allbrook 2009). Today the place continues to be extremely important to Kimberley Aboriginal people. Regular services and ceremonies are held at the cemetery, which remains a place of quiet reflection for former patients and their families (Heritage Council of Western Australia Register,
2980, 2010).
Bringing the Kimberley closer
While travel and communications over the long distances between the Kimberley and larger centres such as Perth were predominantly conducted by sea, in 1921 'Western
Australian Airways' (WAA) began operations, and quickly became an institution that would change the lives of those in the state's remote regions. The early airplanes could not transport passengers, but they carried the mail much more quickly than cars or trucks. Land transport in the Kimberley was hampered by poor roads – as late as the 1950s there was no road link at all to Darwin, and the Great Northern Highway travelling south was a rough dirt track (O'Byrne 2006). The introduction of regular air transport meant that communication that would previously have taken weeks could now be made in days.
The first time many people in southern Australia heard of the Kimberley was in 1929, when famed aviator Charles Kingsford Smith became stranded there while attempting to break the Australia–England flying record. Kingsford Smith became disoriented in bad weather, with low fuel. He managed to land the plane undamaged on a mudflat of the Glenelg River estuary. He and his crew hoped for a quick rescue: they were still able to receive radio transmissions, and so they knew their disappearance was receiving national attention. They heard reports of the efforts being made to find them; but were not able to send transmissions from the ground. On a number of occasions they saw rescue planes circling above, and then flying away.
By the time they were located they had used up their supplies and had resorted to
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eating snails and weeds. Their one source of water was rapidly drying up. Kingsford
Smith was determined to fly out and continue on to England. Albert Barunga, a
Worrorra man from Kunmunya mission, along with two others, was sent to assist the aviators. Barunga stayed for five days, and helped the crew to jack the aircraft's wheels out of the mud. On April 19, with additional fuel and the mud all dried up, the men were able to fly on to Derby. On their arrival they found that one of the planes sent to search for them had been lost, and its crew had perished in the Pilbara
(Australian Dictionary of Biography 1983).
The Second World War
Some of the racial anxiety that underpinned the White Australia policy was a result of
Australia's distance from Europe, and proximity to Asia, and this geography also shaped Australia's wartime experience. Japanese aggression during the Second World
War fuelled racial fears in Australia for a long time after. Following the bombing of
Pearl Harbour and the declaration of war against Japan in 1941, 500 Japanese inhabitants of Broome were classed as undesirable aliens and transported to internment camps in the southern states, as were the German Pallotine missionaries who administered the Catholic church and school (Tyler 1987). After Darwin was bombed on 19 February 1942, the War Cabinet ordered the evacuation of all nonessential 'whites' from the north-west of Australia. Chinese women and children were shipped to Perth, and other Asians and Aboriginal people remained in the Kimberley, with many sent to the mission at Beagle Bay.
The Kimberley played an important role in Australia's defence during the Second
World War, because of its strategic location, in particular its proximity to Koepang in
Timor (also referred to as Kupang and Kopang in some wartime documents). In late
1939, the RAAF began to develop a network of airfields around the Australian coast to help protect Australia's sea lanes. Existing airfields at Broome, Derby and
Wyndham were upgraded. Some of these airfields were used as advanced operational bases, and others were emergency landing grounds. In 1943 General Douglas
Macarthur, Commander in Chief of the South West Pacific Area, was in charge of the main allied advance to defeat the Japanese. The mainland and occupied islands of north-western Australia were crucial to the success of the air war proposed by
Macarthur: still more and larger airfields were required in northern Australia, within close striking range of the enemy (Beasy 1995).
At that time, the most northerly airstrip in Western Australian was next to the
Benedictine Mission (now Kalumburu), on a small rise less than a kilometre to the north-west. This was to be the site of Drysdale Airfield, which was constructed by
Australian airmen, with the assistance of mission inmates. On 9 March 1942, 55
RAAF personnel arrived in two ships at Mission Bay, and temporarily took over some of the Old Mission buildings. Around 100 tonnes of stores and equipment were disembarked, and a camp was set up on 27 March. The first recorded operation against the enemy undertaken from Drysdale was on 18 April, when 13 planes flew a night bombing raid on Koepang and Penfui.
Drysdale was the second most active operational airbase in north-western Australia during the Second World War. It supported an estimated minimum of 250 individual aircraft movements during its operations from 1942 to July 1944 (AHDB Kalumburu:
ID 100984). The Kalumburu Mission staff and occupants provided great support to
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the war effort in the region. In 1942 the mission helped rescue the stranded crew members of the ship Koolama and her cargo. Father Sanz, assisted by Aboriginal mission residents, moved 127 distressed people to Pago and Kalumburu.
After the fall of Singapore and the bombing of Darwin, the Broome airport runway was extended for military use. With the imminent takeover of Java by the Japanese in
1942, allied personnel and their families were ordered to be evacuated from Java, and
Dutch flying boats and American aircraft ferried refugees to Australia. Broome was a staging post for between 7,000 and 8,000 servicemen and evacuees from Java
(Edwards 1983).
In response to the threat of invasion by the Japanese, most of the luggers in Broome were either burned or requisitioned by the navy, and indentured Chinese, Malay and
Koepang men were signed on by the navy to sail luggers to Port Hedland. The remaining indentured workers were either sent to Melbourne for deportation or ordered to stay in Broome to repair the airfield landing strip (Sickert 2003).
On 3 March 1942, sixteen flying boats were moored in Roebuck Bay. Because of a shortage of accommodation in Broome, all of the passengers had to remain onboard
(Tyler 1987). When the Japanese raid began, the flying boats were an easy target.
Around 100 people were killed, including 50 Dutch refugees, mainly women and children, as well as 32 US servicemen and five air force members. All the flying boats anchored in Roebuck Bay and all the aircraft at the Broome airfield were destroyed, and the airfield itself took heavy damage (Tyler 1987; Sickert 2003; Prime 1992). Just over a fortnight later a second raid was made on Broome, but this time there was only one death (Tyler 1987; Edwards 1983). For the remainder of the war, Broome existed as little more than an army base for servicemen.
War casualties from enemy attack were significant in the west Kimberley, and not only in Broome. In 1942 and 1943, Broome, Derby, Wyndham, Drysdale and
Kalumburu all experienced Japanese bombing and strafing raids. The other site of significant casualties was the Kalumburu mission, adjacent to Drysdale airbase. On the morning of 27 September 1943, the mission was attacked by Japanese bombers.
Six people were killed, including the mission superintendent. The church, convent and workshop were severely damaged (AHDB Kalumburu: ID 100984).
As the war effort stepped up, a new northern base was needed; the runways at the
Drysdale Airfield could not support heavy bombers. Truscott Airbase was established on the Anjo Peninsula, 35 kilometres north-west of Drysdale. Raids were launched from Truscott by medium and heavy bombers against Borneo, Java, Timor and the
Celebes, where the remaining Japanese forces were located. From July 1944 to
October 1945, hundreds of missions were flown from Truscott by many of the Allied squadrons based in the Northern Territory. At the peak of operations, 1,500 Australian military personnel were stationed at Truscott. Some people died there, including the
12-person crew of a bomber which crashed on take off. The crew were initially buried at Truscott, but were later re-interred in the War Cemetery at Adelaide River, in the
Northern Territory. A small stone cairn commemorating the crash sits among the wreckage, and can still be seen today. At the end of the war the Truscott base was abandoned, and the site and its contents put up for sale at the post war disposals auctions.
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From 1943 to 1944, Noonkanbah was used as a RAAF staging base. Large petrol and bomb dumps were established in the station's vicinity. Aircraft would fly from Perth and land at Noonkanbah to be fuelled and armed, before flying out on bombing missions against the Japanese. As part of the RAAF defence system, a number of radar stations were established in the Kimberley to monitor the coastline.
Meteorological facilities were also provided at the new RAAF aerodromes, including at Truscott and Noonkanbah.
Unlike many other residents, Aboriginal people were not evacuated from the
Kimberley during the Second World War: they were needed in the region. Allied personnel relied on the assistance of Aboriginal people to help them traverse unfamiliar land and navigate dangerous, uncharted water. Albert Barunga, a Worrorra man who had earlier helped the stranded Kingsford Smith and his crew, guided
Australian naval vessels on coastal patrols in the region, as did Sam Woolagoodja and several others. Mission residents were engaged in a range of defence work, as were many Aboriginal stockmen who joined the Home Defence.
Army personnel used Liveringa Station as a base to prepare new recruits. Men were trained to use machine and mortar guns under fire, and undertook mock raids, which the Aboriginal locals excelled at. Using their knowledge of the land, 40 Aboriginal men travelled overland from Mt Anderson via Pea Hill and captured the whole base at
Noonkanbah in a mock raid. Nyikina Traditional Owner Ivan Watson reflected that 'it just goes to show if you know the place where you're operating you have a much better chance of defeating an opposition that doesn't know those things' (Ivan Watson quoted in Marshall 1988). Aboriginal men and servicemen also competed in boxing and shooting competitions (Marshall 1988).
Aboriginal people's skills were recognised and valued by Australian and Allied defence force personnel. As the ranking system in the Home Defence was associated with skills, and Aboriginal knowledge was highly valued, Aboriginal men sometimes outranked their European bosses. At Mt Anderson station, for instance, an Aboriginal stockman was ranked above the station manager (Marshall 1988). Kimberley
Aboriginal men were seen as potential reinforcements for the infantry, light horsemen, and tank squadrons, but they were not sent overseas. They provided essential support to the Australian and allied forces, including by keeping pastoral stations running, and ensuring that Defence personnel stationed in the Kimberley had a reliable supply of meat (Ivan Watson cited in Marshall 1988).
Post-war modernization and development
While pastoral stations continued to operate during the war, after the bombing of
Darwin and Broome in 1942, all pearling activity ceased in the Kimberley. Japanese workers and other resident aliens were interned, and most white residents evacuated.
Six luggers resumed operations in 1946, but most of the pearling fleet had been either requisitioned or destroyed. Few pearlers could afford to purchase new luggers and equipment. Given the anti-Japanese feeling at the time, at first only non-Japanese workers were employed. It was not until 1953 that Japanese divers and tenders were invited back.
In the second half of the twentieth century, the market for pearl shell declined
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markedly in the face of competition from plastic buttons (Sickert 2003). In 1949 a major and much-needed breakthrough in the industry occurred. With Japanese advice, the CSIRO established a cultured pearl station in the Torres Strait. Researchers demonstrated that, whereas pearls took four years to mature in the smaller Japanese oyster, in the large Pinctata maxima oysters endemic to northern Australian waters, cultured pearls would mature in just two years (Edwards 1983). Seven years later,
Australia's first pearl farm was established at Kuri Bay north of Derby (Bach 1955;
Edwards 1983). In the 1960s, pearl farms were established near Exmouth and at
Cygnet Bay between Broome and Derby. Many of the farms that are still well known in the industry today were established in the 1960s and 1970s. Eighty Mile Beach, south of Broome, is now a significant pearling area.
In the years following the Second World War, changes in technology and infrastructure also affected the Kimberley pastoral industry. Kimberley pastoralists sought to develop the local beef export industry by improving infrastructure. Three brothers – Gordon, Douglas and Keith Blythe – who owned and operated several pastoral leases in the east Kimberley, constructed a meatworks including an abattoir, carcass freezing facilities and an aerodrome at the remote Glenroy Station on the
Mount House lease, about 100 kilometres east of Imintji Aboriginal Community, near
Derby. Beef cattle were brought in from a 160 kilometre radius to be slaughtered, quartered, boned and chilled overnight, and the following day air shipments were made to the port of Wyndham – a 290 kilometres, 75 minute flight. The beef was frozen at Wyndham, and shipped from there to the United Kingdom. The plant had a capacity of 300 head of cattle per week, and in an average season (from May to
September) would process around 4,000 cattle. During its operation from 1949 to
1965, the Air Beef Scheme boosted the economic development of Wyndham and
Derby, and strengthened the Kimberley pastoral industry. It was hoped that the scheme would spawn a network of inland abattoirs throughout northern Australia, however this did not eventuate; plans for a similar facility at Fitzroy Crossing came to nothing.
In 1949 the Commonwealth Government passed the State Grants (Encouragement of
Beef Production) Act which provided funding for the construction of roads and other infrastructure to support the beef industry. It was accepted by that time that, in the long term, air freighting was not going to be economic. By 1953, the southern section of the Gibb River Road to Derby was completed and the first live cattle were trucked from the east Kimberley. The Derby Meat Company was established in 1959, and from then on, shipments were made to the closer destination of Derby. The construction of the road and the completion of slaughtering facilities in Derby in 1965 signalled the demise of the Air Beef Scheme, and the abattoir was closed later that year.
It was not only infrastructure for the pastoral industry which received increasing
Commonwealth government support at this time. From the 1960s, station bosses were the recipients of a range of Aboriginal welfare payments that were credited directly to the station store, which they deducted for their Aboriginal workers' living costs – a system that was open to abuse (Kolig 1987; Smith 2000). These payments contributed to the profits of the station, but Aboriginal people rarely received anything more than a small amount of pocket money.
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In 1965, award wages were granted to Aboriginal pastoral workers who were members of the Australian Workers Union. The Kimberley, however, was exempt from the award on the ground that workers there were mostly 'full bloods', without the capacity to manage money, and that the introduction of an award would likely result in mass dismissal (Jebb 2002; Sharp and Tatz 1966). Equal wages regulations were not applied in the Kimberley until 1972, when legislation brought the whole of
Western Australia into line with the Commonwealth.
In the period following the 1967 referendum, the majority of Kimberley missions were closed either by the relevant government revoking the reserve, or the missionary body leaving for a variety of reasons. Titles were often handed over to Aboriginal communities to run via governing bodies such as Community Councils. Many contemporary Aboriginal people are still affiliated with a range of churches and missions and some are involved in the management of these sites.
Equal wages, combined with other factors including government payments and new work practices in the pastoral industry, led to an exodus of Aboriginal people from stations into towns in the late 1960s and early 1970s. But many who left regarded their departure as temporary – as 'waiting' to get their country back rather than being
'stuck' on a town reserve (Jebb 2002). For some people the wait was not long. In 1972 the Commonwealth Government purchased the remote Panter Downs station lease on behalf of the Mowanjum community who renamed the station 'Pantijan'. Pantijan became a major stock and horse training station for young Worrorra and Ngarinyin people, and was also used as a camp to 'dry out' people with alcohol problems (KLC
2004).
In the same year, the Commonwealth Government also overturned the White
Australia policy and introduced universal visa and citizenship systems. This rejection of the longstanding policy was further reinforced by the enactment of the Racial
Discrimination Act 1975 (Tavan 2005). The exemption of Asian labourers in the pearling industry from the White Australia policy appears not to have played any part in the policy's gradual dismantling. Its cessation reflected changing opinions in
Australia and internationally, and was influenced by a wide range of factors. These included the diminution of the British Empire following the Second World War, lobbying by Australia's Asian neighbours, and greater contact between many
Australian citizens and Asian students during the 1950s. Moral concerns were raised by church and other groups in Australia over injustices relating to Asian war brides.
Individual cases relating to migration, deportation and citizenship also had an influence, as did the movement for Aboriginal rights, the radicalisation of young people during the Vietnam War, and the need to seek Asian markets after the United
Kingdom joined the European Economic Community in 1971. The eventual end of the policy in 1972 was the result of a complex intermingling of international politics, economic transitions, and changes in individual perceptions (Tavan 2005).
Noonkanbah
In 1976, Noonkanbah station lease was purchased by the Commonwealth Government and handed to the Yungngora Aboriginal Association. Within two years of
Noonkanbah's return to Aboriginal people, 497 resource exploration claims held by about thirty companies or prospectors, covering a total of nearly 60,000 hectares
(about 35 per cent of the station area) had been filed (Allbrook 2009). In 1978, the
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Yungngora community learned that Amax, a North American resource company, was intending to drill an exploration well on the station in the vicinity of place called Pea
Hill ( Umpampurru ) '…a powerful malaji (increase site) centre and the home of a great woman spirit and associated malaji sites…linked by Dreaming tracks up to ten kilometres west…' (Hawke and Gallagher 1989; Ritter 2002). The Yungngora offered to show Amax alternative sites, but these were refused by the company. The state government intervened in an attempt to force the community to define an acceptable site for drilling. The Western Australian Premier, Sir Charles Court, was determined to open up the Kimberley to resource development and rejected advice by the WA
Museum (which administered the WA Heritage Act 1972 ) not to drill.
Consequentially the State grated a license to Amax. This caused the community to seek the intervention of the Commonwealth Government. They also locked the gates and blockaded the access road to the station. The first direct confrontation occurred between the company, backed by the state government, and the community and its supporters at the station gates. The issue was quickly propelled onto the front pages and editorial columns of many of the country's newspapers (Allbrook 2009).
The most publicised act in the dispute occurred in August 1980 when a non-union, strike breaking convoy transported drilling equipment 2,240 kilometres from Perth to
Noonkanbah. Backed by a large police presence, the forty-nine truck convoy broke through a number of blockades, and arrests were made along the route. Just north of
Port Hedland a bridge was blocked by 160 local Aboriginal people, and near Broome
200 protesters greeted the convoy. At Noonkanbah, 60 men set up a blockade at
Mickey's Pool, on the access road into the station. After a long overnight vigil, police finally cleared the blockade. In total fifty-five people were arrested by police, including members of the Aboriginal community, church leaders and mining union representatives (Howitt 1980; O'Lincoln 1993; Ritter 2002; Allbrook 2009). Although the drilling crew got through the blockades onto the station, they were under pressure from the ACTU, and voted not to operate the rig (O'Lincoln 1993; Gillespie 2009).
The Western Australian Government transferred the drilling rights to a 'two dollar shelf company', thus allowing a non-unionised drill crew to sink the exploration well.
No oil was found. For Aboriginal people this outcome was to be expected because, as one senior Aboriginal man who participated in the Noonkanbah struggle noted, the local maparn – a clever, ritually powerful individual – had the power to relocate the fat, that is, the oil of the Dreamtime Goanna (Dixon 1990 cited in Allbrook 2009).
Allbrook invites comparisons of Noonkanbah with the Eureka Stockade of 1854, that other infamous episode in Australian history in which a section of society stood up to what was widely perceived to be the unjust use of power by an Australian
Government (Allbrook 2009). Like Eureka, the protesters at Noonkanbah gained widespread public support for their stand. Like Eureka, the protest at Noonkanbah was put down by force and, like Eureka, although the State won the battle, the episode was significant in ushering in changes to the law and to the way resource extraction business was henceforth to be carried out across Australia.
Noonkanbah continues to have powerful meaning for Aboriginal people throughout the Kimberley, many of whom view the dispute as the genesis of the pan-Kimberley political movement. It is seen as ultimately having spawned Aboriginal organisations that are now central to the articulation of the cultural, political and social aspirations of Kimberley Aboriginal people. The establishment of the Kimberley Land Council,
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in May 1978, led directly to the formation of the Kimberley Language Resource
Centre (1984), the Kimberley Aboriginal Law and Culture Centre (1984), and
Magabala Books (1987).
The Noonkanbah dispute is one in a series of important steps in the national struggle of Aboriginal people to have their rights to practice traditional law and culture recognised. In 2007, the determination of native title in favour of the Yungngora people over the Noonkanbah pastoral lease conferred on them many of the rights they had sought nearly thirty years before.
The Kimberley today
In 2010, many Aboriginal people in the Kimberley continue to identify as 'station people'. Pastoral leases cover 50 per cent of the region, and well over a quarter of these leases are Aboriginal-owned and managed (Australian Natural Resources Atlas
Kimberley Profile 2009). The Bunuba people, Traditional Owners of Leopold Downs and Fairfield Stations near Fitzroy Crossing, have a vision for their land which has been the guiding principle in all that they do: 'To develop a sustainable and prosperous cattle business that respects Bunuba culture and protects the environment for all Bunuba People to enjoy now and in the future'. The cattle herd on these two properties has grown to nearly 20,000 head. The Bunuba people are fiercely independent and proud of their success in managing their cattle stations, without government assistance, in the commercial world (McCord 2010). One of the main differences between Aboriginal-run stations and traditional pastoral stations is that on many Aboriginal-run stations there are communities of more than 200 people who choose to live on the stations because they regard them as their traditional homelands
(Schultz 1999).
The cattle grazing industry is today the main user and manager of land in the
Kimberley savanna country, as it has been since the early twentieth century. Both
Indigenous and non-Indigenous pastoral owners and managers are proud of their connections to a heritage of struggle and perseverance under difficult conditions.
They continue to live and work in an environment that is very isolated from the population centres where most Australians live and work.
A large area of the west Kimberley is recognised for its near-pristine condition. In comparison with south-eastern Australia, much of its landscape and ecology is relatively intact (ANRA 2009). In the central Kimberley, land that was once a pastoral lease is now one of Australia's largest non-government protected areas. Mornington
Sanctuary, purchased and managed by the Australian Wildlife Conservancy, covers more than 3,000 square kilometres, including the upper catchment of the Fitzroy river, and sections of the rugged King Leopold Ranges. Within its bounds there are a range of ecosystems associated with northern Australia's tropical savanna, including open eucalypt woodlands, savanna grasslands, rocky, spinifex-clad ranges, and fireprotected wet gullies. As well as being managed for conservation values, the site is the focus of comprehensive monitoring and research programs, providing a rare opportunity to conduct large-scale, long-term research on critical environmental issues that are important across the northern tropical savanna, such as fire management and the impacts of cattle grazing on flora and fauna (AWC 2010).
Similar fire management programs are also run by Traditional Owner ranger groups throughout the Kimberley, utilising traditional and western scientific knowledge to
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manage and reduce the impact of wild fires .
The Kimberley is one of Australia's least densely populated regions, with around
40,000 people living in an area almost twice the size of Victoria (the population of
Victoria is 5,000,000), and most of them in the towns of Broome, Kununurra and
Derby. Between 1996 and 2006, the Kimberley (including all four local council shires) had one of the fastest growth rates of any region in Western Australia, and the population is expected to more than double by the year 2031. About three quarters of
Kimberley residents are based in three major centres: Broome, Kununurra and Derby.
About half the residents of the Kimberley identify as being Aboriginal. The population is relatively young, with a median age of 30, compared to the Western
Australian median of 36. The median age of the Indigenous population of the
Kimberley is only 22 (ANRA 2009; KDC 2008).
A significant addition to these numbers are those people who do not live permanently in the Kimberley, but visit the region as tourists. Tourism WA estimated that, between
2005 and 2007, an average of 346,600 people visited the Kimberley each year, staying a total of 2,808,300 nights and spending $257 million. These figures are expected to increase in the coming years (WA Tourism cited in KDC 2008). While tourism offers many benefits to the region, a rapid increase in visitor numbers also poses challenges to land managers and Traditional Owners. Many places that tourists are attracted to for their aesthetic or 'wilderness' qualities are also important sites for Aboriginal people, and are connected to powerful creation beings and significant stories. As a senior Wunambal Gaambera Traditional Owner whose country includes Punamii– unpuu (Mitchell Falls), said:
* * * *
'[W]e want (tourists) to understand how we want to manage that land, and they have to respect. They have to respect what we say, even if it's a bit hard for them to understand. The only thing we do not want in this Wunambal country is disrespect' (a quote taken from Wunambal Gaambera Aboriginal Corporation 2001).
* * * *
Traditional Owners want visitors to know how they should behave on country, and which places or actions should be avoided. Throughout the Kimberley, Traditional
Owners are keen to have a greater involvement in the management of their country.
While the Kimberley has not yet been acknowledged for its Indigenous aesthetic values, Kimberley Aboriginal people possess their own distinctive ideas about what constitutes 'beautiful' or 'healthy' country. In the words of a senior Warawa man , 'a beautiful country is an occupied country, where the right people tell the story and the right story comes out' (KLC 2010).
From its inception in the second half of the nineteenth century until the cultured pearl industry of the late twentieth century, pearling has forged a unique multicultural community in Broome. This fusion of cultures is manifested in the architecture, maritime traditions, community infrastructure and garden landscape of the town
(Sickert 2003; Akerman et al. 2010). Despite attempts to keep people separated,
Broome people have mixed and shared their lives and culture. One long-term resident claims, 'I'm proud to be a Broome person…against adversities, we've made it.' And speaking of other families that faced adversity: 'they're still got their grace…it's all
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part of absorbing these cultures' (Hamaguchi 2006). A large mixed-race population of
Asian-Aboriginal descendants identify with Broome as their home and a significant part of their heritage. This distinct population has become a unique characteristic of
Broome today (Sickert 2003; Zucker 2005). Tourists are drawn to Broome in part because of this unique character, and for the town's remarkable pearling heritage.
Broome's multicultural heritage is now celebrated through the annual Shinju Matsuri , or Pearl Festival. Shinju Matsuri is an amalgamation of traditions and festivals of the
Japanese, Chinese and Malaysian communities of Broome. The traditional festivals of these communities – the Chinese Hung Seng, Japanese O'Bon and the Malaysian
Mederka – were practised during the pearling days exclusively by these communities.
The traditional festivals are now open to the public through Shinju Matsuri (Kaino,
2005).
For the first 20 years of its existence, Shinju Matsuri appealed to the tourist public by representing an ideal multicultural community, showing an ethnically diverse community living in racial harmony. It has evolved since then and, for a period while being chaired by an Aboriginal man of Asian descent, was annually dedicated to each ethnic group resident in Broome. While the festival incorporates some commercial elements to attract tourists, it also retains historic characteristics which are valued by the individual cultural communities within Broome. It has been claimed that the festival has 'shaped a strong sense of community and the desire of its townspeople – new and old – to both re-interpret and retain aspects of Broome's traditional culture'
(Kaino 2005).
The pearling industry continues to be important to the Kimberley. There are four pearling zones in the north-west of Western Australia, of which zone three (the largest) and the western half of zone four stretch across coastal areas of the west
Kimberley, although the main fishing areas now lie to the region's south. The industry employs around 500 people, including fishing vessel crew and pearl farm staff (Hart and Murphy 2007). By 1997, Western Australia produced around 1,575 kilograms of cultured pearls each year, with an estimated value of $200 million (Muller 1997). The state is the source of over 90 per cent of Australia's total cultured pearl production
(Muller 2009; Muller 1997). In 2006 and 2007 there were 17 pearling licensees in
Western Australia diving for wild, hatchery-reared and pearl-farmed shells (Hart and
Murphy 2007). Pearl shell carving is an Aboriginal tradition shared by Traditional
Owners across the Kimberley and in other parts of Australia . Pearl shell carving and incising is also a popular form of Aboriginal art that is internationally well-known
(Akerman et al. 2010). Artist Aubrey Tigan says:
* * * *
'When I do riji I feel good and strong; when I carve the old designs that I saw my father making I feel connected to my father and grandfather and to my country. Then they come to me in dreams and tell me what to do; what to carve.
'I want to go back to my country, back to the source, back to the islands where my grandfather comes from. I want to record all the stories that I know for my children. I want them to be able to have the same inspiration, the same connection. I want to show my children so they can learn how to feel strong like I do. It is for them that I want to do this' (quoted in Akerman et al. 2010).
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* * * *
One way that Kimberley Aboriginal people are able to look after their country is through the Kimberley Ranger Initiative, facilitated by the Kimberley Land Council through the Working on Country Program. This initiative employs Aboriginal men and women while equipping them with TAFE qualifications in Conservation and
Land Management. More than 50 rangers are employed in six fulltime ranger groups:
Bardi Jawi, Wunggurr, Uunguu, Paruku IPA, Nyikina Mangala and Karajarri.
Emerging groups include the Kija, Balanggarra, Dambimangarri, Goonyiandi, Nyul
Nyul and Ngurrara Warlu Jilaja Jumu rangers.
The work undertaken by these ranger groups is guided by elders in the community.
Rangers complete a range of tasks including the protection of cultural sites, weeding, wildlife and biodiversity monitoring, burning, conducting research, monitoring the health of rivers and waterways, and sampling fish. Traditional knowledge about how to care for country is passed down from generation to generation to ensure culture remains alive. Rangers learn how to use a combination of cultural and traditional knowledge and western technologies (KLC 2010).
During the decades that they were operating in the Kimberley, missions were responsible for removing three to four generations of Aboriginal children from their families and from their country. Many children were either taken under false pretences or forcibly removed. There are heart wrenching stories of Aboriginal children being taken away from their parents, and some of these children never saw their loved ones again. The effects of this separation are still being felt today, as concluded in the Bringing them Home report: 'The evidence clearly establishes that families and whole communities suffered grievously upon the forcible removal of their children' (HREOC 1997).
A positive legacy of the missions is that Aboriginal people adapted in a variety of ways to the constraints imposed upon them. Aboriginal people from all over the
Kimberley today have access to the stories and cultural heritage of others through relationships and cultural rights that were initially formed when they were living in missions (Esther Bevan pers. comm. 24-25 May 2010).
Today, former residents are involved in the management of many missions such as
Beagle Bay, and 'a lot of the older ones are mighty proud of what they have achieved in transforming the once mission-run institution into a well managed Aboriginal community' (Moncrief, Bringing them home goes to Beagle Bay, Bringing them
Home Oral History Project, NLA website accessed 15/9/09). Another former mission,
Mowanjum, has '…a thriving fine art industry… most prominently in the dances and the art that are seen as a way to build independence and autonomy as well as offering a means to recreate traditional culture and pass it onto younger generations' (Jebb
2008).
Throughout the Kimberley, the landscape contains layers of the past that shaped it, recent and ancient, tangible and intangible. At Mount Hart, which was run as a cattle station until the late 1980s, the ruins of early homesteads, including the first station established 'over the ranges' in 1913, provide a link to the early pastoral history of the region. There is a boab tree on the property carved by European explorer, Frank
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Hann. The remains of the old Gibb River Road, constructed in the early 1900s, also runs through the property: and like a lot of Kimberley infrastructure, for the road to be built, rock had to be carted and cleared by hand.
The Kimberley is a remarkable place, and it is valued by many different people for different reasons. There are a multitude of stories about the region's history, reflecting a wide variety of perspectives and experiences, and only some of these stories have been told here. There is also much that is not yet known about its geology, its plants and animals, rivers and coastline. While there is much still to be learned, National
Heritage listing provides recognition of the west Kimberley's outstanding natural,
Indigenous and historic heritage values.
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Condition Report
The west Kimberley has been subject to a range of land uses and environmental conditions over time, some of which have had varying effects on the values. Some areas are relatively inaccessible and remain virtually untouched by modern development.
Land use continues to vary widely across the place. As a result the west Kimberley constitutes a patchwork of developed and natural environments in a range of conditions.
The place is managed by a number of organisations and private landholders including
Western Australian Government agencies, Commonwealth agencies, Indigenous community groups and Native Title holders, local councils, pastoral lease holders and others. There are also a number of both active and pending mineral exploration and development tenements and petroleum exploration permits within the place.
Threats to the values of the west Kimberley include (but are not limited to) uncontrolled fire, feral animal and plant invasion, mineral and petroleum developments, increased tourism activity and global climate change events.
Comparative Analysis
Method
The methods used in the following analysis include available literature and expert opinion, additional information on heritage values received during consultation and the following resources:
Historic Values: Historic heritage values of the west Kimberley are addressed in a national context through analyses using historic thematic studies and a thematic literature review relating to the west Kimberley. Aesthetic heritage values are assessed in a national context with reference to reports commissioned from experts in aesthetic heritage assessments. These sources are supplemented with published and unpublished literature.
Indigenous Values : Indigenous heritage values of the west Kimberley are addressed in a national context with reference to reports commissioned from experts in history, anthropology and archaeology. Departmental officers have been working with the
Kimberley Land Council to seek input from Kimberley Traditional Owners (TO) on the stories and associated places within the study boundary that might have outstanding heritage value to the nation.
Natural Values: Natural biological heritage values of the west Kimberley are addressed in a national context through analyses using the Australian Natural Heritage
Assessment Tool (ANHAT) and with reference to reports commissioned from experts. The geological heritage values are assessed in a national context with reference to reports commissioned from experts in geology and palaeontology. These sources are supplemented with published and unpublished literature.
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CRITERION (a) – The place has outstanding heritage value because of the place's
importance in the course, or pattern of Australia's natural or cultural history.
ASSEMBLING A CONTINENT
The King Leopold orogen represents the remnants of the three major orogenic or
'mountain building' events (orogenies) that affected the Kimberley from 1870 to 560
Ma (million years ago), exposed on Yampi Peninsula, and in the Fitzroy uplands province which includes the King Leopold Ranges (as defined by Maher and Copp
2009). A product of plate tectonic activity, orogenies are time constrained and associated with distinctive structures and lithology, including mountain ranges.
'Orogenic belts' or orogens are their legacy in the landscape. These orogenic belts can be mountain ranges like the Andes or the Appalchians, but they can also be eroded away, recognisable only by their structural and lithological footprint. Old orogenic activity may be represented by the exhumed core of ancient mountains – intruded granites or metamorphic rocks often uplifted from several kilometres below the surface (Maher and Copp 2009; Stanley 1999). There is little consensus among geologists on plate tectonic activity in the early Earth. Therefore rocks from the period from 2,700 Ma to about 700 Ma, such as those encompassed by the King
Leopold orogen, are very important in understanding the timing and nature of modern plate tectonics (Witze 2006; Stanley 1999).
Collisional orogenies like those represented in the King Leopold orogen occur when the movement of tectonic plates causes continental plates to collide. The events of these three Proterozoic orogenies are preserved and particularly well displayed in the spectacularly folded Proterozoic quartzites and sandstones of Yampi Peninsula and the granite domes, gneiss hills and schist ridges of the Fitzroy uplands province. The rocks of the King Leopold orogen provide strong evidence of Palaeoproterozoic plate tectonic activity, at a period prior to the formation of the Neoproterozoic supercontinent Rodinia (which preceded the Greater Gondwana and Pangean supercontinents of the late Palaeozoic and early Mesozoic eras). This early collision event is known as the Hooper orogeny. The King Leopold orogen also preserves rocks from the Yampi and King Leopold orogenies that occurred later in the Proterozoic eon and record events associated with the current Kimberley topography (Maher and
Copp 2009; Maher and Copp 2010).
Other Proterozoic collisional orogens are preserved elsewhere in the North Australian and West Australian cratons. Of those associated with the West Australian craton the
Albany–Fraser orogen is more restricted in its timing than the King Leopold orogen, and along with the Pinjarra and Paterson orogens is poorly exposed in outcrop. As a result, these orogens are also little studied. The Capricorn orogen represents four orogenic events from 2,200–1,620 Ma, associated with ocean closure and so tells a different story to that of the King Leopold orogen which is closely associated with the
Meso to Neoproterozoic formation of Rodinia. Of the Proterozoic collisional orogens associated with the North Australian craton, the most significant are the Halls Creek and Pine Creek orogens. The Pine Creek orogen contains rocks from events dated from 1,863–1,780 Ma, making it more restricted in time than the King Leopold orogen. The Halls Creek orogen spans the period from 1,870–300 Ma, including the orogenies recorded in the King Leopold orogen as well as two more, the 1,850–1,840
Ma Halls Creek orogeny and the 300 Ma Alice Springs orogeny. However, the Halls
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Creek orogen is located further inland than sections of the King Leopold orogen. As a result, the outcrops of this orogen are generally poorer and the structures harder to see and interpret on the ground (Maher and Copp 2010; Patrick Maher pers. comm.
2009).
There is evidence of much older orogenies preserved in Australian rocks. However,
During the Archaean, Earth was much hotter than present. At the beginning of the
Palaeoproterozoic, about 2,300 Ma, the deep Earth was still about twice as hot as in the later Phanerozoic, and plate tectonic mechanisms did not function as currently understood, if at all, so the rocks of Archaean are not referable to modern processes.
Extensive deposits of Proterozoic age, like the King Leopold orogen, document ancient mountain building events strikingly similar to those at collisional boundaries today (Stanley 1999; Iain Copp pers. comm. 2009; Maher and Copp 2010).
Other important Australian orogenic belts are younger than the King Leopold orogeny, and include the remains of the Delamerian orogeny in South Australia, the rocks of the Lachlan fold belt in Victoria and New South Wales, and ongoing uplift in the eastern Australian highlands. The Delamerian orogeny occurred in the early
Palaeozoic era, when a huge mountain range spanned southern Australia and
Antarctica which were then joined as part of Greater Gondwana (Giesecke 1999). The rocks of the Palaeozoic Lachlan orogen occur in a 700 kilometre wide belt of Victoria and New South Wales, extending into Tasmania, the Australian Capital Territory and
Queensland. The Delamerian and Lachlan orogens are adjacent and follow the
Precambrian margin of eastern Australia. They are considerably younger than the rocks of the King Leopold orogen, revealing much about the assembling of the eastern seaboard of Australia during the last 500 million years, while the King Leopold orogen tells a different story altogether: one that is much older, spans a greater time period and describes the formation of a much earlier 'Australia', at a period when modern plate tectonic processes were beginning to operate (Maher and Copp 2010;
Witze 2006).
Uplift in eastern Australia is ongoing. The eastern Australian highlands demonstrate current processes in an active orogenic belt. However, the remnants of the King
Leopold orogen are eroded, and revealed in dramatic coastal exposures, so as to help explain much more about the events occurring deeper in the crust, which are only accessible otherwise to geologists through seismic profiles and modelling (Maher and
Copp 2010).
The King Leopold orogen displays a significant geological record of past orogenic events which led to the Proterozoic assembly of Rodinia, representing key tectonic events in the evolution of the Australian continent and a major stage of Earth's history. This record is displayed in significant fault and fold structures in rocks exposed along the coast of Yampi Peninsula, in the King Leopold Ranges and the
Fitzroy Uplands. These geological features highlight the powerful tectonic forces and the physical geological structures formed during orogenic processes (Maher and Copp
2010).
The King Leopold orogen of the west Kimberley has outstanding heritage value to the nation under criterion (a) for recording pre-Rodinian and Proterozoic plate tectonic processes, key events in the evolution of the Australian continent.
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ECOLOGY, BIOGEOGRAPHY AND EVOLUTION
The Devonian reef complexes preserved in the Oscar, Napier, Emmanuel and Pillara ranges show continuous deposition from 390 million years ago (the Givetian stage of the middle Devonian period) to 370 million years ago (the Famennian stage of the late
Devonian) (Playford 1980; Tyler 2000). The extent and duration of this deposit, as well as the time period it represents is unique on this continent. It spans the Frasnian-
Famennian mass extinction and is among only four sites in the world where there is evidence that reef environments survived this event, although the major reef-building organisms changed (Wood 2002). Natural sections through the reef occur in several places, revealing the reef structure in spectacular cross section: the most remarkable are Windjana and Geikie Gorges, through which run the Lennard and Fitzroy rivers
(Playford et al. 2009).
The Devonian was the largest pre-Holocene reef-building period; Devonian reefs are common throughout the world and in Australia. However, the majority of these reefs disappear from the record at the Frasnian-Famennian boundary, 375 million years ago. This coincides with a mass extinction in which 57 per cent of genera were lost worldwide, making this as significant a biological event as the better known
Cretaceous–Tertiary extinction that brought the 'Age of Dinosaurs' to a close
(Sepkoski 1996 quoted in Wood 2000). The exposed Kimberley Devonian reef complexes are relatively undisturbed by burial, taphonomic or tectonic processes and offer an in situ sequence through this time (Playford et al. 2009). This sequence demonstrates how reef communities reacted to climate and sea level changes at the
Frasnian-Famennian boundary (Playford and Lowry 1966; Playford 1980).
Another outcrop of the same Devonian reef occurs in the Ningbing range, indicating the extraordinary geographical extent of this reef complex at times, but this outcrop is significantly smaller than those of the west Kimberley and much less well studied.
Other areas in Australia that preserve significant Devonian reef assemblages are
Buchan, in Victoria, and Taemas and Wee Jasper, in New South Wales. These outcrops date from the Early Devonian, preserving reefs that are tens of millions of years older than the Kimberley reefs, and do not span a global mass extinction event
(Basden et al. 2000). The most fossiliferous outcrops at Buchan have been removed through mining (Inan et al. 1992). Wee Jasper and Taemas in New South Wales preserve the Early Devonian reef limestones of the Murrumbidgee Group. The outcrops at Taemas are equivalent in age to the Buchan group, while those at Wee
Jasper continue for a few million years longer (Basden et al. 2000). Both the
Murrumbidgee and Buchan groups have been deformed through tectonic movement, folded by the middle Devonian Tabberabberan orogeny and often subject to extensive dolomitisation (Yeates 2001). Neither of these formed at the right time to provide any evidence relating to the Frasnian-Famennian extinction or any other recognised significant extinction events.
The Devonian Reef sequence preserved in the Kimberley region is a continuous record from the Frasnian to the Famennian stage of the Late Devonian. Famennian reefs are rare throughout the world and none are present elsewhere in Australia. In addition, valleys that run through the reef at Windjana and Geike Gorges provide
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sections that give palaeontologists and geologists a unique window on this sequence.
The area has been subject to little significant tectonic deformation or dolomitisation
(Playford et al. 2009), which is unusual in such ancient rocks and also distinguishes it from Early Devonian reef deposits in South-eastern Australia such as Buchan and
Wee Jasper/Taemas.
The Devonian Reef of the Kimberley has outstanding heritage value to the nation under criterion (a) because it is a continuous record of 20 million years of reef deposition and shows the response of a Late Devonian reef complex to a mass extinction event.
The Gogo fossil sites have produced the most complete Devonian tetrapodomorph fish specimen yet discovered, Gogonasus andrewsae (Long et al. 2006; Holland and Long
2009). This specimen provides important information about the transition from fish to tetrapods, the first terrestrial vertebrates (and as such, early ancestors of humans)
(Long et al. 2006). The completeness of the fish preserved at Gogo has meant that many specimens preserve features not seen on fish preserved elsewhere, for example,
Gogonasus is the only known Devonian fish that shows a complete pectoral limb
(Long et al. 2006). Preservation of delicate, tiny bones has shown the presence of embryos in some of the fish fossils here, while others have revealed anatomical details that provide the earliest evidence of internal fertilization and sexual dimorphism within vertebrates (Long et al. 2008; Long et al. 2009; Ahlberg et al. 2009).
Furthermore, the Gogo fossil localities show extraordinary diversity, with around 50 species so far identified, from the three living classes of fish, including sarcopterygians (which includes lobe finned fish and is ancestral to all tetrapods), actinopterygians (the class of ray finned, or bony fish, represented in living groups by the teleosts, the most common type of modern fish) and chondrichthyans (the class of cartilaginous fish, which includes sharks and rays), as well as placoderms (a class of armoured fish which became extinct at the end of the Devonian period) (Long 2006;
Siversson 2006). For these reasons, Gogo is acknowledged as one of the world's most important early vertebrate fossil localities.
Australia has several sites important to the story of vertebrate evolution. The National
Heritage listed Ediacara fossil site at Nilpena in South Australia contains the earliest known metazoans (animals) and chordates (vertebrate ancestors) with a global distribution. The World and National Heritage listed Australian Fossil Mammal Sites
(Riversleigh in Queensland and Naracoorte Caves in South Australia) preserve
Tertiary faunas, important for understanding the development of the unique
Australian mammals. Gogo is an important link between these two snapshots of the development of Australian animals as it preserves animals that exemplify the fish– amphibian transition, species which had worldwide distribution and species which were endemic to the Gondwanan supercontinent. It is therefore an important chapter in the story of vertebrate evolution in Australia.
The story of early vertebrates in Australia is also told by the Devonian fish fossil site of Wee Jasper, which is similar to Gogo in quality of preservation but has not yet produced fossils as complete in fine details. Australia's oldest tetrapod fossil,
Metaxygnathus denticulus , comes from the Cloghnan Shales near Forbes in New
South Wales (Campbell and Bell 1977). However this species is described from a single jaw of late Devonian age and the site has not produced any more faunal fossils
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of note. More tetrapod species are found at Ducabrook, in Queensland, however these younger remains are isolated, fragmentary bones and are Carboniferous in age
(Thulborn et al. 1996). Some track sites preserve footprints ascribed to tetrapods, the most impressive of which is the Devonian Genoa River site in Victoria; however these do not preserve body fossils of the trackmakers (Clack, 1997). None of these sites, except perhaps Wee Jasper, can compete with Gogo in the diversity and preservation of its fauna and Wee Jasper does not yet provide the fine resolution or diversity of early tetrapodomorph features. While Gogo does not contain true tetrapods, it preserves fish that are ancestral to this group and clarifies the anatomical transitions that took place at the base of this radiation.
The Gogo fossil sites have outstanding heritage value to the nation under criterion (a) for important transitional fossils that document the evolution of
early tetrapodomorph fish.
CONTACT, CHANGE AND CONTINUITY
The biological significance of the west Kimberley
The west Kimberley has nationally important areas of vertebrate species richness and endemism, particularly in the rivers of the north and west, along the northern
Kimberley coast and islands, and at Roebuck Bay. These will be discussed below in detail.
These and other places in the region also provide important 'ecosystem services' as biological refugia.
This report considers refugia broadly, in terms of the ecosystem service they provide, adopting the three categories identified by Morton and colleagues (1995): evolutionary; seasonal or 'ecological' (Morton et al. 1995); changes associated with the presence or absence of particular predators or competitors.
Refugia of the west Kimberley provide habitat for numbers of endemic species, isolated populations or species at the limits of their ranges in many important taxa.
They provide seasonal refuges, refuge from introduced species and human activities, and refuge over geological timescales. These refugial environments include mangroves, vine thickets, archipelagos and peninsulas, mound springs, wetlands, ranges and caves or subterranean systems including karst environments. A number of these refugia, discussed below, are nationally important and illustrate the physical, ecological and cultural evolution of northern Australia in response to plate tectonics, climate, invasive species and human impact.
Rocky coast biodiversity
The rugged, highly dissected nature of the sandstone dominated coast of the north
Kimberley, including rocky islands, bays and peninsulas, has over time provided the opportunity for the development of a complex pattern of ecosystems. Collectively, these ecosystems support plants and animals of greater richness and higher local endemism than is found to the south and west in the drier savanna woodland communities. ANHAT analysis has shown the northern Kimberley coast and islands
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are exceptionally high for species richness and endemism for many mammal, reptile and frog species. These high biodiversity values areas are found together with rugged topography, diverse geology and the highest annual rainfalls in northwest Australia.
The endemism, and to a lesser extent the richness, of plants and animals associated with the rocky coast, largely overlap in range. ANHAT analyses (2009) identified that the north from Walcott Inlet to the Mitchell Plateau, across to Drysdale River
National Park and the Kimberley islands are nationally significant cluster points for richness and endemism values for a range of different organisms. Many of these rank at the highest or near highest value for the nation, these will be discussed below.
The very nature of this rocky landscape is proving to be an important refuge, protecting many species that were previously found more extensively across northern
Australia (ANRA 2007a, b, c; Graham 2001b). Over millennia the sandstones have provided indestructable shelter habitat for many species, broken up fires and stored water that is released in seepages and creeks throughout the dry season (A Burbidge pers. comm. Dec 2009). This landscape also offers greater protection from human induced changes; evident, for example, with the absence, or near absence, of cats, foxes, feral dogs, rabbits, goats, camels and livestock (Burbidge et al. 1991;
Woinarski et al. 2007). Examples of species that persist here, but are rare or absent elsewhere, include the golden bandicoot ( Isoodon auratus ), golden-backed tree rat
( Mesembriomys macrurus ) and the Kimberley rock rat ( Zyzomys woodwardi ). The persistence of native mammal species on the Kimberley islands and the nearby mainland rocky coast is in stark contrast to their absence in more inland areas; indicating the extent of the impact of changed fire regimes, feral animals and livestock (Abbott and Burbidge 1995; Johnson and Kerle 1991). Research into fire ecology has begun to examine the effects of increased fire frequency, and the timing of fires, on species such as the seed eating Gouldian finch ( Erythrura gouldiae ) which has undergone alarming range reductions in recent years (Legge et al. 2008; Murphy et al. 2005; Radford & Fairman 2008). Seed eating savanna birds and rodents such as the golden-backed tree rat ( Mesembriomys macrurus ) are now scarce on the mainland, with more frequent fires probably removing key food plants that no longer have sufficient time between fires to set seed (Bowman and Panton 1993).
The Kimberley Plateau , particularly the Mitchell Plateau , (see description for regional definitions) is notable for the highest ANHAT plant richness and endemism scores in the Kimberley. The highest (or close to highest) endemism values for the nation were returned for the families Zygophyllaceae, Tiliaceae, Combretaceae and
Amaryllidaceae. The highest endemism score for Grevillea outside southwest
Western Australia occurs in the Kimberley Plateau. Annual plant families
Lentibulariaceae (bladderworts) and Stylidiaceae (triggerplants) showed high richness and endemism values for this region and for the Prince Regent Nature Reserve . These families are likely to be indicative of other small ephemeral plants (not indexed in
ANHAT) that undergo population explosions on sandstone and laterite pavements.
The ephemerals are dispersed during the wet season, then drop their seed before dying in the lead up to the next wet season. These pavements play an important seasonal refugial role, sustaining these vulnerable, highly specialised plants (Kevin Kenneally pers. comm. March 2009). The endemism and richness scores for these pavement plant families are only matched by Kakadu and west Arnhem Land in the Northern
Territory.
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The second highest endemism score in Australia for reptiles occurs in the area surrounding the Mitchell River. Rodentia (rodents) (top 0.3 per cent in the country) and Muridae (rats and mice) (top 0.3 per cent) show significant species richness scores. Rodents showing high values nationally in the Kimberley, coastal north
Queensland, the MacDonnell ranges in central Australia and Kakadu/Arnhem Land.
ANHAT analysis also showed strong results for endemism; nationally significant scores were found for Rodentia (rodents) (top 0.2 per cent) and Phalangeridae
(possums) (top 0.3 per cent). Possums showed the second highest endemism score nationally, after the well recognised Queensland Wet Tropics hotspot. High endemism values for mammals where further supported by a comparison of IBRA bioregions, which showed the North Kimberley bioregion, which is dominated by the Kimberley
Plateau, as having close to the highest index scores nationally (ANRA 2007c). Areas that contain new endemic species (i.e. species that have undergone major range contractions) are often important refugia for threatened species.
ANHAT analysis has shown the Kimberley Plateau has a rich reptile, frog and bat fauna. Nationally significant species richness and endemism scores were found for both the Diporiphora (dragons) and Gekkonidae (geckoes). These scores largely reflect the presence of the highly restricted dragons Diporiphora convergens and D. superba , the cave geckoes Pseudothecadactylus cavaticus and P. lindneri and Oedura gracilis , a velvet gecko only found on the Kimberley Plateau. The highest national endemism score for Boidea (pythons) occurs in the Kimberley Plateau, resulting from the presence of the rough-scaled python ( Morelia carinata ), only known from the
Kimberley Plateau. The distinct high rainfall zone of the northwest Kimberley is a centre of species richness for frogs, in fact it is the only region in Australia that contains high richness values for both of the endemic Australian frog families,
Hylidae (tree frogs) and Myobatrachidae (Southern frogs). ANHAT endemism scores were found for Hylidae with the presence of Litoria splendida , L. cavernicola and
Cyclorana vagita, which are restricted to the Kimberley. High Kimberley Hylidae endemism values were supported by phylogenetic analysis, which has confirmed there is a high genetic diversity among restricted species of the Kimberley Hylidae
(Rosauer, D., pers . comm., June 2008). Myobatrachidae show a very high endemism score due to the presence of a number of restricted species, including Uperoleia marmorata , U. micra and Crinia fimbriata (Cogger 1992; Tyler et al. 2009).
Nationally high endemism scores are also recorded for microbats of the
Hipposideridae and Vespertilionidae families, reflecting the presence of restricted species such as the Yellow-lipped Cave Bat ( Vespadelus douglasorum ), the Northern
Long-nosed Bat ( Hipposideros stenotis ) and the Northern Pipistrelle ( Pipistrellus westralis ).
Despite a wide range of bird species, ANHAT analyses showed no nationally significant scores for birds for the west Kimberley region. Maluridae returned high, but not nationally high, endemism scores due to the presence of what a single restricted species, the Black Grasswren ( Amytornis housei ). Further bird collection and observation over time may provide a higher level of significance for bird richness and endemism. The importance of mangroves as seasonal refuges for birds is discussed below in mangrove refugia .
The Kimberley Plateau is important for land snail richness and endemism. These species are typically, but not exclusively, found in the vine thickets of the Kimberley.
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The National Heritage significance of these snails is discussed as part of vine thickets below.
ANHAT analysis showed that the Prince Regent Nature Reserve is particularly rich in possums, reptiles, Grevillea and the annual pavement plant families discussed under the Kimberley Plateau above.
A nominator claimed that the Drysdale River National Park possessed high richness and endemism for plants, mammals, reptiles, frogs, birds and freshwater fish.
ANHAT analyses partly supported this claim with the highest national endemism score for reptiles recorded in the area. The area surrounding the Drysdale River
(including between Drysdale River National Park and north towards the coast) possess one of the highest national endemism scores for bats (Vespertilionidae family), whistler birds (Pachycephalidae), blind snakes (Typhlopidae), Dasyuridae
(carnivorous marsupials such as the northern quoll, Dasyurus hallucatus ), frogs
(Myobatrachidae), lizards (families Varanidae, and Scincidae; genera Lerista and
Oedura ), land snails (particularly for the families Pupillidae, Camaenidae and
Achatinellidae) and trapdoor spiders (Ctenizidae). ANHAT analysis also returned nationally high values for the plant family Tiliaceae for endemism. Fish were also confirmed as having an exceptionally high rate of endemism, drawing on information in the literature.
The present day Kimberley Islands (dominated by the Buccaneer and Bonaparte
Archipelagos) were likely part of the mainland coast as recently as 8,000 years ago
(Nix and Kalma 1972). It is reasonable to assume therefore that the present day island terrestrial fauna was derived from northwest Kimberley mainland fauna, and has been evolving in isolation since the islands became separated (Burbidge et al. 1978).
The Kimberley islands, based on the evidence from recent biological surveys, are proving to be a faunal refuge from human-induced changes. The Bonaparte and
Buccaneer archipelagos are particularly sheltered from threatening processes such as changed fire regimes, weeds (with the exception of weeds such as Passiflora foetida ) and invasive species (for instance, the recent arrival of the cane toad to the
Kimberley). As such, the islands are likely to be important refuges for fauna and have the potential as future safe havens for translocated species that are under threat on the mainland (Gibson et al. 2008).
With the exception of mammals, a lack of historic biological data has likely obscured the significance of richness and endemism values of the Kimberley islands. The true significance is gradually being revealed through modern survey work. In December
2006, a multi-year biological survey led by WA Department of the Environment and
Conservation (DEC) began documenting the plants and animals of the largest
Kimberley islands. These and previous surveys have recorded 91 reptile (including several specimens yet to be described), 22 frog and 21 mammal species (excluding bats) on islands of the Kimberley (Gibson et al. 2008, Russell Palmer pers. comm.
Nov 2009). Mammal species such as the western chestnut mouse ( Pseudomys nanus ), red-cheeked dunnart ( Sminthopsis virginiae ) and agile wallaby ( Macropus agilis ) are newly recorded as existing on the Kimberley islands, the latter two being the first records found on any Western Australian island. Collection has also included 63 species of Camaenid land snails, 27 of these being new to science with at least two
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new genera (see more detail under vine thickets below). All snail species appear to be endemic to the islands (i.e. do not occur on the mainland) and each island tends to have a unique suite of species (Köhler 2009). These discoveries lend support to the argument that speciation is occurring within a region of stable, long term evolutionary refugia.
Related to discussions of island refugia, a nominator claimed that there were genetically isolated populations of dingos ( Canis lupus dingo ) on a number of the islands of the Bonaparte Archipelago. It was claimed that due to their isolation, like
Queensland's Fraser Island dingos, the Kimberley Island dingo population best represents an 'outstanding' example of the original genotype and phenotype ('ancestral dingo') that first arrived in Australia approximately 4,000–6,000 BP (DEWHA 2008).
Recent survey work found evidence of dingos on Uwins Island (DEC survey) and the eastern most of the Purrungku Islands (How et al. 2007), however their presence was not confirmed on another four islands for which there are historical records of dingo scats or tracks. This raises doubts over the sustained dingo occupation of the
Kimberley Islands (Russell Palmer pers. comm. November 2009).
Island populations of critical weight range species such as the northern quoll
( Dasyurus hallucatus ), the golden bandicoot ( Isoodon auratus ), the scaly-tailed possum ( Wyulda squamicaudata ) and the golden-backed tree rat ( Mesembriomys macrurus ) are of particular importance due to their decline on the mainland caused by an array of human-induced threatening processes. Populations of these species recorded from the first island surveys in the early 1970s were all found to be robust when these islands were resurveyed in 2007–09. This provides support for the argument that the Kimberley islands are playing an increasingly important role as places of human induced refugia.
Savanna woodland , typically composed of eucalypt and bloodwood canopy above a grassy understorey, dominates most parts of the Kimberley and northern Australia.
ANHAT analysis shows that moving away from the north coast and islands into this drier savanna country coincides with lower endemism and richness values. The significance of savanna communities, as part of the Kimberley regional flora, is discussed under the Wealth of the Land and Sea section.
The significance of areas such as Yampi Peninsula and the country to the east of
Drysdale River National Park are likely to be underestimated due to limited historic biological surveying. However the national strength of the ANHAT richness and endemism values for the Mitchell Plateau is real and correlates closely with the locally high rainfall (Kenneally et al. 1991). This trend is consistent with other northern Australian biodiversity hotspots, such as the Top End and the orographically rain fed mountains of Cape York and the Wet Tropics (Abrahams 1995; Bowman
1996; Woinarski et al. 2006).
To summarise the above findings, biodiversity analysis using the Australian
Government's Australian Natural Heritage Assessment Tool (ANHAT), supported by the Australian Heritage Council’s expert opinion, has shown the northern Kimberley coast and islands, the Kimberley Plateau and the west Kimberley Devonian reefs are nationally significant for species richness and endemism for many plant, mammal, reptile, frog and invertebrate groups. Island populations of critical weight range
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species such as the northern quoll ( Dasyurus hallucatus ), the golden bandicoot
( Isoodon auratus ), the scaly-tailed possum ( Wyulda squamicaudata ) and the golden– backed tree–rat ( Mesembriomys macrurus ) are of particular importance due to their decline on the mainland caused by an array of human–induced threatening processes.
The northern Kimberley coast and islands, the Kimberley Plateau and the west
Kimberley Devonian reefs have outstanding heritage value to the nation under criterion (a) for plant, mammal, reptile, frog and invertebrate species richness and endemism; and also as refugia in protecting against human-induced environmental changes.
Vine thickets: Evolution in the litter
Vine thickets (rainforests) make a considerable contribution to the floristic diversity of the Kimberley region. Four hundred and fifty-three (453) plant species have been recorded from 99 patches (out of an estimated 1,500) of rainforest, representing about
25per cent of the Kimberley flora, in a total area of rainforest of less than 8,000 ha
(Kenneally et al. 1991, Kenneally and McKenzie 1991). Northern Territory rainforests possess a higher generic richness and higher species numbers (604) found in a total of 1,245 sites (Liddle et al. 1994). The rainforests of the Iron and McIlwraith
Ranges of Cape York while possessing a greater richness in plant species than the
Kimberley (1,156 species in Iron Range National Park alone), are more comparable to the wet, structurally complex rainforests of the Wet Tropics. The dry, structurally simpler vine thickets growing inland of Townsville show far greater similarity to the
Kimberley's rainforests. Thickets inland of Townsville, such as at Toomba, Undara, and Chillagoe form similar small isolated patches that possess low plant species richness (Thurgate 1996). However surveys of the area (Fensham 1995) found the largest patches associated with basalt flows, such as those found at the Toomba Lava
Flow (160 species in a 512 kilometre
2
patch) possessed greater species richness than the larger patches in the Kimberley, where the maximum recorded in any patch was
119 species (Kevin Kenneally pers. comm., 19 November 2009).
Most plant species in the Kimberley rainforests also occur in rainforests of the
Northern Territory and/or Cape York, indicating likely bird and bat fruit dispersal
(Kenneally et al. 1991; Price 2006). Liddle et al. (1994) identified that 78 per cent
(404 species) of Northern Territory rainforest species are shared with Queensland and
51 per cent (266) shared with the Kimberley. These proportions highlight the relative floristic continuity of the northern Australian rainforest flora. Only one species
Hibiscus peralbus (Malvaceae) is considered endemic to the Kimberley. The Northern
Territory rainforests include 36 species that are considered locally endemic (Liddle et al. 1994) and the inland Queensland vine thickets shelter a few endemic plant species but largely share species known from the wetter, more coastal rainforest areas of
Queensland (Thurgate 1996).
The likely young age of the Kimberley's rainforests may not have provided sufficient time to enable these communities to play an evolutionary refugial role to allow the development of a specialised endemic vertebrate fauna (Barlow and Hyland 1988;
Covacevich and McDonald 1993; Kendrick and Rolfe 1991). Friend et al. (1991) noted that only a few mammals, such as northern long-eared bat ( Nyctophilus daedalus ) and the mosaic-tailed rat ( Melomys burtoni ) show regular dependency on
Kimberley rainforest patches. Most of the 29 mammals recorded from Kimberley
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rainforests, including the golden bandicoot ( Isoodon auratus ) and the golden-backed tree rat ( Mesembriomys macrurus ), occupy the patches only seasonally or in response to external threats such as bushfires. Similarly Kendrick and Rolfe (1991) observed that none of the 49 reptiles or 13 frogs recorded in Kimberley vine thicket patches were entirely restricted to these communities. While this behaviour is similar to what has been observed in Kakadu (Braithwaite et al. 1985), it contrasts with Queensland where 43 reptiles and 31 frogs have been found to be entirely obligate to (or largely dependent) wet, high altitude rainforests (Covacevich and McDonald 1993). In the
Kimberley, it was also considered that species present in individual patches are determined by other biogeographic processes operating outside the rainforest patches, such as close proximity of grasslands and wetlands for the presence of the frogs
Litoria bicolor and L. inermis . Rainforest thickets, with fewer grasses, offer greater protection from seasonal fires. Patches are therefore likely to provide local refugia from which herpetofauna can recolonise burnt savanna communities. Vine thickets inland of Townsville have been shown to play similar refugial roles (Kahn and Lawrie
1987).
Vine thickets seem to be playing an increasingly important role as refugia for vertebrates from human-induced environmental changes. As introduced livestock alter savanna ecosystems and fire frequency increases, vine thickets may be critical to the long term survival of many vertebrate species. It should be noted that vine thickets themselves are not immune from these new threats, though patches in rugged terrain have greater protection (Kendrick and Rolfe 1991). This refugial role is not limited to the Kimberley, rainforest patches across northern Australia are likely to be just as important.
The 141 bird species found in the Kimberley's vine thickets occur in equivalent
Northern Territory environments, and no Kimberley endemics have been recorded to date. The richest Kimberley rainforest bird fauna is associated with moisture availability and floristic richness, with the highest species numbers being found in the best developed patches of the northwest coast (Johnstone and Burbidge 1991).
Vine thickets do however seem to play an important seasonal refugial role (Morton et al. 1995), supporting a range of flighted vertebrates that would not otherwise be able to survive in the Kimberley without these patches at critical times. Birds such as the rainbow pitta ( Pitta iris ) and orange-footed scrub fowl ( Megapodius reinwardt ) have been found to be largely confined to vine thickets in the Kimberley. Flying foxes and frugivorous birds such as the Torresian imperial pigeon ( Ducula spilorrhoa ) (Russell-
Smith et al. 1992), rose-crowned fruit-dove ( Ptilinopus regina ) and the great bowerbird ( Chlamydera nuchalis ) (Black et al. 2010) frequent these thickets to escape from the nearby seasonably inhospitable tropical savanna and to access fruiting cycles closely tied to wet season rainfalls (Bach 2002; Price 2004 and Price 2006). Also seeking seasonal refuge, the common koel ( Eudynamys scolopaceus ), visits the
Kimberley vine thickets from neighbouring Southeast Asia (Johnstone & Burbidge
1991). The Northern Territory in comparison has a larger area of high rainfall country and a greater diversity of closed forest and wetland habitats (Kenneally et al. 1991).
Johnstone and Burbidge (1991) speculated that this is why species such as the rufous owl ( Ninox rufa ) are confined to rainforests in the Kimberley but are found in a wider range of habitats in the Northern Territory.
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From research focused on fragmented rainforest patches in the NT, Price (2006) argues that in the long term, many rainforest plant populations depend on the dispersal of seeds by frugivorous bird species. The species examined in this research are mostly shared with the Kimberley. The widespread nature of this rainforest/frugivore interdependence across northern WA and the NT makes it difficult to demonstrate that the vine thickets of the Kimberley are any more important for birds and bats than other areas of northern Australia. The refugial role of the closely associated mesic
Kimberley mangroves communities in maintaining populations of birds and bats is discussed in mangroves refugia below.
The low degree of endemism associated with Kimberley rainforest plants and vertebrates is in contrast with a much higher level associated with invertebrates. Many of the small immobile invertebrate species endemic to the Kimberley have only been recorded in its rainforest patches; this includes 90 per cent of the earthworms and 48 per cent of the land snails (Kenneally and McKenzie 1991). It is speculated that the cooling and drying of the Kimberley, since the early Miocene (c. 20 million years ago), led to a shrinking of the then more extensive rainforest into the isolated patches present today (Köhler and Gibson 2009). When the rainforests shrank into these patches they became evolutionary refuges (Morton et al. 1995) for associated invertebrates (Köhler and Gibson 2009).
Survey and taxonomic work by Solem (1979, 1981, 1984 and 1985) and more recent research (Graham 2001b; Köhler 2010) have helped highlight the national importance of the Kimberley Plateau and adjacent islands for land snail richness and endemism.
These species are largely found in vine thickets. ANHAT analyses have supported the findings of these researchers, showing the Kimberley Plateau is exceptionally high in richness (with 120 species discovered to date in the Kimberley) and endemism for
Camaenidae (air breathing land snails). Restricted or locally endemic Camaenid snails are found frequently in Kimberley vine thicket surveys, including the more geographically isolated Dampier Peninsula dune thickets, as far south as Broome.
Researchers (Köhler 2009; Köhler and Gibson 2009.) speculate that this consistent spread of now locally restricted species reflects long-term evolution through isolation, with the once more widepread Kimberley rainforests of the warmer, wetter Miocene contracting and fragmenting as the region became cooler and drier. Snail populations became isolated as their communities reduced to small islands of rainforest surrounded by drier, less habitable savanna woodlands. The remnant thickets became refuges for the development of their very own sets of species. It is further speculated that once isolated, this promoted parallel patterns of invertebrate radiation (i.e. explosive evolution of species groups) and adaptation (Köhler and Gibson 2009).
Not only is the Camaenid species endemism high within these Kimberley rainforest refugial pockets but the phylogenetic diversity has shown evidence of generic (genus level) endemism (Solem and McKenzie 1991), with Torrestitrachia , Amphlirhagada ,
Setobaudinia , Baudinella and Rhagada found exclusively, or nearly so, within the region (Solem 1979, 1981, 1985). Recent work by Köhler (2010) described two new genera Kimberleydiscus, Kimberleymelon , both endemic to the Bonaparte
Archipelago, further adding to this diversity. This higher level endemism and the diversity of Camaenid snail species is reflected in ANHAT analyses, which centre on the Prince Regent Nature Reserve, and the coast from Augustus to Bigge Island, and the Devonian reefs in the west Kimberley. Camaenid snails found outside this core are
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considered to provide insights into the evolutionary refuges they occupy, however the rates of endemism and species richness are not as high as on the Kimberley Plateau and adjoining islands. One significant patch which may warrant further investigation into its significance for endemism and species richness is found in the Ningbing
Ranges in the east Kimberley. The Ningbings feature karst landscapes similar to those associated with the Devonian reefs of the west Kimberley. In another group of invertebrates, the second highest richness values behind Chillagoe, Queensland, for the family Pupillidae (minute, air-breathing land snails), was also found, centred on the Prince Regent 1:100,000 map sheet, and possibly in the rainforest patches of
Prince Frederick Harbour and St Georges Basin.
An estimated 1,500 vine thicket patches occur in the Kimberley (Kenneally and
McKenzie 1991), of which very few have been surveyed to date. It is expected that a more accurate understanding of greater flora and fauna richness will be revealed over time as thickets are surveyed in greater detail. High species richness counts for ants
(Andersen 1992b), spiders (Main 1991), scorpions and pseudoscorpions (Andersen and Burbidge 1991) have been recorded within Kimberley vine thickets. At this time there is insufficient national data available to determine the true significance of these groups.
In broad comparative terms, rainforests of much greater age, community complexity and species richness are found in eastern Australia. However when comparing the vine thickets of the Kimberley to other hot, dry rainforests across northern Australia, their importance as areas of invertebrate refugia is readily apparent even when based on the limited surveying that has taken place to date.
Vine thickets of the northern Kimberley coast and islands and the Kimberley
Plateau, and the Devonian reefs of the west Kimberley, are of outstanding heritage value to the nation under criterion (a) for their evolutionary refugial role that has resulted in high invertebrate richness and endemism.
Mangrove refugia: Preferable perches
The west Kimberley has the highest mangrove species richness in Western Australia, with 16 species in the northwest Kimberley, more than are found in the extensive mangal communities of Cambridge Gulf and the Ord River (13 species) (Kenneally
1982; Wells 1982). Nationally however, greater species richness can be found in Cape
York (30), and Arnhem Bay in the Northern Territory (20 species) than in the
Kimberley Plateau region, or further south and west at Roebuck Bay (11) (Abrahams
1995, Wells 1982). An ANHAT analysis of the richest mangrove family
Rhizophoraceae also confirmed higher richness and endemism scores in Cape York
(Jardine River and Temple Bay), Cooktown and the Northern Territory (Darwin and
Charlotte Rivers and Melville Island) than for the Kimberley (Mitchell, Lawley and
Roe Rivers and St Georges Basin (Kenneally 1982)).
Mangal communities found between Broome and Napier Broome Bay are an important part of the Kimberley's refugial story. These communities provide a habitat for a number of birds that in other parts of Australia are not confined to mangroves, including species such as the great-billed heron ( Ardea sumatrana ) and brown-tailed flycatcher ( Microeca tormenti ). McKenzie et al. (1991) notes that it is difficult to talk of the refugial role of mangroves in isolation from rainforest communities. The two
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mesic communities are often found adjacent to one another in the Kimberley and the
Northern Territory and resident and visiting fauna often use both communities as part of their life cycles.
There is a significant anomaly in that the floristically richer and taller mangroves of northeast Queensland have fewer mangal-dependent species of birds than the floristically poorer and more stunted mangroves of northwest Australia (Schodde et al. 1982). Kimberley mangrove communities provide vital feeding habitat and shelter for birds such as the common sandpiper ( Actitis hypoleucos ) and the whimbrel
( Numenius phaeopus ), particularly important in the harsh dry seasons. Furthermore, a higher proportion of birds that are obligate (confined to) to these communities are found in the northwest (12 species) than in the northeast (8 species), north of 19°S. A particularly rich fauna has been observed in the Rhizophora mangrove forests north of
Derby, fed by the freshwaters of the Fitzroy River (Johnstone, R., pers. comm., June
2010). In eastern Australia these birds are found more widely, beyond mangroves into adjacent rain and gallery forests (Schodde et al. 1982). Birds that have adapted to these two forms of ecological behaviour are indicative of the refugial importance of the mangroves juxtaposed against the drier, more exposed savanna communities that dominate the Kimberley and parts of the Northern Territory. It is speculated that the mangroves play a seasonal refugial role (Morton et al. 1995) to mangal dependent birds that use mangroves as a reliable, season proof source of food. This can be distinguished from the mangal obligate bird species that seem to have developed a long term residential dependence on the Kimberley mangroves; in other words these mangroves play an evolutionary refugial role (Morton et al. 1995).
The ecological refugial role (Morton et al. 1995) played by mangroves is also pronounced for bats species such as Pipistrellus westralis , Mormopterus loriae and
Nyctophilus arnhemensis . These species are endemic to mangroves in the Kimberley and parts of the Northern Territory; their closest affinities being species that favour more widespread rainforest communities in north-eastern Australia and New Guinea
(Friend et al. 1991; McKenzie et al. 1991).
While mangrove and vine thicket environments perform these roles elsewhere in northern Australia, the importance of mangroves in the Kimberley as bird and bat refuges is greater, against the backdrop of a harsher, more arid environment.
However, there are many habitats across Australia that provide refuge for species that are otherwise widespread. For example, the mound springs and many other wetlands of central Australia play an important refugial role for birds, as do wetlands across the
Gulf of Carpentaria in Queensland and the Northern Territory.
Kimberley mangroves, while providing an important role in maintaining populations of both bird and bat species, nevertheless are not demonstrated to be of greater importance than other refugial habitats across Australia, and therefore do not have outstanding heritage value to the nation under criterion
(a) as refugia for mangal-dependent and mangal-obligate avifauna.
River refugia: There ' s something in the water
There is evidence that the river systems of the north Kimberley serve as refuges to freshwater fish species, with a consequently high endemism found in several families.
With 18 species that are endemic to the region, the west Kimberley has the highest
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number of endemic freshwater fish in comparison to any other region in Australia
(ANHAT 2009, Allen et al. 2002, Morgan 2008, Unmack 2001). While over 30 species are confined to Cape York in Australia, over 20 of these have a transcontinental distribution, with many occurring in Papua New Guinea or further afield in the Pacific (Allen et al. 2002). It should be noted however that the large number of endemics that have been recorded within the Kimberley may in part relate to limited historical surveying. This is largely due to the general isolation of the region and seasonal access difficulties (Morgan et al. 2004).
In their paper on the fishes of the Kimberley, Allen and Leggett (1990) speculate that the highly dissected nature of the landscape has served as an isolating mechanism between species, with the numerous large and deep waterholes acting as refugia, and resulting in centres of speciation, which are speculated to have been in existence since the fluctuating climate of the late Cenozoic. The authors also point out that the
Kimberley landmass is isolated, and mostly surrounded by the sea or the desert, with only a narrow corridor of high rainfall that links the Kimberley with the northwestern corner of the Northern Territory (Allen and Leggett 1990). In his 2001 paper on the biogeography of Australian fishes, Unmack notes that the Kimberley region has a very high endemism, along with a number of species that have disjunct populations.
At the time, the author recorded a total of 13 species that were endemic to the west
Kimberley, compared with a maximum of six endemics confined to any single drainage basin for the remainder of northern Australia and the entire east coast of
Australia. The only basins that rivalled the Kimberley at that time for numbers of endemics were the Lake Eyre Basin (12 species) which is approximately five times larger that the west Kimberley and the Murray Darling Basin (9 species), which is likewise around four times larger. Since 2001, another five species have been recorded as endemic to the west Kimberley (Morgan 2008), which is a relatively high rate of discovery and lends support to the likelihood of a high ongoing rate of discovery of new species in the west Kimberley in general.
Rivers that are particularly important for species that are either endemic to the
Kimberley, or to one or two river systems within the Kimberley, are those that lie in the far north and west of the west Kimberley and include the Drysdale River (6 species), the Prince Regent (6 species), the Roe and Moran Rivers (4 species), Carson
River (4 species) and Isdell River (3 species) (Morgan 2008, Allen et al. 2002). The
Kimberley fish endemism also extends to the Fitzroy River (1 species with 2 near endemics) (Dave Morgan pers. comm. April 2010), however, the catchment size of the Fitzroy is far larger than the northern and western rivers, being roughly equivalent to all the above mentioned river catchments combined. The rate of fish endemism within the Fitzroy is comparable with other rivers across tropical Australia of approximately equivalent size. For example, there are four species that are endemic to the Flinders River system, which flows into the Gulf of Carpentaria; and four species endemic to the Daly River in the Northern Territory. This is in contrast to the 18 species in total that occur in the eight river systems of the far north and west
Kimberley. This combined with the fact that many of these rivers are relatively short in length, highlights their significance for overall numbers of endemic species, in comparison with other rivers across northern Australia, including the Fitzroy.
The fossil evidence across Australia for freshwater fish demonstrates persistence of some families up to 45 million years (Crowley 1990; Unmack 2001). Unmack (2001)
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also speculates that patterns in the present day fish distributions are a result of climatic patterns and sea level changes. As fish are limited to the persistence of freshwater, and because of the high relative rate of endemism of the freshwater fish fauna of the Kimberley, the region has the potential to tell us much about long term changes in the Australian environment, the drying of the continent and its related evolutionary refugial role (Dave Morgan pers. comm. November 2009).
Research in recent years on freshwater turtles has shown the importance of rivers of the Kimberley for endemic turtle species. Endemic to northwest Australia, most populations of the recently described bearded longneck turtle ( Macrochelodina walloyarrina ) and the sympatric M. kuchlingi are found in the Mitchell, King Edward and Drysdale river systems (McCord and Joseph–Ouni 2007). Chelodina burrungandjii , another endemic to the Kimberley, inhabits streams and associated billabongs of the sandstone plateaus and associated escarpment country. This high endemism was supported by an ANHAT analysis which returned the second highest national Chelidae (side-necked tortoises) endemism score for mapsheets encompassing the northwest Kimberley, particularly in the Drysdale River region.
High endemism for turtles further supports the freshwater fish argument that the
Kimberley Plateau river systems have played an important evolutionary refugial role.
The Drysdale, Prince Regent, Roe, Moran, Carson, Isdell, Mitchell and King
Edward Rivers are of outstanding heritage value to the nation under criterion
(a) as areas of evolutionary refugia demonstrated by nationally high values for freshwater fish and turtle endemism.
Wetlands, waterholes and mound springs
In their report on a synthesis of scientific knowledge of the Kimberley, DEC (2009) state that wetlands of the Kimberley are 'an important resource for waterbirds and provide refugia during the dry season for many savanna species, as well as containing a vast array of aquatic species…' The severity of the dry season is such that, for many months and over large areas of the Kimberley arid tropics, surface water resources are restricted to a few permanent or semi-permanent water holes and streams, which become key refugial foci in the landscape, particularly for migratory birds.
No systematic survey of wetlands has been undertaken across the Kimberley (Vernes
2007) but four Ramsar listed sites and 21 'nationally important wetlands' are found within the Kimberley as a whole ('Nationally important wetlands' are those wetlands that are documented in the Directory of Important Wetlands (DEH 2001), which is not synonymous with national significance as defined by the National Heritage criteria).
Only one listed Ramsar site occurs in the west Kimberley region – Roebuck Bay. Of the 'nationally important wetlands', 15 occur in the west Kimberley study area. They range from the seasonally inundated Roebuck Plains, to the Camballin Floodplain of the Fitzroy River system, to the mound springs and wetlands on Dampier Peninsula, and the discrete sites at Tunnel Creek and Windjana and Geikie Gorges within the creeks and rivers of the Oscar and Napier Ranges. The entire river systems of the
Prince Regent and Drysdale Rivers are also listed in the Directory.
In 2001, the authors of the Western Australian chapter in the Directory of Important
Wetlands noted that Western Australia has at least 2,000 wetland plant species recorded, and that endemism among wetland flora is high, particularly in the
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southwest of the State (DEH 2001). The authors also pointed out the high level of endemism among wetland vertebrate species, with for example over 30 wetland frogs, and 28 inland fishes being confined to Western Australia. In contrast, Vernes (2007) states that there is a paucity of published information on Kimberley wetland systems and that most catchments have lacked general baseline surveys. With respect to the larger Ord and the Fitzroy systems, Vernes (2007) notes that these have been more systematically surveyed and reported on, but that there are still gaps regarding connectivity of floodplain wetlands, swamps and groundwater dependent systems.
Vernes also notes that to date there is not a national wetland typology, which makes it difficult to classify wetland systems; though the High Conservation Value Aquatic
Ecosystem (HCVAE) classification (SKM 2007), when complete, will assist in identifying wetland typologies. More recent work is examining the similarity between rivers across northern Australia based on a features such as flow regimes, catchment size, topography and geology, allowing a more systematic comparison between rivers
(O'Callaghan 2009). In their paper on an inventory of data for northern rivers, Lowry and Alewijnse (2005) found that knowledge gaps exist on the ecological character of many tropical rivers and wetlands, and that much of the data collected up to that point was at the broad continental and catchment scales. While much has been done since that time to address these gaps, much still remains to be surveyed and documented.
The Directory of Important Wetlands (DEH 2001) is a resource that can assist in a comparative analysis of wetland systems across northern Australia. However, researchers that compiled the Western Australian, Northern Territory and Queensland sections of the Directory note that it is not a complete record of all wetlands in the tropics. In the chapter on Western Australia, the authors noted that more field work is needed to ensure that the diversity of wetlands in this western one third of the continent is better represented (Lane and Lynch 2001). The Department hosted a two day workshop in March 2010 to collate what additional information is known of northern Australian wetlands and to determine how Kimberley systems compare to other tropical systems, The national significance of the specific Kimberley wetlands discussed below has been determined using a combination of statistics from the
Directory, other wetland publications and the expert opinion of workshop participants.
Roebuck Bay is Ramsar listed largely in recognition of its significance as an international migratory bird destination. Sixty four species of waterbird have been recorded at Roebuck Bay, 34 of which are listed under international treaties (JAMBA,
CAMBA and ROKAMBA). Watkins (1993) ranked Roebuck Bay as having the highest numbers of waterbird species of international importance (20 species) in
Australia; additions to these lists have in subsequent years have seen the number increase to 34. Species include Mongolian plovers ( Charadrius mongolus ), ruddy turnstones ( Arenaria interpres ) and black-winged stilts ( Himantopus himantopus ). In addition to international visitors, Australian resident breeding shorebirds also make
Roebuck Bay home for part of the year. Birds such as the red-necked avocet
( Recurvirostra novaehollandiae ) use Roebuck Bay as a seasonal refuge, flying to the site from inland Australian wetlands as they dry out. Roebuck Bay has been considered more fully under criterion (d) for, among other values, waterbirds. The above values are included here for comparative purposes for the other wetlands discussed in this section.
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The west Kimberley has a number of palustrine (swamps, fens, bogs) dominated wetlands that are destinations for both international and national migratory bird species. The seasonally inundated Roebuck Plains (48,000 ha) is found inland of
Roebuck Bay, occupying the space that in past times was the Fitzroy River delta when it met the ocean at Roebuck Bay. The close proximity of these plains to the bay's coastal mudflats results in considerable overlap in the presence of many migratory bird species. Roebuck Plains is a permanent home to or seasonal stopover for a wide variety of waterbirds (64 species) including the oriental pratincole ( Glareola maldivarum ) and the little curlew ( Numenius minutus ) but with fewer on international treaties (22) than the neighbouring bay. The site is also used by Australian migratory species such as the freckled duck ( Stictonetta naevosa ) and the yellow chat
( Epthianura crocea ) (DEH 2001).
The Camballin floodplain (30,000 ha) is an extensive black soil floodplain adjoining the Fitzroy River featuring two principal claypan swamps: the Le Lievre and
Moulamen. These systems, along with the nearby Mallallah and Sandhill swamps of
Noonkanbah, are the permanent home or seasonal refuge to 67 species of birds, 20 species listed on JAMBA/CAMBA and seasonally attracting between 20,000-38,000 birds (Jaensch and Vervest 1990). Some of these species are found in significant numbers, including the plumed whistling-duck ( Dendrocygna eytoni ) and the
Australian pelican ( Pelecanus conspicillatus ) (Sutton 1998).
While Roebuck Plains and the wetlands of the Fitzroy River are important waterbird refugia, nationally there are a number of other systems in northern Australia of equal or greater significance. According to Watkins (1993) and the Directory (DEH 2001),
Roebuck Bay, the southeastern Gulf of Carpentaria in Queensland and Eighty Mile
Beach are nationally the most significant sites for migratory birds for richness, international treaty listed species and for overall abundance of birds. Regionally, Lake
Argyle in the east Kimberley is home to over 270 species of birds, including 74 waterbird species and 22 species listed under treaties. Parry Floodplain, while smaller in size than Camballin (9,000 ha) possesses greater numbers of waterbird species (77) and more species under treaties (22) (DEH 2001). In terms of seasonal refugia, it could be argued that systems like Lake Gregory to the south of the Kimberley play a greater role when compared nationally. Differing from the palustrine dominated systems to the north; the lacustrine Lake Gregory is home to 73 water bird species, 21 species under treaties and up to 650,000 birds annually (Halse et al. 1998). Given its more arid, inland position and greater diversity of birds, Lake Gregory is considered a more important refuge for seasonally visiting international and national waterbirds.
The consensus of participants at the 2010 Heritage Wetlands workshop was that
Roebuck Bay, Eighty Mile Beach, Lake Argyle and Lake Gregory were nationally more significant for bird heritage values than Roebuck Plains or the Fitzroy River wetlands. Lake Argyle was noted by workshop participants as being an artificial lake; on this factor alone it was the consensus opinion that it should be excluded from future National Heritage considerations.
The palustrine wetlands of the Roebuck Plains and the Fitzroy River floodplains are unlikely to have outstanding heritage value to the nation under criterion (a) for richness or endemism, or as refugia for migratory, protected or endangered avifauna.
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A series of scattered freshwater wetlands, mostly centred around mound spring structures, occur intermittently along the coast of the largely arid Dampier Peninsula
(McKenzie & Kenneally 1983). These include Lollywell, Bunda Bunda and Willy
Creek (Graham 2002); the latter two are listed as wetlands of national significance
(DEH 2001; WA Government 2009). A complex of fresh water seepages known as
Big Springs is located to the north-east of Derby on the Yampi Peninsula (DEH
2001). Mostly, the supply of water to these discrete wetlands is maintained by water discharging from underground aquifers. These aquifers are in turn replenished during the wet season (WA Government 2004). Given the relative permanency of water supply at these small wetlands, each of these sites is likely to act as regionally important habitats for a wide range of the Kimberley's fauna, including waterfowl and waders. However, there is insufficient evidence at this time to support a claim that these Kimberley mound springs are of national significance for species richness, endemism or for refugial values. A recent report accessing the High Conservation
Value Aquatic Ecosystem (HCVAE) criteria of mound springs in Western Australia found that there was 'not enough information' to assess the refugial values of these springs (Shanahan and Coote 2008). This status may change if further surveys of the
Dampier and Yampi peninsulas are undertaken. Mound springs of the Great Artesian
Basin (GAB), especially the National Heritage listed Witjira-Dalhousie and Elizabeth
Springs, on the evidence available have much stronger richness, endemism and refugial values. Morton et al. (1995) documented that the GAB Springs are important for illustrating the role of evolutionary refugia for relict animal and plant species, which have evolved over long periods of time into distinct and endemic species.
Witjira-Dalhousie Springs alone contains five endemic fish species. To date there are no known endemic fauna at the Dampier and Yampi peninsula mound springs
(Morgan, D., pers. comm. May 2010); systematic surveys of these systems are needed to identify the full list of species present.
Other spring systems were discussed at the 2010 Heritage Wetlands workshop, including the McLarty Hills and Dragon Tree Soak to the south of the Fitzroy River and the Karajarri wetlands complex inland of Eighty Mile Beach. Karajarri includes
Mandora Marsh, which has a community of inland mangroves and at least once per decade is exceptionally important for waterbirds (C. Minton pers. comm. in DEH
2001). Little scientific information is known of these quite complex wetland systems.
Experts at the workshop were of the opinion that these systems were likely to be of equal or greater heritage value than the springs within the Dampier Peninsula or north
Kimberley.
There is insufficient evidence at this time to demonstrate that mound springs of the Dampier Peninsula have outstanding heritage value to the nation under criterion (a) for species richness, endemism or as refugia.
One other small wetland system is found at Disaster Bay (on the Dampier Peninsula).
A number of other wetlands are found on Yampi Peninsula and around the river outflows at the back of the Walcott Inlet (to the north of the Yampi Peninsula). There is very little known about these systems and survey work is required to quantify what heritage values may be present.
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There is insufficient evidence at this time to suggest that Disaster Bay, Yampi
Peninsula or Walcott Inlet have outstanding heritage value to the nation under criterion (a) for species richness, endemism or as refugia.
Karst refugia
In their report on the karst fauna of the Kimberley, the authors note that there has been a general paucity of research, and despite the fact that the limestone ranges of the Kimberley represent one of the major karst areas of Australia, relatively little information on the vertebrate and invertebrate fauna has been recorded to date
(Anderson & Anderson, 2010). Cave systems that have been studied to some extent include the Napier and Oscar ranges, and the relatively small amount of research that has been undertaken in these ranges points to the likely occurrence of high numbers of highly endemic invertebrate species within the system as a whole (Anderson &
Anderson, 2010; Humphreys, 1995). Again, there is very little known about these systems and survey work is required to quantify what heritage values may be present.
There is insufficient information at this time to demonstrate that the karst systems of the west Kimberley are of outstanding heritage value to the nation under criterion (a) for species richness, endemism or as refugia.
WEALTH OF LAND AND SEA
Plant richness and endemism
The Kimberley region is made up of a diversity of vegetation communities in generally good condition, dominated by savanna grassy woodlands. A number of nominators have claimed that the Kimberley is a region with significant floral richness and endemism. Clarkson and Kenneally (1988) provide a useful floral richness comparison between the Kimberley (1,592 species) and Cape York Peninsula
(2,412). Cape York is richer by a factor of 1.5 at the species level, 1.7 at the generic level and 1.4 at the family level however, it should be noted that proportions have somewhat shifted since Clarkson and Kenneally's 1988 publication as new taxa in the
Kimberley have been discovered and described (Kenneally, K., pers comm., Nov
2009).
Species richness for Cape York Peninsula is even greater when proportionally comparing the two study areas: Cape York Peninsula (13.5 million hectares) and the
Kimberley region (30.2 million hectares). Nationally, the richest area for plant species is recognized as being the Southwest Botanical Province of Western Australia with
9,500 taxa (Beard et al. 2000; Crisp et al. 2001; DEC 2010). This region (at 31 million hectares) is on an equivalent scale to the Northern Province, dominated by the
Kimberley, which is estimated to have 2,900 plant taxa (DEC 2010), comparatively far fewer than the southwest. The Northern Territory is estimated have over 4,000 plant species (NRETA 2009), the majority of which are found in the Top End (north of 18°S) with a secondary refugial concentration around the MacDonnell Ranges
(Bowman 1996).
The Clarkson and Kenneally (1988) analysis ranked families by the number of genera present and they found Poaceae (grasses) and Fabaceae (i.e. peas, wattles and allies combined) are most dominant in the Kimberley and Cape York Peninsula. The
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Kimberley has three plant families not present in Cape York, whereas 65 Cape York families are not found in the Kimberley region (Mackey et al. 2001). The generally higher rainfall in the tropical east is matched by a greater diversity of closed or swamp forest communities which support many of the Cape York families that are missing from the Kimberley. Orchidaceae and Sapindaceae, which favour closed forest communities, appear in the top ten families for Cape York while
Amaranthaceae (Amaranth herbs) and Malvaceae (including Hibiscus ), which have better adapted to drier environments, replace them in the Kimberley. The Kimberley is more significant for the families Asclepiadaceae, Chenopodiaceae and
Scrophulariaceae, and Acacia species numbers are double those found in Cape York
Peninsula (Clarkson and Kenneally 1988; Mackey et al. 2001).
Meaningful assessments of the richness and endemism of large areas, such as the
Kimberley, must relate to defined, comparable areas. Increasingly, geographical definition in Western Australia has come to rely on ecological regionalisations. Based on the development of phytogeographic regions in earlier work, Beard and co-workers were able to undertake a Western Australian state-level comparison of the Southwest
Province (Perth and wheatbelt country), the Eremaean Province (west coast and central arid country) and the Northern Province, which included the Kimberley (Beard
1980; Beard et al. 2000). Beard et al. (2000) noted that in terms of plant richness the
Northern Province had more families, fewer genera and less than half the species found in the Southwest. A recent inventory of WA plant taxa numbers (DEC 2010) provides a useful comparison for the three provinces: Northern (2,904), Eremaean
(5,759) and Southwest (9,481). While there no doubt are many undiscovered and undescribed plant taxa across WA, this state of knowledge differs between the provinces and is considered by the Western Australian Herbarium as being particularly poor in the Kimberley. However, asymptotic modelling undertaken by the herbarium to help track the rate of plant discovery has predicted that the Northern
Province will fall further behind the other two provinces in species richness.
West and others (2002), using the IBRA regionalisation, undertook a national analysis that showed the greatest richness for Acacia (222 species) and eucalypts (160 species) are in a single subregion of semiarid southwest Western Australia. Moderately species rich bioregions were found to be in the Kimberley, Arnhem Land, Barkley Tableland, the subtropical humid and the subtropical and temperate coastal areas of eastern
Australia. Using more recent ecological regionalisation data (DEC 2010), the
Southwest Province is richer for both Acacia and eucalypts (566 and 425) than both the Eremaean Province (430 and 290) or the Northern (Kimberley) Province (149 and
82).
ANHAT analysis displays the Kimberley as having close to the highest national species richness score for Combretaceae (plums, bullwaddies, mangroves and bushwillow) along the Kimberley north coast. This observed richness is supported by
Wheeler et al. (1992) who notes that all 12 of the Kimberley Terminalia species are found in this area. However higher scores for Combretaceae richness were found in the east Kimberley and the Darwin regions. Apart from these regionally high values, no other groups on current analysis were shown to have species richness scores of significance when compared nationally.
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Wheeler et al. (1992) identified 290 species with high endemism, or that are insufficiently known, within the Northern Province. Later, Beard et al. (2000) argued that the Northern Province actually had a relatively low rate of endemic species at
14.3 per cent (306 species), far fewer than the species endemic to the similarly sized
Southwest Province. The WA Herbarium state taxa inventory (DEC 2010) calculated percentages of endemic taxa based on plants entirely restricted to their province as compared to the other two provinces in WA: Northern (59.2 per cent), Eremaean
(29.7 per cent) and Southwest (65.6 per cent). While this shows a high percentage for the Northern Province (Kimberley), this state comparison is somewhat misleading when taken nationally, as many of the Northern and Eremaean plants also grow in other states, reducing the percentage of plant taxa that are truly endemic to these regions. However, plants found in the southwest, which is isolated from other areas, is clearly greater for plant endemism in real terms at a national scale.
Woinarski et al. (2006) identified the Northern Territory's plant endemism hotspot
(172 species) as being focused on the sandstone plateaus of west Arnhem Land. While this figure is smaller than the Western Australian Northern Province (290 species in
35 million hectares) the west Arnhem Land region is significantly smaller in area (3.2 million hectares). A more scale appropriate comparison was provided by Petersen and
Watson (1998) who determined that the Top End of the Northern Territory (north of
16
°
S encompassing 31.6 million hectares) possesses 438 endemic plant species, surpassing that of the Kimberley. By comparing endemic species on a per hectare basis, the smaller Cape York Peninsula (13.5 million hectares) with 264 endemic plant species (Abrahams et al. 1995) rivals both the Kimberley and Top End regions.
ANHAT analysis showed one of the nationally significant localised endemism centres
(tope 0.2 per cent for country) for Corymbia (bloodwoods) around the Windjana
Gorge and King Leopold Ranges Conservation Park, with a second, less significant centre occurring around the Gibb River and Drysdale River stations. The presence of a number of restricted species together, including Corymbia pedimontana , C. torta and C. collina , is unusual in the context of Australian tropical savanna woodlands.
The North Kimberley IBRA region, which includes some of these centres, also was shown to possess a high, but not nationally high, eucalypt endemism score in West and others' (West et al. 2002) assessment. While ANHAT analysis showed there are other, less significant areas of bloodwood endemism, including the southeast
Kimberley and Kakadu, the general pattern for savanna woodlands is for the upper strata to be dominated by eucalypts ( Eucalyptus and Corymbia ) with very wide ranging distribution patterns. The concentration of these endemics is likely a factor of a more variable topography, endemism also being found within rugged west Arnhem
Land. Bloodwood species richness is by far greatest in the northwest of the Northern
Territory; coupled with strong endemism scores, the Northern Territory Corymbia dominated woodlands are considered to be of greater national significance than those found within the Kimberley. When considering eucalypts overall ( Eucalyptus and
Corymbia combined), according to literature (West et al. 2002) and ANHAT analyses, the nationally strongest scores are found in the southwest of Western Australia for both richness and endemism.
ANHAT analysis also showed a significant endemism score in the Kimberley for
Fabaceae (peas), due the presence of restricted species in a range of genera, including
Indigofera , Desmodium, Dendrolobium, Cajanus and Tadehagi . While Fabaceae in
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the southwest of Western Australia is largely comprised of a different suite of genera, this region's endemism is far stronger and more widespread than the smaller pockets found within the Kimberley. While there is a degree of endemism associated with
Fabaceous pea shrubs found in the Kimberley, there are comparable sites of significance in the Northern Territory and along the east coast.
While additional surveys have taken place across the Kimberley since this time, there is still considerable botanical research needed within the northwest of Australia.
The Kimberley as a bioregion is unlikely to have outstanding heritage value to the nation under criterion (a) for floral species richness and/or endemism.
Marine environment
The largely unknown near shore marine environment of the Kimberley includes a range of benthic filter–feeding and coral communities and reef systems. One of these coral communities, Montgomery Reef, may feature rare emergent platform reefs, although their lithology is currently not resolved. The macrotidal range of the region exposes these platforms by up to four metres at low tide. However despite its remarkable features, this 'reef' has been little studied. Research is underway by the
Western Australian Marine Science Institution (WAMSI) which may help to determine the uniqueness and National Heritage significance of the Kimberley marine environment, particularly for coral communities and sponges. Insufficient national data about nearshore marine environments at present precludes detailed comparative analysis and hence a determination of the regional and National Heritage significance of these systems (Wilson 2009a; Wilson 2009b).
There is insufficient data to demonstrate that the biology of the Kimberley marine environment has outstanding heritage value to the nation for species richness or endemism.
Antiquity of the long distance movement of material (marine shell beads) by
Aboriginal people
Exceptional preservation conditions provided by rock shelters in remnant Devonian reef formations in the west Kimberley provide evidence that long distance trade networks may have been operating during the Pleistocene, some 30,000 years ago.
Marine shell beads ( Scaphopoda/Dentalium sp .) were found in inland rock shelter occupation deposits in the Lawford (Riwi cave: Balme 2000) and Napier Ranges
(Carpenter's Gap 1 rock shelter: O'Connor 1995). Carpenter's Gap 1 is also known as
Jambarurru to Bunuba people (S. Pannell pers. comm. 5 May 2010 and Tangalma to the Unggumi (Playford 1960, 2007).
Given that no unmodified marine shells of this species have been found at either Riwi or Carpenter's Gap 1, it is likely that the shell beads were processed elsewhere, possibly on the coast at their source, and were transported to the inland rock shelters either directly by their manufacturers or through a system of exchange (Balme and
Morse 2006). At the time when the shell beads were deposited, the Kimberley coastline would have been located some 500 kilometres from Riwi, and about 300 kilometres from Carpenter's Gap.
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The beads provide evidence that Aboriginal people transported a valued commodity over a distance of some 500 kilometres (Balme and Morse 2006). In view of the distance the material travelled it seems likely that the shell beads at Riwi and
Carpenter's Gap 1 were highly prized for their decorative or symbolic value.
Historical photographs show coastal Aboriginal people wearing necklaces of these small bugle-shaped shells (O'Connor and Marwick 2007).
Marine shell beads of greater antiquity dated at 39,000 years before present (BP) were excavated at Mandu Mandu Creek, an occupation site on the Cape Range Peninsula within the Ningaloo Coast National Heritage place. However, these beads were found on the coast, most likely at the place where they were manufactured (Morse 1993b).
Evidence of the long distance movement of material during the Pleistocene has also been uncovered in central Australia at a site known as Puritjarra, a rock shelter located in the Cleland Hills. The place shows that people were acquiring ochre from a source 125 kms to the north-west, an activity that occurred intermittently since 39,000 years BP (Peterson and Lampert 1985; Smith et al. 1998; Rosenfeld and Smith 2002;
Hiscock 2008).
The occurrence of marine shell beads in occupation deposits at Carpenter's Gap 1 and
Riwi cave dated to 30,000 years BP is exceptional, providing testimony for not only the antiquity of the movement of a processed marine resource, perhaps in some kind of system of exchange, but also for the distance that the material travelled from its source of manufacture to its place of deposition, some 500 kilometres (McConnell and O'Connor 1997; O'Connor 1999; Balme 2000; Balme and Morse 2006).
Carpenter's Gap 1 and Riwi rock shelters have outstanding heritage value to the nation under criterion (a) as they demonstrate the operation of Aboriginal social and economic networks 30,000 years ago over distances of 500 kilometres.
Antiquity of the symbolic application of ochre onto a rock surface – earliest evidence for 'art' in Australia
The earliest indirect evidence for 'art' in Australia is associated with ochre recovered from occupation sites with some of the earliest evidence for human presence in
Australia, but the dating of these events remains uncertain. At Malakunanja II and
Nauwalabila I, two rock shelters located in western Arnhem Land, pieces of high quality ochre occur in the earliest occupation levels, which have been dated by thermo-luminescence and optically- stimulated luminescence respectively to between
50,000 and 60,000 years BP. However, these two dates remain controversial amongst researchers. Morwood (2002) argues that the earliest radiocarbon dates of around
40,000 BP may be a better estimate.
Ochre also occurs in the lowest levels of other sites that document the initial arrival of humans, including Mushroom Rock in the south-east of the Cape York Peninsula and
Carpenter's Gap 1, a limestone rock shelter in the west Kimberley's Napier Range. At
Lake Mungo in New South Wales ochre had been scattered over the human burial known as Willandra Lakes Hominid 3, sometime between 28,000 and 32,000 years ago.
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The earliest evidence for the application of ochre onto a rock surface in Australia comes from Carpenter's Gap 1, also known as Jambarurru to Bunuba people (S.
Pannell pers. comm. 5 May 2010) and Tangalma to the Unggumi (Playford 1960,
2007). A slab of the rock shelter's roof that had been coated with red pigment fell to the floor some time before 39,700 BP. The ochre appears to have been blown onto the surface, probably in a similar method to that recorded in Australia in ethnographic times (O'Connor and Fankhauser 2001; O'Connor and Marwick 2007). While not enough of the slab remains to allow researchers to tell what was being represented, this is the oldest trace of ochre intentionally applied to a rock surface presently known in Australia, and is one of the earliest examples on a world scale. In comparison, the celebrated Paleolithic art tradition of Western Europe began about 32,000 years BP
(Morwood 2002).
Carpenter's Gap 1 rock shelter has outstanding heritage value to the nation under criterion (a) as it provides evidence of the antiquity of the symbolic use of ochre through its intentional application onto a rock surface by Aboriginal people sometime before 39,700 BP.
Kimberley pearl shell: the most extensively traded item in Aboriginal Australia
Pinctada maxima , the large and luminescent pearl shell found along the west
Kimberley coast is highly valued by Aboriginal people in the Kimberley and across a large part of Aboriginal Australia for its power to regenerate, renew, and transform.
Universally valued as the 'emblem of life' (Akerman and Stanton 1994, 19), the pearl shell's power is represented by the brilliance and shimmer of the shell's nacre.
* * * *
'This is for everybody – man and woman. This is rain. This everything water'
(Walmajarri elder cited in Akerman and Stanton 1994, 2).
* * * *
Pearl shell's correlation with water, including its creation and control, and its associations with supernatural beings and the forces of life and death, make it a profoundly important element in Australian Aboriginal cosmology (Akerman &
Stanton 1994). Pearl shell was created by Dreaming Beings who placed the shells in certain locations and gave rules about its use. For the Bardi people of the Dampier
Peninsula, the Rainbow Serpent, Alungun , is the creator of pearl shell, which it expels during king tides. The nature of Alungun is related to water. In translation 'iridescent it rises from the sea as a rainbow; ascends into the sky and drinks to end the rains'
(Petri 1938,40). For the Traditional Owners of Wunambal and Gaambera country to the north, the Wanjina, Jakulamarra, is said to have come from the north, bringing with him the double log raft, pearl shell and laws about the pearl shell being used by men when dancing in ceremony. He was a saltwater Wanjina, the boss of a number of islands in Wunambal and Gaambera country (within the Wanjina-Wunggurr cultural domain) and the ancestor of Traditional Owners who belong to those islands. As he travelled Jakulamarra left the pearl shell in a number of locations along the coast for people to collect and use (Uunguu elder cited by Doohan 2009). Around Cape
Londonderry in the far north, the origins of the pearl shell are linked to a star that fell into the sea and became the shining pearl shell, rinjii (Balanggarra elder cited by
Doohan 2009).
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The shell was gathered by 'dry shelling' or 'reefing' at low tides. In the past, the double log raft was used to visit offshore reefs to collect shell. Today Aboriginal people source their shell from pearl farm operators with whom they have an arrangement, or still go out on the reefs to harvest them.
Pearl shell has a variety of uses ranging from the decorative to the secret, including personal adornment, rain making, the denoting of status, initiation, and in magic and sorcery (Akerman and Stanton 1994). It is a key component in the traditional systems of justice of Kimberley people, it figures in their religious narratives of the Dreaming, it is depicted in Kimberley rock art, and it is a component of the regalia used in traditional performances of song and dance (Doohan and Bornman 2009).
Throughout the Kimberley, men and women use small blades, discs and crescents of pearl shell for personal adornment. The Bardi use whole shell as 'phallocrypts' (pubic covers) in ceremonial dance and the Nyikina suspend them from a frame to attract rain. The Bardi and Nyul Nyul use plain and engraved shells as emblems for initiation, to signify status, in ceremony and law. The Worrorra use it in law and for ornamentation, and the Wunambal use fragments for ornamentation and in men's ritual performance, law and justice (McCarthy 1939). The Forrest River people use engraved fragments in medicine and sorcery (McCarthy 1939). While pearl shell objects may be used in a public or profane domain where women and the uninitiated can see and handle them, there are other uses of these shells that are closed and may only be discussed by initiated men. The pearl shell may move from the profane world into the sphere of the secret-sacred and then be returned to the secular arena at the conclusion of ceremonies (Akerman et al. 2010).
McCarthy identified seven trade trunk routes related to the 'barter, exchange and distributions of boomerangs, ochre, pitjuri, pearl and baler shells' (McCarthy 1939,
104). Of all these routes, the Kimberley pearl shell and Cape York baler shell were the most extensive: 'The distribution of pearl and baler phallocrypts and ornaments forms the most remarkable example of distant trading relationships in Australia'
(McCarthy 1939, 92).
Within the Kimberley, pearl shell is part of a regional exchange system known as wurnan to Worrorra, Wunambal, Gaambera , Ngarinyin and Kwini language groups
[also known as anngarr or rubarn to the Bardi-Jawi (Bagshaw 1999) and yinyili to the Yawuru and Karajarri (Akerman et al. 2010)]. This exchange network, documented in the earliest ethnographic accounts, continues to be of major significance to Kimberley Aboriginal people today as part of their economic and ritual life (Doohan and Bornman 2009).
* * * *
'All us Kimberley Aborigines are connected through the wurnan. This is how we trade one thing or another right across the Kimberley and down into the desert. All sorts of things, not just secret thing, but meat and sugar-bag, clothes and motorcars and money too…We send back jaguli , pearl shell. Other people might ask me to bring white ochre from my country for painting a background…'(quote from Paddy Neowarra cited in Redmond 2001, 187).
* * * *
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Ethnographic evidence shows that both men and women participated in the exchange of shell within the Kimberley and adjacent areas (Akerman with Stanton 1994;
Kaberry 1939, 168-9 and 171). A senior Worrorra woman (now deceased) referred to pearl shells as the 'black man's passport' because in the old days people who wanted to visit another group would send a shell ahead with a messenger in order to announce their intention to visit. If the shell was sent back, they knew they were unwelcome at the time (Blundell and Woolagoodja 2005, 246).
Plain and engraved Kimberley pearl shell, and fragments of pearl shell, have been traded via networks as far south as the west coast of the Eyre Peninsula and as far east as Boulia in Queensland (Roth 1897; Bolam 1923; McCarthy 1939). It was also recorded by ethnographers in the possession of Arrernte and other central Australian
Indigenous peoples (Spencer and Gillen 1899). Its use has been mapped across twothirds of the Australian mainland (McCarthy 1939; Akerman and Stanton 1994;
Kerwin 2006). McBryde (1987, 603) refers to the trade as '…spectacular, spanning the continent' and Bornman (2009) confirms the trade of pearl shell continues today.
During the 1980s, as the production of carved shell declined at coastal centres,
Indigenous artisans at centres far removed from the coast began to shape and decorate natural valves of pearl shell, which had largely replaced the previously worked shell as an important item of gift exchange. Pearl shell is known to have been carved at centres including Fitzroy Crossing, Christmas Creek, Balgo, Jigalong, Wiluna and the
Warburton Ranges in Western Australia, and at Timber Creek, Lajumanu and
Yuendumu in the Northern Territory. On the coast a resurgence of production of engraved shell, both for internal cultural consumption and to supply the growing art market, was undertaken by a small group of craftsmen under the supervision of a senior Traditional Owner at Lombadina in the early 1990s. Shells carved during this period were seen at Yagga Yagga, south of Balgo/Wirrimanu, early in that decade
(Akerman et. al. 2010).
It is important to note that the cultural values associated with Kimberley pearl shell objects make them of great cultural relevance across the whole area of their distribution, and these values or qualities are maintained even when the shell enters areas such as the Gulf of Carpentaria region or East Arnhem Land, where pearl shell is available locally – it is the exotic Kimberley shell, sourced through traditional exchange mechanisms, that is sought after and prized, (Trigger 1987, 76; Berndt et al.
1982, 112; Akerman with Stanton 1994, 17 and 22). This sustained interest and engagement in the trade of pearl shell from the Kimberley coast confirms McCarthy's
(1939, 92) opinion, that the distribution of pearl shell is the 'most tangible example of distant trading relationships in Aboriginal Australia'.
Traded items with less extensive distributions than Kimberley pearl shell include: undecorated pearl shell and melo shell from Cape York (Akerman and Stanton 1994); baler shells from Cape York (McCarthy 1939; Akerman and Stanton 1994; Kerwin
2006, 99); stone axes from Mt Isa (Tibbett 2002, 24) and Mt William (DEWHA
2007) and the central Australian trade in pitjuri (Watson 1983, Kerwin 2006) and
Pukardu ochre (McBryde 1987; Kerwin 2006, 177).
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Kimberley pearl shell's (Pinctada maxima) correlation with water and its universal value as the 'emblem of life' has made it the most widely distributed item in Aboriginal Australia. Modified pearl shell has been traded across two thirds of the Australian continent and continues to be traded today by
Aboriginal people.
Pearl shell beds at a number of identified sites from Bidyadanga to Cape
Londonderry, where in Aboriginal law and culture the shell is believed to have been created by Dreamtime Beings and is collected by Traditional Owners, have outstanding heritage value to the nation under criterion (a) as the source of the item most widely distributed by Aboriginal people in the course of Australia's cultural history.
Pastoralism
The beef cattle grazing industry in the Kimberley is the major user and manager of the land. Pastoral leases cover approximately 50 per cent of this region, 20 to 25 per cent of which are owned by Indigenous landholders (Australian Natural Resources Atlas
Kimberley Profile 2009). Regions across Northern Australia have a similar pattern of landuse and a distinctive heritage associated with cattle and living in the outback
(Woinarski et al 2007).
The Kimberley pastoral industry is based on rangeland production of beef cattle.
Cattle turnover from the region was about $42.7 million in 1996–97. In 1997 the cattle population was estimated by the Australian Bureau of Statistics to be 489,000 head, 25.6 per cent of the Western Australian herd. While the area previously had a number of abbatoirs, there are currently no meat processing plants in the Kimberley area, and cattle are exported live or sold as stores (Northern Australia Information
Resource 2010).
While the cattle industry is dominant today, until the 1960s sheep farming was an important industry in the Kimberley.
Course and pattern of pastoralism
A national thematic study of pastoralism (Pearson and Lennon 2008) was used as the primary source for the identification of potential National Heritage values for
European pastoral history. Aboriginal participation in the Kimberley pastoral industry and droving were also identified as important elements. These latter aspects are addressed elsewhere in the place analysis.
The thematic study's analysis was undertaken at a national level for course and pattern of Australia's history. The findings of the study shows that pastoralism in Australia is a meta-narrative which encompasses the length of Australia's history from first settlement to 2000. In the course and pattern of this history there are also many intersecting themes. It is noted that in response to this complexity only the major trends and national stories have been identified in the Pearson and Lennon thematic study.
In addition to the thematic study, further review of literature associated with pastoralism within the Kimberley was undertaken to support the historical thematic
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analysis of the west Kimberley against the theme of pastoralism. State and national heritage registers were also reviewed to identify potential National Heritage values.
Pearson and Lennon (2008) used eight place significance indicators for the identification of potential National Heritage values. These include: the pastoral footprint (pastoralism as exploration, settlement patterns, frontier conflict, industrial relations, self sufficiency, breeding, pest and disease control and innovation), government regulation (soldier settlement, closer settlement, travelling stock routes, transportation, pest control and water infrastructure development), environmental constraints (retreat and advance along the arid margins), fluctuating markets (impact of gold mining, woolstores development, beef for burgers push, impact of transport by rail/river boat/coastal shipping and the impact of British wool market arrangements in
World War I and World War II), off farm processes (meatworks and woolscours), the human response to pastoralism (pastoral dynasties, worker quarters, homesteads, schools, swimming holes, artistic associations in literature, poetry and art, making do and hanging on and other sub topics demonstrating aspects of the pastoralism story
(for example: convict stories). Importantly Pearson and Lennon noted that their study was focused on the broad national course of history associated with pastoralism in
Australia. Their study was not scoped to include cross cutting historical analyses associated with aspects of economic and social history, environmental history, frontier history or the history associated with Indigenous people.
Twenty two places around Australia were identified against these significance indicators. None of these places are within the west Kimberley area. Kimberley pastoral stations generally however were noted as places with some potential significance. Compared to the stations analysed in the thematic study the Kimberley pastoral stations were found to have some significance under criterion (d) as examples of Northern Australian pastoral stations but not considered to have other characteristics or other associated historical significance which would be outstanding at the national level.
A few other places in the west Kimberley were also mentioned in the study's historical description of pastoralism. These included Mount House abattoir (for the air beef scheme), Derby wharf, Noonkanbah and Yeeda Station. The individual place histories associated with Derby Wharf, Noonkanbah, Yeeda Station and Mount House abattoir were assessed for significant outstanding events or historical patterns.
While the histories associated with Mount House abattoir and Derby Wharf illustrate aspects of the pastoral story in the Kimberley, no evidence was cited in the literature to indicate evidence of outstanding events or other patterns of historical significance at the national level.
Noonkanbah's history was found to have some historic importance relating to the mining dispute of 1978-1980. Further analysis on this place and the dispute is included elsewhere in the comparative analysis.
Historical information about Yeeda Station was not prominent in the pastoralism literature. Nor was there any evidence to indicate that Yeeda Station is associated with an outstanding event or pattern of historical significance at the national level.
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In summary, the history of pastoralism in the west Kimberley is a prominent part of the region's history. Thematic study of pastoralism in Australia has not identified places of potential National Heritage value within the west Kimberley area. While Kimberley pastoral stations have some potential importance as examples of stations typical of Northern Australia under criterion (d), none has been specifically identified in this analysis.
Droving stories
In the nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth centuries, pastoral activities supported the spread of settlement, provided wealth that was fed into other areas of economic development and played a major part in forging an identity shared and valued by many Australians today. The drover with his flocks and herds rode in the advance-guard of settlement, and overlanders covered very long distances to open up new country. Droving and overlanding became an important part of the development of pastoral activities in Australia. As early as 1836, Joseph Hawdon moved 300 cattle in 26 days from the Murrumbidgee River to Melbourne, a distance of about 480 kilometres. As droving developed, more challenging assignments were undertaken.
By 1863 drover George Gregory drove 8,000 sheep 2,100 kilometres from near
Rockhampton to the Northern Territory border, the journey taking seven months.
During the latter half of the nineteenth century the movement of large numbers of stock over eastern and northern Australia became widespread. The story of Harry
Redford's overlanding of 1,000 stolen cattle in 1870 from Bowen Downs Station,
Longreach, Queensland to South Australia is an example, in this case using the wellknown Strzelecki Track.
Despite Western Australian Government assistance, early attempts to set up pastoral stations and settlements in the Kimberley at Roebuck Bay in 1863 and Camden
Harbour in 1864 failed. In 1879, the Western Australian surveyor Alexander Forrest set out on an official expedition to look for land and gold in the northern part of the colony, and his expedition reports identified the area's potential for cattle. As a result, throughout the 1880s pastoralism became more widespread in the Kimberley, and received significant levels of political promotion and support. The Western Australian
Government used the Melbourne Exhibition of 1880 as a forum to advertise for settlers for the northern parts of the colony, with the aim of capturing some of the enthusiasm for expansion. When in 1881 they offered land in the Kimberley by ballot, promotion of the ballot sparked a series of epic overlanding expeditions by colonial pastoralists from Queensland and New South Wales to the Kimberley. In 1881 Yeeda
Station was established as the first pastoral station on the lower Fitzroy River in the west Kimberley, and by 1883 there were eight stations running a total of 22,000 sheep along the lower valleys of the Mina, Fitzroy and Lennard Rivers. By 1889 over
100,000 sheep were grazed in the south-western Kimberley, almost five times as many as there had been six years earlier (Pearson and Lennon 2008). This spread of pastoral activity into the Northern Territory and the Kimberley provided the impetus for Australia's greatest droving exploits.
Nat Buchanan was the first to take cattle into the Kimberley, crossing the Victoria
River country with 4,000 head to stock the Ord River Station in 1883. In 1878 he drove 1,200 head of cattle over 2,255 kilometres from Aramac, central Queensland, to
Glencoe Station NT (between Darwin and Katherine), and in 1881 he drove 20,000 head of cattle over 3,220 kilometres from St George (Qld/NSW border) to Glencoe
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Station NT – a feat which became known as 'The Great Drove'. In 1883, the Duracks drove 7,250 cattle and 200 horses over 4,828 kilometres from Thylungra Station to
Argyle Downs and Lissadell Station in the north east Kimberley.
The story of the Durack droves has become widely known through Dame Mary
Durack's best selling books, Kings in Grass Castles , To Ride a Fine Horse and Sons in the Saddle .
Part of the mystique of the history of Kimberley cattle men in popular imagination comes from its association with these overlanders who established the first pastoral runs in the Kimberley. They travelled astonishing distances with large numbers of cattle over largely unmapped country distant from established European settlements.
Some were assisted by Aboriginal people and some experienced conflict and resistance from Aboriginal people. It is also clear that the drovers and animals alike faced harsh conditions.
In contrast to many who admired these pioneering feats, overlanders were at times in conflict with other pastoral landowners when during a drove they squatted on others land. This conflict was particularly difficult in times of drought. Nevertheless, drovers became a symbol of European adaptation to a harsh environment as well as of adventuring into the unknown in far and isolated places. Their tenacity played a role in the development of the Australian identity and their place in Australian legend is reflected in folklore and balladry. The life of the drover is described in poems by
Henry Lawson and 'Banjo' Patterson, in books written by Judith Wright and in
Australian song, film and art.
The drove undertaken by the MacDonald brothers from 1883-86 epitomises both the outstanding exploits of drovers during this era, and the endurance of these men in moving stock great distances across the country. In financial partnership with the
MacKenzie family to whom they were related by marriage, they sought to take advantage of the new grazing country opening up in the Kimberley. Over a three year period between 1883 and 1886, the MacDonald brothers drove 670 head of mixed cattle, 32 bullocks yoked to two wagons, and 60 horses from near Goulburn in NSW to Fossil Downs in the Kimberley (MacKenzie 1985). This drove illustrates the hardship faced by both men and animals during a journey of this length. Many cattle and horses were lost because of drought conditions in Queensland, boggy river crossings and Aboriginal attacks on stock. In addition stock illness caused problems when the leading mobs of cattle came down with pleural pneumonia. Malarial fever struck the expedition and both the assistant drover and the bullock handler became so ill they had to leave the drove. The Chinese cook was also killed during what is recorded as an attack by Aboriginal people. Two years into the trip Charles
MacDonald, the expedition leader, became so sick with malaria that he had to be sent by steamer back to New South Wales (MacKenzie 1985). Later his brother William
MacDonald was also struck down with malaria and became too ill to go on. He also returned to New South Wales to recuperate, and this in turn delayed the ultimate completion of the trek (MacKenzie 1985). They eventually arrived on 3 June 1886 at their destination, at the junction of the Margaret and Fitzroy Rivers near a tree marked
F136 by explorer Alexander Forrest. The drove had taken three years and covered a distance of over 5,600 kilometres, a feat unequalled by any other drovers and recorded as the longest drove in Australian history.
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In summary, droves such as that of the MacDonald brothers were an important activity which established large cattle stations, the basis of European settlement of the
Kimberley and the north and the mainstay of economic development in the area.
Fossil Downs, established by the MacDonald brothers following their epic drove, was to develop into the largest privately owned cattle station in Australia at over a million acres (ADB 1974).
Droving and overlanding livestock throughout Australia is a significant national story valued especially for the demonstration of early settlement processes and the hardship experienced by those on the early frontier beyond more settled districts and towns. The place where the tree marked F136 once stood has outstanding heritage value to the nation under criterion (a) for its association with the pioneering overlanding journey undertaken by the MacDonald brothers in 1883-1886.
Pearling industry
Based on the large luminescent pearl shell Pinctada maxima, found along the west
Kimberley coast, the pearling industry in Western Australia has operated for over 120 years. These saltwater clams (pearl oysters) are highly significant to Aboriginal people living along the coast and in surrounding areas and this significance is discussed elsewhere in the place analysis.
When the pearl shell industry in Western Australia was established Aboriginal people formed part of the pearling work force, often participating against their will as skin divers and working in poor and dangerous conditions. Reports of abusive employment practices such as slavery and extreme violence led to legislation in 1871 and 1875 which regulated 'native labour' and prohibited the use of women as divers. This led in part to the employment of foreign indentured labour. However Aboriginal people continued to work in the pearling industry providing essential labour for the development and operation of the industry.
The industry developed from the 1880s to its peak in the early twentieth century when
400 luggers operated from Broome and Broome produced three quarters of the world's pearl shell output. In 1903 Australia's pearl shell production was valued at
£419,000 with £174,322 contributed from Western Australia (Coghlin 1904).
In the first decade of the twentieth century Broome was handling 80 percent of the world's mother of pearl shell for the production of buttons. At this time Broome was recognised as the pearling capital of the world.
While this productive capacity is principally associated with Broome because it is the main pearling port, Eighty Mile Beach to the south is also recognised as a significant contributor to this production of wealth. Eighty Mile Beach continues to be used as the Western Australian industry's main pearling bed and is considered by Australian pearlers to be the last commercially viable pearling bed in the world and an important natural resource which contributes to Australia's pearling industry and productive capacity (B McCallum pers. comm. 3 June 2010).
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The industry developed into the cultured pearl farming industry during the latter half of the twentieth century with Australia producing between 50 per cent and 60 per cent of the world's market. Ninety per cent of this was from Western Australia (Muller
1997). In the 1980s the Western Australian pearl industry was worth $15 million annually, employing around 200 people (Department of Fisheries and Wildlife 1983).
By 2003–2004 the regional cultured pearl annual value was estimated at $122 million
(Department of Fisheries and Wildlife 2006).
Economic impact
The pearling industry, while contributing to regional and national development and exhibiting a long period of continuous production and substantial wealth generation, did not contribute to nation building as comprehensively as the gold rushes of the nineteenth century. Similarly the wealth generated by the pearling industry has not been as substantial as that generated by the mines of Broken Hill, which has significantly influenced the course of Australia's economic history (City of Broken
Hill National Heritage List Place Report 2010).
Distinctive pattern of European pearling - Broome
Broome has been closely associated with European pearling since the industry was established along Western Australia's pearling coast (Eighty Mile Beach to Cape
Londonderry). Broome was the industry's major produce port and still retains this function today, along with Darwin. Its reputation as a pearling port has been the subject of writing about the place, and the town has been referred to at various times with titles such as 'pearling capital of the world', 'Queen City of the North' and
'Australia's first multicultural town', and more recently as 'the fabled town with its chinese shops, its corrugated iron storefronts and palm trees' (Tim Winton 2001).
Broome is recognised by an industry expert as Australia's premier pearling centre
(Brett McCallum pers. comm. 6 June 2010).
The history of Broome associated with the pearling industry's use of indentured labour is distinctive. People from many near Asian countries worked in Broome under indentured labour arrangements with Australian pearlers often sourced through
Singapore. At a time when Australia's settler population was predominantly British or
Irish in origin, Broome's Asian population was unusual in its diversity. This distinctiveness is considered further below in relation to the topics of migration and the White Australia policy.
Migration history
'Since 1945, around 6.9 million people have come to Australia as new settlers. Their contribution to Australian society, culture and prosperity has been an important factor in shaping our nation' (Department of Immigration and Citizenship 2010). Today nearly one in four of Australia's more than 21 million population were born overseas
(Department of Immigration and Citizenship 2010).
Following the arrival of Indigenous people to Australia, there were waves of migration: convict transportation (commencing in 1788), free settlers (starting in the early 1790s), migration from the United Kingdom from the 1820s in response to the demand for labour in the wool industry and immigration during the Gold Rush era of
1851 to the 1860s (Chinese immigrants were the largest non-British group) , and the post World War II immigration boom.
Other migration trends happened in response to
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economic or social conditions in Australia and elsewhere. For example Irish immigration (1840s) to Australia to escape famine in their homeland, labourers from
Melanesia (1860s) for work on Queensland's sugar plantations and Japanese fishers who are recognised as being instrumental in the pearling industry in the late nineteenth century (Department of Immigration and Citizenship 2010).
Akerman and others highlight the social history associated with Aboriginal people and Asian indentured labourers who worked in the pearling industry in Broome since its early establishment (Akerman et al. 2010). The local history associated with the impact of the White Australia Policy, the operation of the Aborigines Act 1905 (WA) segregation and the development of Broome's local multicultural society is noted in particular. Kaino (2005) also describes aspects of Broome's social history which, in the Australian context, demonstrates the evolution of a distinctive local multicultural society.
In summary, Broome's association with Australia's pearling industry has shaped its economy and society. In relation to migration history, focusing on the indentured labourers who came to Broome to work, their story demonstrates the important role of these workers in the development of Australia's pearling industry. The difficult and harsh conditions of work are also evident as is their part in the development of a distinctive multicultural society in Broome. At the national level however, this history, in the context of Australia's migration history, does not demonstrate the same impact on Australia's society, culture or prosperity as the impact of the post war immigration boom. Some other aspects of Broome's distinctive social history are considered under criterion (g).
White Australia policy exemptions
Non-European pearl divers in Australia's north were able to continue to work in the pearling industry because of an exemption from the White Australia Policy from
1901.
From the 1870s, the pearling industry relied on the employment of an indentured migrant labour force at low rates of pay. These men, often highly skilled, worked in difficult conditions, often without their families, could be readily deported if found unsatisfactory, and out of economic necessity were willing to risk their lives in very unsafe conditions with no compensation should they be injured or killed. Between
1910 and 1917, 145 Broome based divers died, primarily from decompression sickness. (Edwards 1983; Sickert 2003; Bach 1955). By the early twentieth century the Western Australian pearling industry was employing over 2,000 men, 1,700 of them Japanese or Malays, with smaller numbers of Filipino, Chinese, Koepang
(Timor), Ambon, Macassan and Aboriginal men (Hocking et al 1993).
Prior to Federation, there was strong local support in the colonies of Western
Australia, Queensland and in Northern Territory for the use of cheap indentured Asian labourers for the pearling industry, although each state's legislation differed. Japanese divers were particularly valued for their proven skills in collecting pearl shells. In each case, the respective colonial authority either supported the practice of using indentured labour as an essential measure for the industry or the region's survival, or agreed to a qualified exemption from restrictions applied to other industries in more populous areas. Other exemptions included the importation of South Sea Islanders to
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work in the sugar industry, while non-white labour filled a variety of occupations across the Northern Territory in the 1890s (Bach 1955, 20). Following Federation, the pearling industry, in common with a number of other remote-area industries, was partly exempted from the Immigration Restriction Act 1901 , the cornerstone of the
Commonwealth's White Australia policy.
The exemption of the pearling industry from the usual immigration requirements was re–examined several times in the first two decades following Federation. This ongoing scrutiny indicated that the exemption was considered to be a loophole in the
White Australia Policy which the Commonwealth Government tried to close by importing white divers in 1912. On this and subsequent occasions the Commonwealth
Government reluctantly accepted evidence that it would not be practicable to replace non-white divers and crews with white divers. There were other similarly unsuccessful attempts to replace Asian workers in a particular industry; for example on the goldfields of the Northern Territory (Reynolds 2003).
The presence of indentured Asian divers and the longevity of their connection with
Broome, due in part to the exemptions to the White Australia Policy, have contributed to the multiculturalism for which Broome is known, and is an important demographic feature of the region. This aspect of Broome is considered further. See migration history below for further discussion.
The history of indentured labour and the application of the White Australia Policy are important subcategories of the historical themes of immigration and nation building in the colonial and post colonial eras. The pearling industry is one of several industries to be largely exempted from the White Australia Policy for several decades after
Federation (Willard 1923). The pearling industry of the west Kimberley is similar to other industries which used indentured labour, most notably the Queensland sugar industry during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Following Federation, pragmatic temporary exemptions to the Immigration
Restriction Act 1901 were granted for a range of non-whites deemed essential for particular roles (such as the Afghan cameleers) or industries, especially those involving relatively small numbers working in inhospitable conditions in remote locations that were therefore unlikely to undermine the White Australia Policy. For example, following agitation by the Queensland Government, the Immigration
Restriction Act 1901 and the Pacific Islands Labourers Act 1901 were amended to enable around 21 per cent of the Pacific Islanders to remain in Australia when the remainder were deported in 1906–1907 (Reynolds 2003). While exempted from the dictation test, these workers remained subject to strict controls not applied to white migrants, and it was generally a condition of the exemption that non-white migrants be repatriated at the end of a specified period (although an extension of the exemption certificate could be granted). Indentured workers in the pearling industry could be readily deported if they did not work as directed, or were rebellious (Sickert 2003).
Analysis of the history of indentured labour and the White Australia Policy in Broome shows that exemptions were not influential in the operation or evolution of the policy nationally, and were similar to other exemptions made for similar reasons in other areas of Australia.
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In summary, the pearling industry of the west Kimberley does not demonstrate outstanding heritage value to the nation in comparison with other industries under criterion (a) for its importance in the course or pattern of Australia's history in relation to the operation or development of the White Australia Policy.
Communications history
In relation to Broome's communications history the cable station and telegraph link to
Java has also been assessed for potential National Heritage values.
In 1889 a new telegraph cable was laid between Java and Roebuck Bay. The cable ship Seine laid the cable in 10 days between Banjoewangie, Java and Broome, a distance of 1,650km. The cable was laid to the beach now known as Cable Beach and linked Broome directly with England via Singapore, India, Aden, Egypt, Malta and
Gibraltar.
At this time two cables already linked Java to Australia via Darwin. The Broome
Cable Station and the government owned telegraph station in Broome opened at the same time. As a result Broome was able to have direct communication with Asia,
Britain and cities throughout Australia. Messages from Perth were now routed through Broome direct, rather than via Darwin or Adelaide. In 1912 the Cable Station was transferred to Cottesloe near Fremantle in Western Australia. The original
Broome cable station building was converted for use as a court house in 1921.
This engineering and telecommunications achievement can be compared to the construction and national impact of the overland telegraph line between Darwin and
Port Augusta in South Australia which was completed in 1872. This line was built over a period of almost two years stretching more than 3,000km through harsh and largely unknown country. Once constructed the line linked Australia to the rest of the world for the first time and is considered to be a milestone in Australia's communications history (Register of the National Estate: Place 165; and Australian
Bureau of Statistics 2010).
While important in the history of communications in north-western Australia the establishment of a communications link between Java and Broome is not sufficiently compelling to demonstrate an outstanding aspect of history of national significance.
On the basis of current evidence, and in comparison to other historical events, the west Kimberley does not have outstanding heritage value to the nation under criterion (a) for its importance in the course or pattern of Australia's economic and social history, communications history or other history associated with the
White Australia Policy.
CONTACT, CHANGE AND CONTINUITY
European explorers
William Dampier
William Dampier occupies a significant place in the process of changing European perceptions about Australia. Although the Dutch had been accumulating information about the coastline and extent of Australia (then known as New Holland) for almost a
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century, their interest was commercial. To protect any commercial advantage this information was held in the Dutch East India Company ( Vereenigde Oost-Indische
Compagnie , or VOC) archives and not disseminated throughout Europe. The Dutch thought that the north-western coast of Australia was bleak, inhospitable and without commercial attraction. Because of this perception, the Kimberley region was to remain one of Australia's most isolated and unsettled areas, with European settlement only developing in the late nineteenth century.
William Dampier stayed in the west Kimberley coast area for more than one month in early 1688, landing first at Pender Bay, then sailing and anchoring in Karrakatta Bay, where he camped onshore with the crew of the ship Cygnet . Dampier and the Cygnet crew lived at Karrakatta Bay while the ship was careened, 'canoed' and fished in the nearby sea, met a group of Aboriginal people on an island, observed Aboriginal people elsewhere and swimming between islands. Dampier also notes in his account old wells, low even land, sandy banks against the sea, rocky points, the careening beach, the islands in the bay, the 'dragon' trees and the Aboriginal stone fish traps described as 'weirs of stone across little coves or branches of the sea'. A full description of his observations is included in his account of his voyages around the world (Dampier 1697).
Dampier spent more time on the Australian coast than any previous European navigator and was one of the first to make observations and record information about the new land. These accounts became known by Europeans through publication of his books. The information about 'New Holland' published by Dampier in these books played a pivotal role in the process of revealing the geography of Australia to
Europeans. This information also stimulated a new drive for discovery and had further impact on European philosophy at the time. Dampier's books became bestsellers across Europe and because of their popularity became extremely influential in forming European attitudes to Australia (Pearson 2004).
Dampier's accounts, which included his observations at Karrakatta Bay and nearby, fostered widespread interest in the 'new south land' and were influential in shaping late seventeenth and eighteenth century attitudes towards Australia and its Indigenous people. Dampier's observations also provided encouragement for further exploration by many European explorers, including for example French explorers and Dampier's own later voyage in the Roebuck which was sponsored by the British Admiralty
(Pearson 2004) and during which Dampier collected some Australian plants, foreshadowing the birth of Australian botany. This exploration stimulus foreshadowed
Cook's voyage to the Pacific and the eventual establishment of a British at Botany
Bay and the founding of modern Australia. In this regard the discovery and settlement of eastern Australia may be viewed as the indirect but none the less real conclusion of
Dampier's work (ADB 1966c).
In summary, Karrakatta Bay is considered to have a significant association with the nation's cultural history because of its association with William Dampier and his place in the process whereby the mythical terra australis incognita was transformed in
European consciousness into the continent of Australia. The environment Dampier observed is substantially unmodified since his 1688 landing and can be seen today.
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Phillip Parker King
Just as Dampier has an important place in the process of accumulating knowledge about the Australian continent as the first to make direct information about Australia widely available to the European public, so too Phillip Parker King has a pivotal role as the man who completed that process through his work in charting the majority of the last unmapped areas of the Australian coast. He was able to complete the previous early exploratory running surveys of the Australian coastline and record his findings into accurate naval charts.
Tiley pays tribute to these achievements of King: 'they (King and other maritime surveyors) laid the groundwork for the creation of major sea-lane security around
Australia's north, along the Barrier Reef and through Torres Strait… creating an invaluable asset for Australia's commercial expansion' (Tiley 2006).
King careened his ship, HMS Mermaid, in 1820 at Careening Bay on the West
Kimberley coast. This was an activity of necessity and demonstrates the nature of his survey work and the dangers that were faced by him and his crew in a small ship far from settled districts without the support of modern communication technology or other logistics support.
In summary, while the careening of the HMS Mermaid demonstrates the maintenance aspects of King's survey voyages, careening by itself is not considered to be a shaping or pivotal event in King's survey work along the Australian coast. Other aspects of this history are discussed under criterion (b).
Inland exploration
A review of the inland exploration literature associated with George Grey, J. Lort
Stokes, Alexander McCrae and Alexander Forrest showed that their exploration expeditions were restricted to the Kimberley region. The use of Aboriginal guides was noted in the literature. Information gained from these expeditions led to a better understanding of the Kimberley region and its potential for development. In comparison with the more iconic expeditions of Carnegie (Coolgardie to Halls Creek
1896), Leichhardt (Brisbane to Darwin 1845), Stuart (Jugiong, New South Wales to
Lake Alexandrina SA 1830) these expeditions are not considered to be outstanding in the national context.
Malcolm Allbrook (pers. comm. 6 November 2009) considers that the Kimberley might have a special association with George Grey. Grey's sighting of Wanjina figures in in the west Kimberley in particular was noted. Grey was the first European to record and publish the Wanjina image. Matters associated with the Wanjina are considered elsewhere in the place analysis.
The Kimberley coast is recognised for its association with early European exploration of the continent. The William Dampier (Cygnet) (1688) landing place, around Pender Bay, Karrakatta Bay, King Sound, the Buccaneer
Archipelago and nearby coast, has outstanding heritage value to the nation under criterion (a) for its association with William Dampier and the influence of his published observations. The environment observed by Dampier is substantially unmodified since his 1688 landing and can be seen today.
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Historic shipwrecks
A total of 237 shipwrecks are known in the north-west of Western Australia. Of these, the locations of only fifteen have been recorded. Of the fifteen identified, only six shipwrecks occur in the west Kimberley assessment area. These six shipwrecks are the: Manfred , SS Karrakatta , SS Colac , Calliance , Sunbeam and Henry . All these sites have local, regional and state heritage significance, however following assessment by a Western Australian State Historic Shipwrecks Practitioner and a
DEWHA officer; none of these sites has outstanding heritage significance to the nation.
Bunuba resistance to the rolling frontier of European settlement
The rolling frontier of European settlement finally reached the northwest of Western
Australia with Alexander Forrest's expedition of 1879. The Kimberley presented a very different set of circumstances to that which had occurred in the east and the south over the preceding 100 years. Authorities and settlers alike had learned from the experiences of their forebears the most effective methods to remove Aboriginal people from the land and by the late 1800s the colonial administrators were taking a much more hardline approach to relations with Aboriginal people (Broome 2010).
This approach was no doubt also influenced by the change in western views about
Indigenous people; Indigenous people were considered 'primitive', and not having the right to stop settlement by more 'progressive' races. Colonisation was seen as an inevitable process in which peoples deemed to be 'inferior' were doomed to die out
(Kinnane 2008). Developments in technology and science during this late period of settlement also created a vastly different set of circumstances for European settlers and for Kimberley Aboriginal people. The availability of new gun technologies meant that settlers and police had accurate, multi-shot, rapid-fire weapons at their disposal at a time when police and settlers were not held to account for their responses to
Aboriginal resistance.
Despite this harsher set of circumstances, the Bunuba people resisted the onslaught of colonisation for some 13 years using their intimate knowledge of the fortress-like refuge of the Napier and Oscar Ranges, and ironically, by using the better weapon technology of the day. The success of the Bunuba resistance brought a severe response from authorities who threw enormous resources into efforts to capture the perpetrators, sending a quarter of the state's police force to the Kimberley to put down the Bunuba resistance, where only one percent of the European population lived
(Pedersen 2007).
The rolling frontier reaches the northwest
By 1882, only three years after Forrest's expedition to look for land and gold, most of the lowland area of the west Kimberley had been taken up by sheep graziers. Seventy seven people held leases to 18 million hectares of land across the region (Broome
2010). Aboriginal people living in the more accessible areas were unable to stop the rolling frontier and soon became part of the growing 'station mobs' located along the
Fitzroy River corridor. By 1889, over 100,000 sheep were grazing in the south-west
Kimberley, almost five times as many as there had been six years earlier (Pearson and
Lennon in press).
As sheep and cattle enterprises continued to spread across the Kimberley so did attacks on livestock as life became increasingly difficult for Aboriginal people living
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outside the stations. Stock supplied much needed food for Europeans but also for
Aboriginal people denied access to their traditional land and resources. From 1892, police and settler recruits were granted greater discretionary powers to disperse
Aboriginal people and life outside the stations became increasingly difficult and dangerous. Spearing of cattle became a criminal offence and gaol terms for cattle theft were increased. In 1893, power was given to pastoralists to adjudicate on cases involving their own stock (Broome 2010).
The Devonian Reef: Bunuba Country
The limestone complexes of the Devonian Reef provided a natural barrier to the rolling advance of European occupation north of the Fitzroy River valley to the rangelands beyond. Hicks, a member of Alexander Forrest's 1879 expedition, wrote about the mountainous region saying that it seemed to 'completely shut us in with bold, high, ranges.' Forrest named them the Oscar and Napier Range and the King
Leopold Range and the party could not find a pass through them (Edwards 1991).
Windjana Gorge, a natural passage through the impenetrable Napier Range to the grassy rangelands beyond, was the scene of perhaps the best known confrontation between the Bunuba and the Western Australian authorities. [see further discussion on the Battle of Windjana under criterion (h) Jandamarra: a powerful magic man and a clever military strategist ] .
The near vertical walls of the gorge, with their convoluted limestone faces and jumbled limestone blocks provided protection and avenues of escape for the Bunuba fighters during the Battle of Windjana. A chimney known as Marli allowed access to the top of the range, and from there a path led to a natural spring called Limalwurru
(Playford et al. 2009). The extremely rugged nature of the limestone landscape made it very difficult, if not impossible, to give chase on horseback.
Windjana Gorge was an important place to Bunuba people as a permanent source of water. Even during the middle of the dry season, the Lennard River still retained some large pools. The largest of these is located near the west entrance, around a large fallen block, known as Bandangnan (Rainbow Serpent) who is said to have created the gorge bringing spirits of the children to the waterhole. The permanent water of
Windjana Gorge also made it a particularly important pass for watering stock; its control was critical to the rolling frontier moving forward.
Bunuba and other Aboriginal resistance to moving frontier of European settlement
Conflict between Europeans and Aboriginal people was endemic on the frontier of
European settlement (Reynolds 1976). As the wave of European settlement moved south and north from the Sydney colony it took many forms from passive resistance through to large-scale violent action, and was highly influenced by the terrain on which it occurred. (Reynolds 1982; Pedersen and Woorunmurra 1995; Grassby and
Hill 1988; Connor 2002). The Bunuba resistance would not have been as successful without the impenetrable fortress-like qualities of their traditional country. The limestone landscape of the Napier and Oscar Ranges provided the Bunuba with a refuge from which to defend their country and a fortress to attack would-be settlers and the police.
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The resistance campaign was unprecedented in Western Australian history as was the ferocity of the police and settler response. For some 13 years, the Bunuba resisted
European settlement, preventing the progression of the rolling frontier, an unusual achievement by Aboriginal people in the history of Australian frontier conflict.
The experience across the new colony of New South Wales was one of dispersed settlement rather than one single front. Governor Arthur Phillip initially concentrated agricultural settlement in the districts of good soil around Parramatta, even though he knew there were also rich alluvial soils in the Hawkesbury region north of Sydney.
Phillip was conscious of not wanting to overstretch the young colony. Phillip's successor, Lieutenant-Governor Francis Grose, however had no such qualms, and in
January 1794 granted land on the Hawkesbury River. The rolling frontier of settlement now had many fronts on which to spread. The Eora and Darug attacked settlers and property across the new colony from Port Jackson to Parramatta in the west; Toongabbie in the south and the northern settlements of the Hawkesbury (Elkin
1974; Roberts 1978; Barlow 1987; Connor 2002; Perkins 2008). The Eora reportedly
'conducted themselves with much art' and by 'flying immediately into the woods…eluded all pursuit and search' (Martin 1988). Once farms had been consolidated in the Hawkesbury area, the Darug rarely raided them, instead focussing on the more isolated farms near woodlands (Connor 2002: 43). The frontier had already dispersed the Aboriginal Traditional Owners living within the Sydney Basin who could not stop the frontier's progression.
Later, in the New South Wales colony, a road was built from Emu Plains to Bathurst following a trade route that had been used by Aboriginal people for generations
(Newbury 1999). Settlement of the fertile valleys west of the Blue Mountains out to the Bathurst Plains was relatively peaceful between 1815 and 1822. Connor (2002) notes that the small number of Europeans, and their limited use of the land to run sheep and cattle, meant that the chance of conflict with the Traditional Owners, the
Wiradjuri, was lessened. However, when the new Governor, Sir Thomas Brisbane, ended Governor Macquarie's limit on inland settlement and granted large tracts of land around Bathurst, the Wiradjuri's resistance increased.
Parties of raiding Wiradjuri burned down buildings, attacked armed garrisons and destroyed sheep, cattle and crops (Perkins 2008, Coe 1989). The attacks got so bad that in 1824 the New South Wales Premier suspended the normal legal process and declared a state of martial law in all the country west of Mount York (Lowe 1994).
Settlement by this point was dispersed across the western slopes out to Bathurst and north to Mudgee. The Wiradjuri took advantage of the dispersed nature of the pastoral frontier to ambush individual stockmen and farms. The mountainous terrain on the edges of the Bathurst Plains and around Mudgee assisted the Wiradjuri warriors in their attacks and gave them what the Sydney Gazette described as 'an interminable extent of country to retire back on'. Connor (2002) notes that unlike the Bunuba, one leader could not coordinate all the Wiradjuri groups. As the British advanced through the vast Wiradjuri lands each group fought the invasion in their turn, 'country by country'. There is no record of Wiradjuri using firearms in frontier conflict.
Unlike the rolling frontier in the northwest of Western Australia, the colony of New
South Wales had many fronts which Aboriginal people boldly resisted but were
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unable to hold back. The Wiradjuri resistance only lasted a short time and by the end of 1824 the Bathurst frontier was again peaceful (Connor 2002).
Similarly, in southeast Queensland, Dundalli, a Ningy-Ningy man whose traditional land included the Bunya Mountains, conducted acts of retribution for tribal elders during the 1850s against an already dispersed European settlement. His actions, including the spearing of settlers and the raiding of stocks and supplies, threatened the economy of the colony rather than preventing its spread. Using his knowledge of the rugged range country around Brisbane and the mangroves and estuaries of the coastal hinterland, Dundalli evaded capture until he was eventually caught, indicted for murder, found guilty and hanged in 1855 (Connors 2005).
Likewise in southwest Victoria, settlement had already dispersed in the districts around the Mt Eccles lava flow from which the Gunditj-mara people launched their punitive raids, known as the Eumeralla Wars. While the clashes severely hampered the activities of the surrounding settlers, it did not stop settlement. The skirmishes between Aboriginal people and Europeans were some of the most prolonged and violent in Victoria's history. Eventually the native police subdued the resistance (DEH
2004).
In north Queensland during the 1860s, the Kalkadoons ( Kalkatungu ) fought a war of resistance in the country between Mount Isa and Cloncurry for six years. The
Kalkatungu used their knowledge of the rugged mountain terrain and deep gorges to evade capture, but the landscape had not acted as a barrier to European settlement.
Stations were already dispersed throughout the region. The most famous conflict between the Kalkatungu and the settlers is known as Battle Mountain, which saw the only old-style European cavalry charge in Australia's history (Lowe 1994). The
Kalkatungu positioned themselves on a 'boulder-studded hill' that was too steep to climb for the Europeans on horseback, and the men were 'forced to dismount and run for cover as spears rained down' (Newbury 1999, Coulthard-Clark 1988). The
Kalkatungu only had traditional weapons and they were no match for the trooper's firepower.
In considering the body of literature on frontier conflict, from the first colony in New
South Wales, north into Queensland and south through Victoria and beyond, the story is a similar one. Aboriginal resistance was most successful where the landscape of their traditional lands provided protection. The Nyikina whose traditional lands included the Fitzroy River floodplains had been decimated by disease and violent confrontations within a short time of the first wave of settlement. Unlike the Bunuba, this group simply lacked a refuge and stronghold from which to launch their resistance. But the Napier and Oscar Ranges not only gave the Bunuba protection, they also physically barred the way to prospective pastoralists. Control of the mountain passes, like Windjana Gorge, meant control of the colonising project and for
13 years the Bunuba held back the rolling frontier.
Many named and unnamed Aboriginal people participated in the Bunuba resistance over that period. Ellemarra, considered a powerful and charismatic man by both his own people and the European settlers, led the Bunuba resistance until his death in
1894, after which time his nephew, Jandamarra took over leadership. Other Bunuba men including Byaburra, Luter, Bool, Muddenbudden, Lilamurra, Bundejan and
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Woorunmurra are all recorded as taking part in the resistance. Bunuba women also played a significant role in the resistance, providing food and acting as sentinels to warn of approaching police patrols (Pedersen and Woorunmurra 1995, 146).
Throughout Australia, Aboriginal people resisted European occupation. Competition for land and water, increased population pressures, European brutality and encroachment on, or violation of, significant sites were all catalysts that contributed to the onset of hostilities between Aboriginal people and European settlers.
The Bunuba resistance would not have been a success without the impenetrable fortress-like qualities of their traditional country. The limestone landscape of the
Napier and Oscar Ranges provided the Bunuba people with a refuge from which to defend their country and a fortress to attack would-be settlers and the police.
Control of the Devonian reef was crucial for the rolling frontier of European settlement to move forward. The limestone ranges of the Devonian Reef have outstanding heritage value to the nation under criterion (a) as the place where
Bunuba resistance held back the advance of European settlement for 13 years, an unusual achievement by Aboriginal people in the history of Australian frontier conflict.
Treatment of Aboriginal people after European settlement
Missions and reserves
There were three phases in the development of missions and reserves in Australia, with many similarities among the colonies,states and territories, especially Western
Australia and the Northern Territory (DEH 2004, Pocock 2007). These phases align with protection (segregation), assimilation and self-determination government policies
(DEH 2004).
The early phase from 1820–1910 saw the establishment of missions around Australia under a variety of denominations. Missions provided a minimal standard of living and operated to evangelise, protect and segregate Aboriginal people (Biskup 1973; Loos
2007; Pocock 2007). In the west Kimberley a number of Aboriginal missions were established during this phase including Beagle Bay in 1890; Lombardina in 1892;
Sunday Island in 1898; Kalumburu in 1908; and Kunmunya in 1910. Prior to the establishment of government institutions in Western Australia 'relations between the missions and the government had their ups and downs…(missions) were tolerated rather than encouraged' (Biskup 1973, 134). Western Australia had the majority of missions and while Aboriginal affairs was under-funded across Australia, Western
Australia had the '…poorest per capita of all these administrations' (Loos 2007, 32).
With the exception of the Northern Territory, which came under Commonwealth legislation until 1910, the states were responsible for Aboriginal affairs until 1967.
Following the 1904 Roth Inquiry in Western Australia and several inquiries in the
Northern Territory into the treatment of Aboriginal people, the Aborigines Act 1905
(WA) and the Northern Territory Aboriginals Act 1910 were passed, closely based on the Queensland 1897 Aboriginal Protection Act (Loos 2007; Pocock 2007). Across
Australia, the police enforced the provisions of legislation which controlled all aspects of Aboriginal lives.
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* * * *
'By 1911 the Northern Territory and the states had created reserves for Indigenous people and had introduced 'protectionist legislation' giving the Chief Protector or
Protection Board extensive powers to control Indigenous people' (National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from Their
Families 1977, quoted in DEH 2004, 11).
* * * *
Treatment of Aboriginal people in missions depended on the denomination of the church and principally the attitudes of the superintendent or manager (Loos 2007).
Missions in the Kimberley offered protection from pearlers and pastoralists and the appalling treatment and conditions of those early industries. In the Northern Territory, missions also protected Aboriginal people from pastoral expansion (Pocock 2007).
Mission inmates worked hard to build and maintain missions and ensured they were viable and self reliant. In 1906, Beagle Bay mission had 20 permanent buildings, a vegetable garden and a well equipped blacksmith shop. Apart from government subsidies and donations, income was earned from cattle, fishing and pearling enterprises (Biskup 1973). The mission inmates supplied timber for verandah posts and windows and produced soft drinks to sell in Broome ( Relationships Exhibition, St
John of God, 2009).
The Hermannsburg German Lutheran Mission near Alice Springs has similarities to
Beagle Bay. For example, Hermannsburg was a refuge where staff mediated and advocated for Aboriginal people during pastoral expansion. Like Beagle Bay, the
Hermannsburg mission was impacted by anti-German policies in the First World War, and it was run as a self contained Aboriginal settlement managed by a denominational body. German design is also strongly evident at both missions (NHL DEWHA 2006).
In the second phase of mission development from 1911 to 1960, state governments increased their control of Aboriginal people and created new institutions. As the number of mixed descent children increased, especially in Western Australia and the
Northern Territory, they were separated from full descent children and put into missions and homes. In the Kimberley, many mixed descent children were removed from their families to Beagle Bay and Forrest River missions (DEH 2004; Pocock
2007). Some mixed descent children were sent south to Sister Kate's Children's Home in Perth (DEH 2004).
During this phase, reserves were set aside in the Kimberley for government pastoral stations and 'feeding depots' to minimise stock killing, to isolate Aboriginal people and train full descent Aboriginal children for pastoral work (DEH 2004). Lombadina, on the Dampierland Peninsula started out as a government feeding depot that supplied rations to independently living Aboriginal people. Other government pastoral stations included Munja Station, near Walcott Inlet and Udialla Station on the Fitzroy River.
For many Aboriginal people, the government ration depot was their first experience of colonization and represented a transitional arrangement for later transfer to missions or stations outside traditional country (KLC 2010).
In 1954, Western Australian policies changed from marginalising missions to seeing them as vital for the welfare of Aboriginal people (Pocock 2007). In 1958, the Native
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Affairs Department was set up and initiated assimilationist practices, including the transfer of functions to mainstream departments and handing over government institutions to Christian missions. In the Northern Territory and Western Australia there was a steady increase in the number of missions and reserves in the period between first settlement and the 1960s (DEH 2004).
In the final phase of missions following the 1967 referendum, legislative responsibility for Aboriginal people, and hence their dealings with missions, was vested in the Commonwealth. Around this time, the majority of missions were closed either by governments revoking the reserve, or the missionary body leaving for a variety of reasons. Titles were often handed over to Indigenous communities to run via governing bodies such as Community Councils. Some former missions like Beagle
Bay, Lombardina and Mowunjum are now managed by their respective Aboriginal communities.
A Departmental thematic study An approach to identifying National Heritage significance for missions and reserves in Australia , (DEH 2004) considered the
National Heritage potential of a range of missions and Government institutions. The study identified the fabric of the Sacred Heart Church at Beagle Bay mission as the only place in the west Kimberley that might have outstanding heritage value to the nation. Moola Bulla near Halls Creek was also identified in the study for possible national significance under criterion (a) as the first self-contained native settlement set up to isolate and train full descent Aboriginal children for the cattle industry.
Aboriginal children from outside the Kimberley region were also sent there (DEH
2004). However, Moola Bulla is located outside of the west Kimberley National
Heritage study boundary. Submissions from the Kimberley Land Council (2009,
2010) note the important colonising role of missions in the west Kimberley and that they had a significant impact on Kimberley Aboriginal people, but they do not provide specific evidence to support a claim that the mission history of this region is outstanding compared to other similar histories across Australia.
While the missions and reserves of the west Kimberley may be significant at the
State, regional and local levels, nationally they are below threshold under criterion (a) for their importance in the course, or pattern of Australia's cultural history.
Bungarun (the Derby leprosarium) - the only extant facility to tell the national story of leprosy treatment of Aboriginal people in Australia's cultural history
Bungarun is the Aboriginal name used by Kimberley Aboriginal people from across the region for the Derby Leprosarium, a total isolation facility that operated between
1936 and 1986 to treat Aboriginal leprosy sufferers. Over the fifty years of its operation, at least 1,400 Aboriginal people were isolated at the leprosarium, and at its peak in the 1950s, there were more than 500 patients. There are very few members of the older generation of Kimberley Aboriginal people who have not had some contact with Bungarun, either as an inmate or as a relation of an inmate who died or was sent there for isolation. Many of those who were sent to Bungarun subsequently died there without ever returning to their traditional country. The Traditional Owners of the place are recognised as the Warrwa language speakers (Jebb and Allbrook 2009).
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Leprosy, also known as Hansen's Disease, was first recorded in Western Australia in
1889. In 1908, the first cases were diagnosed in the Kimberley. The Asian pearlers may have been the conduit for the introduction of the disease into this part of
Australia, or it may have been brought in by people moving from the Northern
Territory into the region (Davidson 1978; Jebb 2009 unpublished manuscript).
Isolation or quarantine facilities known as lazarets were established on a number of islands off the Western Australian coast including Dorre, Bernier, Bezout and
Cossack, where Aboriginal people suspected of carrying venereal disease or leprosy were sent (Jebb and Allbrook 2009). Australia went against international trends by establishing rather than phasing out, total isolation hospitals for contagious disease sufferers during the first decades of the twentieth century (Bashford and Nugent 2002;
Wokaunn 2006).
From about 1913, Aboriginal sufferers of the disease were sent to Beagle Bay mission and the old Residency (doctor's house) in Derby. Government policy changes in the
1930s saw Western Australian Aboriginal leprosy sufferers being sent to the Northern
Territory's federally commissioned Channel Island leprosarium. However, these arrangements were short lived. The sinking of one of the transport luggers killing all onboard brought national attention to the terrible conditions Aboriginal people suffered en-route to the Northern Territory leprosarium. Newspaper coverage and parliamentary outrage in both the Western Australian and Federal parliaments led to the 1934 Moseley Royal Commission into the welfare of Aboriginal people in
Western Australia. One of Commissioner Moseley's recommendations was the establishment of a leprosarium in the Kimberley region, either on Sunday Island or near Derby (Davidson 1978, Bungarun Museum 2009, Jebb and Allbrook 2009).
In 1935, the Western Australian Cabinet resolved that a leprosarium would be established near Derby and within 18 months the leprosarium was built on marsh land approximately 20 kilometres outside of the Derby township. Described as 'the best and most up-to-date in the Commonwealth', the Derby leprosarium received its first patients in December 1936, with the transfer of 90 leprosy sufferers from the old
Native Hospital in Derby. The Sisters of St John of God took over patient care in
1937 and continued to care for inmates until Bungarun closed in 1986. Bungarun was the last isolation hospital for leprosy patients in Australia, and the last one operating in the western world (Jebb and Allbrook 2009 citing Clark 1987).
For the Aboriginal people of the Kimberley, Bungarun allowed leprosy sufferers to stay in or near their country. But while treatment was closer at hand, the methods used to detain leprosy sufferers were often cruel and inhumane. 'Leper camps' were set up to separate sick people on missions and stations across the region. Patrols sought out these sufferers and often used chains to ensure they did not escape en-route to
Bungarun.
In 1941 State legislation was introduced to prevent Kimberley Aboriginal people moving south of the twentieth parallel except for medical treatment, court attendance, education, or for droving stock. This 'leper line' as it became known, was intended to contain leprosy in the north, though its introduction during the Second War World suggests that it was also a response to security and labour shortage concerns. The
'leper line' legislation was not removed from the statutes until 1963, and well into the
1970s children and relatives of known leprosy carriers underwent a compulsory
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medical examination before being sent south for schooling (Jebb and Allbrook 2009 citing Hunter 1988).
Isolation at Bungarun varied from a few weeks to forty years. For those taken from country and family, the experience could be traumatic and for some Aboriginal people remains a difficult experience to discuss (Jebb and Allbrook 2009). Many tried to escape and some were successful. Contact between different language groups at
Bungarun resulted in conflict as well as friendly interaction and the exchange of information. The ability to continue certain cultural practices was central to the
Bungarun experience. Corroborees and traditional singing were encouraged as were art and craft production including painting, the carving of boab nuts, basket making and the production of wooden artefacts (Jebb and Allbrook 2009).
The Bungarun orchestra became an important part of the social life at the institution.
Started during the Second World War, it grew to 40 violins, six banjos, one cello and one cornet. The orchestra played complex pieces of classical music including
Beethoven and Mozart and contemporary dance music. Concerts were given for patients, and during the 1950s and 60s to audiences composed largely of people from visiting ships (Jebb and Allbrook 2009).
While Bungarun was not the only total isolation facility built for the segregation and treatment of Aboriginal people with leprosy, it is the only facility of this type now extant in Australia. Little remains of the Channel Island and East Arm leprosaria in the Northern Territory or the Fantome Island leprosarium, located near Palm Island in north Queensland.
The Channel Island leprosarium was commissioned by the Commonwealth
Government to treat the increasing numbers of leprosy sufferers in northern Australia.
A quarantine station was established on Channel Island in 1884, but it was not until
1931 that the place began to be used as an isolation facility for leprosy sufferers
(NTHAC 2002). By the end of the decade, 129 patients were isolated on Channel
Island, including Aboriginal people transported from the Kimberley (Parry 2003). The place was closed in 1955. Records show that 443 patients were sent to Channel Island during its operation, and at least 142 of those patients are buried on the island
(HCWA 2000). Channel Island was replaced by the East Arm leprosarium, also located in the vicinity of Darwin Harbour (Parry 2003). Patients at East Arm were cared for by the Sisters of our Lady of the Sacred Heart (Kiely media release 2008).
In the 1970s, it was renamed the East Arm Leprosy Hospital, recognising the success of the treatments developed by Dr John Hargrave, whose achievements were also recognised internationally. The East Arm facility was destroyed by a cyclone in 1974.
Patients were kept in nearby makeshift premises until it was decided to close down the leprosarium permanently in 1982. Today, very little remains of the East Arm facility (Parry 2003).
Fantome Island leprosarium was opened in 1940 as a non-denominational facility to detain and treat Aboriginal people with the disease. On the closing of Fantome Island in 1973 the property was burned and little remains today (Parsons 2009).
In striking contrast, much of the leprosarium facility at Bungarun is still intact. The buildings and landscape elements of Bungarun, together with the area of the former
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residential units, the cemetery and the listed Aboriginal heritage sites tell the poignant story of the isolation of Aboriginal people during a period of Australia's cultural history when government policy was dominated by the fear of the disease and its spread to the greater population in the south. Bungarun also has great significance to
Kimberley Aboriginal people as a place with a rich history of cultural interaction and shared experiences with a sphere of influence that extends across the Kimberley region. Three hundred and fifty seven Aboriginal people are buried at Bungarun, and even today regular services and ceremonies held at the cemetery bring large groups of
Aboriginal people back to the place (Jebb and Allbrook 2009).
The archival records of Bungarun are also exceptional in their sheer size and detail, and include oral histories held by the Sisters of St John of God, admission books, pamphlets, more than 900 individual files over some 40 years duration, and more than
15,000 photographic images of patients taken since 1948.
Bungarun (Derby Leprosarium) has outstanding heritage value to the nation under criterion (a) as the only extant facility to tell the national story of leprosy treatment of Aboriginal people in Australia's cultural history.
Aboriginal involvement in the Kimberley pastoral industry
Pastoralism is synonymous with the Kimberley region, and at one time or another throughout the historical record, pastoral leases have covered much of the land north of the Great Sandy Desert and west of the state border with the Northern Territory
(Allbrook and Jebb 2009). Kimberley Aboriginal people played a central role in the pastoral industry from the late 1870s, when the first runs were established in the
Fitzroy Valley, Meda and May River areas (Allbrook and Jebb 2009).
Although resisted in many areas, pastoralism was one of the primary vehicles in the colonisation of Aboriginal people in the Kimberley region. Large numbers of
Aboriginal workers provided a low cost workforce that ensured the viability of
Kimberley stations for decades. Aboriginal workers lives were controlled by work permits and practices with few of the rights others take for granted. Relationships developed as pastoralists and Aboriginal people incorporated each other into their shared lives and the seasonal rhythms of the northern pastoral industry. The introduction of equal wages from 1967 led to the virtual dispossession of Aboriginal pastoral workers and their communities nationally, although this decision was deferred in Western Australia until 1972 at which time the Commonwealth
Government initiated steps to return pastoral stations to Traditional Owners.
Some of the key features of the Kimberley Aboriginal pastoral experience include: the relatively small number of large pastoral leases owned by family dynasties; the movement and protection of Aboriginal workers by State legislation enforced by police; the provision of rations as the principal payment and the station's subsequent control of Aboriginal workers' entitlements; the roles of women and children; the poor living conditions and harsh treatment, and the Aboriginal stockman's sense of historical and contemporary identity.
Aboriginal people involved in the central and northern pastoral industries of Australia share similar experiences, and their contemporary relationships are intertwined and not divided by State borders (Bird Rose 1991, 1999; Baker 1999; Smith 2000; Riddett
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2003; River Junction Research 2006). As in the Kimberley, Aboriginal people were the primary labour source for the establishment of pastoral stations in western New
South Wales, north of the Darling River from the mid 1860s; in the Northern
Territory from the 1870s; and the central Barkley Tablelands from the 1890s
(Paterson et. al. 2003). Similarly, in Queensland, Aboriginal worker's performed all the tasks necessary to run the stations and 'became the backbone of the industry' from the 1850s (de Plevitz 2010).
As noted by McGrath, Aboriginal peoples' skills were similarly invaluable across the north of Australia:
* * * *
'Aboriginal people's widespread collaboration not only created our northern pastoral industry, it enabled peaceful relations, wealth and innovation. Aborigines not only share Australia's pastoral heritage, they shaped it…They incorporated aspects of cattle culture into their own, combining a bush and station lifestyle not in a partial
'adaptation' but in a creative breakthrough, nurturing new and dynamic cultures to embrace their present, post-contact time' (McGrath 1997, 9).
* * * *
Aboriginal resistance to pastoral expansion was met with excessive use of fire and manpower resulting in greater losses of Aboriginal lives (Bird Rose 1991; Jebb 2002;
Allbrook and Jebb 2009; Baker 1999; Riddett 2003). Bird Rose (1991) records for two Northern Territory Aboriginal communities, Victoria River Downs and Alligator
River, the losses ranged from 86 to 97% (Bird Rose 1991). In the Kimberley the losses are unquantified (Smith 2000).
In the Northern Territory as in the Kimberley, Aboriginal people performed the full range of tasks required to build and run the stations, duties as diverse as looking after the houses and children of the bosses, building and maintaining the station infrastructure of fences, yards, dams and wells, and managing, mustering and droving stock (KLC 2010). Aboriginal women in the Kimberley and in the Northern Territory also undertook stock worker roles (Jebb 2002; Bird Rose 1991; Baker 1997; Marshall
1989).
For Aboriginal people maintaining close contact with traditional land during the wet season contributed to a similar history across northern Australia. Most people were able to return to the bush in the annual wet season to take part in ceremonies and other community activities.
* * * *
'This afforded opportunities to pass onto their children skills and knowledge at many levels, as hunting and gathering was also an expression of spiritual attachment to land with many complex meanings' (Young and Doohan quoted in Smith 2000, 83).
* * * *
Stock work became and continues to be an important part of Aboriginal identity (Bird
Rose 1991, 93; Jebb 2003; Allbrook and Jebb 2009; Smith 2000).
* * * *
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'Perhaps most significantly, station work was in many ways compatible with cultural and traditional activities. Aboriginal people working on pastoral stations were able to live on, travel around and take care of their traditional lands. Stockmen 'were strategically placed to ensure a continuing say about disturbance to particular sites in their country'. (WA Department of Primary Industry 2008)
* * * *
Some Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory trace their ancestry and rights to other places. This is comparable to the situation in the Kimberley, with the movement of desert people from the south into the pastoral industry in the Fitzroy catchment and beyond, Aboriginal people across the north adapted to the movement imposed by pastoralism by incorporating more distant relations within their closer kin relationships (Allbrook and Jebb 2009; Rose 1991).
Smith (2000) provides a basis for comparative analysis of the pastoral industry across the north of Australia that highlights the poor living conditions and harsh treatment of
Aboriginal pastoral workers in the Kimberley and Northern Territory. A 1951
Commonwealth survey shows that rations were the principal payment for Aboriginal work in both regions; these were hugely deficient and this situation did not improve for twenty years, even after minimum standards were introduced nationally in 1952
(Smith 2000, 80-92). Comparatively speaking, work and living conditions in the
Northern Territory were 'no better, nor worse than those upon other stations through the Territory and East and West Kimberley' (Rose 1991, 145).
From the 1960s, new government payments and pensions for Aboriginal workers were paid directly to station bosses. Like the previous ration system, these payments ensured a dependent workforce and were open to abuse. In some instances payments supplemented the incomes of stations and made it more profitable to have dependants than employees (Rose 1991; Jebb 2002).
Equal wages for Aboriginal pastoral workers was legislated nationally in 1969, although this was not fully implemented in the Kimberley until 1972. For Aboriginal pastoral workers nationally, this decision led to the majority of Aboriginal people voluntarily or involuntarily leaving pastoral stations. In the north for a variety of reasons, some people left immediately, as occurred at Wave Hill in the Northern
Territory, while others left later, for example, at Victoria River Downs and Humbert
River in the Northern Territory in 1972 and Mt Elizabeth Station in the Kimberley in
1995 (Allbrook and Jebb 2009, Bird Rose 1991). Many workers feared and some were threatened, that if they left the stations on their traditional lands, they would not be able to return (Allbrook and Jebb 2009, Rose 1991).
In 1972, the Commonwealth Government purchased Panter Downs (Pantijan) in the north Kimberley, vesting this station with the Mowanjum Community, followed by
Noonkanbah in 1976. 'Many Aboriginal people in the Kimberley continue to identify as 'station people' and have a strong sense of identity and ongoing relationship with pastoral stations as owners and managers' (Allbrook and Jebb 2009). Today, approximately 25 per cent of Kimberley pastoral stations are held by Aboriginal interests (KLC 2009).
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The Kimberley Land Council (2010) submission states that Kimberley
Aboriginal people identify strongly with the pastoral industry and that many families are connected over generations to particular stations. While Aboriginal workers in the Kimberley pastoral industry were vital to its development and success, the same is true for the Northern Territory, Queensland and other parts of Australia. Based on current evidence, Aboriginal involvement in the
Kimberley pastoral industry does not have outstanding heritage value to the nation under criterion (a).
The Noonkanbah dispute
When Aboriginal people speak about 'Noonkanbah' they are referring to a series of events which took place on Noonkanbah station between 1978 and 1980. These events drew the attention of the nation to the struggle of Aboriginal people to protect their rights to practice traditional law and culture in the face of a resources boom and a state government's desire to develop its oil and mineral resources. The events at
Noonkanbah helped catalyse significant changes in law, policy and practice associated with the recognition of Aboriginal people's rights to land and responsible resource development by governments and companies alike. Noonkanbah 'cannot be looked upon….as just another episode', but as a 'moment in history' that was a pivot of change (Hagen 1979 cited by Hawke and Gallagher 1989, 294). 'Symbolically, before Mabo, Wik and Hindmarsh there was Noonkanbah' (Ritter 2002, 1).
Noonkanbah station is located on the north bank of the Fitzroy River, about 100 kilometres south-west of Fitzroy Crossing. From 1886 when the pastoral lease was initially taken up, until the early 1970s Aboriginal people supplied the necessary labour to make the station profitable. Following the Second World War, Aboriginal people began to leave the station in response to continued low wages and poor conditions. The introduction of equal wages in the Kimberley brought a further decline in Aboriginal workforce numbers. In 1972, when the Aboriginal Affairs
Planning Authority Act 1972 (WA) finally lifted all restrictions on the payment of wages to Aboriginal people, the remaining workers left Noonkanbah to join the rapidly expanding Aboriginal population in Fitzroy Crossing (Allbrook 2009).
Inspired by the passing of the Western Australian Aboriginal Heritage Act 1972 and events such as the Wave Hill Walk Off and the Whitlam government's proposed land rights legislation, Aboriginal workers from Noonkanbah, Quanbu, Jubilee and
Cherrabun stations formed an alliance to request a return of their traditional lands
(Hawke and Gallagher 1989). After prolonged negotiations, the Commonwealth handed back Noonkanbah station in 1976 to the Aboriginal Lands Trust which passed the pastoral lease on to the Yungngora Aboriginal Association. But within two years of Noonkanbah's return to Aboriginal people, 497 resource exploration claims had been filed, held by about 30 companies or prospectors, covering a total of nearly
60,000 hectares (about 35 per cent of the station area) (Allbrook 2009).
In May 1978, the Yungngora community learned that Amax, a North American resource company, was intending to drill an exploration well on the station in the vicinity of Pea Hill ( Umpampurru ) 'a powerful malaji centre (increase site) and the home of a great woman spirit and associated malaji sites…linked by Dreaming tracks up to ten kilometres west' (Hawke and Gallagher 1989, 121-125; Ritter 2002). The
Yungngora people offered to show Amax alternative sites, but these were refused by
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the company. The findings of a site inspection by the Western Australian Aboriginal
Sites Department, the agency responsible for administering the Aboriginal Heritage
Act 1972 (WA) , that Pea Hill was surrounded by an 'an area of influence' (Ritter
2002) was not accepted by the Western Australian Government. According to the
Western Australian Government's publication 'Noonkanbah: The Facts' (1980) the concept of 'areas of influence' was not supported by 'most anthropologists or
Aborigines'.
In May 1979, Dicky Skinner, a member of the Yungngora community, went to Perth with a petition against Amax. The story was picked up by the media and Skinner addressed the Western Australian Trades and Labour Council, which carried motions of support and letters to Amax. Union rallies in Perth shortly thereafter recommended bans on all drilling work at Noonkanbah and the Australian Workers Union (AWU) suggested that all nine oil rigs operating in Western Australia could be closed down if drilling at Noonkanbah went ahead. Bob Hawke, as leader of the Australian Council of
Trade Unions ( ACTU) also called on Amax to pull back (O'Lincoln 1993).
The Yungngora community barred and locked the gate of Noonkanbah station in June
1979 amid Amax and state government threats to start drilling. Ritter (2002) notes the spectre of physical confrontation receded with the success of an interim injunction filed by the Aboriginal Legal Service to prevent drilling. While the injunction was eventually lifted, the onset of the wet season prevented the company from further drilling.
In March 1980, Western Australian Government ministers visited Noonkanbah to try and resolve the situation, but with no success. Later that month, Amax entered the property without notice, with a police escort and began bulldozing a camp site. A second injunction was granted to stop the work, but was lifted a short time later
(Ritter 2002). In May 1980, the Western Australian Premier visited the station to discuss the matter with the Yungngora community, as did the Federal Minister for
Aboriginal Affairs, Fred Chaney, but all talks failed to resolve the situation (Ritter
2002).
The most publicised act in the Noonkanbah dispute occurred in August 1980 when a non-union, strike breaking convoy transported drilling equipment 2,240 kilometres from Perth to Noonkanbah. Backed by a large police presence, the forty-nine truck convoy broke through a number of blockades and a number of arrests were made along the journey. Just north of Port Hedland, a bridge was blocked by 160 local
Aboriginal people, and near Broome, 200 protesters greeted the convoy. At
Noonkanbah, 60 men set up a blockade at Mickey's Pool, on the access road into the station. After a long overnight vigil, police finally cleared the blockade. In total, 55 people were arrested by police as a result of the blockades, including members of the
Aboriginal community, church leaders and resource union representatives (Howitt
1980, O'Lincoln 1993; Ritter 2002; Allbrook 2009). Despite getting through the blockades onto the station and under pressure from the ACTU, the drilling crew voted not to operate the rig (O'Lincoln 1993; Gillespie 2009). To get around the ACTU ban, the Western Australian Government transferred the drilling rights to a shelf company, thereby allowing a non-unionised drill crew to sink the exploration well without further delay. No oil was found. For Aboriginal people this outcome was to be expected because, as one senior Aboriginal man who participated in the Noonkanbah
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struggle noted, the local maparn , a clever, ritually powerful individual had the power to relocate the fat, that is, the oil of the Dreamtime Goanna (Allbrook 2009, 11 citing
Dixon 1990).
Although the State government had succeeded in the short-term in exerting its authority, the actions taken at Noonkanbah were a catalyst for change in law, policy and practice in how governments, resource companies and Aboriginal people would do business in the future. The inability of statutory law to provide even a rudimentary level of protection to Aboriginal sites of significance was starkly demonstrated by the events of Noonkanbah. The failure of the Gove land rights case of 1970 ( Milirrpum and others vs. Nabalco Pty. Ltd and the Commonwealth of Australia) meant that
Australian common law did not recognize Aboriginal customary land ownership.
Partly as a consequence of Noonkanbah, some Australian governments progressively implemented statutory land rights and heritage protection measures aimed at providing limited avenues for Aboriginal assertions of traditional land ownership and responsibilities to care for important sites. Noonkanbah exposed the fragility of statutory law in providing even basic protection to Aboriginal sites of importance, and illustrated the disjuncture between Aboriginal assertions of land ownership under traditional law and custom and a government which was intent on showing that such a view was not supported by the law. In response to Noonkanbah, the Western
Australian Government further narrowed the definition of Aboriginal heritage and changed the previously independent Heritage Council to an advisory body, making the Heritage Minister responsible for decisions. These amendments effectively cut
Aboriginal people out of any legal recourse to protect their heritage from resource extraction activities.
* * * *
'If events like Noonkanbah are seen as giving rise to the Mabo legislation, the irony is that, with the common law recognition of native title in Australia, there occurred the greatest realignment in power over resources between Aboriginal people and industry since the commencement of colonisation' (Ritter 2002, 8).
* * * *
Similarly, Allbrook (2009) states that the Noonkanbah episode brought an increased radicalisation in Aboriginal politics, and an increased clarity in Aboriginal people enunciating their concerns. Similarly, Vachon and Toyne (1983) noted that:
* * * *
'[T]he Government has inadvertently propelled them [the Noonkanbah protesters], along with other Aborigines, into a political arena where land rights, and not only the protection of sites, may just be possible … contrary to everything the Government may have intended, a pan-Aboriginal unity has begun to emerge…'(Vachon and
Toyne 1983, 131).
* * * *
Noonkanbah represented 'worst practice' in relations between resource companies and
Aboriginal traditional owners, and played an important role in the subsequent adoption of inclusive and co-operative exploration and resource extraction practices which acknowledged Aboriginal rights and interests in land outside of the common
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law. An imperative to 'avoid another Noonkanbah' stimulated Commonwealth discussions with peak mining and resource bodies such as the Australian Mining
Industry Council (AMIC) and the Australian Petroleum Producers and Explorers
Association (APPEA). All agreed that 'the interests of all parties will best be served, not by confrontation, but by pursuing a policy of negotiation and consultation' (Berndt
1982, 146–147).
Kimberley Aboriginal people also took a proactive stance in developing their own strategies and protocols to counter the absence of supportive heritage and land rights legislation. Aboriginal community-based organisations such as the Kimberley Land
Council were at the forefront in negotiating innovative heritage protection and clearance methodologies oriented towards recognising and balancing the rights and interests of both Aboriginal Traditional Owners and exploration and resource extraction parties (Doohan 2008).
Noonkanbah continues to have powerful meaning for Aboriginal people across the
Kimberley, many of whom view the dispute at Noonkanbah as the genesis of the pan-
Kimberley political movement which ultimately spawned Aboriginal organisations that have become central to the articulation of the cultural, political and social aspirations of Kimberley people. The establishment of the Kimberley Land Council in
May 1978 led directly to the formation of the Kimberley Language Resource Centre
(1984), the Kimberley Aboriginal Law and Culture Centre (1984), and Magabala
Books (1987).
Allbrook (2009) invites comparisons of Noonkanbah with the Eureka Stockade of
1854, that other infamous episode in Australian history in which a section of society stood up to what was widely perceived to be the unjust use of power by an Australian
Government. Like Eureka, the protesters at Noonkanbah gained widespread public support for their stand. Like Eureka, the protest at Noonkanbah was put down by force and, like Eureka, although the State won the battle at Noonkanbah, the episode was significant in ushering in changes to the law and the way resource extraction business was henceforth to be carried out.
Allbrook (2009) notes that Ritter (2002) and others claim that Noonkanbah was a 'key event' in a 'crisis of legitimacy that engulfed the Australian political system in relation to Aboriginal affairs between Milirrpum and Mabo', and 'one of the key stimuli for
[Aboriginal people] turning to the common law' (Palmer 1983; Keon-Cohen 2000).
The inception of the Mabo native title case in 1982 eventually brought a fundamental shift in the rights of Aboriginal people to be involved in decisions over the use of traditional lands. This was recognised by the High Court in its decision on the case in
1992, and in the Commonwealth Government’s statutory response to that decision. The
Native Title Act 1993 (Cth) provided an avenue for Aboriginal Traditional Owners to claim the legal right to object, and limited rights to negotiate.
The Native Title Act 1993
(Cth) also provided an avenue for Aboriginal Traditional Owners to claim the legal right to object and negotiate over applications to use traditional lands.
Noonkanbah is one in a series of important steps in the national struggle of
Aboriginal people to have their rights to practice traditional law and culture, and have their rights to traditional land ownership recognised. In addition,
Noonkanbah brought about significant change to resource company policies and
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practices in relation to consultation and negotiation with Aboriginal people and in the protection of Aboriginal heritage.
Yirrkala, Wave Hill, Noonkanbah and Mer Island each assume their own symbolic importance in the long, slow path towards the recognition of Aboriginal rights and the protection of Aboriginal heritage.
The areas of Noonkanbah station encompassing the station gates, the crossing at
Mickey’s Pool, Pea Hill and the unsuccessful exploration well have outstanding heritage value to the nation under criterion (a) as the site of the Noonkanbah dispute, an important event in the national struggle of Aboriginal people to have their rights to practice traditional law and culture recognised, and to protect their heritage for future generations.
The Second World War in Australia
Research undertaken for the identification of potential National Heritage values associated with the Second World War was assisted by the thematic Australians at
War study undertaken by Ziino and Beaumont (2004). This study was undertaken at the national level.
In common with its effects in the rest of Australia, the war of 1939 to 1945 brought significant political, social and infrastructural changes to the Kimberley region.
During the war years, people in Broome and Derby moved to safer locations, while
500 Japanese pearlers and German missionaries were sent to internment camps.
Existing airfields were upgraded and major new airfields were built at Drysdale (now
Kalumburu). In 1944 the major airfield, Truscott (now Mungalalu) was established, along with two aviation meteorological stations and the pastoral property of
Noonkanbah was a staging post. Thousands of military personnel moved into the area, bringing military equipment including ordnance, planes and trucks.
As well as the physical displacement of internment and evacuation, and the infrastructural and population changes brought about by mobilisation, the west
Kimberley was subject to enemy air raids. In Broome 96 people were killed, 16 flying boats carrying refugees and seven planes at Broome airfield were destroyed, and a
DC3 was shot down near Beagle Bay, and at Drysdale mission five Aboriginal civilians were killed. Approximately two dozen military personnel also lost their lives in wartime accidents in the region. Missionaries and Aboriginal people were involved in courageous rescues of civilian and military personnel.
Some of the consequences of the Second World War in the west Kimberley are still evident in the flying boat wreckages in Broome harbour revealed at low tide, in the airfields of Truscott ( Mungalalu ) and Drysdale (Kalumburu), associated military camp sites, war relics and the former radar station sites.
Australia's war history is important in the course and pattern of Australia's history.
The history of the First and Second World Wars has national importance and this importance is recognised in official histories of Australia, in historical works associated with nation building and in Australian's sense of identity, and in public institutions like the Australian War Memorial.
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The effects of the Second World War on the home front were widespread and common to many Australians. This shared history includes the experience of rationing, domestic travel restrictions, prosecution of conscientious objectors and the banning of particular political organisations (Darian-Smith 1996; DVA 2009; Ziino and Beaumont 2004). Displacement was a common experience, in the form of mobilisation, the deployment of family members, evacuation, internment, and death
(Darian-Smith 1996; Long 1973; Ziino and Beaumont 2004). Other effects of mobilisation included the presence of foreign military personnel in Australian cities, development of roads, ports, air fields, buildings, and communications infrastructure, and the movement of troops and ordnance. Economic effects included the enlistment of women, the encouragement of women into the workforce, subsidies for industries associated with the war effort, and the fixing of profit margins (Darian-Smith 1996;
DVA 2009; Ziino and Beaumont 2004). Commonwealth and State governments were motivated by strategic and security concerns as well as international obligations, perhaps brought into focus following the war in Malaya, the fall of Singapore, Rabaul,
Ambon, Timor, Java and the defence of New Guinea (Beaumont 1996; DVA 2009;
Ziino and Beaumont 2004).
Events such as the disappearance of HMAS Sydney with all crew in 1941 and the attack on Sydney Harbour by Japanese miniature submarines in May 1942 increased domestic anxiety. Air raids in a number of towns in the north of Australia resulted in devastating civilian casualties and may have heightened a collective sense of the nation's vulnerability (DVA 2009; Ziino and Beaumont 2004). Some of these events are evoked in surviving fabric. For example: the Japanese miniature submarine in situ in Sydney Harbour, the Indian Ocean resting places of the Kormoran and the HMAS
Sydney II , a number of air fields and base camps throughout Australia, in towns and military bases named for war heroes and in war memorials in towns across the nation
(Inglis 2008; Garrett and Keneally 2009).
In the west Kimberley region, these national stories are best preserved in the physical remains resulting from air raids, and the remnants of infrastructure described above.
Communities in Queensland, the Northern Territory, Western Australia and the cities of Sydney, Newcastle and Port Gregory all experienced attack from air or sea. The campaign in the air began when Darwin was bombed by Japanese planes between
February 1942 and November 1943 and sustained serious damage as well as heavy civilian casualties. These initial raids preceded 21 months of air assaults across the
Top End: Darwin, Adelaide River, Katherine and Milingimbi in Arnhem Land were bombed 64 times; Horn Island (near Thursday Island) experienced ten raids during
March 1942 and June 1943; Townsville was subjected to three raids during July 1942;
Wyndham was raided four times; Exmouth experienced three air raids and Port
Hedland two air raids (Darwin Defenders no date; Dunn 1999). Grose (2009) contends that the Australian Government bowed to military pressure to keep the extent of the casualties from these attacks from the general public.
The attack in Sydney Harbour by Japanese miniature submarines between 31 May and
1 June 1942 preceded a month of raids along the eastern seaboard which disrupted merchant shipping as well as bombing Sydney and Newcastle. These are the best known Axis naval activities in Australian waters and, while the physical effects on infrastructure were minimal, the psychological effects on the Australian Government,
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military and population centres were profound (Gill 1948).
The 2004 heritage theme report by Ziino and Beaumont on Australians at war did not identify any places in the west Kimberley which had potent National Heritage values.
The national significance of overseas places like Kokoda, Gallipoli and Tobruk were noted. Even given this thresholding caveat (inclusion of overseas places), the bombing of Darwin – the first wartime assault on Australian soil – and the Northern
Territory was more extensive than that in the west Kimberley, and was accompanied by heavier casualties. The effects of Japanese raids by air and sea on the heavily populated eastern seaboard had immediate significant psychological and strategic effects which the air raids in the remote north and north-west, subject to censorship and media blackout, did not have (Grose 2009). The bombing of Darwin and the eastern seaboard events have more significance in the course and pattern of
Australia's cultural history than the west Kimberley events because of their effects on
Australian security policy and political history.
In summary, the events of the Second World War in the west Kimberley have some significance relating to the history of the home front in Australia, the war on
Australian soil and the regional history of the west Kimberley. The war sites also have potential significance at a regional and state level. There is however no evidence to indicate they have outstanding heritage value to the nation.
On the basis of current evidence the course and pattern of west Kimberley's history associated with the Second World War events does not have outstanding heritage significance to the nation under criterion (a).
CRITERION (b) – The place has outstanding heritage value because of the place's possession of uncommon, rare or endangered aspects of Australia's natural or
cultural history.
ECOLOGY, BIOGEOGRAPHY AND EVOLUTION
The well-preserved Devonian fish fossils of the Lennard Shelf have attributes that are rare in the palaeontological record in Australia and overseas. At the Gogo fossil sites , near-complete, articulated fossil fish are often found in limestone nodules and up to
50 different species are preserved. The spectacular Gogo fossils have recently been discovered to preserve soft tissue structures along with bone (Trinajstic et al. 2007;
Trinajstic and Long 2009; Ahlberg 2009). This discovery allows researchers to examine fine details of anatomy that are usually lost during the fossilisation process.
Most remarkable of these finds has been evidence for viviparity (live birth), within the extinct group of fish known as placoderms. Embryos, an umbilical cord and a possible yolk sac have been found preserved. This represents the earliest evidence for internal fertilization and live birth within the vertebrates (Long et al. 2008). Extensive remains of soft tissue have allowed reconstruction of the body musculature in a stem vertebrate (these fish being ancestral to tetrapods) (Ahlberg 2009). The Gogo fossils are unique in preserving a diverse fossil fish fauna, complete with soft tissue anatomy.
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There are four other known Devonian fish sites in Australia that preserve articulated skeletons (Long 1996). Two of these, Canowindra and Wee Jasper, are located in
New South Wales and two, Mt Howitt and Buchan, in Victoria. Preservation at these sites varies, with Canowindra and Mt Howitt preserving fish in two dimensions while
Buchan, Wee Jasper and Gogo preserve fish in three dimensions. Two-dimensional preservation at Mt Howitt consists mainly of impressions of the bones left behind in the mudstone – where the bone is preserved it is usually badly weathered. Negative preparations are used to study the Mt Howitt fish fauna by dissolving the weathered bone and making latex casts of the impressions. Canowindra's preservation is mostly natural moulds filled with hard sandstone casts, some of which preserve internal structure of braincases and gills. There are eight species of fish found in Canowindra, but the fauna is overwhelmingly dominated by just two species. The assemblage is thought to represent a rapidly dried-out inland freshwater body. For both of these types of preservation, while fine detail can be retained, soft tissue cannot.
Both Buchan and Wee Jasper represent Devonian coral reefs. At these sites, the fish fauna is preserved in limestone rather than shale, which has made three dimensional preservation of the actual bone possible. Limestone preservation has also meant that acid etching of the fossils can be used in preparing them, progressively dissolving the surrounding matrix rather than mechanically removing it and thus allowing recovery of fine detail. Buchan's fossil fish are rare and as the most fossiliferous part of the facies has been mined for many years, the deposit may be all but removed. Wee
Jasper, by contrast, has nearly as diverse a fish fauna as Gogo and apparently similar preservation (Long 1996). However, as yet, there is no reported fossil from Wee
Jasper that preserves soft tissue structure.
The late Devonian Gogo fish fossil sites have outstanding heritage value to the nation under criterion (b) for remarkable preservation of a diverse fauna of entire fossil fish skeletons complete with the rare preservation of extensive soft tissue.
The Broome sandstone of the Dampier Coast (between Roebuck Bay and Cape
Leveque) contains the only sauropod prints found in Australia (Thulborn et al. 1994;
Long 1998). The sauropod fauna of Australia is poorly known. One Jurassic form,
Rhoetosaurus brownei Longman 1926 and a single Cretaceous species, Austrosaurus mckillopi Longman 1933, both from Queensland, had been described prior to 2009.
Two more sauropods were recently described from Winton, Queensland –
Diamantinasaurus matildae and Wintonotitan wattsi Hocknull et al. 2009. All of these species are described from body fossils which can provide only limited behavioural and ecological data. On the other hand, ichnofossils (geological markers of biological activity like burrows, footprints, feeding marks and cavities left by the roots of plants) can provide ecological, behavioural, social, anatomical and population data which is inaccessible from body fossils alone, particularly in the concentration and variety they are found on the Dampier Coast.
With some hind foot (pes) tracks as long as 1.75 metres, the Broome Sandstone tracks are competitors for the title of world's largest sauropod prints – some recently found in France are reported to be anywhere from 1.5–2 metres long (Wedel 2009). The
French tracks may, however, be composite prints (that is, fore and hind feet overlap)
(Thulborn pers. comm. 2009). The Broome Sandstone tracks indicate an animal that
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could have stood as tall as 5.4–5.6 metres at the shoulder and may have been up to 30 metres long (Gibson 1997; Thulborn, pers. comm. 2009). While some of these tracks appear to be similar to the ichnogenus Brontopodus , there are three or four other types of tracks which suggest the presence of multiple sauropod taxa (Thulborn et al. 1994;
Thulborn 1997). Also found here are the world's smallest sauropod tracks, indicating a broader population sample than that of any other sauropod track sites known worldwide. Further, some of the trackways are quite unusual in that there is a disparity in the width of front and hind limb stances, indicating a previously unknown sauropod gait. Other, exceptionally well-preserved tracks have provided the first evidence of manus ('hand') claws in sauropods and some even preserve skin impressions (Thulborn 2009).
Dr Giuseppe Leonardi, an Italian vertebrate palaeontologist and ichnofossil expert, has described the Dampier Coast as a 'plant eaters' paradise' (Gibson 1997). Evidence for the coexistence of sauropods and ornithopods, both herbivorous dinosaurs, is rare in the world and unknown elsewhere in Australia. But it is not uncommon on the
Dampier Coast to find sites where tracks of both types of animals occur in the same stratigraphic layer in relative abundance. In Dr Leonardi's experience of field work in
Europe and South America, carnivorous therapod dinosaurs are considerably more common than they appear to be on the Dampier Coast. Such important behavioural and population data underpins the scientific significance of the Broome Sandstone
(Gibson 1997; Thulborn 2009).
The Cretaceous dinosaur fauna of Australia is known almost entirely from sites on the east side of the country. Flat Rocks and Dinosaur Cove in Victoria, Lightning Ridge in New South Wales and the Winton Formation in Queensland have produced most of the body fossils found. Some are known from the opal fields of South Australia;
Andamooka and Coober Pedy have produced isolated dinosaur bones. Very little is known about the western half of the continent, which was separated from the east by shallow inland seas. The Dampier Coast is the only site with extensive evidence of western Australian dinosaurs. The only other evidence of dinosaurs in the west are fragments of bones from the Giralia Range, Birdsong Sandstone and in the Molecap
Hill Quarry in Western Australia (Long 1998).
The National Heritage listed Lark Quarry in Queensland is another significant
Australian track site. Lark Quarry is remarkable for the sheer number of prints that provide a 'snapshot' of a few minutes of activity during the Cretaceous period. Four types of tracks of dinosaurs and thousands of prints are preserved at the site. Features of the tracks have led to the interpretation that Lark Quarry captures a moment in time: a group of smaller dinosaurs fleeing an approaching predator (Cook 1994). A particular locality on the Dampier Coast, described as 'a beautiful mess', is one of many that is comparable to the Lark Quarry site in its high-resolution capture of a few minutes during the Cretaceous period: Dr Tony Thulborn, a vertebrate palaeontologist who has worked on the Broome Sandstone localities for nearly two decades, interprets this exposure as evidence of the passage of a herd of medium to large sauropods
'travelling along the coast in a corridor defined by a forested area (still preserved on the eastward side) and open lagoons … I've seen nothing to approach it anywhere else in the world' (Thulborn 2009; Thulborn 2010).
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Other Australian track sites include the Ipswich Coal Measures, the Precipice
Sandstone, the Razorback Beds and Walloon Coal Measures, all in Queensland. These range in age from the Late Triassic through Mid Jurassic and so are all older than both the Dampier Coast and Lark Quarry sites. No more than three types of tracks are preserved at any of these other sites and the taxa represented are interpreted to be ornithipods and theropods (Thulborn 2009). None of these sites approaches either the
Dampier Coast or Lark Quarry for the numbers of prints preserved, nor do any of them come close to the Dampier Coast for the geographic extent of the tracks. Alone of the Australian track sites, the Dampier Coast preserves evidence of sauropods. The
Broome Sandstone tracks along the Dampier Coast are the best record of dinosaurs from the western half of the continent and the large number and variety of tracks in a range of depositional settings provides an otherwise unobtainable census (Thulborn
2009) of dinosaur populations and communities.
The Dampier Coast dinosaur tracks have outstanding heritage value to the nation under criterion (b) as the best and most extensive evidence of dinosaurs from the western half of the continent, some of which are unknown from body fossils; for the diversity and exceptional sizes of the sauropod prints; and the unique census of the dinosaur community that they provide.
Anecdotal reports indicate the presence of human footprints in Quaternary sediments at a number of named coastal sites on the west of Dampier Peninsula north and east of
Broome. Media reports, several books and a major summary of footprint sites which appeared in the journal Ichnos in 2001 indicate that ichnofossils stolen from the area in 1996 included human footprints as well as dinosaur tracks (Mayor and Sarjeant
2001; CNN 1996; Long 1998; Long 2002; Thulborn 2009). A paper by Welch (1999) identifies a trackway elsewhere on the Dampier Coast of ten footprints, with an eleventh print a short distance away, preserved on a beachrock shelf, probably representing the passage of two people. Beachrock is consolidated or semiconsolidated 'sandstone' which forms when seawater-derived chemicals cement beach sand at the intertidal zone along beaches and shorelines (Welch 1999). Welch reported another footprint site nearby that is now covered by sand and mud.
Despite the compelling prospect that the presence of human and dinosaur ichnofossils along the same coast vindicates Jules Verne and the makers of the Flintstones, they are preserved in very different aged sediments. The beachrock in which the human prints occur has been dated using optical spin luminescence to about 2000 years ago, setting a maximum age for the walkers (Welch 1999). The dinosaur tracks have been dated to the early Cretaceous, around 130 million years ago, although they do not all occur in the same stratigraphic layer.
Track sites like the Pleistocene Lake Garnpung footprint site in the Willandra Lakes
World Heritage Area, which preserves more than 800 footprints, capture behavioural and population data for a group of people living in arid inland Australia at the height of the last glacial stage. The prints represent more than 20 individual trackways from adults, adolescents and children, as well as some marsupials and birds over an area of around 700 metres squared (Webb et al. 2006; Westaway 2010). Such sites begin to paint a picture of the human experience of the last glacial maximum.
The late Holocene Dampier Coast trackway documented by Welch is significantly
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younger and smaller than the Lake Garnpung location, and only preserves human tracks. It is comparable in age with a South Australian site inland from Clare Bay, first described by Daisy Bates in 1914, which reveals numbers of human, kangaroo, wallaby and emu prints impressed (not necessarily simultaneously) in carbonate mudstone along the edge of a small swamp. This site has been dated to around 5000 years. At two localities in the Clare Bay swamp site, the presence of adults and children are inferred (Belpario and Fotheringham 1990).
Fossil human tracks are rare in Australia. There are three occurrences documented in the literature. The Dampier Coast site documented by Welch is the smallest of the three. It is the only example yet found in Western Australia. Less clearly documented accounts of human tracks along the Dampier Coast appear in the literature (Mayor and Sarjeant 2001; CNN 1996; Long 2002).
Fossil human tracks are important for both scientific and symbolic reasons. Early hominid tracks like the Pliocene Tanzanian Laetoli footprints provide important data on the evolution of human bipedalism. The Pleistocene and Holocene human record which the Dampier Coast tracks help to elaborate is very patchy. Documenting track sites through human history can begin to reveal population data across a continent and through time, to supplement other kinds of archaeological and historical evidence.
Tracks have the potential to reveal data which is hidden from those who only study body fossils: about gait, anatomy, stature, size, population and speed. In other words, they evoke 'the living behaviour of our ancestors' (Kim et al 2008; Webb et al 2006).
However, compared to the other documented track sites at Clare Bay and the
Willandra Lakes, the documented Dampier Coast human trackway on it own does significantly build on the Pleistocene – Holocene archaeological record.
The fossil human footprint sites of the Dampier Coast have outstanding heritage value to the nation under criterion (b) as one of only three documented human track sites in Australia and the only documented evidence of human tracks from the west coast of Australia.
WEALTH OF LAND AND SEA
Antiquity of macro-botanical record and evidence of plant use over 40,000 years
Archaeological excavations by O'Connor at Carpenters Gap (McConnell and
O'Connor 1997) showed that this site, near Windjana Gorge in the Napier Ranges, were occupied from around 40,000 years to the present. The exceptional preservation conditions at Carpenter's Gap 1 rock shelter [also known as Jambarurru to Bunuba people (S. Pannell pers. comm. 5 May 2010 and Tangalma to the Unggumi: Playford
1960, 2007)] have conserved an extensive micro and macro-botanical inventory of over 2,000 seeds and plant parts, dating from 39,220 ± 870 years ago to 650 ± 90 years (McConnell and O'Connor 1997). Nowhere else in Australia is there a palaeobotanical record of comparable length or equivalent antiquity. In addition,
Carpenter's Gap 1 provides evidence of a continuous cultural presence from the
Pleistocene through the last glacial maximum (18,000–20,000 BP, also commonly known as the last ice age), and into the Holocene (from about 10,000 years ago until the present).
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Analyses of the botanical remains recovered from Carpenters Gap 1 indicates long term shifts in flora composition with changes in the climate, and provides evidence that much of the macroscopic plant remains were deposited by Aboriginal plant food procuring activities (McConnell 1997; McConnell and O'Connor 1997, 1999). In support of this view, Wallis (2001) points to the selective burning patterns on some plant remains; the lack of rodent gnaw marks on seeds; the fact that most of the plant remains are culturally useful; and a botanic trapping exercise carried out at the shelter that did not show significant botanic deposition by animal, wind or water action.
Grasses constitute about 50 per cent of the overall phytolith (microscopic bits of silica stored in plant structures) assemblage throughout the Carpenter's Gap 1 sequence. The grassland communities of 40,000 years BP appear to be similar to those seen in the area today. Around 33,000 years BP, there was a reduction in the grass species diversity, perhaps due to decreasing temperatures and water availability. Interestingly, there are no obvious changes to these grassland communities through the last glacial maximum. From about 17,000 years BP there is again an increase in grass species diversity (Wallis 2001).
While there are no palm species growing in the Napier Range today, 40,000 years ago the palms Livistona loriphylla and L. victoriae were present in considerable abundance. This continued up until about 30,000 years BP, after which the palms survived in smaller numbers until just prior to the last glacial maximum, when they disappear from the record. Palms require a permanent water source to survive, and in the Kimberley today they are commonly found on the edges of vine thickets and in sheltered gorges and gullies along more northerly ranges (Kenneally et. al. 1996). As climatic conditions deteriorated, i.e. got drier with the approach of the last glacial maximum, the palms contracted to smaller areas and the southerly boundary of their distribution moved northwards.
Also of interest are the sedge (Cyperaceae) remains. Macroscopic stem fragments have been recovered from most levels of the site, except the uppermost Holocene levels. Ethnographic evidence of the use of sedges by Aboriginal people as a late dry season food source (Crawford 1982; Smith and Kalotas 1985), Wallis (2001) suggests that these large pieces of sedge were culturally deposited.
The palaeobotanical record indicates that the Aboriginal inhabitants of Carpenter's
Gap 1 did not abandon this region during the last glacial maximum, but instead adapted their survival strategies to cope with the changes. Other Pleistocene sites in the Kimberley show a hiatus in occupation during the last glacial maximum (Riwi:
Balme 2000; Widgingarri and Koolan Island: O'Connor 1995, 1996, 1999).
Evidence of Pleistocene occupation occurs elsewhere in the Australian archaeological record. Occupation sites from around the continent with dates of around 40,000 years include: Puritjarra in central Australia (39,000 BP: Smith et al. 1997); Allen's Cave in
South Australia (40,000 BP: Roberts et al. 1996); Willandra Lakes in New South
Wales (46,000 to 50,000 BP: Bowler et al. 2003); GRE8/Lawn Hill in Queensland
(41,500 BP: O'Connell and Allen 2004); and Devil's Lair in southwest Western
Australia (41,000 to 46,000 BP: Turney et al. 2001).
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Evidence for uninterrupted occupation spanning the Pleistocene into the Holocene is also not unique in the Australian archaeological record. Puritjarra rock shelter provides evidence of continued human occupation, albeit of varying intensity, dating from about 32,000 BP through to the late Holocene (Smith, 2006). Evidence from
Willandra Lakes also shows continuous occupation beginning in the Pleistocene and persisting into the late Holocene (Allen et al. 2007).
Culturally deposited botanical material dating to the Pleistocene has also been uncovered at Devil's Lair (Dortch 2004) and at Puritjarra rock shelter (Smith et al.
1995). However, in both cases, only hearth charcoal is present (Smith et al. 1995;
Shackley 1978). In terms of evidence on human adaptation to climate change,
Puritjarra rock shelter again offers some insights through stone tool development
(Smith 2006). Several sites in Arnhem Land also record evidence of human adaptation to smaller climate change events caused by the el Niño/la Niña phenomenon during the Holocene (Bourke et al. 2007).
The evidence provided by Carpenter's Gap 1 is exceptional as it has provided researchers with a micro and macro-botanical collection of incomparable antiquity and breadth of botanical variation, spanning 40,000 years. The micro-botanical material, including phytoliths carried in the air and by water flows, are likely to represent the vegetation of an extremely large catchment area, whilst the macrobotanical remains including stems, leaves and seeds are likely to have been deposited by human cultural actions or faunal activity from sources in closer proximity to the rock shelter (Wallis 2001, 107-109). The combined botanical record allows for the
Carpenter's Gap 1 material to be used in creating both a broad geographic spectrum and a predominantly localised model of the changing Kimberley environment over time.
Carpenter's Gap 1 rock shelter has outstanding heritage value to the nation under criterion (b) for its rare archaeological sequence of micro and macrobotanical remains spanning 40,000 years that contributes to our understanding of the impacts of climate change on flora composition though time, and the rare evidence it provides of plant procurement strategies used by Aboriginal people from the Pleistocene, through the last glacial maximum, a period when many occupation sites were abandoned across Australia, and into the Holocene.
CONTACT, CHANGE AND CONTINUITY
European explorers
Karrakatta Bay
The association of Karrakatta Bay with William Dampier has been addressed under criteria (a) and (h).
Careening Bay
Just as Dampier has an important place in the process of accumulating knowledge about the Australian continent as the first to make direct information about Australia widely available to the European public, so too Phillip Parker King has a pivotal role as the man who completed that process through his work in charting the majority of the last unmapped areas of the Australian coast. With King, the last uncharted parts of
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the coast which were unmapped were dispersed in various sections of the whole
Australian coastline. Careening Bay exhibits a rare association with the work of
Phillip Parker King and the process under which the first exploratory running surveys of the Australian coastline were refined into accurate naval charts.
King was the first, and for a number of years the only, Australian-born navigator to attain eminence in the world outside the Australian colonies. On his first four voyages he made significant contributions to Australian exploration by providing the first surveys of previously uncharted coastlines, particularly around the north-west and the
Kimberley. He was the first to utilize nineteenth century advances in hydrographic equipment and techniques in surveying and charting the Australian coastline. In 1825 the British Admiralty published the eight small-scale sheets of King's surveys, together with seven larger-scale plans of sections considered important for their detail.
As a result, the process of mapping the extent of the Australian continent was completed, and charts of the whole Australian coastline were available to mariners for the first time. King's addition to Flinder's work of mapping the Australian coastline was so great that in 1829 the Admiralty replaced Flinder's General chart of Terra
Australis or Australia originally published in 1814, with the General chart of Terra
Australis or Australia, from the surveys of Capt n
Flinders and King . This subsequently became Admiralty chart No.1042 (Hordern 1997). Of the eight coastal survey sheets produced by the British Admiralty from King's work, two were used during Second World War, and his 'Northern Sheet' became Admiralty Chart No.
BA1044 which was not withdrawn until 1955, over 130 years since it had first been engraved (Hordern 1997). Lieutenant Commander G. C. Ingleton, himself a former naval surveyor, has described King as 'the greatest of the early Australian marine surveyors' and has written that his charts 'although not numerous, were of a quality not attained by any previous navigator in the Pacific' (Ingleton 1944).
A century and a half after his death, Australia continues to reap the benefits of King's work. What had begun for the British on Mermaid as a poorly resourced response to
Freycinet's 1817 voyage and the need to maintain British strategic advantage in the southern hemisphere, grew into a professional hydrographic arm of the Navy that laid the essential groundwork for any foreign British activity, whether commercially or politically motivated (Tiley 2006). King's work completed the process started by the
Dutch navigators and Dampier whereby the extent of the Australian continent was finally delineated for Europeans. Countless vessels have been guided through the dangerous waters around Australia's coastline to safe havens as a result of the increasingly accurate chart work done by King and his successors (Hordern 1997).
Only the 'Mermaid' tree in Careening Bay remains in situ as direct evidence of the man and his great work.
In summary, the 'Mermaid Tree' is the only remaining direct physical link with the important hydrographic work of Phillip Parker King. Although he left a memorial hammered into Hamelin's post at Cape Inscription, this has now been removed to the
Western Australian Maritime Museum, and the 'Mermaid' tree in Careening Bay is the only remaining direct physical link with King which remains in situ.
The Mermaid tree within Careening Bay has outstanding heritage value to the nation under criterion (b) as rare, in situ, physical evidence of nineteenth
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century hydrographers and in particular the survey work of Phillip Parker
King, one of Australia's most important early marine surveyors.
CRITERION (c) – The place has outstanding heritage value to the nation because
of the place's potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding
of Australia's natural or cultural history
ANCIENT LANDSCAPES, GEOLOGICAL PROCESSES
A nominator claimed that the Prince Regent River has outstanding heritage value to the nation under criterion (c) because 'the sunken coastline' of the Prince Regent area
'has the potential to provide information adding to our understanding of the changes to our continent over geological time and in response to changing climate.' This nominator also claimed that 'the Prince Regent limestone and its relationship with the
Prince Regent River extending over 150 kilometres from south-east to north-west and the Roe river further north which sites at the interface between two distinct types of bedrock – basalt to the East and sandstone to the West… are likely to yield information that improves our understanding of the shaping of the north-west of our continent and its movements over geological time.'
These claims cannot easily be demonstrated. Furthermore, the boundaries between land and ocean are in constant flux. Coasts respond to and record the interaction of climate, tectonic, sedimentary and biological (including anthropogenic) processes over long and short timescales. The geological record provides persuasive evidence all over the world of sea level change over time, driven by a variety of processes including changes in sediment load, climate, continental ice storage and ocean basin volume. Many of these processes continue today (Boyd 2007a).
On its own, the Prince Regent River is unlikely to have outstanding heritage value to the nation under criterion (c) for its potential to provide information about geological and climate changes over time, nor for its role in shaping the understanding of the shaping of north-western Australia.
ECOLOGY, BIOGEOGRAPHY, CLIMATE AND EVOLUTION
Reef ecology, response to change and resilience
The fossil Devonian reef assemblages of the Lennard Shelf, including the Napier,
Oscar, Emmanuel and Pillara Ranges span the Givetian-Famennian stages of the
Devonian period from about 390–359 million years ago , including the Frasnian–
Famennian mass extinction. While the causes of this extinction are still unclear, suggested mechanisms include climate change and sea level changes. Sea level changes occurred rapidly at the end of the Frasnian stage and at other reefs around the world this boundary marks their extinction and burial by deeper-water sediment
(Wood 2000). In the Kimberley, there are records of the sea level changes, as well as the extinction of a major component of the reef-building organisms, (large, calcified animals) at this time. Despite this, the Kimberley reef remains, albeit with different taxa, mostly microbial, taking up the role of reef building in the Famennian stage
(Wood 2000).
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Studying this sequence can provide information about how reef communities react to climate change and to changes in sea level, both of which are key issues facing modern coral reefs such as the Great Barrier Reef (Wood 2000; Wood 2002; Veron
2008). The story of this ancient barrier reef, responding to climate change on the west coast of a proto-Australia, resonates with the story of the modern Great Barrier Reef on the east coast of Australia. In contrast to the Kimberley's reef which grew for 20 million years, the Great Barrier Reef has been in place in its current structure for approximately 6,000 years, although some researchers argue that it may have been present sporadically in some form for as much as 30 million years (Veron 2008).
While the taxa involved in reef building during the Devonian were markedly different to today's reef organisms, the structures are analogous and the Kimberley allows us to study a reef that existed for a similar period of time to the Great Barrier Reef. The
Devonian was the last major reef-building period in Earth's history prior to the
Holocene, so comparing the two great barrier reefs of Australia provides fertile ground for research. The Devonian reefs preserved in other areas of Australia, such as at Buchan and Wee Jasper, are not as extensive as that of the Kimberley. These reefs have also been deformed through later tectonic processes and in the case of Buchan, have been mined for many years, decreasing the amount of information available at these sites (Inan et al. 1992; Yeates 2001).
The science of ecology has been undergoing a paradigm shift in recent decades. Prior understanding held that species had inherent ecological requirements that predetermined the role that they could fill within a given ecosystem. This view rests easily within an understanding of an ecosystem as a point in time, relatively unchanging in its components and leads to a conclusion that the extinction of just a few species can destroy an ecosystem. Reefs, especially, have been considered delicate ecosystems that are particularly vulnerable to extinction and exceptionally slow to recover (Veron 2008). This understanding has been challenged by a theory that ecosystems are more dynamic assemblages of species that migrate between communities, face local extinction, recruitment and so on. In this view, an ecosystem is a dynamic community of organisms with similar ecological preferences, rather than being rigidly bound by fixed ecological associations (Wood 2000; Wood 2002).
The Kimberley's barrier reef complex has been an important laboratory in which to test this theory as it provides one of the few rich fossil records in the world that spans a mass extinction boundary. Here, it is possible to study an ecosystem as it changes through time and to evaluate the association of species and their roles in building the reef community (Wood 2000; Wood 2002). It has the potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of ecosystems as dynamic species communities, testing our understanding of ecological theory. A comparable site is the
Miria Formation in the Giralia range in Western Australia. This outcrop is significantly younger than the Kimberley barrier reef system, dating from the late
Cretaceous, but provides a marine record of the very famous mass extinction at the
Cretaceous–Tertiary boundary that also killed the dinosaurs (Silversson 2006). A highly fossiliferous unit is overlain by a deeper, colder water unit that is absent of fossils (McNamara 1997). While this site is significant for its preservation of an iconic mass extinction boundary, the absence of fossils in the upper unit precludes it being used for a palaeoecological analysis of pre and post-extinction communities in the same manner as the Kimberley's reef deposits.
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The Devonian reef outcrops of the Lennard Shelf have outstanding heritage value to the nation under criterion (c) because of their potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of the climatological and biological processes that affect major reef systems.
Vertebrate evolution and analysis of fossils
Despite the large amount of work done on the Devonian Gogo fish fossil sites since the 1960s and the many published studies, significant new finds are still common. A major part of the story of Gogo studies is the development of new technology for the preparation and study of specimens, which has allowed new layers of information to be revealed. When the site was first found by Curt Teichert in the 1950s, he disregarded the fossil fish possibly because, encased in hard limestone, the delicate bones of the fish would not have survived mechanical preparation. In the 1960s, when the site was visited by Harry Toombs, the newly developed method of dissolving the limestone in an acid, chemically 'etching' the bones, allowed entire, delicate skeletons to be revealed, often from fossils that had been discovered some time earlier (Long
2006). The most recent advances use high resolution scanning electron microscopy, high-resolution computer tomography, X-ray and Synchrotron CT scanning to reveal details of the soft tissue morphology that might otherwise be obscured by bone and buried within the supporting matrix (Trinajstic and Long 2009; Ahlberg 2009).
Gogo's history is that of a site producing remarkable specimens with a potential for study that increases with each new technological development and it has a high potential to yield further information on the evolution of early Australian fish.
This potential is unlikely to exist to the same degree at the Devonian fish fossil sites that have two-dimensional preservation. This material is often deformed as it is buried and is rarely the original bone. At Wee Jasper, which has similar three dimensional preservation, the material recovered so far has not been as complete as the Gogo material. Nevertheless, some of the same techniques are revealing new details about the Wee Jasper fish (Burrow et al. 2005). Together, Wee Jasper and Gogo provide independent tests of new techniques in studying these Devonian faunas, which may be applicable to other fossil types and sites in the future.
The Gogo fossil sites have outstanding heritage value to the nation under criterion (c) as they have significant potential to yield new information about the natural history of Australia, the evolution of Australian vertebrates and about new technologies that can be used to study fossils.
Potential to yield further information on initial colonisation, human subsistence and adaptation to climate change
The west Kimberley is in a strategic geographical position to answer a range of important research questions regarding the initial colonisation of the continent, early human subsistence and adaptation to climate change.
Only a small number of archaeological surveys have been undertaken in the region.
Those few investigations show that the west Kimberley has a long record of human occupation from the Pleistocene through to the present day. Fifty thousand years ago, the sea level was at least 100 metres lower and extensive coastal plains would have provided food and other resources for the first human inhabitants. As the sea level
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began to rise about 18,000 years BP, flooding of these plains would have forced
Aboriginal people to move further inland. By the time the sea stabilised at about 6,000 years ago, ancient mountain tops had become islands and escarpments once far inland became the new coastline (Smyth 2007).
Carpenter's Gap 1 (also known as Jambarurru to Bunuba people: S. Pannell pers. comm. 5 May 2010 and Tangalma to the Unggumi: Playford 1960, 2007), a rock shelter located in the Napier Range about 100 kilometres inland from the present day coastline, provides evidence of continuous occupation from 39,220 ± 870 years to
650 ± 90 years BP (O'Connor 1995). Other sites in the region show extended periods of abandonment, i.e. Widgingarri shelters 1 and 2, first occupied 28,060 ± 600 years
BP, then abandoned from 18,900 ± 1800 until 7,780 ± 390 years BP (O'Connor 1999),
Koolan Island shelter 2, first occupied 26,500 ± 1050 years BP, then abandoned
23,900 ± 1360 BP until 10, 550 ± 150 BP (O'Connor 1999) and Riwi cave, first occupied 40,700 ± 1260 BP, then abandoned from 29,550 ± 290 until 5290 ± 60 BP
(Balme 2000). All of these sites provide important insights into how human populations adapted to significant environmental change, particularly during the
Pleistocene-Holocene transition (Veth 1995).
Together, these west Kimberley sites also provide some of the oldest evidence of human occupation in Australia, comparable to Puritjarra in the Cleland Hills, central
Australia (39,000 BP: Smith 1997); Allen's Cave on the Nullarbor Plain in South
Australia (40,000 BP: Roberts et al. 1995); Lake Mungo in New South Wales (46,000 to 50,000 BP: Bowler et al. 2003); GRE8/Lawn Hill in north Queensland (41,500 BP:
O'Connell and Allen 2004); and Devil's Lair in south-west Western Australia (41,000 to 46,000 BP : Turney et al. 2001).
The evidence is unambiguous that humans had occupied all or nearly all parts of the continent by at least 40,000 years BP. According to Hiscock (2008) the antiquity of human colonisation of Australia may be older than 45,000 ± 5,000 BP, an age that all archaeologists accept for sites like Malukunanja II and Lake Mungo, and colonisation is likely to have been between 50,000 and 60,000 years BP. The little-investigated west Kimberley region may provide the evidence to conclusively determine the antiquity of human colonisation of the Australian continent.
As noted above, sites along the west Kimberley coast also provide important evidence of the occupation of offshore islands. Koolan Island, part of the Buccaneer
Archipelago, provides evidence of punctuated human habitation from the Pleistocene through to the Holocene, and suggests that a well developed maritime economy had developed by 10,550 BP (O'Connor 1999). The High Cliffy Islands on the landward edge of the Montgomery Reef, the most extensive inshore reef on the Kimberley coast, also provide evidence of human occupation in more recent times. Located approximately eight kilometres from the present coastline, these islands are connected at low tide, with a combined landmass, including the exposed reef, of 300 square kilometres. The islands were cut off by rising seas perhaps 9,000 years ago.
Aboriginal people visited the islands before 7,575 years BP and used it periodically after that time (Hiscock 2008). On the largest of the High Cliffy islands, O'Connor
(1987) has identified hundreds of stone arrangements including circular stone structures, stone pathways, standing stones and cairns. Aboriginal people, including the Yawijibaya, the Traditional Owners of the saltwater country around Montgomery
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reef, utilised the massive tides to move between the mainland and the offshore islands using light, buoyant rafts, to exploit seasonal marine resources.
There are many islands along the west Kimberley coast but their remoteness has meant that few have been subject to archaeological survey. The potential for these places to yield further important information on Aboriginal adaptation to climate and sea level changes, and the subsistence strategies employed to overcome these environmental variations is high.
The archaeology of the west Kimberley has already provided nationally significant evidence on human adaptation to climate change, marine resource use, development of symbolic behaviour and the antiquity of long distance exchange. The high significance of the few sites surveyed, coupled with the argument that the west
Kimberley is one of the most likely points through which humans first entered
Australia, suggests that future archaeological surveys in the region may reveal sites of even greater scientific and archaeological significance. The exceptional preservation conditions offered by the Devonian reef complex also support the likelihood of further significant discoveries.
The coastline from Cape Londonderry to Cape Leveque and the Devonian reef complex have outstanding heritage value to the nation under criterion (c) for their potential to yield significant new archaeological information contributing to an understanding of Australia's natural and cultural history.
Natural disasters in the late Holocene: information from Indigenous traditions, archaeology and the geomorphological record
The coastal fringe of the west Kimberley also offers opportunities for researchers to investigate the intriguing relationships between oral accounts passed down through the generations by Aboriginal people and cosmogenic tsunami events. The north-west coast of Australia has considerable geological evidence suggesting a cosmogenic megatsunami event as recent as the seventeenth century (Bryant and Nott 2001; Nott and Bryant 2003; Bryant. 2007). Oral accounts shared by Aboriginal people of the
Wanjina–Wunggurr homeland recount a flooding event that occurred around Walcott
Inlet, north-east of Derby (Mowaljarlai and Malnic 1993). One version of the account describes a flash flood (Mowarljarlai and Malnic 1993) while another relates to the
Wanjinas, Namarali and Wanalirri, who sent a flood to punish some children who had been teasing the sacred owl, Dumbi (Blundell and Woolagoodja 2005). The
Balanggarra people of the north Kimberley recount a story about a reef they call
Rinjii-barda'bindingei , where the Dreaming Star 'fell down' to become the highly prized (and 'very shiny one'), ritually and socially important pearl shell ( Pinctada maxima ) (Blundell et al. 2009).
Everywhere in the Kimberley, the coastline evinces either the erosional effect of a catastrophic wave or its depositional residue in sheltered embayments. Even relatively small streams show evidence of catastrophic erosion (Nott et al. 1996; Bryant et al.
2007). Evidence suggests that the wave generated by this megatsunami event may have travelled 35 kilometres inland into the Great Sandy Desert and deposited sands
40 metres deep on the lee side of headlands and laid down bedded gravels on the landward side of 40 metre hills situated over five kilometres inland (Bryant and Nott
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2001; Nott and Bryant 2003). This event is estimated to have occurred around AD
1690.
Known megatsunami events have been reinterpreted in the light of Indigenous traditions on the east coast of Australia and in New Zealand (Nott and Bryant 2003).
Investigation and redating of Kimberley tsunami deposits in the context of Indigenous traditions has the potential to redefine recent geomorphological and climate history as well as permitting reinterpretation of the traditions as perhaps describing a single catastrophic event as well as an account of sea level rise over thousands of years. As noted by Bryant et al. (2007, 213):
* * * *
'The spectacular nature of this cosmic phenomenon has dominated Aboriginal mythology for the past four centuries. Only by interpreting the proper significance of this rich oral history and artwork, especially in the Kimberley, can the true origin of the tsunami be recognised'.
* * * *
Recent research in the Kimberley linking comets and tsunamis to Indigenous oral histories, painted rock images and stone arrangements provides exciting opportunities for future collaborative investigations between archaeologists, geologists and
Traditional Owners.
The west Kimberley coast between Cape Londonderry and Cape Leveque has outstanding heritage value to the nation under criterion (c) for its potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of the nature and the effect of mega-tsunami events.
Potential of rock paintings to yield information
The fine graphic detail of the painted motifs in the Wanjina-Wunggurr homeland and the Balanggarra native title claim area provide invaluable insights into a number of nationally important areas of research including climate change and species extinction; early Aboriginal material culture and technology development; and the interactions between Aboriginal people and outsiders. The exceptional illustrative nature of the rock paintings has the potential to provide information at a level of resolution currently absent from the archaeology. Welch (1993, 29) supports this view, noting that early Kimberley rock art 'gives us an enormous insight into the material culture of early Australians'. While the rock paintings of Arnhem Land and the Kakadu region are also highly informative, Morwood (2002) suggests that the
Kimberley region may have greater potential in demonstrating changes in weapons used, accoutrements and ideology.
Very few actual weapons survive in the archaeological record (Morwood 2002).
Evidence for the antiquity and development of spears and spear throwers in Australia comes almost exclusively from the painted images in rock shelters in Arnhem Land and the Kimberley (Walsh and Morwood 1999, Morwood 2002). In both places, the
Mimi and the Gwion Gwion/Girrigirro painted motifs (the latter also known as
Bradshaw figures) show that 'the earliest weapons were boomerangs, clubs, hafted stone axes and simple, hand-thrown spears; in both areas spear throwers and new composite spear types subsequently appeared and developed, while boomerangs were
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phased out' (Morwood 2002, 162). But there are also significant regional differences:
'The 'spade handle' spear thrower depicted in the Kimberley never appears in Arnhem
Land rock paintings…and the broad spear thrower cited by Lewis to define a regional art period in Arnhem Land is not depicted in the Kimberley'' (Morwood 2002).
The Gwion Gwion/Girrigirro painted images also provide insight into other aspects of material culture, particularly perishable items that do not preserve well in the deposits of north Australian archaeological sites. Armbands, belts, bags, strings, skirts, hats, headdresses, tasselled objects and other forms of elaborate body adornment are common in the images (Taçon et al. 1999). While earlier researchers (Bradshaw 1892;
Mathew 1894; Thomas 1906; Sollas 1915; Elkin 1930; Davidson 1938; Schulz 1956;
Lommel 1997 [1952]; Walsh 1994) suggested that the Gwion Gwion/Girrigirro paintings have a non-Indigenous origin, more recent experts (Welch 1993 1996,
Lewis 1997, Barry and White 2004) have demonstrated links to historic and contemporary Aboriginal material culture and other north Australian rock art traditions, such as the Mimi or Dynamic figures of the Arnhem Land and Kakadu region (Taçon 2000). Welch (1993) notes that splayed neck dilly bags similar to those portrayed in painted Gwion Gwion/Girrigirro figures were collected in 1912 from western Arnhem Land (Isaacs 1984). However, dilly bags have not been made in the northern Kimberley region in historic times, instead bark has been used to make various containers (Welch 1993).
The technical detail of some of the painted images in the north Kimberley has also allowed researchers to identify animals to the species level, including species that are now extinct such as the Tasmanian Tiger ( Thylacinus cynocephalus). Akerman and
Willing (2009) recently described the painted image of a large, striped quadruped and suggest that it might depict a Marsupial Lion ( Thylacaleo carnifex ), one of the socalled megafauna that disappeared from the continent during the Pleistocene. Also of scientific interest is the painted depiction of eight roosting flying foxes that have a distinctive white facial stripe and pale belly (Pettigrew et al. 2008). None of
Australia's eight species of mega bat has this white facial marking. The closest flying foxes to Australia that do are those found in Sulawesi and the Maluku Islands
(formerly the Moluccas).
A painted panel of 25 deer-like animals standing in a line has also been recently recorded (Wilson 2006; Playford 2008; Crawford 2009). Playford suggests that these four legged animals with obvious antlers may represent the Timor Deer ( Cervus timorensis ) a species that at one time was abundant on Timor. This deer is no longer found on Timor, but it has survived on reserves elsewhere in Indonesia, including some isolated islands where it has been suggested that they were introduced by
Indonesian fishermen. The interpretation of the deer frieze remains controversial.
Playford (2008) and Walsh (2000) suggested that the images reflect a migratory event of considerable antiquity, whilst Crawford (2009) notes that the deer painting may simply reflect things seen by Aboriginal people during the Indonesian contact period.
Rock shelters in the Wanjina-Wunggurr homeland and in the Balanggarra native title claim area also contain painted images of a variety of watercraft that are instructive in better understanding the interactions between Aboriginal people and outsiders, both pre and post-European contact. In the Kimberley and in western Arnhem Land,
European vessels and canoes are the most common watercraft depicted (O'Connor and
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Arrow 2008). At a number of Kimberley sites there are painted depictions of small canoes with upswept bow and stern, paddled by Gwion Gwion/Girrigirro-like figures
(Walsh 2000, Crawford 2009). Crawford (2009) suggests that these paintings represent Indonesian canoes seen by an Aboriginal artist, or artists, painted in the post-glacial period, i.e. post 8,000 years BP when the sea level reached its present level. He further suggests that the paintings probably relate to events within the last
400 years (Crawford 2009, 32). This view is contrary to Walsh's interpretation of these paintings which he dates to before the last glacial maximum when the coastline was between 50 and 200 kilometres away.
There are also images of watercraft from the post-European contact period including what appears to be a dinghy propelled by oars with rowlocks, with three Wanjina-like figures with pipes in their mouths (Crawford 1968, 2001; O'Connor and Arrow 2008).
Painted images of single and double masted boats, possibly pearling vessels, have also been recorded by researchers in the area (Sledge 1978; O'Connor and Arrow
2008).
The remoteness of the area and the ruggedness of the terrain have meant few systematic surveys of the rock art. Grahame Walsh recorded the location and photographically chronicled thousands of painted rock art images across the
Kimberley study area, but these details are not available to other researchers.
The rock paintings of the Wanjina-Wunggurr homeland and the Balanggarra native title claim area have outstanding heritage value to the nation under criterion (c) for their potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of climate change and species extinction; early Aboriginal material culture and technology development; and the interactions between
Aboriginal people and outsiders.
CONTACT, CHANGE AND CONTINUITY
Potential to yield further information on Indonesian-Aboriginal interaction
The west Kimberley is in a strategic geographical position to answer a range of important archaeological research questions regarding past Asian-Australian interaction. Evidence for Indonesian contact comes from documentary sources,
Aboriginal oral traditions and archaeological sites.
Prior to the arrival of Europeans, the west Kimberley region was visited by
Indonesian fishermen, commonly referred to as Macassans. For perhaps hundreds of years, Indonesians came to harvest marine resources including pearl and trochus shell, turtle shell, clam meat, shark fins and trepang, also known as sea cucumber or bêchede-mer (Morwood 2002). Macassar (Ujung Pandang) in Sulawesi was the main port of origin for many of the boats that plied the waters between the Indonesian archipelago and Australia to collect and process their annual harvest of trepang to sell to the Chinese who seem uniquely to have appreciated their special qualities (Clarke
2000, Russell 2004).
The social and cultural interactions between these Macassan voyagers and the
Aboriginal people of Arnhem Land and Groote Eylandt are well documented through the archaeological record and historical accounts, particularly those of the Aboriginal
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people whose lives were so closely entwined with the Indonesian fishermen (Clarke
2000; Flinders 1814; Macknight 1969, 1972, 1976, 1986; Mulvaney 1975, 1989;
Ganter 2006). In the Northern Territory, the Macassans are the subject of many
Aboriginal songs, stories and ceremonies; Macassan words have been adopted, including names given to land; and even elements of Macassan culture can be seen in the clan totems (Clarke 2000). Paintings and stone arrangements depicting perahus
(Macassan boats) are commonplace and the trepang processing sites themselves have been extensively studied, providing detailed evidence of Macassan material culture.
Not as much is known about Indonesian interaction with Aboriginal people of the north-west Kimberley coast, but what is known suggests a very different kind of relationship than that experienced by the Macassans in Arnhem Land. The
Indonesians called this part of the north Australian coastline 'Kayu Djawa' or 'Kai
Jawa', and as in Arnhem Land, set up camps along its shore and outlying islands to process trepang (O'Connor and Arrow 2008; Russell 2004). Baudin's expedition of
1803 encountered 26 large perahu near Cassini Island. The French expeditioners ascertained that the Macassans had been visiting for centuries (Crawford 1968;
Russell 2004, 6 citing Serventy 1952, 15). The Government Resident of Camden
Harbour recorded a fleet of Makassarese sailing into the harbour from the south in
1865 (Crawford 1968).
Without exception, historical sources for the Kimberley area describe a hostile relationship between the Indonesians and Aboriginal people. Baudin's men were told that the Aborigines were 'extremely fierce' (Baudin 1974). According to Dramah, a
Macassan captain interviewed by Philip Parker King in 1818, Aboriginal people were
'treacherous and hostile' and the Macassan's small canoes were frequently stolen
(King 1822 vol 1, 136; see King 1969 [1827]). He concluded that a 'perpetual warfare exists between them' [i.e. Aboriginal peoplee and Indonesians] (King 1822, vol 1,
138; see King 1969 [1827]). Vosmaer, in his 1839 article on Indonesian trade with
Australia, described the Arnhem Land relationship as generally friendly, with
Aboriginal people assisting the Indonesians and trading with them, whereas
Aboriginal people in the Kimberley were regarded as very hostile (Vosmaer 1839).
Aboriginal oral traditions also describe fights between Aboriginal people and
Indonesians, and like Dramah, they ascribe hostilities to the Aboriginal theft of canoes. Aboriginal people living today recall stories about their grandfathers and uncles stealing canoes from visiting Indonesian perahus. There are also oral accounts involving culture heros like Wolaru, who was fed up with the Indonesian intrusion and sank the whole fleet to the north of Wokuwoku island. In other versions of the story, Wolaru is replaced by the Wanjina Jakulamarra. In retaliation, the Indonesians shot Wolaru/Jakulamarra (Crawford 2001, 2009; pers. comm. K. Doohan, 2009).
To date, there is no evidence that Kimberley Aboriginal people worked for the
Indonesians, stored produce for trade, seeded pearl shell to produce pearls, or volunteered as crew as recorded by Trudgeon (2000) regarding the Yolngu people's interaction with the Macassans in east Arnhem Land (Crawford 2009). However,
Kimberley Aboriginal people did in time learn how to make their own canoes, modelling them on Indonesian prototypes. These craft replaced the double log raft in the some parts of the north Kimberley and allowed Aboriginal people to visit islands far off the mainland, like Cassini Island (Crawford, 2009). A type of Kriol also
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developed that included some Indonesian words (Crawford 2001, Urry and Walsh
1981).
According to Crawford (2001, 2009) ten Indonesian trepang processing sites are known along the north-west Kimberley coast from Cape Londonderry to Cape
Bougainville. Given the remote nature of the coast, only a few of these sites have been investigated, including Tamarinda on the east coast of the Napier Broome Bay
(Crawford 1968) and Anjo Point 2, on the Anjo Peninsula (Morwood and Hobbs
1997). Stone and Morwood (Stone 1999) also identified a number of sites but the locations of these are confidential at the request of the Traditional Owners. A trepang processing site on Wokuwoku Island, adjacent to the Bougainville Peninsula, has also been identified and described as possibly more extensive than the largest sites in the
Northern Territory, with evidence of a large number of hearths (T. Willing pers. comm. June 2008). Crawford (2009) also notes the unusual nature of this site with regards to its size and layout (two lines of hearths on either side of the point) and suggests it may have been the place where the Indonesian fleet dispersed on arrival and reassembled each season before returning to Indonesia. Rock paintings in the region also depict what would appear to be Indonesians in canoes (Crawford 1968,
Walsh 2000).
According to Crawford (2009) the archaeological evidence is consistent with the concept of hostilities between Indonesians and Aboriginal people. Sites appear to have been selected with an eye to their defence. They are generally in open positions where the Indonesians could easily see any approaching Aboriginal person. Musket balls and flint from flint-lock guns found at the Macassan site known as Tamarinda indicate a preparedness for defence.
Many questions remain about the nature of Indonesian contact with the Kimberley region. Crawford (pers. comm. 4 Nov 2009) suggests that the contact may have been different to that of Arnhem Land because of the Kimberley's closer proximity to
Indonesia allowing visitation by fleets from other ports, like Kupang and Roti. Most of the earthenware pottery excavated at Tamarinda was derived from Flores, raising the possibility that Flores may also have been a centre of trade (Crawford 2009).
The historical accounts and oral traditions of Aboriginal people suggest a very different kind of relationship between Indonesians and Kimberley Aboriginal people than that experienced between Macassans and Aboriginal people in Arnhem Land.
Few archaeological surveys have been conducted to investigate this important pre-
European contact..Those that have also support the view that something different was happening in the Kimberley.
The west Kimberley coast from Cape Londonderry to the Lacepede Islands has outstanding heritage value to the nation under criterion (c) for its potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Indonesian-
Aboriginal interaction in Australia's cultural history.
European explorers
In review of the exploration literature, two places, Karrakatta Bay and Careening Bay, have been identified as having potential research value to the nation.
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Karrakatta Bay
Karrakatta Bay is a small bay situated on the northern most point of the Dampier
Peninsula, Western Australia. It opens onto the Indian Ocean at the entrance to King
Sound. It contains, in a cove on its north side a white sand beach with rugged sandstone outcrops at either end (George 1999).
In 1688, the English ship Cygnet was careened for repair in 'a small sandy Cove' for around two months (Dampier 1998 [1697]). The most probable site of this careening is now considered to be a small cove on the north side of Karrakatta Bay, as described above (Marchant 1988; George 1999; Pearson 2005). As such, Karrakatta Bay is significant as a seventeenth century first contact site. One of the Englishmen on board the Cygnet was William Dampier who, during the time spent in Karrakatta Bay, made numerous observations of the natural history of the area and, more importantly, the
Aboriginal people he encountered. He published his journals on his return to England in A new voyage round the world (1998 [1697]). Dampier became an instant celebrity and his account of the voyage received wide European readership. The observations he made influenced future generations of Australian explorers, including Banks and
Cook, particularly in relation to their attitudes towards Aboriginal people, and inspired literary works such as Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift (Mulvaney 1989;
Pearson 2005).
Archaeological evidence that can attest to the presence of the Cygnet and its crew may be found at Karrakatta Bay. The length of the Cygnet 's stay at Karrakatta Bay (up to two months) increases the likelihood of the existence of such evidence.
Dampier's own accounts of his landing indicate what sort of archaeological evidence could be found. He notes that the crew stayed in tents, mended their sails near the camp and that they hunted turtle and manatee every day. This suggests that evidence for the camp itself is not very likely, as tents and the mending of sails do not normally leave a lasting impression on the landscape. Also, the crew are likely to take these items with them when they leave. This leaves refuse pits/areas containing the remains of their meals and activities, including the bones of the mentioned turtles and manatees, as the most likely extant evidence of the crew's presence. Personal items discarded or lost by the crew might also be found around the camp site. George
(1999) notes that Karrakatta Bay is on an Aboriginal reserve and remains relatively undisturbed by modern development. He believes the Bay is little disturbed which is promising for the preservation of any archaeological evidence.
This type of archaeological evidence could offer information on the lives of late seventeenth century maritime explorers/buccaneers. Specifically, it can offer information on how such men survived and occupied their time while ashore in remote regions. It could indicate, among other things, what they ate, what sort of conditions they lived in, what type of activities they undertook, and how they went about repairing a careened ship.
A literature review was carried out to assess whether research material was likely to be found within the Karrakatta Bay site.
Unfortunately, very little archaeological research at Karrakatta Bay appears to have been done. The archaeology in this area tends to focus on shipwrecks and as the
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Cygnet was careened, not wrecked, it has not been a focus of archaeological research to date. A search of relevant databases and journals for any record of archaeological work at Karrakatta Bay offered no results. The Department of Maritime Archaeology
(DMA) at the Western Australian Museum (J Green pers. comm. and S Cox pers. comm. March 2010) indicated that very little archaeological fieldwork had been undertaken along the Kimberley coast by their Department and that there was no known archaeological evidence for the Cygnet or her crew at Karrakatta Bay. Ross
Anderson also from the DMA, claimed that recent fieldwork undertaken by the DMA in the Kimberley area did not investigate this site in any further detail (R Anderson pers. comm.). Careening sites are generally very ephemeral, leaving little evidence of such activity. The Department of Anthropology and Archaeology at the Western
Australian Museum advised that there were stonewall fish traps at Karrakatta Bay as
Dampier described in his journal (M Smith pers. comm. March 2010). Moira Smith at this museum noted that she had hoped to find obvious evidence of the encounter camps but did not find any in the course of her field work.
Thus, while it is possible there is archaeological evidence for the careening of the
Cygnet and her crew at Karrakatta Bay, most likely in the form of refuse pits/areas and lost or discarded personal items, the necessary fieldwork has not been undertaken to ascertain its existence.
For the Karrakatta Bay site to meet threshold under criterion (c), it is necessary for the archaeological evidence to be demonstrable. As stated above, the necessary fieldwork has not been undertaken to establish the existence of archaeological remains at
Karrakatta Bay. As such, Karrakatta Bay does not meet the necessary threshold for listing under criterion (c).
Even if the necessary fieldwork was undertaken at Karrakatta Bay and the archaeological evidence as described above was uncovered, it is not likely this evidence would offer any greater insight into the period of the late seventeenth century or the lives of maritime explorers/buccaneers. Dampier kept very detailed journals of his voyages during this period which provide valuable information.
It is arguable that should evidence which adds to our knowledge of the period be discovered at the site, it may still not be outstanding in a way which meets the threshold of national importance.
In summary Karrakatta Bay is considered to be below threshold under criterion (c).
This is due to the lack of demonstrable archaeological evidence at the site. In addition, the question remains as to whether the archaeological evidence, were it actually found, would offer additional information of national significance.
Careening Bay
Careening Bay is a small bay situated at the base of Port Nelson, Western Australia. It is protected at its northern end by a natural breakwater of black rocks. A white sandy beach, a part of Prince Regent Nature Reserve, faces onto the bay.
In 1820, Philip Parker King careened his ship, the Mermaid , for crucial repairs at
Careening Bay over about a three week period. The repairs made to the Mermaid enabled King to continue his survey of the Australian coast. This survey work would
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complete what Matthew Flinders had begun, nearly two decades earlier, and led to the production of maps which allowed for safely-navigable coastal shipping routes. These maps were published as Admiralty charts and had a lasting influence, with several of
King's coastal sheets and plans of harbours and gulfs still in use in the mid-twentieth century (Pearson 2005).
Archaeological evidence that can attest to the presence of the Mermaid and its crew may be found at Careening Bay. The length of the Mermaid 's stay at Careening Bay
(up to three weeks) increases the likelihood of the existence of such evidence.
An estimate of the archaeological evidence that can be expected to be found at
Careening Bay is gained from King's published journal, Narrative of a Survey of the
Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia (originally published in 1827). He describes a boab tree that was carved by his crew with the words 'HMC Mermaid
1820'. This tree, he claimed on his return nearly a year later, 'seemed likely to bear the marks of our visit longer than any other memento we had left' (King 1969 [1827]). He also mentioned an inscribed copper sheet that was attached to a tree which had been used to prop up the mess tent in their camp. He notes, however, that this was already becoming detached from the tree, when they returned the following year.
Upon careening, King's crew found that extensive repairs to the ship were necessary.
Large iron bolts and brackets that had been salvaged from another ship, the Frederick, were required to hold together a large rent in the Mermaid 's keel. Chain plates, also salvaged from the Frederick were forged into a large iron brace to help hold the ship together. To do this, members of the Mermaid crew constructed a forge from local stone and created their own charcoal from the plentiful trees nearby (Hordern 1997).
It is possible that evidence of this forge, refuse and charcoal remain at the site. While repairing the ship, King states that they also found the iron nails in the ship's hull to be severely decayed and in need of replacement. It is likely that these would have been left where they fell after removal.
King included in his journal a sketch of Careening Bay which depicts the ship on the beach and their camp nearby. The sketch shows that the crew stayed in tents. An area of wooden crates/barrels is situated near their camp, which is very close to the highest tide mark. It seems likely that little evidence of the camp would be left as the tents and crate/barrels would have been taken with them when they left the bay. However, it is safe to assume that a refuse pit/area would be found near where the camp was located. Personal items of crew members, either lost or discarded, might also be present in and around the camp site.
Archaeological evidence could offer information on the lives of nineteenth century maritime explorers. Specifically, it offers a glimpse of how such men survived and occupied their time while ashore in remote regions. It could indicate, among other things, what they ate, what sort of conditions they lived in, what type of activities they undertook, and how they went about repairing a careened ship.
A literature review was carried out to assess whether research material was likely to be found within the Careening Bay site.
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Very little work has been done at the site of Careening Bay. A search of relevant databases and journals for any record of archaeological fieldwork undertaken at the site came up with the one result; a report entitled Wreck Inspection North Coast
(WINC).
In this report Sledge (1978) noted that the boab tree, known as the 'Mermaid
Tree', still existed and its inscription is still readily identifiable. He also located the fresh water pools King describes in his journal. However, no other archaeological evidence is recorded. In his visit to the site of Careening Bay in 1993, Hordern (1997) noted the presence of the 'Mermaid Tree'. He also stated that, while he actively searched for the copper sheet and the tree it had been nailed to, he was unable to find evidence for either.
The Australian Institute for Maritime Archaeology (December 2009 newsletter) reported that no work had been completed by the Department of Maritime
Archaeology, along the Kimberley coast, since the 1978 WINC report. The
Department of Maritime Archaeology (DMA) at the Western Australian Museum, confirmed this (J Green pers. comm. and R Anderson pers. comm. March 2010).
Susan Cox, also from the DMA, similarly confirmed that there was no known archaeological evidence for the Mermaid or her crew at Careening Bay, apart from the
' Mermaid Tree' (S Cox pers. comm. March 2010). Ross Anderson also claimed that recent fieldwork undertaken by the DMA in the Kimberley area did not include any investigation of this site in any further detail.
Thus, while there is known archaeological evidence for the careening of the Mermaid and her crew at Careening Bay, due to the continued existence of the 'Mermaid Tree', the necessary fieldwork has not been undertaken to ascertain the existence of other possible archaeological remains, such as refuse pits/areas, lost or discarded personal items, the copper sheet which could be expected near where the camp was located, and evidence for the repair of the ship itself, in this case a stone forge, charcoal and decayed iron nails, might still exist.
The assessment guidelines (Australian Heritage Council 2009) for criterion (c) state that for a site to be considered of outstanding significance, it must have the demonstrable potential to yield information, not just the possibility. It is not enough to identify that there may be archaeological evidence at Careening Bay and what form it could take. As stated above, the necessary fieldwork has not been undertaken to establish the existence of the archaeological remains that could potentially yield further information. As such, the site of Careening Bay is below threshold under criterion (c).
The assessment guidelines for criterion (c) also state that the potential information offered by a site must make a contribution of national importance. It should offer a greater understanding of one or more periods in the history of Australians or ways of life or cultures characteristic of Australia. Even if the necessary fieldwork was undertaken at Careening Bay and the archaeological evidence as described above was uncovered, it is unlikely this evidence would offer any greater insight into the period of the nineteenth century or the lives of maritime explorers. Many such individuals kept detailed journals and as much, if not more information can be gained from these.
There are also a number of other sites with known archaeological evidence of a similar nature from around this period. For instance, at Endeavour River (present day
Cooktown) in Queensland, Cook careened the Endeavour for repairs. At this site coal,
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and the remains of a forge was cited to have been found (R Anderson pers. comm.
March 2010). If similar artefacts were recovered at Careening Bay, they may not provide more information than has already been gained from these other sites. As such, it is unlikely Careening Bay would yield additional information of national importance.
In summary Careening Bay is considered to be below threshold under criterion (c).
This is due to the lack of demonstrable archaeological evidence at the site and the uncertainty as to whether the archaeological evidence, were it actually found, would offer additional information of national significance.
On the basis of current evidence Careening Bay and Karrakatta Bay is below threshold under criterion (c) for their potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Australia's natural or cultural history.
CRITERION (d) – The place has outstanding heritage value because of the place's importance in demonstrating the principal characteristics of i.
a class of Australia's natural or cultural places; or ii.
a class of Australia's natural or cultural environments.
ANCIENT LANDSCAPES, GEOLOGICAL PROCESSES
The Kimberley coast from the Helpman Islands in King Sound to Cambridge Gulf is very intricate in plan form, with a rugged, deeply embayed, coastline including sounds, narrow inlets and archipelagos, as well as inundated terrestrial (fluvial) landscapes of the Pleistocene reflected in bathymetry. It is a ria coast – the result of post-glacial flooding of a fluvial landscape which itself developed with strong control by folding, faulting and jointing bedrock structures (Sharples 2009; Maher and Copp
2009). Consequently, much of the coastline, the archipelagos and the bathymetry are strongly controlled by large-scale bedrock folding structures (for example, the
Buccaneer Archipelago region and Yampi Peninsula) or fault and joint structures (for example, the Prince Regent River) which are the result of deformation, faulting and metamorphism during the Hooper, Yampi and King Leopold orogenies in the
Proterozoic and earliest Palaeozoic eons (detailed separately below under criterion
(a)). The complex morphology of the modern coastal and subtidal seafloor landscapes is inherited from these ancient earth movements (Sharples 2009; Wilson 2009a).
A ria coast is a four-dimensional entity with a modern form expressing both its history and the processes that have shaped it. Along the Kimberley coast over the last two million years, sea level changes during each Pleistocene glacial/interglacial cycle inundated ranges, upland valleys and river gorges to form narrow peninsulas, long inlets, deep embayments and submarine canyons, and the hills that once rose above lowlands are now islands and submerged rises, in a repetition of earlier sea level changes (Maher and Copp 2009).
Specialist coastal geomorphologists attending a workshop examining the heritage values of Australian rocky coasts, organised by DEWHA in July 2009, established that the Kimberley ria coast is among the top six rocky coasts (because of the processes that shaped and continue to shape it) and arguably the most important ria
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coast in the country (DEWHA 2009c). Although the Proterozoic rocks of Cape
Leveque at the tip of Dampier Peninsula are roughly contemporaneous, they do not form part of the drowned riverine system which characterises the coast from the
Helpman Islands north and east to Cambridge Gulf. Ria coasts are a major regionalscale coastal landform type internationally (Bird 2000, p. 221). The north-west
Kimberley coast is the most extensive region of well expressed ria coast and also the longest stretch of predominantly rocky coast in Australia (Short and Woodroffe
2009). Short and Woodroffe calculated in 2009 that the mainland Kimberley coast is approximately 2,500 kilometres long and 80 per cent of this length is rocky. Inlets
(particularly estuarine) with muddy tidal flats, mangroves and backing salt pans are the most important subordinate coastal landform type in the Kimberley region. Sandy beaches are not uncommon, but most are very short (Short 2006, Sharples 2009;
Sharples et al. 2009). With the exception of localised sites such as the Cockatoo –
Koolan Island mines, there is little high-density disturbance or infrastructure on the
Kimberley ria coast. As a result long stretches of this coast exhibit coastal landforms and processes in a mostly unmodified condition.
Bathymetric mapping has identified submarine features on the continental shelf fringing the Kimberley coast which are evidently drowned hills, plateaux, river valleys and gorges (for example, in the King Sound – Buccaneer archipelago region), and hence are part of the drowned fluvial landscape which gives distinctive character to the Kimberley coast (see for example Tyler et al.
1992). Taking a four-dimensional perspective, the Kimberley ria coast is more than the modern shoreline. It includes areas that have been significantly shaped by fluvial, terrestrial and marine (coastal) geomorphic processes. These processes alternated and interacted during the glacial/interglacial climatic phases of the Pleistocene; and over longer timescales, the extended coast records processes affecting the ancient shores of the Proterozoic
Kimberley craton. The point of highest sea level at the Last Interglacial occurred roughly 125,000 years ago. The point of lowest sea level at the last glacial maximum
(LGM) occurred around 20,000 years ago. Note these levels are assumed to be indicative of high- and low-sea stands during earlier glacial and interglacial phases, for which direct evidence is not as well preserved. However, taking the longer timescale of the Phanerozoic eon, the 30 metre bathymetric line represents the extent of the coast for much of the last 500 million years.
At the last interglacial high stand, global eustatic sea levels generally were less than six metres above present sea level (APSL), although uncertainty about uplift, hydroisostatic deformation and the erosion of evidence makes it difficult to pin down precisely, and it varies regionally. The highest last interglacial stand recorded along the Western Australian coast is at Lake MacLeod, which has palaeo-shorelines up to ten metres APSL, but this and nearby sites at Cape Cuvier and Cape Range show evidence of regional warping. There are few reliably dated north-western Australian sites (Murray–Wallace and Belperio 1991; Kendrick et al. 1991). Because of this uncertainty, the Kimberley shoreline at the Last Interglacial is considered to extend inland to the six metre contour. At the LGM, the Kimberley ria coast was up to 130 metres below present sea level (BPSL), meaning the coast was a long way seaward of its present position. Before the marine inundation following the LGM, people, flora and fauna would have lived in an ancient riverine landscape that is now drowned
(Wilson 2009a; Sharples pers. comm. 2009; Maher and Copp 2009). This appears to be an extraordinary sea level retreat, and to reflect processes of uplift and subsidence
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as well. Taking a longer perspective on the coast, this seaward boundary can be refined to reflect dominant marine and terrestrial processes throughout Phanerozoic time, due to the extraordinary stability of the Kimberley craton over the last half billion years.
A report prepared for the Australian Heritage Council in 2009 by the Western
Australian Marine Science Institution confirms that the western margin of the
Proterozoic Kimberley craton 'lies 50 kilometres or more seaward of the contemporary coast where the seabed is at least 30 m deep. Thus, the western margin of the Kimberley Plateau is today inundated by the sea and the nearshore seabed is an inundated terrestrial land surface.' (Wilson 2009a; Wilson 2009b) The seabed topography of the submerged margin of the Kimberley craton during the Phanerozoic eon is largely the result of terrestrial landform development rather than marine processes to at least the 30 metre bathymetric line (Wilson 2009b). The modern inner continental shelf of the Kimberley coast is characterised by these 'seabed landscapes'.
For example, recent imagery of the sea floor near Montgomery Reef clearly shows a broad valley and the beds of ancient streams (Wilson 2009a) and Montgomery 'Reef' itself is interpreted as a drowned flat-topped mesa of Proterozoic rocks encrusted with modern coral communities (Wilson 2009b).
However, the distance inland from the shoreline that is affected by coastal processes is subject to a number of variables apart from sea level, including climate and topography and there is no simple metric to determine the inland extension of a ria coast. A ria coast is the result of interaction between fluvial (river) and marine
(coastal) processes. Over long periods, the interaction between persistent fluvial processes and persistent coastal processes produces its distinctive topography. Thus, a ria coastal zone is best defined as that zone in which marine processes (waves and currents) and fluvial processes (runoff and river discharges etc) have both had substantial persistent impacts that have shaped the landscape we see today. In practice since the Proterozoic, that means the zone from about 30 metres BPSL (LGM shoreline) and about four to six metres above present sea level (last interglacial shoreline), with a further one kilometre distance inland allowing incorporation of a portion of the fluvial landscape above the limit of known marine influence.
The Kimberley coast is a tide dominated macrotidal coast which, partly due to the extensive shallow continental shelf, has the highest tidal range in Australia (more than
10 metres in parts; Short and Woodroffe 2009). This, together with the particularly intricate, hard-rock shore plan forms, produces rocky coast tidal current processes on a magnitude not found elsewhere in Australia, including 'horizontal waterfalls' and common coastal whirlpools. In comparison, on a soft-sediment coast the shore would adjust its plan form to damp or absorb the tidal current energy; on a hard rock coast like the Kimberley, the shoreline resists changing according to tidal currents, and so whirlpools and horizontal waterfalls occur at narrow choke points (Chris Sharples pers. comm. 2009). Thus, the Kimberley region's rocky coast exhibits a distinctive and very well-expressed, tide dominated, rocky coastal, geomorphic process regime.
Comparably extensive rocky coasts:
All other stretches of Australian coast of comparable length to the Kimberley have much higher proportions of soft sediment coast (sandy or muddy) than the Kimberley.
Other significantly rocky coastal lengths include the Albany region of southern
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Western Australia, the Eyre Peninsula–Kangaroo Island coastal stretch, western
Victoria and south-western Tasmania, but these are all much shorter in total length and all include significantly higher proportions of sandy beaches than the Kimberley coast.
Other long dominantly-rocky coast sections include the Zuytdorp Cliffs of Western
Australia and the Bunda and Baxter Cliffs of the Great Australian Bight; however these are much shorter coastal stretches than the Kimberley (Short and Woodroffe
2009). They also take a very different plan form, being straight or at most gently curvilinear, with internally draining limestone hinterland areas resulting in a lack of fluvial system controls on coastal forms (DEWHA 2009c; Sharples et al .
2009;
Sharples 2009; White 2009).
Comparably well-expressed and extensive ria coasts in Australia include:
- Arnhem Land coast: intricate fold and joint-controlled rocky quartzite coasts of at least partly ria character, including the Wessell Islands. The Arnhem Land coast is similar in some respects to the Kimberley but is much less extensive (Sharples et al.
2009; Sharples 2009).
- The east coast of Australia (New South Wales) contains many very wellexpressed rias, for example, the drowned river valleys of Sydney Harbour and the
Hawkesbury River, but these are mostly individual flooded river valleys separated by long stretches of sandy, swell-aligned coasts. They do not form a long integral dominantly-ria rocky coast as does the Kimberley (DEWHA 2009c; Sharples et al.
2009; Sharples 2009.
- Southern Tasmania demonstrates a well developed complex ria coast, but is much less extensive than the Kimberley coast, with a much higher proportion of sandy embayments. Its wave-dominated environment is not comparable to the
Kimberley in terms of tidal processes. Many of its narrow inlets are extensional faulted graben structures formerly occupied by rivers but are different in structural origin to the Kimberley coast. This reflects a different set of processes and results in different bathymetry and expression from the Kimberley (DEWHA 2009c; Maher and
Copp 2009; Sharples 2009).
Comparable tide-dominated Australian coasts:
The Kimberley coast has the highest tidal ranges of the Australian coast (Short and
Woodroffe 2009). Similarly high tidal ranges occur south-west of the Kimberley
(Eighty Mile Beach region) and in the eastern Bonaparte Gulf region, however these coasts are of very different character to the Kimberley rocky coast, comprising mainly sandy beaches and tidal mudflats. Without the complex rocky coastal plan forms constraining coastal response to tides, these regions do not exhibit the dramatic tidal current phenomena of the Kimberley. Comparably intricate rocky coasts elsewhere
(e.g., Arnhem Land, south-east Tasmania) have much lower tidal ranges with consequently much less pronounced tidal current processes (DEWHA 2009c;
Sharples 2009; Sharples et al. 2009; Chris Sharples pers. comm. 2009).
Comparable coasts with reduced high-density coastal infrastructure:
There are no comparably long stretches of the Australian coast with equivalently lowdensity near coastal infrastructure (including roads) or physical disturbance. The two
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coastal regions which may exhibit similarly low-density coastal infrastructure are probably south-western Tasmania (but this is a much shorter length of coast whose form is not dominated by fluvial processes apart from one ria inlet at Port Davey –
Bathurst Harbour) and possibly parts of Cape York. The coasts of Cape York are not well documented but they are clearly different to the Kimberley in many respects. For example, they are not dominated by intricate, fold and joint-controlled rocky ria coast
(DEWHA 2009c; Sharples et al .
2009; Sharples 2009).
Nowhere else in Australia, or possibly the world, provides the opportunity to study the effects of macrotidal tide-dominated rocky coast processes, and repeatedly interacting sea level changes and fluvial landform processes through time, on an extensively rocky coast that lacks the disturbance caused by extensive high-density coastal infrastructure (Sharples 2009). There are many ria coasts in the world, and other ria coasts in Australia, but the Kimberley rocky coast is unique in Australia and rare in the world for preserving a continuous and intricate dominantly-rocky fluvial and drowned fluvial landscape over a length of more than 2500 kilometres. As such, it is the best expression in the country of this type of landscape and the processes that have shaped and continue to shape it during the Phanerozoic eon.
The west Kimberley coast from Helpman Islands in King Sound to the western shore of Cambridge Gulf, including islands, peninsulas, inlets and inundated features, has outstanding heritage value to the nation under criterion (d) for demonstrating the principal characteristics of a major coastal landform type, namely a very well-expressed and extensive rocky ria coast, in an extensive region without significant modification by coastal infrastructure.
A Late Devonian tropical carbonate ramp on an ancient continental shelf can be reconstructed from the calcareous sediments and geomorphology of the Lennard
Shelf. These limestone complexes lie off the palaeomainland represented by the folded and faulted, granitic and metamorphic Kimberley Block to the north (described under criterion (a) as the rocks of the King Leopold orogeny). Present Lennard Shelf topography 'strikingly resembles' Devonian seafloor (Playford 1980). A multitude of features and their spatial relations provide an integrated picture of a proto-Australian tropical continental shelf environment from 390–360 million years ago (Playford and
Lowry 1966; Playford 1980; Webb 2001; Johnson and Webb 2007; Playford et al.
2009). These features include palaeoshores, palaeoinlets, platforms, atolls, interreef basins, debris flows, islands and archipelagos with fringing reefs (including the superbly preserved Mowanbini Archipelago of the Oscar Range). The remains of a barrier reef, including the forereef accumulations, lagoon deposits, patch reefs, bioherms (mud mounds) that grew on pinnacle reefs rising from the shallow sea floor of the backreef lagoon are also found here. Limestone nodules found in the lagoons and on the forereef slope as it grades into shelf sediments preserve entire fish and crustaceans at the Gogo fossil localities. Classic reef sections are exposed as cross sections in river gorges, most notably at Windjana Gorge in the Napier Range, and in
Geikie Gorge. The Lennard Shelf complexes probably represent an epicontinental shelf, separating two emergent parts of a continental shelf, covered by a shallow inland sea.
A suite of diverse environments is represented on the Lennard Shelf, allowing reconstruction of a complex, large scale shallow marine environment. The minimal
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post-deposition deformation and lack of dolomitisation that the area has experienced is integral to this reconstruction (Johnson and Webb 2007; Playford et al 2009). As noted by Playford et al. (2009) 'the present-day topography mimics that of the
Devonian sea floor, so that from the air it might appear that the sea has only recently withdrawn from the area'. This allows interpretation at multiple scales. From the air or in plan view, the topography preserves regional spatial relationships of the ancient tropical ramp environment, from deeper water pinnacle reefs on the outer shelf, through basins and platforms, slopes and reef margins to fringing reefs, islands and lagoons. Finer resolution allows the reconstruction of detailed local palaeoecologies, as demonstrated by John Long and others at the intrabasin Gogo localities, which occur as deeper water slope communities. Johnston and Webb (2007) reconstructed hydrodynamics, prevailing wind directions and local faunas from sediments and spatial relationships around the palaeoislands of the Mowanbini Archipelago to yield
'a multifaceted and unparalleled portrait of marine biofacies dispersal in an ancient tropical island group'.
Around the world, such long term preservation of large scale geographic relationships in the rock record is rare (Johnson and Webb 2007). Relics of former shorelines are more common, but tend to be very limited in exposure, and often subject to later deformation. Devonian rocky shores are poorly documented in the literature.
Palaeoislands have been noted at several sites in North America but the retention of rocky shores circumscribing entire archipelagos, as in the Mowanbini Archipelago
(represented by the palaeoproterozoic rocks of the Oscar Range) and intervening undisturbed Pillara Limestone strata, is extraordinary and provides an exceptional opportunity to reconstruct the spatial relationships of fossil communities and features under the influence of a variety of depositional, mechanical and climate factors.
The much more recent Pliocene Loxton–Parilla sands (approximately 5,000,000–
2,000,000 years ago) in the upper part of the Murray Basin sequence are part of a prograding shelf environment which formed as 400 kilometre long barrier complexes in the Miocene 'Murravian Gulf' under the action of long-period ocean swell waves.
The sequence preserves a series of shore line ridges, formed in response to sea level fluctuations linked to Milankovitch cycles in the Pliocene epoch. These strand lines can be used to date and reconstruct sea level advance and regression in response to climate forcing and demonstrate inshore hydrodynamics at a gross level. Although minimally deformed (aside from localised uplift), in most areas, the resulting 400 kilometre wide barrier strand plain is now entirely overlain by fluvial, aeolian, and lacustrine deposits and does not provide the same resolution, variety of shelf environments or possibilities for elucidation of former spatial/geographic relationships as the Lennard Shelf complexes (Roy et al. 2000). They are also 370 million years younger. The Ediacara sites at Nilpena, South Australia, are thought to represent an ancient sea floor on the edge of a submarine canyon, undisturbed enough to preserve the softbodied organisms that make up the fauna at that time in life positions. This site, however, preserves a single environment at a much older time than that represented in the Kimberley and on a smaller scale. At the only comparable
Devonian shelf environments in Australia, the Devonian Wee Jasper/Taemas (New
South Wales) and Buchan (Vic) reef sites, the tropical ramp environments preserved have been deformed by later tectonic events and only biohermal and bistromal reefs are preserved, without the excellent preservation and the suite of shelf environments represented in the Kimberley (Yeates 2001).
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The Devonian carbonate complexes of the Lennard Shelf have outstanding heritage value to the nation under criterion (d) for demonstrating the principal characteristics of a very well preserved proto Australian carbonate ramp environment on an ancient continental shelf.
ECOLOGY, BIOGEOGRAPHY AND EVOLUTION
The ichnofossils (trace fossils including dinosaur tracks) preserved in the Broome
Sandstone exposed in the intertidal zone along the Dampier Coast represent up to 15 different types (Thulborn et al. 1994; Thulborn 1997; Long 1998; Tyler 2000; Long
2004; Thulborn 2009). Described from this unit is the ichnospecies Megalosauropus broomensis Colbert and Merrilees 1967 and also found here is Wintonopus , an ichnogenus known from Lark Quarry in Queensland (Molnar 1994; Cook 2004). As described by Thulborn et al. (1994) and figured in Long (1998) the Broome Sandstone fauna is thought to include not just this ichno-theropod and ornithopod, but also thyreophorans (possibly stegosaurians) and sauropods. The thyreophoran tracks, if stegosaurian affinity is substantiated, are the only record of stegosaurs in Australia – the only other thyreophoran discovered within Australia is the ankylosaur Minmi paravertebra Molar 1980 (Long 1998). Further, these would be the world's first stegosaurian prints discovered. Some of the sauropod tracks appear to be referrable to
Brontopodus but three or four different types of track are also present, implying a diverse sauropod fauna (Thulborn et al 1994; Thulborn 1997). The Broome Sandstone tracks are therefore one of the most taxonomically diverse dinosaur track sites known anywhere in the world and certainly the most diverse in Australia.
As well as the tracks, sedimentological and palaeobotanical features of the Broome
Sandstone allow the palaeoecology of the area during this time period to be reconstructed. Plant macrofossils from this unit were preliminarily described by
White (1961) and were reviewed by McLoughlin (1996), though much work remains to be done (Thulborn 2009). The plant and sedimentological evidence allows reconstruction of the environments in which the dinosaurs found here lived and fed, providing a fuller palaeoecological picture of a suite of Cretaceous coastal environments. These range from lagoonal to fluvial/deltaic, with even an estuarine and a swamp/forest region. The dinosaur tracks that occur in each of these differ – the sauropods appear in most environments, though there are different morphological types of sauropod tracks in some. The theropods and larger ornithopods only occur occasionally in the lagoonal environment, the smaller theropods and sauropods not at all. In the more sheltered, forested environments the most diverse fauna is found
(Thulborn et al. 1994). The Cretaceous landscapes that occurred here were buried intact and reveal original topography, with soils, leaf litter and even fossils of plants in their growth positions (roots can be seen descending into the substrate). Dinosaur tracks meander around these plants so that one may walk across these ancient landscapes following their paths through clumps of vegetation (Thulborn pers. comm.
2009). The Broome Sandstone coastal exposures of dinosaur tracks and associated fossils therefore tell an integrated story of the animals, plants and physical environment of this area during the Early Cretaceous period, approximately 132 million years ago.
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The National Heritage listed Lark Quarry site in Queensland preserves a 'dinosaur stampede' and was among the best-preserved dinosaur trackways in the world, though a recent accident may have damaged the bedding plane. As many as 4000 footprints are preserved here, representing the tracks of as may as 150 dinosaurs (Thulborn
2009). Elsewhere in the Winton Formation, in which Lark Quarry is located, plant micro– and macrofossils are also found, but the landscape preservation of in situ plants that occurs in the Broome Sandstone is not matched. The taxonomic diversity of the Lark Quarry tracks is low – the site preserves prints of groups of ornithopods and small theropods running from a larger theropod predator at a single point in time.
By contrast, the Broome tracks originate from several stratigraphic horizons within the Broome Sandstone so may represent slightly different time periods (Long 2004;
Thulborn 2009). No other track site in Australia provides the range of environmental settings that are preserved in the Broome Sandstone – each with its own characteristic ichnofauna (Thulborn 2009).
The Broome Sandstone exposed in the intertidal zone of the Dampier Coast provide a glimpse of the places in which sauropods were living, and also records their interaction with other dinosaur taxa in ways that body fossils cannot. Further, it contains information about Mesozoic ecology that simply isn't preserved anywhere else in the world. Tracks are particularly valuable as sources of behavioural data about extinct animals. Body fossils of dinosaurs are invariably transported from the environments in which the animals lived and as such palaeoecological reconstructions based on these remains are usually focussed on characteristics such as body size and diet. Footprints, especially those found in the Broome Sandstone, which in places weave around fossilised plants still in their life positions, give us the opportunity to glimpse the lives of these animals
The dinosaur tracks and associated ichnofossils, plant macrofossils and
Cretaceous depositional environments of the Broome Sandstone exposed in the intertidal zone of the Dampier Coast have outstanding heritage value to the nation under criterion (d) for preserving snapshots of the ecology of the
Mesozoic.
WEALTH OF THE LAND AND SEA
Camden Sound humpback whale calving area
The Kimberley is the northern migration destination and calving ground for the largest population of humpback whales ( Megaptera novaeangliae ) in the world (DEC
2009). Humpback whales travel thousands of kilometres to warm tropical waters to mate and to calve. Two separate populations of humpback whales occur in Australian waters: Group IV migrates along the west coast and Group V along the east coast.
Group IV is regarded as a single population while Group V consists of three subpopulations whose migration destinations are eastern Australia, New Caledonia and
Tonga/Fiji (IWC 2005). All age classes participate in the migration, with pregnant females the last to leave Antarctica, arriving at the calving grounds as some of the earlier arrivals are preparing for the return migration south (Chittleborough 1965;
Dawbin 1997). Camden Sound may be the largest humpback whale nursery in the world, with up to 1,000 whales recorded (Costin and Sandes 2009a, 2009b; DEC
2009). It is ecologically significant as one of many staging posts during the cyclical, seasonal, continuous migration of the west coast (Group IV) humpbacks between their
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Antarctic feeding grounds and breeding grounds in north-western Australia. However, in this report the ecological process or natural environment 'represented' by the migration is considered to be the migration itself, not disconnected elements of it.
If humpback whale calving grounds or whale migrations (as opposed to other cetaceans, or other migratory species) have outstanding heritage value to the nation, there is insufficient evidence to suggest that the Group IV population, or any aggregation of it, is more important than the Group V (east coast) populations. The east and west coast populations are distinct. Group IV appears to contain about twice as many individuals as the Group V populations. Therefore smaller calving grounds on the east coast may be as important as the larger Camden Sound calving ground for preserving genetic diversity in humpbacks (DEWHA 2009a). Every humpback whale population is important for the species' survival and recovery (DEWHA 2009a).
Furthermore, migration is composed of many component locations, and many biologically important activities. There is insufficient evidence to suggest that calving is more or less important to the survival of humpback whales than feeding, mating, socialising, nursing or resting. Other important humpback whale habitat occurs along the Australian migratory routes. Usually these are corridors and bottlenecks which result when a large proportion of a population passes within 30 kilometres of the coast, and encounters barriers. Some of these corridors and staging posts include
Geraldton and the Abrolhos Islands in Western Australia; east of Stradbroke and
Moreton Islands in Queensland and Cape Byron in New South Wales (DEWHA
2009a). During the southern migration, cow/calf pairs and attendant males take opportunistic advantage of resting areas – usually sheltered bays on the way to the
Antarctic feeding grounds. These resting areas include Exmouth Gulf, Shark and
Geographe Bays in Western Australia; the Whitsundays, Hervey and Moreton Bays and the Palm Island Group in Queensland; and Twofold Bay in New South Wales
(DEWHA 2008a).
Breeding and nursery aggregations of other marine fauna occur at many locations around the Australian coast. For example, Shark Bay shelters a population of 12,000 dugongs. The Ningaloo Reef and Exmouth Gulf also provide important dugong habitat, with a more or less permanent population of 1,000–2,000 animals (Preen et al.
1997). Rare marine turtles are another group that could be considered comparable in terms of breeding/nesting sites, of which there are many found around the Australian coast. Just one species alone, the green turtle ( Chelonia mydas ), has significant nesting sites throughout the Great Barrier Reef, the Gulf of Carpentaria, the Monte
Bello Islands, Barrow Island and the Lacepede Islands within the Kimberley
(DEWHA 2009d). Migratory pathways are not well known for another iconic cetacean species, the endangered southern right whale ( Eubalaena australis ). The species is seasonally present in Australian waters from May to November. They have been recorded in coastal waters of all states except the Northern Territory. Within this wider geographic range, they regularly concentrate in certain areas to breed. Major calving areas are located in Western Australia at Doubtful Island Bay, east of Israelite
Bay; and in South Australia at Head of Bight, and in smaller numbers at Twilight
Cove, Flinders Bay; and in Western Australia in the Albany/Cape Riche and Yokinup
Bay/Cape Arid areas. Smaller numbers of calving females also regularly congregate at
Warrnambool in Victoria and South Australia's Encounter Bay and Fowlers Bay.
Other areas along the southern and western coast, often between regular calving
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grounds, are used intermittently (DEWHA 2009b). Visually splendid and perhaps of greater national and international significance is the spawning aggregation of the giant cuttlefish Sepia apama in Spencer Gulf each winter. The gulf is the only known spawning aggregation of cuttlefish in the world and represents an exceptional cuttlefish mating system (Hall and Hanlon 2002).
There is insufficient evidence to demonstrate that Camden Sound, or any other calving ground, spawning ground, or particular staging point, for a single marine species has outstanding heritage value to the nation under criterion (a) as a particularly important element of an ecological process, criterion (b) as uncommon, rare or endangered or criterion (d) for its importance in demonstrating the characteristics of a migratory staging post. Humpback whales and other charismatic marine fauna may warrant consideration under criterion
(e) or criterion (g) for aesthetic and social value, but currently there is insufficient comparative data or a systematic mode of analysis.
Roebuck Bay is a hotspot for migratory birds because of its location, climate, its physiographic features, including low gradient mudflats and a high tidal range and its invertebrate biodiversity (Ramsar 2008; Brunnschweiler 1957; Graham 2001a). The many different species and the huge number of individual birds seasonally present indicate that Roebuck Bay might exhibit the principal characteristics of a migratory hub or staging post for international migratory shorebirds and birds that migrate from other parts of Australia.
The presence of a high concentration of invertebrates in a relatively stable environment draws significant numbers of international migratory shorebirds to
Roebuck Bay (Broome Bird Observatory 2006; DCLM 2003). Spring tides of eight to
10.5 metres repeatedly expose and inundate the low gradient mudflats to a degree not experienced elsewhere in Australia with the exception of King Sound. Recent surveys of these mudflats have uncovered a rich benthic invertebrate fauna, including 40 different bivalve species, 26 gastropods, seven echinoderms and 17 crab species (de
Goeij et al. 2003; Piersma et al. 2006). Worms are the most abundant and diverse animal on the flats, most belonging to the bristle worms (class Polychaeta). These provide a relatively reliable seasonal food source.
Sixty four waterbird species have been recorded at Roebuck Bay, 34 of which have been listed under international treaties (JAMBA, CAMBA and ROKAMBA).
Roebuck Bay, in terms of visitation, has the highest number of waterbird species of international importance, including pied oystercatchers ( Haematopus longirostris ),
Mongolian plovers ( Charadrius mongolus ), ruddy turnstones ( Arenaria interpres ), red-capped plovers ( Charadrius ruficapillus ) and black-winged stilts ( Himantopus himantopus ). Sites are classified by the Ramsar Convention Bureau as being of international significance to a species if they are used by more than one percent of total flyway population. In the case of a species with a population estimate of more than 2,000,000 the 1 per cent threshold is set at 20,000 (Bamford et al. 2008; Ramsar
Convention Bureau 2000). The Gulf of Carpentaria is a close second (19) and nearby
Eighty Mile Beach is third (15) (Watkins 1993). Roebuck Bay and Eighty Mile Beach are 'wintering' (Australian summer) destinations for birds migrating within the East
Asian – Australasian flyway zone (Rogers et al. 2003).
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Additional to international visitors, Australian resident non-migratory breeding shorebirds also make Roebuck Bay home for part of the year. Birds such as the rednecked avocet ( Recurvirostra novaehollandiae ) use Roebuck Bay as a seasonal refuge, flying to the site from inland Australian wetlands as they dry out.
ANHAT analysis returned the second highest score for Charadiiformes (waders) richness at Roebuck Bay (61 species), close behind the Darwin region (64). These high wader species numbers demonstrate the importance of the two regions as part of the migratory pathway between the northern hemisphere and Australia. Along with international visitors, Roebuck Bay also returned nationally high endemism scores for a collection of bird groups, including Passeriformes (perching birds), Meliphagidae
(honeyeaters), and Pittidae (represented by the rare Asian visitor the blue-winged pitta
( Pitta moluccensis )) and to a lesser extent Sylviidae (old world warblers). The high number of wader species present combined with high endemism scores for a range of bird families supports the claims of Roebuck Bay's significance in the literature. The endemism significance can in some cases be explained by the presence of a number of bird species, such as the common redshank ( Tringa totanus ) and the Asian dowitcher
( Limnodromus semipalmatus ), who within Australia, almost exclusively visit the
Canning coast area, before returning to other countries found within their flyway zone. This has the effect of producing high endemism scores for these species, despite their widespread international distribution. This statistical feature in no way reduces the significance of these species' reliance on Roebuck Bay and Eighty Mile Beach.
In terms of abundance (absolute numbers) Roebuck Bay is the fourth most important site for waders in Australia (Bennelongia 2008). The highest number of shorebirds counted at the site was 170,900 in October 1983 and allowing for turnover, the total number of shorebirds using the site may exceed 300,000 annually (DCLM 2003a).
Eighty Mile Beach has greater absolute numbers of birds with over 472,000 being recorded over a month in 2001, albeit over a much larger area.
Eighty Mile Beach is on current data less significant than Roebuck Bay in terms of species richness, endemism, and importance for international migratory shorebirds although it appears to have a greater abundance of individual birds. It is considered here that Eighty Mile Beach may be of outstanding significance to the nation and may warrant further investigation against the National Heritage List criteria as part of a future assessment.
Roebuck Bay has outstanding heritage value to the nation under criterion (d) due to the place's importance as a class of avian habitat (a migratory hub or staging post), and for the regular presence of migratory, protected or endangered avifauna.
CONTACT, CHANGE AND CONTINUITY
European settlements
The west Kimberley region was settled by Europeans in the later half of the nineteenth century with the pioneer towns of Broome and Derby established initially to serve the pastoral industry. Due to their isolation they were reliant on sea communication in their early years and the focus of both towns was their jetties, a characteristic typical of port towns.
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Derby initially developed as service and export centre for livestock, and then later as an export centre for zinc and lead, servicing the nearby Fitzroy Crossing mines.
Research on these towns demonstrates that neither Derby or Fitzroy Crossing meet threshold for National Heritage listing.
The town site of Broome at Roebuck Bay was gazetted in 1883. By 1884 Broome was connected to the outside world by a steamer service and by 1890 the town had some buildings and services for the pearl shell industry, a police station and a customs house.
Before the First World War, Broome was well established as a town with a mosque, state and convent schools, a government hospital, a hospital for Japanese and by 1921 it was connected to Perth by an air service. The dominant industry in Broome was the pearl shell industry. The function of Broome as a pearling port influenced the town's characteristics. In particular the alignment of the town's road grid with Roebuck Bay and the segregation between worker and manager housing is evident. The use of corrugated iron buildings (mostly pre-Second World War) with verandahs and balconies is also a noticeable town feature. This character continues to be reinforced by modern infill development.
The Urban and town planning thematic heritage study (City Futures 2007) notes that regional Western Australian towns of the late nineteenth century tended to be
'piecemeal', lacking originality in terms of town planning. Of the towns Broome,
Derby and Fitzroy Crossing, Broome has an evolved visual character based on the dominant architecture of the town which is formed from a corrugated iron architectural style. Of particular note in Broome are a number of small scale workers cottages and shops illustrating this style. These buildings have now become gentrified in response to the increasing tourism to the area. More recent infill development within the town is also modelled on the corrugated iron character of architecture.
Research indicates that Broome's historic streetscape areas could be important as many of the corrugated iron urban landscapes have been lost elsewhere in Australia.
Corrugated galvanised iron as a material was introduced into Australia by about 1850.
Portable iron buildings were also imported for use in the gold mining towns of
Victoria in the 1850s.
Curving and corrugating of iron sheets was undertaken in Australia in the latter half of the nineteenth century. The metal was a popular material used in the construction of rainwater tanks and verandah roofs. It became commonplace in vernacular and industrial architecture in the second half of the nineteenth century and from 1890-
1910 improved steel making methods led to the replacement of iron by steel. Its use in remote areas is also noted.
Galvanised iron buildings in many towns were replaced after the Second World War and the material was recycled for other purposes. Some places do however still retain some of this built fabric. Pine Creek (Northern Territory), the Oxide Street Precinct
(Broken Hill) and areas of workers cottages in Kalgoorlie and Coolgardie, for example, retain corrugated iron housing, often referred to as 'tinnies' or 'tin towns'.
Some of these areas are conservation precincts.
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In summary, within the context of the analysis topic of settlement , neither Fitzroy
Crossing nor Derby demonstrate town characteristics of significance at the national level. The layout of Broome is not exemplary in terms of town planning and the townscape has changed in response to tourism. The corrugated iron architecture in
Broome has some potential rarity value, however it lacks the ability to demonstrate this style of architecture because of the extent and nature of modern redevelopment or adaption. In this case, lack of integrity is a sufficient reason to conclude that Broome is below threshold under criterion (d).
On the basis of current evidence the town settlements of Derby, Fitzroy Crossing and Broome are below threshold under criterion (d) for their importance in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a class of cultural place or cultural environment.
The Fitzroy River (Martuwarra/Mardoowarra) 'river of life': the meeting place of four contiguous and distinctive traditions of the Rainbow Serpent
The Fitzroy River, known to its Aboriginal Traditional Owners as
Martuwarra/Mardoowarra , 'River of Life' is one of the longest and largest river systems in tropical north Australia (Larson and Alexandridis 2009). The cultural systems and languages of ten Aboriginal groups whose traditional country principally falls within the Fitzroy catchment area include the Kija, Wurla, Andajin, Ngarinyin,
Gooniyandi, Bunuba, Unggumi, Walmajarri, Nyikina and Warrwa people. According to Pannell (2009), these Aboriginal Traditional Owners continue to maintain traditions and observe the ways of life intrinsic to an Indigenous riverine-based sociocultural system, which the anthropological record indicates is now rare, threatened or no longer apparent as intact in other parts of Aboriginal Australia.
Traditions associated with the Rainbow Serpent or Water Snake acknowledged as having been once pervasive in Aboriginal Australia are now severely impacted by the
'tides of history' (Pannell 2009, 31). In his seminal article on the Rainbow Serpent tradition in Australia, the anthropologist, A. R. Radcliffe-Brown (1926, 24) linked the phenomenon and distribution of the tradition to the arid nature of the continent. The
Fitzroy River provides a rare living window into the diversity of the traditions associated with the Rainbow Serpent that are intrinsically tied to Indigenous interpretations of the different way in which water flows, rather than to the scarcity or absence of water, as proposed by Radcliffe-Brown (Pannell 2009). In the jila-kalpurtu domain (wherein the term, jila, refers to permanent sub-surface water sources, and kalpurtu are the rain-giving snakes) of the Fitzroy catchment on the northern edge of the Great Sandy Desert, water flows are principally underground and the water snake is said to exist in the underground structure of the channels, linking excavated waterholes and other water sources of significance. The phenomenon of Galaroo, on the other hand is linked to flowing surface water, in the form of major rivers, and to long and deep permanent waterholes in broad river channels. The Rainbow Serpent of the Wanjina-Wunggurr belief system, known as Wunggurr or Ungud, is associated with discrete pools of water and also exhibits strong associations with the sea. The
Woonyoomboo-Yoongoorroonkoo narrative is also linked to the sea, and primarily tells the story of the creation of the lower Fitzroy River and its floodplains.
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Martuwarra encompasses four contiguous and distinctive freshwater-based Aboriginal cultural domains, focused upon the tradition of the Rainbow Serpent, as exemplified by the religious tradtions of Galaroo, Woonyoomboo-Yoongoorroonkoo, Wanjina-
Wunggurr, and the jila-kalpurtu cultural systems. A song line known as
Warloongarriy (Walungarri) serves to unite Aboriginal people and their Rainbow
Serpent traditions along the Fitzroy River as part of one regional ritual complex, called Warloongarriy Law or 'River Law'.
Rainbow Serpent traditions in Australia
Australia is the most arid inhabited continent on earth (Rose 1996, 51). Water is life and throughout Australia, Aboriginal people hold detailed ecological and cultural knowledge about water sources transmitted from one generation to another over millennia. Images of and belief in the Rainbow Serpent are found across Aboriginal
Australia. The concept recurs in Aboriginal art, religion, ritual, and social and economic life.
According to Radcliffe-Brown (1926, 19; 1930, 342) there are a number of common elements to the Rainbow Serpent tradition found throughout Australia including: the belief that rainbow snakes live in deep and permanent waterholes; they are visible to humans in the form of a rainbow; they are associated with rain and rain-making; they are often associated with quartz crystal; and in many parts of Australia, as a result of this later connection, they are linked to medicine men and the practice of magic.
While belief in the Rainbow Serpent may once have been pervasive across Australia, a survey of the literature as noted by Pannell (2009) suggests that the tradition survives in some places mostly in a fragmentary form or is referred to only in perfunctory ways. David McKnight is one of the few anthropologists in Australia to write a detailed ethnography explicitly based around Aboriginal traditions concerning the Rainbow Serpent. McKnight (1999) provides a detailed account of the significance of the Rainbow Serpent (Thuwathu) to the Lardil people of Mornington
Island. For the Lardil, the Rainbow Serpent is credited with creating the Dugong
River: 'Writhing, turning and twisting he travels up the Dugong River which he forms as he goes along…in making Dugong River he thrusts in and out of places, finally doubling back to the main stream' (McKnight 1999, 196).
Thuwathu is said to dwell in wells and water holes. The environment the Rainbow
Serpent is said to favour the most are the mangroves located along the tidal flats and mud coast, and at the mouth and banks of rivers and creeks (McKnight 1999, 194-
195). The setting of the main Lardil story about Thuwathu is near the mouth of the
Dugong River. This narrative equates to the Nyikina story about Woonyoomboo-
Yoongoorroonkoo and the creation of the lower Fitzroy River.
Beckett and Hercus (2009) have recorded a mura (Dreaming or Creation Being track) about the Two Rainbow Serpents (Ngatyi) from 'Corner Country', where the boundaries of New South Wales, Queensland and South Australia come together. This is sandhill country which continues into South Australia and has links with the
Strzelecki Desert. Like the Fitzroy River, Aboriginal people of Corner Country are connected together over a wide area by a shared narrative focused on the creation and movement of water by Rainbow Serpents. Speakers of four different language affiliations – including the Karnic languages of the Lake Eyre Basin (Wangkumara
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people); Paakantyi, Darling River languages (spoken by Wanyiwalku/Pantyikali people); Yarli languages (spoken by Malyangapa, Wadigali and Yardliyawara people) and Karlali and Bidjara dialect speakers from Bulloo share this narrative (Beckett and
Hercus 2009, 2). The two Ngatyi mura covers a vast distance through underground channels from the Paroo River to the Flinders' Ranges, returning to a midway spot near the present day town of Tibooburra, or in one version of the narrative, all the way back to the Paroo. The line of travel of the two Rainbow Serpents is by subterranean channels, which are marked by the kamuru (willow trees) (comment by a senior
Aboriginal custodian quoted in Beckett and Hercus 2009, 32). The Snakes travelled from one waterhole to the next, naming the places and animals as they went. Beckett and Hercus (2009) recorded four different versions of this narrative from senior
Traditional Owners during their fieldwork in the 1950s and note the differences in the narrative are largely as a result of the breakdown in cultural practices:
* * * *
'[H]ad the culture of which these mura stories were a part been still active, the telling of them might have been subject to a degree of standardisation, and it may be that no one would have been allowed to tell them on his or her own; however ceremonial life had fallen away in the early years of the twentieth century, and the senior men complained that the younger generation had no interest in such things'.
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Regarding the association between the Rainbow Serpent and the creation of deep pools like those created by Wunggurr in the Wanjina-Wunggurr homeland, Merlan
(1998) refers to the association of Bolung (Rainbow Serpent) with deep rock pools in the Katherine area of the Northern Territory. Gunlom, in Kakadu National Park and
Leliyn (Edith Falls) near Katherine are both said to have Rainbow Serpents residing in the deeper parts of their waters. Aboriginal people did not camp out at Gunlom, preferring the safety of the nearby South Alligator River. At Leliyn, the Rainbow
Serpent was also considered dangerous. It has an aversion to the foreign sweat and smell of persons it does not recognise and makes a stormy response to intrusions by unknown persons (Merlan 1998). Like Beckett and Hercus, Merlan concludes that the
'stories of the Rainbow Serpent do not have currency with her [Aboriginal informant's] children's generation' (ibid: 75).
Like the Bunuba traditions associated with Galaroo in the long deep permanent pools of Geikie Gorge, the Nyungar community in Perth believe the great snake spirit or
Waugal (Wagyl, Waughyl) formed the rivers, wetlands and lakes within the Swan
Valley as it moved across and under the landscape. The Waugal lives in a deep section of the Swan River known as Gooninup, and travels up and down the river.
Gooninup was also the site of an important freshwater spring for Swan Valley
Nyungar people. The Waugal's presence at Gooninup was marked by several large round stones which were treated ceremonially as the eggs of the Waugal (Ansara
1989). Moore (1842) also recorded the presence of the Waugal in the 'deep, dark waters of the Swan River, and he noted how the mythic snake emerged at Mt Eliza and crawled its way to the sea, creating the Swan River.
Similarly, McConnel (1930) provides some details about an eel or serpent-like creature called yero by the Koko-Yalungu people who have been living in the
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Bloomfield River region of north Queensland for thousands of years. According to the
Koko-Yalungu, the chief dwelling place of the yero is in a long, deep stretch of water just above 'The Roaring Meg' falls. During times of flood, the large volume of water going over the falls creates a rainbow – said to be a visual expression of the Rainbow
Serpent. In the Daintree River area, McConnel (1930) found that the traditions associated with the Rainbow Serpent had already faded from memory.
Four contiguous and distinctive expressions of the Rainbow Serpent in a single freshwater hydrological system
The Fitzroy River encompasses four contiguous and distinctive freshwater-based
Aboriginal cultural and ecological domains, focused upon the tradition of the
Rainbow Serpent, as exemplified by the cults of Woonyoomboo-Yoongoorroonkoo,
Galaroo, Wanjina-Wunggurr, and the jila-kalpurtu cultural systems. Each tradition is intrinsically tied to Indigenous interpretations of the different way in which water flows within the one hydrological system, and all four expressions converge into one regional ritual complex, called Warloongarriy Law or 'River Law' that serves to unite
Aboriginal people and their Rainbow Serpent Traditions.
The Woonyoomboo-Yoongoorroonkoo narrative is associated with the flood plains and wetlands of the lower Fitzroy River, while Galaroo is connected to the gorges, the permanent waterholes which characterise the Fitzroy River in the dry season, and the karst system of the middle to upper reaches of the river. The region of the Wanjina-
Wunggurr is roughly bounded by the King Leopold Ranges, the Drysdale River and the sea and thus includes the ranges of the Kimberley crumple zone, the permanently flowing waters of the rivers that course through these ranges, and the islands and peninsulas of the Kimberley coast. The jila-kalpurtu cultural system, on the other hand, is synonymous with the semi arid hinterlands of the southern Fitzroy River basin, which mark the transition zone between the primarily surface-watered drainage of the Fitzroy and aquifer-dominated arid environment of the Great Sandy Desert – an immense area of uncoordinated drainage. Both the Wanjina–Wunggurr and the jilakalpurtu cultural systems extend beyond the drainage system of the Fitzroy River, particularly in the case of the jila-kalpartu system, which extends south into the Great
Sandy Desert region.
The upper reaches of the central drainage channel of the Fitzroy River (including the
Margaret River and Mt Pierre Creek) flows through an area in which the Rainbow
Serpent is known as Galaroo (Galuru, Kaleru). The Gooniyandi, Bunuba and Kija speakers comprise the principal observers of the Galaroo tradition. In this area,
Galaroo is credited with amongst other things, the creation of the rivers and permanent water sources and is said to be present in watery locations. Galaroo is linked to the flooding of the river and the creation of rain, clouds and wind. While painted rock art, including motifs of an 'All Father' being are found in this area, the distinctive practice of re-painting these images to make rain and increase species, as occurs in the Wanjina-Wunggurr homeland to the north is largely absent in the lands of Galaroo (Vachon 2006, 341). According to Kaberry (1935) Playford (1960) and
Capell (1971) rain-making is associated with the use of 'rain stones'. Kaberry (1939,
207) notes that amongst the Gooniyandi, a 'single headman' takes stones linked to
Kaleru, breaks them up, wraps them in grass and puts them in a waterhole. In addition, Kaberry notes that Kaleru can only be approached by older men and women
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knowledgeable about 'magic' (which is obtained from Kaleru). Certain foods, such as white-ant larvae, and objects, including pearl shell are tabooed items; they 'belong to
Kaleru' and they were carried inside him until he ejected them. According to Kaberry
(1939) failure to observe these prohibitions results in violent storms and severe flooding brought on by the wrath of Kaleru. Like Ungud, the powerful water snake of the Wanjina-Wunggurr people, Kaleru also places spirit children in the water holes.
Geikie Gorge (Danggu) is an exemplar of the Galaroo narrative. Extending north from the 'Old Crossing' in Fitzroy Crossing to Dimond Gorge (Jijidu), Danggu is the name given to the gorge by Bunuba people. Danggu is also the name given to the large limestone boulder (another name is Linyjiya) located in the middle of the gorge. This boulder is associated with a resident Rainbow Snake that contributes to the status of
Danggu as a place of 'living water' (i.e. a permanent and sentient water source, traditionally utilised by Aboriginal people: see Pannell 2009, 4). The boulder is also a malay ('increase') place for fish, and when rubbed with barramundi fat (mingga balga), the rock produces an abundance of fish. The northern reaches of the gorge are associated with a permanent spring which is also occupied by Rainbow Snake and is an important ceremonial place.
The south eastern section of the Fitzroy River system and its tributaries, Christmas
Creek and Cherrabun Creek are traditionally associated with the Pama-Nyungan speaking Walmajarri people (see Tindale 1974), who together with the desertdwelling Mangala, Juwaliny, Wangkajungka, Warman, Yulparija, and Manyjilyjarra people, subscribe to what has been termed the jila-kalpurtu complex, wherein the term, jila, refers to permanent sub-surface water sources, and kalpurtu are said to be the rain-giving snakes occupying these sites (Vachon 2006). As Vachon points out, the defining characteristics of the Rainbow Serpent for these Aboriginal groups includes the kalpurtu's association with the original human occupants. Group rainmaking is conducted at kalpurtu-occupied jila. The jila are often many metres underground and are excavated by people in conjunction with the performance of rain-making ceremonies. Like other mythic beings, kalpurtu retain benevolent and malevolent qualities; a kalpurtu can bring misfortune or death if it is disturbed. For this reason, it is important to approach the kalpurtu singing the correct song for the particular kalpurtu and his jila (Toussaint et al. 2001). Sacred objects associated with rain-making are located within the physical confines of the jila. Unlike the Rainbow
Serpent traditions of the upper and central Fitzroy River, there is a complete absence of material representations of kalpurtu, in the form of rock art images (Pannell 2009).
There also appears to be an absence of 'increase' sites in jila country. Unlike the traditions associated with Galaroo, Wanjina-Wunggurr and Woonyoomboo-
Yoonggorroonkoo, the people of the northern fringes of the Great Sandy Desert refer to the kalpurtu as providers of food. Kalpurtu 'give all the tucker' and the only places of ritual reproduction are the associated jila. Kalpurtu, in its connection with rain, makes the ground soft and from this the various plant and animal foods appear
(Vachon 2006).
As the Fitzroy River flows south west out of the ranges and gorge country associated with Galaroo, and adjacent to the jila country of the Great Sandy Desert, it begins its journey across the wet season flood plains and finally flows into King Sound. It is here that the river enters the narrative domain of Woonyoomboo -Yoongoorroonkoo.
In the traditional Bookarrarra ('Dreaming') narrative of the Nyikina-Mangala people,
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the Traditional Owners of the lower reaches of the river, the floodplain country of the
Fitzroy River is associated with the actions of Woonyoomboo (Wunyumbu) the 'first man', and Yoongoorroonkoo, the 'giant serpent'. In the Warloongarriy song which recalls the travels of Woonyoomboo and his family along the river, Woonyoomboo rode on the back of the Yoongoorroonkoo to the area along the river near
Noonkanbah known as Mijirrikan (Mijirayikan). As he moved through the landscape he speared the Yoongoorroonkoo with his majaribal ('spear'), resulting in the splitting of the Fitzroy River into two, as is evident in the river landscape today (Toussaint et al. 2001; Pannell 2009; Poelina 2010)
In the tradition linked to Woonyoomboo, the Rainbow Serpent is said to be represented by two jilbidijati ('black-headed pythons'). Yoongoorroonkoo is also credited with the creation of increase sites (known as maladji in the Nyikina language) located on both sides of the main channel of the Fitzroy River (VAchon
2006 citing Arthur 1983; Kaberry 1936; Kolig 1982). Arthur (ibid) describes these sites as having 'power or influence'. Natural features such as trees and rocks 'contain the essence of animal or plant species', or the 'essence of sickness' (Kolig 1982, 4).
The sites can be used ritually 'to stimulate the occurrence of a species in a certain area' or 'for the purposes of practicing death or sickness magic' (Kolig 1982b, 4). The
Woonyoomboo story is regularly re-enacted in Walungarri (Warloongarriy) rituals associated with river country and the initiation of young men. Songs sung during ceremonial activity recount the creation of the river and surrounding country. In the song-cycle, Woonyoomboo calls the metaphysical water snakes (Yoongoorroonkoo) to create the tributaries, such as Jikarli/Geegully Creek (Touissant et al. 2001).
Walmajarri, Wangkajunga, Nyikina, Ngarinyin and Mangala speakers emphasise that not just any song can be sung. It cannot be a made up song or a 'dreamed song' that may be appropriate in another context. Specific songs are given to the people from the
Dreamtime, and it makes the Rainbow Serpent happy to hear because he knows he has not been forgotten (Touissant et al. 2001).
At the northern end of the Fitzroy River watershed there is a cultural transition zone in which the belief system and customs associated with Galaroo gives way to the
Wanjina-Wunggurr of the northwest Kimberley. Speakers of Ngarinyin, Wurla,
Wunambal, Wilawila, Gaambera, Worrorra, Yawijibaya, Unggarrangu, Unggumi and
Umida languages are members of the Wanjina-Wunggurr community (Blundell et al.
2009). At the headwaters of the Hann River, the Ngarinyin people believe that the river was created by water snakes. Based on the work of Elkin (1930), Capell (1939),
Petri (1954) and Lommel (1997 [1952]) the concept of Wunggurr is associated with the Rainbow Serpent. Both Wanjina and the Wunggurr or Ungud Snake are believed to be manifestations of a life force, also called Wunggurr, which permeates the
Wanjina-Wunggurr cosmos and is imbued in all living forms. Moreover, traditional owners of the Wanjina-Wunggurr homeland report that the Wunggurr Snake 'worked with' the Wanjina to make their country. And, along with Wanjina, the Wunggurr
Snake is responsible for the supply of child spirits found at conception sites across
Wanjina-Wunggurr country. Wunggurr is linked to deep pools of water and the movement of sea water. It is also associated with rain and fertility in the form of
'increase' sites. Rain-making is intrinsically linked to the re-painting of the Wanjina.
Ngarinyin believe that all permanent pools, whilst being inhabited by the Wunggurr
Snake, also have Wanjina who reside in and create caves next to each Wunggurr
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(Mowaljarlai and Malnic 1993). Other manifestations of the Wunggurr Snake include rock formations, islands, reefs, and waves in the sea (Blundell et al. 2009).
Within the Fitzroy River catchment there are four distinct expressions of the
Australia-wide Rainbow Serpent tradition. In the jila-kalpurtu domain of the Fitzroy catchment on the northern edge of the Great Sandy Desert, water flows are principally underground and the Rainbow Serpent (kalpurtu) is said to exist in the underground structure of the channels, linking excavated waterholes and other water sources of significance. Places like Kurrpurrngu (Cajibut Springs), Mangunampi and Paliyarra are exemplars of this expression of the Rainbow Serpent. The phenomenon of
Galaroo, on the other hand is linked to flowing surface water, in the form of major rivers, and to long and deep permanent waterholes in broad river channels, like Geikie
Gorge (Danggu). The Rainbow Serpent of the Wanjina-Wunggurr belief system has an especially strong association with discrete pools of water, and is also associated with the sea and Wanjina in religious narratives and painted rock art sites. The
Woonyoomboo-Yoongoorroonkoo narrative of the lower Fitzroy primarily tells the story of the creation of the lower Fitzroy River and its floodplains and its links to the sea.
The Fitzroy River and a number of its tributaries, together with their floodplains and the jila sites of Kurrpurrngu, Mangunampi, Paliyarra and Kurungal, demonstrate four distinct expressions of the Rainbow Serpent tradition associated with Indigenous interpretations of the different ways in which water flows within the catchment and are of outstanding heritage value to the nation under criterion (d) for their exceptional ability to convey the diversity of the
Rainbow Serpent tradition within a single freshwater hydrological system.
CRITERION (e) – The place has outstanding heritage value because of the place's importance in exhibiting particular aesthetic characteristics valued by a community
or cultural group
WEALTH OF LAND AND SEA
Inspirational landscapes
The Kimberley is promoted in tourist literature as an iconic outback destination with
'some of Australia's most spectacular and remote scenery' (Vaisutis et al. 2009). The distinctiveness and high aesthetic value of the Kimberley's landscapes has also been recognised by their incorporation into Tourism Australia's National Landscapes
Program (Tourism Australia 2010). This program promotes Australian landscapes which have an iconic and very high aesthetic appeal. These aesthetic characteristics are used to powerful effect in travel destination branding and marketing.
The Kimberley region of Western Australia makes a powerful contrast with the places experienced by most Australians in their daily lives, who live in the temperate, more densely populated south and east of the continent.
The Kimberley is part of the tropical savanna region of northern Australia. This area has a tropical climate with a distinctive monsoonal wet season lasting up to five months of the year between November and March. The region is remote with a very low population density with 75 per cent of the population living in three major
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centres. While the beef cattle grazing industry is the major user and manager of the land, pastoral leases only cover approximately 50 per cent of the region, 20 to 25 per cent of which are owned by Indigenous landholders (Australian Natural Resources
Atlas Kimberley Profile 2009). The Kimberley region's natural landscapes are also recognised for their high level of intactness (Australian Natural Resources Atlas
Kimberley Profile 2009).
In relation to the appreciation of the Kimberley there are some distinctive aspects to note in comparison to the better known areas of southern and south-eastern Australia.
These are presented to provide context for the aesthetic assessment of the area.
The landscape of the Kimberley has many dimensions and is described in detail in this report's history and description. Of particular note in relation to aesthetic values of the place under assessment, is the clear expression of geological features which gives the landscape an ancient, rugged and in parts a dramatic appearance. The Indigenous cultural landscape also has deep connections to an ancient past and has significant contemporary Indigenous cultural heritage values. Today the rock art of the region attracts many non Indigenous visitors and for some these images signify an ancient land. Further information and evaluation of rock art is included in this place report under criterion (e).
Common aesthetic characteristics noted for the west Kimberley include the colour in the landscape (reds, yellows, intensity and variety of hues), the substantially unmodified nature of the natural landscapes, the experience of remoteness and the inspirational nature of the landscapes commonly described by words such as majesty, ancient, remarkable, awesome, endless vistas, jewel like sources of water, wild, spectacular, magnificent, iconic, scenic splendour, outback and grandeur.
Often referred to as Australia's last frontier, the Kimberley was explored and settled by Europeans late in the nineteenth century. The diaries and stories of explorers and settlers are similar to other colonial records in their descriptions of impressions and perceptions of the landscape. Elements of alienation and growing appreciation are evident as they are in other commentaries on landscape appreciation from the colonial periods. More modern commentary about the appreciation of the Kimberley is more textured, complex and diverse within the Australian community and from visitors from other countries. Some comments are included here as a snapshot of people's responses or relationships with Kimberley places.
* * * *
'[T]here is little evidence… of a genuine understanding of, or an intuitive sympathy with the climatic and territorial environments of the North. We were southerners, and
Europeans, and never really got over the sense of being in a somewhat alien and hostile environment… There was an almost complete disregard for the character and potential of the natural flora and fauna of the north' (Nugget Coombs 1977.
Commenting in retrospect on his Northern Australia Development Committee (1946-
1948) study of Northern Australia. (Quoted in Woinarski et al. 2007).
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'[I]t was the feeling of exuberance that amazed me' Sidney Nolan 1948. Commenting about the Kimberley while on a visit to the region (Crocker et al. 2009).
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* * * *
'the striking, unfamiliar country of enchantments' Artist commenting about the
Kimberley while on a visit to the region quoted inCrocker et al. 2009.
* * * *
* * * *
'[T]o those accustomed to temperate Australia, it has a strange character. Fires seem too pervasive and frequent, many of the native trees are at least semi deciduous, there is too much grass….the Eucalypts do not have that familiar evocative, reassuring smell, even the colours seem somewhat harder. Parts of the landscape seem decidedly
African in flavour with the boab trees'. Scientist commenting about northern
Australia. (Woinarski et al. 2007).
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* * * *
'Personally, I felt insignificant and shy in the Kimberley. What I saw was almost beyond understanding, it has spoilt my emotions for the man-made environment, and left me with a fear of not experiencing the same level of emotion again. After my
Kimberley experiences, Italy – a painter's paradise – felt small, decadent and overworked'. Mayo, Robyn, Kimberley Odyssey quoted in Kimberley News, Aurora
Expeditions, July 2000 (Crocker et al. 2009).
* * *
* * * *
'During Lalai , the natural and human worlds were formed by powerful supernatural beings that continue as active forces in Aboriginal people's lives today. Wunggurr, the powerful snake and Wallanganda the 'big boss' Wanjina together created the earth and all living things. The Wunggurr Snake is manifest in a number of ways; seen as a giant Sky Snake or Rainbow Serpent and also comprising Earth's foundation. The snake's presence is especially potent at places associated with life-giving water'.
Description of country held by Aboriginal people in the Wanjina-Wunggurr community (Blundell 1982; Mowarjarli and Malnic 1993; Blundell et al. 2009).
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* * * *
'Barrkana (September): Warimba flowers dry up, and kardookardoo (whitewood) begins to flowers. Crocodiles and snakes are laying eggs and soon their young will hatch. Kardookardoo flower is the main food for cockatoos while they're nesting. The pods on the warimba tree go red, and when they start to dry that's the start of Lalin'.
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Description of a Kimberley season by Nyikina people in the Kimberley region (see above on page 9).
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'Mitchell River Falls landscape has instilled a sense of awe, reverence and landscape attachment in human beings for thousands of years and continues to be a source of spiritual interest and refreshment today….. Mitchell River Falls is a significant feature in a landscape of exceptional scenery, cultural sensitivity and majesty. Punamii-unpuu is one of the most scenic and biologically important areas in Western Australia and is a 'creation place' of great importance to the Wunambal people'. Description of
Mitchell Falls Landscape by Visual planner Richard Hammond (Crocker et al. 2009).
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A study (Crocker et al. 2009) was commissioned to assess the west Kimberley study area for potential National Heritage values against criterion (e).
The scope of this report was focused on natural landscapes because of the high likelihood of these features having potential National Heritage aesthetic values.
Accordingly, the aesthetic characteristics relating to architecture generally were not included in the aesthetic assessment. Some assessment was however undertaken on
Broome under criterion (d). The aesthetic characteristics of underwater features like coral reefs was also excluded on the grounds of insufficient information in relation to comparative type data and assessment methodology.
The report brief excluded the assessment of potential values which may be identified by Indigenous communities or cultural groups. These values are evaluated and addressed elsewhere in the overall place analysis.
The report brief specified the use of the inspirational landscapes method. This method has been used to identify those landscapes which have an inspirational quality and this quality is used as a means of identifying landscapes which are exceptional in nature not just landscapes which are of high scenic quality.
The aesthetic analysis has been applied to the west Kimberley study area, an area of approximately 22 million hectares extending from Broome and the Fitzroy
River/Fitzroy Crossing in the south to Cape Londonderry and King George River in the north.
The report identified six places as having a high likelihood of National Heritage value under criterion (e). These places include the Kimberley Coast, Mitchell River
National Park, King George Falls and River, Geikie Gorge Conservation Park and
National Park, Windjana Gorge National Park and the King Leopold Ranges
Conservation Park.
These 'top' six places were identified by a process of short listing against each place's indicated level of aesthetic value, the strength of evidence supporting the description of an area's aesthetic value and the indicated community ranking of a place's aesthetic value. Remoteness of a place was also considered in the ranking process. Some places
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were removed from a preliminary list because there was insufficient data to draw conclusions about their aesthetic value or community value.
The report first identified 115 places with evidence of aesthetic value within the west
Kimberley. This list was shortened to 51 places with evidence of high aesthetic value.
Detailed place reports using the inspirational landscape indicators were then prepared for each of these 51 places which were then evaluated and ranked against the three measures outlined above. The ranking of the 51 places was carried out on the basis of aesthetic value only (high to low). The top six of this list of 51 were deemed to be most likely to have outstanding National Heritage value.
The top six places were distinguished from the remaining 45 (out of 51) places in that they were the only places which had been highly ranked (4 or 5) for their indicative aesthetic value.
The top six places were compared with similar places in Australia and with a place which was found to be below National Heritage threshold. All six places were found to be above the threshold measures established in the report as being sufficient to meet National Heritage list thresholds.
It should be noted that the comparative assessment undertaken for this assessment also refers to and considers the comparative landscape assessment work undertaken in the Crocker and Davies (2009a & 2009b) assessment report on inspirational landscapes. This work was undertaken at a national level.
In summary, based on the current methodology for assessing aesthetic value, the particular aesthetic characteristics in six landscapes within the west Kimberley, and valued by the Australian community are above National Heritage thresholds under criterion (e).
Kimberley coast from the Buccaneer Archipelago to King George River
Particular aesthetic characteristics of the Kimberley coast valued by the Australian community include its rugged sandstone coast with rocky headlands, prominent peaks and striking landforms, sandy beaches, pristine rivers and drowned river valleys with rich flora and fauna, off shore reefs and numerous islands in extensive seascapes in a sea supporting diverse marine life. Appreciation from land, sea and air make up the aesthetic experience.
The boundary of the aesthetic area named here 'Kimberley Coast' was established from data collected in the aesthetic assessment report of the study area (Crocker et al.
2009), supported by the expert opinion of the Australian Heritage Council. The boundary is not simply a statement about the extent of that area's scenic quality, but also a reflection of evidence of community attachment. While the Crocker et al (2009) report noted some difficulty in determining the eastward extent of the boundary beyond Cape Voltaire, the Australian Heritage Council determined that the boundary for the aesthetic value of the Kimberley coast should extend from the Buccaneer
Archipelago to King George River.
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The Kimberley coast from the Buccaneer Archipelago to King George River has outstanding heritage value to the nation under criterion (e) for its aesthetic characteristics valued by the Australian community., including its rugged sandstone coast with rocky headlands and prominent peaks and striking landforms, sandy beaches, pristine rivers, waterfalls and drowned river valleys with rich flora and fauna, off shore reefs and numerous islands in extensive seascapes in a sea supporting diverse marine life. The unusual effect of tidal movement is also part of the aesthetic appreciation of some areas like the Horizontal Waterfall.
Mitchell River National Park
Particular aesthetic characteristics of the Mitchell River National Park valued by the
Australian community include the rugged Kimberley Plateau, Mitchell River,
Mitchell Falls (Punamii Unpuu), rocky features around Mitchell Falls and the
Surveyors Pool (Aunauyu) and its falls.
The Mitchell River National Park has outstanding heritage value to the nation under criterion (e) for its aesthetic characteristics valued by the Australian community.
King George Falls and King George River
Particular aesthetic characteristics of King George Falls and King George River valued by the Australian community include the rugged sandstone gorge of the King
George River between the Falls and the ocean, the high colourful cliffs of the river gorge and the spectacular twin waterfalls cascading into the river.
King George Falls and King George River have outstanding heritage value to the nation under criterion (e) for their aesthetic characteristics valued by the
Australian community.
Geikie Gorge Conservation Park and Geikie Gorge National Park
Particular aesthetic characteristics of Geikie Gorge Conservation Park and Geikie
Gorge National Park valued by the Australian community include Geikie Gorge
(Danggu), its colourful gorge cliffs and sculptured rock formations carved by water through an ancient limestone reef, the lush riverine vegetation along the gorge, the fossil decoration on the gorge walls and the deep permanent waters. Appreciation from land, river and air make up the aesthetic experience.
Geikie Gorge Conservation Park and Geikie Gorge National Park have outstanding heritage value to the nation under criterion (e) for their aesthetic characteristics valued by the Australian community.
Windjana Gorge National Park
Particular aesthetic characteristics of Windjana Gorge National Park valued by the
Australian community include the narrow gorge of the Lennard River, the colourful cliffs of the gorge and the fossil decoration on the gorge walls. Appreciation from land, air and river make up the aesthetic experience.
Windjana Gorge National Park has outstanding heritage value to the nation under criterion (e) for its aesthetic characteristics valued by the Australian community.
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King Leopold Ranges Conservation Park
Particular aesthetic characteristics of the King Leopold Ranges Conservation Park valued by the Australian community include the Lennard River Gorge, Bells Gorge, the rugged mountain ranges, the fault lines and twisted topography, spectacular gorges, waterfalls, rock pools and their fringing vegetation. Appreciation from land and air make up the aesthetic experience.
The King Leopold Ranges Conservation Park has outstanding heritage value to the nation under criterion (e) for its aesthetic characteristics valued by the Australian community.
On the basis of current evidence the west Kimberley has outstanding heritage value to the nation under criterion (e) because of its importance in exhibiting particular aesthetic characteristics valued by the Australian community exemplified by the following areas: Mitchell River National Park, King George
Falls and River, Geikie Gorge Conservation Park and National Park, Kimberley
Coast, Windjana Gorge National Park and King Leopold Ranges Conservation
Park.
Boab trees
Boabs have been given special consideration because they have characteristics which may be valued by Indigenous groups in the Kimberley. This consideration is additional to the study undertaken by Crocker et al. (2009),which found that Boab trees had important aesthetic characteristics valued by a community group but these trees were ranked below the top 15 aesthetic 'places' within the west Kimberley.
Boab trees are also valued for reasons associated with Indigenous tradition and may be appreciated for their beauty by some Aboriginal people. Evidence to show that this appreciation (Boabs as beautiful characteristics of the study area) is held more widely by an Indigenous community or cultural group has not been cited.
In summary no evidence was cited to establish that an Indigenous community or cultural group valued Boab trees as beautiful features. Consequently it is considered that there is insufficient information to reach a conclusion on whether Boab trees in the west Kimberley might have National Heritage values under criterion (e).
On the basis of current evidence there is insufficient information to conclude that Boab trees have National Heritage value under criterion (e).
The aesthetic value of rock art
One of the most renowned aspects of Aboriginal culture in the Kimberley is the 'rock art' comprising painted images of Creation Beings, ancestors, plants and animals; powerful images that are of deep religious significance to Kimberley Aboriginal people. Located throughout the Kimberley, in particular the Wanjina-Wunggurr homeland, these painted images are key components of the Indigenous cultural landscape.
Seen in a secular and scientific way, 'rock art' is abstracted and treated as the subjectmatter of archaeological and art-historical studies. While these are valid approaches to
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the study of images on rock, all of them within the western tradition of 'art as object' including the corresponding western aesthetic value of beauty. Aboriginal people consider art as a process, in which the active practice of making the art, the uses to which it is put, and the place in which it is made or used, are of paramount significance (Mowaljarlai et al. 1987, 691 citing Forge 1973; Layton 1981).
Moreover, in the case of rock paintings, the images are seen – quite literally – as visible manifestations of ancestral Creator Beings, among them Wanjina and the
Wunggurr Snake.
As David Mowaljarlai (1987, 691) states:
* * * *
'We have never thought of our rock paintings as 'Art'. To us they are images. Images of energies that keep us alive – every person, everything we stand on, are made from, eat and live on. Those images were put down by our Creator, Wandjina, so that we would know how to stay alive, make everything grow and continue what he gave to us in the first place…'
* * * *
Rock paintings are meaningful texts, they were not produced as just beautiful images
(Blundell 2003). For the Wanjina-Wunggurr community of the north Kimberley region, the Wanjina (also spelled Wandjina) figures are the visible manifestations of primordial supernatural beings who have transformed themselves into paintings at caves and rock shelters located in their country. The Wanjina are their spirit ancestors and are the source of some of their most significant laws and customs (Blundell et al.
2009). However, while their Traditional Owners do not consider these ‘paintings’ to be ‘art’ in the Western sense, they are nonetheless a source of inspiration, admiration and awe for Wanjina-Wunggurr people (Blundell 2003; cf. Geertz 1976). Like other features of their cultural landscape, paintings make visible the events of the Dreaming which are also conveyed in complex and nuanced religious narratives. They are forms of visual culture based on an Indigenous aesthetic that gives material expression to the way in which Wanjina-Wunggurr people understand their world. As noted by
Robinson (1986, 203) '…failure to recognise the Aboriginal perception would risk the omission of an important aspect of the painted images – one of the world's longest unbroken painting traditions'.
The west Kimberley has some incredibly large, colourful and varied rock paintings, which are considered amongst the most spectacular examples of 'rock art' in the world
(Flood 1990, 70) and have been judged as having likely World Heritage value (Clottes
2002). Crawford (1968, 28) notes that:
* * * *
'[T]he most famous of the Kimberley paintings are the Wandjina figures, huge manlike beings which are sometimes over twenty foot long. These are spectacular paintings, because of their size, and for their colours, as the figures are depicted in black, red or yellow over a white background'.
* * * *
So visually powerful are the Wanjina images that the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games organisers, with the permission of the senior Traditional custodian, used a giant
Wanjina image called Namarali as the 'Awakening Spirit' in the opening ceremony of
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the Games. The extraordinary fabric sculpture rose from amongst a barrage of flickering light and was joined by performers on stilts whose ceremonially attired figures echoed the Gwion Gwion/Girrigirro figures (Blundell et al. 2009) – the other aesthetically striking painted image in the region.
From the first time Wanjinas were seen by Europeans in the nineteenth century, they have fascinated all who have set eyes on them. George Grey was the first European to record and publish painted Wanjina figures in the Glenelg River area during his expedition to the Kimberley in 1837–1839. Grey's reproduction 'was to become the most historically significant Aboriginal rock painting recorded by Europeans in the nineteenth century' (McNiven and Russell 2005). These Wanjina images fascinated
Europeans; they were recorded and circulated at a time when the cave art of Europe had not yet been discovered in France, 'Bushman' art in South Africa was still unknown, and the most spectacular tombs of the Egyptian Pharoahs had not been excavated (Edwards 1991). Early European observers interpreted the Wanjina figures as representations of foreign visitors to the Kimberley coast. Theories about who these visitors may have been pointed to the Japanese, eleventh–century Moors, and south–east Asian fishermen. It was not until the 1930s that the significance of these figures to Aboriginal people began to be better understood by the wider Australian community through the work of Rev. J R B Love and A P Elkin (McNiven and
Russell 2005). Elkin (1930) noted that 'there do not seem to be any features of the wandjina and associated paintings that might be supposed foreign to the ideas and practices of the natives.'
The Aboriginal cosmology associated with the Wanjina was not revealed to the non-
Indigenous audience until the early 1920s and 30s and it was not until Ian Crawford published his definitive book ' The art of the Wandjina' (Crawford 1968) that this knowledge became available to a wider audience (Donaldson 2007, 13).
As noted above, Wanjina figures are often imposingly large, usually depicted front-on with round white faces, black staring eyes and no mouth, and what appears to be a halo-like ring encircling the head (Vinnicombe and Mowaljarlai 1995b, Blundell et al.
2009). As noted by Taçon (2000), Wanjinas are often shown horizontally, as if lying down, so as to make them as large as possible on a rock shelter's available surface.
Sometimes only the head or the head and upper body are shown and they are made strikingly eye-catching by combining shades of red, yellow and white into patterned infill with dashes and stripes (Taçon 1999).
To the Traditional Owners, the Wanjina image is a very powerful one, perpetuating life through the metaphors of rain, regeneration and the symbolic acts of repainting
(Vinnicombe and Mowaljarlai 1995a). During the wet season when the air is saturated in moisture, the painted images take on a new life as the white huntite and other kinds of ochre absorb moisture enriching the colour and giving them a vividness, a glow that reflects the power of the images (Redmond 2001).
The potent sacred snake known as Wunggurr (or Ungud) is often also depicted alongside the Wanjina and naturalistic animal paintings of kangaroos, snakes, goannas, birds, tortoise and fish are commonplace. There are also representations of thylacines which are believed to have become extinct on the mainland at least 4,000
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years ago and depictions of megafauna including the marsupial lion, Thylacoleo carnifex (Donaldson 2007, Willing et al. 2009).
The other well known painted images in the study area are the Gwion Gwion (also known as Gyorn Gyorn, Giro Giro, Kuyon, Kiera-Kirow – Norval and Shiel 1999;
Welch 2007, Girrigorro – Blundell et al. 2009). These diminutive, elegant figures have captured the wider population's imagination with their stylistic and enigmatic accoutrements including elaborate head-dresses, bangles, tassels, sashes, bags and weapons (Donaldson 2007). The more spectacular Gwion Gwion sites are large panels with many lithe figures painted in fine detail that '…sort of float on the roof of the cave' (Donaldson 2007, 15). They are typically painted in a single colour which depending on the individual site ranges in hue from red to mulberry purple and orange brown (Donaldson 2007).
While the Wanjina and Gwion Gwion images are the most well known rock paintings in the study area, there are many other beautiful and unusual images painted on rock surfaces across the region, including the Napier and Oscar Ranges, that provide important evidence of the movement of people and ideas between the coast, the hinterland and the desert country (Playford 2007).
Stylistically, the Gwion Gwion figures are similar to the Mimi or Dynamic figures of the Kakadu region and West Arnhem Land (Schultz 1956; Berndt and Berndt 1964;
Crawford 1968; Chaloupka 1988; Ryan and Akerman 1993b – cited by Blundell et al.
2009; Lewis 1988, 1997; Morwood 2002; Welch 2007). Lewis (1988) hypothesised that the Kimberley and Arnhem Land were once part of a single late Pleistocene/early
Holocene information network which led to the styles in each region sharing similar attributes, though having a regionally distinctive character. Both the Gwion
Gwion/Girrigirro and Mimi figures are often depicted with large headdresses with arm decorations carrying boomerangs and multi-barbed spears.
The Gwion Gwion / Girrigirro figures are found in Wanjina-Wunggurr and Balanggarra country . Unlike the Wanjina-Wunggurr community, Balanggarra people do not consider that the paintings were 'put there' by spirit beings during the Dreaming.
Instead, they believe that the Gwion Gwion/Girrigirro paintings were produced by their own human ancestors and that they depict aspects of their everyday life
So while the Gwion Gwion/Girrigirro images may represent a pan-northern Australia tradition, the striking image of the Wanjina is found nowhere else. Images of Wanjina and Gwion Gwion have become widely recognised across Australia. They are featured in the broadcast and print media and in travel advertisements used to promote the Kimberley region for national and international tourism. The use of the Wanjina
Namarali as an iconic image of the Australian nation in a dramatic moment at the opening ceremony of the 2000 Olympic Games was viewed by millions in Australia and around the world (Blundell et al. 2009).
The 'X-ray' rock art of the Kakadu region and West Arnhem Land region depicting naturalistic images of animal species showing their internal organs is probably the only other painting style in Australia that is on par with the Wanjina images in terms of national recognition. However, there is no single iconic 'X-ray' entity, nor do the
Mimi figures of the Kakadu and West Arnhem Land region figure as prominently in the Australian imagination as the elegant, finely executed Gwion Gwion/Girrigirro.
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Aboriginal rock art paintings in the west Kimberley, particularly in the
Wanjina-Wunggurr homeland and Balanggarra native tile claim area and the
Devonian reef, are both powerful and of deep religious significance to Kimberley
Aboriginal people and have outstanding heritage value to the nation under criterion (e) as they represent a stunning visual record of an ongoing Aboriginal painting tradition in a substantially unmodified landscape.
CRITERION (f) – The place has outstanding heritage value because of the place's importance in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at
a particular period
DESIGN AND INNOVATION
Exceptional creative diversity and fine technical detail of painted rock images
One of the most renowned aspects of Aboriginal culture in the Kimberley is the 'rock art' comprising painted images of Creation Beings, ancestors, plants and animals; powerful images that are of deep religious significance to Kimberley Aboriginal people.
Painted images of exceptional creative diversity and fine technical detail are located in rock shelters on the traditional homelands of the Wanjina-Wunggurr community and on the traditional lands of the Balanggarra people. The homeland of the Wanjina-
Wunggurr community has been the subject of three native title determinations made by the community, each of which recognises that the Wanjina-Wunggurr people hold the native title rights and interests in their traditional country. These three determinations are the Wanjina-Wunggurr-Wilinggin Determination, the Wanjina-Wunggurr-
Dambimangari Determination and the Wanjina-Wunggurr-Unnguu Determination.
The Balanggarra traditional lands adjoin the Wanjina-Wunggurr homeland stretching east of Kalumburu to Cambridge Gulf and are subject to two separate native title claims made on behalf of the Balanggarra people.
The ranges of the Devonian reef complex further south, also contain a large number of caves and rock shelters whose surfaces are decorated with an extraordinary diversity of painted motifs. The Bunuba, Gooniyandi and Unggumi people are the
Traditional Owners of this country. A rock shelter known as Jambarurru to Bunuba people (S. Pannell pers. comm. 5 May 2010); Tangalma to the Unggumi (Playford
1960, 2007) and Carpenter's Gap 1 to archaeologists, is located in the Napier Range and is thought to contain perhaps the oldest evidence of 'art' in Australia. Little has been published on the painted rock art in this part of the Kimberley, especially when compared to the Wanjina-Wunggurr homeland. Playford's (1960, 2007) record of some of the rock art sites shows a diversity of images in a variety of different styles –
Creation Beings including Rainbow Serpents, animals and plants, anthropomorphs, stencils of tools, weapons and boomerangs. While not as prolific as the painted images of Wanjina and Gwion Gwion/Girrigirro further north, the exceptional diversity of painted rock images in the limestone ranges reflects the movement of people, material and ideas between the coast and the desert regions through systems of exchange that have been operating for thousands of years. [see Criterion (a) regarding the long distance movement of marine shell beads by Kimberley Aboriginal people some 30,000 years ago].
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For the Wanjina-Wunggurr community, the rock paintings are a visual testimony of a complex association of socio-religious beliefs that continue to be central to the laws and customs of members of the Worrorra, Ngarinyin, Unggumi, Umida, Unggarrangu,
Wunambal and Gaambera language groups. Collectively, the members of this community believes that they are themselves descendents of a single creator being called Wanjina, depicted as a painted image across the Wanjina-Wunggurr homeland
(Blundell et al. 2009). Some of the Wanjina figures are of monumental proportions
(up to six metres in length – Blundell & Woolagoodja 2005). They typically have large faces dominated by black eyes and no mouth. The Wanjina's head is often surrounded by a ring, or number of concentric rings, and a narrow dark plaque is regularly represented in the middle of the chest. Painted in natural earth pigments on a white background that is typically a wash made of the mineral huntite, Wanjina figures usually face forward; sometimes the whole figure is shown with a decorated body, but often only the head and shoulders, or just the face is represented (Flood
1990; Mowarjarlai and Malnic 1993; Blundell and Woolagoodja 2005; Blundell et al.
2009). Wanjina are usually accompanied by animals and plants and other supernatural beings of the Lalai (the Dreaming) including the Wunggurr Snake (Blundell and
Woolagoodja 2005; Blundell et al. 2009). Some paintings have clearly been executed by using a fine brush; others are cruder with the paint having been applied with coarser materials such as sticks or fingers (Donaldson 2007). The Wanjina rock art tradition is probably the Kimberley's best known, developed over the last 5,000 years, and continues to have strong and direct religious and cosmological association for
Traditional Owners today.
Gwion Gwion painted images (also spelled Guyon, Djorn and Gjorn) paintings are also found in rock shelters across the Wanjina-Wunggurr homeland, as well as on
Balanggarra country. According to Lommel (1996 [1952]); Worms (1965); Ngarjno et al. (2000); Blundell and Wooladgoodja (2005); and Blundell et al. (2009) the Gwion
Gwion are a significant component of the religious and cosmological belief system of the Wanjina-Wunggurr people. These paintings are also an important way in which
Balanggarra people understand their history (Blundell et al. 2009). Gwion Gwion or
Girrigirro (the Balanggarra name for these painted images) are found across both groups of Aboriginal people. Examples of this type of painted motif have also been located in the Victoria River Downs region of the Northern Territory (Taçon et al.
1999; Morwood 2002). Some rock art specialists suggest that the Gwion
Gwion/Girrigirro motifs are the western-most variant of a style of painted rock art called Mimi or Dynamic figures that exists in Arnhem Land and Queensland (Ryan and Akerman 1993; Lewis 1997).
The highly diverse and finely detailed Gwion Gwion/Girrigirro painted motifs are usually diminutive (25–30 centimetres in height) monochromatic figures often depicted in large groups that appear to 'float, glide, hover or fly as if they are somehow suspended in air' (Taçon 1999). They generally 'consist of dark-purple to red ochre pigment applied as fine lines, which have been incorporated into the sandstone surface' (Ryan and Akerman 1993, 14). A feature of the Gwion
Gwion/Girrigirro figures is the wealth of material culture items depicted. Figures adorned in elaborate headdresses, skirts, tassels, bracelets and belts carry bags, double-barbed spears, spear throwers, boomerangs and clubs (Lewis 1988, 1997;
Welch 1993; Walsh and Morwood 1999).
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There is also a high degree of variation in the style of the Gwion Gwion/Girrigirro figures. While some have fine limbs, others are more bulbous; some figures have what appear to be tassels or feathers around their arms, others do not; some figures appear to be dancing, whilst others wield spears, as if in battle. Images of animals have also been painted in the Gwion Gwion/Girrigirro tradition. The fine illustrative detail allows researchers to identify these animals down to species level, including species not found on the Australian continent today. In this regard, Walsh and
Morwood (1999: 46) note that: 'the visual specificity allows subjects to be identified in a way not possible for much of (Australian) rock art'. [see Criterion (c) for further discussion on the rock art's potential to yield information about extinct species and developments in technology and material culture].
Wanjina-Wunggurr people locate the Gwion Gwion paintings in the 'everywhen' of
Lalai (the Dreaming) and say that a small Lalai bird painted its image in rock shelters with its beak (Vinnicombe and Mowarjarlai 1995a; Ngarjno et al. 2000; Blundell et al. 2009).
* * * *
'The first man Gwion Gwion created by the Wanjina from the grass making the limbs and body by tying the grass together then the Wanjina make the grass figure alive by putting it in the black soil mud around the spring water country' (Nyawarra in
Ngarjnoet al. 2000).
* * * *
One Wanjina is said to have a Gwion Gwion as a wife, and Gwion Gwion are known to 'visit' people in their dreams (Blundell et al. 2009). Ngarinyin people, members of the Wanjina-Wunggurr community, also attribute the discovery of the practical use of fire to the Gwion and credit them with the invention of much hunting technology, in particular advances in pressure flake stone tools. Gwion Gwion remains a hereditary name currently carried by young women of the Brrejirad dambun (clan estate)
(Ngarjno et al. 2000).
The meanings of these paintings for contemporary Wanjina-Wunggurr people are comparable to the meanings that their forebears attributed to them, as recorded by a number of ethnographers who have worked with Wanjina-Wunggurr people since the
1930s. Lommel's work with the Wunambal connected paintings of Gwion Gwion with a Lalai bird called Kujon [Gwion]. Schultz (1956, 15 quoted in Layton 1992, 84) also recorded that 'long ago Kujon, a black bird, painted on the rocks. He painted no animals, only human-shaped figures'. More recently Crawford (1968, 85) reported the association of these figures with the Lalai bird on the part of Aboriginal people at
Kalumburu. According to another version, '…the bush spirits (
Koion or Djimi ) see the men and spirits and ask the bird to paint the sight for them. Because the bird can see spirits which are invisible to humans, the Aborigines say that they cannot interpret the meanings of the paintings' (Crawford 1968, 85).
Gwion Gwion/Girrigirro painted images are also an important component of the
Balanggara people's contemporary belief system (Blundell et al. 2009). Unlike the traditional owners of the Wanjina-Wunggurr country, the Balanggara people do not associate the Gwion Gwion/Girrigirro with Wanjina. Few paintings of Wanjina are found in Balanggarra country, and according to Blundell et al. (2009) Aboriginal
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people say that those that are, are considered 'lost'. Unlike the Wanjina-Wunggurr people, Balanggarra people do not consider that the paintings were 'put there' by spirit beings during the Dreaming. Instead, they believe that the Girrigirro paintings were produced by their own human ancestors and that they depict aspects of their everyday life.
The only other rock art provinces in Australia with comparable figurative painted art are Arnhem Land/Kakadu region in the Northern Territory and south-east Cape York
Peninsula in Queensland. Like the Wanjina-Wunggurr homeland, the Arnhem Land plateau and escarpment is best known for two distinct phases of rock art tradition, the
Mimi or Dynamic figures and the 'X-ray' art. The Mimi style is characterised by
'small red naturalistic figures', in which movement is skilfully portrayed (Morwood
2002). Some rock art specialists suggest that the Gwion Gwion/Girrigirro motifs are the western-most variant of this style that exists in Arnhem Land and Queensland
(Ryan and Akerman 1993; Lewis 1997). The 'X-ray' art of Arnhem Land and the
Kakadu area feature large, multi-coloured images of humans, macropods, birds, fish and reptiles with decorative or descriptive infill depicting internal organs (Morwood
2002). The Quinkan rock painting style of southeast Cape York is also a bold figurative style that depicts anthropomorphs, animals and plants. Figures tend to be stiff, static and stereotyped, with many similarities to Sydney-Hawkesbury figurative art, i.e. human figures are depicted frontally, animals from the side and reptiles from above (Morwood 2002).
The west Kimberley painted 'rock art' sequence is likely to prove one of the longest and most complex anywhere in the world (Morwood 2002). Rock shelters and caves located across the traditional homeland of the Wanjina-Wunggurr community; the
Balanggarra Native Title claim area and within the Devonian reef complex, including the traditional country of the Bunuba, Gooniyandi and Unggumi people, collectively hold an outstanding assemblage of painted images and motifs that has been judged as having likely World Heritage value (Clottes 2002). The hardness and stability of the
King Leopold and Wharton sandstones used as the 'canvas' for most of the painted images in the region has assisted in their preservation. These sandstones are typically very clean and white (Donaldson 2007). Painted images are also found on the smooth limestone surfaces of rock shelters and caves in the ranges of the Devonian reef. The variety of figurative images and motifs in this region reflect the cultural interplay between the Aboriginal groups of the Fitzroy River area, including the Unggumi,
Bunuba and Gooniyandi, with those from the desert to the south and the east, and the
Wanjina-Wunggurr people to the north (Playford 2007).
The painted images found in rock shelters and caves across the Wanjina-Wunggurr homeland, the Balanggarra native title claim area and in the limestone ranges of the
Devonian reef provide an exceptional record of painted rock art that is extraordinarily diverse and technically very detailed.
Considered one of the longest and most complex painted 'rock art' sequences anywhere in the world, (Morwood 2002, 143) the west Kimberley complex of painted images is a creative achievement by Aboriginal people that has outstanding heritage value to the nation under criterion (f).
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Ingenuity, resourcefulness and cooperation
The Sacred Heart Church
The Sacred Heart Church is located at Beagle Bay mission, some 60 kilometres north of Broome on the west coast of the Dampier Peninsula. The mission was established in 1890 by Trappist monks from France. In 1901, German Pallottine missionaries took over the mission. The church was built by the Pallottine brothers and the
Aboriginal residents of the mission between 1915 and 1918.
The establishment of the mission was initially opposed by pastoralists and the
Aborigines Protection Board as it was feared that it could result in a withdrawal of
Aboriginal pastoral workers vital to the viability of their enterprises in the region. The
Trappist monks established the first school in the Kimberley at Beagle Bay in 1892 teaching in French, Latin and in the local Nyul Nyul language. Not long after the
Pallottine brothers' arrival, hundreds of Aboriginal children were rounded up from all over the Kimberley and sent to Beagle Bay to be educated and civilised away from the influence of their parents and families. In 1907, the St John of God sisters arrived from Ireland to assist with the care and education of the children at the mission.
The outbreak of World War One resulted in an immediate and intense anti-German feeling all around Australia and moves were made to close the Beagle Bay mission and intern the priests. However, Archbishop Clune and Bishop Gibney in Perth, together with Bishop Kelly in Geraldton, were able to convince the authorities of the value of the Pallottines' work and their mission was allowed to remain in operation.
Confined to the mission, the priests continued their work watched over by police stationed on site (Edwards 1983).
It was during this period of restriction that construction of the church began. There had been previous churches built on the site, but all had been of flimsy bark and wood construction unsuited to the rigors of a tropical climate.
The church was constructed entirely from local materials and was a combined effort of the Pallottine brothers and the local Aboriginal people. A kiln was built to bake the
60,000 clay bricks and Aboriginal people collected thousands of shells from the beaches in bullock carts to be burned for the lime mortar and render.
Pearl shell and other shells were also used to decorate the interior of the church. Some of that pearl shell was supplied by Broome pearlers, Clarke and Co. (Nailon and
Heugel 2001, 40).
Mary Durack (1969, 198) describes the scene at Beagle Bay:
* * * *
'The design, a combined effort that was finally passed as practical, was shown to the mission people as something that was to belong to them and of which they could be proud. Perhaps to please the missionaries in their time of trial they began the task with at least a show of interest but, as the building took shape, they worked with genuine enthusiasm and unprecedented constancy. Day after day parties set off into the bush or to the coast to cut timber, cart sand, dig clay and gather tons of broken shells for lime. As the timber structure mounted, 60,000 double bricks were shaped and baked in stone kilns and thousands of live shells, mother of pearl and many other varieties
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from small cockles, cones and trochus to giant clams and bailers for holy water fonts were gathered in from a wide range of coastal waters and tidal reefs'.
* * * *
The roof was originally constructed of mangrove wood and brush and the ceiling was painted blue and decorated with shells denoting the southern hemisphere constellations. Unfortunately, this was destroyed by termites in the 1920s and was replaced with flattened kerosene tins.
The style classification of the Sacred Heart Church is Inter-War Gothic (c.1915– c.1940), although the church is a very simple form of Gothic design that reflects the austere conditions and limited resources available at the time of construction (Apperly et al. 1994). It is orientated on the traditional east-west axis, with the entry to the west end of the building under a three-level bell tower crowned with a spire and crucifix.
The church retains a high degree of authenticity despite the original floor and ceiling finishes being replaced. A twelve metre bell tower was added to the church in the
1920s. The tower houses the original bell provided by the Trappist monks and two others donated by a German parish. The bell tower collapsed in September 2000 and was restored in 2002.
The interior details of the church are quite extraordinary. The sanctuary and altar were decorated by Father Droste, Sister Raymond and a number of skilled Aboriginal people, including Joseph Neebery (Niada) and Joseph Gregory, who was still a young boy at the time (Rosie Victor quoted in Nailon and Heugel 2001, 40). Hundreds of pearl shell, cowries, volutes and olives were used. There are three inset mosaics on the main altar: the Lamb of God is in the centre; a Greek cross with a snake is on the right; and a Roman cross is on the left. The frame of the altar and the tabernacle is inset with cowrie shell and the top of the altar is inlaid with pearl shell. Whole pearl shell ( Pinctada maxima ) features in the sanctuary inlays and the light reflects off the shimmering shell surfaces with great effect. For Aboriginal people, pearl shell is a powerful and highly valued commodity representing transformation, life and renewal, and is traded throughout the Kimberley and across two-thirds of Australia. The side altars are inlaid with mollusc opercula and incorporate the Christian motifs of the lamb, the fish and the shepherd's crook with Nyul Nyul, Bardi and Nimanborr tribal symbols.
Shells, including broken pearl shell are also used in the depictions of the twelve
Stations of the Cross, and the floor inlays, which feature Aboriginal motifs including stone axes and local fauna and flora. The various artistic designs in shell and other media are beautifully conceived and executed with great finesse.
The All Saints Anglican Church built in 1919 on Darnley (Erub) Island in the Torres
Strait is similarly constructed out of locally sourced material, including locally produced lime from burnt coral. Like the Sacred Heart church, it was also built predominately by local labour using locally sourced material (QLD Heritage Register
2009). However, the internal decoration of the All Saints Anglican Church is much simpler than the Sacred Heart Church and does not include the same high level of artistic detail and technical finesse (Lawrence 1995 – photos N6091-N6092).
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Built in a remote location from locally sourced material, the Sacred Heart
Church is a testimony to the ingenuity and resourcefulness of the Pallottine brothers and the Aboriginal residents of the mission who built and decorated it.
The use of pearl shell and other locally sourced media to decorate the interior of the church, particularly the sanctuary, demonstrates a high degree of artistic excellence and technical finesse. The place continues to be highly valued by the
Beagle Bay Aboriginal community today because of the considerable Aboriginal involvement in its construction and decoration.
The Sacred Heart Church at Beagle Bay mission has outstanding heritage value to the nation under criterion (f) for the high degree of creative and technical achievement in the use of pearl shell and other locally sourced media to decorate the interior, combining western religious and Aboriginal motifs.
TECHNICAL RESPONSE TO ENVIRONMENTAL CONSTRAINTS
The double log raft - a technical adaptation in response to the massive tidal variation
of the west Kimberley
Aboriginal people built strong, light rafts to navigate the treacherous waters of the west and north Kimberley coast. Rips, whirlpools and overfalls created by the massive twelve metre tides make navigation through the maze of islands and passages a hazardous undertaking. While dugout canoes can easily fill with water in these rough conditions, the double raft was virtually infallible (Smyth 2007).
The Bardi, Jawi (Djawi), Mayala, Worrorra, Uwini, Wunambal, Ungarrangu,
Yawijibaya , Umida and Gaambera are known to have built and used the double log raft (Vachon 2009 citing Love 1939 and Tindale 1974). The Bardi name for the double raft is kalwa or galwa ; the Jawi call them biel biel and the Worrorra name is kawlum (DAA 1987; Vachon 2009).
Double log rafts are typically made of seven to nine pieces of mangrove wood,
Rhizophora stylosa , a light timber much like balsawood (M.
Smith pers. comm. 9 Nov
2009). Special journeys of great distances were made in order to harvest suitable wood from restricted localities (Smyth 2007 citing Green 1988 and 1998). According to Akerman (1975) the Worrorra, Bardi and Jawi unanimously agreed that the best mangrove wood for raft construction purposes is found in the Kimbolton-Dugong Bay area about 100 kilometres north of Derby. According to Akerman's informants this area was still often visited for the purpose of obtaining suitable poles in 1975.
After felling suitable trees, the mangrove logs are lashed and nailed together using wooden pegs made from a hardwood such as red wattle ( Acacia monticola ). The rafts are then constructed from these two layers of lashed mangrove logs, hence the name
'double' raft. The bow layer, tjuntjal , is constructed using seven to nine tapered mangrove poles between 1.5–2 metres in length. The stern section, njiengoro l, is similarly constructed with the thick ends at one end and tapered ends at the other.
Sometimes the two layers are joined together by pegs called mundu (Akerman 1975).
Both layers of the raft are fan-shaped as a result of the tapering nature of the logs used. The stern section is wider than the bow and the raft sits fairly low in the water,
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sometimes even partially submerged. A circle of pegs, tjumundu , on the stern section of the raft was used to hold the seafarer's possessions (Akerman 1975, Love 1939;
DAA 1987; Smyth 2007; Vachon 2009). There are many oral accounts about the raft's manufacture (Vachon 2009).
Family groups often travelled on one raft and groups of families travelled together from one locality to another. According to Love (1939) the Worrorra are known to have travelled up to 50 kilometres offshore on this type of watercraft. Baler shells were used to carry water on these long voyages. While the rafts could be propelled forward by hand or paddle, it was principally the tidal variation that was used to travel long distances. Bardi people say that the paddles were made of an aromatic native
Cyprus wood to repel sharks and that they were used principally to steer the craft, rather than propel it forward (Moya Smith pers. comm. 9 Nov 2009). Neap tides were the optimum tides used to island hop, with people planning voyages around their comprehensive knowledge of the currents and winds.
These strong, light rafts also allowed people to exploit a diversity of marine resource depending on the season. These included the hunting of dugong and turtle; turtle and sea bird egg collection; the spearing, poisoning and trapping of fish; and the gathering of shellfish (Smyth 2007 citing Green 1988; Berson 2004; Rouja 1998). With the introduction of the harpoon and line, the bow section of the double raft served as a detachable float when a large animal like a dugong was speared (DAA 1987; Vachon
2009 citing Akerman 1975).
Rafts of similar design, but using a single layer of lashed mangrove poles were manufactured by the saltwater people of the Wellesley Islands in the Gulf of
Carpentaria (including the Kaiadilt, Lardil, Yangkaal, Gangalidda, Gayardilt and
Garawa people). The sea conditions under which these rafts were used were nowhere near as extreme as those experienced in the north and west Kimberley. According to
Rouja (1998), Bardi fishermen have been using the double layer raft technology to take advantage of the huge tides for millennia with few recorded incidents. Bunuba and Gooniyandi people living along the length of the Fitzroy River also made a double log raft using melaleuca logs rather than mangrove (Pannell 2009).
Dugout canoes were also used by Aboriginal people along the north Kimberley coast and elsewhere in northern Australia; a technology introduced by the visiting
Macassans. While west Kimberley Aboriginal people regarded these canoes as more manoeuvrable and less susceptible to the influences of wind and tide, the double log rafts were more stable and unsinkable (Smyth 2007 citing Crawford 2001).
The strong tidal currents, while a navigational hazard, provided opportunities for skilled and knowledgeable Aboriginal people to travel long distances to hunt, to trade and to maintain social and cultural obligations. These light, unsinkable log rafts, described as 'one of the world's most peculiar watercraft' (Davidson 1935) are a unique marine technical innovation developed by the Aboriginal people of the west
Kimberley coast to take advantage of the largest tides in the world.
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The manufacture of the double log raft from mangrove logs (particularly
Rhizophora stylosa) is a unique adaptation to the massive tidal variation of the west Kimberley and has outstanding heritage value to the nation under criterion
(f) for demonstrating a high degree of technical achievement by Aboriginal people in the course of Australia's cultural history.
CRITERION (g) – the place has outstanding heritage value to the nation because
of the place's strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons.
CONTACT, CHANGE AND CONTINUITY
European pearling
Port of pearls
Broome has been associated with Australia's pearling industry for most of the last 120 years. This history and its legacy in the area creates a distinctive place and forms the basis of the area's attraction for Australians and international tourists. The average visitation to Broome is approximately 216,300 people per year including international and domestic visitors (Shire of Broome 2010). Sixty three per cent of this visitation has been attributed to visits for holiday purposes. This compares to Townsville with visitor numbers of 899,000 (46 per cent for holiday purposes) and the Whitsunday region which has a visitation of 627,000; 77 per cent of which relates to people visiting for holiday purposes (Tourism Queensland 2010).
This attractiveness as a tourist destination is reinforced by Broome's location on a remote, tropical coast which is closer to parts of Indonesia than Perth, which is 2,185 kilometres to the south. An added element of attraction is Broome's location and function as the gateway to the Kimberley. The vast natural landscapes of the
Kimberley, the Buccaneer and Bonaparte archipelagos along a rocky coast with pristine beaches are noted in particular. The large variation in tidal movement (10 metre tides) and other unusual features like Roebuck Bay's bird migration,
Gantheaume Point's dinosaur footprints and the off shore whale migration are also elements of visitor attraction.
In comparison with other tourist destinations along the tropical coasts of Australia these elements of history and nature are similar in their ability to attract visitation to these areas.
Fabled place
The Australian community's association with Broome becomes more distinctive when considering the literature inspired by Broome and the surrounding region; including parts of the Kimberley and northern pearling coast. Tim Winton (2001) writes about
Broome as being the fabled town.
Some examples of books written about the place include A pearling master's journey
(Norman 2007), The master pearler's daughter (Hemphill 2005), Beyond the lattice:
Broome's early years (Sickert 2003), Broome oral history project: Pearl Hamaguchi
(2006), Broome: saltwater cowboys: the people and the place (Ainslie 2002),
Broome: through the lens of master photographer Fernande Kuypers (Kuypers 2002),
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Broometime (Coombs 1956), A scattering of the pearls: a new novel set in Broome
(Campbell 2006) and Forty fathoms deep (Idriess 1947).
In the past Broome has also been given various titles which express its prominence and place in the pearling history of Australia. During the early twentieth century
Broome was widely recognised as the pearling capital of Australia and during a boom period when production of pearl shell was at a peak (1900s) Broome was known in
Australia and throughout the world as the pearling capital of the world .
As a result of this history, Broome is still remembered with some romance. 'Its luggers, icons of a bygone era, were once a feature of Broome's thriving pearling industry, and gave rhythm and romance to the town when, during 'lay up', they were moored in the part of Chinatown that was known as Morgan's Camp' (Kaino 2005).
The multicultural character of Old Broome, the stories about the distinctive social milieu at the time and its connections with Asia are important aspects of the literature associated with Broome and surrounding areas.
In the late nineteenth century many people came to Broome as indentured workers on the pearl luggers including Chinese, Filipinos (Manila men), Malays, Japanese and
Koepangers (from Timor). While the population of Broome has quadrupled since
1970 (Kaino 2005) this multicultural aspect of the Broome community is still evident today.
Since the early establishment of the pearling industry in Broome a rich Asian-
Australian society built up around the pearling industry: there were Asian storekeepers and noodle-shop owners, Asian doctors and market gardeners. The Asian population settled in the part of town now called Chinatown, which was originally called Japtown and was reminiscent of villages in China and Japan. Chinatown was where many Asians established retail stores, boarding houses, import agencies, laundries, market gardens, brothels and hotels. During the wet season, when luggers returned to shore, the indentured workers moved into Chinatown and Broome became a bustling town, full of activity, festivals and excitement. This part of Broome looked, smelled and sounded like Asia. Some say that during the pearling days, visitors to
Broome had to check whether they were even still in Australia (Sickert 2003).
Over time, representative community organizations emerged such as the Broome
Chinese Association, Japanese Club, and Malayasian Association (Akerman et al.
2010).
These memories of Broome time are still held by many in Broome. 'Old Broome residents still have fond memories of…balmy nights under tropical palms decorated with Japanese lanterns. Here they were treated to kamaboko fishcakes made by
Japanese from freshly caught north west Spanish mackerel, sushi , sashimi and other delights, such as shishimet , the traditional Japanese folk dancing and enka , the solo performances of traditional folk songs'. (Kaino 2005).
Up until the 1970s Broome's Asian communities also maintained their traditions in relation to special days in the calendar year; including the Chinese Hung Seng; the
Japanese O Bon and the Malaysian community Mederka (Kaino 2005). These traditional festivals were opened to the wider community under the over arching
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Shinju Matsuri Festival which continues today. Some traditions have not continued but may still inform, through memory or writing. The traditional lugger race is an example of these changes.
The Australian play and film Bran Nue Dae also features aspects of the region's distinctive character, beauty and history.
The history of Broome is an important anchor for the Australian community's association. There is also the 'flip side' (Kaino 2005) to the romanticism associated with the place because the history of pearling also has a harsher side including extensive hardship and abuse in the pearling industry, the deeply embedded segregation and the tragedies experienced by many as a result of deaths at sea, diving accidents or cyclones. The Japanese Cemetery in Broome is particularly moving in this regard.
Further evidence of the Australian community's association with the Broome region can also be measured by the heritage listings within the area. Broome has 17 places associated with the pearl shell period (1880-1940) which are listed on the Western
Australian State Heritage Register. The State heritage protection and recognition of these places indicates that they are valued by communities beyond the local area and as such can be used as a proxy indicative measure of the Australian community's association for social value. Similarly 17 out of 20 registered historic places on the
Register of the National Estate (in Broome) are listed for their associations with the pearling history of Broome. The value statements reflect the social value these places have for both the Broome community and the wider community of Western Australia.
In particular these pearling places are noted for their ability to provide a sense of place and mark a link with the past.
In summary, the Australian community has a special association with Broome as an iconic place, once the pearling capital of Australia. This association has in part an idealised aspect relating to the romance of Old Broome, its pearling luggers and its location on a remote and beautiful coast. Today the Australian community continues to be drawn to Broome and the nearby region because of the romance of Broome, its pearling history, its remote and beautiful location at the gateway to the Kimberley's outback and pearling coast, its association with pearls and the town's stories associated with the development of a unique Australian community with a distinctive cultural diversity. The people of Broome celebrate and recognise their pearling history and diverse cultural heritage today in the annual Shinju Matsuri Festival.
Definition of signficant elements
The literature reviewed for this assessment has not revealed any social values survey reporting to identify specific features within Broome and the wider region which represent the Australian community's iconic and idealised association with the place.
While heritage fabric relating to the pearling history within Broome illustrates in part the history associated with this social value there is no evidence to clearly identify which elements, if any (in Broome and along the pearling coast) are recognised by the
Australian community as symbolic references. It is noted in this regard that the
Australian community's recognition of Broome as a pearling capital is more likely to be based on historical writing about Broome. The more iconic and idealised aspect of the Australian community's contempory association is also expected to be shaped in
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part by knowledge of the place gained from tourism promotion, contemporary photography and other print or visual media relating to Broome and the pearling coast.
Nevertheless tourism literature provides some guide to identify possible significant elements. This literature includes images of beaches, sunsets, pearl luggers and pearls.
While these features are considered to be indicative of the association, reliance on promotional material alone is considered insufficient evidence to identify significant elements because of the tendency of this literature to only present material which is of high marketing utility. The greater prominence of Cable Beach in tourist promotions of the area however are noted in comparison to other features. This greater prominence may indicate that Cable Beach is a representative feature of the
Australian community's association with the Broome region. This matter is evaluated further by considering comparative sites.
Firstly, as a beach, Cable Beach can be compared with other Australian beaches.
Contemporary photography of Cable Beach indicates that it fits into the Australian iconography of 'the beach'. However, as a beach, the strength of association is weaker than the Australian community's association with Bondi Beach which has a longer community association and is informed by other community relationships such as the historical development of beach culture and the surf lifesaving movement. Cable
Beach can also be compared with Whitehaven Beach in Queensland, which is profiled in many contemporary photo essays and is promoted as a signature beach site in regional/state tourism promotions. In this regard Cable Beach and Whitehaven Beach are similar in their associative social values.
In relation to the Australian community's association with the Broome region Cable
Beach is considered to be valued mainly for its aesthetic characteristics and beach iconography which do not entirely represent the idealised, romantic qualities of the association the Australian community has with the Broome area as the pearling capital of Australia. Cable Beach is also outside the Old Broome area.
In consideration of these matters and because of its relatively minimal connection with Broome's historic pearling period, Cable Beach is considered to be insufficiently representative of the Australian community's special association with the Broome region.
The stair case to the moon feature (reflection of the full moon at night across
Roebuck Bay at low tide) has also been considered as a potential significant element which may represent the Australian community's special association with the Broome region.
This feature is thought to be unique in Australia because of the rare combination of physical elements (location, 10m tides) which give rise to this phenomenon. This feature resembles beach sunsets and, like Cable Beach fits into an iconography of tropical or romantic places. However, representative elements should have more than just a 'sunset' feature. As the stair case to the moon lacks a strong connection with the pearling history of the Broome region it is considered to be insufficiently representative of the Australian community's special association with the Broome region.
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In summary, evidence for the identification of significant elements which are representative of the Australian community's special association with the place, is insufficient to identify representative features. It is also noted that the central aspects of the associative value (relating to the Australian community's association with the
Broome region) are iconic and idealised in nature. Significant elements may nevertheless be able to be identified in the future by the use of community surveys.
Acknowledging that the Australian community's associative value (relating to the
Broome region) is iconic and has idealised aspects, the value can be recognised as an intangible value.
Broome and the nearby region has outstanding (intangible) heritage value to the nation under criterion (g) as a place which has a special association with the
Australian community because of the romance of Broome, its pearling history, its remote and beautiful location at the gateway to the Kimberley's outback and pearling coast, its association with pearls and the town's stories associated with the development of a unique Australian community with a distinctive cultural diversity.
CRITERION (h) – the place has outstanding heritage value to the nation because
of the place's special association with the life or works of a person, or group of
persons, of importance in Australia's natural or cultural history
ECOLOGY, BIOGEOGRAPHY AND EVOLUTION
A nominator cites a number of scientists as having been involved with working at the site since its discovery in the early 1940s. These are Dr Curt Teichert of the
University of Western Australia and Mr. Harry Toombs who led joint expeditions to the site in 1963 and 1967 with the Western Australian Museum, Natural History
Museum (London) and the Hunterian Museum (Glasgow).
The Gogo fossil sites were discovered in the 1940s by Dr Curt Teichert, an invertebrate palaeontologist and geologist who had left Germany and been resettled in
Australia in the lead-up to the Second World War. Teichert became an important figure in Australian geology and palaeontology. He was among the fifty or so founding members of the Geological Society of Australia and reportedly one of four authors of the Australian Code of Stratigraphic Nomenclature (Crick and Stanley
1997). Having originally settled in Perth at the University of Western Australia, he later moved to Melbourne University, where he was awarded the David Syme Prize for scientific research. In 1952, Teichert left Australia and continued his career in the
USA, where he died in 1996. He is well known in the international palaeontological community for his Treatise on invertebrate paleontology . While Teichert collected a number of fossil fish from Gogo, he never described or published any of them (Long
2006). Thus, while Teichert may be of importance in Australia's natural history for his long and productive work in Australian geology and palaeontology, he does not have a strong association with the Gogo fossil site.
The nominator also mentions the early collaborative expeditions to the site by the
Natural History Museum (London), Hunterian Museum (Glasgow) and the West
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Australian Museum in 1963 and 1967. These were headed by Harry Toombs a worker at the Natural History Museum of London. Toombs refined the acetic acid method of preparation of the Gogo fossils that successfully reveals the finely detailed 3D preservation of the specimens. The joint expedition of the three museums in 1967 is remarkable for the number of specimens it recovered, which fuelled research, conducted mostly in Britain, for the next 40 years or so (Long 2006). Toombs and the
1967 expedition are well known to those who work with the Gogo site or at the
Natural History Museum (London) but are obscure to those outside of it. This association is therefore not considered of outstanding heritage value to the nation.
The Gogo fossil sites do not have outstanding heritage value to the nation under criterion (h) for special association with the life and works of Curt Teichert,
Harry Toombs or for the joint museum expeditions carried out in the 1960s.
CONTACT, CHANGE AND CONTINUITY
William Dampier (Cygnet) l688 landing place
As outlined under criteria (a) and (b) analyses, William Dampier is recognised as a significant European explorer and an important figure in Australian history.
Dampier's ship, the Cygnet , was careened at Karrakatta Bay over a period of two months in early 1688. He stayed at Karrakatta Bay longer than any previous navigator, and as a result of the observations of Australia and its Indigenous people he recorded in his journal and subsequently published, he came to be regarded as an expert on the Pacific and Australia, was consulted by the British Government, and was influential in fostering further exploration. Through the publication of his journals of the voyage on the Cygnet , Dampier provided Europe with the first real information on the new continent and commenced the process of revealing the
Australian continent in European consciousness. His travel experiences described in his writing stimulated eighteenth century European exploration of the Pacific and
Australia and foreshadowed the later voyages of Cook.
Phillip Parker King
As outlined under criteria (a) and (b) analyses, Phillip Parker King is recognised as a significant nineteenth century hydrographer and an important figure in Australian history.
The Mermaid tree is one of a very few physical reminders of Phillip Parker King's surveying expeditions (Pearson 2004). The assessment guidelines (AHC 2009) indicate that under criterion (h) the association of a person to the place must be such that the place greatly affected the person's philosophy or the place is associated with an event or achievement which is significant in the course of the person's life or work of significance to nation. Careening Bay and the Mermaid tree are not considered to have greatly affected the course of King's life, career or work. In addition, while the careening of his ship at Careening Bay was part of his 'great work' the place does not comprehensively demonstrate his significance as an important figure in Australian history.
In summary Careening Bay and the Mermaid tree has a special association with the
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life and works of Phillip Parker King, a person of importance in Australia's cultural history. These places however do not have National Heritage value because they do not demonstrate in a comprehensive or other critical way his significance as an important figure in Australian history.
George Grey
George Grey is listed in the Australian Dictionary of Biography. His biographical entry outlines his historical legacy as a governor. He acted for periods as the
Governor of South Australia, Cape Colony (in South Africa) and New Zealand.
Grey explored parts of the Kimberley coast in 1837–1839. He explored areas around
Hanover Bay, Glenelg River and the Prince Regent River. During his expedition, in the Glenelg River region, he recorded painted Wandjina figures which he saw in rock shelters (Ryan Akerman 2003). He was the first European to record and publish the
Wandjina image. His interpretations of these painted images led to many speculative theories about their origin. It was not until the 1930s that the significance of these figures to Aboriginal people began to be better understood by the wider Australian community through the work of Rev. J R B Love and A P Elkin (McNiven and
Russell 2005). Elkin (1930) noted that 'there do not seem to be any features of the wandjina and associated paintings that might be supposed foreign to the ideas and practices of the natives.'
On the basis of current research it is unlikely that Grey's expedition will be shown to have a more substantial or special impact on the life or historical legacy of George
Grey than other places outside the study area associated with his work as a governor.
George Grey's interpretation of the painted Wandjina figures is one of many interpretations of the region's rock art and its associated traditions.
The William Dampier (Cygnet) 1688 landing place has outstanding heritage value to the nation under criterion (h) for its special association with the life and work of William Dampier.
Careening Bay and the Mermaid tree do not have outstanding heritage value to the nation under criterion (h) for their special association with the life and works of Phillip Parker King, a person of importance in Australia's cultural history.
The west Kimberley does not have outstanding heritage value to the nation under criterion (h) for its special association with the life and works of George
Grey, a person of importance in Australia's cultural history.
Jandamarra - a 'magic man' and clever military strategist
Throughout Australia, Aboriginal people resisted European occupation. Competition for land and water, increased population pressures, European brutality and encroachment on, or violation of, significant sites were all catalysts that contributed to the onset of hostilities between Aboriginal people and European settlers. Jandamarra
(aka Pigeon) led the last great campaign of what some call the Hundred Years War – the defence of the Australian continent (Lowe 1994). In the west Kimberley, the
Bunuba people successfully resisted the expansion of European pastoralist activities from 1884 until 1897. For 13 years the Bunuba blocked the rolling advance of
European settlement by using the natural fortress-like qualities of the Napier and
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Oscar Ranges [also see criterion (a) for further discussion]. Jandamarra (aka Pigeon) led the Bunuba resistance from 1894–1897. The timing of the last wave of European settlement and the impenetrable nature of the place itself helped create the man and the legend of Jandamarra - a man brought up in two worlds, whose detailed knowledge of European settlers and capacity to train his Bunuba countrymen and women, severely threatened the colonising project. While Jandamarra did not act alone, his abilities to disappear and avoid capture, and to appear to even cheat death itself, made him a much feared adversary to European settlers and a powerful leader amongst his own people. His success brought a severe response from authorities who threw enormous resources into efforts to capture Jandamarra. His death in 1897 marked the end of large-scale organised violent resistance by Aboriginal people in
Australia's cultural history (Lowe 1994).
For Dillon Andrews, a senior Bunuba man: 'Jandamarra will always be a hero to the
Bunuba people. Doesn't matter how people see it as good or bad, he'll always be a hero…who fought for the Bunuba People and for his country' (Andrews quoted in
Kinnane 2008, 234–235). But to the Western Australian Government authorities and the pastoralists of the time, Jandamarra was a serious threat to the colonising project.
Jandamarra – a man between two worlds
Jandamarra was born in 1873, just as the rolling frontier of European settlement was about to arrive in the northwest. Ten years later, Jandamarra and his family were part of that first wave of settlement, living as part of a station mob on Lennard River station. Jandamarra picked up pastoral skills extraordinarily fast, and by his mid-teens he was already considered one of the fastest shearers and best horsemen in the district, and a 'deadly rifle shot' (Lowe 1994; Nicholson 1997; Newbury 1999). He could speak English confidently, had a 'gregarious' sense of humour and became popular with the Europeans, including William Lukin, the station owner who named him
Pigeon (Pedersen and Woorunmurra 1995; Grassby and Hill 1988; Lowe 1994).
At the age of fifteen, Jandamarra was taken by his Bunuba elders for initiation and did not return to Lennard River station, instead joining his uncle, Ellemarra and other
Bunuba in a campaign that saw over 4,000 sheep killed at Lillimooloora station and more than 2,000 sheep on William Lukin's station, the place where Jandamarra had spent the previous five years. (Lowe 1994). Jandamarra was growing up in two worlds: Bunuba and European. As Pedersen (quoted in Kinnane 2008, 235) notes:
'Jandamarra was getting to know two things here. He was getting to know the magic of his own country and at the same time getting to know the white fellas, and he was very good at knocking around with the white fellas. He was noticed very early for being something different'.
In 1889, at the age of 16, Jandamarra was arrested with his uncle, Ellemarra, on a charge of stock killing. While Ellemarra was sent to Roebourne prison to serve out his sentence, Jandamarra was imprisoned in Derby for a year where he was put into service looking after the trooper's horses. He then returned to work for William Lukin, but this did not last and he ended up back in the protection of the limestone ranges of
Bunuba country. However, the Bunuba elders did not welcome him there because of his continuing cultural transgressions, including inappropriate relations with Bunuba women. To escape tribal punishment, Jandamarra left the ranges and began working at Brooking Springs station. But this did not last either. Before his elders had a chance
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to catch up with him, Jandamarra was again captured by police for absconding bonded service and ended up serving out the rest of his sentence as a black tracker away from his country (Allbrook 2009).
Jandamarra was assigned to the remote Robinson River police station, 130 kilometres north of Derby under the charge of Police Constable William Richardson. He and another Aboriginal tracker from the south worked with Richardson and the three formed a close bond. Together they captured many Aboriginal people, and on at least one occasion Jandamarra saved Richardson's life while under attack (Lowe 1994).
Because of their success, the three man team were then transferred to Bunuba country, despite the long-standing policy of never using Aboriginal trackers against their own people.
Jandamarra's role in the Bunuba resistance from 1894-1897
Shortly after setting up the police station at the abandoned Lillimooloora homestead,
Richardson and his two black trackers captured sixteen Bunuba people, including known stock-spearing ringleaders, ex-police trackers and escapees from Derby prison.
Some of the prisoners were relations of Jandamarra. The prisoners were held for nearly seven days, during which time Ellemarra and the other captured Bunuba tested the loyalties of Jandamarra, who in the end shot Richardson dead and released his countrymen (Kinnane 2008, Pedersen and Woorunmurra 1995). Collecting all the firearms and ammunition stored at the police station, Jandamarra with the released prisoners and others then ambushed two cattlemen who were attempting to move cattle and weapons through nearby Windjana Gorge, a natural opening in the bastionlike Napier Range. Both the cattlemen were shot dead and the following wagon containing an armoury of firearms and ammunition was captured (Lowe 1994;
Pedersen and Woorunmurra 1995).
When news of the murders at Lillimooloora Station and Windjana Gorge became known, Sub-Inspector Drewry immediately mobilised all the police in the district and commissioned settlers as special constables (Lowe 1994). A force of some 30 police attacked the Bunuba in Windjana Gorge. In the ensuing eight hour battle Jandamarra's uncle Ellemarra, who was also the leader of the Bunuba resistance, was shot and seriously wounded. It is unclear whether he died that day from his injuries or was later hanged in Derby, but he certainly is not recorded as being part of the resistance from that time (Lowe 1994; Pedersen and Woorunmurra 1995). Jandamarra was also seriously wounded during the gunfight whilst providing cover fire to allow Bunuba men, women and children to retreat through the interconnecting tunnels and passageways to the Napier Range plateau. The police followed the retreat for three days but claimed few Bunuba lives.
The Bunuba resistance caused great concern in the colony. Settlers and the press blamed the government for the recent deaths, citing government inaction in dealing with Aboriginal resistance (Pedersen and Woorunmurra 1995). Sub-Inspector
Drewry's superiors were not happy with his management of the resistance: 'Although he had the largest fighting force since Stirling led his murderous army against the
[unarmed] Nyoongars at Pinjarra in 1834, he still could not claim victory' (Pedersen and Woorunmurra 1995, 131). The settlers and Premier were fearful but determined to quash the uprising as quickly as possible. New forces under the command of Police
Inspector William Lawrence and ammunition arrived by boat a month later.
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Jandamarra's notoriety and the success of the Bunuba's resistance in foiling capture had forced the Western Australian Government to send a quarter of its police force to the Kimberley, where only one percent of the European population lived (Pedersen
2007). Special Constables Blythe, Pilmer and Lawrence's campaign was '…brutal in it's execution and devastated many innocent Aboriginal groups between Derby and
Halls Creek' (Green 2008, 41). Police mounted several reprisal ambushes against innocent Nyikina, Mangala, Worrorra and Gooniyandi people. The Western
Australian parliament and the Colonial Office in London launched an independent inquiry into the campaign which largely exonerated the colonial authorities from charges of excessive violence (Allbrook 2009).
Magic powers and a clever military strategist
Jandamarra's recovery from his wounds and his ability to evade police capture and disappear into the limestone landscape gave him legendary status among his own people and the colony. Aboriginal people believed he had Jalnggangurru (magic) power. Contemporary accounts say he could '[f]ly like a bird and disappear like a ghost…he was two separate beings. His body was a physical manifestation of a hidden spirit living secretly in a small water-soak near his Tunnel Creek sanctuary'
(Pedersen and Woorunmurra 1995, 152-3). The Bunuba regarded Jandamarra as
'blessed with qualities owned by spiritually empowered people, allowing him to defy police bullets, escaping human mortality' (Pedersen and Woorunmurra 1995, 9). The spirit of his 'life' could only be destroyed by another person of similar magical power with murderous intent. The black troopers were also known to be fearful of
Jandamarra's alleged powers.
These references to Jandamarra's ability to appear and disappear relate closely to his intimate knowledge of the Napier and Oscar Ranges. The place is riddled with narrow passages, chimneys and caves that allowed Jandamarra and others to repeatedly avoid capture. This twisted, convoluted terrain of the limestone ranges also prevented the police and pastoralists on horseback from physically entering. The unusual nature of the landscape, coupled with the accounts of Jandamarra's 'magic power' created both a physical and psychological barrier for new settlers and the police. Sub-Inspector Ord later wrote that 'it would not matter if the whole British army were sent here,
[Jandamarra] would still laugh at them from the top of the range' (Pedersen and
Woorunmurra 1995).
Following the Battle of Windjana Gorge, Jandamarra laid low for almost a year, hiding in the hidden recesses of Tunnel Creek protected by his mother while he recovered from his wounds (Wilson 1980). This extraordinary place, then unknown to the police, is located in what is today the Devonian Reef Conservation Park.
Thousands of tourists visit the park each year to walk through the 700 metre tunnel that runs through to the other side of the range – that no doubt facilitated the movement of Jandamarra and other Bunuba through their country without police knowledge (Lowe 1994).
In November 1895, the 'Terror of the Kimberleys' began a new phase of psychological warfare to confuse, ridicule and exhaust police patrols without violence (Pedersen and
Woorunmurra 1995). Jandamarra's cat and mouse games were an important part of his strategy to create fear amongst settlers and demoralise the police force desperate for
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his capture. His tracks were often sighted but he was nowhere to be seen. He raided the store house of the Lillimooloora police quarters leaving his footprints in white flour that had been deliberately scattered on the floor. Jandamarra's theft of food and arms, and the use of harrying to confuse, exhaust and ridicule his opponents was a
'unique brand of guerrilla warfare without violence' (Pedersen and Woorunmurra
1995: 150).
Jandamarra's ability to understand European settlers and the tactics of the constabulary provided him with many skills that contributed to his perceived magic powers. These skills he passed on to his own people creating an effective defensive force, including men as fighters and women as observers, suppliers of food and assistants in battle. Jandamarra provided 'intensive training' in the use of weapons, using 'boab trees for target practice' (Pederson and Woorunmurra 1995, 121). His ingenuity with European firearms even went as far as binding the leg sinews of kangaroo around .44 cartridges to make them fit the Enfield rifles that they carried
(Lowe 1994.) He also trained the Bunuba in tactics to pre-empt and counter European advances, and strategies to ambush parties and capture weapons.
They travelled in small groups knowing that the police located the Bunuba camps at night 'through seeing the smoke from a cluster of camp fires or by noticing the intersecting foot tracks leading to the larger gatherings' (Pederson and Woorunmurra
1995, 146). Jandamarra's intimate knowledge of police operations and the uneasiness of the Aboriginal trackers working in another's country led many trackers to abandon their posts and provide Jandamarra with information and supplies that also facilitated the Bunuba's successful campaign (Pederson and Woorunmurra 1995). Many Bunuba and other Aboriginal people, often men of similar background of involvement with
Europeans to Jandamarra, joined the Bunuba resistance inspired by Jandamarra's leadership and reputation (Allbrook 2009).
The death of Jandamarra at the hands of another recognised marpan
Early in 1896, a police patrol followed Jandamarra to the entrance of Tunnel Creek.
While the police guarded the entrance to the cave, thinking that they were blocking his escape; Jandamarra had exited the tunnel and raided the unattended police station back at the foot of the ranges. Yet again, another 'magic' feat. Attacks on pastoralists and raids on police continued despite the increase in police numbers. After attacking the Oscar Range Station and allegedly killing an employee, Jandamarra and a fighting force of about 20 were pursued by the police, in which two of his men were killed.
Four parties of police were in pursuit in an attempt to track Jandamarra down before he could get back to the safety of the limestone ranges. He was eventually tracked down by Micki, an Aboriginal tracker from the Pilbara region and shot. Micki was considered a marban (possessor of powerful magic) of high degree, someone of similar skill and ability to Jandamarra (Pedersen 2007). Despite his wounds,
Jandamarra managed to escape and attempted to reach the safety of Tunnel Creek with Micki in pursuit. After a running duel, Jandamarra was shot dead by Micki on
1 April 1897.
Jandamarra's campaign was unprecedented in Western Australian history as was the ferocity of the police and settler response. Following his death, pastoralists were able to move their cattle to occupy Bunuba lands that had previously been out of bounds.
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The rolling frontier had finally broken through the impenetrable limestone ranges of the Devonian reef with the death of one of the Bunuba's finest warriors.
Other resistance fighters
Conflict between Europeans and Aboriginal people was endemic on the frontier of
European settlement (Reynolds 2003). As the wave of European settlement moved south and north from the colony of New South Wales it took many forms from passive resistance through to large-scale violent action, and was highly influenced by the terrain on which it occurred (Reynolds 1982; Pedersen 2000; Grassby and Hill
1988; Connor 2002). Jandamarra is one of 11 Aboriginal resistance fighters identified in the Australian Dictionary of Biography (ADB). Others include: Pemulwuy,
Windradyne and Musquito (New South Wales); Dundalli (Queensland); Eumarrah and Tarenorerer (Tasmania); Yagan and Calyute (Western Australia); Nemarluk and
Dhakiyarr Wirrpanda (Northern Territory).
The rolling frontier of European settlement in the west Kimberley was very different to that experienced in the south and east over the preceding 100 years. The place's remoteness and lawlessness; the new developments in weaponry and the new ideas about the inevitability of the colonising project in which Indigenous people were deemed to be 'inferior' and doomed to die out, contributed to a different colonising frontier. Jandamarra grew up in this new and different frontier, combining his intimate knowledge of both European and Aboriginal worlds creating a formidable adversary and powerful Aboriginal resistance leader. His skills in using the new, more accurate, multi-shot, rapid-fire weapons and his understanding of military tactics developed as a police tracker were shared with his countrymen and women creating a resistance force much feared by the colonising project.
Aboriginal people believed Jandamarra had Jalnggangurru (magic) power that allowed him to 'to defy police bullets, escaping human mortality (Pedersen and
Woorunmurra 1995, 9). The spirit of his 'life' could only be destroyed by another person of similar magical power with murderous intent. His successes attracted other like-minded Aboriginal people to join the resistance and brought a severe response from authorities who threw enormous resources into efforts to capture Jandamarra. A quarter of the State's police force were sent to the northwest to put down the
Jandamarra-led Bunuba resistance, where only one per cent of the European population lived (Pedersen 2007). Lowe (1994) describes Jandamarra's campaign as the last large scale violent resistance in Australia's cultural history.
Pemulwuy, a Kamay (Botany Bay) Eora leader; Musquito, also an Eora man from the north side of Port Jackson and Windradyne, a Wiradjuri resistance fighter, all listed in the ADB, fought a dispersed settlement frontier in the early days of the New South
Wales colony. All of the men used traditional weapons in their attacks on settlers.
Windradyne led one of many raiding Wiradjuri parties that attacked setters across a wide area west of the Blue Mountains. As the British advanced through the vast
Wiradjuri lands, each group fought the invasion in their turn, 'country by country'.
There is no record of either the Eora or Wiradjuri leaders using firearms in their conflict with settlers. The Wiradjuri resistance was short lived.
Tarenorerer, a Tommeginne woman led a resistance movement in Tasmania for a short time. She is the only other listed resistance fighter in the ADB who is recorded
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using European weapons against the colony. She taught her people '…to load and fire off a musket, and to strike between discharging and re-firing' (G. A. Robinson quoted from Australian Dictionary of Biography). Tarenorerer gathered a small group of men and women from many bands to form a resistance group (Lowe 1994). Between 1828-
1830 they attacked settlements, killing sheep often with spears. Eumarrah, chief of the
Stony Creek people, is noted in the ADB as being a 'dynamic leader' who displayed
'mighty bushcraft' who led a number of raids against settlers in the Campbell Town area between 1826-1828. Musquito, the Eora man from New South Wales was sent to
Tasmania as a government tracker but ended up joining a local Aboriginal group in attacks on European settlers during the 1820s.
Dundalli, a Ningy Ningy man whose traditional land included the Bunya Mountains in southeast Queensland conducted acts of retribution for tribal elders during the
1850s against an already dispersed European settlement. Rather than preventing the frontier moving forward, Dundalli's actions were mainly in retribution for earlier killings of Aboriginal people by Europeans. Using traditional weapons, he attacked and killed some settlers and raided stocks and supplies, threatening the economy of the colony rather than preventing its spread (Connors 2005).
Yagan, a Nyungar man raided properties in the Swan Valley colony using traditional weapons, and Calyute, the other ADB-listed resistance fighter in the west, was instrumental in the 'Battle of Pinjarra' , south of Perth in 1834 (Grassby and Hill
1996). In the Northern Territory, Nermaluk led a small band of men in the Port Keats area spearing cattle, horses and attacking isolated travellers during the 1930s and
Dhakiyarr Wirrpanda, a Yolngu man, was arrested for the murder of a police constable he speared whilst resisting arrest in 1933 (Carment et al. 1990).
Perhaps the most defining element of Jandamarra's success as a resistance fighter, when compared to all of the above, was his intimate knowledge of European tactics and weaponry, and his ability to pass on these skills to his countrymen and women.
As noted earlier, the circumstances of the late settlement of the northwest created a different kind of frontier to the one that most of Australia's Aboriginal resistance fighters had experienced in the previous 100 years. Ironically, the superior weaponry of the late 1800s, that made the rolling frontier so deadly for Kimberley Aboriginal people, also provided Jandamarra with the technology to meet his adversaries on an equal footing. A similar claim could not be made for any of the other Aboriginal resistance fighters listed in the Australian Dictionary of Biography.
A rich historical, oral and contemporary record
The importance of Jandamarra's life and resistance nationally is exemplified by the number of books written about him including: Ion Idriess's 1952 book 'Outlaw of the
Leopolds ' ; Colin Johnson's 1979 book 'Long Live Sandawarra'; and Howard
Pedersen's 1984 book 'Pigeon: An Australian Aboriginal Rebel'. Pedersen later collaborated with Bunuba elder, the late Banjo Woorunmurra, to produce a definitive history of Jandamarra in 1996, called 'Jandamarra and the Bunuba Resistance', which gives prominence to oral tradition together with a re-reading of the archival record.
Jandamarra is one of 11 Aboriginal resistance fighters recognised in the Australian
Dictionary of Biography. His unusual life has also been recognised in the recent documentaries 'First Australians: the untold story of Australia' (Perkins and Dale
2008) and 'Two in the Top End' (Doyle and Flannery 2008).
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The late timing of the settlement and the impenetrable nature of the Devonian
Reef helped create the man and the legend of Jandamarra - a man brought up in two worlds, whose detailed knowledge of European methods to contain
Aboriginal resistance and his capacity to pass those skills on to his Bunuba countrymen and women, severely threatened the colonising project. While
Jandamarra did not act alone, his capacity to disappear and avoid capture, and even to appear to cheat death itself, made him a much feared adversary to
Europeans and a powerful leader amongst his own people.
The limestone ranges of the Devonian Reef, known to the Bunuba as Barlil, have outstanding value to the nation under criterion (h) for their association with
Jandamarra, whose campaign of resistance was unprecedented in Australian history, as was the ferocity of the police and settler response. Jandamarra's death in 1897 ended the last large-scale organised violent resistance by
Aboriginal people in Australia's cultural history.
WEALTH OF LAND AND SEA
Pastoralism
Pastoral families in the Kimberley
On the basis of the pastoralism literature potential values against criterion (h) have been identified in relation to prominent and well known pastoral families within the
Kimberley.
The Durack family is recognised for its role as a pioneering family associated with the development of the Kimberley region and the cattle industry. It is noted that the pastoral stations associated with the Durack family are located outside the west
Kimberley.
Sir Sidney Kidman was also noted as having some involvement within the pastoral development of the west Kimberley. However, his chain of stations in other states are considered to have more outstanding associations with his life and works.
Other families such as the Emanuels, MacDonalds and the McKenzies have been noted in the review of histories associated with the Kimberley region. The theme study on pastoralism (Pearson and Lennon 2008) did not develop national indicators for assessing people or groups of importance under criterion (h). A peer review of the theme study also indicates that the pastoral entrepreneurs are not the only people to consider against criterion (h) (Forrest and Forrest 2009).
On the basis of current evidence the west Kimberley does not have outstanding heritage value to the nation under criterion (h) for special associations with the life or works of pastoral families or individuals who are important in Australia's cultural history.
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CRITERION (i) – The place has outstanding heritage value because of the place's
importance as part of Indigenous tradition.
WANJINA–WUNGGURR TRADITION
The traditional homeland of the Wanjina–Wunggurr community in the north
Kimberley includes members of the Worrorra, Ngarinyin, Unggumi, Umida,
Unggarrangu, Wunambal and Gaambera language groups. Collectively, this community believes that they are themselves descendents of a single creator being called Wanjina (Blundell et al. 2009). Thousands of images of Wanjina occur in rock shelters across the region; a visual testimony of a complex association of socioreligious beliefs that continue to be central to the laws and customs of the Wanjina–
Wunggurr community. In no other Indigenous society in northern or central Australia, indeed anywhere in Australia, does a single class of Creator Being, depicted as a distinct rock art motif, have such a significant and multifaceted role or set of associated meanings and practices (Blundell et al. 2009, 66).
As an embodiment of the sacred Wunggurr life-force that permeates the cosmos, the
Wanjina evoke the primordial but continuing era of creation called Lalai (the
Dreaming). During Lalai, the Wanjina worked with the Wunggurr Snake and other animal helpers to make the country. The Wanjina gave their human descendents their laws and customs, and continue to instruct people in their dreams. As part of the ongoing reciprocity between the Wanjina spirit ancestors and their human descendents, senior law-men renew the Wanjina paintings in order to keep them
'fresh' (Blundell et al. 2009, 54).
Wanjinas take the form of anthropomorphs, animals and plants and play a crucial role in the society's ongoing social, economic and cultural life. Paintings of the Wanjina play a fundamental role in specifying the geographical location of the homeland and in specifying the nature and basis of the citizenship of its members. Each member of the Wanjina–Wunggurr society 'belongs to' a local country within the overall
Wanjina-Wunggurr homeland. These local countries which anthropologists call 'clan estates' ( dambun in Nyaringyin, dambima in Worrorra and gra in Wunambal and
Gaambera) were formed when certain Wanjina became localised in them as
'paintings'.
Wanjinas guide social relationships and the order of exchange amongst the members of these local (clan) groups within a regional system of law known as the wurnan
( wunnan, wunan ) (Blundell and Layton 1978; Deakin 1978; Mowaljarlai and Malnic
1993; Redmond 2001; Ngarjno et al. 2000; Blundell and Woolagoodja 2005; Doohan
2008; Blundell et al. 2009).
* * * *
'Wunan is created from beginning to share everything in life. It's total care of life that
Wunan' (Banggal, also known as David Mowaljarlai ( dec ) in Ngarjno et al. 2000).
* * * *
According to Wanjina-Wunggurr tradition, in Lalai, the moieties or skin groups were established by two nightjars known as Wadoy (Wodoi) and Junkun (Djingun). Clan estates are either Wadoy or Junkun. These skin laws created two channels in the
208

wurnan ensuring members of Wadoy marry the sisters of Junkun and vice versa. The wurnan also requires people to share their resources with one another, and a man is said to be following the wurnan when he honours his responsibility to look after his wife's family. In its expression as a regional sharing system and trade network, men pass items (both sacred and secular) to men whose local countries are 'side by side' with theirs in the wurnan. The passage of trade goods along the wurnan is viewed as the passage of goods in space from Wanjina to Wanjina (Blundell et al. 2009).
* * * *
'Wodoi and Djingun, one a colourful and one a grey Nightjar Man, symbolically defined and enacted the basic, and the most important social law, the Law of Wunnan.
The marriage and sharing rules in this law ensured sound breeding, peaceful sharing of resources and cultural knowledge' (Mowaljarlai and Malnic 1993, 143)
* * * *
In order to maintain their traditions and sustain the ongoing cycle of life, members of the Wanjina-Wunggurr community engage in a range of ritual practices established in the Lalai. While members of the Wanjina-Wunggurr community believe that the
Wanjina 'put' themselves onto rock surfaces as paintings, they also believe that as the human descendents of these Wanjina, it is their duty to maintain the 'brightness' or
'freshness' of the paintings by 're-touching' them with charcoal and pigments
(Mowarjarli and Malnic 1993; Redmond 2001; Blundell and Woolagoodja 2005;
Blundell et al. 2009). By keeping the paintings 'fresh' the world will remain fertile – the annual rains arrive, plants and animals will reproduce, and child spirits will remain available in whirlpools and waterholes throughout the Wanjina-Wunggurr homeland.
Referring to Western views of the Wanjina paintings as ‘art’, the late Ngarinyin man,
David Mowaljarlai has written that:
* * * *
'Rock pictures… should be seen not as art, but as images with energies that keep us alive. They were made during the Dreamtime, and it was necessary that the community…look after the images so that life on earth will continue' (Mowaljarlai
1988, 8).
* * * *
By maintaining the paintings, senior men contribute their share to the maintenance and reproduction of an ordered world (Blundell 1982). Visits to these places also provide an opportunity for Traditional Owners to pass on their distinct cosmological and religious belief system to the next generation. Capricious and harmful spirits who also have their paintings at Wanjina rock art sites are a constant reminder of the disorder that failure to follow traditional laws can bring (Blundell et al. 2009).
Contemporary works of art also provide the Wanjina-Wunggurr society with a vehicle to maintain and transmit their belief system to younger members of their society.
There is a rich ethnographic record of the religious beliefs and traditions of the
Wanjina-Wunggurr people including the practice of re-touching Wanjina images, beginning in the 1920s with Reverend J. R. B. Love who observed two senior
Worrorra men paint a 'fresh' Wanjina over some very faded paintings (Love 1930,
209

12). This is the same Wanjina, Namarali, that was repainted by Donny Woolagoodja, the senior Worrorra custodian of the place in 2002 (Blundell and Woolagoodja 2005).
Elkin (1930, 261), Shultz (1956, 19) and Lommel and Lommel (1959, 33) all recorded the re-touching or repainting of Wanjina images. During fieldwork between
1962–1966, Crawford (1968) also observed a range of Aboriginal artists painting and re-painting sites. In the 1970s the filmmakers Michael Edols and Malcolm Douglas, in collaboration with Traditional Owners, recorded the repainting of Wanjinas (see
Blundell and Woolagoodja 2005, Chapter 8).
The 'paintings' are not the only physical manifestation of Wanjina. The Wanjina-
Wunggurr people report that the Wanjina have made their mark across the country, by carving out rivers, pushing up mountains and transforming themselves into boulders and other features in the land and sea. Wanjinas defeated in battle at a place called
Langgi transformed themselves into unusual pillars of stone (Blundell et al. 2009).
Sometimes they leave their image on boab trees or even disguise themselves as a boab tree (Redmond 2001, 233). The Wanjina are also seen as the cumulo-nimbus clouds, especially during the wet (Crawford 1968, 28).
The Gwion Gwion (also known as Gyorn Gyorn, Giro Giro, Kuyon, Kiera-Kirow –
Norval and Shiel 1999; Welch 2007) painted images are also a meaningful component of the Wanjina-Wunggurr socio-religious belief system. Wanjina-Wunggurr people locate the Gwion Gwion paintings (also commonly referred to as Bradshaw paintings) in the 'everywhen' of Lalai (the Dreaming) and say that a small Lalai bird painted its image in rock shelters with its beak (Vinnicombe and Mowarjarlai 1995b; Ngarjno et al. 2000; Blundell et al. 2009).
There is no other Indigenous society in northern or central Australia, indeed anywhere in Australia, where a single class of Creator Being, depicted as a distinct rock art figure, has such a significant and multifaceted role or set of associated meanings and practices (Blundell et al. 2009, 66). Each member of the Wanjina-Wunggurr society traces their descent to the Wanjina ancestral beings. Wanjina rock art sites serve as geographical focal points for a system of territorial and social organisation that links small groups of people (the clans of anthropological discourse) to named local countries (clan estates) (Blundell et al. 2009, 56) and into a system of exchange called the wurnan that extends throughout the Kimberley. The exchange of items between local group members is viewed as the passage of items in space from Wanjina to
Wanjina.
The rock art makes visible the religious narratives of the Wanjina-Wunggurr people.
The painted images are a powerful component of what Blundell, Doohan and
Bornman (2009) describe as the Wanjina-Wunggurr 'culture-scape'. Together, the
Wanjina and the Wunggurr Snake are believed to be the manifestations of a life force, also called Wunggurr, which permeates the Wanjina-Wunggurr cosmos and is imbued in all living forms (Blundell et al. 2009, 60). The paintings both evoke and provide visible evidence of the events of Lalai that have resulted in the creation of land, sea and sky; they connect people to their conception sites and in ritual; and they reinforce the reciprocal relationships that exist amongst members of the Wanjina-Wunggurr society. Plant and animal species are maintained through their ritual repainting in local countries symbolising the inter-dependence of these local country groups and
210

reinforcing their commitment to engage in harmonious social relations as prescribed by wurnan law (Blundell et al. 2009, 55).
Layton (1997) described the 'Wandjina cult' as an exceptionally fully integrated association of rock art and religion, with the closest parallels probably only to be found in the rock art of the Aranda and Warlpiri of Central Australia. Moreover, he added that 'there is nowhere else in central or northern Australia where rock art is so centrally linked with increase ceremonies as in the western Kimberley'
(Layton 1997, 47).
The Wanjina-Wunggurr homeland, where the painted images on rock and other features in the land, sea and sky, including natural rock formations and manmade stone arrangements, are manifestations of the Wanjina and the Wunggurr
Snake, are of outstanding heritage value to the nation under criterion (i) because of their importance as part of Indigenous tradition.
211

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CRITERION VALUE
A
The place has outstanding heritage value to the nation because of the place's importance in the course, or pattern of
Australia's natural and cultural history.
Assembling a continent
King Leopold orogen
The rocks of the King Leopold orogen represent the remnants of three major orogenies (mountain building processes) that took place in the Kimberley from c. 1870–560 million years ago (Ma). The King Leopold orogen provides strong evidence of Palaeoproterozoic plate tectonic activity (from about 2500–1600 Ma), at a period preceding formation of the
Neoproterozoic supercontinent Rodinia, which came together around 1000–
850 million years ago. Rodinia was a giant landmass containing most or all of Earth's continental crust at the time, centred south of the Equator. The land that became Australia was probably in the north-east of the landmass.
The King Leopold orogen also preserves rocks from the Yampi and King
Leopold orogenies that occurred later in the Proterozoic, which record events that helped build the modern Kimberley topography (Maher and Copp
2009b). The events of these three Proterozoic orogenies are preserved in the spectacularly folded Proterozoic quartzites and sandstones of the Yampi
Peninsula and the granite domes, gneiss hills and schist ridges of the King
Leopold Range and the Fitzroy uplands province. There is little consensus among geologists on plate tectonic activity in the early Earth: rocks from the period from 2,700 Ma to about 700 Ma, such as those of the King Leopold orogen, are very important in understanding the timing and nature of modern plate tectonics (Witze 2006; Stanley 1999).
The King Leopold orogen is a significant geological record of past orogenic processes which led to the Proterozoic assembly of Rodinia, representing key tectonic events in the evolution of the Australian continent and a major stage of Earth's history. This record is displayed in significant fault and fold structures in rocks exposed along the coast of Yampi Peninsula, in the King
Leopold Range and the Fitzroy Uplands. These geological features highlight the powerful tectonic forces and the physical geological structures formed during orogenic processes (Maher and Copp 2010).
The King Leopold orogen of the west Kimberley has outstanding heritage value to the nation under criterion (a) for recording pre-Rodinian and
Proterozoic plate tectonic processes, key events in the evolution of the
Australian continent.
Ecology, biogeography and evolution
Devonian reef
The Devonian reef sequence preserved in the Oscar, Napier, Emmanuel and
Pillara ranges is a continuous record from the Frasnian to the Famennian stage of the Late Devonian period (around 380 – 360 million years ago), covering two significant marine mass extinction events. Famennian reefs are rare throughout the world and none is present elsewhere in Australia. In addition, valleys cut through the reef at Windjana and Geikie Gorges by the
Lennard and Fitzroy rivers provide sections through the deposit that give palaeontologists and geologists a unique window on this sequence.
The Devonian Reef of the Kimberley has outstanding heritage value to the nation under criterion (a) because it is a continuous record of 20 million
RATING
Above threshold
261

years of reef deposition and shows the response of a Late Devonian reef to a mass extinction event.
Gogo fossil sites
The Gogo fish fossil sites of the late Devonian period are one of the world's most important early vertebrate fossil localities. The deposits contain specimens of fish ancestral to tetrapods (vertebrate animals with four legs or leg-like appendages), fossils that clarify the anatomical transitions that took place at the base of this radiation.
The Gogo fossil sites have outstanding heritage value to the nation under criterion (a) for important transitional fossils that document the evolution of early tetrapodomorph fish.
The biological significance of the west Kimberley
Biodiversity analysis using the Australian Government's Australian Natural
Heritage Assessment Tool (ANHAT), supported by the Australian Heritage
Council’s expert opinion, has shown the northern Kimberley coast and islands, the Kimberley Plateau and the west Kimberley Devonian reefs are nationally significant for species richness and endemism for many plant, mammal, reptile, frog and invertebrate groups. Island populations of critical weight range species such as the northern quoll ( Dasyurus hallucatus ), the golden bandicoot ( Isoodon auratus ), the scaly-tailed possum ( Wyulda squamicaudata ) and the golden–backed tree–rat ( Mesembriomys macrurus ) are of particular importance due to their decline on the mainland caused by an array of human–induced threatening processes.
The northern Kimberley coast and islands, the Kimberley Plateau and the west Kimberley Devonian reefs have outstanding heritage value to the nation under criterion (a) for plant, mammal, reptile, frog and invertebrate species richness and endemism; and as refugia protecting against humaninduced environmental changes.
Many of the small immobile invertebrate species endemic to the Kimberley have only been recorded in its rainforest patches (vine thickets), including 90 per cent of the earthworms and 48 per cent of the land snails (Kenneally and
McKenzie 1991). Survey and taxonomic work by Solem (1979, 1981, 1984,
1985) and more recent research (Graham 2001b; Köhler 2010) have helped highlight the national importance of the Kimberley Plateau and surrounding islands for land snail richness and endemism. ANHAT analyses have supported the findings of these researchers, showing the Kimberley Plateau is exceptionally high in richness and endemism for Camaenidae (air breathing land snails). This consistent spread of now locally restricted species may reflect long-term evolution through isolation (Köhler 2009;
Köhler and Gibson in prep.). The west Kimberley was found to have the second highest richness in the country for the family Pupillidae (minute, air– breathing land snails).
Vine thickets of the northern Kimberley coast and islands and the
Kimberley Plateau, and the Devonian reefs of the west Kimberley, are of outstanding heritage value to the nation under criterion (a) for their evolutionary refugial role that has resulted in high invertebrate richness and endemism.
The river systems of the north Kimberley serve as refuges to freshwater fish species, with a consequently high endemism found in several families. With
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18 species that are endemic to the region, the west Kimberley has the highest number of endemic freshwater fish in comparison to any other region in
Australia (Allen et al. 2002, Morgan 2008, Unmack 2001). The highly dissected nature of the landscape has served as an isolating mechanism between species, with the numerous large and deep waterholes acting as refugia, resulting in centres of speciation that have existed since the fluctuating climate of the late Cenozoic (Allen and Leggett 1990). Rivers that are important for endemism include the Drysdale River (six species), the
Prince Regent (six species), the Roe and Moran Rivers (four species),
Carson River (four species) and Isdell River (three species) (Morgan 2008,
Allen et al. 2002). The Mitchell, King Edward (including the Morgan and
Carson Rivers) and Drysdale River systems also provide habitat for a number of endemic freshwater turtles (McCord and Joseph–Ouni 2007).
ANHAT analysis returned the second highest national Chelidae (side– necked tortoises) endemism score.
The Drysdale, Prince Regent, Roe, Moran, Carson, Isdell, Mitchell and
King Edward Rivers are of outstanding heritage value to the nation under criterion (a) as areas of evolutionary refugia demonstrated by nationally high values for freshwater fish and turtle endemism.
Wealth of land and sea
Movement of material (marine shell beads) by Aboriginal people
The occurrence of marine shell beads in occupation deposits at two inland rock shelters, Carpenter's Gap 1 and Riwi, dated to 30,000 BP is exceptional, providing testimony for the antiquity of long distance movement of material by Aboriginal people, perhaps in some kind of system of exchange during the Pleistocene period (McConnell and O'Connor 1997; O'Connor 1999;
Balme 2000; Balme and Morse 2006).
In historical times, Aboriginal trading networks criss-crossed the continent moving valued commodities like pearl shell, ochre and stone tools over thousands of kilometres. These extensive economic and social systems of exchange are a characteristic feature of Aboriginal Australia.
Carpenter's Gap 1 and Riwi rock shelters have outstanding heritage value to the nation under criterion (a) as they demonstrate the operation of
Aboriginal social and economic networks 30,000 years ago over distances of 500 kilometres.
Symbolic use of ochre
Archaeological excavations at Carpenter's Gap 1 rock shelter recovered a slab of roof material to which ochre had been deliberately applied. The slab had fallen to the floor of the rock shelter some time before 39,700 years BP.
The ochre appears to have been blown onto the surface, probably in a similar method used by Aboriginal people in Australia in ethnographic times
(O'Connor and Fankhauser 2001). This is the oldest trace of ochre intentionally applied to a rock surface presently known in Australia, and is one of the earliest examples on a world scale.
Carpenter's Gap 1 rock shelter has outstanding heritage value to the nation under criterion (a) as it provides evidence of the antiquity of the symbolic use of ochre on a rock surface, the earliest 'art' in Australia's cultural history.
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Aboriginal trade in pearl shell
Kimberley pearl shell ( Pinctada maxima ) has associations with water, rainmaking, ancestral Creator Beings, stories and songs. The significance of the modified pearl shell changes as it is traded from its source, where it was created by powerful Dreamtime Beings.
Highly valued by Aboriginal people as the 'emblem of life' with potent correlations with water, and the power to regenerate, renew, and transform; modified Kimberley pearl is the most widely distributed commodity in
Aboriginal Australia, covering two-thirds of the Australian continent.
Pearl shell beds at a number of identified sites from Bidyadanga to Cape
Londonderry, where in Aboriginal law and culture, the shell is believed to have been created by Dreamtime Beings and is collected by Traditional
Owners, have outstanding heritage value to the nation under criterion (a) as the source of the item most widely distributed by Aboriginal people in the course of Australia's cultural history.
Contact, change and continuity
European explorers
In the sixteenth century long, dangerous and difficult voyages across uncharted oceans began to shape ‘new worlds’ on the maps of European navigators. In the pursuit of knowledge and wealth beyond the borders of
Europe, early expeditions by the Portugese, Spanish, Dutch, French and
British began to reveal the outline of the Australian continent.
The William Dampier ( Cygnet ) 1688 landing place
William Dampier stayed in the west Kimberley coast area for more than one month, landing first at Pender Bay, then sailing and anchoring in Karrakatta
Bay. Dampier and the Cygnet crew lived at Karrakatta Bay, camped and careened the ship on land, 'canoed' and fished in the nearby sea, met a group of Aboriginal people on an island, observed Aboriginal people elsewhere and swimming between islands. Dampier also notes in his account old wells, low even land, sandy banks against the sea, rocky points, the careening beach, the islands in the bay, the 'dragon' trees and the Aboriginal stone fish traps described as 'weirs of stone across little coves or branches of the sea'. A full description of his observations is included in his account of his voyages around the world (Dampier 1697). The environment Dampier observed is substantially unmodified since his 1688 landing and can be seen today.
William Dampier's published accounts of his voyages around the world, which included his observations at Karrakatta Bay and nearby, were significant in stimulating European exploration interest in the Pacific and
Australia which foreshadowed Cook's voyage to the Pacific and eventual establishment of a British colony in Australia in 1788. Dampier's observations at Karrakatta Bay and nearby were also influential in shaping late seventeenth and eighteenth century attitudes towards Australia and its
Indigenous people. His observations made at Karrakatta Bay were also influential in the British Government's sponsorship of another voyage to
Australia in 1699 during which Dampier collected some Australian plants, foreshadowing the birth of Australian botany.
The Kimberley coast is recognised for its association with early European
exploration of the continent. The William Dampier (Cygnet) (1688) landing place, around Pender Bay, Karrakatta Bay, King Sound, the Buccaneer
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Archipelago and nearby coast, has outstanding heritage value to the nation under criterion (a) for its association with William Dampier and the influence of his published observations. The environment observed by
Dampier is substantially unmodified since his 1688 landing and can be seen today.
Fossil Downs station
Fossil Downs station is outstanding for its association with the longest droving journey in Australia. Undertaken over three years in the late nineteenth century the MacDonald brothers drove cattle from Goulburn,
New South Wales to what is now known as Fossil Downs Station in the
Kimberley. This journey of 5,600 kilometres ended near a tree marked F136 by explorer Alexander Forrest on 3 June 1886.
The place where the tree marked F136 once stood has outstanding heritage value to the nation under criterion (a) for its association with the pioneering overlanding journey undertaken by the MacDonald brothers in
1883-1886.
Bunuba resistance to the rolling frontier of European settlement
Conflict between Europeans and Aboriginal people was endemic on the frontier of European settlement (Reynolds 1976). As the wave of European settlement moved south and north from the Sydney colony it took many forms from passive resistance through to large-scale violent action, and was highly influenced by the terrain on which it occurred. (Reynolds 1982;
Pedersen 2000; Grassby and Hill 1988; Connor 2002).
The Bunuba resistance would not have been a success without the impenetrable fortress-like qualities of their traditional country. The limestone landscape of the Napier and Oscar Ranges provided the Bunuba people with a refuge from which to defend their country and a fortress to attack would-be settlers and the police. Control of the Devonian Reef was crucial for the rolling frontier of European settlement to move forward.
The limestone ranges of the Devonian Reef have outstanding heritage value to the nation under criterion (a) as the place where Bunuba resistance held back the advance of European settlement for 13 years, an unusual achievement by Aboriginal people in the history of Australian frontier conflict.
Treatment of Aboriginal people after European settlement
The buildings and landscape elements of Bungarun (Derby Leprosarium), together with the area of the former residential units, the cemetery and the state listed Aboriginal heritage sites, tell the poignant story of the isolation of
Aboriginal people during a period of Australia's history when government policy makers were dominated by the fear of disease and its spread into the
Australian populace to the south. Aboriginal people from across the
Kimberley were isolated at Bungarun, some for a few weeks, and others for up to forty years.
The place highlights the government's rationale at the time, merging the logic of penal, quarantine, therapeutic and racial segregation into policies to manage disease amongst Aboriginal people. The place provides an ongoing testament to Aboriginal people's resilience and capacity to resist, adapt and
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B
The place has outstanding heritage value to the nation because of the place's possession of uncommon, rare or endangered aspects of
Australia's natural and cultural history survive despite the difficulties and personal suffering imposed by leprosy, separation from country and family, and the government's isolationist policies of the time.
Bungarun (Derby Leprosarium) has outstanding heritage value to the nation under criterion (a) as the only extant facility to tell the national story of leprosy treatment of Aboriginal people in Australia's cultural history.
Aboriginal rights to practice law and culture
When Aboriginal people speak about 'Noonkanbah' they are referring to a series of events which took place on Noonkanbah station between 1978 and
1980. These events drew the attention of the nation to the struggle of
Aboriginal people to protect their rights to practice traditional law and culture.
Noonkanbah is one in a series of important steps in the national struggle of
Aboriginal people to have their rights to practice traditional law and culture, and have their rights to traditional land ownership recognised. In addition,
Noonkanbah brought about significant change to resource company policies and practices in relation to consultation and negotiation with Aboriginal people and in the protection of Aboriginal heritage.
Yirrkala, Wave Hill, Noonkanbah and Mer Island each assume their own symbolic importance in the long, slow path towards the recognition of
Aboriginal rights and the protection of Aboriginal heritage.
The areas of Noonkanbah station encompassing the station gates, the crossing at Mickey’s Pool, Pea Hill and the unsuccessful exploration well have outstanding heritage value to the nation under criterion (a) as the site of the Noonkanbah dispute, an important event in the national struggle of Aboriginal people to have their rights to practice traditional law and culture recognised, and to protect their heritage for future generations.
Ecology, biogeography and evolution
Gogo fossil sites
At the late Devonian Gogo fish fossil sites, near–complete, articulated fossil fish are often found in limestone nodules and up to 50 different species are preserved. The spectacular Gogo fossils have recently been discovered to preserve soft tissue structures along with bone. This has revealed evidence for viviparity (live birth) and sexual dimorphism: embryos, an umbilical cord and a possible yolk sac have been preserved. This represents the earliest evidence for internal fertilization and live birth in vertebrates (Long et al.
2008). Extensive remains of soft tissue have allowed reconstruction of the body musculature in a stem vertebrate (these fish being ancestral to tetrapods) (Ahlberg 2009). The Gogo fossils are unique in preserving a diverse fossil fish fauna, complete with soft tissue anatomy.
Above threshold
The late Devonian Gogo fish fossil sites have outstanding heritage value to the nation under criterion (b) for remarkable preservation of a diverse fauna of entire fossil fish skeletons complete with the rare preservation of extensive soft tissue.
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Dampier Coast
The early Cretaceous Broome Sandstone of the Dampier Coast contains the only sauropod prints found in Australia – these are common in the discontinuous outcrops that stretch for up to 200 kilometres along the west coast of the Dampier Peninsula (Molnar 1991; Thulborn et al. 1994; Long
1998). With some hind foot tracks as long as 1.75 metres, the Dampier Coast tracks may be the world's largest sauropod prints. The world's smallest sauropod tracks have also been found here, indicating a broader population sample than that of any other known sauropod track site. It preserves rare examples of the coexistence of sauropod and ornithopods. The Dampier
Coast is the only site with extensive evidence of western Australian dinosaurs and the large number of tracks provides an otherwise unobtainable census of dinosaur populations and communities.
The Dampier Coast dinosaur tracks have outstanding heritage value to the nation under criterion (b) as the best and most extensive evidence of dinosaurs from the western half of the continent, some of which are unknown from body fossils; for the diversity and exceptional sizes of the sauropod prints; and the unique census of the dinosaur community that they provide.
Rare in Australia, fossil human tracks are important for both scientific and symbolic reasons. There are three occurrences of fossil human tracks documented in the literature. The Dampier Coast site is the only example yet found in Western Australia. Less clearly documented accounts of human tracks at other locations along the coast also appear in the literature (Mayor and Sarjeant 2001; CNN 1996; Long 2002). The Pleistocene and Holocene human record which the Dampier Coast tracks help to elaborate is very patchy. Documenting track sites through human history can begin to reveal population data across a continent and through time, to supplement other kinds of archaeological and historical evidence. Tracks have the potential to reveal data which is hidden from those who only study body fossils: about gait, anatomy, stature, size, population and speed. In other words, they evoke
'the living behaviour of our ancestors' (Kim et al. 2008; Webb et al. 2006).
The fossil human footprint sites of the Dampier Coast have outstanding heritage value to the nation under criterion (b) as one of only three documented human track sites in Australia and the only documented evidence of human tracks from the west coast of Australia.
Wealth of land and sea
Botanical remains and Aboriginal plant procurement strategies
At Carpenter's Gap 1 rock shelter, also known as Jambarurru to Bunuba people (S. Pannell pers. comm. 5 May 2010) and Tangalma to the Unggumi
(Playford 1960, 2007) in the Napier Range, a combination of protected dry deposits and high alkalinity have combined to preserve an exceptional collection of botanical materials including wood shavings, seeds and plant fibres (O'Connor 2007).
Carpenter's Gap 1 rock shelter has outstanding heritage value to the nation under criterion (b) for its rare archaeological sequence of micro and macro-botanical remains spanning 40,000 years that contributes to our understanding of the impacts of climate change on flora composition though time, and the rare evidence it provides of plant procurement strategies used by Aboriginal people from the Pleistocene, through the last
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C
The place has outstanding heritage value to the nation because of the place's potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Australia's natural and cultural history. glacial maximum, a period when many occupation sites were abandoned across Australia, and into the Holocene.
Contact, change and continuity
Careening Bay and the Mermaid tree
In 1820, during one of his coastal survey expeditions, Phillip Parker King careened his ship the Mermaid in Careening Bay on the Kimberley coast of
Western Australia. Careening was an essential activity in the routine of maintenance and care of the ship. On this occasion a boab tree was carved with the initials HMC Mermaid to mark the crew's stay on what was then a very remote area of the Australian coast. Within the Kimberley other early land explorers made similar marks on trees which are still present in the landscape. The Mermaid tree however is rare as the only known in situ, physical reminder of King's survey expeditions along the Australian coastlines of the Kimberley, Northern Australia, the northern coastlines of
Queensland and the Torres Strait.
The Mermaid tree within Careening Bay has outstanding heritage value to the nation under criterion (b) as rare, in situ, physical evidence of nineteenth century hydrographers and in particular the survey work of
Phillip Parker King, one of Australia's most important early marine
surveyors.
Ecology, biogeography, climate and evolution
Devonian coral reef
The fossil reef assemblages of the Lennard Shelf, including the Napier,
Oscar, Emmanuel and Pillara Ranges span the Givetian–Famennian stages of the Devonian period from about 390–359 million years ago, including the
Frasnian–Famennian mass extinction. Studying this sequence can provide information about how reef communities react to climate change and to changes in sea level, both of which are key issues facing modern coral reefs such as the Great Barrier Reef (Wood 2000; Wood 2002; Veron 2008).
Above threshold
The Devonian reef outcrops of the Lennard Shelf have outstanding heritage value to the nation under criterion (c) because of their potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of the climatological and biological processes that affect major reef systems.
Gogo fossil sites
The late Devonian Gogo fossil sites produce remarkable specimens with a potential for study that increases with each new technological development.
The most recent advances use high–resolution scanning electron microscopy, high–resolution computer tomography, X–ray and Synchrotron CT scanning to reveal details of the soft tissue morphology that might otherwise be obscured by bone and buried within the supporting matrix (Trinajstic and
Long 2009; Ahlberg 2009). Along with advancing studies of its own fossil fauna, the Gogo sites provide a way to test new techniques in studying these
Devonian faunas, which may be applicable to other fossil types and sites in the future.
The Gogo fish fossils have outstanding heritage value to the nation under criterion (c) as they have significant potential to yield new information about the natural history of Australia, the evolution of Australian vertebrates and about new technologies that can be used to study fossils.
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Human ecology and adaptation
Only a small number of archaeological surveys have been undertaken in the west Kimberley region. Those few surveys have provided nationally significant evidence on the paleo-environment, human adaptation to climate change, marine resource use, development of symbolic behaviour and the antiquity of long distance exchange. Given the highly significant nature of these investigations, coupled with the argument that the west Kimberley is one of the most likely points through which humans first entered Australia, future archaeological surveys in the region may reveal sites of even greater scientific and archaeological significance. The exceptional preservation conditions offered by the Devonian reef complex also support the likelihood of further significant discoveries.
The coastline from Cape Londonderry to Cape Leveque and the Devonian reef complex have outstanding heritage value to the nation under criterion
(c) for their potential to yield significant new archaeological information contributing to an understanding of Australia's natural and cultural history.
Rock paintings as a source of information about climate, ecology and technology
The fine graphic detail of the painted motifs in the Wanjina-Wunggurr homeland and the Balanggarra native title claim area provide invaluable insights into a number of nationally important areas of research including climate change and species extinction; early Aboriginal material culture and technology development; and the interactions between Aboriginal people and outsiders. The exceptional illustrative nature of the rock paintings has the potential to provide information at a level of resolution currently absent from the archaeology. Welch (1993, 29) supports this view, noting that early
Kimberley rock art 'gives us an enormous insight into the material culture of early Australians'. While the rock paintings of Arnhem Land and the Kakadu region are also highly informative, Morwood (2002, 162) suggests that the
Kimberley region may have greater potential in demonstrating changes in weapons used, accoutrements and ideology.
The rock paintings of the Wanjina-Wunggurr homeland and the
Balanggarra native title claim area have outstanding heritage value to the nation under criterion (c) for their potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of climate change and species extinction; early Aboriginal material culture and technology development; and the interactions between Aboriginal people and outsiders.
Natural disasters in the late Holocene
Recent research in the Kimberley linking comets and tsunamis to Indigenous oral histories, painted rock images and stone arrangements provides exciting opportunities for future collaborative investigations between archaeologists, geologists and the Traditional Owners.
The west Kimberley coast between Cape Londonderry and Cape Leveque has outstanding heritage value to the nation under criterion (c) for its potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of the nature and the effect of mega-tsunami events.
Contact, change and continuity
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D
The place has outstanding heritage value to the nation because of the place's importance in demonstrating the principal characteristics of:
(i) a class of
Australia's natural and cultural places; or
(ii) a class of
Australia's natural and cultural environments.
Asian–Australian interaction
Indonesian fishermen, commonly referred to as Macassans, have been visiting the west Kimberley coast for perhaps hundreds of years to harvest marine resources including pearl and trochus shell, turtle shell, clam meat, shark fins and trepang, also known as sea cucumber or bêche-de-mer
(Morwood 2002). The historical accounts and oral traditions of Kimberley
Aboriginal people, together with the limited archaeological evidence, suggest that a very different kind of relationship existed between Indonesians and Kimberley Aboriginal people than that experienced between Macassans and Aboriginal people in Arnhem Land. In the Kimberley, the relationship appears to have been one of hostility and distrust on both sides. Few archaeological surveys have been conducted to investigate this important pre-European contact.
The west Kimberley coast from Cape Londonderry to the Lacepede Islands has outstanding heritage value to the nation under criterion (c) for its potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of
Indonesian-Aboriginal interaction in Australia's cultural history .
Ancient landscapes, geological processes
The Kimberley ria coast
The Kimberley ria coast, from the Helpman Islands in King Sound to Joseph
Bonaparte Gulf is the most extensive region of well–expressed ria coast and, at more than 2,500 kilometres, probably the longest stretch of predominantly rocky coast in Australia (Sharples 2009; Woodroffe and Short 2009).
Nowhere else in Australia, or possibly the world, is there the opportunity to study the effects of macrotidal tide–dominated rocky coastal processes, and repeatedly interacting sea–level changes and fluvial landform processes through time, on a predominantly rocky coast that lacks the disturbance caused by high density coastal infrastructure (Sharples 2009; DEWHA
2009c). There are many ria coasts in the world, and other ria coasts in
Australia, but the Kimberley rocky coast is unique in Australia and rare in the world for preserving a continuous and intricate dominantly–rocky fluvial and drowned fluvial landscape over a length of more than 2500 kilometres.
Due to the stability of the Kimberley craton over time, the sea floor to roughly the 30 metre bathymetric line has been a terrestrial land surface, subjected to subaerial terrestrial landform development, more than it has been subject to marine processes over the last half billion years. As such, it is the best expression in the country of this type of landscape and the processes that have shaped and continue to shape it during the Phanerozoic eon (the last 545 million years).
The west Kimberley coast from Helpman Islands in King Sound to the western shore of Cambridge Gulf, including islands, peninsulas, inlets and inundated features, has outstanding heritage value to the nation under criterion (d) for demonstrating the principal characteristics of a major coastal landform type, in an extensive region without significant modification by coastal infrastructure.
Lennard Shelf
The Lennard Shelf contains the elements of a late Devonian carbonate ramp on an ancient tropical continental shelf. These limestone complexes lie off the ancient mainland represented by the folded and faulted, granitic and metamorphic Kimberley Block to the north (described under criterion (a) as
Above threshold
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the rocks of the King Leopold orogeny). An integrated picture of a proto–
Australian continental shelf environment in an epicontinental sea from 390–
370 million years ago is provided by a number of features and their spatial relationships. These features include: palaeoshores, palaeoinlets, platforms, atolls, interreef basins, debris flows, islands and archipelagos with fringing reefs (including the superbly preserved Mowanbini Archipelago of the Oscar
Range), the remains of a barrier reef, including the forereef accumulations, lagoon deposits, patch reefs, bioherms (mud mounds) that grew on pinnacle reefs rising from the shallow sea floor of the backreef lagoon and limestone nodules preserving entire fish and crustaceans at the Gogo fossil localities
(Playford and Lowry 1966; Webb 2001; Johnson and Webb 2007; Playford et al. 2009).
The Devonian carbonate complexes of the Lennard Shelf have outstanding heritage value to the nation under criterion (d) for demonstrating the principal characteristics of a very well preserved proto-Australian carbonate ramp environment on an ancient continental shelf.
Ecology, biogeography and evolution
Dampier Coast Cretaceous landscape
The ichnofossils (trace fossils including dinosaur tracks) preserved in the
Broome Sandstone exposed in the intertidal zone of the Dampier Coast
(from Roebuck Bay to Cape Leveque) represent up to 15 different types of dinosaur (Thulborn et al. 1994; Tyler 2000; Thulborn 1997; Long 1998;
Long 2004). The Cretaceous landscapes that occurred here were buried intact and reveal original topography, with soils, leaf–litter and even fossils of plants in their growth positions (roots can be seen descending into the substrate). In places, dinosaur tracks meander around these plants so that one may walk across these ancient landscapes following their paths through clumps of vegetation (Thulborn pers. comm. 2009).
The plant and sedimentological evidence allows reconstruction of the environments in which dinosaurs lived and fed, providing a fuller palaeoecological picture of a suite of Cretaceous coastal environments. The
Broome Sandstone coastal exposures of dinosaur tracks and associated fossils therefore tell an integrated story of the animals, plants and physical environment of this area during the Early Cretaceous period, approximately
132 million years ago.
The dinosaur tracks and associated ichnofossils, plant macrofossils and
Cretaceous depositional environments of the Broome Sandstone exposed in the intertidal zone of the Dampier Coast have outstanding heritage value to the nation under criterion (d) for preserving snapshots of the ecology of the Mesozoic.
Roebuck Bay migratory hub
Sixty four waterbird species have been recorded at Roebuck Bay, 34 of which have been listed under international treaties (JAMBA, CAMBA and
ROKAMBA). Roebuck Bay has the highest number of species of international importance visiting its shores of any site in Australia, including pied oystercatcher ( Haematopus longirostris ), Mongolian plover
( Charadrius mongolus ) and the ruddy turnstone ( Arenaria interpres ).
ANHAT analysis returned the second highest score for Charadiiformes
(waders) richness at Roebuck Bay (61 species). Along with international
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visitors, Roebuck Bay also returned nationally high endemism scores for a collection of bird groups, including Passeriformes (perching birds),
Meliphagidae (honeyeaters), Pittidae (pittas) and to a lesser extent Sylviidae
(old world warblers). The endemism significance can in some cases be explained by a number of bird species, such as the common redshank
( Tringa totanus ) and the Asian dowitcher ( Limnodromus semipalmatus ), that within Australia almost exclusively visit the Canning coast area, before returning to other countries within their flyway zone.
Roebuck Bay has outstanding heritage value to the nation under criterion
(d) due to the place's importance as a class of avian habitat (a migratory hub or staging post), and for the regular presence of migratory, protected or endangered avifauna.
Rainbow Serpent traditions tied to Indigenous interpretations of the different way in which water flows within the catchment
The Rainbow Serpent is an important Creation Being for Aboriginal people across Australia and is closely linked to land, water, life, social relationships and fertility. There are many stories associated with the serpent, all of which communicate the significance and power of this Being within Aboriginal traditions.
Within the Fitzroy River catchment there are four distinct expressions of the
Rainbow Serpent tradition. In the jila-kalpurtu domain of the Fitzroy catchment on the northern edge of the Great Sandy Desert, water flows are principally underground and the Rainbow Serpent (kalpurtu) is said to exist in the underground structure of the channels, linking excavated waterholes and other water sources of significance. Places like Kurrpurrngu,
Mangunampi, Paliyarra and Kurungal are exemplars of this expression of the
Rainbow Serpent.
The phenomenon of Galaroo , on the other hand, is linked to flowing surface water, in the form of major rivers, and to long and deep permanent waterholes in broad river channels, like Geikie Gorge ( Danggu ). The
Rainbow Serpent of the Wanjina-Wunggurr belief system, known as
Wunggurr, is typically found in discrete pools of water and is also associated with the sea and with Wanjina Creator Beings at painted sites and in religious narratives.. The upper Hann river is an exemplar of this aspect of the Rainbow Serpent tradition, while the Woonyoomboo-Yoongoorroonkoo narrative of the lower Fitzroy primarily tells the story of the creation of the lower Fitzroy River and its floodplains and its links to the sea.
The Fitzroy River and a number of its tributaries, together with their floodplains and the jila sites of Kurrpurrngu, Mangunampi, Paliyarra and
Kurungal, demonstrate four distinct expressions of the Rainbow Serpent tradition associated with Indigenous interpretations of the different ways in which water flows within the catchment and are of outstanding heritage value to the nation under criterion (d) for their exceptional ability to convey the diversity of the Rainbow Serpent tradition within a single freshwater hydrological system.
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E
The place has outstanding heritage value to the nation because of the place's importance in exhibiting particular aesthetic characteristics valued by a community or cultural group.
Wealth of land and sea
The West Kimberley, with its spectacular scenery and substantially unmodified landscapes, has outstanding heritage value to the nation under criterion (e) for its inspirational landscapes , as exemplified by the following places.
Common aesthetic characteristics noted for the West Kimberley region include the colour in the landscape (reds, yellows, intensity and variety of hues) , the substantially unmodified nature of the natural landscapes, the experience of remoteness and the inspirational nature of the landscapes commonly described by words such as majesty, ancient, remarkable, awesome, endless vistas, jewel like sources of water, wild, spectacular, magnificent, iconic, scenic splendour, outback and grandeur.
Kimberley coast from the Buccaneer Archipelago to King George River
Particular aesthetic characteristics of the Kimberley coast valued by the
Australian community include its rugged sandstone coast with rocky headlands, prominent peaks and striking landforms, sandy beaches, pristine rivers and drowned river valleys with rich flora and fauna, off shore reefs and numerous islands in extensive seascapes in a sea supporting diverse marine life.
The Kimberley coast from the Buccaneer Archipelago to King George
River has outstanding heritage value to the nation under criterion (e) for its aesthetic characteristics valued by the Australian community., including its rugged sandstone coast with rocky headlands and prominent peaks and striking landforms, sandy beaches, pristine rivers, waterfalls and drowned river valleys with rich flora and fauna, offshore reefs and numerous islands in extensive seascapes in a sea supporting diverse marine life. The unusual effect of tidal movement is also part of the aesthetic appreciation of some areas like the Horizontal Waterfall.
Above threshold
Mitchell River National Park
Particular aesthetic characteristics of the Mitchell River National Park valued by the Australian community include the rugged Kimberley Plateau,
Mitchell River, Mitchell Falls (Punamii Unpuu), rocky features around
Mitchell Falls and the Surveyors Pool (Aunauyu) and its falls.
The Mitchell River National Park has outstanding heritage value to the nation under criterion (e) for its aesthetic characteristics valued by the
Australian community.
King George Falls and King George River
Particular aesthetic characteristics of King George Falls and King George
River valued by the Australian community include the rugged sandstone gorge of the King George River between the Falls and the ocean, the high colourful cliffs of the river gorge and the spectacular twin waterfalls cascading into the river.
King George Falls and King George River have outstanding heritage value to the nation under criterion (e) for their aesthetic characteristics valued by the Australian community.
Geikie Gorge Conservation Park and Geikie Gorge National Park
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Particular aesthetic characteristics of Geikie Gorge Conservation Park and
Geikie Gorge National Park valued by the Australian community include
Geikie Gorge ( Danggu ), its colourful gorge cliffs and sculptured rock formations carved by water through an ancient limestone reef, the lush riverine vegetation along the gorge, the fossil decoration on the gorge walls and the deep permanent waters.
Geikie Gorge Conservation Park and Geikie Gorge National Park have outstanding heritage value to the nation under criterion (e) for their aesthetic characteristics valued by the Australian community.
Windjana Gorge National Park
Particular aesthetic characteristics of Windjana Gorge National Park valued by the Australian community include the narrow gorge of the Lennard River, the colourful cliffs of the gorge and the fossil decoration on the gorge walls.
Windjana Gorge National Park has outstanding heritage value to the nation under criterion (e) for its aesthetic characteristics valued by the
Australian community.
King Leopold Ranges Conservation Park
Particular aesthetic characteristics of the King Leopold Ranges Conservation
Park valued by the Australian community include the Lennard River Gorge,
Bells Gorge, the rugged mountain ranges, the fault lines and twisted topography, spectacular gorges, waterfalls, rock pools and their fringing vegetation.
F
The place has outstanding heritage value to the nation
The King Leopold Ranges Conservation Park has outstanding heritage value to the nation under criterion (e) for its aesthetic characteristics valued by the Australian community.
The aesthetic value of rock art
The stunning painted images of Creation Beings, ancestors, plants and animals in rock shelters in the west Kimberley, including the powerful
Wanjina and intriguing Gwion Gwion/Girrigirro figures, are considered amongst the most spectacular examples of 'rock art' in the world (Flood
1990, 70). Highly valued by non-Aboriginal people for their aesthetic values, these images are both powerful and of deep religious significance to
Kimberley Aboriginal people.
Aboriginal rock art paintings in the west Kimberley, particularly in the
Wanjina-Wunggurr homeland the Balanggarra native title claim area and the Devonian reef, are both powerful and of deep religious significance to
Kimberley Aboriginal people and have outstanding heritage value to the nation under criterion (e) as they represent a stunning visual record of an ongoing Aboriginal painting tradition in a substantially unmodified landscape.
Design and innovation
Painted rock images
The painted images found in rock shelters and caves across the Wanjina-
Wunggurr homeland, the Balanggarra native title claim area and in the limestone ranges of the Devonian reef provide an exceptional record of
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because of the place's importance in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period.
painted rock art that is extraordinarily diverse and technically very detailed.
Considered one of the longest and most complex painted 'rock art' sequences anywhere in the world, (Morwood 2002, 143) the west
Kimberley complex of painted images is a creative achievement by
Kimberley Aboriginal people that has outstanding heritage value to the nation under criterion (f).
Sacred Heart church, Beagle Bay mission
Built in a remote location from locally sourced material, the Sacred Heart church at Beagle Bay mission is a testimony to the ingenuity and resourcefulness of the Pallottine brothers and the Aboriginal residents of the mission who built and decorated it. The use of pearl shell and other media to decorate the interior of the church, particularly the sanctuary, demonstrates a high degree of artistic excellence and technical finesse. The place continues to be highly valued by the Beagle Bay Aboriginal community today because of the considerable Aboriginal involvement in its construction and decoration.
G
The place has outstanding heritage value to the nation because of the place's strong or special association with a particular community or
The Sacred Heart Church at Beagle Bay mission has outstanding heritage value to the nation under criterion (f) for the high degree of creative and technical achievement in the use of pearl shell and other locally sourced media to decorate the interior, combining western religious and Aboriginal motifs.
Technical response to environmental constraints
Double log raft
Aboriginal people built strong, light rafts to navigate the treacherous waters of the west Kimberley coast. Rips, whirlpools and overfalls created by the massive twelve metre tides made navigation through the maze of islands and waterways a serious undertaking. While a navigational hazard, these strong tidal currents, provided opportunities for skilled and knowledgeable
Aboriginal people to travel long distances to hunt, trade and maintain social and cultural obligations.
The manufacture of the double log raft from mangrove logs (particularly
Rhizophora stylosa) is a unique adaptation to the massive tidal variation of the west Kimberley and has outstanding heritage value to the nation under criterion (f) for demonstrating a high degree of technical achievement by Aboriginal people in the course of Australia's cultural history.
Wealth of the Land and Sea
European pearling
Broome has a special association with the Australian community as an iconic place, once the pearling capital of Australia. This association has in part an idealised aspect relating to the romance of Old Broome, its pearling luggers and its location on a remote and beautiful coast.
Today the Australian community continues to be drawn to Broome and the nearby region because of the romance of Broome, its pearling history, its remote and beautiful location at the gateway to the Kimberley's outback and pearling coast, its association with pearls and the town's stories associated with the development of a unique Australian community with a distinctive
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cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons.
cultural diversity. The people of Broome celebrate and recognise their pearling history and diverse cultural heritage today in the annual Shinju
Matsuri Festival.
Broome and the nearby region has outstanding (intangible) heritage value to the nation under criterion (g) as a place which has a special association with the Australian community because of the romance of Broome, its pearling history, its remote and beautiful location at the gateway to the
Kimberley's outback and pearling coast, its association with pearls and the town's stories associated with the development of a unique Australian community with a distinctive cultural diversity.
H
The place has outstanding heritage value to the nation because of the place's special association with the life or works of a person, or group of persons, of importance in
Australia's natural or cultural history.
I
The place has outstanding heritage value to the nation because of the place's importance as part of
Indigenous tradition.
Contact, Change and continuity
European explorers
William Dampier (Cygnet) l688 landing place
William Dampier first made observations of Australia and its Indigenous people at Karrakatta Bay and the nearby environment. His accounts of
Australia and his other voyages around the world established Dampier as an expert, in his time, on the Pacific and Australia. His travel experiences described in his writing stimulated eighteenth century European exploration of the Pacific and Australia and foreshadowed the later voyages of Cook.
The William Dampier (Cygnet) 1688 landing place has outstanding heritage value to the nation under criterion (h) for its special association with the life and work of William Dampier.
Indigenous resistance: Jandamarra
The late timing of the settlement and the impenetrable nature of the
Devonian Reef helped create the man and the legend of Jandamarra - a man brought up in two worlds, whose detailed knowledge of European methods to contain Aboriginal resistance and his capacity to pass those skills on to his
Bunuba countrymen and women, severely threatened the colonising project.
While Jandamarra did not act alone, his abilities to disappear and avoid capture, and to appear to even cheat death itself, made him a much feared adversary to Europeans and a powerful leader amongst his own people.
The limestone ranges of the Devonian Reef, known to the Bunuba as
Barlil, has outstanding value to the nation under criterion (h) for its association with Jandamarra, whose campaign of resistance was unprecedented in Australian history, as was the ferocity of the police and settler response. Jandamarra's death in 1897 ended the last large-scale organised violent resistance by Aboriginal people in Australia's cultural history.
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Wanjina–Wunggurr Tradition
The Wanjina-Wunggurr tradition, with features including the painted images of Wanjina and Gwion Gwion in rock shelters across the west Kimberley, provides testimony of a complex association of socio-religious beliefs that continues to be central to the laws and customs of the Wanjina-Wunggurr people.
Together, the Wanjina and the Wunggurr Snake are believed to be the manifestations of a life force, also called Wunggurr, which permeates the
Wanjina-Wunggurr cosmos and is imbued in all living forms. The creative association of the Wanjina and the Wunggurr Snake is represented in the
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religious narratives and manifested in the painted images on rock, and as other features in the land, sea and sky including natural rock formations and man-made stone arrangements.
Members of the Wanjina-Wunggurr society trace their descent to the
Wanjina ancestral beings. Wanjina 'rock art' sites serve as geographical focal points for a system of territorial and social organisation that links small groups of people (the clans of anthropological discourse) to named local countries (clan estates) (Blundell et al. 2009) and into a system of exchange called the wurnan that extends throughout the Kimberley. The exchange of items between local group members is viewed as the passage of items in space from Wanjina to Wanjina.
In order to sustain the ongoing cycle of life, members of the Wanjina-
Wunggurr community continue to engage in a range of ritual practices established in Lalai (The Dreaming). While Wanjina-Wunggurr people believe that the Wanjina 'put' themselves onto rock surfaces as paintings, they also believe that as the human descendents of these Wanjina, it is their duty to maintain the 'brightness' or 'freshness' of the paintings by re-touching them with charcoal and pigments (Mowaljarlai and Malnic 1993; Redmond
2001; Blundell and Woolagoodja 2005; Blundell et al. 2009). By keeping the paintings 'fresh' the world will remain fertile – the annual rains arrive, plants and animals will reproduce, and child spirits will remain available in whirlpools and waterholes throughout the Wanjina-Wunggurr homeland.
There is no other Indigenous society in northern or central Australia, indeed anywhere in Australia, where a single class of Creator Being, the Wanjina, depicted as a distinct rock art figure, has such a significant and multifaceted role or set of associated meanings and practices (Blundell et al. 2009).
The Wanjina-Wunggurr homeland, where the painted images on rock and other features in the land, sea and sky, including natural rock formations and man-made stone arrangements, are manifestations of the Wanjina and the Wunggurr Snake, are of outstanding heritage value to the nation under criterion (i) because of their importance as part of Indigenous tradition.
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