Arnhem Land

My name is Bulmaniya and I am from Yarrbal Creek in Arnhem Land, Australia. That is about 800 kilometres (10 hours drive) east from the nearest city, Darwin. My clan is Balngarra and my language is Rembarrnga. I am Bi (pronounced Bee) and I am connected to my Kin, Country and Ancestors through stories that we have been holding since the beginning.

At this time, leading up to COP 26, the Balngarra Clan wants to share something about our stories. We want to talk about the cycles flowing through life, like kinship cycles, seasonal cycles and our own life cycles. All of these cycles are governed by Djungurr-na (The Law), which was placed in the Earth by our Nayuyunggih (Ancestors). These laws tell us how to keep everything in balance; light and dark, hot and cold, old and young, and so on. 

We have been facing up to this climate change for a long time now. Our land is crying. We have big problems with erosion, plants and animals are low in number, and we see strange things happening with the seasons. Our families are working hard with the Arafura Swamp Rangers to fix these problems by healing the soil, bringing the plants back to their right places, and increasing the numbers of all the native animals. Our fire management is really important for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and creating income through carbon credits. Our bush foods are our reward for looking after Country in the right way. Each food has a story and a set of rules for harvesting, preparing, cooking, eating, storing, sharing, caring and disposing of rubbish right way

Our people are suffering too. We are scattered all over the place and not living on our lands. Our children are not learning all their the ceremonies or speaking the right languages. Many of our people are unhappy from living in townships and not on the land. We are slowly changing this by getting serious about ceremony and creating projects like our Bush University.

We know the Earth as our Mother and the Sun as our Father. Mother Earth is crying because we are taking too much from her. We are breaking the sacred balance. We have to fix this by going back to living by The Law. This way, the Sun might recognise us and reward our behaviour. We believe that by following our Djungurr-na – and all the other sacred laws from around the world – we can together find ways of bringing balance back to the cycles of life.

For the Sunset Assembly we will be joining you from the Arafura Swamp Ranger Office in Ramingining, which is the only place where we can connect with you all through this technology.