Mungkan Kandju (Kaanju) National Park — Nature, culture and history
Natural environment
Rokeby Section
In the Rokeby Section of the park, dense rainforest cloaks the slopes of the McIlwraith Range in the east and, in the west, deciduous vine thickets extend along the rivers. These "fingers" of forest are important wildlife corridors. The wide-spreading and multi-channelled Coen River is flanked with deciduous vine thickets and monsoon scrubs while, by contrast, the Archer River has a deep single channel fringed with open stands of paperbarks and dense rainforest. The area between the rivers is covered in open eucalypt woodland interspersed with melaleuca swamps and lagoons fed by the wet season overflow of rivers. Well into the dry season, these swamps are fringed with paperbarks and the red-flowering, freshwater mangrove (Barringtonia acutangula) and produce eye-catching displays of waterlilies.
Archer Bend Section
The Archer Bend Section of the park consists of alluvial river flats and open woodland and savanna. At Archer Bend, in the south-western extremity of the park, the river flat is eight kilometres wide and contains a diversity of vegetation types ranging from tall gallery forests to "thorn scrubs" and eucalypt and melaleuca woodlands.
Animals
Many species of birds live in the park — the rose-crowned fruit-dove, sacred kingfisher and sulphur-crested cockatoo may be seen in the vine thickets and riverine forests. The palm cockatoo, a significant totem animal for many local Aboriginal people, may be seen along watercourses, perched high in the canopy. The Australian bustard, also known as the plains turkey, may be seen searching for food in the cool of the late afternoon.
The permanent lagoons, swamps, waterholes and rivers provide refuge and food for many species of waterbirds including pelicans, Pacific black ducks, radjah shelducks, jabirus, royal spoonbills and sarus cranes. Many species of fish, including the popular barramundi, as well as turtles, crocodiles and frogs also inhabit the waterholes and rivers.
The spotted cuscus (Spilocuscus maculatus), a small possum-like animal, is found in the rainforest margins along watercourses. Antilopine wallaroos (Macropus antilopinus) and small agile wallabies (Macropus agilis) are also present in the park.
Culture and history
Mungkan, Kaanju and Ayapathu Aboriginal peoples have lived in the area for thousands of years. They shared spiritual beliefs about how the landscape was created, and rights and responsibilities for occupying, using and caring for the land and its resources. The landscape is a mosaic of traditional story-places, ceremonial sites and features with Aboriginal names. They hunted and gathered the plentiful resources available to them; rivers and swamps provided roots and waterlilies as well as fish, ducks and waterbirds, while wallabies and small game abounded on the grasslands.
The first Europeans in the area were the explorers. In 1848, members of Edmund Kennedy's ill-fated Cape York expedition almost certainly met Ayapathu people. In late 1864, the Jardine brothers drove cattle through the lower Archer River area, noting its potential for pastoralism, on their way to the tip of Cape York.
Gold rushes on the Palmer River in the 1870s brought tens of thousands of European and Chinese people to the region but it wasn't until 1887, when gold was discovered near present-day Coen, that mining impacted upon the local Aboriginal people.
During the 1880s, the overland telegraph line from Laura to the tip of the Cape York Peninsula was constructed to provide communication between southern centres and remote northern outposts. Along with the discovery of gold, the telegraph brought greater contact between Aboriginal, European and Asian peoples.
Following in the wake of the telegraph line, European settlers began taking up land for cattle grazing. Conflict erupted between the new pastoralists and local Aboriginal people who were forced from their lands and hunting grounds. The Massey brothers leased Rokeby station in 1884. Over the years, a relationship of mutual respect developed between the Rokeby cattlemen and Aboriginal people who were the mainstay of the industry. By the 1930s, a large number of Aboriginal people were associated with the station; stockmen and their families, together with older people, lived in large camps near the homestead and permanent mustering camps. Work on the cattle station allowed Aboriginal people to continue aspects of traditional life on their lands and avoided the impact of a 1890s government policy which would have seen their removal to missions or the "fringe camp" in Coen. The introduction of equal wages for Aboriginal pastoral workers in the 1970s meant that station work disappeared for many Aboriginal people. Today, remains of stockyards, dams, fences and tracks related to a long history of cattle grazing can be seen around the Rokeby homestead area.
Since 1884, parts of the Archer Bend Section of the park have been alternately leased for grazing and then left as vacant Crown land. The lands south of the Archer River were taken up in 1952 as the Archer River Pastoral Holding.
Much of the Archer River Pastoral Holding was reallocated by the Queensland Government in 1977 as the Archer Bend National Park. Rokeby station was purchased by the government in 1981 for national park purposes, to ensure the conservation of the pristine Archer River floodplain. The two areas were amalgamated in 1994 under the names of two of the Aboriginal Traditional Owner groups for this country — Mungkan (on the western side) and Kandju (to the east).