The Anaiwan people of the New England high country in New South Wales have taken matters into their own hands in the fight to reclaim Indigenous land, running a successful crowdfunding campaign to buy a privately owned bush block.
After raising more than $330,000, the Nēwara Aboriginal Corporation have made an offer to buy a 240-hectare block 30 minutes north-west of Armidale in the Boorolong region.
The block is part of Anaiwan country that its people walked for thousands of years – a mix of rolling hills, stringybark forest, and a creek surrounded by low ferns.
Nearly 2,900 donations were made from as far afield as the UK, and include high-profile names like Julie McCrossin, with pledges still being accepted for further works on the land.
Dave Widders of the Nēwara Aboriginal Corporation said crowdfunding is the simplest, most direct way to get country back, without conditions, caveats, or strings attached – land that be can used however the Anaiwan see fit.
“There are some land councils that got some land back from the Land Rights Act,” Widders says. “But there were strings attached to it. For example, it wasn’t subdivided – you couldn’t build on it.
“But buying land outright means self-determination. We can do what we like with it.”
Callum Clayton-Dixon, also from the corporation, says: “It’ll be the first time Anaiwan people and the Anaiwan community have owned a block of land as Anaiwan people, not through land councils.”
Widders and Clayton-Dixon cite the pain and division the native title process can cause, as well as the time and money it can take to resolve.
The group behind the purchase stresses it will be a place not just for the Anaiwan to reconnect with an identity and a culture that was very nearly wiped out in the last 200 years, but also to bring that culture to the wider New England community. The group stresses the importance of moving forward, and engaging “on our own terms” with the wider community.
“Where do we start?” Widders says. “Under the white system, we’ll buy this land and call it our own – but I’ve never liked the word ‘ownership’.
“Once we get that land, we’ll take on the role of custodians again, of looking after country like we’ve been doing for thousands of years.”
There’s many ideas on what to do with the land. Widders, a teacher at Drummond Memorial public school, talks of cultural tours, especially for the kids in community care that he takes out to reconnect to country.
“I’ve had to pay whitefellas $3,000 to hire their venue for a weekend, and I can see that money benefiting our people, our organisation more.”
Widders wants to restart traditional land management as well, with things like traditional burning – something he says he’d like to teach local farmers and the RFS.
Clayton-Dixon, a linguistics research fellow and PhD candidate at UTS, hopes to use the land to teach the Anaiwan history and language, which was nearly wiped out.
“Our language was forced into almost complete dormancy,” he says.
“We’ve had a botanist get in contact with us and offer their services free of charge to do a vegetation survey on the block once we get it – the plant species listed will help us develop teaching resources when we’re teaching on country.”
Nēwara’s project officer, Larissa Ahoy, hopes it becomes a place of healing and building connections to country, especially for young people.
“I could see that’ll give the youth ownership if they go out on it, participate in programs,” she says.
“I’ve got a relative that had major drug problems, delving into crime – turning into people that we knew they weren’t. And after watching this person’s journey, they didn’t go to rehab or anything like that – their rehabilitation was walking on country.
“This person’s now studying at university – his life has progressed that much and it’s all due to rehabilitation on country.”
Steve Widders, the chairman of Nēwara, says: “Some words that are running through me are ‘educate, empower, enable’.”. Uncle Steve sees the land as a chance to better connect with the entire Armidale community, including non-Indigenous people.
“It’s going to build better relations. It’s going to break down a lot of barriers and build a lot of bridges – done in our way, on our terms. We put out a hand of friendship and goodwill out there. We’ve done that for thousands of years – we want to share that with everyone.
“We don’t want to create walls. We want to do this in a peaceful way.”
One of the backers of the crowdfunding campaign is Ros Coggan, a white woman and schoolteacher. Born and bred in Armidale, Coggan sees her backing as reparations – that the Anaiwan can use on their own terms.
“My mother and father prospered on Anaiwan land. It’s paying rent – I mean, what I’ve paid wouldn’t cover a minute, but that’s my gesture of goodwill,” she says.
