KATHERINE VISITOR INFORMATION CENTRE. Not far from Ranger and Jabiru, on the banks of Magela creek, families fish and hunt like they've been doing for generations. "We're understaffed here and that's what we really need, we need more staffing," he said. They don't listen to our suggestions. JUSTIN O’BRIEN: It's ironic that on that day of all days, when we'd been meeting with the prime minister, the very next day a warrant is served here, that a period of 12 months goes by, no specific allegation is made. FOOTBALL MATCH MC: Okay it’s the second quarter, Jabiru bombers. “Kakadu National Park will be open for day use only, between 8 am and 5 pm. PAUL ARNOLD, CEO, ENERGY RESOURCES AUSTRALIA: The payment that we make under the deed, uh, has been provided to, uh, the Commonwealth Government to support the research activities of the supervising scientists since 1994. The shoreline will be fringed with five-star accommodation, eco-lodges, glamping, and maybe even a sandy beach for swimming. Most of us have got the dates. MANDY MUIR, SENIOR CULTURAL TOUR GUIDE: Yeah it’s, some people see it you know similar to scenes in Africa. ADAM HARVEY, REPORTER: When we arrive in Kakadu, the wet season is still weeks away, but we find many of the park’s most popular places are shut. We were told by ORIC, the regulator, which did the investigation, to continue with business as usual. They signed the same agreements on the same day, on the 3rd of November 1978. ADAM HARVEY, REPORTER:  The wet season finally arrives in Kakadu in a fittingly spectacular style. The Jim Jim Falls and creek in Kakadu National Park. So a few months and we’ll pack up and head to Darwin and make a new start there. ADAM HARVEY, REPORTER: Peter Christophersen is a land manager who has been living and working in Kakadu for 35 years. So Jabiru was not made Aboriginal land. Visitors haven’t been able to get to the spectacular Twin Falls for more than two years because the road is impassable. Breaking News Stories and Latest NT News Headlines from Darwin Northern Territory and Australia including Latest Sports News and Business News, Entertainment and Local Darwin News at NT News With its empty shops and ageing facilities, Jabiru is rundown and dated. The ancient land is awash with colour and life. It's on the UNESCO World Heritage list for both its spectacular environment and its cultural importance. "But part of it was the uncertainty and the irregularity that would happen for tour operators around access announcements and closures of certain parts of the park.". MARIA LEE, CHAIR, KAKADU BOARD OF MANAGEMENT: Whatever we made a decision on, they would override that decision. The initiatives announced under the Fund are supporting industries including aviation, agriculture, fisheries, tourism and the arts. But international visitors have for years been abandoning the park. That has the endorsement of the supervising scientists and other, uh, stakeholders and supported by our own scientific analysis. Because people are being left out. They are protected but they've always been a food source. ADAM HARVEY, REPORTER: The town of Jabiru was built to service the mine but 40 years on, it’s worn out. It can also be seen on ABC NEWS channel on Saturday at 8.10pm AEST, ABC iview and at abc.net.au/4corners. Just in raw sales alone over the last five years, the mine's generated over a billion dollars. It was created in 1979 as part of a highly controversial deal to allow uranium mining in the region. PAUL ARNOLD, CEO, ENERGY RESOURCES AUSTRALIA: We're now embarking upon a project, um, that is significant, but is about legacy. Amid these tensions, there are huge changes coming to Kakadu. ADAM HARVEY, REPORTER: In their letter to the Kakadu Board, the rangers accused Parks Australia of ignoring the traditional owners. ADAM HARVEY, REPORTER: The Aboriginal Areas Protection Authority is now prosecuting Parks Australia in court for illegal works on a sacred site. Kakadu — billed as a jewel in Australia's tourism crown — is falling into disrepair, and traditional owners say the federal body that runs the park is to blame. The federal government has promised to spend $276 million over 10 years for upgrades across Kakadu, including remediation work in the town of Jabiru. IAN VINER, THEN ABORIGINAL AFFAIRS MINISTER: The question now isn't whether there is going to be mining, but how it’s going to be carried out. Maningrida in youth crime crisis. That's where the management is doing their own, making their own decisions without talking to traditional owners and basically sitting around the table like we're supposed to do as a joint managed park and talking about it, but it's not happening at all. Livestream1 ... Younique You-ology brightening mask - It has niacinamide (vitamin B3) and Kakadu plum (vitamin C) both of which have strong anti-inflammatory properties that can help calm and prevent inflammatory acne bumps from surfacing. ADAM HARVEY, REPORTER: You certainly get the sense that there's a lot of unhappiness within Kakadu at the way the place is being run. ADAM HARVEY, REPORTER: Jonathan Nadji is a traditional owner, a member of the Board that oversees Kakadu, a former Parks ranger, and the son of a local legend – ‘Big’ Bill Nadji – who was instrumental in the formation of the park. It says Kakadu is deteriorating and under “very high threat” from feral animals, weeds and “high threat” from fires. Its CEO is Justin O’Brien. So our knowledge comes from our family, which is specific to this area. JUSTIN O’BRIEN, CEO, GUNDJEIHMI ABORIGINAL CORPORATION: On the 11th of September 2019, a warrant was served. JONATHAN NADJI, TRADITIONAL OWNER & KAKADU BOARD MEMBER: This place is called Mabil. We go fishing nearby and walking there. ... 'Hasn't peaked yet': Worst still to come in India's Covid crisis. A lot more effort needs to be put into the health of our people, the education of our people, employment of our people…Tourism is not the be all and end all.”  Senior community member. ADAM HARVEY, REPORTER: Four Corners has obtained a confidential briefing note from a senior bureaucrat sent by Environment Minister Sussan Ley to investigate the tensions in Kakadu. So it's an extraordinary use of power and one that they would not use. "We're waiting, the table's set up already, waiting for the people to sit in it. ADAM HARVEY, REPORTER: Bobby Nunggumajbarr is the influential head of the Aboriginal Areas Protection Authority, that safeguards sacred sites in the Northern Territory. JONATHAN NADJI, TRADITIONAL OWNER & KAKADU BOARD MEMBER: It's about time we started making an impact by shutting down the park. But what will happen is Kakadu will become a national park, World Heritage, jointly managed with the Commonwealth government, and you will have uranium mines. We're understaffed here and that's what we really need, we need more staffing. JUSTIN O’BRIEN, CEO, GUNDJEIHMI ABORIGINAL CORPORATION: The world is watching Rio Tinto, particularly since the Pilbara. "If we continue to alter landscapes and not manage it, we may find ourselves with a weed-infested and pest-ridden park," he said. “Under your directorship”, he said, “it has reached an all-time low”. When the rains end, tourism operators are hoping visitors from around Australia will flood in. They told the park that they're not allowed to touch that, to put any tracks in that area. It’s one of the major inland tourist destinations here in the Top End. "We've had a gutful. DARWIN, Australia — Kakadu National Park management has asked the Northern Territory government to drop court action over an allegedly illegally disturbed Aboriginal sacred site. Your information is handled in accordance with the ABC Privacy Collection Statement. Crn Lindsay Street & Stuart Highway Katherine NT 0850 . Behind this grand plan is the Gundjeihmi Aboriginal Corporation, which represents the Mirarr traditional owners. PROFESSOR KINGSLEY DIXON, ECOLOGICAL REHABILITATION EXPERT, CURTIN UNIVERSITY: The tidal wave of cane toads, the time bomb weeds that have now peppered much of the park, the feral pigs, the water buffalo, the list goes on and on. Yeah. We're working very closely with the Commonwealth Government. JONATHAN NADJI, TRADITIONAL OWNER & KAKADU BOARD MEMBER: We need more staff. The following month all three left Parks Australia. Local Murrumburr woman and senior cultural tour guide, Mandy Muir, says Kakadu is in crisis. So it will send a signal, strong message, to this whole region that Aboriginal control, Aboriginal access to the economy is alive and real today. And Kakadu’s Indigenous people say the Federal body that runs the park has let them down. The cultural heritage, the arts sites. We need people on the ground, at the grassroots level, dealing, talking with our people.". 3 goals 4, leading the University Rats. Even before this year's wet season closures began, many of the park's most popular attractions were closed. Local Murrumburr woman and senior cultural tour guide, Mandy Muir, says Kakadu is in crisis. New South Wales. Ph (08) 8972 2650 Jonathan Nadji says that so far, little has changed. BOB: They swim, but when they get hungry, they bite people! And in December, the gravity of the threats facing Kakadu were outlined by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, the body that monitors World Heritage sites. Numbers are down. PROFESSOR KINGSLEY DIXON, ECOLOGICAL REHABILITATION EXPERT, CURTIN UNIVERSITY: If we're unable to put back those complete landscapes and the species diversity, including the culturally significant species that the Indigenous communities want to see in those sites, which have been on their landscape for tens of thousands of years, we could find the site an eroding heap of substandard scrub. 12 months on, nothing has happened. ADAM HARVEY, REPORTER: Jonathan Nadji is deeply disillusioned by how Parks Australia is running Kakadu. From the outside, it all looks like it's pretty hunky dory but beneath it all is a, a large dysfunction. Curtin University botanist and land rehabilitation expert Professor Kingsley Dixon says Kakadu's World Heritage status is at risk. And I can't understand why, but that is happening. MAI KATONA, TRADITIONAL OWNER & KAKADU BOARD MEMBER: Well, it's one of anger, it's one of fear. After months of build-up, the wet season has finally arrived in Kakadu. Because, you know, the mine is, we know it's close. Somebody push you know, might have been government or anyone. But you have to see beyond the blinkers. If the locals can work out a way to keep out the crocodiles. LETTER (READ ALOUD): “The fire at East Alligator Ranger Station could have been mitigated had there been Kakadu Park Rangers actually rostered on duty.”. Get a closer look. But the park was the thing that was part of the social contract that was to make it all better. ADAM HARVEY, REPORTER: But beneath the majestic rock outcrops and across its vast floodplains, the park and its people are hurting. No one basically trusts anybody, no one respects each other anymore. The township of Jabiru has to become a normal town and not a mining town. Things have got to change. Welcome to Brockman Oval for this historic match. Sky News host Paul Murray says Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese “thinks he’s flying high” and acts like everything is a calamity in an attempt to take on Prime Minister Scott Morrison. The evening storms wash over Jabiru. PETER CHRISTOPHERSEN: Yeah. That's not what tourism industry broadly, let alone traditional owners expect of their joint management partner in Parks Australia. LETTER (READ ALOUD): “Management’s ‘holier than thou’ attitude and decision not to consult Rangers with Indigenous traditional knowledge and cultural authority, traditional owners and BoM is no longer acceptable.”. This was one of the most popular places in Kakadu. Despite its beauty, there is trouble inside Australia’s biggest national park. That's how bad it is here. ADAM HARVEY, REPORTER: The gravity of the threats facing Kakadu were highlighted in December by the international body that monitors World Heritage sites. In Crisis News. PETER CHRISTOPHERSEN, KAKADU LAND MANAGER: Exactly. MANDY MUIR, SENIOR CULTURAL TOUR GUIDE: Yeah, that’s a big bugger. ADAM HARVEY, REPORTER: The rangers accused Parks Australia of covering up the fire that they say caused over a million dollars in damage to houses and equipment, and attacked Parks over the “appalling history of uncontrolled fires” in Kakadu. As the town contracts from more than 1000 people as mine workers and their families leave, Jabiru must reinvent itself to survive. "It seems like it's being run from far and beyond, meaning Canberra. This service may include material from Agence France-Presse (AFP), APTN, Reuters, AAP, CNN and the BBC World Service which is copyright and cannot be reproduced. "The unhappiness has come to a point that if we don't sit at the table very soon, things will be taken into our own hands," she said. The only way we can show some strength is to close something at the peak of the tourist season," he said. Quiet with visitors. 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