This map (above) shows the location of some of the farms along Backbeach Road. This map was attached to a submission formally lodged with Queensland Parliament's Agriculture, Resource, and Environment Committee on the 10 October 2012 advising:
- there are local families in the Yarrabah Shire who, 30 years ago, were allocated farms within the Yarrabah Reserve (now Yarrabah Aboriginal Shire)
- there are local families who grew and produced fruit and vegetables including watermelons, pumpkins, bananas, sweet potatoes, corn and more from their allocated farms
- these are local families who grew and sold farm produce from community stalls, the community store, and to other Aboriginal communities throughout Queensland (through the Department of Aboriginal and Islander Affairs preferred COD distributors)
The principal purpose of the submission was to ask that the Farms be appropriately zoned as commercial freehold farm lands, particularly where the statutory land use planning process for Yarrabah was about to begin:
"1. This is the first time Town Planning will be implemented into Yarrabah and all the Residents will need to be involved, not just the traditional owners, block holders and those that may have been involved through the TO’S negotiating team
2. Tenures and activities will change and in some cases a “Cultural Shock” will occur to those that need to comply with the relevant legislation"
A subsequent review of State mapping identifying Queensland's most arable lands (being lands the State expects to be protected and used as arable agricultural land) confirms that the above Farms and a significant proportion of the Yarrabah Aboriginal Shire as a whole is in fact prime Class A & Class B agricultural lands (marked as in emerald blue in the State's own mapping below)
Last week one Aboriginal resident and landowner speaking to the specialist planners (RPS planners) contracted by the State to produce the draft Yarrabah Aboriginal Shire Planning scheme .. he asked those planners how it is that prime agricultural lands originally designated in 2011 by Indigenous Land Use Agreement (ILUA) to be zoned rural, should now be suddenly and surprisingly zoned 'environmental management' and 'conservation'
Last week, at Yarrabah's rural training centre, the specialist planners were asked how it was that formally agreed rural zoning could be overturned, to which end the specialist planners (RPS) advised this resident and landowner that when they were drafting the new Yarrabah Aboriginal Shire Planning Scheme and looking into the rural zoning contained in previous planning, they found themselves being effectively 'instructed' and 'required' by the State Department of Environment and Resource Management to zone the most of the arable, agricultural (rural) lands as 'environmental management' and 'conservation'
(ie it was not a matter in which they had a choice, and it is unlikely to be a matter for which the Yarrabah Aboriginal Shire Councillors will have a choice when they come to approve and adopt the planning scheme regulating the future land use of their Shire)
See the extent the required environmental management and conservation zoning shown in the two varieties of green in the proposed zone mapping for Yarrabah Aboriginal Shire, below