Torres Strait Islanders facing annihilation from rising sea levels
by Joesph Toscano Thursday August 17, 2006 at 02:08 PM
repost from Anarchist Age Weekly Review 704

It is ironic that Torres Strait Islanders have been able to weather 400 years of European colonisation as a distinct indigenous entity, only to have to face the problem of cultural annihilation as a result of rising sea level due to the greenhouse effect - (Liz Minchin Environment Reporter, The Age 12/8).

Four hundred years ago on the 7th of September 1606, two ships led by Captain Luis Vaez de Torres arrived at Dungeness Island in the Torres Strait. The next morning, soldiers landed on the island stealing food and water, shooting a man who had clambered up a coconut tree to escape their attention and kidnapping three women who they took back to their ships. Twenty seven days later, the first recorded passage through the Torres Strait by Europeans had been completed.

Over the next 400 years, the people of the Straits separating Cape York from New Guinea, have survived the predatory behaviour of explorers, adventurers, settlers, the pearling and beche de mar industry, Japanese bombing and the relocation of women and children to the mainland during World War Two.

They have maintained their distinct identity over the past four centuries by retaining their song, dance and language through every challenge they have faced.

Torres Strait Islanders have been active politically since they were incorporated into Queensland in 1879. They have struggled to maintain their identity and were involved in struggles in the 1980's which led to a meeting on Thursday Island in 1988 attended by over 400 delegates from across the Strait and the mainland that called for the Torres Strait to secede from Australia. Eddie Mabo spearheaded the struggle for land rights that resulted in the 1992 historic High Court decision that recognised that indigenous Australians had rights to land in law because of their prior occupation of that land.

In response to this decision, the Howard government has over the past decade successfully delivered "bucket loads of extinguishment" as far as indigenous land rights are concerned, by passing legislation through Federal Parliament that has undermined both the letter and the spirit of the 1992 High Court decision. Today, few Australians outside Queensland realise that Torres Strait Islanders are a distinct indigenous presence in this country. Over 5,000 still live in the Torres Strait, while over 35,000 now live on the mainland.

It would be tragic to see the Torres Strait Islands became submerged as a result of international and national interests that are unwilling to factor in the human and social costs of their enterprises. It would be disastrous to see this dynamic, ever adapting living and cultural presence in this country be dealt a fatal blow by a government that still refuses to acknowledge the greenhouse effect, let alone put measures in place to decrease greenhouse gases, even when parts of its own territory are being submerged and some of its own people face catastrophic consequences as a result of increasing greenhouse gases.

(see reposted article by Liz Minchin at Project Safecom)

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