Marlawgay Miilarl: the sacred lightening place

To know the place that reared me, is to know fundamentally who I am and the vocation behind my work. This place begins atop Marlawgay Miilarl; sitting 1,564m above the sea. From here the land falls sharply away through rocky outcrops, Gondwana rainforests and mangrove estuaries. Along this escarpment you will find our farm, Moffat Falls.

After a series of family tragedies, my mother started running the farm at twenty-one. There was no infrastructure, and the cattle were scattered deep in the surrounding wilderness. She built the family home and generated electricity from local waterfalls. My parents established the largest private hydro-electricity setup in Australia at the time.

I am the fourth generation to be born into this ecological community; with which I share bacteria, routine and memory. At times this place and I have been bound together by grief; at times we have been estranged. But we are not separate; our bodies intersperse each other. Hers nourishes mine; mine nourishes hers.

However, we are a landscape that has been cut into squares by colonialism. As a member of the Second Peoples, my identity here includes an ongoing liminality. I am simultaneously of this place, and I am not. The First Peoples of the Dunghutti, Gumbaynggirr and Anaiwan Nations have much longer histories with Country and I pay my respects to their Elders past, present and emerging.

Action research and agricultural mindscapes

In this place approximately 300,000ha of land was burnt during Australia’s 2019/20 black summer bush fires. Moffat Falls was not spared, we lost kilometres of fencing, underground power cables and grey water systems. Displaced dingoes retreated to the area and killed many of our smaller animals. These fires were surrounded by other disasters; by drought, COVID-19 and financial hardship.

We know that these kinds of disasters will only increase in frequency and severity. Global ecosystems are at a tipping point. Continued pressure from expanding agricultural landscapes will cause further environmental vulnerability and social unrest. My role is to ensure that Marlawgay Miilarl and Moffat Falls can absorb continued shocks into the future.

It is hard to truly grasp the simple fact, that the decisions of strangers living elsewhere will partly determine the fate of this place. Somehow our mindscapes have come to be fundamentally at odds with our landscapes and non-human relatives. It is the contours of the mind that determine the contours of the farm. In some pockets of society, we need to radically shift the way we relate to the places that make us. In doing so, ecosystems must move to the centre of our lives and thinking. If this does not happen, Marlawgay Miilarl and Moffat Falls will significantly suffer during my period of custodianship and beyond.

This threat has led to me to work in a way that seeks transformation by simultaneously taking action and doing research. I am accountable to the plight of the Earth. So my research into agricultural mindscapes is a natural expansion of my responsibilities to Marlawgay Miilarl and Moffat Falls.