‘Cool Burning’ for Country

Cultural burning is a central part of how First Nations peoples have cared for Country for millennia. In this article, we highlight some of the recent cultural burns occurring across the unceded lands of NSW.

Dharug women lead burns within Lane Cove National Park

In April 2024, Dharug women returned cultural burning practices to an area where it had been absent since British Colonisation. Three years of preparations led up to the historic cultural burn in Lane Cove National Park, in northern Sydney. Unlike Western land management methods, “cultural burning includes intimate deliberate actions, with acknowledgement of Country as kin, and ceremony as a cleansing preparation for participation”.

Preparations involved yarning sessions to share traditional Dharug knowledge, stories and practices with the group which included National Parks and Wildlife Service rangers and Macquarie University academics. Goals for the burn included reducing the dominance of some plant species to promote a variety of culturally valued species and caring for local fauna such as Burraga (bandicoot).

With smoking ceremonies complete, the women ignited the cool guwiyang (fire) across Brown’s Waterhole, raking fuel into the guwiyang to create fire breaks. Flames kept low and producing white smoke across a mosaic patteren burn area are characteristic of First Nations cultural burning practices. These low temperature fires encourage native seeds to propagate and replenish the soil with carbon whilst opening the understory.

Dr Jo Anne Rey, a proud Dharug woman and Research Fellow in the Centre of Critical Indigenous Studies at Macquarie University lead research exploring the perspectives Dharug knowledges and practices as they relate to ‘restorative environmental justice’ principles and Western scientific monitoring approaches.

In an interview with the Macquarie Faculty of Arts, Dr Rey outlined her research. “Through the research, and alliances with others who are caring for the wellbeing of the river and its biodiversities, Brown’s Waterhole is now a site of regeneration – for Dharug biocultural knowledges and practices, and of cultural fires as a mitigation approach against the likelihood of mega fires in urban environments”.

You can read more about Dr Jo Anne Rey’s research here.

Dr Rey also presented at NCC’s 2025 Bushfire Conference.

See the original article on the Dharug-led burn here.

Bunyah Local Aboriginal Land Council returns cultural fire practices to Country

The Bunyah Local Aboriginal Land Council (LALC) is restoring cultural fire practices to Country through a collaborative burn in Cowarra State Forest or Guulabaa (Place of Koala). Led by Biripi man and LALC CEO Amos Donovan, this initiative forms part of the three-year program Fire, Country and People: Aboriginal Community Disaster Ready Partnership Project.

Forestry Corporation’s Aboriginal Heritage and Partnerships Manager, John Shipp, highlighted the important considerations of the cultural burns. “Burns are carried out when conditions allow for a low intensity, slow-moving and cool fire, allowing people and animals to move safely away from the flames, minimising harm to the forest canopy and maintaining healthy landscapes”.

The Bunyah LALC community has committed to returning to Guulabaa (Cowarra State Forest) seasonally, with over sixty Aboriginal participants having completed accredited fire training to support the program. Ecological responses to the cultural burns will be monitored with photo-points to track changes in dominant understory composition.

For more information, access the original article here.

Burns in the Box-gum Grassy Woodlands

Central North NSW

In February, cultural cool burns were conducted in the Terry Hie Hie and Gunnedah areas with Local Aboriginal Land Councils, elders and students from local schools. These burns are part of the Local Land Service’s collaboration with First Nations people to conserve the critically endangered Box-Gum Grassy Woodlands (BGGW).

Years of extensive clearing and grazing have left the BGGW greatly fragmented and impacted by widespread weed invasions. This is particularly concerning given research shows that grasslands dominated by exotic grass species can alter fire behaviour in ways that propel the invasion and supress native grass species¹. For example, in a temperate Australian system, exotic grass species biomass formed fuel loads that were five time higher than native grassland counterparts and had fire intensities that were three times higher². These hot burns are more likely to destroy the native soil seed bank and thereby reduce the emergence and population recovery of native species. For more information on NSW fire weed management see Hotspots Fire Project resources: https://www.hotspotsfireproject.org.au/download/fire-weeds-and-native-vegetation-of-nsw.pdf

Above: Members of Red Chief Local Aboriginal Land Council attending the Gunnadah cultural burn, image courtesy of North West Local Land Service.

Beyond their ecological value, Gomeroi Knowledge Holder Michael Long says the burns are important to “bring back respect for [First Nations] culture”.

Find the Local Land Service news article as well as plant ecologist Dr Tim Curran’s talk about the project here.

South Western Slopes NSW

The BGGW fragments within Ngunnawal Country and Wiradjuri Country will also receive on-going Indigenous-led cultural burning. The ‘Re-emergence of First Nations burning in contemporary grassy woodlands’ project follows from pilot research conducted by the Australian National University.

Dr Elle Bowd who led the study, found that cultural burning promoted disturbance sensitive native legume and grass-like species, including culturally important food and medicinal plants. Further research will tease apart how the grasslands with varying levels of degradation stemming from western agricultural management histories respond to cultural fire.

The results will help direct supplementary pre- and post-fire land management interventions says Wiradjuri man Dean Freeman who led the burns on Wiradjuri Country. “There’s a place for all types of land management techniques in caring for Country. We’re using these ancient techniques in a modern society and working together to find the best approach.”

You can find the original article on the Ngunnawal and Wiradjuri Country cultural burns can be found here.

Cultural burns as part of Koala Re-wilding Project

A cultural burn at Narlu, a 30-hectare former cattle-farm in Upper Orara on Gumbaynggirr Country, is helping to restore important koala habitat. Private land stewards have worked with Local Land Services to establish a zoned management plan for the site, which would once have supported subtropical rainforest as well as wet and dry sclerophyll forest communities. Yurruungga Aboriginal Corporation has been involved in the project, sharing knowledge of how cultural fire can be used to manage the dense carpet of invasive grasses covering much of the property. Supported by NSW Local Land Services and the NSW Rural Fire Service, Cultural Fire Practitioners from Yurruungga undertook a cool burn targeting a regenerating paddock dominated exotic Setaria grasses. As CEO of the Yurruungga Aboriginal Corporation Dean Thomas Kelly sees it, the burn signifies “our responsibility to the Earth”. On-going use of low-intensity cultural fire will stimulate the native seed bank, support ecological restoration, and contribute to healing of Country.

Above: Cultural burn on Narlu paddock on Gumbaynggirr Country. Image courtesy of Local Land Service.

You can read more about the Koala Re-Wildling project at Narlu as well as the involvement of Yurruungga Aboriginal Corporation here.

References

Title Image: Drone image from North West Local Land Services video on recent cultural burn at Terry Hie Hie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDyWEuILnz8

This article was written by Cassandra Harvey, the Healthy Ecosystems Project Officer with the Nature Conservation Council of NSW

Dharug women lead burns within Lane Cove National Park