Information

Ngaanyatjarra Lands extends west from the border between Western Australia, South Australia and the Northern Territory. The area includes reserves and special leases granted for the use and benefit of Aboriginal people.  It also includes the Gibson Desert Nature Reserve and the Warburton Range Stock Route.

The areas of exclusive possession, Aboriginal Reserves and leases require permission to enter or transit.

In the distant past, dreaming beings travelled vast distances across the desert and through the Ngaanyatjarra Lands, creating the waterholes and landscape features and laying down the songs and dances for the people to perform.  They include the dance and song, performed last night at the place where the court sits today, about the emu and the turkey, who met up at a place called Yankal-Tjungku to the north of here, and continued on.  The Ngaanyatjarra Lands are characterised by the number and richness of these great travelling stories of creation, which still form the backbone of the people’s culture and way of life.

Ngaanyatjarra is a Western Desert language belonging to the Wati branch of the Pama-Nyungan languages.

Until the establishment of the Warburton Mission in 1934 there had been no external agency established on their lands

Determinations:

Consent determinations –

Part A 29 June 2005

Part B 3 June 2008