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As some of the world's largest energy companies line up to frack southwestern regions of Australia for shale gas, the land's Indigenous owners and activists have decided to fight back and prevent the corporate takeover of their natural environment.
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The four main Aboriginal groups in the region fear fracking could contaminate ground and surface water supplies.
"We need clean water, we need a clean country," said Gadrian Hoosan, a spokesperson for the Garawa people.
The Garawa people of Australia are the traditional inhabitants of the country in the southwest Gulf of Carpentaria. Their land covers approximately 30,000 square kilometers and also includes Sea Country in the southwest Gulf.
"We need sustainable jobs in the community that will last for a lifetime – fracking doesn't provide that."
Aboriginal communities, including the Garawa, have support from conservationists and other Aboriginal groups in northern Australia, who are prepared to confront businesses such as Sasol, Inpex or the U.S. based American Energy Partners, who have made billions from fracking activities in the U.S. in recent years.
AEP, founded by U.S. fracking pioneer Aubrey McClendon, has signed deals for oil and gas properties covering an area of 55 million acres in Australia's Northern Territory.
Not only is the area home to substantial areas of Aboriginal-owned land, but it is also one of Australia's tropical savanna s , one of the most remote parts of the country as well as being extremely rich in biodiversity.
Jonesy Anderson, one of the traditional owners, who had to give up part of his land to AEP for “exploration” purposes, is worried about the consequences for his cattle business.
"It will kill the cattle business," he said, pointing out that fracking can heavily impact water sources. "We're going through drought now."
Traditional land owners protest fracking | Photo: Central Australian Aboriginal Media Association
Fracking is a way of squeezing yet more fossil fuels out of the planet by injecting large quantities of water, sand and various chemicals into the ground. As a result of high levels of pressure, oil and gas are then released.
To put it into perspective, fracking a well can require 2.8 million gallons of water, or as a study of U.S. fracking projects between 2000 and 2014 pointed out, more than 14 Olympic-sized swimming pools of water per well.
In the arid conditions of Australia, this increases the risk of drought exponentially, while also damaging the environment and polluting local water sources.
But it is not only the environment the Aboriginal people of the area fear losing.
"We have sacred sites in that area. We've got dreaming sites," Hoosan explained.
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"All our elders here are still teaching us. If they damage our dreaming and our story in the land, that's just like ripping a page out of the book," he added, seriously concerned about potential harm to spiritual sites and traditions.
The government, intent on exploiting more and more fossil fuels, claimed to have conducted an independent study which found that the environmental risk of fracking could be managed with "robust regulation."
But the Aboriginal people know better. They have experienced what extracting fossil fuels means when mines, such as the now closed McArthur River Mine, contaminate waterways that provide vital sources of food.
Despite the odds against them, Hoosan is still hopeful: "We're surrounded by licensed exploration – we'll still be affected," he said.
"But, we're going to fight for it. We have beautiful country here."
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