Yued AC seeks heritage protection for Lake Ninan
Yued Nyoongar survey team members
Left to right: Graham Ryder, Clayton Mogridge and Norman Anderson
Media statement
Yued Aboriginal Corporation has today collaborated with Archae-Aus to seek Aboriginal Heritage protection for the place widely known as Lake Ninan in the Shire of Wongan-Ballidu. An application for registration of a site for protection under the Aboriginal Heritage Act 1972 has been lodged with the Department of Planning, Lands and Heritage.
Lake Ninan is a place of Yued Nyoongar cultural significance with evidence of habitation dating to the end of the last Ice Age.
Yued Aboriginal Corporation commissioned research by Archae-Aus in 2025 to ascertain the cultural value of Lake Ninan. Protecting Yued Nyoongar cultural heritage is a core function of the corporation, with is a Noongar Regional Corporation under the terms of the South West Native Title Settlement between Noongar people and the State of Western Australia.
An expert survey team comprising of Yued Nyoongar knowledge holders, archaeologists and anthropologists found stone artefacts across the area, adding to four scatters previously recorded in 2022. These surface finds are the visible expression of much larger buried deposits, likely amounting in the tens of thousands.
Dating at a nearby site shows Yued Nyoongar people were living around these lake systems by at least the mid-Holocene (5,000 years ago), with the deepest artefacts from sediments older than about 14,100 years.
This is the oldest dated archaeological evidence in the inland Wheatbelt area of Yued Boodja.
The evidence reveals an unbroken thread of cultural connection to this landscape, of ancestral occupation over thousands of years including corroborees near the lake within living memory of Yued Nyoongar Traditional Owners. Hunting and gathering knowledge has been passed down through families, and Yued have shared childhood memories of swimming and family time when the lake was still fresh water.
A quandong grove of approximately 30 trees on the eastern shore of the lake was identified by Yued Nyoongar survey participants as evidence of ongoing Yued use and care of the area.
Comments attributable to Sharna Meinertz, Chairperson, Yued Aboriginal Corporation
“Yued Aboriginal Corporation is committed to pursuing recording our Elders’ cultural knowledge and protecting significant places across the Yued Agreement Area.
“Dated archaeological research for the inland Wheatbelt is extremely limited.
“Lake Ninan offers rare potential to write our history back into a region where most recorded history is European.”
Comments attributable to Norman Anderson, Yued Elder
“This was our time to go and cool down, be with the family.”
Comments attributable to Clayton Mogridge, Yued Nyoongar man
“When it was fresh water, there would have been kangaroos all around, emus too.”
Comments attributable to Barbara Prior, Yued Elder
“That’s what my dad used to go, he knew what was there and he only ever got what we needed.”
Comments attributable to Rewi Lyall, Chief Executive Officer, Yued Aboriginal Corporation
“This landscape was blighted by the agricultural expansion of the 20th century, cleared of the people who had lived here for thousands of years, cleared of the plants that kept the waters fresh.
“Yued Aboriginal Corporation is dedicating itself to working with like-minded people across the community to try and bring this country back.
“The first step is protection from further impacts.
“The next step will be to commence a revegetation program that will increase the likelihood of bringing this system back to life.”
Comments attributable to Dr Fiona Hook, Managing Director/ Archaeologist, Archae-Aus
“I saw at Roe 8 what happens when a heritage place is written off before anyone has properly investigated the sub-surface archaeological deposit.
“Lake Ninan is the opposite story: the evidence, artefacts on every part of the shore we surveyed and dating that reaches back close to the last Ice Age is being put forward now, so this important and significant Yued Noongar place can be protected.”
Download: Yued Aboriginal Corporation media statement (PDF 342KB)