This is a collection of maps of the lower Mitchell River valley of Far North Queensland, Australia. It includes information on drainage, vegetation and landscapes, and roads and land tenure. The collection is a 'snapshot' of the landscape and of aspects of community life in about 2010.
The mapped area is the homeland country of Yir Yoront, Yir Thangedl, Kokoberra and Kokoberrin, and Kunjen and Olkola people, most of whom live in the Kowanyama township. Kowanyama has a population of about 1000 people.
Places in the collection include pastoral stations, cattle yards, wells and bores.The main sources of this information are 1:250 000 scale GEODATA and fieldwork that I and Kowanyama rangers undertook between 1994 and 2007. I was manager of the Kowanyama Land and Natural Resource Management Office (KLNRMO) in 1998 and between 2003 and 2007.
The collection was used by the Kowanyama community for landuse planning, as a base for environmental monitoring and reporting, and to support cultural heritage management programs.
Information on other places that are culturally and historically significant to Kowanyama people, but which do not have pastoral industry or infrastructure roles, is not included. These other 'traditional' places were mapped at various times between the early 1930s and early 2000s, and have been used to to support the Native title determination by the High Court of Australia in favour of the Kowanyama people in 2009 (PBC 2024).
Other locally sourced information included in this collection are wet and dry season seasonality patterns which are significant to a variety of land use and lifestyle preferences, and to access to the landscape by local people. Also, a map of the main landscape types with names, that are widely used by people in the Gulf country, attached to them to complement the different nomenclatures that are sometimes used by local language groups.
The collection is used to illustrate two themes. First, the contemporary use of pastoral infrastructure for Aboriginal homeland settlements. Then, how the geography of pastoral placenames is an important medium for communicating information about the landscape and its local ownership between different language or homeland groups; and, to external agencies with interests in Aboriginal land management in the region.