Great news for the Kimberley today! The vision of the Kimberley protected on land and sea is one step closer with the announcement from the WA Government and Wilinggin Traditional Owners of the creation of the Wilinggin National Park, covering 740,000 hectares of the remote Kimberley.
This new protected area includes rugged and spectacular country, part of the only place on mainland Australia to have no recorded native mammal extinctions. It also houses rock art and cultural sites that are of immeasurable cultural and historical significance.
Importantly, the new National Park will be created in partnership with Wilinggin. It brings parts of the existing Prince Regent and Mitchell River National Parks into joint vesting and joint management. The old King Leopold Ranges Park will also now be more appropriately renamed the Wilinggin Conservation Park. The new parks together will create a 210 kilometre long conservation corridor through the Kimberley.
The parks are also connected to the coast and the Great Kimberley Marine Park by the Dambimangari and Wunumbal Gaambera Indigenous Protected Areas. The State is negotiating with these Traditional Owner groups about increasing the protection of some of these areas to National Park levels. These negotiations will now need to continue in the next term of Government, which is why it’s vital that all sides of politics commit to continuing the work of protecting the Kimberley coast. Please consider sending a message to the Premier and Environment Minister today encouraging them to commit to continuing to protect the Kimberley at the election.
