Lamalama people are the traditional owners for lands extending for several hundred kilometres around Princess Charlotte Bay in Cape York Peninsula, from the Massey River, north of Silver Plains, to the Stewart River and south to the Normanby River. Their country extends from the plains at the foot of the Great Dividing Range to the coast and includes islands north of Princess Charlotte Bay.

Planning for the Future

In 2009, the Lamalama Land Trust undertook a Community Planning exercise to assist Lamalama people outline what they would like to do or see happen on their traditional country. This process reviewed progress made under the 1997 plan while looking to develop a simple plan to guide the next few years. Many things were talked about to encourage a vibrant sustainable community – one that supports the natural environment; community, culture and tradition; personal wellbeing and economic development.

In particular, the group talked about Port Stewart, as Lamalama want it to become the main hub for coordinating Lamalama Natural Resource Management and Community activities across all Lamalama Country – Silver Plains (Maramba), Running Creek (Yaakarru), Lilyvale (Tuulwa) and Marina Plains (Rindorparr). Port Stewart (Yintjinnga) is at the centre and most easily accessible from Coen.

Supporting Our Partners

This project was under taken with our projects partners the Centre of Appropriate Technology, Engineers Without Borders and the Lama Lama lands trust. The centre of appropriate technology engages with remote indigenous communities in order to provide resources to communities to improve local infrastructure. By utilising pro bono work CAT was able to get the most tangible benefits for the communities within the allocated budgets. Engineers Without Borders was engaged on this project to arrange appropriate resources to support this project. EWB members offer their services on a pro-bono basis and are continuously chasing the chance to do so and EWB volunteers were utilised in a range of roles on this project from design to construction.

Building Technical and Community Skills

This project was undertaken using volunteer time from Arup staff in addition to paid time from the Arup community partnering program. Arup encourages staff to undertake projects that have community and environmental benefits making Arup unique in its motivation to support humanitarian work. This project was a good example of this. In addition to benefits to the community, work on this project allowed staff to work on unique problems not always in counted on our typical projects. Young staff had the opportunity to engage with external clients, communities and work in remote locations.