If the River dies

© Isabella Melody Moore - Image from the If the River dies photography project © Isabella Melody Moore - Image from the If the River dies photography project © Isabella Melody Moore - Image from the If the River dies photography project View all images ↓
View all images ↓

The Nyikina people have lived in symbiosis with the Mardoowarra (Fitzroy) River for more than 60,000 years. The River is the lifeblood of the Kimberley region of Western Australia, and it is threatened by extensive development proposals from the agriculture and mining industries within the catchment area.

Nyikina Elder Linda Nardea, and her son Kimberley Watson speak of how their people read Country like a book, and since colonisation they’ve witnessed extractive industries slowly rewrite the ancient stories of their land and waters. These stories have been shared through Country by all native species, fish and flowers, animals and plants, living beings that are now sick.

This sickness is felt by the Nyikina people, who refer to health and wellbeing as Marboo-joonoo Liyan. They understand that their Marboo-joonoo Liyan is intrinsically connected to Country - they have lived with this interconnected ecosystem since time immemorial - and the Nyikina witness how symptoms expressed through Country are connected to their own body, and how diseases we feel are also felt by Country. Linda says if “the land die, we die, the river die, we die. When we see those sorts of things happen, we get sick. The sickness shows in our body, because we see bad things happen to our land.”

Kimberley says “you look after Country, Country look after you”, and with the ongoing climate crisis, the Nyikina way of being inspires us to question how we relate with our ecosystem: are we willing to change how we treat Country, or will we continue treating the symptoms of our consumptive behaviour? Whether we look at it through the Nyikina or the Western lens, if we don’t make that change soon, Country dies and so do we.

© Isabella Melody Moore - Image from the If the River dies photography project
i

Linda Nardea is a Senior Nyikina woman and a Traditional Owner of Native Title determined land covering 26,000 square km in north-western Australia. “Those seasons that tell you when to fish, when to hunt, what to hunt, what to catch in those times. People mucking with nature, and that’s what makes climate change, because they are mucking with things that they shouldn’t be mucking with, destroying the land. And the nature, nature got its own feeling, Mother Earth. And you can see the climate change, the season change, especially the season when you read it, because we read Country as a book, and it tells us what’s happening.”

© Isabella Melody Moore - Image from the If the River dies photography project
i

“The balance with the nature is not there. It’s falling apart. You can see how the plants shouldn’t be flowering at that time. These are the things that we see changing. The Weather, it tells us how to look at the special tree, where there is crocodile egg, where there is turtle egg. One day we were sitting down and we were looking at this boab tree, then Annie tells me, ‘You look at this tree here, it shouldn’t be flowering at this time, this flowering should be coming on the Willakarra [the rainy season].’ When it is time for Willakara, you can see all this rain cloud coming up, that is when it is raining. That’s what we call Willakara. So that’s part of our Aboriginal science, on how we can read Country.”

© Isabella Melody Moore - Image from the If the River dies photography project
i

In December 2018, 46 critically endangered freshwater sawfish were found dead at Blina Creek, a tributary of the Mardoowarra (Fitzroy) River. Marine scientists believed they had died due to a combination of record high temperatures and rapidly drying pools: they were found trapped in shallow water at a temperature of 37.4°C. They were partly cooked. Three dead freshwater crocodiles, and a range of other dead native fish including barramundi were also found. It is not yet known whether the pumping of billions of litres of water from Uralla (Snake) Creek for irrigation might have also played a role in the lowering of water levels. “When the water goes down and down, especially for big fish, like barramundi and biyalbiyal [swordfish], and when they’re draining the water out from the creeks, they kill the oxygen. If the fish die, if they get sick, we get sick. If the fish are alive and healthy, we are healthy. That’s how we live, we have respect for them, they’ve got stories, they’ve got song.” – Linda Nardea

© Isabella Melody Moore - Image from the If the River dies photography project
i

Linda stands by a floodplain in the Mardoowarra catchment where she used to go as a child with her family. “See all those trees there, that used to be our dinner camp. Dad, Mum and all the old people used to bring us here as little kids. All them trees there, that’s where our dinner camp was. Now you can’t see, it’s where we used to pick up the ngarbijarra [bush cucumber] all along, it’s underwater now.”

© Isabella Melody Moore - Image from the If the River dies photography project
i

Linda’s son, Kimberley Watson (38), is at Linyankoodany Cave at Mount Anderson, where a large fig tree lives and continues to grow with its roots in a pool of Living Water – a permanent body of water in dry land that has cultural and spiritual significance. This sacred site is near to the pastoral station where Kimberley grew up, where his father taught him how to survive, from hill country to floodplain to sand hill country and the River. Kimberley is known as a Yimardoowarra, a person who belongs to the River. The Mardoowarra catchment has unique ecosystems with stories named by Woonyoomboo (the Creator being of Nyikina Country) and songs. They depend on rainfall and flow, and waterholes, river pools and cave systems are vital to the survival of native flora and fauna.

© Isabella Melody Moore - Image from the If the River dies photography project
i

“I think the River does get depressed too. I think everything that gets stressed out, from the way they treat it, from overfishing, mining companies, pastoralists, I think it’s just like a human being, when it sees that, that’s wrong. When you take advantage of Country, a person can feel it in themselves. And it gets down too, sometimes. And I think the River has been crying out for a long time now. That’s why we are in this situation of trying to manage the awareness, the things that we see day by day, experience by eye, even from feeling too, you know. It is a living being, there are Rainbow Serpents there that look after it. We have knowledge on how it has been passed down from the Dreamtime until now. It doesn’t matter where you go, Country is alive. You look after Country, Country look after you. And that’s what we have been doing as Aboriginal people, it is part of our way of life, you know, the circle of life.” – Kimberley Watson

© Isabella Melody Moore - Image from the If the River dies photography project
i

Nyikina people are related to animals and plants through their totems. Everyone is given a Jarinyi – a totem – when they are born. This is a species of animal or plant that it is your duty to take care of. “You can’t eat that totem, and you can’t kill that totem, you have to look after that totem. Like I am black head snake, we can’t eat them, we can’t kill them, we have to respect them, because we are part of them. We are part of that totem.” – Linda Nardea

© Isabella Melody Moore - Image from the If the River dies photography project
i

Kimberley forages honey from the inside of a flower of a Warimba (Bohemia) tree on Nyikina Country while he explains that from a scientists side, "they are trying to collaborate with our story and put it in theory, and it goes way behind how they see, what the River is. And the uniqueness of it. Like people say, it’s a living system. And this River play a role for many other places. From the ranges where the Windjana Gorge, that’s up to the ranges Country, we got the Wankajunka Creek, that’s coming off the desert, and these are different soils and sediments, in between how far this River flow, there are different countries, from the rain land to the desert, the floodplain, and the fish, they all, you know, from the small micro animal, they play a role on the River. That’s why this place is so rich.”

© Isabella Melody Moore - Image from the If the River dies photography project
i

“When you clear the Country with a great old dozer, each and every one of its shrub and grass, tree, they all mean something. To all these small micro-animals, plants, each and every one of them, things that are connected to this biodiversity and the circle of life.” – Kimberley Watson

© Isabella Melody Moore - Image from the If the River dies photography project
i

“Malaji are a special tree that gives us food and looks after us here. You got one there properly dying because of what’s happening. When I was a kid coming here fishing we used to go with the old people to the other side and I was wondering why they hitting this tree, and talking to the tree, and next minute they catching all the fish, because of that tree. That feed you. And when it feed you, you gotta talk to it and it gives you barramundi or sawfish, stingray, it give you a lot of fish. And these are the things that from Bookarrakarra [the Dreaming], and we are here to protect those trees, they got a meaning. That Malaji tree is dead now – not dead, but it got dry. I don’t know what happened, you know, how the land changes when they’re mucking with the nature. The tree don’t get enough water to hold the root, they dry. They put a gate there now, and you have to go get permission to go on the other side. All of this area here got cultural meaning, we have to look after it. And you have Kartiya [white people] that come here and want to damage the system, and that’s what happened now.” – Linda Nardea

© Isabella Melody Moore - Image from the If the River dies photography project
i

“When we go out on Country, we know there’s food there to provide for us and some are no longer there. We not finding the Koongarra [gooseberry tree] anymore. The Doctors say you gotta have your healthy mangarri [food].” As a result, more and more of the Nyikina people are getting sick. “Those foods provided iron and vitamins.” The Nyikina people have relied upon these foods for tens of thousands of years. But eating from the land is becoming increasingly difficult, because of the impacts of climate variability, agriculture and resource extraction in the area.

© Isabella Melody Moore - Image from the If the River dies photography project
i

“If we asked the government, ‘How do you see your country?’ he’ll probably say, there’s nothing out there, just trees and animals, ‘we need to develop’, and when you ask a blackfella that’s sitting under the tree, ‘What is this country to you?’, oh, it’s a good thing! You know, the wind blowing, tree dancing, singing. And that’s nature, and even all the sceneries. But that’s how they see – just for economic development, just for a bloody piece of paper, for money. And the river, we rich enough, we got two banks. They want to destroy our two big banks. I’m not a millionaire, but this is what a million-dollar view looks like.” – Kimberley Watson. Although more than 93% of the Kimberley is covered by Native Title determinations, First Nations like the Nyikina people spend a significant amount of time either trying to protect land, cultural heritage and scared sites, or negotiating with companies who want to develop their land. This interferes with time for cultural activity and way of life, which maintains and restores health in community.

If the River dies by Isabella Melody Moore

Prev Next Close