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SYDNEY - It has been rated the most dangerous place in the world outside a war zone, a tropical island ravaged by alcoholism, riots and racial tension.
But the Aboriginal inhabitants of Palm Island, off Queensland, believe they can transform their homeland from a place of notoriety to
a paradise for tourists.
Enterprising Aborigines want to junk the island's image of dysfunction and despair and entice visitors with horse treks, artwork, snorkelling, swimming and WWII wrecks.
One of Australia's largest indigenous communities, Palm Island is just 57km and a two-hour ferry ride from the coastal city of Townsville, but until now there has been negligible tourism.
Despite its palm-fringed bays, interior rainforest and crystal-clear waters, the 64sq km island has had an appalling past.
Unemployment among its 3500 people runs at 90 per cent. Murder and suicide rates were so high that in 1999 it was ranked by the Guinness Book of Records as the most dangerous place outside a combat zone.
You mention Palm Island to people and they think of riots and violence, said Pauline Shortjoe, an Aboriginal islander.
Shortjoe and her husband Shaun plan to round up some of the island's 300 wild horses, tame them and take tourists on horse treks across the mountainous territory, camping in the hills and swimming in the sea.
Visitors will be able to see WWII Catalina flying boats wrecked on a beach and swim with manta rays.
"We want to ... open up from January. We can take people snorkelling and fishing and show them how to cook food underground. All of it would be Aboriginal-run," Shortjoe said.
Palm Island was racked by violence in 2004 when hundreds of locals stormed its police station and burned the barracks and courthouse in a protest over the death of an Aboriginal man in police custody.
Cameron Doomadgee, 36, was found dead in his cell with four broken ribs and a liver so ruptured that it was almost torn in two.
An initial autopsy put the cause of death down to an awkward fall, a decision which outraged islanders and raised suspicion of police brutality and an official cover-up.
Palm Island has had an unhappy past. Named by Captain James Cook in 1770, it was used first as a leper colony and, from 1918, as a penal settlement for Aborigines who were considered to be troublemakers.
Drawn from more than 45 separate tribes, they were forcibly removed from the mainland and placed in church-run missions.
Since then the community has been beset by chronic drug and alcohol abuse, poor diet and overcrowding.
