On September 29th, the government of Queensland, Australia, announced that the country’s four national parks will be returned to the eastern Kuku Yalanji Aboriginal people. The world’s oldest rainforest, the Daintree, as well as Cedar Bay National Park, Black Mountain National Park, and the Hope Islands National Park will be returned to them.

The agreement is the result of a 2007 decision by the Australian court to recognize the Kuku Yalanji people as the traditional owners of the land, that is, that they were there before others who founded the country arrived. This is much like the indigenous people in Brazil who were already living here before the Portuguese colonizers arrived.

The handover of the land will take place gradually, and during this process, the original owners and the government will manage the land together. It took four years of negotiation between the parties involved until an agreement was reached.

“The Eastern Kuku Yalanji people’s culture is one of the world’s oldest living cultures and this agreement recognises their right to own and manage their Country, to protect their culture and to share it with visitors as they become leaders in the tourism industry,” said the Environment Minister of Australia, Meaghan Scanlon, referring to the expectation that Aboriginal people will make the most of the land to work with sustainable tourism, that is, tourism that does not harm the environment.

The site stretches over 160,000 hectares (an area equivalent to about 160,000 soccer fields). At least at this stage of the process, companies and homes in the area will not need to be relocated.

Questions
1) Which of the alternatives is not one of the areas that will be returned to the aborigines?
a) Kuku Yalanji
b) Daintree
c) Cedar Bay
d) Black Mountain

2) What did you think of the decision in Australia?

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