The State Government of Victoria is attempting to sever the connection between Bpangerang tribal people and their homelands - the ancestral Country they have cared for during the past 75,000 years. They have forged an ILUA agreement with local clans, dishonestly claiming almost one third of Bpangernang Ancestral Lands. Bpangerang People were not consulted in this process.

The legitimacy of Bpangerang tribal lands has been well established in historical maps, particularly the Tindale Tribal Map (the only accepted map for Native Title). Signing over our lands to neighbouring clans is a clear attempt to obliterate the Bpangerang people together with their history and culture. It is an act of cultural erasure, of genocide.

An agreement to erase a tribe from history, by claiming they do not exist (as the State Government seeks to do) perpetuates Australia's Colonial past. The government is using Aboriginal people as weapons against one another, deliberately fostering divisions between tribes and clans. In this case the State Government has offered approx $33 million to neighbouring tribes to claim Bpangerang lands as their own.

The exploitation of tribal divisions, in order to deprive custodians of their ancestral lands, has been used in recent times to make sacred land available for mining and military interests. I hope you will help my people to correct the record and keep our culture strong. Take a stand against cultural genocide in Australia.