We don’t plan for things for just our grandkids. I look at three or four generations and that’s what terrifies me. There will be no maireener shells around if we don’t start addressing climate change.
Maireener/rainbow shell necklaces have an ethereal beauty, glinting with kaleidoscopic colours: mauve, soft shades of green and blue. In lutruwita/Tasmania, palawa truwana Elder Aunty Lola Greeno’s luminous creations are recognisable – especially the larger king maireener/teunne works. A number of works by Greeno and other artists were shared with the public in a national touring exhibition named kanalarija: An Unbroken String – a metaphor for the passing down of knowledge and tradition from one generation to the next, connecting past, present and future custodians of the land.
For tens of thousands of years, palawa kani have cared for lutruwita. Trawlwoolway pakana man Dean Greeno, son of Elder Aunty Lola Greeno, explains, “Connection to country is core to our being, to our life and existence and if country is sick, then so are the people, directly or otherwise.”
Greeno, a researcher at UTAS, is studying the impact of climate change on Tasmanian Aboriginal culture. He was part of a contingent of indigenous and traditional peoples from around the globe who met in lutruwita in 2019 as part of the University of Tasmania Future Seas project. Although the original custodians have survived climate change in the past, and have sustainably cared for lutruwita for countless generations, it is only recently that the value of traditional knowledge is beginning to gain broader recognition.
Greeno is concerned by changes in the maireener shells, which were particularly observed this year. “We noticed not only were they missing the outer coating but in some cases there were holes pitted in the surface of the shell,” he said. “Considering that this shell is supposed to be as hard as your teeth, that’s a really bad sign.”
When you look at a shell at a microscopic level, Greeno said, it’s “like a Mayan pyramid”, with square edges that reflect the light, creating the beautiful colours of the shell. These edges are now becoming rounded, resulting in a loss of colour. This indicates that the maireeners aren’t receiving enough calcium to construct a healthy shell.
Not only are the shells less healthy, but Greeno believes numbers are “way down”, and is conducting research to confirm this. Anecdotally, while it used to take about two years to sustainably gather enough king maireener shells for a necklace, it now takes about five.
“People are worried about their culture and if it’s going to continue. That’s why the research is really important,” Greeno said.
“We don’t plan for things for just our grandkids. I look at three or four generations and that’s what terrifies me. There will be no maireener shells around if we don’t start addressing climate change. They literally could be gone within 10 years.”
Fiona Howie is a teacher of English and history with a Bachelor of Advanced Arts (Honours) from the University of Sydney. She lives on the sunny eastern shore of nipaluna/Hobart with her partner and infant son.
