Islanders

New Home For Torres

BAMAGA settlement, 4 miles from Red Island Point, former port for the wartime Jackie Jackie airstrip, is the centre of an am bitious development project under taken on Cape York Peninsula by

Queensland Director of Native Affairs (Mr. C. O’Leary).

It involves the transfer of 1,000 natives from Saibai, in Torres Strait. Saibai is a low-lying, malarial-mosquito-infested island.

It is constantly being eroded by the strong Torres Strait tides, and its gardens regularly destroyed by saltwater inundations when spring

tides and strong winds combin Hence the Bamaga settlemen centred on 60,000 acres of ferti soil, and a natural harbour f( vessels of reasonable draft.

The population transfer is prc ceeding by degrees. The advanc guard has settled down with er thusiasm to the new life, with ctean well-built village, hospitJ and highly productive gardens. A labour is provided by the ne settlers. Virgin tropical jungle : being cleared and a large moder saw-mill provides timber for hous( and boat-building.

Another developing industry : market gardening, for which irri gation is projected. A four-acre garden shows that the soil is ide£ and that Bamaga eventually will b able to provide Thursday Islan and the Torres Strait area i general with vegetables, meat an dairy produce. Tomatoes, pumpkin cabbages, melons, lettuce, onion and other root crops have yielde good returns, and the garden wi be expanded to 12 acres when th settlement is fully established.

An experiment with pigs an cattle (there are 200 cattle on th station), has proved that meat pro duction is a practical possibility.

Bamaga, fully developed, may b the solution to the development c Cape York and the Torres Strai Islands.