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CLIMATE JUSTICE FOR THE TORRES STRAIT INTERVIEW BY GABRIELLE DUNLEVY
YESSIE MOSBY Yessie Mosby is a traditional owner of Masig Island who moved back there 10 years ago after living in the western islands of the Torres Strait. He was shocked by the changes he found on the island and has continued to witness in the decade since.
I’m 38 years old. I’ve lived all my life on the western Torres Strait but came back here often for family gatherings. I moved back to Masig Island 10 years ago and have lived here ever since. I’ve got a lovely wife and seven kids, I’m so blessed. What I’ve seen change since my childhood is the impact of erosion, the impact on the food source, and on our drinking water. Most of our wells have turned brackish. Sweet potatoes are not how they used to be, which makes living in the community a bit harder, especially when you come from a big family. We rely now on the local shop to buy potatoes and taro, because the soil isn’t producing the bulk of our foods. When the rain season is expected to come in a particular month, it doesn’t come, and our crop dies. It’s had a giant effect. When we hose our garden using the well water, it contaminates the garden soil because it’s so brackish. We are relying heavily on rainwater tanks now. Our town water is desal (desalinated) saltwater turned into fresh water, and our bodies are still trying to get used to it. We still get very ill from it. Climate change affects our health, it affects us physically and mentally. How has climate change affected people’s livelihoods? You have to work twice as hard as before to survive. People now are relying more heavily now on payments from the government to buy food. This affects people with a higher cost of living. Since the price of oil has started to rise, the freight price has started to rise as well. To give you an example of prices at the local shop, a loaf of frozen bread costs A$5.
HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDER | VOLUME 29: ISSUE 3 – OCTOBER 2020
We mainly fish, but we have to go out farther now to collect fish. It’s dangerous for the younger ones who don’t have much experience. Our main income here comes from crayfish, so regardless of the weather people still go out. When they get a good catch, it’s still not enough and they have to split the money between the divers. You returned to live on Masig Island 10 years ago. What were the biggest changes you noticed? I was shocked. I’ve lived in the Torres Strait my whole life. I’ve never lived on mainland Australia. I get ‘land sick’, I have to come back and smell the saltwater. Where I grew up, it’s a hilly island, and I’ve seen the impact of erosion and climate change there, but coming back home to a coral cay island, it was worse. I lost two of my grandfathers’ land boundary trees. When I was young, I stood under one of the trees eating almonds, it was a bush almond tree. When I came back it was gone, just a stump. I witnessed my other grandfathers’ land boundary tree collapse into the water, that happened before my eyes. I’ve seen my two great-grand grandmother’s remains get brought up by inundation. I’ve seen one of their skulls get smashed by driftwood. It’s something not good to witness, especially if you have ties to that loved one. It’s something that really affects us mentally. Being a cultural person, growing up with very strong beliefs, we have very strict cultural protocols and taboos that I don’t want to offend. This is something totally new to us, and a very scary thing to see throughout the last 10 years.
