'This book is written for children, to bring understanding to their young minds that climate change is not just a recent affliction, but rather a continuous event. What is the affliction is that which modern society's commercialisation and industrialisation have done to natural climate change.' ...
'The Times of Day have been described first, followed by the Annual Season Cycle, and how the European seasons fit within the D'harawal Year; included within this section is the activity of animals and plants, triggered by the climatic conditions of each season. This is followed by the minor cycles which have an impact on D'harawal life, then the longer-term fluctuations in climate. Stories are included to illustrate how important knowledge of the weather and climate fluctuations was to the D'harawal Peoples' (pp. 7, 9).
From the Introduction: 'With this study, information was gathered from many people about the seasons and climatic cycles, and a pattern of information protection appeared. Each family has knowledge about a particular season or cycle, but each family member has different knowledge about that season or cycle. That knowledge was then passed on to the person of choice, not necessarily of direct descent, but a person interested in receiving that knowledge, and a person who was a member of the extended family. Tracing that knowledge was the task, because many of these knowledgeholders had 'disappeared' after children had been taken away from them or from friends or relatives.
'Having had extensive discussions with community members, it seems that the best way to begin collecting this knowledge was to try to find those people who had disappeared - the Dudbaya'ora - the Hidden Ones.
'The search began, and this book is the result' (p. 7).
