HEALTHY WATER, HEALTHY COUNTRY, HEALTHY PEOPLE
A call to action for Healthy Water from Great Barrier Reef Traditional Custodians
November 2022
Introduction by the Great Barrier Reef Foundation
The Great Barrier Reef faces environmental challenges that affect both the Reef’s health and the cultural heritage it supports. Poor water quality is one of the biggest challenges faced. To address this issue, the Healthy Water Technical Working Group drove the idea to develop a Healthy Water Statement as a call for greater Traditional Owner involvement and leadership in Great Barrier Reef water quality improvement efforts.
The Statement’s purpose is to help relevant stakeholders understand, recognise and acknowledge the value of working with Traditional Owners to improve water quality. It succinctly describes the barriers faced by Traditional Owners, problems with the status quo and key actions needed to overcome these; it aims to build recognition and acknowledgement that we need to walk side by side and learn from one another to be able to move forward together.
In the spirit of collaboration, a writing group of 14 Reef Traditional Owners came together, bringing voices from various backgrounds, including the Healthy Water Technical Working Group, Traditional Owner Advisory Group members and self-nominated Traditional Owner recipients of the Healthy Water grants. They united with a singular focus: to articulate a vision for the future where water quality is not just a metric but a shared responsibility.
Understanding the Why, How and What
The statement addresses three critical components:
- Why the quality of water is crucial – for the environment, for the Traditional Owners and for the collective future. It’s not just about the ecological significance; it’s about cultural survival and the right to lead initiatives that safeguard their heritage.
- How we can collectively pave the way – through co-design, co-management and strong partnerships that dismantle the barriers to Indigenous leadership.
- What needs to change – a candid call to action for a shift in how we approach water quality improvement. It is an appeal for changes that are not just incremental but transformational.
Presented for the first time at the 2022 Great Barrier Reef Water Quality Synthesis Workshop, the Healthy Water Statement is more than a document. It’s a catalyst for change, steering pivotal policy discussions, including those around the Scientific Consensus Statement and the Reef 2050 Water Quality Improvement Plan review processes.
The call from the Great Barrier Reef Traditional Owners is clear: It’s time for courage, for partnership and for change. The health of our water, our Country and our people is interconnected. By weaving the knowledge and leadership of Traditional Owners into the fabric of environmental management, we aren’t just paying homage to their role as Traditional Custodians of the Reef. We’re taking a definitive step towards a shared future where we walk side by side and learn from each other as we move forward.
Written by Traditional Owners of the Great Barrier Reef
Healthy Water, Healthy Country, Healthy People
CHANGE THE SYSTEM! Too much time is spent meeting in separate rooms and not enough time is spent learning, designing, or deciding together as neighbours across the Reef. We as Traditional Custodians demand change to the systems that continually fails the environmental integrity of our Country. We have seen people come and go on our Country and yet we are still here, saying the same things! As neighbours and partners across the Reef, we are in this together, its everyone’s responsibility to respond to the ringing alarm from the degradation and toxicities unbalancing our life source – WATER! It’s about the quality of the water, not just the quantity. Dilution is not the solution to pollution. Water is life. We no longer want to see the richness of our Country degraded, smothered by sediments, and affecting our food and water systems, our ways of life, our culture.
CAN YOU HEAR THE ALARM BELLS? Stop, listen and turn down the other distractions concealing the alarm. Let’s be convinced that we are equipping ourselves with best management and goal posts set for healthy water, healthy ecosystems and healthy Country in the Great Barrier Reef. We need honesty and constructive discussions about applied practices because the honest truth is: our direction needs re-correction as the vital veins of water running through the system still carry overloaded sediments and introduced toxins. It’s time to change the current of irreversible damage, stop ignoring our people who have the longest environmental conservation and protection record in the world for the benefit for your future generations. Our solution is to address the ill-equipped system to enable Traditional Custodians ways of knowledge and application into modern-day caring for country practices. This is a true step towards reconciliation, that requires courage and leadership to change policies and legislation to enable Traditional Custodians guidance towards healing and restoring the connectivity of Country and its people. We need an agenda for enabling meaningful partnerships with real outcomes for Traditional Custodians, their country and their local communities that ensures a holistic feedback loop of looking after Country. We know our success stories of Indigenous leaderships restoring Country. We all need to be open to building more and more successes together.
THE TIDE IS NOW TURNING to Traditional Custodians for answers on how to heal and restore the flows of Country. Australia has an opportunity to reconcile with its poor environmental past and show leadership on a global path of reconciliation, with the aim to bring us all together and heal country. Look, listen and learn from Traditional Custodians, it’s time to have genuine commitment in partnering with us and respecting our rights to be at the table of governance bodies in a legitimate way to improve the system. We have Indigenous rights to have healthy water and we have rights to have seats at the regulation and planning tables of management for a healthy country. Why waste your time contesting our Indigenous rights when resources could be better spent on constructively discussing the required shift in practices and updating actions? Traditional Custodians need accountability built into the system that aligns with improving water health so that red flags are met with real change as we have all seen the lack of impact from voluntary pledges.
THE TIME IS NOW! Moving forward we need to be deciding together as neighbours across the Reef. We understand there are complexities to working across the Reef. Rather than be overcome by the weight of the system complexities, we need to focus on maximising all levers of leadership, learning and accountability in order to minimise the overlooking of our potential for success. It is crucial that the weight of complexities is met with the weight of all proactive and necessary actions. We need to hear the sound of our future generations enjoying the Reef, not the sounds of alarm bells. Be part of the wave of change!
“We are born in water, we come from water, we live as water, when we die we
– Malcolm Mann, Reef Traditional Custodian
become water.”
ACTIONS
- Courage and leadership to change policies and legislation to enable Traditional Custodians’ legitimate co-management for shared decision-making across the Reef and catchments
- An agenda for enabling meaningful partnerships with real outcomes for Traditional Custodians that ensures a holistic feedback loop of looking after Country
- It’s everyone’s responsibility to respond to the gaps and weaknesses in the system
- Stop ignoring our people who have the longest environmental conservation and protection record in the world and remove the silence from our past actions and repeated calls – we need your courage to break the status quo
- Improve the system by synchronising leadership, management and people, and upholding our rights and responsibilities to seats at the regulation and planning tables
- Maximise all levers of Indigenous leadership, learning and accountability to steer us towards Healthy Water, Healthy Country, Healthy People