Night work at the Carmichael coal mine, Queensland, Australia, in September 2020. Photo: Cameron Laird/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
The Wangan and Jagalingou people are an Aboriginal nation from central Queensland. Their country is part of Australia’s mythical dry and dusty outback. But as they know well, it’s also watered by the Doongmabulla Springs, whose waters bubble up to fill the Carmichael and Belyando rivers. For the Wangan and Jagalingou, the springs are a sacred place. “This is the only source of water in our country that is eternal and continues to live and give life,” says Adrian Burragubba, a Wangan man and long-term Aboriginal land-rights activist. “So it’s essential to us to protect this place – because it is our dreaming, it’s our past, it’s our present, and it’s our future.”