Territory is the root of all evil

Before religion, before politics, and before the green devil it is territory that is the root of all evil.  As Gaia's human infection multiplies the horrors of the world are extrapolated. Every war, every development project, every piece of foreign policy is about the possession of territory.

A group of aboriginies push off from the Gulf of Carpentaria. With nets and rods they hope to catch enough fish for the whole community. The wet season was tough but with the weather turning so too may their luck. They will be away for days. The dingy is old, the motor is worse.

On the second day the boat springs a leak. Water starts to trickle around their legs. The young one panics and they start to throw their belongings out of the boat to lighten the load.
In the distance they see an island. One that they have never seen before. The oldest, the one that knows these waters, is peplexed. But with the boat sinking there is little time to argue and they motor towards it.

They land on the island, freshly birthed from the night before. It smells of methane and the surface is still soft from being pushed above the waves. Seagulls have landed and their droppings stain the dark mud white. An earthquake thousands of kilometers away has forced a bubble of gas to the surface and with it pushed the earths crust to the surface.
They pull the boat up the new shore, fix the hull and then admire their new territory. It is a perfect place to land on their long fishing trips, instead of sleeping on the boat. They need this land and they claimed it first.

Do they own this new land and how do they define the land as theirs? Is their claim nullified when the Australian government finds natural gas next to their new mud island? Or is is valid when they can prove thousands of years of occupation of this new island?  How do they physically manifest their stories in an Australian society that demands an explanation defined by philosophical positivism.

If people are the reflection of their territory, and protect their patch for their vital yet selfish survival, then object building and myth making is the physical and spiritual process of this selfish act. How the stories manifest is a battle.