The last time I went back to my Country in the Snowy Mountains, I noticed tree after tree felled, chopped down seemingly without thought.

For me, it was unfathomable. First Peoples worldwide have fundamentally and always understood trees to be community members for us – they are not entities that exist in some biological separateness, given a Linnaean taxonomy and classed with other non-sentient beings. Trees are part of our mob, part of our human world and active members of our communities, with lives, loves and feelings.

In Indigenous philosophies, all elements of the natural world are animated. Every rock, mountain, river, plant and animal all are sentient, having individual personalities and a life force. Trees are also one-stop-shops for all our needs, and sustain us with their generosity. The hard bark creates our houses, soft paperbark wraps our babies, stringy bark twists into fishing lines and cords, water carriers are carved from knots, leaves and fruits are our food and medicine, and roots and branches become tools that make our lives easy.

Trees provide us with inspiration for our art and give us the aesthetic of the landscape. When the invading British, as one of their first acts on our Country, cut them down, we wept and cried with the trees, sharing their pain and shielding them with our bodies.

When we destroy trees, we destroy ourselves. We cannot survive in a treeless world.

In Australia, we should bring back into use the Aboriginal names and knowledge systems for trees and plants that are lost to everyday use. This year is the United Nations international year of indigenous languages. In this year how wonderful it would be for Australians to learn the original names of our trees?

We can begin by saying again the name for the grass tree or xanthorrhoea – which is gadi – the name by which the clan who lived in what is now the Sydney CBD called themselves: the Gadigal. It provides one of the strongest resins in the world. A beautiful and ancient long-lived tree that has almost become extinct in the Sydney CBD.

The waratah is an icon of Australia and the symbol of the state of New South Wales. Most Australians would not know that its name came into Australian English in the earliest colonial period from the language of the Gadigal clan. The Gadigal held the spectacular flower in high esteem and gave it a key role in funeral ceremonies as a symbol of the ongoing life of the spirit of the deceased.

In Sydney we should all know the word damun – the Port Jackson fig tree so common it was said by the Gadigal to be the favourite habitat of a mischievous spirit.

In Australia, trees of great significance to Aboriginal communities continue to be destroyed. Currently Djab Wurrung people are trying to stop the Victorian government from cutting down sacred eucalyptus trees, including birthing trees where countless generations of their people have been born. This is a cultural and environmental loss for all Australians.

Indigenous communities worldwide suffer from the damage done to their trees. In the Himalayan region of Swat in north Pakistan, my Torwali friend Mujahid told me of the devastation of the ancient deodar forests by the Taliban when they overran his valley in 2008-9.

These trees (lo see thaam in Torwali) are a form of cedar that take 200 years to mature, and live for at least 1,000 years. The trees are integral to local history: the stand that sheltered the wali (ruler) of Swat on his travels is now a semi-sacred place. Trees also help people track seasonal changes so important to an agricultural community. Mujahid explained that his mother would say that the sun rising over a particular tree indicated it was mid-winter.

The Taliban commanders cut the beautiful trees to sell the timber to fund their operations. The result was an environmental and social disaster. The trees with their extraordinarily deep roots helped keep the steep mountainsides intact. Deforestation and an unusually early melt of the winter snow in 2010 created extreme mudslides and floods that devastated communities from Kalam to Bahrain.

In Chile, I met with Mapuche people who live in the great and ancient Araucaria forests of the southern Andes. These forests have been similarly devastated by governments that allowed extensive logging. The Mapuche revere the trees as sacred and refer to them as family members. They rely on the piñon (pine seed) of the tree as a staple in their diet. The Pehuenche Mapuche are named for the Araucaria. Pehuén is araucaria in Mapudungun, their language.

Scientists conceive they know more about trees and plants because they study them and give them scientific names. We, the indigenous peoples of the world, have a deep-seated understanding of what this foreign science means. However, we understand it without disconnecting ourselves from the plants and trees around us.

Let’s speak their names.



• Professor Jakelin Troy is Director of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Research at the University of Sydney.

• The Talking trees series is on at the Museum of Contemporary Art through to June, in conjunction with the exhibition Janet Laurence: After Nature.