Initiating Cultural Burning Partnerships
Initiating Cultural Burning Partnerships
Cultural Burning Project: A pilot project to partner private landholders with the local indigenous ranger group for sustainable pasture management and weed control.
Local Links - Stronger Communities -
LLCI033-045
The issue
Lantana is a major weed issue in almost all rural North Coast landholdings, with limited economic options for control. Lantana incursion is rapidly decreasing the grazing resource, increasing erosion and changing the nature of the landscape. Declining forest health is a major issue. Landholders are often not well engaged in weed control unless there is direct economic impact on their grazing enterprises. Local indigenous ranger groups have been active in weed control but only in isolated crown lands areas. There are very few partnerships between landholders and the local indigenous ranger group, Githabul Rangers. Levels of communication and trust, both ways, are low, with few perceived benefits.
The solution
After a couple of years of contact with various people working in cultural burning and contact with the Githabul Rangers, UCCL negotiated the use of private property for the purposes of an LLS Northern Tablelands burning workshop attended by the Rangers. This was supported by the LLCI and led to personal contact between the landholder and the Githabul Rangers team, which led to on-ground discussions of burning and then several months of on-ground burning team work in pasture. The focus of the project was to control lantana in grazing areas, with some monitoring points to assess long term patterns in lantana growth. Githabul Rangers also contributed with some weed control spray as a trial to enable fire to work in some thicker lantana areas.
For UCCL, the LLCI provided support for project development; Githabul Rangers contributed their time; the landholder contributed to workshops and burning time; Firesticks contributed their time and the training workshop was part of a pre-existing LLS project. The planned burns were successful team work and the lantana control somewhat effective (too early to tell). The Githabul rangers made a video of the project for the indigenous fire conference in July 2018. This project may expand into the Githabul Rangers traineeships program and the local school Junior Ranger program.
The impact
Initial approaches to some landholders regarding doing cultural burning were not taken up due to lack of trust around fire and working with the indigenous group. However, by not focussing on formalities, not depending on project funding, and not setting boundaries around what might happen, this project has developed a level of trust and communication between a local landholder and the Githabul Rangers with tangible on-ground outcomes. This relationship is already paving the way for future projects, future partnerships and future funding applications. Working on private land has significant benefits for the Ranger group in terms of burning projects. UCCL is in touch with National Parks and other properties and groups with regards local cultural burning as a land management tool. How effective it is in the long term is yet to be seen and working with the local ranger group is in development.
Key facts
- Established working relationship between UCCL and local indigenous ranger group
- Created onground outcomes (season of burns) plus a video of the project made by the rangers
- Workshop partnered with Local Land Services to develop indigenous practice around cultural burning
- Discussions in place for future projects including regional burn workshops and junior rangers workshops