Professor Anne Poelina is a Nyikina Warrwa woman from the Kimberley region of Western Australia. She is an active community leader, human and earth rights advocate, film maker and respected academic researcher, with a second Doctor of Philosophy (First Law) titled, ‘Martuwarra First Law Multi-Species Justice Declaration of Interdependence: Wellbeing of Land, Living Waters, and Indigenous Australian People’ (Nulungu Institute of Research, University of Notre Dame, Broome, Western Australia).

Anne’s Biography is provided below courtesy of her website annepoelina.com. We also recommend listening to her interview with the SPA supported Post-Growth Australia Podcast.  In the episode “Saving the Martuwarra-Fitzroy river with Professor Anne Poelina”, broadcast in 2021, Anne argues as to why First Nations perspectives are critical in the population debate.

As an Indigenous leader and multi-disciplinary scientist Poelina contributes towards National and Global Think Tanks. Poelina is Professor and Chair Indigenous Knowledges Nulungu Research Institute University of Notre Dame (Broome), an Adjunct Professor, College of Indigenous Education Futures, Arts & Society, Charles Darwin University, Darwin, Visiting Fellow with the Crawford School of Public Policy at the Australian National University, Canberra Australia Water Justice Hub with a focus on Indigenous Water Valuation and Resilient Decision making.
Anne is the Murray Darling Basin (MDB) inaugural First Nations appointment to its independent Advisory Committee on Social, Economic and Environmental Sciences (2022), and committee member multiple committees advising the Commonwealth on matters of water, environment, Indigenous heritage , justice and equity for all.

Over the last decade Poelina has written plays, poems, film scripts, distributing broadcast quality documentary films as Executive Producer and Cultural Advisor, through a Participatory Action Research (PAR) process as a researcher, advocate and community member.  Over the last 30 years she has employed a powerful combination of public engagements, peer reviewed academic papers, podcasts, community meetings, poetry, and storytelling to share the lived experiences of Indigenous people. She has instigated and managed many cultural development projects with remote Aboriginal communities, championing the development of Nyikina language multi-media format resource kits for teaching, the Nyikina dictionary and film projects through which the sharing of Indigenous stories ensures the preservation and promotion of Nyikina language and culture.

Poelina is a leader in community development, building individual and community capacity as Managing Director of Madjulla Incorporated in remote Aboriginal communities, co-designing and managing the construction of the Majala Wilderness Centre in Balginjirr Aboriginal Community. This facility is now a central hub and home for remote education, training and conference facilities in the Kimberley region.
Poelina’s current research focus explores First Law and its pathway into legal pluralism, and her global writings on ‘Voicing Rivers’, with the Martuwarra, Fitzroy River as lead author, champion ancestral personhood beyond nature-based earth rights. Her ‘Heal Country, Health Climate’ advocacy seeks investment and partnerships to build entrepreneurial ‘New Economy’ opportunities for Indigenous people along the National Heritage Listed Fitzroy River, in relation to green collar jobs in science, culture, heritage and conservation economies.

Poelina is exploring ‘Restoring not Extracting’ carbon as the next big story for the just energy transition required for planetary health and wellbeing. She believes everything is place-based and exists within a Commonwealth and global framework of Bioregions. This according to Poelina is the Law of the Land as the original Australians from the beginning of time have managed and nurtured the Australian Nation. Professor Poelina is a powerful public speaker, incorporating ancient and contemporary Indigenous Australian stories which illustrate traditional ecological knowledge, First Law and the rights of nature in regard to the solutions required for planetary health and wellbeing. Her enduring work is centred around her sacred ancestral being, the Martuwarra/Mardoowarra, Fitzroy River right to live and flow.

All publications available at ORCID – https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6461-7681

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