Over the centuries, the people followed seasonal cycles as they camped, hunted and gathered food, medicines and other materials for daily use.

In the wet season (December to April), people who lived in the northern areas of the Wet Tropics often moved up to the Tablelands into drier country and built large waterproof huts with frames made from tree saplings or lawyer cane and thatched with palm leaves, grasses or bark. Some shelters could fit up to 30 people. In the more southern areas of the region, people would remain on the coastal floodplains during the wet season, but move to higher ground until the annual floods receded.

In the dry season, people used coastal resources and built temporary dwellings. Coastal groups made and used dugout canoes with a single outrigger to travel along the coast, islands and other reef areas for resources and ceremonies.

On land, they travelled along complex interconnecting networks of walking tracks. These tracks connected camps and neighbouring groups, and led to places of cultural significance, social and economic importance and resource rich areas. These tracks also defined boundaries of each clan's traditional estates. There were certain protocols to follow when wanting to enter a neighbouring clan's estates. As such, Rainforest Aboriginal walking tracks are considered cultural heritage sites. Many of these tracks were used by the early settlers with their pack horses and wagons, and some of today's highways (such as the Gillies Highway) were built on top of some of these Aboriginal walking tracks.

With a deep respect for nature and an intimate knowledge of its cycles, Rainforest Aboriginal people harvested food sources that were in season. Seasonal indicators told them when different plants were fruiting or when certain animals were "fat" and ready to eat. The seasons also reflected when certain animals would be pregnant or birthing and hence when NOT to eat certain animals or take certain plants.

Language, stories, songs and dances were used to pass important survival knowledge to the younger generations. In this way, young people learnt how to use Rainforest plants for food, medicine and shelter, how to hunt animals or when to collect the eggs of the brush turkey.

They also learnt their place in their community so they could function as part of the wider social group. Language, stories, songs and dances are still very important today because they maintain and generate Rainforest Aboriginal people's unique evolving cultural identity and connection to country.

Cultural Survival

Before non-indigenous settlement, the Wet Tropics rainforests were one of the most populated areas of Australia, and the only area where Aboriginal people lived permanently in the rainforest. Rainforest Aboriginal people's environment provided everything - spirituality, identity, social order, shelter, food and medicine. Aboriginal people also had an excellent economic system in place that involved the bartering of resources amongst different tribal groups.

For these people, the rugged rainforest mountains and inaccessible coastal wetlands provided some protection when Europeans arrived in the mid-nineteenth century. Rainforest Aboriginal people continued to practice their culture and language and their knowledge of ecology, native foods, and access routes was invaluable to the newcomers. But, as more land was cleared, competition became fierce between the settlers and the people of the rainforest.

Many Rainforest Aboriginal people died from introduced diseases like the common cold. Others starved when they could not access their traditional country and their food resources. They were shot and poisoned when they hunted the introduced cattle and horses the new settlers had brought. This aggression from the settlers was not met with passivity. Rainforest Aboriginal people fought for their land and continue to campaign to get their land back.

To visitors, many of the Wet Tropics waterfalls are places of extraordinary beauty, but for many Rainforest Aboriginal people, apart from maybe being an important story place, they can also be places of immense sorrow - places their people were driven over and massacred.

Rainforest Aboriginal people had to survive on the margins of the new society that brought with it many foreign laws and government policies that imposed great restrictions on Aboriginal peoples' lives. The new laws were quite often discriminatory towards Aboriginal people on the basis of their race. Many Aboriginal people from this region provided work unpaid for rations (sugar, flour, tea and tobacco) as maids, farm labourers, stockmen and timber cutters, helping to shape the rural landscape you see today.

Many more were forcibly removed to Christian missions at Mission Beach, Mona Mona, Murray Upper, Palm Island, Yarrabah and Wujal Wujal, and suffered hardships through the splitting up of their families. Many Aboriginal people from other parts of Queensland were also removed to missions in the Wet Tropics. Today over 20,000 Aboriginal people live in urban centres, country towns, Aboriginal communities (some are former missions) outside the World Heritage Area, and small settlements within the World Heritage Area.

Despite these massive changes, Rainforest Aboriginal people's stories, languages and cultures have survived and people continue to have a strong sense of their connection to, and relationship with, their country. These relationships are mapped out in shared stories and places. Some shared stories connect and identify tribal groups. Other story places are personal, given to individuals when they are born - a practice which continues today.

In spite of the imposition of a Government land ownership (tenure) system and significant changes to land management brought about by European settlement and development, Rainforest Aboriginal people continue to maintain and care for country through their traditional beliefs, knowledge and practices. Their cultures continue to live and grow, and lifestyles today contain a mix of traditional and contemporary knowledge and practices that is still handed down from one generation to the next.

Like the forests, their cultures survive in the landscape features that remain. In this way, the landscape continues to hold the key to indigenous culture and identity. It tells the story of complex traditional cultures and also of the tragedy, hardship and the strength and resilience of Rainforest Aboriginal people over a hundred and fifty years of change.