Finding 'peace' in the wilderness

By Andrew Harding
BBC News, Darwin

The scheme employs Aborigines to control the savannah wildfires

In the Northern Territories of Australia a project has been set up to help Aborigines find work and to escape the pressures of 21st Century life.

A waning moon is rising behind the eucalyptus trees.

We are sitting round a campfire in a small clearing on a plateau in the middle of West Arnhem Land.

Around us are limestone cliffs, ancient rock paintings, termite mounds, streams, wallabies and a wilderness the size of Britain.

In the dark beside me, Manuel is having trouble with his didgeridoo. Asthma, he says sheepishly, after failing to produce more than a few burping sounds on the instrument.

He hands the hollow stick back to his friend, Gavin, then clears his throat and sings a short song about lizards.

West Arnhem Land is in the Northern Territories of Australia

Manuel is 25. A small, wiry man with long hair, sharp eyes and a big grin.

Like most of the other Aborigines here, he is just passing through, maybe for a few weeks. Maybe longer.

Not that he really deals in weeks or months. Just seasons.

The camp's name is Kabulwarnamyu. Earlier, when I asked Manuel what that meant, he looked blank. "It means this place of course."

Breathing space

Kabulwarnamyu and the land around it belong to an 81-year-old artist and local legend called Lofty.

He has built eight big tents here, all on platforms raised from the ground to keep the snakes and spiders away.

Recently a small garage and workshop have been added. The camp has become the headquarters of a new scheme to try to control the wildfires which burn half the savannah every year.

Manuel, Gavin, Richard, Eddie, Dean and half a dozen distant relatives are part of that project. Eddie has brought his nine-year-old son along. Richard's wife Carol is here too, nursing a baby.

Most have driven up on a dirt road from an Aboriginal settlement called Oenpelli, at the foot of the plateau.

Many aborigines seem to have fallen between two worlds

Jobs are scarce there. But it is not just the money that has brought them back out to the wilderness where their ancestors once lived.

Over the past few days several of them have talked to me of coming here to "escape".

Survivors

Australia's aboriginal population - half a million strong - is in trouble.

Many of their settlements are ravaged by alcoholism, suicide and domestic violence. Their life expectancy is a shocking 18 years shorter than the rest of the country.

The government talks of assimilating them into the mainstream. But that has not worked yet, and many Aborigines seem to have fallen between two worlds.

Manuel went to a state school - for a while. But it failed him, or vice versa.

He cannot read or write, or even recognise numbers. He tells banknotes by their colours. But he can speak three indigenous dialects and knows how to survive in the bush.

Dean survived a family outbreak of leprosy

Dean is 53, with dreadlocks and a grey beard.

He grew up in the wilderness, living in the trees above a billabong or pond.

When he was eight his family was struck with leprosy. He was one of the few to survive. Now he talks eloquently about broken communities hooked on welfare.

"Humbugging". That is the word they all use for the trouble they are trying to escape from.

Living off the land

Up here on the plateau, these traditional lands are autonomous and alcohol free. That policy is strictly enforced and a broader sense of discipline seems to flow from it.

Driving into Kabulwarnamyu camp along a rutted, sandy track, Dean indicates carefully before turning, even though there is probably not another car for 200 miles.

When the men are not busy making fire-breaks in the savannah, they go to the billabongs and streams to swim and catch turtles.

The plateau is teeming with buffalo. There are so many and they are so destructive that they are now considered a major pest.

This afternoon, the men shot one in a swamp. But they could not get close enough to finish it off. They usually cut the tongue and heart out.

Wallabies are also a favourite, cooked briefly in a pit oven.

Ancient art

Late in the afternoon, Manuel and Dean take me to the limestone cliffs a mile from camp to see rock paintings.

Rock paintings in the limestone cliffs are more than 10,000 years old

There are bright new ones. Lofty has painted a big, orange snake near his favourite picnic spot. But on the roof of an overhang there are faded images of lizards and humans and wallabies drawn by Lofty's ancestors.

I ask Manuel how old the paintings are. "17th Century" he says, sounding a little uncertain. Later I find out that some of the images are more than 10,000 years old.

By ten at night, the moon is high overhead. And Dean and Eddie are fast asleep. Richard and his wife Carol are sitting on a mattress beneath the stars.

A dog's barking has woken their baby and she is up and playing. Manuel and I come over to join the group.

Manuel wants to be an artist, and is keen to learn new stories to paint. So Richard starts telling a long tale about dreamtime and a tall, skinny spirit, known as a Mimi, who lives in the sandstone canyons here and lures people away from their homes to get lost in the wilderness.

From Our Own Correspondent was broadcast on Saturday 9 June, 2007 at 1130 BST on BBC Radio 4. Please check the programme schedules for World Service transmission times.