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management implementation. The new park will require additional resources and presence
by Olkol people in an area which is close to Oriners by road, enhancing both access to and
the significance of the infrastructure at Oriners.
Yet of likely greater longer term significance to Oriners and its people is that a number of
other stations in the region around Oriners are part of the CYPAL process, albeit at earlier
stages of negotiation. These include the directly adjacent stations of Crosbie, Wulpan, and
Dixie, as well as the nearby stations of Strathmay and Glen Garland (Figure 3). Pending
further negotiations about the divisions of land between the two CYPAL land categories and
their boundaries in each case, the expectation is that each of these properties should be
approximately 50% Indigenous land, 50% co-managed National Park. The change of
government in Queensland may have some impact on the process, but if it continues to be
implemented as planned, there will be a rapid and significant increase in the land area in the
immediate Oriners region being managed for a combination of conservation, heritage,
Indigenous and/or sustainable pastoral values. Even if the more recently planned acquisition
of Dixie Station does not ultimately transition to conservation lands in the short to medium
term, Oriners remains directly connected to new NP (CYPAL) land on Crosbie Station, and
through the Crosbie, to Strathmay. 16 Combined with the change in status of the former
Kalinga station, the estimated land area involved, in which Oriners lies at the heart, is
substantial at over 10,000 km 2 . There are important implications for regional Indigenous
connectivity from these changes, including, as Michael Ross notes, connectivity of people,
land, and water:
Michael Ross: They are all in there together. So if any project happens down there, we in
Crosbie got to know about it. Strathmay. We start linking together then. All tribal people
linking together…The Kowanyama mob are involved with that over here, over Kalinga. Last
year we got it handed back. All that cleared area, the white area [on the map]. That‟s all
freehold, that belong to the possum tribe and the back country come to the Olkol people as
National Park. Now we are in the process of doing a project, next year, with the Parks.
That‟s the head of our boundary country, the tribal one.
Marcus Barber: So the back end of that country, the western side, is that connecting in to
Oriners?
Michael Ross: That‟s part of the chain. That is where we are connected, what we do over
here, does not matter if it is a little project, it still affects what happens down there. And
what they do affects us up here. We got to know that. We‟ve got a corporation over there,
[at] Glen Garland, that property over there is where Fred [Coleman] is, on the Pormpuraaw
road. We‟ve owned that since 1993. That, Oriners…see we are doing our boundaries first.
We‟re not worried about inside country at the moment. Get your boundaries together first.
That‟s why Trevor and them and Michael Yam, they are on our board of directors for the
corporation. So they get involved pretty well. Especially in this area here [Oriners], I‟m
pretty worried about the water system. I‟m a water man myself, I like dealing with water -
looking after the water system. This flush come down to there and goes back to the west
coast, [heading down the Crosbie and into the Mitchell] goes back to the west coast. So
what happens up here [at Laura] doesn‟t affect there. Own water system up here. At
Oriners you‟ve got these big peak flows and, as you can see, that is all water country in
there [along the Eight Mile Creek floodplain].
The commercial purchase of Oriners decades before the new CYPAL land process was
enacted in 2007 demonstrates that Indigenous aspirations for ownership and independent
16 It is worth noting here that Sefton Station has a common boundary with Harkness Station, which is
now a designated Nature Refuge Area. These are properties on which a private landowner has
voluntarily agreed to protect significant conservation values on the property, through measures such
as riparian fencing, weed control, etc. Although they share a point rather than a line boundary, Sefton
is also directly connected to the impending NP (CYPAL) on Crosbie Station.
Working Knowledge at Oriners Station, Cape York
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