For many Kabi Kabi Traditional Owners this site here, near the Mooloolah River, being a habitat remnant for our native trees and animals (hence the name Dhu Mur’ang); is a very significant place to learn from and respect. Right here represents old ways and new ways and big ideas, about striving for healthy landscapes for healthy people, sustainability and intergenerational equity for all living things.

This site and this University sit along traditional pathways and trade networks; linking traditional villages, ceremonial (initiation) grounds, and shell middens; a reminder of the bounty ‘back in the day’, of the fire-stick farming of native pastures and old growth forests, for kangaroo and emu, and the renewal of country. Over tens of thousands of years the traditional Old People carefully managed nearby, the very abundant shellfish and fisheries, sustaining a diverse marine economy for ongoing millennia.

The Dreaming for local and Australian Aboriginal People is a complex system of laws, governance and ways of learning. The Kabi Kabi Dreaming incudes this area, whereby the native trees, animals and birds are our totems and can be seen in the constellations. These all guide us in our learnings and to care for the mother earth that sustains us; to care for country and waters; to care for one and other. We encourage all people, young and old, visiting this site – this University, to embrace some Dreaming and ‘Caring for Country’ into their learning and ways. Mother earth is a book to learn from and this site here is a noteworthy bookmark.

© Kerry Jones, Kabi Kabi Traditional Owner, 2017

*Watson 1944