Castlemaine Indigenous tree: Nalderun fundraiser for Me-Mandook Galk

A 300-year-old grandmother tree is at the centre of a fight to save a parcel of Indigenous land and help a community reconnect to their ancestors.

Dja Dja Wurrung Elder Uncle Rick Nelson with Me-Mandook Galk. Picture: Supplied

A central Victorian Indigenous community is fighting to protect a 300-year-old grandmother tree and restore their connection to their ancestors through a crowdfunding campaign.

The Nalderun Education Aboriginal Corporation has launched a project to buy land to protect the Me-Mandook Galk — an ancient Forest Creek tree, 40km south of Bendigo.

Dja Dja Wurrung Elder Uncle Rick Nelson said the 200 to 300-year-old Me-Mandook Galk was a living connection to his heritage and the land.

“This tree would have been around when my ancestors were around,” Mr Nelson said.

“My peoples lives have been dramatically interrupted at the time of European settlement.

“It is now time to reconnect to this land.”

Mr Nelson said the $150,000 campaign was a “small ask” in comparison to the wealth the reclaimed land would provide future generations.

“It would be amazing to have a small parcel of land to call our own and which could have connections to the old people,” Mr Nelson said.

“A small ask would give future generations purpose and a way to connect to their culture and reconnect to mother Earth and to this land.”

According to the Nalderun service, the purchase of the land surrounding the grandmother tree would give the community a new home and a base for its education and advocacy programs.

Currently a program connecting local elders with children was being run out of an old, disused primary school, while its youth group, Kuli Business young men‘s group, Tidda Business young women and non-binary folk groups did not have a formal meeting place.

Me-mandook Galk would become be a central home for Nalderun’s community programs and Indigenous landcare groups.

“The sense of belonging and connection can only accelerate when we are taught on country by the elders, and can learn to look after the land, overlooked by the grandmother tree,” it said.

Dja Dja Wurrung elder Uncle Rick Nelson is campaigning for the Me-Mandook Galk to come under local Indigenous control. Picture: Supplied

Nalderun chief executive Kathryn Coff said the land purchase was essential to raising the next generation of protectors and guardians of the country.

“Our children need ‘home’,” Ms Coff said.

“In this place we feel our ancestors.

“It is a place that needs protection and love and that needs to be shared, so that all can experience what we and our kids feel and remember in every cell of our bodies.

“Never again will grandmother tree feel lonely … she recognises her blood and those that came from the same country.

“It’s like we can sing, dance and be with our ancestors there.”

Nalderun said the land purchase would allow the community to develop their continuous connection to land, “something local Dja Dja Wurrung people, and all other Aboriginal and Torres Islander peoples, have not had since they were dispossessed by colonisation”.

For more information visit the Land for Nalderun – Me-Mandook Galk Chuffed page here.

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