Join us at The New International Bookshop
Cohosted by The SEARCH Foundation
Free drinks and Nibbles: 6pm-6:30pm
Book Talk: 6:30pm-8pm
Speakers include: Kado Muir and more to be announced.
‘Yeelirrie 50 years of resistance’ is a collection of powerful stories and contributions about a community who have fought off three multi national mining companies over five decades under 11 Governments in a fierce effort to protect cultural heritage, the environment and to keep uranium safe in the ground.
For more than 50 years, a small but determined community in WA’s Northern Goldfields has fought to protect their home and their heritage from the threat of uranium mining. Now, their story is being immortalised in a new book to be launched in Perth later this month.
This story is a timely reminder that land is sacred, nature is sacrosanct and determination to stand up and fight for culture and environment can triumph against the most insurmountable odds. Be inspired by the power of community action, be educated and share this journey of hope and resistance.
About the book and Yeelirrie:
‘Yeelirrie 50 years of resistance’ is the incredible true story behind Western Australia’s longest and most bitter battle to prevent the mining of uranium in our state. It is the story of how three multinational mining companies tried – and failed – to dig up one of Australia’s largest uranium deposits, 650 km northeast of Perth.
Yeelirrie is a highly significant cultural placefor the Traditional Owners who call the surrounding areas their home. It is part of the Seven Sisters Songline, rich with important cultural sites, many of which are kept secret from outsiders.
“Mining uranium at Yeelirrie, we’re going to stop it. That’s the story for the Seven Sisters... the old people told me that story and I don’t want that mine to go ahead” said Shirley Wonyabong, a Tijwal Elder who grew up at Yeelirrie Station.
The area’s cultural significance is matched only by its environmental significance. Below the surface of the proposed mine site, a 17-kilometre-long aquifer and labyrinth of caves is home to approximately 100 species of subterranean animals known as stygofauna. Many of these tiny creatures don’t occur anywhere else on earth.
Above ground, the dry and dusty red landscape is dotted with spinifex and low-lying plant life, home to vulnerable species like the malleefowl, princess parrot and the greater bilby.
In total, the nine-kilometre open pit required for mining uranium at Yeelirrie threatened to lead to the extinction of between 11 and 15 native species, according to WA’s Environmental Protection Authority.
“We identified 55 species of stygofauna - including amphipods, beetles, syncarids, and copepods - and 45 species of troglofauna - such as spiders, pseudoscorpions, isopods, millipedes, and insects”, said Shae Callan, a subterranean fauna zoologist who was involved in a subterranean fauna survey at Yeelirrie between 2009 and 2011.
“We found only five species were known beyond Yeelirrie: in other words, 95 per cent of Yeelirrie’s subterranean fauna species had been sampled nowhere else in the world.”
While the latest proposal to mine at Yeelirrie – by Canadian company, Cameco – expired in January last year, the threat of uranium mining has not disappeared completely, and the community is wary of where the next threat might come from.
“Yeelirrie is taken from the word yulara which means to weep, like weeping in mourning. It is a place of sadness, of death and mourning. People shouldn’t go there. We were told not to go there.” Kado Muir.
Book TIX: https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/yeelirrie-50-years-of-resistance-book-talk-tickets-616842932817?aff=odeimcmailchimp&mc_eid=04ddb67b9e&mc_cid=a85f017585
