The Barkandji People refer to the Darling River as the Barka, and those who have grown up on her riverbanks say that the river never ran dry before. They believe that if the river is healthy then everything is healthy and everything flows.

The locals say that since the authorities have started pumping the Darling River it has begun to get dry and this means that they are no longer able to young Australians about Aboriginal culture, about how to survive in the bush and how they should respect the river. For the past five to eight years the locals say that the Barka’s buka, which means that the Darling River’s dead, that it stinks of dead fish.

The locals got their native title rights three years ago, after a court ruling on the state’s largest native title claim. This land covers 128,000 square kilometres, stretching from Wentworth at the Victorian border to near Wanaaring in the state’s north-west, including Broken Hill, Wilcannia, Menendee, Pooncarie and Dareton.

Unfortunately these rights only recognised their right to the land and did not include any rights over the water. This situation is really bad because they had to watch the irrigators go from bad to worse, eventually, according to the locals, completely stopping the Darling River from flowing on their land.

According to the Barkandji, the proposed $500m pipeline from the Murray to Broken Hill will not only exacerbate their killing of the Darling River but will put pressure on the Murray and this will end up killing it too.

The Barkandji blame those in government for not listening, saying that “some of the government people are more crooked than a boomerang.”

The Barkandji believe in a rainbow serpent called Natji, who they believe lives in the river, and they believe that it is their job to protect Natji and the fish in the river in order for all the animals, river-creatures and the locals to remain healthy.

Locals also believe that the drying up of the river is to blame for their high crime rate as well as the high suicide rate among its young people. There is no work because the grapevines have died due to lack of water, and their culture is suffering too because “youngsters can no longer prove that they are a bushman by catching a yabby on a little stick with a string and a piece of meat on it.”

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