Our Partners
WMAC aims to strengthen existing partnerships and identify potential new partners to assist us in implementing strategies and action needed to restore and care for Country.
Great Barrier Reef Foundation.
The Great Barrier Reef Foundation’s Traditional Owner Partnership team is proud to support Wanyurr-Majay Aboriginal Corporation to implement their two Healthy Water Grant Projects: Looking after all of Wanyurr-Majay Waters and the Madjandji Healing Waters Project. The Healthy Water Program is part of the Reef Trust Partnership Agreement. It has been co-designed with Reef Traditional Owners to create opportunities for Traditional Owners to lead and be funded for Healthy Water projects on their Country, across the Reef and its Catchment. The Healthy Water grants are focused on on-ground activities important to Traditional Owners, to ensure that cultural values – including customary use, cultural water quality indicators, cultural mapping, and traditional knowledge sharing between elders and youth – are all recognised and supported as essential parts of healthy water management. WMAC are a great example of a Reef Traditional Owner group developing projects to meet their aspirations for people and Country and building strong partnerships for a sustainable future along the way.
Department of Resources.
The Department of Resources is pleased to support and work cooperatively with the Wanyurr-Majay Aboriginal Corporation, in a combined effort of weed and fire management, and vegetation rehabilitation where State Land under the trusteeship of this Department is involved.
The Department welcomes the continuation of the works just commenced and is supportive of future involvement that will preserve and improve the cultural, natural, and aesthetic values of the land.
Rainforest and Reef Research Centre .
The RRRC with Sheriden Morris and Rickard Abom have meaningful engagement and collaboration with the Madjandji Traditional Owners. Together we are investigating culturally significant waterways and places using drone and camera technologies, mapping catfish nest abundances during their nesting period as well as invasive flora and fauna. The RRRC feel privilege to have the opportunity to collaborate with the Madjandji people, learning from their rich cultural history of the region and sharing our knowledge working together to improve waters as it meanders through our landscape and enters the Great Barrier Reef - we are better together.
Mulgrave Landcare and Catchment Group.
Mulgrave Landcare has had a long association with Wanyurr-Majay Aboriginal Corporation members, and it is wonderful to see our partnership and the Wanyurr-Majay group growing every year.
Our groups support each other on our community planting days, which boosts the volunteer numbers for both of our groups, creating a diverse and meaningful experience for our members.
We have witnessed first-hand their increase in confidence and capacity that the two Healthy Water Grants have provided, and the successful on-ground restoration works that they have done as a result. We are always very happy to provide support to the group when needed, and in return benefit from an exchange of knowledge, advice, and appreciation of cultural protocols. We are looking forward to working in partnership with the Madjandji Rangers in 2023 & 2024 as part of Greening Australia’s Reef Assist 2.0 project..
Greening Australia.
Greening Australia is a not-for-profit national environmental enterprise committed to restoring Australia’s diverse landscapes and protecting biodiversity in ways that benefit communities, economies, and nature.
In the past year the Wanyurr-Majay Aboriginal Corporation Madjaybana Rangers have been working with Greening Australia on the Innovative Drone Seeding project in the Mulgrave catchment, helping with vegetation surveys and seed collection and distribution.
Early this year we announced our successful Reef Assist 2.0 ‘Wet Tropics Wetland and Cane Drainage Water Quality Treatment Systems’ project, and we are working in close partnership with the Madjaybana Rangers and other stakeholders on wetland projects and cane drainage systems to deliver improved Reef water quality.
The Traditional Owner Healthy Water Grant Project supported the Rangers to gain the wetland restoration skills and build their capacity and become confident enough to take on a larger project such as Reef Assist 2.0.
We are looking forward to collaborating closely with the group in future projects.
Cairns and Far North Environment Centre (CAFNEC).
Cairns and Far North Environment Centre (CAFNEC) is a not-for-profit incorporated association that acts as conservation council for Far North Queensland. We work to protect the environment by enhancing the capacity of local groups and community members to act for conservation. In 2017, CAFNEC began the Cairns Chapter of MangroveWatch - a citizen science project for monitoring mangrove ecosystems. WMAC has played a critical role by participating in monitoring events for the Mulgrave River. This involves going out on boats to film the shoreline and making observations of how the shoreline changes. Using this data to understand threats to mangroves, WMAC has been involved in the development of a Local Action Plan to address those threats. For example, WMAC has contacted a local primary school to discuss the integration of mangrove education into the school system. This collaboration between CAFNEC and WMAC allows the community to better care for the Mulgrave River and protect the mangrove for future generations to enjoy.
Terrain NRM
Terrain NRM is the regional Natural Resource Management organisation for the Queensland Wet Tropics region and works with the Traditional Owners, Community, Industry, Local Governments and Land and Sea Government Departments for the sustainable management and protection of Water, Land, Soils and Biodiversity in its region.
Terrain NRM acknowledges the great corporate governance and work commitment that Wanyurr-Majay Aboriginal Corporation have done in the Lower Mulgrave and Russell River Catchments on their traditional Madjandji country.
Through the Regional Land Partnerships Rainforest Project funded by the Australian Government, Terrain NRM is helping improve rainforest habitat in priority areas that are home to the endangered cassowary and tropical lowland rainforests and littoral rainforest – both critically-endangered ecological communities. Grants to recovery team members, priory landholders and Traditional Owner organisations are supporting revegetation, weed management and habitat protection for these threatened species habitats. Wanyurr-Majay Aboriginal Corporation are doing 23 hectares of weed control and a management plan for the Woolanmaroo area. The area is important littoral rainforest and cassowary habitat, and the project is strongly supported by state and local government and Terrain NRM. Littoral rainforest is rainforest by the sea and the Wet Tropics region has the most extensive and best developed littoral rainforest in Australia.
Wanyurr-Majay are a great example of a Reef Traditional Owner group developing projects to meet their aspirations for People and Country and building strong partnerships for a sustainable future along the way.
Farmacist.
Farmacist has over 40 staff in total and is seen as the largest independent agronomic provider for the Australian sugarcane industry. We are an enthusiastic team of agricultural professionals working from Northern NSW to Far North Queensland regions, specialising in delivering practical precision agronomy solutions for farmers. From our office in Gordonvale, our 7 staff members have established work in sugarcane, bananas, tea tree and fallow cropping, and plan to extend to more crops.
Farmacist have been working with Wanyurr-Majay Aboriginal Corporation in partnership on the Madjandji Healing Waters Project through project inception and design. It is our desire to work towards increasing Traditional Owner-led co-designed catchment management projects and integrate traditional knowledge and cultural values of healthy water into programs. As partners we are committed to delivering technical support to the Madjandji rangers, providing both commercial and in kind services.
Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service.
Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service has responsibility for the management of Queensland’s protected area estate. The Madjandji People have had native title recognised over a substantial portion of protected area, including Wooroonooran National Park, within the Wet Tropic World Heritage area. QPWS and Madjandji Aboriginal Corporation RNTBC entered into a Memorandum of Understanding that outlines how our ornganisations will work together. It also commits to collaboration on the development of an ongoing ranger program.
The Honourable Curtis Pitt MP.
Speaker of the Legislative Assembly of Queensland Member for Mulgrave.
Since being elected to the Queensland Parliament in 2009 I am pleased to have supported Wanyurr-Majay Aboriginal Corporation’s (WMAC) inclusion in programs like the Indigenous Land and Sea Ranger Program and the Great Barrier Reef Foundation’s, Traditional Owner Healthy Water grants, which aim to preserve Indigenous culture and create employment through conservation, fire management, feral animal and pest control and cultural heritage site protection.
As the Member for Mulgrave, I support WMAC’s dedication to re-establishing trade routes and bush tucker trails east of Deeral and Aloomba. These trails played an important part in bringing together ancient Indigenous groups across Cairns, to learn, hunt and to celebrate, as they gathered across what we know as Trinity Inlet and the Mulgrave catchment area.
There are currently no known publicly available walking tracks in this section of the Wet Tropics World Heritage Forest Reserve. Restoration of trail networks will support genuine on country eco-tourism opportunities for Wanyurr-Majay Rangers, returning trade routes to their original state and preserving the natural area for future generations.
WMAC’s healthy waterways program will restore watercourses south of Cairns whilst providing a platform for education and employment. It is pleasing that WMAC have developed strong partnerships with Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service (QPWS), leading Natural Resource Management bodies in the Wet Tropics, James Cook University, Mulgrave Landcare and Catchment Group and Greening Australia.
I look forward to continuing to support and progress the aspirations of the Wanyurr-Majay Aboriginal Corporation’s, Madjandji Country Based Plan.
Birdlife Australia.
Birdlife Australia is Australia’s peak non-Government bird organisation, with offices and staff across the continent. For over 120 years, BirdLife Australia has been researching and protecting native Australian birds. We have built a reputation for quality science and outstanding conservation. We have worked with Wanyurr-Majay since 2021 as the group restores a lowland forest near the mouth of the Mulgrave River, witnessing the return of forest and wetland birds as the land heals.
Birdlife will be collaborating with Wanyurr-Majay on the Madjandji Healing Waters project, surveying the birds that live along the waterways that flow from Wooroonooran (Mt Bellenden Ker) down into the Mulgrave and Russell Rivers. Birds are indicators of the health of a wetland or waterway; if the land is healing, they will return. We will assist with bird identification and survey techniques while benefiting in return from the extensive local knowledge of the Madjandji Rangers and their elders.