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Noonkanbah Station (or simply Noonkanbah) is a pastoral farm, both a cattle and sheep station, on the Fitzroy River between Camballin and Fitzroy Crossing in the south-central Kimberley region of Western Australia.
The station was attached in the 1880s and covered approximately 4,000 square kilometers.
During World War II, the Royal Australian Air Force established a base on the civilian airfield near the station on 1 March 1943.
Large petrol and bomb dumps were constructed and the airfield was used as a starting base by the Dutch East Indies Air Force. 24 Squadron, 25 Squadron and 31 Squadron all used the airfield. The airfield was large enough to handle B-24 Liberators.
On September 30, 1944, the airfield base was decommissioned and on December 24, 1945 the airfield was closed.
The traditional owners – the people of the Yungngora community – were employed by the station owners until 1971 when they ran away over a dispute over pay and conditions.
In 1976 the station was bought by the Aboriginal Land Fund to be developed by its traditional owners. Since then it has been run by the people of the Yungngora community.
The station was the scene of an intense political dispute when the then government allowed exploration company AMAX to drill for oil at sacred sites.
The mining explosion in the 1970s led to hundreds of tenements being attached to the pastoral station in the Kimberley, but an anthropological report found that the land covered by the station had spiritual significance to the Yungngora community.
Western Australia’s Prime Minister Charles Court was adamant that the reconnaissance should go ahead anyway – and a convoy of 45 uncombined oil rigs and trucks left Perth on August 7, 1980, protected by hundreds of police.
Violent clashes between police and Noonkanbah protesters ensued, culminating in the oil rigs making their way through the community’s picket lines to holy land.
In April 2007, the Yungngora people got their indigenous title recognized across the Noonkanbah land.
Source – Wikipedia