Yunyarinyi CDEP

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There are many CDEP (Community Development Employment Program) projects going on within the Yunyarinyi community:

• CDEP Pastoral workers team
• Camel Tourism Project
• Community Garden

CDEP Pastoral workers team

The CDEP Pastoral team's work involves fixing bores, laying pipes, fencing and generally carrying out maintenance work on the pastoral project. Jon Gilbey works as headman for the CDEP Pastoral work team, which looks after the station and the cattle and camel projects. There are four hundred private cattle and a few thousand agistment cattle currently run on the land at Kenmore Park Station.

Part of the job also is mustering camels and cattle. The community regularly musters agisted cattle and carries out opportunistic harvesting of wild camels for export. The wild camels are sent for sale through the Central Australian Cattle Industry Association.

There have been shipments of camels to Iraq and Afganistan and many also end up as halal meat in the Malaysian market. One reason camels are mustered is to keep their numbers down and to prevent them from impacting on waterholes and fences. For similar reasons, feral horses and donkeys are also mustered, which are sold for pet meat.

At mustering time, all the fellas in the community get involved in rounding up the cattle, camels, horses and donkeys (which are mustered at different times). There are many jobs to be done, from yarding with the Toyota, to classing of the horses and deciding which ones to keep.

Fellas from the CDEP Pastoral team attach the 'ripper' to the tractor. It will be used to dig a trench about half a kilometre long to lay poly pipe underground at one of the bores. The water is pumped into a rainwater tank to feed the cattle and camel trough. The pipe will be laid underground so that the cattle won't destroy the pipe and also to keep the water cool for the cattle.

Camel Tourism Project

The new Yunyarinyi camel tourism project is an extension of the feral animal eradication program which has been capturing wild camels, horses and donkeys in the country surrounding the community. The process of domestication will involve building a holding paddock (using yards, fences and people) and creating a coaching herd, which is a quiet herd which calms down wild camels who come in recently caught. Some of the camels that are caught will be sold to market (at around $400 per head at the port in Darwin) and others will be used for the camel tourism project.

The tourism plan is to host winter-time treks through the country around Yunyarinyi, to beautiful places such as Womikata and Sentinel Hill. The tours will be lead by experienced camel handlers and local Anangu storytellers. Tourists will experience a unique cultural and land and camel based experience.

The project is being run by the co-ordinator Ric Hall and it is currently seeking extra funding for training of community members in camel handling procedures. If you would like to find out more about the Yunyarinyi Camel Tours you can contact Ric or Donald at the Yunyarinyi Community Office on 8956 7614.

Community Garden

The Kenmore Park Community Garden was started by Kaz and Paul. They grow all veggies there including broccoli, carrots, pumpkin, strawberries, spinach, corn, watermelon and red and green capsicum. Everyone from the community has access to the fresh veggies. Sometimes the veggies are used in the school lunches at Zanee's Kitchen. The garden slowly dies off in winter time and is planted again with new seeds every spring. Anyone on CDEP can participate and help with the veggie garden.