In Yorta Yorta, the Goulburn River is known as Kaiela.
The river snakes through northern Victoria, and communities including Shepparton and Mooroopna have been developed along its banks.
But after unusual flooding this month, local Yorta Yorta leaders are concerned the country their culture and community is built around is being mismanaged.
Rumbalara Aboriginal Cooperative chair Greg James, who is also the City of Greater Shepparton’s first Indigenous councillor, said the river was everything: “It was life.”
He said Yorta Yorta people’s lifestyle revolved around water, so they were used to the floods.
“We understand that flood is a cleansing process,” he said.
“It’s a way of nature getting water up to the trees, the red gum trees which need it.”
Mr James said there were high points to go to when a flood was coming and “our birds, and animals, and trees that tell us when that was going to come to us”.
“We would have bark canoes and we’d go around and we’d get in amongst all of these little spots where there’s dry land,” he said.
After all, he pointed out, the area is a valley — now the Goulburn Valley.
Living with the land
Yorta Yorta and Dja Dja Wurrung man Michael Bourke has worked with organisations including Rumbalara Aboriginal Cooperative, Parks Victoria and the Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action helping to look after country.
He said one of his main passions was his work with community group Wulumbarra, which shared information and stories around caring for the environment.
First Nations people would live with the land and move their camp above rising river levels, he said.
“The problem we have in modern times is we’ve got concrete structures and dwellings that we need in place, but they’re in the wrong spot especially so close to the riverways,” Mr Bourke said.
“Mob never had permanent dwellings … right next to rivers.
“When the floods do come, they can just relocate somewhere else.”
‘Bank being chewed away’
There are concerns recent floods are something different; that they are the result of mismanagement of the river, changes imposed on the landscape, and a changing climate.
“We believe it is part of mismanagement in water control,” Mr James said.
“We’ve had some really unique weather. We’re not supposed to get this weather at summertime.
“That’s Mother Nature rapping us on the knuckles to say, ‘You’re not looking after this country. You need to do better’.”
Mr Bourke believed changes to the landscape had also had an impact on the way the community flooded.
Between Shepparton and Mooroopna, “the river used to snake around because the river moves like a serpent”, but the river was reshaped, cutting out the elbow and resulting in faster flows.
“Acres and acres of land being cleared so the water’s not running out that way no more,” he said.
Mr Bourke said trees were falling into the river because the bank was being chewed away.
“A lot of our cultural heritage that was in this bank is now way down the other end of the river,” he said.
He said cultural sites in the region had been tested and revealed a 30,000- to 40,000-year-old legacy.
This included burial sites and midden sites, areas where Yorta Yorta would have eaten meals together and discarded the evidence.
Mr James and Mr Bourke also have concerns that water is being commodified.
Mr Bourke said water was “becoming like gold”.
‘Read the language of the land’
Mr Bourke said the approach to the river and the landscape needed to shift.
“When we talk about looking after the country, it’s not just for us as mob,” he said.
He urged everyone, including land and water managers, to “listen to the mob first”.
He noted “the old stories of not listening to the mob and coming to the mob at the end when there’s troubles”.
“Come to the mob at the start because we can help you understand and read the language of the land,” he said.
“[The landscape is] a book and you’ve got to understand that book, and understand that language of that land to understand how things are working.”