First Nations Telegraph

A Traditional Owner-led, cultural burning project in North Queensland is achieving far more than restoring grazing land.

 

It’s helping farmers overcome their fear of fire and learn ancient cultural fire practices from Traditional Owners. It’s teaching cultural burning skills to the next generation of First Nations people. It’s strengthening relationships across the region by bringing together people from different backgrounds.

 

And for Australia as a whole, it demonstrates a brighter future where First Nations people use ancient skills to heal and regenerate Country, in partnership with graziers, at scale to benefit their communities, food production and nature.

 

The project is a collaboration between natural resource management group NQ Dry Tropics, the Firesticks Alliance,  the World Wide Fund for Nature-Australia, Gugu Badhun Traditional Owners, and graziers.

 

After the 2019-20 bushfires, the NQ Dry Tropics Traditional Owner Management Group which provides the organisation with cultural guidance, was concerned the region was unhealthy because right-way fire was not being practised. Furthermore, the skills needed to bring back cultural burning needed to be recovered.

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The NQ Dry Tropics Traditional Owner Management Group; Victor Steffensen, Firesticks Alliance, & Greg Jonsson, grazier, Jervoise Station,  © NQ Dry Tropics

 

This led NQ Dry Tropics to partner with the Firesticks Alliance and its co-founder Victor Steffensen, a cultural burning expert and Tagalaka descendant.

 

With more than 80% of the region grazing land, the project has focused on improving pastures on cattle stations using Indigenous Knowledge and rebuilding those skills among Traditional Owners.

 

Since 2022, Jervoise Station near Greenvale has hosted workshops to show graziers the benefits of cultural burning and to mentor and teach young Indigenous Australians.

 

“We started with landscapes on Jervoise Station that were totally choked up, and unviable. We've opened up those areas, brought back grass, and reclaimed the land in a way that makes their livelihood a lot more fruitful.

 

“Graziers used to clear all the big old parent trees. Now they're looking at putting back the trees and using fire in a way that gets rid of invasive natives that smother grass and reduce productivity. It's the same method that we use for natural landscapes and looking after the Country for our native animals,” Victor said.

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After parent trees were removed on Jervoise Station invasive wattles took over, reducing pasture, lowering biodiversity, and creating a bushfire risk. Victor examines a wattle killed in a burn. Cultural burning removes invasive species to open up the land and restore pasture © Scott Radford-Chisholm

 

Ashton Smith is a fourth generation farmer at Jervoise Station, an organic farm managed by her grandparents Greg and Kerry Jonsson. Ashton said after Victor’s guidance, she and her partner Elliot Smith now have the confidence to use fire.

 

“Most graziers fear fire. But Victor has shown us how to comfortably read the landscape and do a cool burn without the fear it will get away or start a bushfire. Previously the only option to get the land back was to bulldoze the invasive small trees which just made everything worse,” Ashton said.

 

“In some areas the response to a first burn has been phenomenal with fresh green palatable grass and the cattle getting straight into it. But this isn’t a quick fix where we can just do one burn. We’re going to have to adapt the fire we put through the land to repair it back to its natural, more usable state,” Elliot said.

 

Barry O’Sullivan from Glenalpine Station north of Collinsville travelled 600 km to attend the most recent workshop.

 

“I’ve done a lot of holistic education and was keen to add to my holistic way of thinking by exposing myself to Indigenous Knowledge. Aboriginals have been here for a long time keeping the landscape in balance,” Barry said.

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Victor Steffensen is committed to mentoring emerging First Nations leaders to oversee Indigenous land management initiatives nationwide.

 

“It's been great to train the next practitioners. It really showed them that it's important to reclaim your identity through knowledge of the land. For Aboriginal people, it's employment, connecting with Country and exercising opportunities to help pastoralists improve landscapes,” he said.

 

Jervoise station is on Gugu Badhun Country. Gugu Badhun Traditional Owner Dr Janine Gertz said the project is bringing ancient Indigenous traditions into a modern era.

 

“Graziers and Traditional Owners both want the same thing, which is healthy, productive land. Healthy land makes healthy Gugu Badhun people. Our aspirations for our people are to have meaningful lives on Country, doing a job that aligns with cultural values. It should never be underestimated how good that is for you, your people and Country,” Janine said.

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NQ Dry Tropics helped set up this meeting of minds. NQ Dry Tropics Partnerships Coordinator, Karen Vidler, said the organisation brought people together who had a common goal to achieve collective outcomes for a sustainable future.

 

“Graziers want to pass their land on to the next generation in better shape than it is now. Traditional Owners, as custodians of the land, want to do the same thing for their young people.

 

“It’s not just cattle and pasture that benefit from cultural burning, it also helps native species and protects against destructive bushfires. 

 

"With Sydney set to host the first Global Nature Positive Summit in October, this project is a real example of nature positive work in action.

 

" We don't need more policies and frameworks, we need support for more on-the-ground action,” Karen said.

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WWF-Australia helped fund the project as part of its aim to Regenerate Nature by 2030.

 

“Our farmers and our graziers right across this continent need to be part of nature-based solutions. That starts with  embedding First Nations Knowledge into their farming systems. This project is demonstrating the very real benefits to nature, to landscapes, to communities and to profits that come from embracing knowledge developed over tens of thousands of years,” said Cliff Cobbo, First Nations Principal Advisor for WWF-Australia.