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# Boodjamulla comes home to the Waanyi
- URL: https://www.earthtoseanews.com/boodjamulla-homecoming/
- Published: 2026-09-22T20:07:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-26T09:59:16.000Z
- Description: Four hours north west of Mount Isa, a national park of emerald gorges and ancient fossils is Aboriginal land again, and the Waanyi rangers who care for it will keep the gate open for everyone.
- Author: Nicole McMahon
- Tags: Conservation, All stories

Boodjamulla, known on the maps as Lawn Hill National Park, is one of those places people drive a very long way to see: sandstone walls rising over green water, pandanus leaning in, turtles and freshwater crocodiles in the gorge, and at Riversleigh a World Heritage fossil field that holds twenty five million years of Australian animals. On 4 September 2026 the Waanyi people held a ceremony on country to mark the moment the last of it came back. More than 247,000 hectares are now Aboriginal land, leased back to the state as national park and jointly managed by Waanyi and Queensland Parks and Wildlife rangers through a board with equal representation and funding set in perpetuity. Waanyi connection to this country runs back more than thirty thousand years, and the campaign to have that recognised has run for decades, including a three week sit in at the park in 1994\. Formal talks began in 2020, and the land came back in stages, the first in 2023 and the last at the start of this year. Hayley Iles, chair of the Waanyi Prescribed Body Corporate, put it in four words: "The land breathes again." And then in a few more: "Our elders fought very long to let everyone know that this is our country. This is our land. This is where we do our practices."

For visitors, very little changes and a great deal is added. About twenty thousand people a year come to walk the gorge tracks, canoe the still water and camp under the stars, and Karrell Ross, executive director of partnerships at the Queensland environment department, says visitors should not expect "huge changes" to access or services. What grows is the knowledge on the ground, with Waanyi rangers and park rangers working side by side, burning, monitoring and welcoming people as one team. Hayley Iles told the ABC that family were travelling from New South Wales and the Northern Territory for the day, and that there was sadness too, for the elders who fought for this and are now gone. That is how a homecoming feels. If Boodjamulla is on your list, and it should be, the campground and the gorge are open as ever, and the people showing you around now do so as owners.

### Sources and links

Our short take: the full story is by Tim Little for ABC News (4 September 2026), with figures from the Queensland Department of the Environment, Tourism, Science and Innovation and the National Indigenous Times (Joseph Guenzler, 9 January 2026). Photograph: Lawn Hill Gorge, Boodjamulla National Park, via Wikimedia Commons under CC BY-SA 3.0.

- [Boodjamulla handed back to Waanyi people, ABC News](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-09-04/boodjamulla-national-park-lawn-hill-gorge-handover/107102104) Tim Little's report from the ceremony, 4 September 2026.
- [Boodjamulla (Lawn Hill) National Park, Queensland Parks](https://parks.qld.gov.au/parks/boodjamulla) How to get there, camping and the gorge walks.
- [Historic Boodjamulla handback, Queensland Government](https://www.detsi.qld.gov.au/our-department/news-media/mediareleases/historic-boodjamulla-lawn-hill-national-park-handback) The department's release.