TRACKS
Stories on Country. Held by Community.
A national storytelling platform celebrating Australia’s Indigenous Protected Areas.
Every Country. Every River. Every Hill. Every place has a story. TRACKS is a storytelling platform developed by BushTV to celebrate the people, Country and communities caring for Australia’s Indigenous Protected Areas.
What is an Indigenous Protected Area?
Indigenous Protected Areas are one of Australia’s greatest conservation success stories, yet many Australians have never heard of them. This feature explores how the IPA movement began, what makes an Indigenous Protected Area unique, and how Traditional Owners continue to care for Country through one of the world’s largest Indigenous-led conservation networks.
Explore the interactive map below to discover Indigenous Protected Areas across Australia. This demonstration map currently displays all declared IPAs and marks the beginning of a growing national storytelling platform. Over time, each location will become a living profile featuring Indigenous stories, photographs, films, interviews, community news and links to local organisations. Find Borroloola (Yanyuwa) to see how the stories sit on the map.
Follow the journey as TRACKS grows into a national collection of stories celebrating Indigenous-led conservation, culture and caring for Country.
About Indigenous Protected Areas
Indigenous Protected Areas (IPAs) form one of the world’s largest Indigenous-led conservation networks, protecting millions of hectares of land and sea while supporting culture, biodiversity and caring for Country.
To learn more about the Australian Government’s Indigenous Protected Areas Program, visit the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water website.
Then explore our growing collection of BushTV films showcasing Traditional Owners and communities caring for Country. Click below to watch Right Way Fire filmed in Northern Australia during the cool burning period.
Aunty Judy is the founder and Patron of We Al-li and the author of Trauma Trails: Recreating Song Lines, a book that has been particularly important to me. Judy's work asks us to understand trauma not as something that begins with one person or one
There are some films that stay with you long after they are made. Song Medicine is one of those films for me, perhaps because the journey that led to it was personal long before I picked up a camera.
When people are able to tell their own stories, in their own voices, about the things that matter to them, they're not simply being represented in someone else's communications. They're part of shaping the conversation themselves.
Across the northern coast of Australia, turtles have travelled the same ocean highways for thousands of years. Long before maps, marine parks or conservation plans, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples understood these migrations, cared for nesting beaches and developed cultural laws that ensured turtles
As the clouds gather and the first storms announce the arrival of Onyjon, the wet season, the Country begins to change. Waterholes fill, the forests come alive and the bark of the Ug athar, the messmate tree, begins to loosen. For generations, these were the
For tens of thousands of years, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have cared for Country through knowledge, responsibility and deep cultural connection. Today, that ancient tradition continues through Indigenous Protected Areas (IPAs), one of Australia's most remarkable conservation partnerships. Spanning more than 100 million hectares
The book, Geigi, the Stubborn Boy, is a retelling of a traditional Meriam story from Mer in the eastern Torres Strait. Michael wrote the story, Elliot created the illustrations, and together they have produced something that is both deeply personal and deeply cultural. Their hope
There are places in Australia where family and domestic violence is not simply a statistic. It is woven into everyday life, affecting mothers, children, grandparents and entire communities. The violence itself is devastating, but it rarely exists in isolation. It is often intertwined with poverty,
Mclean should have been sitting beside his brothers and sisters. Instead, his photograph watches over the wedding ceremony. Today, his parents are finally marrying after twenty-seven years together. Only weeks earlier, Mclean died by suicide. Yet here stands Tony beside Lynice, choosing love
Over the past 20 years, I've been fortunate to meet some extraordinary people through BushTV. Some are loud, charismatic leaders. Others rarely seek attention at all. Uncle Viv was one of the latter.