Maria Island, Gulf of Carpentaria
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Maria Island, in the Marra language known as Gurrululinya,[1][2] is located in the Gulf of Carpentaria, and comes under the jurisdiction of the Northern Territory. It is sacred to local indigenous Australian people, an important ecological niche for various species of wildlife, and the object of interest to mining companies. The first Europeans to sight the island were the Dutch, who mapped it as a cape, and its status as an island was only thereafter determined when Matthew Flinders sailed around it in late December 1802.[3]
Maria Island lies 20 miles offshore of the southwestern coast of the Gulf of Carpentaria, in Limmen Bight. It, and the wetlands, and seas in its vicinity, rich in seagrasses are an important nesting and feeding site for three species of turtle, and contains substantial colonies of silver gulls.[4] The interior is stocked with large numbers of the northern brown bandicoot while herds of dugong and dolphin pods frequent its waters.[1] It is also an important feeding and breeding area also for critically endangered curlew sandpipers, great knot, and freshwater sawfish.[5] Three species of turtle,[6] among them the olive ridley and flatback turtle,[5] exploit the sand dunes on the edges of the island to lay their eggs.[1]
Aboriginal traditions
16 sacred sites on the island Maria Island have been registered with the Northern Territory Aboriginal Areas Protection Authority.[6] According to one tradition, it is the resting-place of their Kangaroo Dreaming which lay down there after travelling through the desert. It is also regarded as the site of a poisonous she-oak that may kill certain intruders.[6]
