We are Marra people. We are common law landowners for the Limmen Bight Region in the Northern Territory.
There are many places that are especially important to us.
There are sacred sites as well as places where we collect and hunt bush foods and medicines, camp and spend time.
We have custodial responsibilities to look after all our cultural places, particularly our sacred sites.
Custodians sing at cultural places to let ancestors know that they are visiting, asking for permission to enter, as is the way of customary law.
Learn more:
This plan is for all Marra Country. It is our custodial responsibility to care for all of our country.
We have been wanting to develop our Marranbala Land and Sea Country Plan for a long time. For many years we wanted to tell our story about our custodial responsibilities to look after country. We saw many of our neighbours make their own plans, start their own ranger groups, carry out healthy country work, and form partnerships with other organisations who are helping them meet their land and sea management aspirations.
Budal
Budal
Budal
Mambali
Mambali
Mambali
Murrungun
Murrungun
Murrungun
Our Governance & Reporting section provides insight into how we operate with transparency and accountability.
Learn more about Our Board and access key Publications that guide and reflect our work.
Our Governance & Reporting section provides insight into how we operate with transparency and accountability.
Learn more about Our Board and access key Publications that guide and reflect our work.
Our team brings together local knowledge, practical experience, and a shared commitment to working collaboratively with the people of the region.
We come from diverse backgrounds but are united by a respect for country, its interconnection with people, culture and nature, and the modern aspirations of the Marra.
CEO
Land Manager
Admin Support
Women Ranger
Ranger Mentor
Grounds Keeper
Our organisation is grounded in Indigenous-led and visioned initiatives, which guide our direction and ensure cultural knowledge, values, and aspirations remain central.
Along this journey, many partners have contributed their knowledge, skills, and commitment to our projects. Each collaboration—whether with community groups, cultural leaders, service providers, or regional stakeholders—has added depth and strength to our work.
Together, these partnerships have built a foundation of respect, innovation, and collective effort, enabling us to create projects that reflect both local priorities and shared hopes for the future.
Want to make a difference on the land and in community?
Check what roles we’re hiring for:
Marra People, Marranbala, identify as saltwater people as the sea and the rivers that flow into it provide a point of interactive connection that results in a true spirit of place and profound sense of being.
In functional terms this is a social environmental connection and may be read as a metaphor for a rich practical ecological knowledge, but for Marra it means much more as it is a conceptual anchor point for Marra social organisation a unique cultural identity.
Non Marra people may separate Country to names like geography, landscape, sea scape or a spirit scape, to Marra they’re all related and people, Country and ancestral beings including plants and animals are all emotionally connected.
All these places and Country aren’t separate but rather they are points on Country that the dreaming and ancestral beings are known to still reside and it is to these places that Mara social memory can be anchored.
The place names and dreaming paths and song lines that can be seen as forms of dissent lines that are part of a system that seeks to include all people and nonhuman entities within a kin centric order that creates the political understanding of the traditional ownership of Minirringi, Jungkayi and Darlyin.
The land parts of our country stretch from the Gulf of Carpentaria between the Roper River in the north to Rosie Creek in the south, and inland to the headwaters of the Cox and Towns rivers.
Our sea country includes Kurrulinya (Maria Island) and Yumunguni (Beatrice Island) and their reefs, and extends offshore with our songlines. Our neighbours are the Warndarrang, Yanyuwa, Alawa and Gudanji peoples. We share responsibility for old Ngalakan Country and Wilangarra Country with our neighbours.
The land parts include rivers, tidal flats, creeks and other freshwater places, plateaus, rocky areas and gorges, and low hills and plains. The vegetation includes forests on the banks of the freshwater places and in the gorges, savanna woodlands on the low hills and plateaus, and mangroves in the tidal areas.
The sea includes the open sea, currents, islands and reefs. While our country covers both land and sea, we identify as ‘saltwater people’.
We are intrinsically connected to the sea and our cultural identity is shaped by this relationship.
Under Marra culture, all country, people, animals and plants belong to one of three main semi-moieties, or clans:
Each clan area also has Minirringki (owners of country) and Jungkayi (guardians or custodians of country).
Darlyin have certain ceremonial responsibilities including checking Jungkayi are doing the right thing, as well as helping protect country including sacred sites.
Darlyin can be Gagu, who has primary say in these matters or Abuji, who has the next say.
It is important that Minirringki, Jungkayi and Darlyin are involved in decisions about country. They speak for country
Under Marra culture, all country, people, animals and plants belong to one of three main semi-moieties, or clans:
Each clan area also has Minirringki (owners of country) and Jungkayi (guardians or custodians of country).
Darlyin have certain ceremonial responsibilities including checking Jungkayi are doing the right thing, as well as helping protect country including sacred sites.
Darlyin can be Gagu, who has primary say in these matters or Abuji, who has the next say.
It is important that Minirringki, Jungkayi and Darlyin are involved in decisions about country. They speak for country
Marra People, Marranbala, identify as saltwater people as the sea and the rivers that flow into it provide a point of interactive connection that results in a true spirit of place and profound sense of being.
In functional terms this is a social environmental connection and may be read as a metaphor for a rich practical ecological knowledge, but for Marra it means much more as it is a conceptual anchor point for Marra social organisation a unique cultural identity.
Non Marra people may separate Country to names like geography, landscape, sea scape or a spirit scape, to Marra they’re all related and people, Country and ancestral beings including plants and animals are all emotionally connected.
All these places and Country aren’t separate but rather they are points on Country that the dreaming and ancestral beings are known to still reside and it is to these places that Mara social memory can be anchored.
The place names and dreaming paths and song lines that can be seen as forms of dissent lines that are part of a system that seeks to include all people and nonhuman entities within a kin centric order that creates the political understanding of the traditional ownership of Minirringi, Jungkayi and Darlyin.
The land parts of our country stretch from the Gulf of Carpentaria between the Roper River in the north to Rosie Creek in the south, and inland to the headwaters of the Cox and Towns rivers.
Our sea country includes Kurrulinya (Maria Island) and Yumunguni (Beatrice Island) and their reefs, and extends offshore with our songlines. Our neighbours are the Warndarrang, Yanyuwa, Alawa and Gudanji peoples. We share responsibility for old Ngalakan Country and Wilangarra Country with our neighbours.
The land parts include rivers, tidal flats, creeks and other freshwater places, plateaus, rocky areas and gorges, and low hills and plains. The vegetation includes forests on the banks of the freshwater places and in the gorges, savanna woodlands on the low hills and plateaus, and mangroves in the tidal areas.
The sea includes the open sea, currents, islands and reefs. While our country covers both land and sea, we identify as ‘saltwater people’.
We are intrinsically connected to the sea and our cultural identity is shaped by this relationship.
The land parts of our country stretch from the Gulf of Carpentaria between the Roper River in the north to Rosie Creek in the south, and inland to the headwaters of the Cox and Towns rivers.
Our sea country includes Kurrulinya (Maria Island) and Yumunguni (Beatrice Island) and their reefs, and extends offshore with our songlines. Our neighbours are the Warndarrang, Yanyuwa, Alawa and Gudanji peoples. We share responsibility for old Ngalakan Country and Wilangarra Country with our neighbours.
The land parts include rivers, tidal flats, creeks and other freshwater places, plateaus, rocky areas and gorges, and low hills and plains. The vegetation includes forests on the banks of the freshwater places and in the gorges, savanna woodlands on the low hills and plateaus, and mangroves in the tidal areas.
The sea includes the open sea, currents, islands and reefs. While our country covers both land and sea, we identify as ‘saltwater people’.
We are intrinsically connected to the sea and our cultural identity is shaped by this relationship.
Under Marra culture, all country, people, animals and plants belong to one of three main semi-moieties, or clans:
Each clan area also has Minirringki (owners of country) and Jungkayi (guardians or custodians of country).
Darlyin have certain ceremonial responsibilities including checking Jungkayi are doing the right thing, as well as helping protect country including sacred sites.
Darlyin can be Gagu, who has primary say in these matters or Abuji, who has the next say.
It is important that Minirringki, Jungkayi and Darlyin are involved in decisions about country. They speak for country
Marra People, Marranbala, identify as saltwater people as the sea and the rivers that flow into it provide a point of interactive connection that results in a true spirit of place and profound sense of being.
In functional terms this is a social environmental connection and may be read as a metaphor for a rich practical ecological knowledge, but for Marra it means much more as it is a conceptual anchor point for Marra social organisation a unique cultural identity.
Non Marra people may separate Country to names like geography, landscape, sea scape or a spirit scape, to Marra they’re all related and people, Country and ancestral beings including plants and animals are all emotionally connected.
All these places and Country aren’t separate but rather they are points on Country that the dreaming and ancestral beings are known to still reside and it is to these places that Mara social memory can be anchored.
The place names and dreaming paths and song lines that can be seen as forms of dissent lines that are part of a system that seeks to include all people and nonhuman entities within a kin centric order that creates the political understanding of the traditional ownership of Minirringi, Jungkayi and Darlyin.