Tiwi Junior Rangers

Tiwi Traditional Owners want their young people to achieve educational success, retain their culture, language, and Tiwi identity, and live long, healthy lives. To help achieve this a Tiwi Junior Ranger Program was established in 2024.

The Program combines curriculum and culture to build the skills, confidence, and capacity of future Tiwi leaders. Senior students from Tiwi College on Melville Island and Xavier Catholic College on Bathurst Island undertake Certificate I & II units in Conservation and Ecosystem Management during eight training blocks each year and work experience with senior Rangers every fortnight during school terms.

Trainers from Charles Darwin University and the NT Department of Lands, Planning and Environment, Rangers, and Elders work together to deliver enjoyable, culturally responsive education and training with a focus on intergenerational transfer of traditional knowledge. Students assist adult rangers with on-Country conservation work, including biosecurity surveillance, weed management, feral cat research, coastal management and threatened species monitoring.

The Tiwi Junior Ranger Program also caters for younger students from all five schools on the Islands. Rangers regularly give presentations to students to raise awareness about land and sea country management issues. To help address loss of culture, Junior Rangers participate in cultural workshops with elders, such as weaving and spear making, and annual Tarntipi Bush Camps, run by the Tarntipi Homelands Aboriginal Corporation on Bathurst Island.

The Tiwi Junior Ranger Program is administered by Tiwi Resources, the manager of the Tiwi Ranger and the Tiwi Islands Indigenous Protected Area Programs, and funded by the Australian Government’s National Indigenous Australians Agency.

Further information: Tiwi Junior Program admin@tiwiresources.com.au