Caring for Country
Parks and reserves in the ACT are located on Ngunnawal Country, an ancient and diverse landscape managed and cared for by Ngunnawal people for tens of thousands of years. For time immemorial Ngunnawal people have maintained a tangible and intangible cultural, social, environmental, spiritual, and economic connection to these lands and waters.
Daramulan created Ngunnawal Country giving Ngunnawal people their spirituality, culture, lore and law, customs and traditions. We walk as one with one foot in the past and one foot in the present. Maliyan flew across Ngunnawal Country spreading her wings and laying her eggs which are the large rock formations across Country. As Maliyan flew she created the mountains, the waterways, the trees, the animals, the fish, the valleys, the pathways and songlines.
Songlines are the Ngunnawal memory code that gives us information from the landscape to tell the stories of vital knowledges, cultural values and wisdom. The Songlines are a potent form of cultural memory and the passing on of stories to future generations. These songlines connect Ngunnawal people and Country to each other through ceremony, language, song, dance, art and the oral tradition of storylines weaving our history and present with each other and our environment.
The Parks and Conservation Service works with Ngunnawal Traditional Custodians to protect their culture, stories, connection and heritage, and works collaboratively to conserve Country through the restoration of Ngunnawal land management practices in the management of Ngunnawal Country.
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