Danielle Flakelar

Country

In the Wayilwan Creation Story, the marshes were created from Mulliian-ga’s tree on the Barwon River. In the dreaming, there was Mullian-ga, a giant wedge-tailed eagle with magical powers. He was the boss of the eaglehawk people and lived in a monstrous yaraan tree on the Barwon River. Mullian-ga ate people from the surrounding tribes — as well as the snakes and lizards, the birds and furred animals — so they sent their best climber, a tree that ran up into the cloud-top eyrie to burn him out. Days later, the world shook as Mullian-ga’s tree fell south across the country. It buried itself deep in the ground where its hollow trunk acted like a pipe and its branches cut the channels of the Macquarie Marshes. If you dig deeply enough in the channels you will fund old Mullian-ga’s tree. As for Mullian-ga, he escaped into the sky but was burnt black, which is why the feathers of all old eagles in his tribe turn black. (source National Parks and Wildlife Service brochure.)

The Macquarie Marshes were created about 6,000 years ago, after the Ice Age. The stories have been passed down. I’ve been challenged about the story: “aren’t the Macquarie Marshes created from the south from Macquarie River”. Well, what colour is the soil within the marshes? "It’s black. It’s dark.” What colour is the soil that comes down from the Cuttaburra, the Warrego, the Narran and into the Barwon? That black soil comes from there and it connects those places through the stories. They connect us to others in the north, along the Barwon and Narran Rivers.

In the marsh, it can be a stinking smell because of the bird breeding. The water keeps underneath the lignum or trees where the birds are breeding, keeps all of that muck moving, but brings in food and microbes. It’s very purposeful, all that water.

I’m really conscious of the marshes being on a floodplain.

I’ll go back to ash and hopefully be returned to the marshes in burial. It’s so important for our life and the life of all species that depend on it. I feel very connected to water as in our culture, women are life-givers. We have children. It’s part of ceremony for us. It's really important for our culture, knowledge, health and wellbeing, and teaching.

Land management practices have changed rapidly, especially since the 1970s and 1980s. There’s not that regenerative process like when the Old Aboriginal People managed things. Simple things like when a tree falls into the river, move it so there’s still water passage, it’s still there and provides habitat for yabbies and fish but it doesn’t change the flow of the water. It doesn’t create a choke.

Water advocacy

My journey as a water leader began early. I was just aware of my environment from a young age because of my time with the grandparents. When my cousins and I would go on holidays, I wasn’t with Mum and Dad, I was with Nan and Grandfather. Dad wouldn’t like me being in the back of the ute with my cousins and I’d be very cranky about that. But the good thing was that I was between Nan and Grandfather and they were pointing to native plants and animals and teaching me stuff. I didn’t really realise what was happening, but on reflection, that’s definitely how I learned about Country. They’d point out places where our people lived and what they were doing and that sort of thing. I was very lucky. I can identify plants really well now and am very aware of our natural environment.

I joined the Macquarie Marshes Environmental Flow Reference Group in 2007 because I was working on the Adaptive Environmental Management Plan for Macquarie Marshes and Gwydir Wetlands. Membership to the EFRG was by invitation but there wasn’t a position that was specially dedicated for Aboriginal people. There was no induction, no mentoring or coaching. It was really just you sit there, ask questions, try and pick things up and understand. There’s a lot of technical terms, technical language and abbreviations — it was really an exclusive little group that we’re talking about.

I started developing a water management position based on our Wayilwan cultural connections and reflecting the natural and cultural values. I began speaking on behalf of nature and the river and challenging all of the members, whether they were graziers, irrigators or water managers. It didn’t make me popular, but I wasn’t there for that. But was respected by some members because they liked that I was focused, and they needed to be called out.

I remember going to this one Murray-Darling Basin Commission meeting. It was the first meeting I’d been to where there were irrigators, graziers, town people and there were three Aboriginal people, myself and two others. I made sure everyone else had their say and then I got up to have mine. The chair tried to take the microphone away from me when I started calling them out on things like employment for locals, apprenticeships, housing and the environment. They didn’t want to hear that. I said, “Excuse me. I’m not finished” and I stood there. He did it three times before he gave it up. I said to him, “No. You’ve given everyone else an opportunity. This is my turn. I’ve been respectful and it’s my turn to talk.”

It’s not like me to do that, but when I asked for permission from my family, they said, “That’s what we raised you for and your responsibility.” That gives you a lot of strength when you have that support. The trouble is, you’ve got to be brave, sure of yourself and know Country to be able to stand up and fight for it. Some people coming behind might not have that and that’s a real concern.

Changes

The marsh has been drained heavily. I think it might be about 50 kilometres across now and maybe 200 kilometres long, but it was much bigger. They started Burrendong Dam upstream in the 1950s and it was completed by 1969. Then we got the big seventies floods so it could fill. There’s now a Water Management Act, water sharing plans, floodplain harvesting plans — all of these things that determine decisions about water allocation.

A big change came in the seventies, when with the water was harvested and used for cotton. We’ve got a lot of irrigation, clearing of land, laser levelling, floodplain harvesting and capturing that water and holding it into these big tanks (private dams).

In the 1990s I could still find my way around the marsh. But when I returned to the Macquarie Marshes for work in 2007, I lost my bearings. It had been cleared so much, I wasn’t sure that I was actually on the right road. I struggled with that. Unfortunately, we’re not getting the amount of water and plants that we used to have, so it just looks like a big dirt pile with veins of water trickling through to the marshes now.

My Nan, Josie Carney, fought for an allocation of environmental water for environmental purposes. But it’s not the way it was before. It’s changed because when they do an allocation the cotton irrigators make sure it’s delivered in the most efficient and effective way reckoning that the marshes get enough water. This is where it gets tricky because if you send water down it’s great, but if it gets to a certain level within the channel or creeks, it triggers the rights of others to start pumping. So, it’s over allocated and over managed for non-natural purposes.

I am concerned for the Aboriginal cultural sites and especially the women’s sites, particularly along the Macquarie River that are very important for women for birthing, for health and wellbeing of all species. Parts of the marshes are beautiful because there’s reed beds, lignum for nesting and red gums for resources and to make shelter. These sites are all on private properties now, so access is restricted. The land management practices of holding water have caused acidification, the land can’t function naturally. It’s heartbreaking. I just feel like it’s been disrespected and impacted for economic benefits only. It’s not sustainable.

Concerns and hopes

What I’m describing is probably at the tail end of when the land was okay and recoverable, but now I think it’s gone too far.

Rivers are living beings. We need legislation that recognises the rights of rivers, waterways and the natural world legally and represent them in court. There’s so much power in those who have land. The government is all about the economy and don’t understand that if you don’t have functional waterways and ecosystems, then it's going to come to an end.

A drop of water and everything seems to flourish. So we’re in that trap of, “Oh, it’ll be right. We’ll have seven years of drought and then we’ll have three good years and we’ll make money out of that. We can manage that.”

The cycle is going to be less and less with climate change. We’re already experiencing climate change out here. When we do get storms, they’re destructive. They’re not like they used to be. We’ve had a lot of floods where normally you wouldn’t.

What we need is balance, a cultural water allocation, not from the environmental allocation, but from the high-security allocation to sustain Country for future generations.

There should be a culturally safe place for Wayilwan people, we could establish a cultural and educational site, to make partnerships to create opportunities to bring our mob out and pass on culture and share stuff with non-Aboriginal people. People have to understand what they’re responsible for and what their obligations are.

A Country-based strategic plan needs to be developed to pass on cultural knowledge and teachings to our future generations. Aboriginal people plan for seven generations down, not just the next ones and that makes you think about Country in a very different way.

Wayilwan and other Aboriginal people are challenging the way things are done and not give up and say, “Well, my hands are tied”. No. You need to be that voice and advocate for the river and waterways and just be presenting facts because the authorities like evidence. We need to talk about social and cultural impacts as well as environment.

In the Gywdir Wetlands, NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service on behalf of the government, bought property that had some marsh country that needed to be protected. They had cleared the reeds in the wetland and were grazing cattle, so it was a very changed landscape. I went back 10 years later and you wouldn’t have recognised it as the same place. With the multiple impacts removed, the water is flowing back through its normal route today, and now you couldn’t see miles away to the other side. They’ve got a bird hide there. It was really heartwarming.