country

Nigel Scullion acknowledges there may be no future for some remote indigenous communities in WA as Premier Colin Barnett yesterday revealed he plans to close up to 150 of the state's 274 tiny settlements. Fred Chaney has sent an open letter to Mr Barnett, Senator Scullion and Tony Abbott warning that if governments simply "let things rip" by withdrawing services and driving people out of remote communities without careful preparation, the outcomes for indigenous Australians "will be shameful". [node:read-more:link]

First Nations people in West Australia's Pilbara iron ore region are taking on BHP Billiton over its claim for leases covering 200 square kilometres of their tribal country.

The Martu people in remote Western Australia hunt kangaroos and set small grass fires to catch lizards, as they have many thousands of years. A University of Utah researcher found such man-made disruption boosts kangaroo populations – showing how co-evolution helped marsupials and made First Nations people into conservationists.

The findings suggest that Australia might want to encourage small-scale burning to bolster wildlife populations in certain areas. [node:read-more:link]

Further damage by vandals has been discovered at the site of some of the world's oldest and largest Aboriginal carvings, which have laid undisturbed for centuries on the Burrup Peninsula. Not only is the site vulnerable to the destruction of country meted out some of Australia's biggest mining projects, but there is also a total failure of governments to protect the site from grand theft and casual vandals.

The true owners say they do not want to have to close off areas to the public. [node:read-more:link]

An explorer who had at least two conflicts with First Nations people in the nineteenth century was commemorated with a statue of him holding a gun on a Masonic symbol platform right in the centre of Alice Springs

The statue is of John McDouall Stuart, a Scottish explorer who had at least two conflicts with First Nations people during his explorations moving northerly from Adelaide, in the 19th Century. [node:read-more:link]

The British have waged undeclared wars on First Nations peoples ever since 1788.

The murder and misery inflicted today reminds us of when settlers rode into communities on horse back and cut down extended families. In current times, the government does not only allow multi-national mining giants to rape the country and destroy ancient cultures, but they are trying to force First Nations people to live with the poisonous waste. [node:read-more:link]

Australia has been 'humiliated' by the governments efforts to de-register part of Tasmania world heritage forests, according Greens leader Christine Milne.

Andrew Darby Sydney Morning Herald 24 June 24 2014 [node:read-more:link]