with painted images. It’s one of an estimated
30,000 rock art sites in the protected area.
Until recently, although around 50 children
came and went from Kabulwarnamyo each year,
the outstation didn’t have a school. Students
had to travel long distances or live with family
in bigger towns far away to get an education. In
2015 the community decided to use money from
carbon credits to build its own school. It estab-
lished Nawarddeken Academy, which has since
opened schools in two more outstations. All offer
a bicultural program giving equal weight to
Bininj knowledge and the standard curriculum.
As the sun climbs in the sky, Kolkiwarra
Nadjamerrek speaks to the students in the Kun-
winjku language about connection to country
and the importance of culture. When she finishes,
she sweeps her arms outward, encouraging the
children to look at the ancient artworks. They
scatter, scaling rock walls and ducking beneath
ledges. This is a history lesson at its best.
“We do the formalized literacy and numeracy
in the classroom, but everything else we try to
take it out bush,” explains Jodi Vallak, senior
teacher at Kabulwarnamyo. She says basing her
lessons on ties to country means the children
are especially enthusiastic about class. “It does
have that powerful narrative that it’s actually
worthwhile learning.”
The importance of the schools is difficult to
understate, Vallak says, as she watches her stu-
dents explore their past. The boost in population
brought about by the rangers triggered the need
for schools, but now the schools are part of the
attraction for people to return to country. Elders
hope this generation will gain both the tradi-
tional knowledge and the education to create
opportunities of their own here. The land needs
their children and grandchildren to care for it.
IN HIS KHAKI UNIFORM, Terrah Guymala drags a
chair onto the back deck of the Manmoyi ranger
station. A hint of smoke has woven its way through
the paperbarks and screw pines and settled in
the air. In the days after the Deaf Adder Gorge
fire, several more blazes have broken out on this
side of the Indigenous protected area.
In the face of global warming, Guymala knows
his work here is more critical than ever. He says
Aboriginal people see the climate changing
every day. “As a boy, we used to walk around
and see big mobs of animals, and we had lots of
rain. And we used to see everything was in time.
Children spear fish
in a creek veiled by
smoke from a strate-
gic burn. By controlling
wildfires and reducing
the amount of smoke
in the atmosphere,
Aboriginal people
are able to sell carbon
credits. The income
helps pay for the rang-
ers’ efforts and other
programs, such as
schools, allowing them
to live in outstations
in their homelands.94 NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC