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AEGIS seminar: Venerating trees

30 November 2020


Associate Professor Linda Williams (Chair) with Louise Fowler-Smith (University of New South Wales) and Associate Professor Marco Amati (RMIT University).

About the talk


In late October 2020, the Victorian government cut down an ancient Yellow Box tree to make way for a highway. Known to Djab Wurrung women as a sacred Directions Tree.

Many wept as the tree was felled, and the media reported that police arrested around 50 people at the site. This tree was near to a group of trees where First Nations women gave birth: the main Birthing Tree is believed to be 800 years old, and like other trees are respected by Australia’s Traditional Owners.

Image: Louise Fowler-Smith


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Acknowledgement of Country


AEGIS acknowledges the people of the Woi wurrung and Boon wurrung language groups of the Kulin Nation on whose unceded lands we work. We respectfully acknowledge their Elders, past and present. We also acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of the lands and waters across Australia and its Dreaming.