Anne Poelina is a Nyikina Traditional Owner of the Mardoowarra (the Lower Fitzroy River region of Western Australia). She has had careers in nursing, remote area health care, education, and community development, and holds Masters Degrees in Public Health and Tropical Medicine, Education, and Arts. She also holds a Ph.D. She is Managing Director of Madjulla Inc, an Indigenous not-for-profit non-government community development organisation which she established in 2002. More recently, her concerns over the rights of traditional owners to manage economic development on their lands, together with her concerns over the impact of mining and resource extraction in the Kimberley, have led her to enter local government politics. In 2011 she was elected Deputy President of the Broome Shire Council.
