Help Save the Butterfly Cave!

We are taking the fight to save the Awabakal Butterfly Cave to court.  We are fighting to save the Cave from a large housing subdivision that threatens the physical and spiritual integrity of this precious place of Aboriginal women’s business.

WHAT IS THE BUTTERFLY CAVE?
The Butterfly Cave is a traditional Awakabal women’s place located on the eastern fringes of West Wallsend, NSW, Australia.  It is has been used for Aboriginal women’s business and ceremonial purposes since pre-contact. The Cave and surrounding landscape continues to be an elemental part of Aboriginal women’s cultural wellbeing

WHY IS IT AT RISK?
The Butterfly Cave is at IMMEDIATE risk from a 404-lot housing subdivision slated for construction only 20m away. 

As you read this, the developer – Roche Group – and Lake Macquarie City Council planning staff are currently finalising the Stage 7 Construction Certificate.  Once passed, this Certificate will permit the developer to start bulldozing the bush, which means:

·    The physical integrity of the Butterfly Cave will be at risk from construction vibration;

·    The songline bushland around the Cave will be totally destroyed;

·    The traditional journey path used women will be totally destroyed;

·    Women will no longer be able to engage in cultural practice in privacy;

·    Young Aboriginal women will no longer be able to connect with their culture;

·    The site will no longer be protected from inappropriate activities; domestic animals; rubbish; traffic noise; etc

HOW CAN YOU HELP US?
After years of attempting to negotiate a satisfactory outcome with Roche Group and the NSW Office of Environment and Heritage to ensure that the Butterfly Cave will be properly protected, we are now faced with a situation where we have to go to Court to seek better protection for the Butterfly Cave.  

With the support of the NSW Environmental Defender’s Office, the case will be a “test case” in which we will ask the Court to find that the impacts of the development on the Butterfly Cave amount to desecration.  That is, the impacts of the development are harmful to the cultural values of the Butterfly Cave as a sacred women’s site that are so important to the Awabakal people.   

So far in NSW, there has never been a court case that has tested the definition of desecration.  If we are successful, this case could help the ongoing protection of not only the Butterfly Cave, but other Aboriginal cultural heritage from desecration across NSW. 

This will not be an easy case to argue and will require expert advice to make our case as strong as it can be.

The construction certificate for Stage 7 of the Roche development will be issued any day now.  It is urgent that we act now to do all that we can to stop the development from desecrating the cultural values of this sacred women’s site. 

Please contribute whatever you can to help cover our legal costs and expert fees to take this matter to Court and really make a difference for the Butterfly Cave and the protection of Aboriginal cultural heritage in NSW.

HOW SOON DO WE NEED THE FUNDS?
The Butterfly Cave is at immediate risk.  We are preparing our legal challenge NOW.

PLEASE NOTE THAT ALL MONEY RAISED WILL BE USED TO FUND EXPERT AND LEGAL COSTS ASSOCIATED WITH OUR CASE.  In the event that the target is reached, all extra funds will be given to EDO to assist other communities fighting for justice.

WHAT WE WANT TO ACHIEVE:
Awabakal women want a 100m buffer zone (minimum) implemented around the Butterfly Cave to ensure the physical integrity of the Cave is maintained in addition to the songline bushland which women consider to be of equal cultural significance.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION:
HOW DID IT COME TO THIS?
When Awabakal women realised the land around their precious Butterfly Cave was going to be developed, they nominated the site for protection as an Aboriginal Place.  The NSW Government recognised the significance of the Butterfly Cave in 2013 when it was declared an Aboriginal Place (AP) – the first women’s place to receive such recognition.  Despite this, the Butterfly Cave has the smallest protection zone of any AP in NSW. 

Unfortunately, and for reasons that have never been satisfactorily established, the bushland surrounding the Butterfly Cave was not incorporated into the Aboriginal Place at the time of gazettal.  The failure to incorporate resource-rich songline bushland, including the highly crucial journey to the Cave, has caused Awabakal women considerable distress and has been the basis of an ongoing campaign to have the wider contextual bushland recognised as being significant to women and in need of Government protection.

 OUR FIGHT SO FAR
· Women have met with various NSW Ministers over recent years and have effectively been abandoned by a Government who favours the “rights” of landholders over Awabakal women's deep and nurturing connection to the land. 

· We have urged the NSW Government to purchase the bushland and restore it to the community.  They have refused. 

· We have asked the NSW Government to issue a Stop Work Order until the future of the Butterfly Cave can be assured.  They have refused. 

· We have asked the NSW Government to explain the reason behind the refusal.  They have declined to provide one.

· In December 2016 we lodged an application to have the Aboriginal Place boundary extended to incorporate the bushland around the Cave.  The NSW Government will only say it is "reviewing" the application.   

· We have rallied.  We have contacted media across Australia.  We have initiated change.org campaigns and created Facebook campaigns (see below).  We have thousands of people supporting us.  But still Roche Group and the NSW Government refuse to concede that the development amounts to desecration of a highly significant and much-loved women’s place.

WHAT YOUR SUPPORT WILL MEAN TO AWABAKAL WOMEN.
Quite simply - your support will help Aboriginal culture survive.  If we don’t save the Butterfly Cave all cultural activity at this beautiful and significant site will stop.  There will be no passing on of cultural and spiritual practice.  Women now, and in the future, will lose a precious and irreplaceable link to their heritage.

Saving the Butterfly Cave will allow us to walk in the footsteps of ancestors whose bare feet made the songline pathways and whose eyes were familiar with every bush and berry and bird along the way.

And there is a bigger picture too!  Your support could  help us stop the destruction of other Aboriginal cultural places where the past swirls in the air and sits at the end of our fingertips. 

In 2017, we don't believe this is too much to ask.

Our petition:  www.change.org/savethecave
Our Facebook page:  https://www.facebook.com/1ButterflyCave/

If you require further information please contact us.