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fully informed about the local benefits of the project.
It’s symptomatic of a disconnect that environmen-
tal groups say demands urgent attention, with several
large-scale renewable- energy projects proposed to
be built on Aboriginal land in Australia. “We need to
think of ways to configure the world differently,” says
Kirsty Howey, the co-director of the Environment Cen-
tre Northern Territory, “because what we’ve been doing
has created and entrenched not just climate change it-
self, but gross inequalities.”
About 45 sq. mi. of dusty scrubland around Powell
Creek Station, an uninhabited block of land that was
once a telegraph outpost, have been earmarked for
Sun Cable’s solar farm, according to the company’s
website. Many of the Traditional Owners of that land
live in the blink-and-you-miss-it town of Elliott, an
hour-and-a-half drive away.
People here take extreme measures to save on power
and adapt to the heat. It’s not uncommon for an entire fam-
ily to sleep in one room so that only one air- conditioning
unit needs to run overnight. Others move their mattresses
outside, where it’s cooler at night. It’s standard opera-
tion to keep flashlights and camping lanterns around the
house to use instead of turning on the lights.
“It’s cooler when you’ve got the lights off... I sit here
just under the fan. I’ve got one air-con that I don’t use,”
Elizabeth Henderson, a Mudburra woman who lives in
the town, said in September, which in Australia is the
first month of spring. “I’ve got the windows open, it’s
all right.” Outside, there was almost no movement on
the streets at midday, as people sheltered from the 97°F
heat. Inside, the homes were mostly dark, lit only by the
sunlight coming in through open doors and windows.
Elliott is a tight-knit community, and a conversation
with one resident about the Sun Cable project quickly
turned into a gathering of more than 20, many of whom
went between discussing the issue in English and in
Jingili and Mudburra, two of several languages spoken
in the area. Many were angry that they did not know
more about development plans—they had heard about
a meeting being held in Elliott, but were unsure about
dates or how to attend. Some said they’d heard that Sun
Cable had spoken directly to a few locals about the plans
and meeting, but those locals had not distributed the
information to the rest of the community.
“We have a past through Powell Creek; it’s our great-
grandmothers’ traditional land and now it’s our land,”
said Dan Bostock, 41, a Jingili and Mudburra man. “We
are the right people to talk to and deserve to know what’sFrank in
front of his
Tennant
Creek home.
His local
energy
provider
isn’t able to
connect the
solar panels
on his roof
to the grid,
making them
functionally
useless