Bob Gordon,
Managing Director
I have the very great pleasure today to be at the Garma Festival in Arnhem Land to mark the completion of the first major project under the partnership between the Gumatj Corporation and Forestry Tasmania.
Over the past five months, local men have taken on the considerable challenge of constructing a bunkhouse, from the harvesting and milling of the timber through to completion of the building project. The bunkhouse will be officially opened today.
Located at Garrathiya, a Gumatj cattle station about 100 kilometres south of Nhulunbuy, the bunkhouse will provide accommodation for workers as they continue the development of other projects under the partnership, including further housing construction, collection and sale of seeds, sales of sawn timber, and the processing of timber products for high value uses such as furniture.
The bunkhouse was jointly designed by Associate Professor Greg Nolan of the University of Tasmania and Gumatj Chairman Galurrwuy Yunupingu AM to suit the traditional Yolngu lifestyle, with an overhanging roof to create shade, an outside communal living area, kitchen and separate ablution block. Tasmanian construction company Fairbrother oversaw the building project, which provided the project partners with the opportunity to test building methods and improve skills.
With the bunkhouse completed on schedule, the construction team will shortly begin work on its next project, a four-bedroom dwelling at Dhanaya.
Forestry Tasmania’s partnership with the Gumatj Corporation derives from Galurrwuy Yunupingu’s vision of a sustainable economic future for the people of east Arnhem Land. This vision is based on the creation of viable business opportunities in industries such as forestry and cattle, which will provide local people with training, employment, and most crucially, housing designed to meet local needs. Collectively, these initiatives will allow people to stay on their homelands while participating in the wider economy.
The opportunity to become involved in a forest management project that was not about welfare, but about delivering real commercial benefits, was a perfect fit for the new arm of our business, Forest Technical Services.
I have no doubt that the partnership between Forestry Tasmania and the Gumatj Corporation will become a model for similar projects that can be rolled out in Aboriginal communities across the Northern Territory.
For more information about the Garma Festival, visit www.garma.telstra.com
Branchline August 7, 2009
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