Maralinga Tjarutja

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Maralinga Tjarutja
(Aboriginal Community)
Australia-Map-SA-AC-MaralingaTjarutja.png
Location of Maralinga Tjarutja in South Australia
structure
State : Australia Australia
State : Flag of South Australia.svg South Australia
Administrative headquarters: Oak Valley
Dates and numbers
Area : 102,703.9  km²
Residents : 59 (2016)
Population density : 0.0006 inhabitants per km²

Coordinates: 26 ° 29 '  S , 132 ° 0'  O Maralinga Tjarutja (MT) is a local government area (LGA) in the Australian state of South Australia and carries the special Aboriginal a community. The area is 102,704 km² and has 59 inhabitants.

location

Maralinga Tjarutja is also the name of the tribe of indigenous people who live in this area and manage the community. Your country lies on the western border of South Australia in the outback between the Trans-Australian Railway in the south and Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara , another Aboriginal community, in the north. The only Aboriginal settlement is Oak Valley 29 ° 26 ′  S , 130 ° 44 ′  E in the center of the LGA, about 390 km west of Coober Pedy and 960 km as the crow flies northwest of Adelaide . Maralinga in the southeast and Emu on Beadell Highway in the northeast of the area are two former bases for British atomic bomb tests in the 1950s and are restricted military areas under state control.

The right-angled strip of the Mamungari Conservation Park with an area of ​​21,357.85 km² lies along the northwest and western borders of the LGA . The park is a UNESCO - Biosphere Reserve , which from the Maralinga Tjarutja, the Pila Nguru is co-managed ( "Spinifex People") and a state's Department and its surface is in the area of the LGA. In the east, the Tallaringa Conservation Park connects to the LGA.

history

In the 1950s, the area west of Coober Pedy in the southern Great Victoria Desert and the Nullarbor Desert in the Woomera prohibited area was used for nuclear weapons tests by the British and Australian military. Nine large tests and hundreds of smaller experiments were carried out between 1953 and 1963, which significantly radioactively contaminated the areas around Emu and Maralinga . The Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara Aboriginal people living in the area continued to roam the area at the time. It was not until four years after the end of the tests, in 1967, that the contaminated systems were disposed of and the earth was dug up. It was not until the early 1980s that Aborigines and army workers showed signs of consequential health damage that the area was examined again and the contaminated layers of earth were finally completely removed between 1996 and 2000 over an area of ​​several thousand square meters.

As early as the 1960s, a movement had started giving the Australian natives more rights and ultimately rights to their own land, the Native Title . But it was not until the late 1970s that the Pitjantjatjaras north of Maralinga reached concrete commitments, which were implemented in 1981 in the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Land Rights Act with the establishment of a separate administrative area. In 1984 the Maralinga Tjarutja Land Rights Act came into force, which also secured self-government for the approximately 100 remaining Aborigines further south, the Yalata and Maralinga. In 1994 it finally became one of five Local Government Areas with special status under the South Australian Local Government Grants Act .

Oak Valley

A year after the Maralinga Tjarutja Lands were established, Oak Valley was established in the middle of the area as the center of the community. Today it is the only settlement in the LGA and there is a school, an infirmary, an elderly care facility, a shop and a solar power station next to the administrative headquarters. Oak Valley is largely isolated in the outback, far from the Trans-Australian Railway to the south and the Anne Beadell Highway , a dirt road that connects Coober Pedy with Laverton . The nearest settlement is the approximately 140 km south lying place Cook on the railway line.

administration

According to the Maralinga Tjarutja Land Rights Act, the area is represented by a council made up of "leaders of traditional landowners". The composition changed over time and in 2005 it consisted of eight people, two representatives of the Tjuntjuntjara who come from the area of ​​the Mamungari Conservation Park and areas to the west of it, two representatives from the area around Coober Pedy, two representatives from the area around Indulkana belonging to Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara and two representatives from Oak Valley.

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Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Australian Bureau of Statistics : Maralinga Tjarutja (AC) ( English ) In: 2016 Census QuickStats . June 27, 2017. Retrieved May 16, 2020.

Web links