Frank Chung // Butterfly Cave: Aboriginal women in stoush with property developer over sacred site

1.9.17

Butterfly Cave: Aboriginal women in stoush with property developer over sacred site: [news.com.au] Locals say the cave, which has been used as a private meeting place for Aboriginal women and girls for hundreds of years, is in danger of collapse if construction on the latest phase of the housing development is allowed to go ahead.

“It’s the smallest Aboriginal place in NSW, and we’ve had nothing but trouble with the developers,” Awabakal woman Anne Andrews told news.com.au. “They’ve basically said, ‘We’ve got our development [application] passed, tough luck.’

“They have no respect for Aboriginal women at all. We’ve begged, pleaded, done everything, they just don’t seem to care. If [Environment Minister Gabrielle Upton] doesn’t intervene we’re done. The bulldozers move in, it’s gone, the vibrations will drop the cave.

“We’re not saying save it because it looks pretty — it’s special to us. The cave is at least 4000-6000 years old, and there’s a family here that [has been using it since] the early 1800s. We can’t lose our culture, we’ve got to bring the kids back and keep teaching them.”