Post by account_disabled on Apr 30, 2024 3:18:39 GMT
Roy Roger Gibson, a Kuku Yalanji elder, watched thousands of tourists and vehicles trampling his virgin land as he worked in the cane fields in the northern Australian state of Queensland. His people were suffering, their culture was deteriorating and the native fauna was disappearing.
It took 20 years to transform that, but today the Brazil Email List Mossman Gorge Center is a thriving indigenous ecotourism enterprise in Daintree National Park, a world heritage site in Queensland.
Tourism is a source of preservation of indigenous culture, providing employment, education and training opportunities, and environmental protection, especially in remote places, such as Mossman Creek, the ancestral home of the Kuku Yalanki people in the southern tip of the country. Daintree National Park.
Roy and the Aboriginal community of Mossman Creek worked in collaboration with the Corporation of Indigenous Lands (CDI) to build the centre, where 90 per cent of the workers are indigenous, 61 of them employees and 21 apprentices.
Roberta Stanley, 18, started as an apprentice. “Every morning, when I leave in my work uniform, I can't stop smiling. She helped me reconnect with our history, legends, languages, music and arts. “I have a sense of immense pride and the confidence to pursue my dream of being an artist and dancer,” she expressed.
That was something young people couldn't do before the center began offering courses in tourism, hospitality, commerce and administration. His parents and sister also work at the same place.
In 2011 there were about 207,600 Indigenous people in Australia's workforce. Some 42 per cent of Aboriginal people aged 15 and over were in work, compared to 61 per cent of non-Indigenous people.
With employment opportunities scarce, pursuing your dreams is not something all Indigenous Australians can do.
Pamela Salt, 41, worked as a cleaner and, in her free time, painted. Since she began working at the Mossman Creek Center, she has a sense of belonging to the place.
“Physically, mentally and emotionally,” the Center “gave our people the confidence that we can do it. One of my daughters also works here,” she said.
Pamela is a self-taught painter and today her work is exhibited in the Center's gallery, where national and foreign visitors can purchase it.
Since July 2014, more than 250,000 tourists, 40 percent foreign, visited the Center.
“Indigenous tourism is gaining momentum. It adds cultural depth to the experiences visitors have at their destinations. The Kuku Yalanji people, like other Aboriginal communities, have cared for the environment for thousands of years. It is your supermarket and your pharmacy,” said Mossman Creek Center general manager Greg Erwin.
Over the next 10 to 15 years, the company will be 100 per cent Aboriginal owned. This reality is very far from that experienced by the so-called Stolen Generation, made up of tens of thousands of boys and girls who were forcibly separated from their families between 1900 and 1970. The assimilation policies of the Australian government at that time sought to eradicate “ Aboriginal blood” and, supposedly, give children a better life.
Roy, 58 years old and belonging to that Stolen Generation, does not want his people to experience that psychological trauma again.
“This center is a role model for the younger generation, who dreams of a better life,” he highlighted.
He and other indigenous guides take visitors on “dream walks,” highlighting the nuances of the world's oldest rainforest, with stories about its creation, food sources, flora and fauna, caves and Manjal Dimbi, a mountain with spiritual meaning for the indigenous people.
“We are now able to protect our ecosystem while offering visitors an insight into the life, culture and beliefs of the Kuku Yalanji people and their connection to the natural environment. Our emphasis is on sustainability,” Roy told IPS.