A number of changes occurred in the regional field of governance in the late 1990s. These included changes in the Kaanju people acting as the focal men and women for ‘business’ involving homelands on the upper Wenlock and Pascoe rivers, and a growing set of organisations becoming involved in the governance of these homelands.

In the mid 1990s, the set of men and women primarily involved in Aboriginal decision making for Kaanju homelands on the upper Wenlock and Pascoe rivers changed following the death of S_ and the increasing involvement of M_’s brother R_, who had returned to the central Peninsula in the intervening years (see Fig. 6.2). R_ and his wife V_ had taken up residence at the Wenlock River outstation, and took primary responsibility for the day-to-day running of the camp, which had become the focus of R_’s intention to develop a cattle property on Kaanju land. T_ continued to move between the outstation and Coen, while M_ resided principally in Coen but maintained her position as the principal ‘boss’ for the outstation, in part due to R_’s disinclination towards taking such a role.

The Wenlock River camp had also attracted a number of other people as occasional residents, including the family of A_, a senior Kaanju woman whose principal connections to country lay further upstream. A_’s family had become extremely influential at Lockhart River, where they usually resided, and had also become more involved with the outstation. A number of stolen generation Kaanju people had also begun to express increasing interest in ‘business’ pertaining to Kaanju homelands, although they lived in the settlements to the south of the Peninsula to which their forebears had been removed.

This shifting set of focal individuals was further shaped by the increasing prominence of D_, M_’s nephew, who began to move into a more active role in the late 1990s. Over time, D_ and his wife succeeded to control of the Wenlock outstation, whilst R_ and V_ (D_’s mother) shifted their principal place of residence to Coen. D_ consolidated his focal role at the Wenlock camp following the deaths of T_ and M_ in the early 2000s.

As the new boss of the Wenlock camp, D_ moved to place what he understood to be ‘proper Kaanju governance’ at the heart of homelands’ business. The crux of D_’s attempts to regenerate ‘proper’ Kaanju governance was his establishment of a formal structure—the Chuulangun Aboriginal Corporation (CAC). The corporation was based at the Wenlock River outstation, but purported to represent and to ‘manage’ a wide area of Kaanju land on the upper Wenlock and upper Pascoe rivers.

In part, D_ sought to establish CAC in response to other governance arrangements, which he understood to be inappropriate. The CRAC, for instance, was seen as taking an improper ‘sub-regional approach’ to governance, instead of a form of governance ‘from the inside out’, based on homelands and directed by traditional owners living there. D_ also established the CAC in reaction to an increasing ‘regional’ approach to governance, led by a series of organisations based in Cairns, as well as new governance arrangements based at Lockhart River.

The new Lockhart River arrangements were a source of considerable concern for D_. Despite the ongoing focal role of Kaanju people living between Chuulangun and Coen, the outstation remained situated within lands managed from Lockhart River. The new Lockhart-based Mangkuma Land Trust (hereafter Mangkuma)—established following the ‘handover’ of the former Lockhart DOGIT to traditional owners (who include a number of coastal ‘Sandbeach’ people, as well as both ‘Northern’ and ‘Southern Kaanju’)—now vied with the more localised CAC for the control of the relevant part of the DOGIT. D_’s dissatisfaction with Mangkuma was further intensified by the appointment of a stolen generation man, L_, as its chairperson. L_ asserted a Kaanju identity, and regarded himself as able to ‘speak for’ the country purportedly controlled by CAC. But L_’s understanding—and enactment—of Kaanju law and custom was at odds with D_’s. As a result, the conflict between the two men—and the formal bodies that they controlled—had also become a conflict over the definition of ‘proper’ governance within the Aboriginal domain. This conflict was exacerbated by D_’s parallel conflict with A_ and her family, which also focused on competing interpretations of Kaanju law and custom.

In this way, the conflicts over the appropriate forms of governance for Kaanju homelands involved disputes both over ‘informal’ governance, based in traditional law and custom and the ‘Aboriginal domain’, and competing claims between a series of organisations established at various scales of representation and with different mandates and styles of governance. But rather than being separate issues, these aspects of the field of governance were increasingly interwoven.

More recently, this interweaving of the Aboriginal domain and various local and regional Aboriginal organisations has been further intensified by a series of partnership arrangements between these organisations and a series of NGOs, researchers, and commercial operators. The resulting flow of resources for homelands-based projects has intensified the conflicts between the various factions, organisations and individuals involved. But alongside such conflicts, a series of crosscutting ties and partnerships between these organisations has also emerged. D_, for example, is currently a CRAC Director, despite his vocal criticisms of this corporation, and he has more recently become the Deputy Chairperson of Mangkuma (taking up the role following L_’s resignation as chairperson). He is also engaged with various Cairns-based ‘regional’ organisations, despite simultaneously seeking to lessen their influence on the governance of Kaanju country. More than ever, governance of Kaanju homelands is vested in a complex field of governance that simultaneously allows for conflict and competition, and for shifting partnerships and alliances.