Darkinjung Country: The Aboriginal Heritage of the Central Coast

The Central Coast region is the Country of the Darkinjung people, one of the Aboriginal language groups of coastal NSW whose territories encompassed the coast, the lakes, and the forested hinterland that now comprises the Central Coast local government area. The Darkinjung, whose connection to this Country is documented in the archaeological record extending back thousands of years and in the living cultural practices and oral traditions that the contemporary community maintains, have engaged with the colonial and post-colonial periods in ways that have preserved significant elements of their cultural heritage while adapting to the social and legal environment that European settlement created.

The Darkinjung Local Aboriginal Land Council, the statutory body that manages Aboriginal land interests and economic development for the Darkinjung community under the NSW Aboriginal Land Rights Act, has been a significant actor in the Central Coast's economic and planning landscape, holding land that has been used for community housing and that represents the asset base for the economic development that the community requires. The land council's engagement with the development opportunities on its lands has generated both community benefit and public discussion about the appropriate scale and character of development on land returned through the land rights process.

The archaeological record of Darkinjung Country, including the sandstone rock engraving sites that are found throughout the region and that represent one of the densest concentrations of Aboriginal rock art in southeast Australia, provides the tangible heritage that connects the contemporary community to the deep history of human occupation of the Central Coast. The sites' management, balancing the accessibility that public education requires with the protection from erosion and vandalism that irreplaceable heritage demands, is the ongoing challenge of heritage management on the coast.

The Darkinjung Budyari Muribung initiative, the community's economic development program that has used the land council's landholdings for commercial development including the Darkinjung Nursery and the Ourimbah Homestead events venue, provides the model for Aboriginal economic development that generates community income while maintaining the community's connection to Country through the enterprises that operate on it.

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