Warddeken's bim (rock art) sites are special places where ancestors would hunt and sleep, with depictions of ancient mammals now extinct, instructions of where to find good tucker and how to treat it, and records of first contact with Macassan traders, Dutch sailors and British explorers alike. The artworks are often layered across one another, depicting a range of sacred stories, animals, practices and scenes - including what may be the largest single-piece rock art in Australia, an eight-metre painting of the Naworo spirit, a giant guardian of the land. These sites may also be burial places and contain rich archaeological evidence such as spear tips, stone axes and grinding holes from tens of thousands of years of continuous occupation. These are the libraries, museums, histories and records of Bininj (Indigenous) life.

Five years ago, Warddeken Land Management and Karrkad Kanjdji Trust set out to create something entirely unique: a new program of work to uncover and secure the cultural heritage of Bininj people recorded as rock art, with full ownership and leadership from Traditional Owners and rangers. Since then, around 50 rangers and their families have visited and documented over 300 kunwarddebim (rock art) sites for the first time. Some of these sites contain multiple galleries, where each gallery can contain more than 50 artworks. The team sent a wasp nest from one bim site to researchers in NSW as a proxy for dating the rock art, and it was over 22,000 years old. Rediscovering, recording and conserving these sites requires a year-round schedule of planning and consultation, travelling to remote corners of the IPA, surveying and maintaining sites, and sharing progress and outcomes.