FILE PHOTO: Writing on a car displays support for the 'Yes' vote in Australia's referendum on Indigenous issues, at a car park in Alice Springs, Australia, September 17, 2023. REUTERS/Jaimi Joy/File Photo
MELBOURNE (Reuters) - Wiradjuri elder Nyree Reynolds calls her home west of Sydney the valley of the Bilabula, the Indigenous name for its river. The river features in Wiradjuri stories about the creation of their land, she told state planning regulators, "And no one has the right to destroy this."
On her objections, the Australian government in August ordered miner Regis Resources to find a new dam site for a A$1 billion ($685 million) gold project on the grounds its proposed location for storing rock and chemical waste would irreparably harm culture attached to the river.