2008 Nuclear-Free Future Award
Jillian Marsh of the Adnyamathanha Clan, Austrailia
Jillian Marsh grew up in the coal-mining town of Leigh Creek,
in South Australia’s Flinders Ranges. To Jillian and her clan the
ranges are Adnyamathanha yarta, the country of the rock people.
She remembers: "The coal itself, and where it's located, are central
to our Muda, our Dreaming, yet nobody bothered to ask our
Elders for permission to extract it. It was a fundamental blow to
the continuity of our ceremonial and spiritual life." That was back
during the 1950s.
Jillian tells us: "During the 1990s I joined a small group of my
Adnyamathanha cousins, aunts and uncles who were part of a
volunteer organization called Flinders Ranges Aboriginal Heritage
Consultative Committee (FRAHCC). Together we provided a safe
and respectful forum for all Adnyamathanha to raise concerns,
particularly in regard to maintaining our heritage. Two of the biggest
issues we faced during this period were coming to terms with
the introduction of Native Title legislation, designed to right past
wrongs, and facilitating meaningful community consultation on the
exploration and mining proposal for Beverley Uranium Mine."
The partnership between government and the mining industry
ensures that uranium exploration and mining continues undeterred
by Indigenous or general public concerns in a section of Jillian's
homeland her people call virdni yarta: poison country. In August
2002, Jillian told a Senate inquiry that mining proponent negotiations
with the Adnyamathanha claimants to obtain their Native titles
was "misrepresentative, illinformed,
and designed to divide and disempower the community".
Today, with the expansion of the uranium mining lease, Jillian,
squaring off against the partnership of government and industry,
points out that consultation and negotiation processes are "still illequipped
to give a fair and equitable voice to the Adnyamathanha
community."
In 2004 Jillian was successful in winning a Doctoral candidacy
placement at Adelaide University’s Geographical and Environmental
Studies Department. Her PhD research topic, A Look at the
Approval of Beverley Mine and the Ways that Decisions are Made
When Mining Takes Place in Adnyamathanha Country: Better Ways
of Caring for Culture, reads like a report from behind enemy lines.
"I want our story to be told, the way we as Indigenous Australians
experience the social and environmental impacts from uranium
mining and the nuclear industry. Unless we tell it ourselves, we run
the risk of being misrepresented or silenced." Jillian’s thesis is due
to be submitted shortly for assessment. She hopes to be able to
continue her research in this area with assistance from the Australian
Research Council in 2009.
As spiritual custodians of their ancient homeland, Jillian and
other Adnyamathanha have a much different relationship to its sites
and landscapes than the people punching the clocks at Heathgate
Resources Ltd., a subsidiary of U.S.-based General Atomics, the
proprietors of the Beverley Uranium Mine. Jillian feels that the challenge
before every Australian citizen is to decolonize the way we
think about and interact with each other and with the environment
we have inherited. "We cannot keep exploiting and destroying our
natural and cultural resources; we must become responsible and
mature citizens of this nation."
The in situ leach mining technique Heathgate Resources
employs pollutes the local aquifer with heavy metals, acid and radionuclides.
The government lease places the company under no obligation
to rehabilitate the aquifer. With the increasing salinity of the
region’s water sources, Jillian regards this alone as a terrible crime,
to which she adds: "for us Adnyamathanha, culturally, rehabilitation
really has a limited application. For us, once something has been
disturbed and damaged or once something like a uranium orebody
has been extracted, that is it – it is gone. It has been removed, it has
been disturbed, it has been spiritually as well as physically damaged
and it is not whole anymore, so full rehabilitation is something that
cannot be done."
In 1998 Jillian received the prestigious Jill Hudson Environmental
Award for her work in educating people living near the Beverly
Uranium Mine about the toxic dangers of uranium mining and how
people could take an active role in community consultation. She
shares her knowledge and skills with other Aboriginal clans across
the Australian continent facing the same cultural and environmental
devastation; she has also traveled overseas to attend First Nation
conferences, observing "the same pattern of oppression is being
used by mining companies and governments all over the world
against Indigenous communities." Jillian has helped build strong
alliances with green environmental organizations under the umbrella
of ANFA (Australian Nuclear Free Alliance). She says, “"f my work
inspired some of our young people, that would be great." Her PhD
thesis is dedicated to a strong and healthy future for our children.
–together with Jillian Marsh, Craig Reishus
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