Lives and Livelihoods
Twin Hills helping Wagait custodians keep the family dream alive
The Daiyi & Deveraux Family
Finnis River cousins Calvin Deveraux and Gary Deveraux Jnr are bright young men educated in both the bush and in city boarding schools - but they’ll choose hunting, fishing and working on their family’s country any day in preference to partying in town. They belong to the Daiyi family, traditional owners of Twin Hills Station in the Finnis River area.
Calvin left school at 15 to work on the land and by shadowing his Dad Col Deveraux, Uncles Gary, Richard, Les and others, has learnt from the ground up how to run the family cattle property. Gary Jnr is a tertiary student in Conservation and Land Management, a course that will give him excellent skills to also care for his family’s land.
The Daiyi family belongs to the MakMak – or White Eagle – clan and there is one of powerful links to the land, self-determination, a bitter but triumphant land rights struggle, and high achievements in both traditional and western ways. Family members include Kathy (Deveraux), Margy (Daiyi), Richard (Daiyi) and Linda (Ford), all born to a white pastoralist father Max Sargent in their mother’s clan country. They all lead cross-cultural lives and have raised 13 high-achieving children to do the same.
Kathy divides her time between country and employment at Batchelor Institute. Full-time landcarer Margy has dedicated her life to protecting her homeland resources. Richard is a school-based Aboriginal Resource Officer, while Linda, a Charles Darwin University lecturer, is about to graduate with a PhD in Education.
Early European pastoral development and other events caused the MakMak to lose their traditional country but, in 1996, in a momentous court decision following 20 years of bitter struggle between four clans competing for the Wagait country, much of that land was returned to the Daiyi family.
The hand-back of the 420 sq km Twin Hills Station proved the catalyst for a successful family pastoral venture that is now a regional leader in terms of weed and feral pest control and other sustainable land management practices.
The station was severely infested with impenetrable Mimosa pigra weed when they first got it back, and mostly useless for grazing – but sheer hard work and determination has seen a remarkable transformation.
Kathy Deveraux said the land management breakthroughs achieved at Twin Hills have made the station a model for other Territory pastoral holdings.
“We’ve worked extremely hard to control weeds like Mimosa and feral animals like pigs, brumbies, unmusterable scrub cattle, wild cats and now cane toads,” Kathy said. “We’ve been experimenting with different bugs and insects, dung beetles and things to see what works best on cane toads.”
Like other family members, Calvin Deveraux is staunchly committed to Twin Hills and the future it holds for its people.
“When our family moved back onto the station in 1996, we could only bring in 6000 head of cattle because that was all we could fit in light of the dense Mimosa infestation,” Calvin said.
“Now we are running 11,000 head, which are being agisted for pastoral enterprises all over Australia. These cattle go into the live export trade. In the beginning, we had no proper ramps or holding yards. The facilities are completely different now and we are well and truly in business as a registered cattle station. The income all goes back into paying for expensive landcare measures, like light plane and helicopter spraying of Mimosa. Our goal is to eventually ease out agistment and run our own herd.”
“For our family, Twin Hills is about being on our own land where we can follow our traditional ways. It allows us to be self-sufficient through our cattle enterprise. We will do everything we can to protect this land because it is our future, our children’s future and that of generations to come. It’s our anchor. It keeps us in one place and keeps us who we are.”
Source: Kerry Sharp
