A note from the Coordinator

At least in my mind, The Cooks River is in some ways emblematic of the abuses suffered by the natural environment. The river carries the name of James Cook, the first European person to make contact with the Eastern Coastline of Australia. Whilst Cook’s astounding navigational skills gave us all the opportunity to live in this gorgeous country, it also, conversely, represented the commencement of the invasion of lands that were certainly inhabited, and not, in effect “Terra Nullius.”

The Cooks River has received a resounding amount of negative press over the years, and therefore has achieved almost legendary status as one of the most polluted rivers in Australia. When I suggested our upcoming Boat and Lantern Flotilla to a boatowner I ran into, he responded in incredulous tones by saying something along the lines of “You’re going to celebrate that river?” Unfortunately, he is not yet a part of the upsurge of community determination to help improve the river’s condition.

His negativity did provide me with the incentive to ponder this attitude further and look at it through the prism of systemic thinking.

Systemic thinking is a type of analysis applied to organisations, groups and indeed families, with the aim of helping them to run more effectively (or, in more human terms, more happily). For example, sometimes one individual in a family, may become the receptacle of all the negative psychic material of the family. An individual becomes, in effect, the family scapegoat.

I wondered from this perspective of connectivity, if the Cooks River is the area where we dump all our negative psychic material — the spoils of our prosperous and affluent lifestyles – both physically as rubbish, and psychically with all the negative press? The river has problems, there is no denying that, but, I would like to suggest that as long as we persist in defining the Cooks River, in our media and conversations, as something dirty and hopeless, it will remain in that light.

Further to this point, I would like to examine the language we use when we define a river or a beach as “dirty”. If one looks closely at this language, one can see a very subtle shifting of blame, from ourselves to the site of our proclamation. In truth, we are dirty. Humans are responsible for the Cooks River being as it is. Everyone involved in the culture we live in, from the producers of the packaging that floats on the surface or wedges itself in the mangroves, to the consumers who bought the product, to those who go further and drop their rubbish onto the street.

So I would encourage all of us that are a part of that upsurge of community determination I mentioned before, to say in response to any assertions that the Cooks River is “filthy” – “yes, it has had a dark history of abuse by humans, but we are trying to change our behaviour step by step.”

In summation, and in answer to the boatowner’s question about celebrating “that” river?

“Hell, yes, we are going to celebrate the Cooks River.” So please join us at Riverworks, and find your own way to connect with the river and all those community groups and individuals working on improving its condition.