Let us start by acknowledging the Tasmanian Aboriginal people as the traditional owners of  lutruwita (Tasmania). In particular, I would like to acknowledge the people of the Big River tribe, it is on their land we will walk. They cared for and protected this Country for thousands of years. They knew this land, they lived on it and they died here. It is important to honour them.
It was the White invasion that resulted in the Tasmanian Aboriginal people being dispossessed of their land, culture, language and way of life.
I pay my respects to elders past and present and to the Tasmanian Aboriginal community that continue to care for this Country.

"My ancestors told of the time when Tasmania was created. Two Ancestral Beings walked across the Milky Way to this place now known as the TWWHA (Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area). As they travelled they transformed the land into hills, gullies and bays and used their stone tools to cut out the waterways and create the plants, animals and people. Since that time many thousands of generations of Aboriginal families have maintained and cared for our cultural and spiritual homelands. Our Old People knew every environmental niche and every landmark in Country. They knew the laws that governed life, which were passed on through spoken stories, in song and dance and by way of places made or marked in the landscape ....

Aboriginal people shaped the landscape using ancient firing practices, passed on since the first ancestors walked across the Milky Way. Thus the TWWHA is of global significance for all humanity. It holds the secrets of dynamic, culturally diverse and spiritually rich peoples whose cultural and spiritual footprints can be found deep inside limestone caves or visible as ancient pathways, hunting corridors, stone quarries, ceremonial places and in the many coastal and inland campsites."

Aunty Patsy Cameron
Tasmanian Aboriginal Elder - Quote from the TWWHA managment plan

Learn more about the Aboriginal People of lutruwita http://www.tacinc.com.au