Wangan and Jagalingou

Background info

Indigenous traditional owners opposed to the Adani Carmichael coalmine have lost a full-bench appeal to the federal court, which has upheld a land-use agreement and ordered a group of elders to pay the miner’s costs.

The Wangan and Jagalingou people are the Traditional Owners of the land in Queensland’s Galilee Basin. They have been custodians of the land and it is their responsibility to protect that land, water, people, history and totems. They have a culture based on sacred believes and it is in danger now because the corporate conglomerate, Adani wants to use their ancestral lands for their Carmichael coal mine. Adani is trying to buy their silence and they want to take away their land and their rights and interests in it.

Relation to polluters

Adani Energy has acquired a contract to set up a coal mining operation in Queensland, Australia, in territory traditionally held by the Wangan and Jagalingou people. A ceremonial site and 1,385 hectares of Wangan and Jagalingou were taken from them for the mining operation with no compensation. In a series of court battles initiated by Adrian BurraGubba and Coedy McAvoy, local Wangan and Jagalingou activists, Adani won the unrestricted rights to the taken land, including the ability to have locals imprisoned simply for trespassing. Furthermore, Adani lawyers forced BurraGubba into court-ordered bankruptcy to cover their costs.

Relation to climate crisis

All side effects of large scale mining are most relevant to the plight of the Wangan and Jagalingou. Groundwater and runoff in the traditional lands of the Wangan and Jagalingou would be polluted with chemicals and sediment, toxic mining chemicals such as Mercury could leach out into the traditional lands of the Wangan and Jagalingou, and local ecosystems could collapse as a result of toxicified soil and plants.

Wangan and Jagalingou

Background info

Relation to polluters

Relation to climate crisis

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