Gamil means no: don't be quiet while mining threatens our collective future | Jared Field

With Santos and its gas project on our doorstep, we need to protect an entire forest and the vast amounts of water beneath

There is a tree on my country that is sacred. Of course, there are many sacred trees there - it is sacred ground, after all - but the tree I am thinking of is sacred to me. It is large. Very, very large, with a section cut out where an ancestor of mine had made a shield or a small canoe. But the wound - for it was cut with care - has long since healed over.

Now, owing to the sheer size of the tree, the wound more resembles a door; sometimes I wonder if the canoe is on the other side, river and all. The tree is large in other ways too; it has big spirit, or energy. Big dhui. This is something that cannot be explained, not really. It can only be felt.