Country, culture and community - Warddeken Indigenous Rangers

Among Warddeken’s key programs is the Kunwarddebim (Rock Art) Project: a year-round operation that engages the Warddeken Rangers, Traditional Owners and Elders in the protection and sustained visitation of what is one of the largest undocumented collections of rock art in the world (current estimates sit at around 40,000 sites).

Kunwarddebim

For Bininj (First Nations people of West Arnhem Land), kunwarddebim encapsulates their deep, sustained connection to the land, and they are determined to protect these sacred sites. However, feral animals, unmanaged wildfires, and vegetation overgrowth threaten the future survival of kunwarddebim, along with more intangible threats such as the loss of local, customary knowledge of the kunwarddebim sites.

With the support of Bininj leaders, Warddeken created the Kunwarddebim Project to enable Traditional Owners and Elders to determine the priority sites for documentation and conservation.

Recognising the need for greater financial support to deliver community-led conservation, leaders from Warddeken and a neighbouring IPA established the Karrkad Kanjdji Trust (KKT) to act as their philanthropic arm. The Ian Potter Foundation has supported this innovative partnership for the last 5 years, enabling significant protection of cultural heritage through the Kunwarddebim Project.

Community-led approach

After two years of community consultation with Traditional Owners and a successful pilot that surveyed, documented and protected preliminary sites, Warddeken significantly scaled the project.

The core Kunwarddebim Project team now includes two Bininj project officers and two non-Indigenous project leads (a linguist and an archaeologist). Under the guidance of Traditional Owners, they have developed cultural heritage management plans with respective clan estates, conducted conservation assessments, and built the capacity of Wardekken Rangers to determine and implement conservation actions.

Progress to date

In 2024, the Kunwarddebim Project completed its first five years. Over this period, the team designed and built a sophisticated bilingual database and an app for in-situ document capture. Crucially, Warddeken retains all data as its intellectual property. However, it is open to sharing its data and experience with the national and international rock art sector and has already presented at several conferences.

Other key milestones and achievements have included:

• Developing a survey methodology that captures visual and audio material alongside metadata such as GPS, condition, threats and remedial actions, and cultural aspects.
• Surveying 456 sites (10–100 paintings at each site) across 21 of the 36 separate clan estates within the IPA.
• Supporting over 80 Traditional Owners and more than 100 rangers to visit orphaned Country (land without its people) and reestablish their custodianship.

Like all of Warddeken's work, the Kunwarddebim Project is entirely community-owned and led. On average, it directly impacts the livelihoods and wellbeing of 125 rangers and their families, supporting them to engage in meaningful on-Country work.

What's next

The Kunwarddebim Project plans to extend surveys to cover all IPA clans (currently, 58 per cent of clan areas have been surveyed), increase the number of Bininj officers in leadership positions, and develop an accredited training package.

KKT and Warddeken have committed to continuing the project, which is deeply embedded in the ranger program and communities. Funding is an ongoing challenge. To date, this work has been 100% funded through donations, and KKT continues to seek philanthropic support.

'These paintings are the stories of Nawarddeken told over thousands of years. Some were painted by people like us, and others were placed there by spirits. Rock art is our cultural heritage and we are the ones with a responsibility to care for these places.'

— Donna Nadjamerrek, Nawarddeken Elder