Henrietta Marrie

Henrietta Marrie (née Fourmile; born 1954) is a  Gimuy Walubara Yidinji elder, an Australian Research Council Fellow and Honorary Professor with the University of Queensland. Her language name, given by her grandfather, is Bukal and connects her to country, to a place near Woree. Bukal is the black lawyer vine that is characterised by its strength, resilience, and ability to overcome obstacles. Professor Marrie's scholarship includes biocultural diversity, indigenous intellectual property, and traditional ecological knowledge. Through her scholarship and activism she has:"'fought for the recognition of Aboriginal peoples’ intellectual property and cultural rights and particularly for access to and repatriation of ancestral remains, cultural objects and important historical information from national and state museums and archives'."Professor Marrie is a Member of the Order of Australia, "For significant service to the community as an advocate for Indigenous cultural heritage and intellectual property rights, and to education". She is the Patron of the Cairns Indigenous Art Fair, on the council for the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, and a member of the Queensland Human Rights Commission's Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Advisory Group.

Professor Marrie was the first Aboriginal Australian to be selected for a professorial position with the United Nations, was a senior fellow at the United Nations University, Institute for the Advanced Study of Sustainability, and has held academic positions at a number of universities. She has influenced global legislation in the areas of biodiversity and cultural heritage, and has fought for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples' cultural rights, access to and repatriation of ancestral remains, cultural objects and important historical information from national and state museums and archives. Professor Marie has published over 100 academic papers, reports, and chapters in edited books. Her publications address cultural heritage policy,  Indigenous cultural property,    the role of native title in the protection of Indigenous heritage and the protection of biodiversity related knowledges,  the benefit of Traditional Owners in protected area management,  institutional racism and Indigenous Tourism.

Country
Professor Marrie is a Gimuy Yidinji woman, born and raised in Yarrabah. Yarrabah is the traditional Country of Gunggandji and Yidinji people, however the community is made up of many other tribal groups due to the forcible relocations as part of government policies since invasion. Country has specific meaning for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. The Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies describes this as:"'Country is the term often used by Aboriginal peoples to describe the lands, waterways and seas to which they are connected. The term contains complex ideas about law, place, custom, language, spiritual belief, cultural practice, material sustenance, family and identity'."The Dulabed Malanbarra Yidinji Aboriginal Corporation explain that when they speak of Country:"'we mean much more than just the place we come from. Country is who we are and who we belong to. It is our relationship with other people and the world around us. A world where everything is connected, everything is family, everything is identity, our spirituality, our economy, our home and our people. Country makes us strong and keeps us well. People talk about Country in the same way they would talk about a person. They speak to Country, sing to Country, visit Country, worry about Country, feel sorry for Country and long for Country. People say that Country knows, hears, smells, takes notice and takes care. This is our Country. All aspects of it are of importance to us. All of it has spiritual meaning to us. The Country gives us our lore. The lore gives us our Country. Aboriginal people are governed by this lore.”"The Gimuy Walubara Yidinji people are the traditional custodians of Gimuy (Cairns) and the surrounding areas. The area of the foreshore of the City of Cairns is traditionally known as Gimuy – after the Slippery Blue Fig Tree. The lands of the Gimuy Walubara Yidinji people extend south of the Barron River to the Russell River in the south, west to Tolga in the ranges, and east to Wambilari (Murray Prior Range).  The lands in the Cairns suburb of Woree, close to Admiralty Island and Trinity Inlet, were the principal traditional camping grounds of the Gimuy Walubara Yidinji people.

Biographical details


Marrie was born in Yarrabah, Queensland, an Aboriginal community approx 10 km due east or 52 km south-east by road of Gimuy (Cairns ),the traditional country of Gunggandji and Yidinji. She is the eldest daughter of Henry Fourmile (aka Queebalum – cyclone)  and the great-granddaughter of Ye-i-nie, a Yidinji leader whose leadership was recognised by the Queensland Government in 1905 through the award of a king plate bearing the title "Ye-i-nie, King of Cairns 1905.

She attended primary school in Yarrabah. , and later studied teaching at the South Australian College of Advanced Education, where she first obtained a Diploma in Teaching. Later, after the college had been transformed into the University of South Australia, she obtained a Graduate Diploma of Arts (Indigenous Studies).

It was during her time in South Australia that she came across white anthropologist Norman Tindale's photographs, and later met him at the South Australian Museum in 1985. It was this meeting that led to the museum's release of the Tindale genealogies which enabled many families to reconnect to each other and their country through native title processes. The collection South Australian Museum Tindale collection (Series AA338/01) includes a letter from Tindale to Henrietta Fourmile granting permission to use the Yarrabah genealogies, dated 16 March 1986. Her work and activism for the return of Indigenous cultural property continues, alongside others such as Kamilaroi elder Bob Weatherall.

After undertaking academic roles in Brisbane, in 1991 she returned to Gimuy (Cairns), where she co-ordinated the Cairns College of Technical and Further Education's Aboriginal ranger training program. In 1994 she became the Coordinator of a new Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Participation, Research and Development Centre in James Cook University. From Cairns, Marrie undertook a Masters in Environmental and Local Government Law (through Macquarie University). Her interests and concerns developed further around biocultural diversity, indigenous intellectual property, and traditional ecological knowledge,

In 1997 Marrie became the first Aboriginal Australian to be appointed to a United Nations agency when she took up a position in the United Nations Environment Programme in Montreal at the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity.

Since 2003, Marrie moved her focus back towards Gimuy, first working in Palo Alto at the Christensen Fund, a private philanthropic organisation to distribute grants and funds to help promote, sustain, and encourage indigenous biocultural diversity across Australia's north (including the Cairns region), then as a Visiting Fellow at the United Nations university Institute of Advanced Studies in Tokyo before moving back to Gimuy and taking up a position as an associate professor at the central Queensland University's Cairns campus.

In 2013 Professor Marrie was engaged by the Chief Executive of the Cairns and Hinterland Hospital and Health Service to investigate discrimination against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander employees. Marrie's review identified the role of institutional racism underpinning and reinforcing the interpersonal racism being experienced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander employees. Together with her husband Adrian Marrie, they developed a tool to support the identification, measurement and monitoring of institutional racism in the hospital and health service. They applied this tool in June 2014 to the Cairns and Hinterland Hospital and Health Service, sharing the findings with the Cairns and Hinterland Hospital and Health Service, the Anti-Discrimination Commissioner for Queensland and the Australian Human Rights Commission. This work led to substantive changes in the Cairns and Hinterland Hospital and Health Service and was extended by Adrian Marrie to assess all Hospital and Health Services in Queensland and drove legislative change. The tool was named the Bukal Institutional Racism Matrix by Adrian Marrie: "I would like to acknowledge my wife, Henrietta for her contribution and partnership in the development of the original Matrix which provided the foundation for the assessment tool used in this report. Her insights, strength and feistiness have forever been my inspiration. The revised Matrix is renamed in her honour: the Bukal Institutional Racism Matrix."

The importance of the work done by Henrietta and Adrian Marrie to address racial discrimination in health care was acknowledged in a dedication at the front of the Cairns and Hinterland Hospital and Health Service First Peoples Health Equity Strategy 2022 – 2025.

In 2018 Professor Marrie was selected as the subject for a Sea Wall Mural on the side of the Cairns Corporate Tower in Lake Street. The mural by artist Claire Foxton is called "If we lose our reef, we lose ourselves" and honours Marrie's contribution to the preservation and promotion of cultural heritage. That same year, a dramatisation of her life and work, title Bukal, premiered on July 10 during NAIDOC week. The theme for NAIDOC week that year was "because of her we can". Thee play was produced by the Jute Theatre Company, written and directed by Andrea James with important cultural guidance and input from Marrie's eldest son Carl Fourmile. Throughout the development and production, Jute aimed to engage First Nations people in as many creative, performance and production roles as possible, had First Nations' led decision making, and designed the set to maximise the potential for touring the play to smaller communities. The approach was praised by Marrie and Creative Director, Bundjalung woman Rhoda Roberts on the opening night, who stated:"'The greatest commitment is allowing and enabling Aboriginal people to have their own voice and thank you for that because you had the trust and the faith in the story and you allowed this new voice of young Aboriginal people to tell this story of one of our “because of her we can”, Aunty Henrietta.'"Three actresses (Taeg Twist, Maurial Spearim, and Alexis West) portrayed Bukal, each representing different aspects of her character. The play ran during the Cairns Indigenous Art Fair receiving outstanding community and critical reviews, provided a residency program for First Nations' youth, and after touring in North Queensland schools played at the Woodford Folk Festival.

Professor Marrie contributes to advisory boards and in other leadership and consulting roles for community and government, often working alongside her husband Adrian Marrie. She has joined the ARC Uniquely Australian Foods (UAF) Training Centre, at the University of Queensland to advise on best practice protocols to protect the rights and interests of Indigenous participants in the project.

In 2023 Marrie was further recognised for her leadership and contributions to society with a University of South Australia Alumni Award.

Awards and honours

 * Member of the Order of Australia (General Division): named a member of the Order of Australia on Australia Day, 26 January 2018, for her "significant service to the community as an advocate for indigenous cultural heritage and intellectual property rights, and to education", with the Queensland Governor Paul de Jersey officially presenting the honor to her at a ceremony held on 30 April 2018
 * In 2018, she was named as one of the Queensland Greats by Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk in a ceremony at the Queensland Art Gallery on 8 June 2018.
 * In 2014 she received a 100 Women of Influence Award in public policy for her work at the United Nations University

Publications

















 * (1992) 1(56) Aboriginal Law Bulletin 3.










 * Fourmile, Henrietta (1996) "Making Things Work: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Involvement in BioRegional Planning" Biodiversity Series Paper No. 10. Department of Environment, Sport & Territories Accessed 18 August 2017
 * H L Fourmile, ‘The Queensland Heritage Act 1992 and the Cultural Record (Landscapes Queensland and Queensland Estate) Act 1987: Legislative Discrimination in the Protection of Indigenous Cultural Heritage’ (1996) 1(4) Australian Indigenous Law Reporter 507 – 529. Page 3 - 6
 * H L Fourmile, ‘Using Prior Informed Consent Procedures under the Convention on Biological Diversity to Protect Indigenous Traditional Ecological Knowledge and Natural Resource Rights’ (1998) 4(16) Indigenous Law Bulletin 14–17.
 * H L Fourmile-Marrie, ‘Bushtucker – Some Food For Thought’ (1999) 19(4) Artlink 34–37.
 * H L Marrie, ‘National Research Institutions and their Obligations to Indigenous and Local Communities under Article 8(j) of the Convention on Biological Diversity’ (2000) 1 Humanities Research 41–53.
 * H L Fourmile, ‘Indigenous interests in biological resources in Commonwealth Areas – synthesis of submissions and related information’ in J Voumard (chair), Access to Biological Resources in Commonwealth Areas: Commonwealth Public Inquiry (AGPS, Canberra 2000), 199-278
 * H L Fourmile-Marrie, ‘Developing a Regime to Protect Indigenous Traditional Biodiversity-Related Knowledge (TBRK)’ (2000) 1(1) Balayi: Culture, Law and Colonialism 163-182
 * H L Marrie, ‘The UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage and the Protection and Maintenance of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Indigenous Peoples’ in L. Smith and N Akagawa (eds), Intangible Heritage: Key Issues in Cultural Heritage (Routledge, UK 2008), 169–192.
 * H L Marrie. Emerging trends in the generation, transmission and protection of Traditional Knowledge. Presentation to the 18th Session of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, New York (2019). Available at: https://www.un.org/development/desa/indigenouspeoples/wp-content/uploads/sites/19/2019/04/TK-Emerging-trends-in-the-generation-transmission-and-protection-of-TK-final-paper.pdf
 * K. Galloway McLean, A. Marrie and H L Marrie. Great Barrier Reef Indigenous Tourism: Translating Policy into Practice. Report to the National Environmental Science Program (2020). Reef and Rainforest Research Centre Ltd, Cairns, Queensland.
 * K. Galloway McLean, A. Marrie and H L Marrie. Great Barrier Reef Indigenous Tourism: Translating Policy into Practice. Report to the National Environmental Science Program (2020). Reef and Rainforest Research Centre Ltd, Cairns, Queensland.