Destructive ‘wrong stories’ drive environmental exploitation, Indigenous scholar says – Image for illustrative purposes only (Image credits: Unsplash)
Tyson Yunkaporta, a senior research fellow at Deakin University and member of the Apalech clan from far north Queensland, has examined how the narratives societies adopt shape their treatment of the natural world. His new book explores the difference between stories that align with the land and those that distort reality to enable exploitation. The central claim is that many modern accounts of resources and ownership function as deceptive frameworks that justify harm to both ecosystems and communities.
What Constitutes a Wrong Story
Yunkaporta describes a wrong story as a narrative that presents an illusion as fact, allowing people to act against the actual conditions of the land. These accounts bend collective understanding in ways that disconnect decisions from observable reality. The result is a pattern of resource use that treats nature as separate from human well-being rather than intertwined with it.
Such stories operate like a curse, according to the scholar, because they sustain practices that deplete water, soil, and biodiversity while claiming to serve progress. Correcting them requires recognizing when a narrative no longer matches the physical world it claims to describe. This recognition forms the starting point for any shift in how societies govern themselves and interact with their surroundings.
The Tidalik Legend as a Mirror for Today
Yunkaporta draws on an Aboriginal story about Tidalik, a giant frog that hoarded all the world’s water. In the tale, other animals do not confront the frog directly. Instead, an eel ties itself into knots, causing Tidalik to laugh so hard that the water returns to the land. The narrative illustrates how hoarding disrupts natural flows and how a simple, unexpected action can restore balance.
The scholar applies this account to current practices in which large financial entities trade water futures and invest heavily in housing markets. These moves concentrate resources while limiting access for others, much as the frog’s actions once did. The parallel highlights how certain economic stories treat scarcity as inevitable rather than as a consequence of specific choices about distribution and ownership.
By revisiting the legend, Yunkaporta shows that traditional knowledge often contains practical lessons about limits and circulation. The story does not end with punishment but with release, suggesting that change can come from altering the conditions that allow hoarding to persist. This approach differs from direct confrontation and focuses instead on exposing the underlying distortion.
Practical Effects on Land and Communities
When wrong stories dominate, the consequences appear in reduced water availability, rising housing costs, and declining biodiversity. Communities that depend on steady resource flows experience the strain first, yet the narratives continue to portray extraction as neutral or beneficial. The disconnect between the story and the land’s actual capacity grows over time.
Yunkaporta notes that these patterns affect both Indigenous territories and broader populations. The same logic that justifies water futures also influences how governments and corporations plan development projects. Stakeholders range from local residents to international investors, each operating under assumptions embedded in the prevailing narrative.
Moving Toward Stories That Fit the Land
Identifying wrong stories is presented as an essential step before any meaningful correction can occur. The process involves comparing the claims made in a narrative against the observable behavior of water, soil, and living systems. Where mismatches appear, the story itself becomes the target for revision rather than the land or the people.
Yunkaporta’s work suggests that societies can adopt different accounts that reflect circulation and interdependence instead of accumulation. Such right stories would guide decisions about use and protection in ways that acknowledge limits. The outcome would be governance structures less prone to the cycles of depletion that current narratives sustain.
The scholar’s argument ultimately centers on accountability to the land as the measure of any story’s validity. When narratives are tested against that standard, the path away from exploitation becomes clearer. This perspective offers travelers and residents alike a way to reconsider the assumptions they carry into natural places.
