West Australia's Martu communities: a model of remote functionality

Out here on the continent's western rim, as the campfire burns down in the evening chill and stars fleck a night sky so vast it takes your breath away, Martu woman Gladys Bidu​ is talking slowly and deliberately about a world few of us have the privilege of experiencing.

"It's a living country. That's why we're here," says Bidu, a strong woman now in her 50s. Bidu returned here in 1983 after being taken as a child in the 1960s and resettled in a white man's world. She came back because "we always come back" – and besides, she wanted her kids to come back too. Left unsaid, because it doesn't need to be said, is that the home of the Martu, stretching 13.6 million hectares across a harsh and remote part of Australia that's twice the size of Tasmania, is drug and alcohol-free. Martu elders insist on it, having witnessed the effects of substance abuse in places where alcohol is freely available.