Sacred Aboriginal tree bulldozed for motorway in Australia

Dozens of people were arrested on Tuesday in protests over the destruction of a tree sacred to an Aboriginal group in Australia, to make way for a highway to the state’s west.

The large yellow box tree, known as a directions tree, was cut down on Monday, despite being considered significant by many Djab Wurrung people.

Protesters from the Djab Wurrung Heritage Protection Embassy, who have been camped in the area for more than two years to guard sacred sites, told the ABC that about 50 police arrived at the camp on the Western Highway Tuesday morning.

Police confirmed that 50 people were arrested - 40 for refusing to leave a restricted area and failing to comply with the Chief Health Officer directions, and a further 10 people who were subsequently charged with offences relating to obstructing police at the site. All were bailed and told to appear in the local Magistrates Court at a later date.

A directions tree is one that has grown from a seed planted with a placenta. Zellenach Djab Mara, a member of the Embassy, told The Age that the felled tree was a “very spiritual tree, very moving and powerful.”

Senator Lidia Thorpe, a Djab Wurrung woman who represents Victoria in the national parliament, wrote on social media Tuesday afternoon: “The assault on our people and land has been ongoing for over 200 years. When will it end? When it’s all gone or when we are all gone?”

Djab Wurrung woman Eileen Sissy Austin wrote in the Guardian: “On Monday our biggest nightmare became a cold hard reality. The sounds of chainsaws, excessive police force, the crying of children. We felt defeated as an element of our culturally significant landscape was torn away, taken, gone forever.”

The State Government defended its actions, saying the tree was not listed as requiring protection in an agreement with the Eastern Maar Aboriginal Corporation.

One legal observer at the protest, a law student who did not want to be identified, told the ABC police started to arrest people without cautioning them.

“They started making really violent arrests, grabbing people by the head; four cops on top of one person… They then approached the other legal observer first, who was arrested and went with the police peacefully."

The student added: "They handcuffed me with my hands behind my back, and left me in the back of a van for about 10 minutes. I was wearing the clearly marked legal observer vest throughout the whole ordeal.”