Yardiji: Complete, Pristine and Beautiful
Yardiji means “complete, pristine and beautiful.”
This is Yerkala Mirning Country from Djalyingadri, Clare Bay in Fowlers Bay (South Australia), to Yirgili, Point Culver (Western Australia). Our Yerkala Mirning womwoumyerra, place of belonging with sky, sea and land Country, all as one.
One Country, One Law
The unique culture, landforms and creatures of this Country are the song of Country, alive with Dhoogoor, Creation continuing with creativity. Our womwoum, home and belonging of sky, sea and land are one connected whole, sung into being and held together by the Jeedara Dhoogoor, the Whale Dreaming law of Creation. This is the source and origination of the cliffs, the caves, the animals, the plants, us Yerkala Mirning People and family the whales through which the Dhoogoor, Creation continues.
We have been here since Creation. Country’s authority rests with the Malegji, Mirning Council of Elders for us Yerkala Mirning People, under Dhoogoor law and through yalgoo, bloodline descent. That authority is not conferred by any external body. It is lived and passed through generations of our Ancestors.
Mirning means listen, learn, understand and observe and then you will receive wisdom, you will receive knowledge. This is the Mirning way.
Country Holds the Value
At Koonalda, the National Heritage listing recognises the first place in Australia with Aboriginal art dated to over 22,000 years ago. Our Ancestors’ flint mining is recorded from the same period, which we understand as our sacred djaljirr, the hereditary treasury left by Jeedara, our ancestral Creation being who took the form of a Great White Whale.
The Bunda Cliffs stand as possibly the longest unbroken line of sea cliffs on Earth. The Nullarbor is the world’s largest area of arid limestone karst, an ancient seabed lifted into the light, its caves holding a deep-time archive of the planet’s climate. Beneath the Bight, more than 85 per cent of the known shallow-water species live nowhere else. At Miranangu, Head of the Bight our yumeri, family of Gaduma, the Southern Right Whale, has returned from near extinction to Australia’s largest calving gathering. The Jeedara Dhoogoor is not separate from these wonders.
This is the world’s longest continuous protection of cultural and natural values, sustained through our Yerkala Mirning custodianship.
World Heritage
The Malegji has authorised the Indigenous-led Yardiji Wanyiri estate to be advanced for Australia’s World Heritage Tentative List. The boundaries of this first stage are within our Yerkala Mirning Wanyiri bloodline estate and contained within South Australia. The value described in the submission is not made by inscription. It is the value Country already holds, which World Heritage listing would recognise.
In 2022, the Wilderness Society (South Australia) and Sea Shepherd Australia assessed that the Nullarbor and Great Australian Bight proposed estate as satisfying seven of the ten criteria for Outstanding Universal Value, both cultural and natural together. Only two properties on the World Heritage List carry as many as seven: the Tasmanian Wilderness and Mount Taishan. What no single estate elsewhere holds together, Yardiji holds as one: the whale, the people, the cliffs, the caves and the stars continue from one Dhoogoor, Creation law.
World Heritage is an invitation from Country for the world to celebrate what is already a global legacy. Wenyo, welcome.