The traditional owners of the Galilee Basin want to stop the Adani Carmichael coal mining project, and are taking their concerns to the United Nations.

The Wangan and Jagalingou Family Council has requested an urgent intervention under the UN's Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, due to the enormous risks posed by the giant coal project.

Spokesperson Adrian Burragubba said State and Federal Governments had utterly ignored the traditional owners’ vote against a land use agreement with Adani a year ago.

“We haven't consented to them destroying our traditional homelands, and we don't take any of their offers,” he said.

A separate action has been brought before the Federal Court to challenge the native title process that allows the rights of traditional owners to be brushed aside.

The local owners say the coal mine cannot go ahead, as it would permanently destroy sacred sites like the Doongmabulla Springs.

“Water is drawn from the Great Artesian Basin into the Carmichael River and into the Belyando River.

“We have stories about the Rainbow Serpent and our totems that live within that river.

“These are our stories and this is our Dreaming. Without these stories we can't go forward as a people. We'll be annihilated. There will be nothing left for us to identify with.”

Progress on the Adani project has been stymied since the Federal Court set its environmental approval aside earlier this year.

It also faces at least two more Federal Court challenges as part of green groups’ strategy to lock up the approvals in litigation.

Conservationists say Australia has too much to trade for a mere 60 million tonnes of coal per annum.

They say the environmental degradation, risks to the Great Barrier Reef from shipping accidents and spills, impacts on climate change from burning all the extra coal, and the CO2 emissions released to extract it make it an unnecessarily destructive project.