Week 15

A few weeks back I attended a Cultural Burning, hosted by the Upper Mooki Landcare Group at Tullawang, Willow Tree.

“Cultural burning is a cultural fire practice used by First Nations people to improve the health of Country and its people. It has been used for over 60,000 years to manage land, plants and animals. The dispossession of land and loss of identify has meant that cultural burning has not occurred over large parts of Australia for many generations, but there is increasing awareness of the important role it can play in the mitigating the effects of extreme bush fires caused by climate change.”

For me, it was a chance to be enlightened to the deep respect shown to the land by First Nations people.

Fire can be a powerful friend. One to be used in the right context. The right season. With the right tools at hand lest the best laid plans don’t go quite to plan.

The burning was gentle - a cold burn.

The grass no longer palatable by stock.

“Don’t be scared” they said. “It’s for the best”.

The cleansing fire.

Paying our respects to the land. The elders, those who have gone before us.

Those who inhabited the land, deserve our respect.

The land deserves our respect too. Then she rewards us with bountiful goodness.

Underneath our feet lies an ancient bank of seeds. Just waiting for the right conditions to proliferate. Waiting their turn to be ignited into action and grow.

Treating the land with respect creates an environment that can’t help but flourish.

We watched the landscape and felt the wind.

We burnt in sections, leaving escape routes for wildlife to exit.

We burned tussock by tussock.

Admiring the formation of the clumps left smouldering behind.

Whooshed our shovels over steaming heaps, dispersing ash.

Watched with reverence, flames licking upwards, generating heat.

Devouring unpalatable fibre, inviting fresh succulent grass to grow in its place.

For the Australian native grasslands are mystical. Some seeds will only germinate after a fire event.

Something not lost on First Nations people as identifiable records show examples of cultural burning for over 60,000 years.

I am mesmerised by the way they speak of their culture. Their ways. Their respect for nature, our environment. Everything that exists in our ecosystem.

Respect for those who walked this earth before them. For those who tended to the land as one. Being at one with nature herself.

She always wins. She always will win. No matter how much we turn the soil, spray with herbicides, douse with chemicals, she will always have the last say.

A drought, a flood, windstorms. They can all erase the toiling work. In the blink of an eye.

We are visitors to this land. Despite our claims. Despite our fences and our houses and cities.

We are living in interesting times right now. First Nations people are at a turning point. Reclaiming their existence. Placing themselves firmly in the population’s view. Rightly so.

Australia is like no other continent on earth. Unique in her landscape, flora and fauna.

I am grateful to be here and can’t wait to learn more…