Traditional Owners speak out against Adani's Carmichael Mine in the Galilee Basin of Queensland

"If the Carmichael mine proceeds it will tear the heart out of our country. It will pollute and drain billions of litres of groundwater, and obliterate important spring systems. It will potentially wipe out threatened and endangered species. It will literally leave a huge black hole of monumental proportions in our homelands. These effects are irreversible. Our land will be disappeared." 

- Adrian Burragubba, Wangan and Jagalingou Traditional Owner

This is one of the bravest things we've seen. 

The Traditional Owners of Queensland's Galilee Basin - the Wangan and Jagalingou people - have made the courageous decision to stop Adani building a giant coal mine on their ancestral lands. 

The Wangan and Jagalingou Family Council have launched their online campaign to stop Adani on GetUp's grassroots campaigning platform CommunityRun. Already, over 75,000 Australians have signed their petition, making it one of the largest and fastest growing campaigns ever on CommunityRun. To watch Adrian's incredible campaign video, learn more about the fight and join the campaign, click here: www.communityrun.org/p/stopadani 

You can read the original email from Wangan and Jagalingou spokesperson Adrian Burragubba below. 

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My name is Adrian Burragubba, and I'm a proud Traditional Owner of Wangan and Jagalingou country in central Queensland. You might know the area better as the Galilee Basin, where Adani wants to build one of the biggest coal mines in the world. 

My people have formally rejected an Indigenous Land Use Agreement with Adani to build the Carmichael coal mine on our land. I'm asking you and all people to join us in our fight. 

We are gravely concerned about Adani and the Queensland Government's desperate attempts to open up the Carmichael mine on Wangan and Jagalingou country. Our traditional lands are an interconnected and living whole; a vital cultural landscape. It is central to us as a People, and to the maintenance of our identity, laws and consequent rights. 

If the Carmichael mine proceeds it will tear the heart out of our country. The scale of this mine means it would have devastating impacts on our native title, ancestral lands and waters, our totemic plants and animals, and our environmental and cultural heritage. 

It will pollute and drain billions of litres of groundwater, and obliterate important spring systems. It will potentially wipe out threatened and endangered species. It will literally leave a huge black hole of monumental proportions in our homelands. These effects are irreversible. Our land will be "disappeared". 

I'm asking you to stand with my people as we fight Adani. Please sign our petition here:https://www.communityrun.org/p/stopadani 

The direct impacts won't be limited to our lands – they would have cascading effects on the neighbouring lands and waters of other Traditional Owners and other landholders in the region. The mine would unleash a mass of carbon into the atmosphere and propel dangerous global warming. 

At no time have we, the Wangan and Jagalingou people given our free, prior and informed consent to the Queensland Government or Adani for the development of the Carmichael mine. But only days after we rejected Adani's Indigenous Land Use Agreement, the company took aggressive legal action to override our decision. 

Adani wants to release themselves from the obligation to secure our agreement to mine our land. If they are successful in their legal ploy, they will also be able to seek the compulsory acquisition of our Native Title on our traditional lands. 

Adani is using its huge wealth and legal power against us while pretending to support our interests. We object in the strongest terms to their aggressive action to override us. We will not accept 'shut up money' so the mine can go ahead. 

We know our battle is a hard one. It is not just the multi-billion dollar might of Adani that my people are up against. Both the former LNP Queensland Government and Federal Environment Minister Greg Hunt approved Adani's mine through the regulatory process. 

As first peoples, we will defend our rights as traditional custodians, protect our ancestral land and cultural health, and maintain our interests in and on our country. We will protect our land for the benefit of our people, the wider Australian community, and all of us who will be affected by the consequences of global warming. 

When we say No, we mean No. It's time Adani learned. 

Thank you for listening to my story and hearing our call. Please join us: https://www.communityrun.org/p/stopadani 

Adrian Burragubba, on behalf of the Wangan and Jagalingou people. 

PS - CommunityRun is a site hosted by GetUp where anyone, like me, can start their own campaign. Your details haven't been shared with anyone else. 

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