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About  the Trail

South West Queensland is home to substantial Indigenous cultural heritage, Indigenous healing places, undisturbed natural bushlands, lagoos, wildlife and ancient waterways. Many Indigenous groups have been caring for country for hundreds of years, and in the last few decades, recording and preserving sites, stories and heritage, through documentation and the creation of Indigenous literature, art, dance and artifacts. 

 

The Cultural Trail is a collaborative project between SAC and other Indigenous communities in South West Queensland begun in 2012 out of conversations between Angie Walsh and Jenny Waters from St George, to interpret and promote Aboriginal heritage in the region. Other Indigenous stakeholders around South West Queensland were approached by Angie over the next four years and signed up to the project. Funding from the Murray Darling Basin Economic Diversion Fund was sourced in 2015 to engage consultants to help to develop a brochure and website, which enabled communities to build on their local knowledge, celebrate and share Indigenous culture and has produced many health and well-being benefits to both the Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities alike, as part of a wider economic social and cultural initiative. In 2016, the University of Southern Queensland Community Futures team was engaged to assist SAC with the development of this aspect of the Trail project.  

 

Looping from  Dirranbandi to St George and Surat, to Roma, Mitchell and Charleville, then through Cunnamulla back to St George, the trail comprises a number of different cultural heritage sites across seven towns which hold significant meaning to the local Indigenous people. It is a network of Indigenous groups, each with their own amazing sites, stories, healing places and creative energies. SAC is now developing the next stages of the Indigenous Cultural Trail project at the request of additional communities in the region, and developing cultural events such as the Bamba Gii Festival hosted on Mandandanji Country in Roma in September 2021.

A video created by the University of Southern Queensland (USQ) about a special Indigenous woman, whose passion to see her culture shared and preserved, led to the conceptualisation of the Trail, can be found on the USQ website https://www.usq.edu.au/research/cultural-heritage-archaeology/cultural-trail  

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