panies.”

Business

The NT government will in turn support a five-year Asl million develop ment project to provide the Jawoyn community in the area power, water, roads, houses, etc. They will also hand over a $600,000 building at the Katherine Gorge tourist park for the Jawoyn Association to set up an arts and crafts business centre.

While Ah Kit has come under fire from some Aboriginal groups about the deal, fellow mining companies have criticised Zapopan for “selling out” to Aboriginal interests, according to Terry Strapp, Zapopan’s executive director. He told the resource industry magazine Miner last month that after initial scepticism most mining companies were now com ing to the realisation that it was not the case of always rushing off to the courts to challenge any type of native title.

He admitted that if they went to the courts it would have taken another 10 years. “We wouldn’t have tried to fight it out in the courts,” said Mr Strapp. “I think most mining companies have now come to that realisation as well it is going to be in a lot of cases a negotiated settlement.”

The construction of the Mt Todd mine, about 50km from here, has already begun with most of the operations plant completed and earth moving from the mountain already begun. The mining of gold was due to begin last month.

Marcus Rosas, the Aboriginal Liaison Officer said that 16 of the 61 staff at the mine were Aboriginal and they had plans to train five to six Jawoyn people on a three-month course as operators like loaders. “It’s still in its early stages but Aboriginal people here are interested in the training aspects,” he said adding, “though no royalties are paid, the Jawoyn people see these projects as improving their self-esteem.”

“We are now going into joint ventures. We have actually become miners in partnership,” claimed Ah Kit, pointing out that they will be moving 10 million cubic metres of dirt a year and that the joint-venture will show good dividends in four to five years time.

The joint-venture he’s refering to is Mirrkworlk JV, where the Jawoyn As sociation with the help of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commercial

Development Corporation (GDC) has

bought into Darwin’s Henry Walker Group (HWG) which has got the three year As 23 million contract to do the earth works at the Mt Todd mine. The A 53.5 million GDC investment in HWG includes its chairman, Aboriginal busi nessman Gatjil Djerrkura sitting on the HWG board.

Strategically this deal is an interesting one. NT is where a large component of Aboriginal-owned land with mining po tential exists. While the Jawoyns have launched themselves into the expanding world of international contract mining, HWG has gained a special edge as a mining contractor of Aboriginal land. In

its prospectus to its shareholders in July, the HWG directors said that in the post- Mabo era, if the mining operations became more likely to be influenced by the opinion or preferences of the Aborig inal community, the company’s relation ship with GDC would be crucial to its expansion and profitability.

Ah Kit said “We have set a precedence in that Aboriginal people can sit down with mining companies and negotiate a decent agreement. The days are over when Aboriginal interests were continually bulldozed by mining com

panies.”

While questions are asked and will continue to be asked about agreements with mining companies where no royalties are included, especially in a project which is expected to reap in at least Asl billion, the Jawoyn Association is also expanding into tourism, which may hold greater potential as far as economic self-reliance and sustainable development is concerned.

The Nitmiluk National Park, which includes the Katherine Gorge, was given back to the Jawoyn people in 1989 following a land claim lodged in the late 19705. It has been leased back to the NT Conservation Land Corporation under a 99-year lease for the day-to-day manage ment of the park. But there’s a Jawoyn majority in the park’s board of manage ment.

In the late ’Bos and early ’9os tourism has become one of Australia’s biggest foreign exchange earners and the NT has become one of the star attractions for tourists.

“One of the biggest attractions of NT is the land and its people. There’s a huge potential for tourism and Aboriginal people and their culture is a star attraction,” said June Mills, president of the Larrakia Association, the Aboriginal community which has claimed a large area around Darwin.

Ah Kit said that for Aboriginal people the tourism option was preferable to mining. “It’s more pleasant work and gives more jobs to local people,” he said.

He pointed out that the tourism potential here was great with the three national parks in the NT Kakadu, Oluru and Nitmiluk all on Aboriginal native land. “Nitmiluk had the highest visitation last year with 300,000 people who came to the Katherine Gorge, followed by Kakadu 230,000 and Uluru (Ayers Rock) 225,000.”

The trouble with tourism on Aborig inal lands so far is that they have not benefited the people. For example, much of the profits from those who climb Uluru go to bus companies which transport the tourists and profits from those visiting Katherine Gorge go to boat companies and caravan parks and motels m the area.

At least here in the Jawoyn land all this is changing. From May last year, the Jawoyn Association in conjunction with GDC has bought a 50 per cent stake in

the Travel North boat company which runs the Katherine Gorge cruises and the camping ground in the Nitmiluk Na tional Park. It is the biggest investment by an Aboriginal group in northern Australian in seven years and the Jawoyn Association hopes to pay back the AsBoo,ooo commercial loan from the GDC within five years.

Katherine Gorge should rank as one of the natural wonders of the world and the two-hour cruise the shortest offered by Travel North is an unforgettable experience for any nature lover. “The backbone of tourism here is the gorge,” said Ah Kit. “People are spreading the word that you must take a boat cruise up the Katherine Gorge.”

Ah Kit said that they already had six Aboriginal guides on the boats and they had also set up ap employment assistance enterprise training programme to train Aborigines to work in the tourist indus try.

“We are full into tourism because the industry dictates that there must be more Aboriginal culture,” said Ah Kit. “One of the things people coming to Australia want to experience is Aboriginal culture.

And we are going to provide professional tour products that will make people comfortable, happy and go awav with a good feeling that they have had the opportunity to sit down and talk to Aboriginal people, go into bush, look at their rock arts sites and talk to them as

human beings.”

At Eva Valley, the Jawoyn Association has set up a tourist centre where organised tours are taken twice a week, where tourists can talk to Aboriginal people about their culture, see how they do bark paintings or knit mats, go to the bush and learn about their traditional food, have a typical bush tucker (lunch), as well as have a swim in the pond or learn traditional games like boomerang throwing. It’s a full days programme.

“We don’t provide dancing at Eva Valley because in a proper Aboriginal sense dancing is for sorrow like funerals, or for happiness and dancing has a meaning. The Corroboree (dance and singing ritual) wasn’t invented for tour ist,” Ah Kit said.

Mills sees joint-ventures like those in tourism as proving the point that Aborig inal people want to be self-sufficient and self-reliant. They want to do business and do it well because they don’t want to be

dependent.

She argued that since surveys have shown that the main reason for tourists to come to the NT is to see the Aboriginal culture one third of the 155,000 population of the NT are Aboriginal the NT government should pay more attention to the Aboriginal arts. “Gov ernment must take Aboriginal arts seriously and fund it, like the way they do for the state ballet companies. Why not have the equivalent of an Aboriginal Theatre in Darwin?” asked Mills. □