“We are Gunaikurnai, the First people of our Country. We have survived for tens of thousand of years, often against great adversity. We have looked after Country and passed on our stories and traditions through countless generations. We continue to survive and thrive, maintaining connection to our Country and to our ancestors.”

Gunaikurnai Whole of Country Plan

Talikatoor – Little Flood – known today as the Gippsland Lakes is, and has always been, an important place for Gunaikurnai Traditional Owners. Join Gunaikurnai Elder Uncle Russell Mullett as he talks about its significance, then and now. 

The Gippsland Lakes have always been an important cultural landscape for Gunaikurnai Traditional Owners. Ancestors travelled across the Bassian Plain – the land bridge to Tasmania now under Bass Strait – for thousands of generations and when the lake system formed after the last Ice Age, the Tatungalung and Krauatungalung clans utilised the abundance of resources provided.

In recent times, stronger involvement in the management of Sea Country is creating opportunities to improve economic outcomes for Gunaikurnai Traditional Owners, whose relationship with these cultural landscapes continues, even when the evidence of their previous occupation now lies beneath the ocean. 

The Gunaikurnai Community welcomes visitors to Country on a journey of learning and respecting. Whether passing through, travelling the Batuluk Trail or visiting one of their 14 jointly managed parks and reserves, you will be introduced to many aspects of Gunaikurnai life while visiting. The more time you spend, and the more places you visit, the greater understanding and appreciation of Gunaikurnai Country and culture you will gain.

The Gunaikurnai people are recognised as the Traditional Owners of a large area of Gippsland – spanning from Warragul in the west to the Snowy River in the east, and from the Great Divide in the north to the coast in the south, approximately 10% of the state.

The Lakes National Park and Gippsland Lakes Coastal Park are two of ten jointly managed parks and reserves within Gippsland.