NEWSLETTER

Thursday, July 8, 2021

Friends, this is NAIDOC week – and the theme of events this year is ‘Heal Country’. But for us, healing Country won’t happen while Adani accelerates the destruction of our lands and waters, and the Government aids and abets them.

We have seen the destruction that the operations of the Carmichael Coal Mining Project are already causing in our Country, and we are angered by the Queensland Government’s failure to address our call for urgent action. 

We have never given our free, prior, informed consent to this mine. Everything authorised by Governments and carried out by Adani is in breach of our human rights. We have called for an immediate halt to the construction of the mine.  

We are the cultural custodians, but are denied our right to protect our heritage and environment and practice our culture. 

We will always stand strong to defend our human rights, our Country and our culture from interference by people like Adani, who have no respect for our laws and customs and who are harming the land.

And we still need your support. Help us mount the next stage of our resistance as we take our fight for our human rights to the next level. 

Please donate to support the work of the W&J Nagana Yarrbayn Cultural Custodians.

Damage to the environment is damage to our Country and culture, and is a breach of our human rights as First Nations people. 

We are taking action to prevent the destruction of our sacred Doongmabulla Springs. We need your support to bring new legal challenges to protect our lands and waters, and defend our human rights.

Adani and their Government backers can’t be trusted with our people’s cultural heritage. Our role as cultural custodians derives from our laws and customs and our specific relationship to our Ancestor Dreaming. We must protect our sacred springs and the water that nourishes our lives and our culture.

Help us maintain a permanent presence on Country, to fulfil our cultural obligations to protect the land and bring up our young people, thus safeguarding the future of our Dreaming stories. 

No one will suffer more if the Galilee Basin is truly opened up for coal, than our people.

We have seen the way governments and mining corporations disregard Aboriginal cultural heritage. Right now, Adani has a license to destroy our culture and Country. 

We take our cultural and custodial obligations seriously and have proven over a decade that attacks on our Country, our people and our rights will be met with unflinching resistance. Our right to maintain and strengthen our distinctive spiritual, material, and economic relationship with our land and waters is protected under Queensland’s Human Rights Act and this is a right we will continue to assert.

We need your support to bring new legal challenges to defend our human rights. 

We will pursue all legal avenues to protect our cultural rights, which are supported in international law, and are now recognised under Queensland’s Human Rights Act.

And we are planning further actions.

Please sign on to our pledge to receive important updates and information on actions you can take.

And please donate to support the work of our Cultural Custodians to protect our cultural heritage.

Yours for Country. 

Adrian Burragubba

Wangan and Jagalingou tribal leader

& W&J Nagana Yarrbayn senior cultural custodian