Birdsville's lone ranger retires after three decades as keeper of the desert

'I will always be walking in the desert': Birdsville ranger hangs up uniform after three decades By Hannah Walsh

Don Rowlands is the keeper of Central Australia's vast Simpson Desert.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this story contains images of people who have died.

When he closes his eyes, the wind gives way to older sounds, of feet dancing in the sand, as the echoes of his ancestors carry across the "big sandhill country" they know as Munga-Thirri.

For more than three decades, he has been the ranger in charge of Munga-Thirri National Park, Queensland's largest protected area near Birdsville in the state's far south-west corner.

Being Birdsville's ranger is a role he has defined. Each day is a delicate balance of managing conservation, visitor access and preserving culture.

"The uniform was why I get up in the morning. I'm so proud of the uniform and what it represents to Queensland; it's the ultimate for me," he says.

"Despite having to move on, my heart is still in the desert and it's my traditional lands and I have a responsibility to care for it and I will.

"No matter where the path takes me, I will always be walking in the desert."

Queensland's slice of the 1 million hectares of the Simpson Desert's sand dunes, this year awash with floodwater and wildflowers, was gazetted as a national park in 1967.

A lot has changed in the desert since; much of the bush tucker Don found as a kid is gone and birds have thinned out.

Feral animals such as cats continue to wreak havoc, and early on it was millions of rabbits.

"When the calicivirus came along in 1996 and wiped them out that was a big thing for me," Don says.

When Don became the first Queensland Parks and Wildlife ranger employed to care for Munga-Thirri National Park in 1994, he quickly set about reshaping its future.