At the Lal Lal Falls Reserve, 20 minutes south-east of Ballarat, the sounds of country are everywhere.
The wind whistles through red gums, magpies warble, and frogs sing.
To the Wadawurrung people, they are biyal, parrwang, and djirm respectively.
But one sound is missing: the sound of the waterfall that makes this site special.
Lal Lal means "falling waters", but Indigenous and environment groups say the greed of a property owner upstream has caused the sacred falls to run dry.
Koby Phillips say Lal Lal Falls is a sacred site that "has helped him through hard times". ( ABC News: Laura Mayers )
A sacred site
When a wedge-tailed eagle, or bunjil, takes flight over Lal Lal Falls, Wadawurrung man Koby Phillips stops to watch.
In Wadawurrung culture, the falls are the home of the All Father or Creator, also called Bunjil.
"[Bunjil] created a man and a woman there … and told them to look after their country," Mr Phillips said.
"He created the parrwang, who sings in the morning.
"Parrwang, that's where the Barwon River gets its name from, that's the river that [Lal Lal creek] joins up with.
"So, these connections, these creation stories, these animals, we are all here to take care of country and we are here to take care of this river."
Lal Lal was one of the first areas in the state to be declared a Victorian place of Indigenous cultural significance.
Mr Phillips said Lal Lal Falls had been a site of great importance to him, and to other members of the Wadawurrung community.
"This is a place of reflection for me. I'll go down to the bottom, that's a place I'll go by myself, and it's gotten me through some hard times."
A drone shot of Lal Lal in early 2023, when the waterway was flushed and full. ( ABC News )
Mr Phillips said even today along the banks of Lal Lal Creek, there are still traces and remnants of his ancestors.
"When we bring people to this site, and we tell people how we connect to the site," he said.
"We can see where we've been [but] it's a living landscape for us. We're still coming, we're still using this, we're still enjoying it.
"And we're just noticing different changes in the seasons, natural or unnatural, I'm not sure."
A small basin of water above the cliff face is stagnant and filled with azolla, a type of native aquatic fern.
At this time of the year, the azolla should be flushed out of the water downstream by the flows of the creek.
Advocates said it was not just the lack of rain leading to the dry falls.
Advocates say the lack of flow at Lal Lal Falls is due to "hoarding" on a nearby agricultural property. ( ABC News: Laura Mayers )
The tale of two dams
Just 12.5 kilometres away, the overseas proprietors of homestead Lal Lal Estate have applied for a retrospective dam permit.
Tianyu Wool has been quietly expanding a second agricultural dam over several years at the estate.
Southern Rural Water placed a public notice in the Ballarat Times in April, advising of the application for Lal Lal Estate to "take and use" 250.0 megalitres of surface water for "domestic and stock purposes".
"All surfacewater proposed to be extracted will be sourced from the Granite Creek," the public notice reads.
Granite Creek is one of the waterways that ultimately makes up the Lal Lal Creek.
According to Australian Wool Innovation, Tianyu Wool is one of China's biggest wool operators and is the largest single buyer of Australian wool.
A small, depleted basin of water above the Lal Lal Falls is flush with Azolla. Azolla is a native Australian fern and is non-harmful. ( ABC News: Laura Mayers )
Cameron Steele, Coordinator of People for a Living Moorabool, or PALM, has been heading up opposition to the retrospective permit.
PALM estimated the dam had expanded in volume three and a half times, from 168 megalitres to 581.
"There are two major dams on that property," Mr Steele said.
"One is on Lal Lal Creek, and we see evidence … that there is a pipe going from that dam on Lal Lal Creek, to their big major storage.
"So, it's not fed by its own catchment, it's fed by water pumped out of Lal Lal Creek up to this dam.
"That dam would've spilled [into the creek] in earlier times, if these large amounts of water weren't being siphoned off to feed this other, massive, dam."
Dozens of people have objected to the retrospective planning application, saying it was the dams that had dried up Lal Lal Falls.
Google Earth images of the dam at Lal Lal Estate between 2006 and 2016, and in 2026. ( Supplied: Google Earth )
Local knowledge
Jane Robson has lived in the area her whole life.
Ms Robson and her husband, Noel, purchased a farming property at Lal Lal 35 years ago under the assumption that access to Lal Lal Creek would make their farm droughtproof.
"It was a very, very reliable creek," Ms Robson said.
The Robsons' farm is the closest western neighbour to the 5,000ha Lal Lal Estate.
"Between the two dams [at their property], it's stopped the flow of the creek in its entirety," she said.
Ms Robson said the previou…
Read the full article at ABC News (Australia) →
Australia