The Wangan and Jagalingou people are an Aboriginal nation from central Queensland. Their country is part of Australia’s mythical dry and dusty outback. But as they know well, it’s also watered by the Doongmabulla Springs, whose waters bubble up to fill the Carmichael and Belyando rivers.

For the Wangan and Jagalingou, the springs are a sacred place. “This is the only source of water in our country that is eternal and continues to live and give life,” says Adrian Burragubba, a Wangan man and long-term Aboriginal land-rights activist. “So it’s essential to us to protect this place — because it is our dreaming, it’s our past, it’s our present, and it’s our future.”

It is on Wangan and Jagalingou country that Adani is hoping to build its Carmichael coal mine, one of the world’s biggest and most controversial fossil fuel projects. Over its projected sixty-year lifetime, the mine is expected to export 2.3 billion tons of coal and produce 4.7 billion tons of greenhouse emissions.