From the Gulf of Carpentaria to west of the Stuart Highway, from just north of Elliot to the southern edge of Kakadu, from the Queensland border to 100 km from the East Arnhem Coast, the Roper Gulf Region stretches over 186 000 square kilometres. This vast region boasts wide savannah plains, big rivers, pristine coastlines, tropical forests, rocky escarpments, a rich human history dating back 60,000 year.

Increasingly evident is the contrast between the Territory's old and new styles of development. The old style of development is demonstrated in such places as Pine Creek, focus of a gold-rush last century and now with a much-diminished economic role, and the cattle stations to the west and south.

A newer style of development can be seen in the realisation of the region's growing tourism potential of natural wonders from Mataranka to the Gulf Coast, in the cultural tours in the small community of Manyallaluk, and in the takeover of some pastoral stations by traditional Aboriginal landowners through a land claims process. Nowhere is the symbolism of this more obvious than at the property bearing the western subregion’s name: Elsey Station, the setting for Jeannie Gunn’s novel We Of the Never Never. It is now an Aboriginal owned and managed station.

Just south of Katherine, Tindal RAAF base with its 2400 staff and family members contributes substantial resources to the regional economy and represents another industry in the increasingly-diverse mix.

The strategic importance of Tindal in defence planning, the increasingly important role of tourism and ways in which Aboriginal people are using land successfully claimed under the Northern Territory’s Land Rights Act reveal the modern face of development in the Territory. The Elsey subregion shows this in abundance.