Listen to the Elders.

There are many facts about our environment's decline since the industrial revolution that are confronting. Some find it easier to avoid, I have been there many a time. Overwhelmed by the little it feels we can do, or that we simply do not know what to do. This feeling is not dishonest. Many people think they have the answer as well. I'm not denying that either as many a great mind is at work to solve the issues we have created. Yet, the two forces of corporate greed and environmental awareness are at play. This makes things even more frustrating when passion begins to evolve within the individual to protect the Earth. This can leave us feeling hopeless against the big guys. Fair enough. The truth is that many of us have lost our connection to the Earth. We stopped thinking to care about her through just trying to survive in the rat race of life. We get caught in the system, and I'm sorry to say but the system is based off of greed. As a result we only have 0.5 % of our oceans protected which hold 80% of our life on Earth, and we are losing 80'000 hectares of rainforests globally a day. With this comes the loss of the 1000's of species that are in their own system; the system of maintaining what we live on, our home. There is more to it though, we lost our connection to these species and appreciation for them. We know best because we are the top of the food chain. We also know how to fix it because we had the power to create the mess. Maybe we do. I know very little about how this world works and how to fix it. I do know that it is time to put my own ego aside and listen to the people that truly understand the land with their hearts, spirit and mind.

A little bit about what I mean.

I myself am a caucasian women born in London but from my beautiful Mothers side I am Australian. I grew up in Australia partly in the city and partly on the stunning east coast. Australia is a very unique and beautiful country. If anyone has seen Crocodile Dundee - you may know. Though many may presume that everything here that lives in nature will kill you.

They are not wrong.

However as the Aussie's say it, "she'll be right mate!" Which is usually about 95% true. Most of the time you don't die from the wildlife here. You still swim in the sea knowing there are sharks, comfortably walk barefoot with the awareness of snakes and forget to chuck on your Bushman bug repellant conscious that you will be swatting mosquitoes. This is a reflection of what Australia started to mean to me as a child; being close with nature, abundantly muddy and free. However, what it means to be "Australian" and the weight of that is something that I'm learning with age. Keeping in mind that this is all relevant to how in history we stopped listening to what really mattered for ourselves, for our Earth and how we might be able to change our ways. For those of you who don't fully know about Australian history or were taught something else in schools (as many of us were) here is what I have come to understand:

Before the Dutch, the Spanish, the Portuguese, the Makassan's and lastly Captain Cook arrived in Australia lived the Aboriginals. The original custodians of the land for over 65'000 years. Captain Cook arrived in whats now known as Botany Bay in 1770. There were many that arrived before him even with friendly trades. His mission from the Queen was simple: if he found the Great Southern Continent he was to map the coastline and if there were natives there he was to open dialogue/discussion and gain consent to establish a couple of trading posts. Instead he sailed up the entire east coast of Australia, not opening up discussion nor gaining any consent sailing to possession island, a rocky off crop off of Northern Queensland, planted a flag and claimed the entire east coast in the name of the Crown. From this came the violent clash of two opposing cultures. Aboriginal culture was all about caring for the environment and ensuring it was handed over to successive generations. The western society was the exploitation and profit; using the land to it's maximum advantage and taking land that doesn't belong to them. I say that with as little disrespect as I can, I am also a western gal in a now western society but you don't have to look very far to see that this is true. To this day the Aboriginals have a sacred bond with the Earth, and the only way we can reconcile from the past is through reconciling with the Earth. Djarla Dulumunmun, an Elder from the Yuin nation explains, "Every part of this land is sacred: this teaching is the most important part of survival. It's our home, we live here together. This is reconciliation, to look each other in the eye and know this equally."

Elders role.

Aboriginal spirituality and tradition is centred around the belief that all living things are interconnected and thus the health of the land and water is central to our own health. Therefore, as the Earth's health begins to decline so does our own. "When we were young, no women got breast cancer or any kind of cancer. Cancer was unheard of. And no asthma either, we were people without sickness." Explains Eileen Wani Wingfield. So when the genocide began, the knowledge of the land within Australia started to deteriorate which resulted in new disease's for all people. "We are women who are fighting to keep the culture going. We've been teaching the younger women and the women that were taken away, teaching the people the lost culture." Continues Munyungka Austin.

Elders are extremely important to the Aboriginals. They are the keepers of knowledge, the preservers of sacred wisdom and law. Aboriginals didn't have a book, they didn't write down their beliefs or the knowledge of the way this land functions. The Kupa Piti Kungka Tjilpi Tjuta women senior Elders describes,"Grandmother, she's going to tell stories about the start of the Dreamtime, same as bedtime stories- she's got her stories in the heart, not on paper. The learning isn't on paper as whitefella's knowledge is. We carry it instead in our heads and we're talking from our hearts, for the land. You fellas, whitefellas, put us in the back all the time, like we've got no knowledge of the land. But we've got true story of the land. " The Elders will pass on this knowledge to their forefathers and the next forefathers and so on through the Dreamtime stories. Torres Strait Islander Athe Walter Nona continues, " We are all family, all brothers and sisters. My responsibility as an Elder is to pass knowledge from one generation to another, and make sure this knowledge is correct."

Overpopulation or not in harmony?

A lot of people may have the opinion that we are over populated and this is the cause of climate change. This may be true, I'm not a scientist with the facts to agree or deny. However, there were estimated to be over 1 billion Aboriginals in Australia before Cook arrived, today there is roughly 24 million people that live here. This is post losing 60%-90% of our Indigenous people. Our problem isn't just over population, our problem is that we are not in harmony with the land anymore. When we deforest 3.9 billion acres of our oceans reefs every year so we can consume fish we are without a doubt going to see a change of temperature in our oceans and environment on earth. I know this isn't the only reason but it is hard to deny it's not a contribution when 93% of our co2 levels come from the sea. Is living a “sustainable life” enough or is it just a packaging label that companies are using as an excuse to continue to do what we do? E.g even when purchasing fish with that good old sustainable ✅ it is pretty impossible to monitor how many dolphins are getting killed per tuna caught (it’s usually 45 per 8 tuna caught) check out the documentary seaspiracy for more information on that. Torre Straight Islander Athe Walter Nona explains these effects, "I'm sad about the commercial fishing, like trawlers, when they come they take all the fish out. We don't want them to damage all the seabeds. When they get a lot of fish they throw them back , but they're already dead; and when they go for crayfish there's nothing because the seabed is wrecked. That sea is the future welfare for us, it provides for us- not to be taken for granted, or be greedy with what it gives us."

Another example are the recent bushfires in Australia. In 2019-2020 over 17 million hectares had been burned across NSW, Victoria, Queensland, ACT, Western Australia and South Australia. This land naturally gets bushfires but there are ways to work with them. Aboriginal techniques are based in part on fire prevention: ridding the land of fuel, like debris, scrub, undergrowth and certain grasses. The fuel alights easily, which allows for more intense flames that are harder to fight. The Aboriginal people would set small-scale fires that weren't too intense and clear the land of the extra debris. This prevented many of the large roaring flaming bushfires we see today.

As you can see there are many practical parts to listening to the Elders wisdom in how to care for the land. Including, the simple act of wasting nothing, "Share to everyone on the island. God gave that food for us to eat not waste. The dugong tail was for medicine or oil from the meat and fat, it was medicine. We had tuberculosis here during the war; a lot of people survived, because of that medicine. You can cook with that oil to," says Athe Walter Nona. Now, I'm not saying that we should all go get us some dugong meat and use all it's bits straight up, but what beautiful respect for what we consume! We share it, we respect it, we heal with it, we use allllll of it! This year alone in the Uk we have wasted 25'688 tonnes of food. In one year Australia will waste 7.5 million tonnes of food. It's estimated that 820 million people will go hungry per year. These are practical things to care for our environment, our people living in it and to learn to live in harmony with the land/sea.

Listening to our Elders or the original custodians of our countries is probably one of the first major steps to helping our environment in accordance to the land and not the profit. Max Dulumunmun Harrison describes this beautifully. He explains that if only the world leaders would step into a tranquil setting to talk to the Elders, "At these great gatherings with these world leaders, they must step out of ego and into spirit and listen. One thing is for sure, we all breathe the same air, we all drink the same water. This is the message for everyone and to everyone! The planet is okay- this planet will rid itself of all the parasites. The parasites are us, it's the human parasites that's causing all the destruction and not letting the planet heal. That earthquake is the planet saying look out, look out. Man needs to heal."

Educate yourself

All of this research began when I left the city and came home. I have been away from my hometown for about 8 years. Living in Melbourne, New York and London and chasing my passions for the arts. There have been so many incredible moments on this journey. However, when I was blessed with a ticket home from London amidst the pandemic I realised how much I had lost touch with Mother Earth. My feet had become soft from the city (because in warm little hippie towns we don't wear shoes). However, when I came home I realised that I really know nothing about this land or the true history of Australia. I still don't. All I have done is opened a couple of books and listened to some podcasts. We should of learnt about it in schools but apparently other cultures such as Greek and Roman were more important. I'm not saying that these cultures are not important in history - but we spent 2 entire years studying both in school (we even decorated the classrooms with Greek mythology!). Shouldn't we have given the same respect to our own history? We learnt bits and pieces in school like how Captain Cook arrived here, we would acknowledge the rightful custodians of the land and sometimes we would attend a small ceremony such as corroborree. Though, It's quite sickening that this isn't a core subject throughout our studies at school in Australia.

If we were educated about the rightful custodians of Australia and what really happened in history we would of had the awareness of the Sacred Land engraved into us. If we had the Elders come in and talk to us about it then we would have the awareness of how to take care of it - also the knowledge of the repercussions of not taking care of it. Future Prime ministers would work with the Aboriginals because they would know that that's just common sense. They wouldn't just be saying "sorry" and continue to ignore the issues we have in regards to the Aboriginal people and the Earth. The only event that I have witnessed in my generation in addressing these issues was Sorry Day. And when the Rudd administration left power not long after the apology was made there was inaction to change our ways in Australia leader after leader. Therefore, the beginning of making amends for the pain that has been caused on behalf of the Aboriginal people is still not fully addressed.

Because this is the way the system is the only thing to really do is educate yourself and cultivate awareness. The merited thing to do is to give the land back to the rightful owners and listen to them. Because honestly we whitefellas in Australia know diddly squat about how to save the environment. And it is so obvious that we don't we are one of the top deforesters in the world!

Recently, I joined a fundraising group called rainforest 4 foundation. I have learnt many shocking things since I started this work:

1. The area I grew up in used to be the largest subtropical rainforest in Australia. We called it, The Big Scrub.

2. The oldest rainforest in the world is called the Daintree situated in Cairns upon the sandy beaches of the Great Barrier Reef. It is the only place in the world with two historically listed sites next to each other.

3. In 100 years we have lost 99% of our rainforest in The Big Scrub. This is due to cedar logging, housing development and farmland.

4. As a result we have 120 endangered native species, 61 of them are critically endangered.

5. In the 1980's the Australian Government subdivided 2/3 of the Daintree rainforest and sold it to a Danish developer for 1'100 plots of housing development. With only around 200 plots left today.

6. Within the 1/3 that is protected by national park lives the Kuku Yalanji- the original custodians of the land. They are also the park rangers and therefore have jobs maintaining the land.

Our method to approach these issues are simple and effective:

1. We plant trees! Connecting the corridors of the remaining pockets of rainforest back together again. We have planted over 30'000 hectares in The Big Scrub over the short time of 2 years and will get to 1 million trees planted by 2023. Just the other day I was blessed to be able to participate in my first replantation of 3000 trees!

2. We purchase land in the Daintree and within the trust we have with the Kuku Yalanji the land we purchase is given national park protection which they can conserve and regain sacred sites. This is also so important to the livelihood of the Great Barrier Reef as the rainforest and the reef work together to keep each other alive.

I am only on the streets asking people to sign up to help us continue to do this work, and it is important, but the real importance comes from changing our intentions and working with the Aboriginals and not against them. The only reason I stand out on the street to do this is because the Government sold this Sacred Land in the first place. If we had the basic understanding of the true value of the Daintree and not the price tag then we would know the stupidity behind demolishing it. If we educated ourselves and listened to the Elders then we wouldn't be fighting to save the Great Barrier Reef, the Daintree and The Big Scrub we would be learning about their importance and appreciating them.

So what solution?

The answer to this is simple, I don't have one. I don't know where the sacred sites are, I have zero awareness in the big scheme of things, and I know nothing about how to truly take care of this planet. I am only within the mere beginning of this education. However, it is SO important to start. We can all start to educate ourselves. We can all step out of the ego and say, "hey, I actually have a lot to learn because I have no idea how to take care of the planet properly." It is overwhelming. There is so much to learn. There is so much to make amends for. There is a lot of change to be made. All we can do is start. Start to learn about the true custodians of our lands. Start to learn about the history of our countries. Start to take a look at how we eat, what our privileges are, check if they are supportive to the cycle of life, who we are supporting, where our money is going, what plants and animals need protecting, how the environment affects our health, how we are connected to the Earth, what helps us survive within it, what are we about to lose. Through educating ourselves we can slowly create a ripple effect that is for the better.

Vilma Webb from the Noongar people explicate's our purpose, "We're only here for a short amount of time to do what we've been put here to do, which is look after country. We're only a tool in the cycle of things. It takes two people to make a baby, and that baby is nurtured by the Mother until it is able to go out into the world and help and keep the balance of nature. It's a big cycle of living with the land, and then eventually going back to it and recreating something new."

"We all have different struggles around the world, but if we all see each other as brothers and sisters and treat each other properly, like brothers and sisters, this world would be a better place. If you treat the lady next to you as if she were your sister, you will make sure you will look after her good. If you look after her and make sure she has a good life and respect everything around her, we can all share and appreciate what this world has to offer. If we show more love and care for each other like brothers and sisters, the world will become good again. If you look at indigenous culture it's about unity, not division; our culture is based on sharing and caring." - Athe Walter Nona Torres Staright Islander Elder.

So listen to the Elders; We can endeavour to live with the land, not just off it.

References:

ELDERS - wisdom from Australia's indigenous leaders: forwards by Manadawuy Yunupingu and Lowitja O'Donoghue

Aboriginal Way - Podcast

Dan Snow's history hit: Captain Cook the Aboriginal perspective - Podcast

www.rainforest4.org

Seaspiracy: Ali Tabrizi- Documentary