Published works

There is so much interest in cultural burning – the landscape burns practised by Aboriginal people – and its relevance to southern Australia’s bushfire risk, but what is cultural burning? The people to learn from are the First Nations, Traditional Owners and Custodians of Country. Indeed, to really understand requires being part of a cultural burn on Country.

This edited report, as well as the posters available separately online, bring together and uniquely present six diverse personal cultural burning experiences from across southern Australia. These experiences both diverge and align as Aboriginal peoples’ paths, perspectives and priorities have always diverged and aligned.

Four of the contributions centre on burning one’s own Country in southern Australia, as shared by Minung/Gnudju kayang (wise woman) Carol Pettersen of the Noongar Nation, Gilgar Gunditj Elder Eileen Alberts of the Gunditjmara Nation, Palawa man Jason Andrew Smith and Ngunnawal murringe (man) Adrian Brown. These experiences range from growing up burning with family and continuing to be involved today, to reigniting cultural burns on lands where it has too long been absent. We also have two stories about roles in university and government as shared by Bundjalung and Wonnarua woman Vanessa Cavanagh and Kaytej Elder Wayne ampetyane Davis. They describe how their roles involve learning from and supporting the First Nations, Traditional Owners and Custodians of Country, and the difference when they themselves are involved in burns on their own Country.

This difference is no minor matter: it marks the unique authority and connections held between specific people and places. More than an inter-generational form of land management, cultural burning involves matters of respect, obligation and responsibility with ancestral lands, waters, skies and everything in between. These burns are a cultural practice undertaken by Aboriginal people in relation to Country and kin, connecting and investing in their wellbeing and self-determination, and Australia’s fire regime.

This authority and connection with Country is the first of four matters that inform the creation of this report. The second matter is the assumption by some people in society that cultural burning is to be imported from northern Australia into southern Australia. This fails to understand that cultural burning only occurs in relation to Country and the people of Country. Further, the cultural burning leaders show how this specific cultural practice has been passed down by families and nation groups to present times in places that are often described as settled and urban. At the same time, knowledge has always been shared by Aboriginal people across the continent, and this is not de-valued.

Third, Aboriginal women have long been marginalised from land management conversations with government and university. In recognition, women come first in this report. As Aunty Carol, Vanessa and Aunty Eileen share, cultural burning practices have intricate and interwoven roles for men and women. We look forward to hearing more such voices as cultural burning becomes better known.

Fourth, cultural burning is about healing relationships between Aboriginal people and their Country. There has been, and continues to be, much physical and other violence directed towards Country and people of Country. With climate change, there are even more challenges in this work and even more care needs to be taken. Supporting the healing of these relationships is an important responsibility for non-Indigenous people.

These six individual and shared cultural burning experiences bring to life these four matters and more. You will also see that ten Cultural Burning Principles have been developed. Again, this is to help articulate some of the core matters at hand, which Aboriginal leaders have been raising for generations. These voices can be hard to hear when they are the minority in the room, and so different from the dominant culture of governments and universities.

We are particularly concerned that the groundswell of support for Aboriginal peoples’ fire management expertise, during and after the catastrophic Black Summer (2019-2020), does not address fundamental misunderstandings about Aboriginal peoples’ fire management practices. By not addressing these misunderstandings, existing problems become repeated in the new work that is being established around cultural burning.

We hope this report and the posters will help address this by providing the opportunity to see a different viewpoint, to stand in someone else’s shoes. This is critical
in developing more respectful relationships between Indigenous people and non-Indigenous people. We are all living together on Country.

Whilst the report and posters cannot compare to the experience of being at a cultural burn, they share realities that are little known in places where important decisions are being made – such as the offices of bushfire inquiries, the boardrooms of government agencies, the risk-reduction burns of fire practitioners and the professional practices of university researchers.

We note that cultural burning is a new term to describe burns that in earlier times never needed such a label.

And now, over to our six cultural burning leaders.