It was about the time Scott Morrison was moving to save the Liberal backbencher Craig Kelly’s preselection that a bipartisan barbecue began in Parliament House to mark a far less-reported story.

The gathering of Indigenous rangers from some of the most remote places in the country stood in sharp relief to the infighting that unfolded on most news networks from the nation’s parliament.

In a windy eastern courtyard, Liberal, National, Labor, independent and minor party members gathered with rangers for a very Australian celebration of snags and pavlova to celebrate 20 years of Indigenous protected areas (IPAs), which now cover 67m hectares of Australia’s land and sea.

IPAs refer to country owned or managed by Indigenous groups, which serve as protected areas for biodiversity conservation, with funding from the government. IPAs work in conjunction with the Indigenous ranger program, Working on Country. Some of the individual areas are nearly twice the size of Tasmania and the interconnected areas in the middle of continent form the biggest terrestrial protected area in the world.

Indigenous rangers: expansion call as support from One Nation voters revealed Read more

Gathapura Mununggurr is a senior ranger for the Dhimurru IPA, one of the oldest protected areas which covers 550,000 hectares of Yolngu land and sea in north-east Arnhem Land.

Mununggurr says his life has changed since he took on the Dhimurru job, moving into the town of Nhulunbuy from his little community. He is one of 13 rangers, carrying out environmental work, checking travellers’ and shooters’ permits, controlling feral animals and weeds, conducting cool-season burning, protecting the sea from illegal fishers and maintaining contact with community and learning from his elders.

“That’s what I love, living at home, that’s why when people ask me the question, what’s the best [place] in the world you can go, I say my home,” says Mununggurr. “I’m always thinking about home.”

“I feel comfortable, I am enjoying looking after the country and what people need and I go to the outstations, homelands, see different people, hear different language, people come together for ceremony, sing about ceremony. That’s important for me.”

He has seen big changes over his decade in the job as a result of climate change and human consumption.

“The bush has been changing [with climate] because fruit has been fruiting in the wrong season and some of the animals are hatching on different months, the cycle has changed,” he says.

“It makes it different, confused. We always ask older people because they have the local knowledge. If they go with us out in country, they see the nature, it is talking to them and they say it is changing.”

Mununggurr is also concerned at the sharp rise in rubbish washing up on the shores of Arnhem Land and recently he and the rangers cleared the coastline, with the help of the ocean conservation group, Sea Shepherd.

“There is a lot of marine debris coming into our shores, not used be like that. It’s coming from storms, Asian countries, Australians chucking their nets,” he says.

“In four kilometres there were seven tonnes of rubbish – bottles, lighters, nets, thongs.”

Velda Winunguj, a board member of Dhimurru, says the ranger jobs are important not just to provide a career path for young people but for the important cultural, environmental and social values.

“I am proud that we are getting together as one and that we see the IPAs grow big for the community,” Winunguj says.

“The land is our songline, that’s our mother, they brought us into this world – the land, our country – and it’s important for others to know that IPA is important for every Yolgnu. We want IPA and we want to be recognised and respected.”

The IPAs, combined with the Working on Country rangers, now provide 831 full-time equivalent jobs, spread across 2,500 individuals, and there is fierce competition for ranger jobs.

Patrick O’Leary is a senior officer with the Pew Charitable Trusts, a supporting partner of the Country Needs People network, which covers more than 40 Indigenous land and sea management groups.

“Good policy is hard to deliver and when we are on a good thing we need to stick to it,” O’Leary says.

“On current rates of growth, the IPAs could become majority of protected areas in Australia and we need to realise how important this is and that it is led by and supportive of Aboriginal leadership.”

Greens to issue challenge to Labor on Adani mine – politics live Read more

The Canadian government is looking at Australia’s IPA and ranger program as one model as it works through its own process to make agreements on conservation management with its first nations groups.

Mununggurr says if he has one message for the rest of Australia, it is one of cohesion which brings the Yolgnu and balanda (European) people together to understand the concept of caring for country.

“[Australians] should work more closely with rangers around Australia to learn about what they need to help them, to train them and what elders want to see to do the same thing the Yolgnu have seen.

“They must follow and bring Yolgnu and balanda together.”