Map - Sir Graham Moore Island (Western Australia) (Sir Graham Moore Island)

Sir Graham Moore Island  (Sir Graham Moore Island)
Niiwalarra, formerly known as Sir Graham Moore Island, is located off the Kimberley coast of Western Australia.

The island encompasses an area of 2746 ha. It is situated within the Sir Graham Moore Islands group, about 45 km north of Kalumburu.

The Juarinanda people were recorded as early inhabitants of the island, but they were decimated by disease in the 19th century, with the remainder of the population moving to Drysdale River Mission. Wunambal, Gaambera and Kwini people made journeys to islands in the area by dugout canoes originally bought from Makassan traders, who began visiting the Kimblerley coast sometime between 1669 and 1763. Both Aboriginal and Makassan peoples harvested and processed sea cucumber. The Juarinanda incorporated several Malay words into their language.

Today, by succession, the traditional owners of the island are the Balanggarra (aka Kwini ) people, of the Worrorran language group, whose name for the island is Niiwalarra. They have visited the island for millennia. Traditional owners have been assisting with archaeological assessments of the island in 2021, for the first time since Ian Crawford did his research in the 1960s. Evidence of pottery and other artefacts from new excavations on the island are being complemented by the oral histories of the Kwini people. A number of hearths are a record of where the trepang was cooked on the beach in large iron pots, with activity especially picking up around 1800.

The group and island were named in 1819 by Phillip Parker King, after Sir Graham Moore (1764–1843), who held a seat of the board of the English Admiralty Board.

A LORAN radar site was established on the north west corner of the island during World War II by American and Australian forces. The site consisted of a radar building, radio building, a powerhouse and a campsite. The concrete pad for the main building are all that remain today.

There were unsuccessful attempts at cotton farming on the island.

The island once supported a population of feral pigs, but by 2009 they had died out, apparently from the only fresh water source becoming saline following erosion from a cyclone.

 
Map - Sir Graham Moore Island  (Sir Graham Moore Island)
Country - Australia
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Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. With an area of 7617930 km2, Australia is the largest country by area in Oceania and the world's sixth-largest country. Australia is the oldest, flattest, and driest inhabited continent, with the least fertile soils. It is a megadiverse country, and its size gives it a wide variety of landscapes and climates, with deserts in the centre, tropical rainforests in the north-east, and mountain ranges in the south-east.

The ancestors of Aboriginal Australians began arriving from south east Asia approximately 65,000 years ago, during the last ice age. Arriving by sea, they settled the continent and had formed approximately 250 distinct language groups by the time of European settlement, maintaining some of the longest known continuing artistic and religious traditions in the world. Australia's written history commenced with the European maritime exploration of Australia. The Dutch navigator Willem Janszoon was the first known European to reach Australia, in 1606. In 1770, the British explorer James Cook mapped and claimed the east coast of Australia for Great Britain, and the First Fleet of British ships arrived at Sydney in 1788 to establish the penal colony of New South Wales. The European population grew in subsequent decades, and by the end of the 1850s gold rush, most of the continent had been explored by European settlers and an additional five self-governing British colonies established. Democratic parliaments were gradually established through the 19th century, culminating with a vote for the federation of the six colonies and foundation of the Commonwealth of Australia on 1 January 1901. Australia has since maintained a stable liberal democratic political system and wealthy market economy.
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