Murrawah Maroochy Johnson

Murrawah Maroochy Johnson blocked development of the Waratah coal mine, which would have accelerated climate change in Queensland, destroyed the nearly 20,000-acre Bimblebox Nature Refuge, added 1.58 billion tons of CO2 to the atmosphere over its lifetime, and threatened Indigenous rights and culture. Murrawah’s case, which overcame a 2023 appeal, set a precedent that enables other First Nations people to challenge coal projects by linking climate change to human and Indigenous rights.

A Carbon Bomb

As the world’s largest exporter of coal by value, the Australian coal mining industry powers coal stations around the world. One of the largest coal reserves on the planet—23 billion tons large—sits in Queensland’s Galilee Basin, where industry seeks to exploit what environmentalists have called a “carbon bomb.” The Adani company’s Carmichael coal mine—the first in the basin—started coal extraction in 2021, following a nearly decade-long national campaign that failed to halt the project but succeeded in scaling it back.

First Nations advocates in Queensland strongly opposed the Carmichael coal mine because of its contributions to climate change on their traditional territories, because of destruction of their country and culture, and because of a painful history of abuse, violence, and land theft at the hands of Australian society, its government, and industrial collaborators.

For centuries, Wirdi and other Indigenous territories have been systematically taken, their resources exploited, and their lands and waters used to extract the highest monetary value. Today, polluted air and groundwater, sea level rise, loss of biodiversity, and desecration of sacred sites within Indigenous lands are major concerns. Preventing construction of new Galilee Basin coal mines has become an urgent goal to stop the release of buried carbon and preserve Indigenous homelands and cultural landscapes for future generations.

In 2019, Australian billionaire and coal magnate Clive Palmer’s Waratah Coal sought final approval to develop the Galilee coal mine, which was projected to extract 40 million tons of coal from the basin each year for 35 years. The mined coal would destroy the nearly 20,000-acre Bimblebox Nature Refuge and surrounding region, with four underground and two open-cut coal mines; it would threaten habitat for 176 bird species, including the endangered black-throated finch, 45 mammal, 14 amphibian, and 83 reptile species, and 650 types of native plants; and it would accelerate climate change by adding 1.58 billion tons of CO2 to the atmosphere over its lifetime.

A Leader Emerges

Murrawah Maroochy Johnson, 29, is a Wirdi woman from the Birri Gubba Nation. She first became an activist at 19 when her elders in the Wangan and Jagalingou Traditional Owners Family Council (an Indigenous governing organization) invited her to be a voice of young people and future generations—alongside her uncle, the senior cultural custodian and celebrated cultural performer Adrian Burragubba—in the campaign against the Adani Carmichael coal mine. She is now co-director of the NGO Youth Verdict, which organizes youths around climate change in the region.

A New Strategy—“On Country”

Upon learning about Waratah’s proposal for a mining lease and environmental approval from the Queensland government to build the Waratah coal mine on traditional Wirdi land, Murrawah and Youth Verdict got to work. They conducted outreach to First Nations communities across the state through word-of-mouth, social media, earned media, and traditional storytelling

Through Youth Verdict, Murrawah partnered with the Environmental Defenders Office (EDO), a public interest law firm, to challenge the project’s mining application in the Land Court of Queensland. Empowered by the recent enactment of the Queensland Human Rights Act, under which Indigenous people have recognized cultural rights connected to their traditional ownership of territories, Murrawah sought to incorporate the human rights of First Nations people into her legal strategy.

Through EDO’s lawyers, Murrawah argued to the Land Court that, because burning coal from the Waratah mine would emit greenhouse gases and worsen climate change, the project would impinge on the human and cultural rights of First Nations people across Queensland and elsewhere. The court agreed, opening the case to testimony from First Nations people in Queensland beyond the immediate vicinity of the mine.

Despite vigorous objections from Waratah’s lawyers, the Land Court agreed to hear testimony in a historically unprecedented manner. The court accepted that it needed to understand the worldview of First Nations people to comprehend their testimony, and that the best way to do that was to hear from them “on country”—that is, on First Nations territory.

Murrawah brought members of the court to northern Queensland and the Torres Strait Islands to hear from witnesses, whom she had engaged in the case, drawing on familial relations across First Nations and connections developed while campaigning against the Carmichael coal mine.

First Nations witnesses gave compelling testimony to the ways in which climate change destroys ecological systems, which then destroys their traditional cultures that are foundationally tied to the land. Through stories, songs, and dances, witnesses explained how the environment and their cultural knowledge are deeply connected. They demonstrated their deep knowledge of the environment and described the impacts of climate change. They noted that First Nations people cannot pass on their traditions to their children if, for example, the graves of their ancestors are washed away by rising seas.

Lawyer Sean Ryan recounts the testimony of a Torres Strait elder who said: “In my culture, we are born from earth and return to earth. This island is like my mother, and when I’m away, I miss her like my mother. When I think about climate change taking this island, I grieve for this island like I would grieve for my mother.”

The Waratah company spent millions on the legal case, while Murrawah and her group had pro bono legal support and fundraised for each part of her campaign, including transporting many people involved in the case to distant, “on country” court locations, such as the Torres Straits Islands. She found ways to put people up in shared houses, borrowed cars to drive them around, and managed the sprawling geographic logistics on a bare bones budget.

In November 2022, after “on country” hearings and substantial evidence with respect to human rights, the environment, and climate, the Land Court recommended to the government that the mining lease and environmental authority ap­plications be refused—an unexpected and precedent-setting decision. The ruling was based on the mines’ contributions to climate change, its impact on the environment, and the unjusti­fiable limitations placed on the hu­man and cultural rights of First Nations peoples.

By preventing further intrusion into the Galilee Basin, Murrawah and her team stopped 1.5 billion tons of carbon from being released into the atmosphere. Her case was the first successful challenge to coal development using Queensland’s new human rights law, creating legal standing that linked climate change and Indigenous cultural rights in Australia. The case also set a precedent for First Nations people to give testimony based on long-held traditional knowledge on their own land—“on country”—when challenging new fossil fuel projects, an approach that has since been successfully applied elsewhere. Murrawah’s case overcame a subsequent appeal by Waratah Coal in 2023.

For First Nations peoples in Australia, the land is the law, and they have a special obligation to uphold and protect it.