Tyler, Colin and Nakia, Rangers

My name is Tyler. I'm a proud Darumbal woman and this is where I get to work and the beautiful Keppels, as well as up to Shoalwater Bay and also out to the Cap Cays. Yeah, well, it's an amazing opportunity to be able to live on country and also get paid to look after it.

Yeah you get to learn a lot from, yeah, everyone in the office, a lot of them have a lot of marine experience and been working here for like 20 plus years or more in some cases.

And they've seen all the changes, and they've also heard stories from like my ancestors and relatives, which I haven't heard yet, so it's also them passing on that knowledge back to me.

My names Colin, the people locally around here know me as Lumpy.

I'm a proud, Darumbal man, I've been brought up on this country, love working on here.

Every day is a new adventure. We do a lot of compliance and conservation and facilitation of the national parks around here.

People ask me, do you enjoy your job and I always tell everyone I got a big office and see new places every day getting paid the bonus really getting work on countries more the reason why you with this job it’s a lot of land and sea to look after.

I'm Nakia proud Woppaburra man and here today we're on Woppaburra country here on Humpy Island.

Yeah, so some of the roles are anything from asset management with NRM on islands.

We could be fighting a fire one day and then in a dive suit in the next.

There's many certificates from chainsaw onto oil spills and ACDC's and and and many of the likes. So it's really a wide range of skill sets that Rangers have for us to, you know, take care of country.

It's just a really humbling feeling that to, you know, this is now my office and now that I get to lead, lead the way for other indigenous people and then Woppaburra people, especially to, you know, really come back to country and to care for the country.

I remember coming in for the first day, it was kind of like a welcoming, I suppose I had four dolphins come to greeting as we're coming over to Konomie Island.

So I thought that was pretty special. And, and Cookie, the skipper there, he says, you know, it's generally not something that happens very often.

So, yeah, I think that there's something special to the whole occasion of come over and for a new beginning.

Yeah, I really love it coming in to work, you know, everyone's here with the same mission. They're all with their heart in the right place. And it's everyone's here to care for country.