The Paraku Indigenous Protected Area works with traditional owners and rangers to monitor and maintain the lake and its surroundings.

The Tanami subregion is composed mainly red Quaternary sandplains overlying Permian and Proterozoic strata that are exposed as hills and ranges around the area.

[3] The lake lies in the northeast Canning Basin, within the Gregory sub-basin and is underlain by almost 16 kilometres (10 mi) of sedimentary rocks, ranging in age from Ordovician to mid-Triassic.

[6] The country around the lake and river systems provides an abundant source of plant and animal life that attracted the attention of the pastoral industry in the early 1900s.

The Canning Stock Route, established in 1910 from Halls Creek south to the rail-head at Wiluna to drove cattle from the east Kimberley, runs down the western margin of the lake system.

[7][8] In 2001 the High Court of Australia formally recognised the Walmajarri peoples as the traditional owners of the area and awarded them native title over the land.

Wattle scrub over soft spinifex hummock grass communities occur on the ranges of the area.

The drainage lines of the creeks support ribbon and Flinders grasses and other short grasslands, often as savannas with stands of River red gums.

It has been identified by BirdLife International as an Important Bird Area (IBA) because it supports over 1% of the world populations of hardheads, grey teals, pink-eared ducks, little black cormorants, brolgas, sharp-tailed sandpipers.