WARNING: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised the following story contains the name of a person who has died.
Site upgrades will soon start on a 6,651-hectare Indigenous cattle station on the border of Queensland and New South Wales.
Currawillinghi Station is a sheep and cattle grazing property recently acquired by the Indigenous Land and Sea Corporation, which will now work with the Yuwaalaraay Euahlayi Aboriginal Corporation on creating further capacity for future generations to come.
The land on Yuwaalaraay Euahlayi Country in Hebel, Queensland has a pastoral history spanning to the 1870s, and still holds strong ties to its 27 apicals, who all were instrumental in shaping Currawillinghi.
YEAC has Native Title rights over Currawillinghi and in coming months Aboriginal Rangers from Queensland Murray-Darling Catchments will erect external and internal fences to protect and manage cultural sites, rectify water points for stock and secure storage for pastoral operations.
These upgrades are set to result in greater cultural, social, and economic opportunities for Yuwaalaraay Euahlayi people - building further capacity for future generations to come.
QMDCL Aboriginal ranger program manager, Cheryl Buchanan, said the upcoming work of rangers provided benefits beyond financial.
"Gaining access to cultural sites and getting Country back assists in the truth telling and healing process critical to supporting generational trauma," she said.
"As a team we are proud to assist and support Traditional Owner groups as this is all of our story."
Currawillinghi has deep cultural and traditional values, bearing the resting place of the ILSC's first Indigenous general manager, Mr Murray Chapman, whose family consider the site 'ngurrambaa', a Yuwaalaraay term meaning "the place where one's spirit is born and exits the world".
Several of Currawillinghi's outbuildings, as well as its main residence, were destroyed in storms and most of the site is overgrown with weeds and rubbish, posing the risk of wildfire damage.
The late Mr Chapman had long urged the importance of returning Country to First Nations peoples.
ILSC group chief executive officer, Joe Morrison, said the Currawillinghi station development is a major turning point for the Yuwaalaraay Euahlayi community.
"We will work closely with YEAC, Yuwaalaraay Euahlayi Traditional Owners and Elders to ensure the station is fit for purpose for many years," he said.
The NSW Supreme Court in 2015 ordered the winding up of Ngurampaa, which held title for Currawillinghi and Mogila Stations, in NSW, before ILSC secured the title in July 2019 and reacquired possession of Currawillinghi in May this year.
