The Martuwarra Fitzroy River is Western Australia’s largest River and largest listed Aboriginal cultural heritage site. It has been cared for by First Law and Indigenous land management practices for millennia. Over the last 150 years, it has experienced multi-scalar damage from agriculture, mining and invasive species. Interventive measures are now required to improve the health of the River and the communities that live along it’s banks.
As part of Living Nature 20201, we hosted a conversation about Aboriginal science, the rights of nature and the unprecedented land grab that threatens Australia’s Kimberley region with Indigenouse rights activists, Anne Poelina and film producers, Nick Wrathall. The Kimberley region of North-Western Australia is one of the world’s most ecologically diverse areas, with one of the last untouched coastlines left on Earth. It is also home to 200 remote Aboriginal communities and the oldest surviving culture in the world.
On the first of our Water Justice Hub Researcher’s series, we talk with Dr. Anne Poelina: Chair of the Martuwarra Fitzroy River Council, Adjunct Professor and Senior Research Fellow at the Nulungu Research Institute at the University of Notre Dame and Managing Director of the Indigenous not-for-profit organisation Madjulla
Acknowledgement of Country
“… Regenerative Songlines Australia acknowledges that the sovereignty of the First Nations peoples of the continent now known as Australia was never ceded by treaty nor in any other way. Regenerative Songlines Australia acknowledges and respects First Nations peoples’ laws and ecologically sustainable custodianship of Australia over tens of thousands of years through land and sea management practices that continue today.”
Visit the Regenerative Songlines website which will be officially launched in NAIDOC week 2021.
“In this, the 100th episode of the Sustainability Agenda, we speak to Dr Anne Poelina an indigenous Australian academic and human and earth rights activist. Dr Poelina explains her role as a “Yimardoowarra marnin,” which, translated from the Nyikina language, means “a woman who belongs to the Martuwarra River,” in Western Australia. Dr Poelina discusses what she calls “first law,” the Aboriginal peoples’ customary law covering the rules for living in coexistence with nature, the rules of conduct that holds together and bonds a civil society, the principles of an ethics of care. She talks about the indigenous cultural approach to collaborative water governance underlying the legal work that she is spearheading to make sure that the development of the Fitzroy River does not lead to the mistakes made in the development of the Murray-Darling river.”
Download the flyer - PDF [ 430 Kbs ]
‘Song For The Mardoowara’
Written by Gwen Knox in collaboration with Dr Anne Poelina.
Promotional film by Pia Davids of Feral Films.
A beautiful new puppetry work that tells stories that flow from the mighty Mardoowarra or the Fitzroy River in the Kimberley Region of Western Australia. - access the YouTube video here.
In July 2022 Professor Stephen Muecke and his doctoral Research Assistant, Jennifer Eadie from the University of Notre Dame, spent time on the River Country with members of Yurmulun (Pandanus Park) and Balginjirr communities to conduct the Feasibility Study of the Martuwarra Walking Track.
The Martuwarra Fitzroy River is Western Australia’s largest River and largest listed Aboriginal cultural heritage site. It has been cared for by First Law and Indigenous land management practices for millennia. Over the last 150 years, it has experienced multi-scalar damage from agriculture, mining and invasive species. Interventive measures are now required to improve the health of the River and the communities that live along it’s banks.
A submission to the Special Rapporteur on the rights of Indigenous Peoples on: Indigenous Women and the Development, Application, Preservation and Transmission of Scientific Knowledge available at Figshare
Professor Anne Poelina, Dr Magali McDuffie and Dr Alexander Hayes have completed and lodged a submission to the United Nations Human Rights 'Special Procedures', Indigenous Peoples and Civil Society, attention of the Special Rappoteur on toxics and human rights.
