Nurturing a Global Sisterhood of Conservation Leaders

It’s exciting and it’s emotional too, because I recall my story back home, and I think about my parents, my grandparents who always do those activities, and some of them are gone already, some of them are still present, and their stories are out here.

And how does it feel being able to perform your stories for people and really move them in the art space, really touch their hearts through your performance? How does that make you feel?

I feel that my stories have value with the nature, the land, the ocean that we are living with.

This is grandmother’s supermarket, and this creek, Tallow Creek, is where grandmother was born and raised by her parents. She buried her parents just a couple of doors down, and there’s a resort on the burial site now, so we’ve got to make sure that we ask permission to go in and visit our people. Grandmother moved down the end of the creek at the mouth of the creek that flows into the ocean, and that’s where she born and raised her 13 children. My mum is number nine, and mum has fond memories of walking along this beautiful beach with her siblings, ducking into the bush, swimming, getting plenty of fish and pipis and just taking their time along the way.

Wow, this is an amazing experience, planting trees in Australia to restore koalas. It’s an amazing experience because myself as a woman, just taking this opportunity to plant trees in a place very far away from home, brings some good memories of back home, but also makes me think of 10 years to come, 20 years to come, when all these trees we have planted will be very big.

So, I can imagine we are leaving the mark on Australia, we as women, so even the community around can know that there were women here, Nature’s Leading Women planted these areas, so it’s just amazing to take part in restoring this part of Australia, and this is something we can do back home, to some other places that we need to restore—the areas where there are endangered species. So, it’s something that we are going to do back home, to involve other women. This shows solidarity, seeing women doing this activity with love, we are planting trees here in Australia with love, so it’s just an amazing situation, an amazing activity, an amazing experience that I’ve experienced and that I am taking back home with me.

I was grateful to be here in this space, over the couple of days here, just listening to all the women talk—women sharing their stories and the empowerment that came out of a lot of these speeches.

They’re very inspiring, the women are very inspiring. The dedication that they show, you can really tell just by listening to all their stories they all have different stories but a common goal. We’re all working in all these different spaces but we’ve all got common goals, and the respect here and the safety net that people feel they can share, so yeah, people are sitting in these rooms, like here Bryon Bay up in Brisbane, we don’t know each other, but the space feels so respectful of each other and caring, and it’s allowing people to open up and connect and share what they’re actually doing and it’s actually inspiring other women in the room.

And then you go sit down with someone else, and they’re also talking about how they inspired by it or how they like what this one said, it’s all coming together and connecting—it’s good to see that, uplifting each other and that’s the word I’m taking back from it is inspiring, very inspiring and powerful listening to those women.

I guess I’ve seen a lot of woven pieces here, from our little lanyard rope necklaces to the fans, so I’m really intrigued looking at it, so I am really keen to share and learn from them and their techniques and the story behind it, and how they came into it and what it means to them and myself by sharing my experience with how I came to learning and just passing it on. Because for me, when I look at our culture especially here in Australia, and I’m going to get a little bit emotional, but it is really hard watching because of the impact that colonization has had to our people and a lot of them have been taken away and become disconnected from their lands and their culture, and for me, being in my space, whenever I get the opportunity, I take people, sit down, and connect them, and I say to them like—because some people don’t have a home, don’t know where they belong—and I’m kind of like, well just go where your heart feels like home, somewhere will call you. Because I know I’ve gone through my stages of yearning to go back home, but I’m fortunate enough to know where home is, but other people we adopt you know and take under our wings. I feel like you know you don’t pick your family, family picks you—like looking at all these ladies, yes we’re all from all over the world, but we’re becoming one big sisterhood, one big family, and I think that’s the beauty of this experience.

My hope is for us all to come together, all accept one another and all work together for this planet Earth, and help us heal this planet Earth because she sustains us, she keeps us going. She’s a living, breathing thing and we can’t survive without her, so that’s my hope—that we come together and help heal her and make this world a lot better place for ourselves and the next coming generations. Thank you.