Nguly Gu Yadoo Mai (Our Good Food)
Eve Vincent and Breony Carbines
Nguly Gu Yadoo Mai (Our Good Food) showcases the bush foods knowledge held by Kokatha Mula people on the far west coast of South Australia. Authors Marcina Coleman Richards and Sue Coleman Haseldine explain, "We have made this book so that our bushtucker and our memories can live on."
The book is a collection of the authors' stories about finding, collecting, cooking and eating various plant foods, animals and seafoods from their country. In most cases the foods are local to the area; in some cases they were introduced with the onslaught of colonisation. The book includes the authors' reminiscences about collecting bush foods while growing up on the Koonibba mission, in order to supplement meagre rations. It highlights the importance of passing on cultural knowledge and the enthusiasm shown by younger family members. Nguly Gu Yadoo Mai documents a living, changing contemporary culture as well as highlighting changes in the landscape and current threats to the places where bushfoods are still found.
Vital in the continued availability of bushfoods are a series of parks and reserves north of Ceduna, which have escaped the large scale land-clearing so prevalent throughout South Australia's west coast. Along with many sites of cultural significance, this Mallee woodland are rich in bushfoods that emerge and change with the seasons. Many of the book's beautiful colour photographs were taken on trips into this vast area. This same region is also rich in minerals and of great interest to a mining industry actively exploring for heavy mineral sands, gold and uranium. Iluka's open cut mineral sands mine already operates on the area's western edge.
Furthermore, the SA government continues to ratchet down the conservation status of this precious, intact mallee ecosystem. If proposed amendments to the National Parks and Wildlife Act proceed, the Yellabinna Regional Reserve and the Pureba and Yumbarra Conservation Parks will be reclassified as Nature Reserves, otherwise known as the "mining category". The region currently comprises four million hectares of mallee bushland and is a haven for endangered, rare and threatened flora and fauna such as the Mallee Fowl, the Kultarr, the Hairy Footed Dunnart, the Scarlet Chested Parrot, the Pimpin Mallee, Sandlewood Tree and the Long-scaped Isotome. It is also home to the elusive Marsupial Mole.
On the one hand government departments recognise this area of large interconnected reserves as "critical for biodiversity conservation" which can "increase the resilience of species to the effects of climate change". There is also plenty of government rhetoric about ensuring Aboriginal heritage is protected and engaging the community in management. But in reality the impacts of mineral exploration go largely unchecked, heritage sites are disregarded, the consequences of climate change are unknown and community engagement relies heavily on volunteers. The SA government continues to bow to the pressures of the mining industry and diminish the protection afforded to areas of high conservation and cultural significance.
By showcasing the bushfoods enjoyed by Kokatha Mula people, Nguly Gu Yadoo Mai provides a snapshot into an area that should be granted the highest level of protection. It is a message Kokatha Mula people have repeated in many forms over many years.
As the authors of Nguly Gu Yadoo Mai state: "We can't change the past but we can preserve what is left and hopefully preserve it forever".
Nguly Gu Yadoo Mai (Our good food) is available for purchase:
$20 (includes postage and handling)
$36 gift pack with bush medicine ointment (includes postage and handling)
$55 donation special includes signed copy of the book and bush medicine (includes postage and handling)
How to order:
Email your order to: wunyie@gmail.com
Please include your postal details.
Deposit payment into:
Bank Account: West Mallee Protection
BSB: 105100 Account: 035185740
Or post cheques or money orders made out to West Mallee Protection to:
PO Box 25, Ceduna , SA 5690