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Bilbies take centre stage at inaugural Ninu Festival

Jobs, Land and Economy
KJ and Birriliburru Women Rangers working together to map areas where Bilbies are located.

The inaugural three day Ninu Festival held in Kiwirrkurra, Western Australia, brought together Indigenous rangers, scientists, conservation organisations and government representatives to discuss all things bilbies.

Bilbies are becoming endangered, so it was timely they became the stars of a festival held in one of the most remote communities in Australia.  

Kiwirrkurra, the small Gibson Desert community 1,200 kilometres east of Port Hedland, and within the Kiwirrkurra Indigenous Protected Area, recently played host to the inaugural Ninu Festival, a three day event designed to highlight the importance of bilbies.

The Ninu (the Pintupi word for bilby) Festival brought together more than 120 Indigenous rangers from 20 different ranger groups, scientists, conservation organisations and government representatives to share knowledge and ideas about looking after the small marsupials.

Kiwirrkurra Ranger Patrick Green said that the bilby is of huge cultural significance to many Aboriginal groups throughout Australia.

“The Ninu has song lines that travel vast distances across the country,” Patrick said.

“They keep different tribes together because it’s a dreaming story that we all share.”

Patrick’s mother Sally Napurula Butler said the Kiwirrkurra community was excited about hosting the festival.

“We have been showing rangers from other communities how we look after Ninu; setting up cameras at burrows,  hunting cats, and making little fires so when it rains, lots of grass seeds grow up for Ninu,” Sally said.

Over eighty per cent of the land that bilbies are still found on is Aboriginal owned and/or managed and ranger groups know that if the bilby is to be saved it is up to them.

Each Ranger Group mapped out where bilbies can still be found on their country, where they had recently disappeared from, and where key threats like rabbits, cats and foxes were most severe. On the last day, groups got together to focus on the next steps, including the importance of creating resources for schools and future generations, working with new technologies and a “bilby blitz” to survey for bilbies simultaneously across Australia.

At the end of the festival, a lot of people were confident that bilbies will be around to keep different tribes together for generations to come.  

Find out more

The Festival was organised by the Indigenous Desert Alliance (IDA), a network of Indigenous Land Management groups from Western Australia, Northern Territory and South Australia, with support from government, private sector and philanthropic groups.

The IDA are working together to develop and implement regional projects that will address threats to the unique bio-diversity of our globally significant deserts, help to increase the capacity of Indigenous ranger teams to protect the desert and promote the world leading environmental work being carried out across the desert by Indigenous land managers.