Traditional Owners reclaim Starcke

A north Queensland man has won an 18-year fight to recover his grandfather’s land.

Frankie Deemal can now happily contemplate an extraordinary coincidence that saw his people recover more than 90,000ha of his grandfather’s country.

Large swathes of the former Starcke Station, around Cape Melville in far north Queensland, have transferred to Guugi-speaking clans under four Indigenous land use agreements.

The latest was in March, when the Queensland Government handed a 6698ha parcel to the JuunJu Warra Land Trust.

“It’s a very, very significant area,” Frankie said. “It has endangered species, rainforests, the largest seagrass pasture on the Australian east coast.

“It’s very important for its ecological and conservation values, of course, but for Aboriginal people (it’s) country that belongs to the traditional people (so they can) look after it.”

This story could have had a very different ending.

In February 1993, Frankie was attending a conference in America. His host, a Native American, threw him a copy of The Wall Street Journal to read. In it, Frankie found an advertisement offering “50 miles of beaches” — his grandfather’s country — to American developers.

It was pure coincidence. Frankie’s host had no idea the ad was there.

As soon as he got back to Australia, Frankie, cousin Noel Pearson and other supporters began a campaign against the overseas sale. They teamed with the fledgling Cape York Wilderness Society, organised a roadshow of traditional owners from Cairns to Melbourne and managed to strike a chord with everyday Australians.

“It was one of the great wins of a grassroots movement to stop the sale of the land,” Frankie said.

“In the main, it was done with massive, massive support from non-Aboriginal people — ordinary people, school children, mums and dads. We couldn’t have done it without them.

“There (had been) a real chance (the land) would have been lost.”

The state government passed an acquisition bill later in 1993 and purchased the station the following year. More than half the land was turned into national parks; most of the remainder has been transferred to traditional owners.

The Ngulun (“That’s part of my grandfather’s name,” Frankie said) Land Trust received about 39,000ha in 1999; the Wakooka Land Trust received about 35,000ha in 2000; the Dhaarba Land Trust received about 9000ha in 2002 and, in March this year, the JuuJu Warra received almost 7000ha. This final piece had to be retained as a resource reserve for 15 years before it could be handed over as Aboriginal freehold land.

Frankie says the land is already producing revenue — the cattle station remains a going concern, there’s a crabbing enterprise and three existing mining leases promise royalties if any proceed to production.

Additionally, there are the wilderness areas — woodlands, forests, steep mountains and creeks which are home to a range of plants, including the brown antelope orchid, and animals like the jabiru and rajah shelduck.

The state government has promised that traditional owners will also have a say in managing the national parks that were previously part of the Starcke property.

“It’s advancing everyone,” Frankie said. “People have all kinds of ideas for the land, including living upon it and looking after it and advancing any economic enterprise which may arise.”