Jabalbina Yalanji Aboriginal Corporation RNTBC

Registered with the Office of the Registrar of Indigenous Corporations on 19 December 2007.

The Jabalbina Yalanji Aboriginal Corporation is the registered native title body corporate nominated as trustee of the Eastern Kuku Yalanji peoples' native title rights and interests as determined by consent in Walker on behalf of the Eastern Kuku Yalanji People v State of Queensland [2007] FCA 1907 (9 December 2007).

The Jabalbina Yalanji Aboriginal Corporation RNTBC and the Jabalbina Yalanji Land Trust (collectively ‘Jabalbina’) are the registered Cultural Heritage Bodies for the Eastern Kuku Yalanji Bama (people). 

Eastern Kuku Yalanji Bubu (Country) runs along the East Coast of Far North Queensland stretching from Port Douglas to just south of Cooktown. It includes both land and sea. Since the historical handover of the Daintree to the Eastern Kuku Yalanji Bama, Jabalbina has been developing and implementing projects to manage and care for the area.  

Composition

Jabalbina is governed by a Board of six Directors. A male and female Director from each of the three primary clan groups (Jalunji, Nyungkul, and Yalanji) make up the composition of the Board. The Directors also elect a Chairperson and Deputy Chairperson from within the Board.

Jalbalbina’s structure includes a CEO, an administration team, a ranger team, and a native title tenure resolutions team.

Membership to Jabalbina Yalanji Aboriginal Corporation RNTBC is available to Eastern Kuku Yalanji traditional owners who have a traditional connection to Eastern Kuku Yalanji homelands. 

Goals

Jabalbina’s goals are to ensure the landscape is environmentally as well as culturally secure.

To this end, they seek to work closely with the Eastern Kuku Yalanji Traditional Owners Group. In the 'Our Culture' section of Jabalbina's website, they note: '[u]nited as Eastern Kuku Yalanji people we will care for our land, develop our economic and community potential, ensuring our cultural integrity and optimisation of benefits for Kuku Yalanji Traditional Owners.' 

Projects

Jabalbina has three main projects:

• Jabalbina Ranger Service: Rangers who are Eastern Kuku Yalanji traditional owners manage land and sea within the Eastern Kuku Yalanji Indigenous Protected Area.
• Jabalbina Cultural Information System: A cultural knowledge system developed exclusively to assist Eastern Kuku Yalanji traditional owners.
• Fire Management: Rangers who are Eastern Kuku Yalanji traditional owners are restoring traditional burning practices and improving the health of the land.

In 2015, Jim Turnour, then CEO, discussed what Jabalbina was hoping to achieve with their projects stating that '[o]ur organisation has always had a vision to help our people move back on country and also aspirations not only for the organisation to get into economic enterprises but also to support traditional owners get into enterprises' (Port Douglas & Mossman Gazette, 2015). 

Jabalbina also produces regular publications and newsletters that focus on Eastern Kuku Yalanji land dealing and projects by Jabalbina. Their newsletter, the Bamangka Kaban (‘People’s Paper’), is released a few times each year.

Related Entries

References

Glossary