The story of a People expressed in the life history and adaptation of coral

Cultural revival and reconnection through a marine science partnership

Bob Muir - Woppaburra Traditional Owner, Australian Institute of Marine Science Meaghan Cummins - Woppaburra Traditional Owner. Chair, Woppaburra TUMRA Steering Committee Libby Evans-Illidge - Australian Institute of Marine Science

An extraordinary example of Indigenous knowledge and perspectives blending with western marine science has emerged in a growing partnership between the Woppaburra people, Traditional Owners of the Keppel Islands and surrounding sea Country in the southern Great Barrier Reef, and the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS).

In December 2019, AIMS supported an on-Country workshop at Konomie (North Keppel Island) with 46 Woppaburra people representing multi-generations, gender diversity and all six ancestral familial lineages. A further 18 participants included AIMS staff and external contractors, collaborators, stakeholders and facilitators.

From AIMS’ perspective, a key purpose of the workshop was to consult with Woppaburra people about a proposed AIMS project. The project is to investigate the drivers of survival and growth of baby coral during their first year of life, using Woppaburra corals and their sea Country as a natural laboratory. According to AIMS new Indigenous Partnerships Plan, this proposed project required the Free Prior Informed Consent of the Traditional Owners. The AIMS team also wished to co-design the study locations for the project, and identify ideas for future joint partnership projects that AIMS and Woppaburra may wish to pursue together. From Woppaburra’s perspective, the workshop became a significant and rare opportunity to come together and return to Country. In 1902 the last 19 Woppaburra people to live on Country were forcefully relocated to various missions across Queensland. Families were separated and people were disconnected from Country. Today, a large population of Woppaburra people remain dispersed across Australia. The workshop provided the first ever opportunity to be on Country for over half of participants, and the second ever opportunity for a further 25%. Many family members met each other for the first time at the workshop. In a way, the workshop provided cultural repatriation of a people, expressed in the words of one participant “How powerful to say in future that you were the first to come back. We are the living story. We don’t want to be the textbook story”.

Photo taken in 1902 of the last 19 Woppaburra people to live-on country, waiting for transport ©John Oxley Library.

“How powerful to say in future that you were the first to come back. We are the living story. We don’t want to be the textbook story”

Following AIMS new policy and procedures, the science presentations began with a ‘truth telling’ session called ‘confessions of the scientist’. In this session, AIMS staff presented information about marine science AIMS had already been doing in Woppaburra sea Country since AIMS’ establishment in 1972, prior to implementing the current approach and without any engagement. This session is always an important first step in developing new relationships with Traditional Owners. It draws a metaphorical ‘line in the sand’ between the old way and the new.

Some of this information is received well, however sometimes past projects represent culturally offensive practice and this was the case of one past project presented to the Woppaburra people. The project in question transplanted Woppaburra corals to more northern (warmer) reef locations and then conducted heat-stress experiments to measure thermal tolerance of corals.

The Woppabarra corals bleached and then recovered in the warmer water, and subsequently demonstrated improved heat tolerance that was comparable to the native corals from the warmer location. The Woppaburra corals were shown to have increased thermal tolerance by changing their zooxanthellae symbiont type. This work was a major scientific breakthrough demonstrating, for the first time, that thermal adaptation in corals was causally due to shuffling symbiont type to suit local conditions. However, to the Woppaburra participants, the removal and relocation of Woppaburra corals to another group’s sea Country, without consent, was culturally dangerous and offensive. Further open and honest discussion led Meaghan Cummins to this epiphany:

The story of the corals in these experiments is analogous to that of the Woppaburra people themselves. They too were taken without consent, disconnected from Country and relocated elsewhere where they subsequently survived through resilience and adaptation to new environments.

Further science presentations included the life history of corals including spawning, larval dispersal, settlement, and metamorphosis. Participants also related these elements to personal stories of feeling lost and drifting around in their lives, until able to identify the right home. Throughout the workshop participants lamented the loss of Woppaburra culture through time, and not one person knew of a Woppaburra song or dance. However – by the end of the workshop – the Woppaburra coral dance emerged encompassing some known Woppaburra language words. With full permissions from elders present, the dance was performed for the first time at the workshop closure, and became a major celebrated outcome of the workshop. As exclaimed by one participant “We want to go home and say ‘we made a dance!’. When we came here we didn’t know a Woppaburra dance”. The dance which was performed to clap sticks and clapping, is described on the opposite page.

References

1. E. Evans-Illidge, R. Muir, M. Gooch, E. Lawrey, T. Forester, E. Duggan, C. Randal, E. O'Regan, K. Quigley, A. Paloni and L. Bay, “WoppaburraAIMS workshp report. On country at Konomie December 2019.,” Australian Institute of Marine Science and Woppaburra TUMRA Steering Committee, Townsville, 2020. 2. AIMS, “Australian Institute of Marine Science Indigenous Partnerships Policy,” 2021. [Online]. 3. E. EvansIllidge, T. Forester, M. Depczynski, E. Duggan and D. Souter, “AIMS Indigenous Partnerships Plan - from engagement to partnerships,” 2020. [Online]. 4. Australian Museum, “Historical photos of the Woppaburra people,” Australian Museum, [Online]. Available: https:// australian.museum/learn/cultures/atsi-collection/woppaburra-people-ofthe-keppel-islands/historical-photos-of-the-woppaburra-people/. 5. R. Muir and R. Muir, This is Woppa - Great Keppel Island Cultural and History, Rockhampton: Bob and Ros Muir, 2020. 6. GBRMPA, “Woppaburra Traditional Owner Heritage Assessment,” [Online]. 7. R. Berkelmans and M. van Oppen, “The role of zooxanthellae in the thermal tolerance of corals: a 'nugget of hope' for coral reefs in an era of climate change.,” Proc Biol Sci, vol. 273, no. 1599, pp. 2305-2312, 2006.

The Woppaburra descendants who returned to Konomie in 2019 for the workshop

REEF IN REVIEW

The story of the dance…

1. On the command of ‘Woppaburra’, the dancers begin crouched in a huddle, representing pre-spawning gamete clusters. 2. Then, on the command of ‘Yarn’ which means ‘go’, dancers look up at the full moon ready for spawning.

3. The dancers then begin their larval phase, and begin to disperse, to find their place. 4. On the command of ‘Yumba’ meaning ‘home’, the larvae crouched to the ground to feel their place, displaying some of the larval settlement behaviours (tasting the substrate) that were observed in coral larvae at the workshop.

5. On the command of ‘Woppaburra’ the dancers know they are home and prepare to become stationed. 6. On the command of ‘Yarn’ or ‘Go’, the dancers triumphantly metamorphose into adult corals, each in their own style.