The Watarru Indigenous Protected Area is an

Indigenous Protected Area An Indigenous Protected Area (IPA) is a class of protected area used in Australia; each is formed by voluntary agreement with Indigenous Australians, and declared by Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islander representative organisation ...

in the north west corner of

South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a state in the southern central part of Australia. It covers some of the most arid parts of the country. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories ...

. It covers an area of in the

Great Victoria Desert The Great Victoria Desert is a sparsely populated desert ecoregion and interim Australian bioregion in Western Australia and South Australia. History In 1875, British-born Australian explorer Ernest Giles became the first European to cross th ...

. It is the traditional land of the

Pitjantjatjara The Pitjantjatjara (; or ) are an Aboriginal people of the Central Australian desert near Uluru. They are closely related to the Yankunytjatjara and Ngaanyatjarra and their languages are, to a large extent, mutually intelligible (all are var ...

Ngaanyatjarra The Ngaanyatjarra, also known (along with the Pini) as the Nana, are an Indigenous Australian cultural group of Western Australia. They are located in the Goldfields-Esperance region, as well as Northern Territory. Language Ngaanyatjarra is ...

and

Yankunytjatjara The Yankunytjatjara people, also written Yankuntjatjarra, Jangkundjara, and other variants, are an Aboriginal Australian people of the state of South Australia. Language Yankunytjatjara is a Western Desert language belonging to the Wati la ...

peoples. The area was made an Indigenous Protected Area in June 2000. It is managed by the

Watarru Watarru Community is an Aboriginal community in the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) lands in South Australia (one of a number of communities or homelands on "The Lands"; others include Amata, Ernabella/Pukatja, Fregon/Kaltjiti, Indulk ...

community according to their traditional laws and practices, known as

Tjukurpa The Dreaming, also referred to as Dreamtime, is a term devised by early anthropologists to refer to a religio-cultural worldview attributed to Australian Aboriginal beliefs. It was originally used by Francis Gillen, quickly adopted by his co ...

. The environment has not been damaged by cattle grazing or other farming practices. The Anangu are working with scientists to develop ways of dealing with

feral animal A feral () animal or plant is one that lives in the wild but is descended from domesticated individuals. As with an introduced species, the introduction of feral animals or plants to non-native regions may disrupt ecosystems and has, in some ...

s including cats, foxes and

camel A camel (from: la, camelus and grc-gre, κάμηλος (''kamēlos'') from Hebrew or Phoenician: גָמָל ''gāmāl''.) is an even-toed ungulate in the genus ''Camelus'' that bears distinctive fatty deposits known as "humps" on its back. ...

s. It is classified as an IUCN Category II protected area.

References

External links

Webpage for Watarru Indigenous Protected Area on the Protected Planet websiteAgreements, Treaties and Negotiated Settlements Project profile for Watarru Indigenous Protected Area
Indigenous protected areas in South Australia 2000 establishments in Australia Protected areas established in 2000 Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Great Victoria Desert {{Australia-geo-stub

See also

References

External links