Yarning with Mother Earth – caring for country, led by Uncle Bruce and First Nations colleagues

First Nations and environment:  

Session 3 Yarning with Mother Earth – caring for country. An interactive Panel discussion led by Bruce Shillingsworth.

Panelists – 

Michelle Aleksandrovics Lovegrove – Facilitator

Michelle is a Ngarrindjeri woman born in Port Augusta, South Australia and brought up in the Illawarra region of New South Wales. Her family and heartland community is Raukkan on the banks of Lake Alexandrina near Lake Albert and the mouth of the Murray River. Michelle is a journalist, broadcaster and communicator who has worked across Australian commercial media outlets, the ABC, NITV and a decade with SBS. She currently works in Land Rights as Senior Communications Officer for the New South Wales Aboriginal Land Council.

Bruce Shillingsworth

Bruce Shillingsworth is a First Nations artist and rights activist. The Muruwari and Budjiti man has been prominently campaigning for just management of the river system. And as part of that, he launched the Water for Rivers campaign earlier this year.

Victor Stefansen

Victor is one of the founders of Firesticks. Through a series of workshops Firesticks Alliance has worked to define the values and objectives underlying cultural burning to inform our on ground activities. The responses ranged across the natural, spiritual, economic, educational and social domains and encompass values that are both similar and different from mainstream environmental management. This is to be expected as cultural burning is based on an understanding that a reciprocal arrangement exists between people and Country. This is often summarised in “healthy people healthy Country”. That is, healthy people with knowledge, authority and capacity are required to manage the Country. In return a healthy landscape is required to support the physical, mental and spiritual needs of the people who are the managers. In practice this means Firesticks invests in people, in communication pathways, education and in on ground land management work to create a resilient social and ecological landscape.

Dr Anne Poelina (Wagaba)

Dr Anne Poelina is a Nyikina Warrwa woman from the Kimberley region of Western Australia. An active community leader, human and earth rights advocate, film maker and a respected academic researcher, with a second Doctor of Philosophy (First Law) titled, ‘Martuwarra First Law Multi-Species Justice Declaration of Interdependence: Wellbeing of Land, Living Waters, and Indigenous Australian People’, Master of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, Master of Education, Master of Arts (Indigenous Social Policy)  Signatory to the Redstone Statement 2010 she helped draft at the 1st International Summit on Indigenous Environmental Philosophy in 2010. Anne is a 2011 Peter Cullen Fellow for Water Leadership. In 2017, she was awarded a Laureate from the Women’s World Summit Foundation (Geneva), elected Chair of the Martuwarra Fitzroy River Council (2018), Adjunct Professor and Senior Research Fellow with Notre Dame University and a Research Fellow with Northern Australia Institute Charles Darwin University. She holds membership to national and global Think Tanks. Dr Poelina is a Visiting Fellow with the Crawford School of Public Policy at the Australian National University, Canberra Australia Water Justice Hub to focus on Indigenous Water Valuation and Resilient Decision-making.

See website:  www.martuwarrafitzroyriver.org

ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6461-7681 

Personal website: www.majala.com.au

Lisa Viliamu Jameson

Lisa Viliamu Jameson is a Sāmoan Australian community campaigner and creative producer. She is an organiser for the Queensland Pacific Climate Warriors and campaigner for 350 Australia, a non-profit organisation moving Australia beyond fossil fuels. Lisa currently campaigns for the landmark Torres Strait Climate Justice case ‘Our Islands Our Home’. She is also the creative director of ‘Conscious Mic,’ a collective of artists, cultural practitioners and creative producers, who identify as Indigenous, Pacific Islander and culturally diverse artists based in Brisbane.

Tickets from: Eventbrite