An Aboriginal community in the NSW Hunter region is pleading for its land to be respected after a culturally significant tree was allegedly cut down by trespassers.
The Wanaruah Local Aboriginal Land Council believes the sacred "Grandmother Tree", located within an area known as the Muswellbrook Common, was cut down at some point in the last few months.
Wanaruah elder Aunty Jean Hands urged the Muswellbrook community to show greater respect for the Aboriginal land at the Common, which is also regularly affected by rubbish dumping and damage from trespassing vehicles.
"There's more than just that one tree that's been destroyed and it hurts," Aunty Jean said.
"We walk this land and the destruction [and] the rubbish and the car bodies and things that are laying up there … people need to know that it's private property and to respect it."
Kamilaroi man Andrew Horton said the tree was incredibly important to the Wanaruah people.
"The Grandmother Tree is like a tree that has been here for a long time, that we know as our grandmothers," he said.
"We look after our grandmothers. We look after all of our elders.
"When that tree was chopped, it tore at heartstrings for everybody."
Mr Horton said whoever had cut down the tree may not have been aware of its importance, but it was no different to vandalism at any other site.
"To have these trees just chopped and dropped, it's just like me if I went to Sydney Harbour Bridge and started chopping it down with an [angle] grinder," he said.
"If we were to do it on someone else's land or in another city … we'd be prosecuted like you wouldn't believe."
Legal action possible
Land Council CEO De-anne Douglas said the Wanaruah community would no longer tolerate trespassing on its land.
"We want it to be known that you have to have permission to walk on this land," Ms Douglas said.
"It's not for vehicles or motorbikes or any of those things that are often here.
"We're drawing a line in the sand. We are going to start to prosecute.
"People need to understand we will be taking action, legal action, against people that are illegally on our property."
Inspector Ryan Froml from the Hunter Valley Police District said police would support the Wanaruah Land Council in its efforts to protect the site.
"It's fairly simple, it's private property. It is an offence to enter and it's about respect as well," Inspector Froml said.
"As police we will certainly support the Land Council in driving up the ability to recognise that it is private property and to get that message through to the community.
"If that means we've got to fine people and send them to court, and they can tell the magistrate why they chose to trespass and particularly why they may have chosen to damage some of these culturally significant sites, we will."
Respect for community
Andrew Horton said he hoped people would listen and respect the message from Wanaruah elders.
"It's significant land for our people. For our young people, for our elders, and it's somewhere we can come and walk on land, we can come and walk on Country," he said.
"This is why we've got to get it across to this community that this place here has got to be kept, not just for Indigenous people but for non-Indigenous, everybody."
Aunty Jean said she wanted the entire town to embrace the Wanaruah Land Council's efforts to rehabilitate the site.
"This land here would probably be the only part in Muswellbrook that I know of that is Aboriginal land so close to town," she said.
"We appreciate and would love people to come and walk this land, but get permission first."
Aunty Jean said there were plans to develop a cultural centre and accommodation at the site, but if the land could not be respected in its current form, she worried about what would happen to any future development.
"We are people that live in Muswellbrook too … and all the help that we can get in preserving this property would be gratefully appreciated," she said.
