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‘Wilcannia community leader presents on the plight of the Baaka (Darling River) at the COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan’

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On the 13th of November, Uncle Owen Whyman presented as part of an Indigenous panel at COP29 (29th Conference of the Parties) during the ‘United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change’ (UNFCCC) in Baku, Azerbaijan. Uncle Owen is a respected Wilcannia community leader, volunteer board member of the Indigenous Peoples’ Organisation (IPOA), Chair of the Paroo-Darling National Park Co-management Committee, Deputy Chair of the Mutawintji National Park Board of Management, board member of North-Western Water Council, and founder and convenor of the Indigenous – Aboriginal Party of Australia (IAPA).

Indigenous peoples’ contribution in the UNFCCC comes under the ‘Local Communities and Indigenous People’s Platform’ (LCIPP) and aims to give a voice to Indigenous communities around the world most affected by Climate Change but least responsible for it.

Apart from Uncle Owen, the IPOA contingent included fellow board member, Leslie Schultz (Ngadju and Mirning Elder – Cultural Heritage Expert), Co-Chair, Pastor Ray Minniecon (Kabi Kabi and Gurang Gurang Elder – Pastor and Educator) and IPOA Founder/Co-Chair, Cathryn Eatock (Gayiri and Badtjala woman – PhD candidate).

In May 2024 an ‘Indigenous Decision Making Workshop’ was hosted by the IPOA in Sydney. It engaged with Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander, and Pacific representatives on climate mitigation, adaptation, and capacity building. In keeping with Uncle Owen’s determination to pass on culture and activist capacity to the next generations, he attended with his son, Jamin, and his 16 year old daughter, Amelia, who performed her own composition, a song about growing up on the Baaka, strong in Barkindji culture and resistant to oppression.

Funded by the DCCEEW and the European Climate Foundation, the workshop included multiple roundtable Talanoas to discuss local needs and aspirations. The word Talanoa, meaning ‘talk’ or ‘discussion’ in Fijian, Samoan and Tongan, and literally in Tongan, ‘nothing to tell’, has been adopted around the Pacific, and increasingly the world, to mean a form of story telling or dialogue that brings people together to share opposing views without any predetermined expectations for agreement. Uncle Owen’s presentation in Azerbaijan was part of the panel discussion at COP29, Azerbaijan, entitled ‘Indigenous Decision-Making Workshops and Climate.”

Below is an edited transcript of Uncle Owen’s COP29 presentation, on 13 November, 2024, about Wilcannia and the Baaka (Darling River):

“Hi everyone. My name is Owen Wyman from Western New South Wales. I’m a Barkindji Baaka River Man. My little town has a population of seven hundred (700). The majority of the community is Indigenous people. We’ve recently been on the news in Australia about the fish kills on our Baaka. White men call it the Darling. We call it the Baaka. Baaka means river in our Barkindji language.

The biggest struggles we’re having now with the climate change is the river. Besides the climate change we have problem with cotton growing in the outback along our river system so with the chemical sprays that gets into our river system, it’s poisoning our waterways and our people are getting sick from it, so from the river system it goes back to the household, where the water smells. You know in summertime you buy a swimming pool to fill up for kids to swim in and the water is untreated water. To me it’s disgusting.

As a river man, we lived along that River for thousands and thousands of years and if we don’t stand up and fight for it now our next generation is going to have nothing; no river system. I’ve never thought in my lifetime that that river would run dry. Now it’s all man run, the river system, it will always happen. We have a lake system out there. For the lake to get full the river has to be over nine (9) metres high for water to run into that river system and we’re stuck in the middle out at Wilcannia. Upstream they get to grow cotton and downstream we got the Menindee Lakes so when they open the weir, it’s like pulling the plug from the bath tub and the water just goes down so quick where it’s creating more creeks in our riverbanks and blocking our access to our fishing spots, our swimming holes, and it’s just destroying our river banks.”

Video of Presentation – YouTube link below: (Uncle Owen Whyman commences at the 23:30 minute mark and also features in the video about the ‘Indigenous Decision Making Workshop) https://www.youtube.com/live/j0sRaf0YIMc?si=lUKTkT9cNdoqQ7aM.

Wilcannia News December 2024

This article appeared in Wilcannia News, December 2024.

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