More Aboriginal land cleared for Skyrail
By James Clark
KURANDA — On July 5 police forcefully removed protesters opposing the skyrail and arrested two people. Sixty protesters, mostly locals from Cairns and Kuranda, have been using non-violent direct action to try to stop this World Heritage-listed national park from being cleared for the 7.5 kilometre Skyrail.
Police used compliance holds (applying force to pressure points of the body to render the victim helpless) to remove tree sitters and protesters who had been preventing clearing work from taking place for the two remaining tower sites. Since June 17, 22 tower sites, 100 square metres each, have been cleared for the tourist Skyrail.
On June 23, the police removed a tree sitter from tower site 5 allowing loggers to move in. The police line held back about 30 protesters and the media while 100 square metres of rainforest was cleared. Two of the workers quit in disgust and joined the protesters.
Protesters are planning for a long campaign as the development is pushed ahead before the wet season begins.
The Skyrail, which traverses land formerly inhabited by the Djabaguy people, has been described by them as "cultural genocide"; the cleared areas, which contain a number of scarred trees and stone rings, are of cultural and spiritual significance to the Djabaguy.
Spokesperson for the Djabaguy Aboriginal community Andy Duffin has called on the federal government to intervene and halt the project until the issue of Aboriginal association with this land is sorted out.
"The newly formed National Native Title Tribunal has just registered our land claim to an area which takes in the skyrail corridor. This will trigger rigorous and proper investigations into our associations with the land which goes back thousands and thousands of years. It is heartbreaking to see it destroyed before this process is completed," Duffin said.
"We had been promised by both state and federal ministers that no Djabaguy land would be alienated and that we would be consulted along the way. However, to date, no one has bothered to speak to the very people whose cultural heritage is tied up in this land.
"It is an international disgrace that this sort of crude 19th century cultural dispossession and extinguishment is still occurring in the post-Mabo era ... There is no chance of reconciliation being anything but a farce when this sort of dispossession is taking place."
The Djabaguy are seeking an injunction on development while their claim is being processed.