Posted on April 23, 2024
The Martuwarra River is not just a waterway. It is a sacred being, explains Anne Poelina, an Indigenous community leader who descends from a lineage of custodians of its waters stretching back 40,000 years.
One of Australia’s last free-flowing wild rivers and a national heritage site, the Martuwarra, also known by its colonial name Fitzroy, cuts a camel-humped path both vertically and horizontally across 733 kilometres of ancient red rock, carving gorges through the Kimberley ranges before spilling over a floodplain into King Sound on the Indian Ocean. To Poelina, it is “the river of life.” Under traditional law, or First Law, the river owns her. She has a duty of care.
