Alice_Eather
Alice Pearl Daiguma Eather (1988/1989 – 4 June 2017) was an Aboriginal Australian slam poet, environmental campaigner and teacher from Maningrida.[1][2] In 2013 she started Protect Arnhem Land, an anti-fracking campaign group against Paltar Petroleum.[3] It was successful in convincing the Northern Territory government to suspend the application pending agreement with the local population; further campaigning eventually led to Paltar withdrawing the application in 2016.[3] In 2014 Eather received the Northern Territory Young Achiever's Environment Award for her work in preventing oil exploration of Arnhem Land.[2] She contributed poetry to the anthology Growing Up Aboriginal In Australia (2018),[4] and appeared in the ABC television programme The Word: Rise of the Slam Poets.[5]
Eather was born in Brisbane to Helen Djimbarrwala Willams and Michael Eather, an artist and gallery-owner with European ancestors who arrived on the Second Fleet.[4] She was raised and educated in Brisbane but moved to Maningrida to become the first Ndjebbana-speaking Aboriginal teacher. She died at age 28 as a result of suicide.[1][6]