This Mine is Sacred

This is the first episode of When the Land Talks Back. Nicola Robins was auditing a diamond mine in northwestern Australia when she heard a voice that had no business being there. It told her the land was sacred, and that nothing could justify what was being done to it. She is a Yale-trained scientist. She decided it hadn't happened, and carried on with the job. Her body did not carry on so easily. In this episode, Nicola tells the story of the health crisis that followed, and how healing from it meant four months of training in Ngoma, a South African knowledge system with roots going back four thousand years, built for making decisions under uncertainty long before anyone called it sustainability. She talks about colonial entanglement, about sickness as a signal that something bigger than one person has come out of balance, and about the name she is known by in that world. It is not Nicola. Nicola Robins offers a radically human approach to sustainability transition in an era of uncertainty and AI. Her work sits at the intersection of sustainability, complexity science, and the indigenous Ngoma tradition, drawing on more than three decades of organisational practice across the continent. She co-founded the Cape Town–based consultancy Incite in 2005 and now works as an independent consultant while remaining part of the Incite network. Nicola teaches at the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership and the University of Cape Town Graduate School of Business. You can find Nicola here. She writes on Substack and is the author of Diviner Mind: How Organisations Can Learn from the Indigenous Science of Uncertainty. The 5Cs Podcast connects forward-thinking executives who are building sustainable competitive advantages while driving positive impact. Think of it as an exclusive network of leaders who understand that stewardship isn't just good ethics - it's good business. Becausing addressing business stewardship climate risk and leadership together is in the highest good for all. Connect with Charlene Norman on LinkedIn, find her at her website, subscribe to our Substack for strategic insights, or download the full series on Spotify and Apple.