Protecting The Fitzroy River Catchment

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"...We welcome the Western Australian Government’s commitment to create a new protected area in the Fitzroy River Catchment, and to create a management plan to ensure the protection of the National Heritage and other significant cultural and environmental values of the river and provide a basis for sustainable development.

The Fitzroy River is one of the largest principally unregulated rivers remaining in Australia and is recognised as a centre of cultural life and biodiversity in the Kimberley.1 The river follows a path from the roof of the central Kimberley Plateau, flowing through spectacular and ancient gorges in the King Leopold and Napier Ranges, and coursing between wide floodplains before meeting the ocean at King Sound. The river and catchment support a rich and unique biodiversity of aquatic and terrestrial life with national heritage listed natural and cultural values." 

Download the Science Statement of Support - [ PDF 440KB ]

Download the Australian's 'Finally, scientific-based evidence for Northern Australia food bowl' article - [ PDF 148 KB ]

Download the Kimberley Traditional Owners establish Martuwarra Fitzroy River Council [ PDF 508 KBs ]

Download the Martuwarra Fitzroy River Council Statement from Combined Meeting of Traditional Owner Groups for the Fitzroy River Catchment Meeting Held May 15-16 2018 Fitzroy Crossing [ PDF 406 KBS ]

Download the Fitzroy River Declaration [ PDF 557 KBS ]

Growing Up In Old Broome

Download the MP3 recording

Anne grew up in Broome, in northwest Australia, one of the few places where the White Australia Policy didn't apply.

Anne’s father came to Broome from West Timor as a pearl diver, and fell in love with her mother at first sight.

Their family was a part of Broome’s unique community: a mix of Aboriginal, Chinese, Japanese and European people, cultures, and ways of cooking.

Anne was introduced to her country, from her mother’s side of the family, and given ancient stories that connect the Kimberley to central Australia

She is now the Managing Director of the Indigenous not-for-profit organisation Madjulla, based in Broome.

Duration: 48min 21sec

Broadcast: Tue 28 Aug 2018, 11:00am

Source: ABC

Defence Of Country

Defence of Country: Aboriginal people dealing with the impacts of globalisation in Australia. 'Success Stories' Session with Dr Anne Poelina, Nyikina Mangala, WA

"...how we stay strong...and for me what keeps me strong is country and when I am exhausted I go back and I lay on the ground out by the billabong and I can feel the energy of the country through me and rejuvenating me." - Dr. Anne Poelina, Defence of Country, The University of Sydney, Sydney Environment Institute - 26 July, 2017.

Available at https://soundcloud.com/sydneyenvironmentinstitute/anne-poelina  

Waking Up The Snake

This week we present a very special podcast celebrating this year's NAIDOC Week in Australia. Dr Anne Poelina is a Nyikina Traditional Custodian from the Mardoowarra, Lower Fitzroy River, in the West Kimberley region of Western Australia. And if anywhere epitomizes the critical time we’re in, it’s in the spectacular cultural and natural landscapes of her homeland. Almost incredibly, there are 40,000+ fracking wells slated for this area, along with the damming of the Fitzroy River, and more ‘old-model’ industrial agriculture. Yet the new economy is also in tow here, and this is where Anne is currently focusing her extraordinary breadth of cross-cultural knowledge and experience. Anne is an international award winner, Managing Director of Madjulla Incorporated, Councillor at the Australian Conservation Foundation, a qualified nurse, traditional midwife, has multiple postgraduate degrees, and over 30 years’ experience in Indigenous health, education, language and community development. Our Director Anthony James caught up with her at her home in Broome recently, to talk about what the shape the new economy might take in the Kimberley and beyond, how we can make it happen, and the enormous opportunity in treaty, recognition and connection with Australia’s First Nations. Music: 
 Riverman, by the Pigram Brothers Song for the Mardoowarra, by Gwen Knox with Anne Poelina, played by Mick Stevens, and sung by the Broome Primary School Choir Pic: Magali McDuffie Get more: Majala - http://majala.com.au/our-people/ NAIDOC Week 8-15 July, celebrating Indigenous women - https://www.naidoc.org.au Environs Kimberley - https://www.environskimberley.org.au New Economy Network Australia - https://www.neweconomy.org.au Gwen Knox & Big Mama productions - http://www.gwenknox.com/bigmama/ The film clip of the Song for the Mardoowarra - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6ZFG0mynnk (they will be touring this month in the Kimberley, and are available for bookings from early 2019) Richard Flanagan at the National Press Club - http://www.abc.net.au/news/programs/national-press-club/2018-04-18/national-press-club:-richard-flanagan/9672524 Welcome to Country, a new travel guide to Indigenous Australia - https://www.hardiegrant.com/au/publishing/bookfinder/book/marcia-langton_s-welcome-to-country-by-marcia-langton/9781741175431 Thanks to all our listeners, supporters and systemic change-makers for enabling the production of this podcast. If you can, please help to keep us going and growing by making a tax deductible donation at www.givenow.com.au/rescopeproject. Thanks for listening.

As quoted from the Regennarration  website.

"....This week we present a very special podcast celebrating this year's NAIDOC Week in Australia. Dr Anne Poelina is a Nyikina Traditional Custodian from the Mardoowarra, Lower Fitzroy River, in the West Kimberley region of Western Australia. And if anywhere epitomizes the critical time we’re in, it’s in the spectacular cultural and natural landscapes of her homeland. Almost incredibly, there are 40,000+ fracking wells slated for this area, along with the damming of the Fitzroy River, and more ‘old-model’ industrial agriculture. Yet the new economy is also in tow here, and this is where Anne is currently focusing her extraordinary breadth of cross-cultural knowledge and experience."

"....Anne is an international award winner, Managing Director of Madjulla Incorporated, Councillor at the Australian Conservation Foundation, a qualified nurse, traditional midwife, has multiple postgraduate degrees, and over 30 years’ experience in Indigenous health, education, language and community development. Our Director Anthony James caught up with her at her home in Broome recently, to talk about what the shape the new economy might take in the Kimberley and beyond, how we can make it happen, and the enormous opportunity in treaty, recognition and connection with Australia’s First Nations."

Music: 
Riverman, by the Pigram Brothers
Song for the Mardoowarra, by Gwen Knox with Anne Poelina, played by Mick Stevens, and sung by the Broome Primary School Choir

Pic: Magali McDuffie

Get more:

Majala - majala.com.au/our-people/ 
NAIDOC Week 8-15 July, celebrating Indigenous women - www.naidoc.org.au 
Environs Kimberley - www.environskimberley.org.au 
New Economy Network Australia - www.neweconomy.org.au 
Gwen Knox & Big Mama productions - www.gwenknox.com/bigmama/ 
The film clip of the Song for the Mardoowarra - www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6ZFG0mynnk (they will be touring this month in the Kimberley, and are available for bookings from early 2019)
Richard Flanagan at the National Press Club - www.abc.net.au/news/programs/nat…-flanagan/9672524 
Welcome to Country, a new travel guide to Indigenous Australia - www.hardiegrant.com/au/publishing/b…n/9781741175431

Read more about this at Regennarration

Pedagogy Of Hope and Freedom

"...My Indigenous heritage is Nyikina; ‘ngajanoo Yimardoowarra marnil’, in my language means “a woman who belongs to our sacred river”, which centres me as property and a guardian of the Martuwarra (Fitzroy River). My career has focused on Indigenous health and wellbeing development using human, Indigenous rights and environmental justice." - download the full article here

"...Kimberley Traditional Owners will meet with State Government representatives in Perth today during the first ever gathering of the newly formed Martuwarra Fitzroy River Council. The Aboriginal body will urge government and industry to support the council as the new Traditional Owner representative group for management of the Fitzroy River and its catchment." - Read more of this in the KLC website 

Martuwarra Fitzroy River Council

"...Traditional owners in Western Australia’s Kimberley region have formed a new organisation to help manage the Fitzroy River. The Martuwarra Fitzroy River Council could set a precedent in WA for collaborative planning between government, industry and the native title holders of an entire river catchment." - Read more about this here

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47th Session of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

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“… Anne Poelina, Aboriginal leader and Australian scientist and philosopher, questioned the values and ethics that are destroying Mother Earth, while acknowledging the 30 years of collective wisdom in the IPCC. She highlighted the importance of indigenous knowledge and the role of non-state actors in deconstructing and reframing systems.

In closing, Nicolas Hulot, French Minister for the Ecological and Inclusive Transition, observed that while the IPCC had helped the world frame clear objectives, the pace of achieving them remains insufficient. Quoting Victor Hugo’s comment that freedom begins when ignorance ends, he commended the IPCC’s role in silencing climate deniers. He said climate change is a “serial killer” targeting the poorest and most vulnerable, and called for a focus on the protection of indigenous peoples.

Poelina, A. (2018). Summary Of The 47TH Session Of The Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change: 13-16 March 2018 (No. 715) (pp. 4–5). UNESCO. Retrieved from http://enb.iisd.org/climate/ipcc47/

Defense of Country

Defence of Country: Aboriginal people dealing with the impacts of globalisation in Australia. 'Success Stories' Session with Dr Anne Poelina, Nyikina Mangala, WA

Defence of Country: Aboriginal people dealing with the impacts of globalisation in Australia. 'Success Stories' Session with Dr Anne Poelina, Nyikina Mangala, WA

Building Research Partnerships

Building research partnerships for sustainable and innovative Indigenous communities in Australia’s Kimberley

Dr Anne Poelina Peter Cullen Fellow and Adjunct Senior Researcher and with the University of Notre Dame) worked closely with Dr Johan Nordensvard and Lindsay-Marie Armstrong from theUniversity of Southampton (United Kingdom) to facilitate a Kimberley 'Think Tank' Workshop.  Collaboration included community members from Bidan, Pandanus Park and Balginjirr riverside communities along with independent scholars and researchers associated with a range of national universities and private institutions.

Figure 1 Group photo. Photographer Cathie Martin

            The workshop members identified Climate change as one of greatest challenges facing humanity. Our reliance on fossil fuels has led us into destructive path dependency. Anthropogenic climate change is considered to be one of the greatest threats to human security. There is a direct correlation between the increase of emissions of greenhouse gasses, mainly carbon dioxide (CO2), leading to climate change and the rise of industrialisation, increasing affluence and consumption of developed countries. The need to reduce carbon emissions has dominated the global environmental policy agenda since the 1990s. The role of Indigenous peoples is under explored in terms of contributing to sustainable development and climate change mitigation pathways that are both environmentally and socially just. Indigenous people have brought forward the role of traditional ecological knowledge in identifying and adapting to climate change and have increasingly used legal forums for their cases. The workshop members identified that there is an urgency for Indigenous groups to prepare for and adapt to climate change in ways that support cultural values while also actively considering socioeconomic and political factors. This becomes even more important when proposed developments driven by large economic investment in Indigenous people’s land threatens the environment, traditional livelihoods and cultural values of communities.

Many countries are heavily reliant on extracting fossil fuels and pursuing other unsustainable mining activities, which have severe impacts on lands inhabited by indigenous people since time immemorial. It is therefore of high importance to build research and teaching partnerships for sustainable Indigenous communities to show alternative development pathways towards wellbeing and community capacity. The workshop worked on developing pathways for how to support innovation, research and teaching and to build capacity of Aboriginal people and their communities to strengthen their hybrid and new economies for sustainable life and sustainable development focused on place and methods of co-operation.  There were two outcomes that were of paramount importance:

1. to create and support a long term initiative and physical space – a college and innovation hub - where this can take place and;
2. to develop a normative framework for how international and national co-operation can take place within an local Indigenous framework.

With combined elements of a research institute, innovation hub and secondary college, the Mardoowarra Institute and College being planned through Dr Poelina's work is visualised as a centre of excellence in sustainability and liveability for the tropics that develops and applies knowledge, promoting empowered development through integrating the arts, science culture and nature.  The Institute will test, develop and demonstrate innovations in education and training for empowered development suited to remote tropical regions. These will include human habitats and low carbon villages suited to the tropics. Through using best practice in tropical architecture and technology the college itself will be a working model of the innovative and appropriate systems it seeks to promote and extend across tropical environments in Australia and internationally. The Institute will develop, test and showcase suitable technologies and systems and build skills in using them. It is planned that a number of villages will have transformation acceleration programs where retooling and the retrofitting can be tested.

Programs of education, training, research and development will be implemented in conjunction with partners. These will range from secondary and trade training through to post graduate studies. All studies will be grounded in inter-cultural tolerance and respect. There will local skills training and enterprise development as well as opportunities for coordinating citizen science programs through to expert workshops to long-term and large-scale Research and Development (R&D) projects. The hub will act as centre for linking people across the Kimberley with people working on similar projects across the world on systems for supporting empowered cultural appropriate development. Through the R&D program it is planned to build linkages to a number of other case study sites overseas.

There was broad agreement that local research and capacity building projects would be seen as world's better practice in building a Transformational Model to shift Indigenous people from welfare to wealth creation. The Transformational Model will build the capacity and the health and wellbeing of Aboriginal/Indigenous people and their communities. We believe such a model will have international outcomes with the ability to impact on Indigenous peoples across the globe. 

DR POELINA TO GIVE KEY NOTE ADDRESS AT THE 10TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE INTERNATIONAL RIVER SYMPOSIUM IN BRISBANE 18TH SEPT 2017

Dr Anne Poelina

3rd July 2017 see International River Symposium website 

Dr Anne Poelina

Posted at 09:35h in by DeeperLook.Support 0 Comments

Dr Anne Poelina is a Nyikina Warrwa (Indigenous Australian) woman from the remote Kimberley region of Western Australia. She holds a Master of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, Master of Education, Master of Arts (Indigenous Social Policy) and she is a Doctor of Philosophy.  Dr Poelina is Managing Director of the Madjulla Association, Adjunct Senior Research Fellow University of Notre Dame, Adjunct Research Fellow Charles Darwin University, and Director of the Walalakoo Native Title Body Corporate and she is also a Peter Cullen Fellow.

Dr Poelina is completing a Doctor of Health Science investigating the cultural determinants of Indigenous health and wellbeing. Through her post-graduate studies in biophysical and social sciences and education, Anne incorporates a trans-disciplinary approach to sustainable life and sustainable development on her river country.  Anne’s current cultural legal research is focused on protecting her sacred river, Mardoowarra’s Right to Life. Her work focuses on a brokerage model that builds relationships between academic, professional, government, business, industry and community partners through new culture, science and conservation economies for the common good.

Keynote presentation: Guardians of the Mardoowarra (Fitzroy River) (14 minute film)

On October 2016 in Brisbane at the Banco Courts together with friends of the Mardoowarra, Dr Poelina brought the case to the Tribunal to ask the citizens of the court to recognise the Mardoowarra as a living ancestral being with a right to life… like her sister the Whanganui River in New Zealand. The Whanganui River has stood strong, and with the help of her Indigenous guardians and the strength and wisdom of their legal and cultural governance, she has set international legal precedence across Mother Earth!

Following the Tribunal for Nature, Traditional Owners, Guardians of the Fitzroy River Catchment (in north-west WA), met on the 2nd and 3rd of November 2016 in Fitzroy Crossing on the banks of the river to send a message to the world, The Fitzroy River Declaration. The ‘Fitzroy River Declaration’ aims to protect the traditional and environmental values that underpin the river’s National Heritage Listing. The Fitzroy River Declaration 2016 sets a national standard for native title, as well as enshrining the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples for self-determining our responsibilities as guardians of the Fitzroy River as being fundamental to the management of this globally unique river system. The Declaration sends a strong message to the Federal Government to endorse the EPBC Act (1999) draft Referral Guidelines for the West Kimberley National Heritage Places (2012) as the guiding principles for development within the Fitzroy Catchment.

More information and associated articles:

www.majala.com.au

Climate justice to broaden science with Indigenous Knowledge | Fitzroy River Declaration | BRIDGING No. 16: Managing Kimberley water now for the future | Blood Line Song Part 1 | BRIDGING No. 19: Building a new economy: Environmental Humanism

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