Giinagay, this message is for all our families, Elders, young people and everyone who loves Gumbaynggirr country.

We need to talk straight about what’s happening with the Great Koala National Park and this thing called INFM — the Improved Native Forest Management Carbon Credit Method. Some Government people are trying to push this onto us, saying it’s the only way we can get funding to look after country.

We want our mob to understand clearly: carbon trading is not our lore, it is not our way, it is not good for our country.

Country is not a product. Our country is a living relative, it’s our ancestors, it’s our stories, it’s our ceremonies, it’s our old people walking beside us.

Country is not a carbon unit, it’s not a credit, it’s not something to sell or trade on a Western Stock Market.
When someone tries to turn our sacred forests into carbon tokens, they are stripping the spirit out of our land.
Carbon credits let big companies pollute somewhere else.

This is the part they don’t tell our mob properly. If we agree to carbon credits, we are giving permission for big companies to pollute their own country somewhere else, and they use our forests as their excuse. That means our country becomes a “pass” for someone else’s destruction. That’s not healing, that’s not lore, that’s not caring for Mother Earth.These contracts can lock up country for 25 to 100 years. Carbon deals can last decades, long after we’re gone. That means our grandchildren and great-grandchildren could be blocked from doing cultural burning ceremony, or even accessing certain parts of country, because of Western contract law.
We cannot let anyone lock up our future like that.

Our ancestors didn’t fight for this land just so the breath of our trees could be sold to clean up a mining company’s public image. Our spirit is not for sale. Dungirr, the koala, is not a carbon unit. Our old growth forests are not a product. Our sacred sites are not bargaining chips.Our country is family. Our country is lore. Our country is alive, and we will not sell it. Holding the line for our young ones.

When our young people look back at this moment, we want them to know: we held the line, we kept country sacred, we didn’t sign away the trees, the air, or the spirit of the land. We honoured our ancestors, we protected our future.

We can find better, cleaner, stronger ways to support our mob — ways that don’t compromise who we are.
Our spirit is not for sale. Our country is not for trade. And our lore will always guide us.