The community of Mutitjulu in the Northern Territory has welcomed the addition of six Aboriginal rangers, set to oversee an area of land larger than Switzerland.
The new Tjakura rangers, named after the great desert skink, will work on the Katiti Petermann Indigenous Protected Area (IPA) which covers more than five million hectares of land near the junction of Western Australia, South Australia and the NT.
The group will work alongside an existing ranger group based 250 kilometres away in the community of Docker River.
Across the country there are more than 70 IPAs that span 65 million hectares and account for more than 40 per cent of the National Reserve System's total area.
Remote Aboriginal rangers work on these IPAs to control fires, weeds, feral animals and protect threatened species.
Walking on the Katiti Petermann IPA, with Uluru on one side and Kata Tjuta on the other, new ranger David Moneymoon searches for tracks of the great desert skink.
"We're looking around for burrows and looking for baby tracks too. [They look] sort of like blue-tongue lizard tracks," he said.
Mr Moneymoon said he applied for the new jobs because he gets to look after country.
Before this new ranger group came into effect, the area was being looked after by rangers from Docker River, about 250km away.
But now, Benjamin Kenny, co-ordinator of the Docker River Rangers, said his group will look after the western part of the IPA while the new rangers will take care of the east.
Mr Kenny said the group often travelled more than 1000km in one week to cover both ends of the IPA.
"We always get the job done, but it's just the travelling [that makes it difficult]," he said.
"It's hard to just have one vehicle.
New ranger delay
The Central Land Council (CLC) said the group had been in the making for almost a decade, and despite originally being promised by the Federal Government in 2015 it is only now officially up and running.
Peter Donohoe, manager of Land Management at the CLC, said the delay came down to a number of factors.
"We did have some issues with recruitment and sorting out some of the infrastructure requirements here in Mutitjulu, so there was a whole number of factors as to why it took so long in the end.
"But we're here now and hopefully we can move forward with all of that."
Minister for Indigenous Affairs Nigel Scullion had previously blamed the delay on late budget details from the Central Land Council.
In an updated statement to ABC Rural, Mr Scullion's office said it welcomed the new ranger group.
"I look forward to working with the CLC and the newly established Tjakara rangers to ensure the protection of the Katiti Petermann Indigenous Protected Area into the future."
