THE VICTORIAN TRADITIONAL OWNER
CULTURAL FIRE STRATEGYTHE VICTORIAN TRADITIONAL OWNER CULTURAL FIRE KNOWLEDGE GROUP

Fire is healing.
With access and authority topractice on Country in ways that are
respectful of what is right for thatplace, the impact on our wellbeing,
confidence, leadership and strength
cannot be underestimated.

The development of the Victorian Traditional Owner Cultural
Fire Strategy was funded by the Department of Environment,
Land, Water and Planning (DELWP) to support Traditional
Owner rights and interests in reintroducing Cultural Fireto the landscape. Facilitated by the Federation of Victorian
Traditional Owner Corporations, the project was led byVictorian Traditional Owner fire knowledge holders fromaround the state. The Strategy Development was overseen
by a Project Control Group, where representatives ofpartners met to receive information from the Victorian
Traditional Owner Cultural Fire Knowledge Group about
what was working on the ground and to ensure theeffectiveness of the institutional arrangements forstrategy development.

PROJECT PARTNERS

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04

Preamble05

PurposeOur Vision

06

Enabling Principles

08

What is cultural fire?
Strengthening cultural burning in Victoria

10

Fire Dreaming - Aboriginal contemporary
and historical interests in fire

14

Objectives and Program Components
Objective 1
14
Objective 2
18
Objective 3
20
Objective 4
22

24Conclusion and Next Steps

25

Glossary of terms

26

Appendix 1: Methodology

28

Endnotes

“wee kutkut” Many Fire
(Dja Dja Wurrung language) by Drew Berick.

HOW TO READ THIS DOCUMENTORANGE BOXES contain quotes from recent
interviews with Traditional Owner Elders andknowledge holders. For example:
Text appearing like this is used to give context,
either in a Traditional Owners voice, or translated
from a thematic analysis
Text in Italics is a direct quote from a Traditional
Owner as part of conversations in the Cultural
Fire Knowledge Holder Group or on-Country
interviews with Elders.

1

QUOTES are sourced either directly from Victorian
Traditional Owner Cultural Fire Knowledge Holder
Group, or sometimes indirectly by reference to
non-Victorian fire knowledge holders as part ofconversations with Victorian Traditional Owners. Thisis a reflection of the connectedness of cultural fire
practice among Traditional Owners across Australia.
FIRE DREAMING STORIES SECTION INDENTED TEXT
contains attributed quotes from the literature.
INDENTED TEXT ELSEWHERE contains recent quotes
or directions from Traditional Owner led institutions(NRM Committee1 or Victorian Victorian Traditional
Owner Cultural Fire Knowledge Group).

NRM Committee is a Traditional Owner led advisory group in the Federation of Victorian Traditional Owner Corporations that provides natural resource
management policy and practice advice.

SEQUENCE OF ACTIVITIES
1. The importance of this Strategy
was acknowledged and authorised
in a special meeting of theFederation NRM Committee andDepartment senior staff in May
2017 and funding announced tosupport its development.

2. A Strategy Development Teamwas formed to enable the primacy
and authority of Traditional
Owners to fully guide strategy
development.

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5
5. On-Country learning events weresponsored by Traditional Owners
and discussions notated at theseworkshops that were attended bymembers of all groups involved.
Updated accounts of discussions
and learning from these eventswere shared at NRM Committee
and Knowledge Group meetings andprogressively incorporated into thedeveloping Strategy. As such Elders
and knowledge holders shaped thestrategy and generated most of its
content.

3. The scope, roles and governance forStrategy creation were co-developed
and agreed by all involved. The groups
formed included a Traditional Owner
Cultural Fire Knowledge Holder Group,a Traditional Owner-led ResearchGroup, a Project Control Group withequal representation of Traditional
Owners to non-Aboriginal people, andthe Strategy Development Team.

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4. A project management plan was co-designed,
including the institutional arrangements
for developing and finalising the strategy,
identification of key audiences and how toengage with them, a monitoring and evaluation
plan, roles for the strategy development teamand a budget.

6
6. Various versions of
the Draft Strategy were
presented to the Knowledge
Group and further
comments incorporated
into the next version.

WE
ARE
HERE

7
7. The Draft Strategy was presented
to Fire Knowledge Holder Groupand the Project Control Group to
test its alignment with the original
scope and policy framework andto evaluate the feasibility of its
recommendations.

8. The final step
is for the Strategy
to be finalised,presented to awider audienceand launched.

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PREAMBLE
It is becoming increasingly acceptable as a practice for public land managers to
involve Aboriginal people in land management activities including the use of fire.
The Victorian government’s fire management agencies
have to date, applied a risk-based approach thatemphasises the protection of life and property, andimpeded Traditional Owner rights and obligations tocare for Country.
The dominant view presented in peer reviewed
literature is that up to 1788, and for a significant lengthof time prior, Aboriginal people across Australia wereusing fire as a tool to manage landscapes. Evidenceof the cultural use of fire as crucial to maintaining
a balanced ecological environment also exists, anddeparture from cultural burning practices after
European colonisation has resulted in significant
and detrimental changes to biodiversity and has
inadvertently increased risk to life and property
from wildfire.
Victorian Traditional Owners have strong aspirations
to ensure cultural use of fire is re-introduced, adaptedand applied wherever possible to allow for healing andcaring for Country.
This Strategy articulates Victorian Traditional Owners’
long term goals and objectives at State-wide andCountry (regional) levels, and proposes sensible andachievable strategies and actions to achieve thoseover time.
We have also sought to clarify the roles of government,
Traditional Owners and other partners to achieve aholistic approach to land and water management,
we believe that this will benefit all Victorians by
way of our involvement and leadership.

Victorian Traditional Owners are increasingly being
recognised by the State as partners in land andwater management and Traditional Owner groups
are negotiating agreements to formalise this.
Traditional Owners feel a deep sense ofconnection and responsibility to Country,“it saddens us when existing regulatory
frameworks exclude us from positively
effecting sensible land management
practice to reduce fire risk”.
An important part of this connection and recognition
is authority to speak for and make decisions about
the management of Country, including the applicationof cultural fire.
The directions in this strategy are therefore reflectiveof the voice of Traditional Owners, with decisions
being made through a group of Victorian Traditional
Owner Elders and Knowledge holders meeting as
the Traditional Owner Cultural Fire Knowledge Holder
Group. We unwaveringly support the constructive
thoughts and actions of this group, we hope that others
see the value of continuing to inform the developmentof cultural fire practice and share ongoing learningin partnership with Traditional Owner groups and thebroader regional and urban Victorian communities.
We have no hesitation in commending this strategy
to you.

“it saddens us when existing regulatory frameworks exclude
us from positively effecting sensible land management
practice to reduce fire risk”
Rodney Carter. Victorian Cultural Burning Project Control Group Chair and Group CEO,Dja Dja Wurrung Clans Aboriginal Corporation and Djandak.

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PURPOSE AND VISIONPURPOSEOUR VISION

The purpose of the Victorian Traditional
Owner Cultural Fire Strategy is toreinvigorate cultural fire throughTraditional Owner led practices acrossall types of Country and land tenure;enabling Traditional Owners to heal
Country and fulfil their rights andobligations to care for Country.

Future generations of Victorian
Traditional Owners will grow-up
observing their Elders leading theuse of the right fire for Country.
They will be trusted to know the special
reasons why fire is used and how itbrings health to the land and people.
Their children and grandchildren
will see culturally valuable plants
and animals return to Country andknow their stories.
Victorian Traditional Owners wish to emphasise theinter-generational nature of this change, the factthat cultural fire is really about people and that trust
must be given, placing authority in people’s hands.
The First Peoples of Victoria further stress that using
fire to realise culturally meaningful objectives will alsoachieve risk reduction as a complementary outcome.

5ENABLING
PRINCIPLES
The principles presented here are
specific to cultural burning andhave been drawn from interviews
and discussion with elders and fireknowledge holders. These principles
build on those in other work
focused on facilitating Indigenous
involvement in land management.2

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PRINCIPLE 1

PRINCIPLE 4

Cultural Burning is Right Fire, Right Time,
Right Way and for the right (cultural) reasonsaccording to Lore. There are different kinds ofcultural fire practices guided by Lore applicable
across Victoria’s Countries.

Monitoring, evaluation and research support
cultural objectives and enable adaptive
learning. MER will be used to build a bodyof evidence that allows cultural burning tooccur and grow.

PRINCIPLE 2

PRINCIPLE 5

Burning is a cultural responsibility.3 Traditional
Owners lead the development and application offire practice on Country; the responsibilities andauthority of Traditional Owners are recognised
and respected.4

Country is managed holistically. Traditional
Owners manage Country holistically to address
multiple values and objectives, healing bothCountry and culture. Partnership arrangements
and management objectives are tailored toeach regional and cultural landscape context.
This includes analysis of the tenure, regulatory
and operational arrangements to support
cultural fire application, other beneficial
Indigenous management practices, together
with a process of learning to continuously
improve planning, management and action.

PRINCIPLE 3
Cultural fire is living knowledge. Aboriginal
fire knowledge is shared for continual learningand adaptive management. Traditional Owners
will work together on each other’s Country toheal Country and guide practice development.
Knowledge and practice are shared.

PRINCIPLE 6
Cultural Fire is healing. There are substantial
positive impacts to Traditional Owner wellbeing
and confidence through providing access andauthority to practice on Country.

2

3

Such as Parks Victoria’s Managing Country Together, CFA’s Koori
Inclusion Action Plan (2014-2019) and DELWP’s Aboriginal Inclusion Plan
2016-2020.
Comment by the Traditional Owner Fire Knowledge Group, at a Reading
Country event, Eastern Maar (Cape Otway). February 13-14, 2018.

4

Noting “Indigenous peoples have the right to practice and revitalize
their cultural traditions and customs”. Article 11.1 of the UN Declarationon the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. https://www.humanrights.gov.au/
publications/un-declaration-rights-indigenous-peoples-1(accessed 04 Sep 2018).

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WHAT ISCULTURAL
FIRE?

Cultural burns are performed at the right timeof the year and in the right conditions.
Aboriginal [cultural] fire is caring for Country6.
Cultural burns are used for cultural purposes- they are not simply about asset protection.
Cultural burns protect sites and clear accessthrough Country for cultural uses - hunting,access to fish traps, ceremony etc.7
Our vision for fire and as a cultural indicator is tosee multiple plumes of smoke in the landscape,this is what the newcomers to Country saw andrecorded. Cultural fire is a tool for gardening
the environment.8
Cultural burning is about what fire brings back,the herbs and the grasses and what we canutilise.9
There is only one fire and that is Right Fire,fire for your Country.10
I like the word cultural fire. This is part of Lore.
It’s a cultural learning pathway. Healing Country
and family. Fire is a tool to heal and bring backRight Way according to Lore. If you are doing theright thing (according to Right Way) you will get
the right outcome. 11
Cultural fire is practicing my culture, more thanjust about burning.12

Prior to European contact, Aboriginal peoples acrossAustralia used fire as a tool for managing Country.
The cultural use of fire is a socially and ecologicallycomplex practice, governed by kinship, eldership,
spiritual connections to Country and environmental
interactions with fire. Cultural landscapes that extend
beyond and across western administrative boundaries
imposed through colonisation are also considered.
Aboriginal Victorians used cultural burning for a wide
range of purposes, including protecting Country,
providing habitat for wildlife and the harvestingof resources.

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6
7

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Traditional Owner Cultural Fire Knowledge Holder Group.
Gunditj Mara elder, at a meeting of the Traditional Owner
Cultural Fire Knowledge Holder Group, February 2018.
Gunditj Mara elder, at a meeting of the Traditional Owner
Cultural Fire Knowledge Holder Group, February 2018.
Dja Dja Wurrung elder, at a meeting of the Traditional Owner
Cultural Fire Knowledge Holder Group, November 2017.

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10
11
12

Traditional Owner Cultural Fire Knowledge Holder Group,
28 March 2018.
Tagalaka man in discussion with Victorian Cultural Fire Knowledge
Holders at the South East Aboriginal Fire Forum, 11 May 2018.
Bundjalung man in discussion with Victorian Fire Knowledge Holders,Cape Otway 2018.
Wiradjuri man at the South East Aboriginal Fire Forum, 11 May 2018.

STRENGTHENING
CULTURAL BURNING
IN VICTORIA
European colonisation has significantly impacted upon
Traditional Owner rights and obligations to care forCountry, including the practice of cultural burning.
The departure from cultural burning practices has
resulted in significant ecological changes to Victoria’s
natural environment and increased risks to life andproperty.
There is growing recognition of both the value ofand need for Indigenous knowledge in natural
resource management. Indigenous participationand collaboration in land management activities,
such as cultural burning, is now common practice inmany parts of the world and the ecological benefitsof cultural burning are well recognised in scientific
literature.13 The practice and impacts of culturalfire are also increasingly featured in interpretive
information available to the general public.14
Here in Victoria, Traditional Owners have strong
aspirations to increase collaboration with land
and fire management agencies to facilitate there-introduction of cultural burning in Victoria’s
natural landscapes; allowing for healing andcaring for Country.15
The Victorian Traditional Owner Cultural Fire
Strategy (the Strategy) provides a set of principles
and strategic priorities to facilitate greater selfdetermination for Traditional Owners and providea policy and practice framework for effective,
Traditional Owner led cultural fire managementin Victoria.
Recognising the complex regulatory and operational
environment in which contemporary fire managementin Victoria takes place, the Strategy allows for a periodof transition to better align current fire management
practices and cultural burning.

13

For an introduction see Gammage, Bill 2011, The Biggest Estate
on Earth: How Aborigines made Australia, Allen & Unwin, Sydney,
Melbourne, Auckland, London; Gott, Beth 2005, ‘Aboriginal fire
management in south-eastern Australia: aims and frequency’, Journalof Biogeography, Vol. 32, pp.1203-1208; Gott, Beth 2012, ‘Indigenous
Burning and the Evolution of Ecosystem Biodiversity’, Proceedings of
the Royal Society of Victoria, Vol. 124, No.1, pp.56-60; Hateley, Ron,

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15

The Victorian bush : its ‘original and natural’ condition, 1st ed.,Polybractea Press, South Melbourne, 2010; Jones, Rhys, ‘Fire-stick
Farming’, Australian Natural History, Vol. 16, Sept 1969, pp. 224-228;
Pyne, S. J., Burning Bush: A Fire History of Australia, Henry Holt andCo., New York, 1991.
Victorian Cultural Burning Strategy Project Plan (2017).
ibid.

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FIRE
DREAMING -ABORIGINALCONTEMPORARYAND HISTORICAL
INTERESTS IN
FIRE
The cultural, social and spiritual
meaning of cultural burning to
Aboriginal Victorians is demonstrated
in historical and contemporary
accounts of Aboriginal dreaming
stories. These stories date backmany thousands of years and arefirmly situated in the ecologicaland social contexts ofSouth-Eastern Australia.

10DREAMING STORIES CAN BE USEDTO INFORM CONTEMPORARY POLICYSTATEMENTS AS THEY SHOW US
HOW TO BEHAVE TOWARDS EACHOTHER AND THE ENVIRONMENT.
These stories are integral to informing the way in which
we understand the importance of cultural burning andhow we develop frameworks that facilitate the cultural
application of fire in the contemporary Victorianlandscape.
The narratives presented here do not represent thebreadth of cultural knowledge held by Aboriginal
Victorians regarding fire. Dreaming stories aboutfire and cultural burning are numerous and diverse.
Much of the knowledge about fire and Country isculturally sensitive and passed generationally within
the context of a living culture and a landscape of
spiritual power that must be navigated with care.
Historically, written accounts of dreaming stories canbe found in amateur European ethnographic records
from the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.
Included in the text are a number of Dreamtime stories
captured in ethnographic accounts that give a taste of
how fire has been articulated.

A. L. P. Cameron provides an example of the central
nature of fire in the lifeworld of Aboriginal people in
the pre-colonial central Murray riverine. In his accountof Wadi Wadi belief, a creator being in the form of a
codfish called Pandowinda possessed fire which heused exclusively with the assistance of Kerambin, thewater rat. The other animal beings, reportedly called‘bukumurri’ by Cameron’s informant, grew increasingly
angry at Pandowinda for keeping the secret of fireto himself and banded together to obtain it. After along series of conversations in which various plans
were put forward and rejected, Keridka the hawk
determined to fly to the sun on his own and bringback fire for everyone.i
British Ethnographer James Fraser presents anotheraccount of the same story recorded by Cameronin which the Cod Pandawinda and the water-rat
Koorambin were Bookoomuri – creator beings changed
into animals. As in the previous story, Pandawinda
and Koorambin jealously guarded the secret of fire
until one day Karigari, the hawk, saw them in a reedbank cooking mussels and caused the fire they were
cooking on to blaze out of control by flapping his wingsand causing a whirlwind to scatter burning ashes andcoals among the reeds. This not only gave the secretof fire to the other animals. It also resulted ina conflagration which burned all of the trees near
the river and created the plains that surround the
Murray River to this day.ii
He goes on to discuss a similar story from the Tati-Tati,neighbours of the Wadi-Wadi. In the Tati Tati versionof this story recorded by Cameron, the water-rat,
whom they call Ngwoorangbin, lived in the Murray
River and had a large hut, where he kept fire to cook
the mussels which he brought out of the water.
He jealously guarded this fire. But one day whilst he
was down in the river gathering mussels, a spark
flew out and was caught by Kiridka (a small hawk).
They say that the hawk then used the spark to burndown Ngwoorangbin’s house and a large tract of forest.
Thus, Kiridka also created the plains along which the
Murray River now flows.iii
The work of amateur ethnographer and pastoralist
James Dawson, who lived for many years near
Camperdown in Victoria, and was appointed Protectorof Aborigines in the Western Districts, also reports ofstories of fire. Dawson wrote that the crows inhabiting
the Grampians were the sole keepers of fire jealously
guarded it against all others. A firestick was takenfrom the crows by Yuuloin keear (‘fire-tail wren’) and
was in turn stolen by a hawk called Tarrakukk whothen set the country alight and brought fire to all.xi

Squatter and grazier Edmund Curr partially recorded
accounts of fire from central Northern Victoria
and from Gippsland. Curr, who himself relied on
information supplied by the Rev. John Bulmer, firstmanager of the Lake Tyers mission station, reported
that the bringer of fire in Gippsland was Bimba-mrit(‘the fire-tailed finch’).x Fraser linked Dawson’sreporting and noted that these two accounts werevery much the same.xi
Squatter and pastoralist Peter Beveridge also
recorded a Wadi Wadi story concerning the role of firein how the Mitthean (the Robin Red-Breast) gained its
distinctive markings. An account of this recorded in
Aldo Massola’s workxii describes how Mitthean became
angry and threw a burning coal on to the breast of his
brother-in-law, thus giving him a distinct red mark on
his breast.
Drawing on early Scottish colonial and missionary
Christina Smith, Fraser presents a creation story
about fire from the Maar speaking people of “theextreme south-eastern corner of South Australia”.
xiii
While Fraser, after Smith, identifies these people
as Booandik, it is important to note that the following
stories are more than likely also associated with theGundidj Mara, the Maar speaking people immediately
on the Victorian side of the border. In Fraser’s version
of Smith’s account, Mar the cockatoo kept the secretof fire to himself but the secret was revealed after hewas spied upon by his fellow cockatoos while lighting
a fire to cook a kangaroo that they had given him.
Later, the fire was stolen from him by one of the othercockatoos as he lay sleeping. In response to this, Mar
became angry and “set the grass on fire, and burnt thewhole country from Mount Schanck to Guichen Bay”.
xiv
Croom the musk duck then “clapped and shook his
wings, and so brought the water that fills the lakes andswamps”.xv Fraser also reports another, more detailed,version of this story in which humans are transformed
into animals by their actions and according to theirintentions in the acquisition of fire.xvi
Fraser reports the stories of the procurement of fire
originating in Gippsland. In this story, fire, or Toñ-er-a,
was in the possession of two women who guarded
it very closely until it was stolen by a man who had
feigned affection for them. The man brought a firestick from the women’s camp to the rest of the people
and afterwards turned into a little bird has a red markover his tail, which is the mark of the fire.xvii
Robert Brough-Smyth, Chairman of the Central Boardfor the Protection of Aborigines presents a further twostories recorded from the Kulin people of the Victoria
he came into contact with in Melbourne.

11The first of these concerns the people of the Yarra
River who we may well think of as Woiwurrung. In
this account, the ability to make fire, or Weenth, waspossessed by a woman called Kar-ak-ar-ook, who kept
fire in the end of her yam-stick. In order to obtain firefrom her, Waung the crow filled an ant nest with snakes
and, when Kar-ak-ar-ook who attacked her when she
dug into the nest in search of ant eggs. Kar-ak-ar-ook
hit the snakes with her yam-stick and, as she did, fire
fell onto the ground and was picked up by Waung whothen coveted it as jealously as Kar-ak-ar-ook had done.
This eventually came to the attention of the great being
Pund-jel (or Bunjil) who encouraged the people to scold
Waung for his selfishness. Waung then became angryand sought to burn them by setting fire to the country.
The people were then able to obtain fire and use it
thereafter.xviii Waung was then burned to death by two
young men, Tchert-tchert and Trrar, who were lost or
consumed by the fire and now appear as two largestones at the foot of the Dan-den-ong mountain.xix
The second concerns their coastal neighbours, theBunurong. In this version, two women were digging forant eggs when they were attacked by snakes. One of
the women struck at a snake and broke her Kan-nan,or fighting stick, which then caught on fire. The fire
was, however, then stolen by Waung the crow who waschased by two you men called Toordt and Trrar. During
the chase, Waung dropped the burning stick onto
the earth and caused a great conflagration in which
Toordt and Trrar disappeared. Pund-jel spoke to thepeople and warned them that, now they had the fire,they should be careful never to lose it. He then showed
Toordt and Trrar to them one more time before taking
them into the heavens where they became stars.
As time went on, the people lost the ability to makefire and the country was infested by snakes (Ood-yulyul Kornmul). Pal-yang, who had created women fromwater, sent Kar-ak-ar-ook down from the heavens toguard the women from the snakes. Kar-ak-ar-ook wentaround the country killing the snakes with a very longfighting stick, called a nerrim-nerrim kan-nan, which
also broke and burst into flame. Again, Waung the crowstole the burning stick and flew away with it.
When Toordt and Trrar returned to visit the people, they
were told of the story and that Waung had taken the fire
to a mountain called Nun-ner-woon. They then flew tothe mountain and took fire from Waung. Trrar brought
fire back to the people by keeping the fire safely alivein the bark of trees he had pulled off in order to keep
the fire, “as is usually done by the Aborigines when
they are travelling”.xx Toordt, on the other hand, burned
to death on a mountain called Mun-ni-o attempting
to keep the fire alive. It appears he made the fire too
close to a tree Brough-Smyth has recorded as a Melloan tree and the inference is that the tree caught on fireand burned him to death.xxi

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Brough-Smyth added that some ‘sorcerers or priests’claim Toordt was placed in the heavens by Pund-jel andis now the planet Mars.xxii After all of this, Kar-ak-arook again warned the women not to lose the secret offire and Trrar took the men to a mountain where woodsuitable for fire-sticks could be found and taught them
how to make a fire of their own.xxiii
Brough-Smyth also mentions a fire story, told to him
by one Mr. Stanbridge, of the people of the Mallee near
Lake Tyrrell in which the Boorong of the Mallee in thevicinity of Lake Tyrell recalled that fire was brought
to earth by Waung the crow (who is also the star
Canopus).xxiv
Finally, he relates the following of the story of fire fromthe people of Lake Condah in South-western Victoria
in which fire was brought to earth after a man named
Eun-nerct threw a spear into the sun to which a string
was attached. The man then climbed to the sun andbrought fire back to earth with him. Eun-nerct latertransformed into a bat.xxv

Importantly, dreaming stories are not simply narratives
consigned to history. The cultural importance offire is still alive in the knowledge and traditions ofcontemporary Aboriginal Victoria. As Traditional Owners
were consulted throughout Victoria for the developmentof this document, stories of fire emerged from the many
conversations had about the importance of cultural
burning practices. A Ngintait elder of the Wergaia people(of Lake Cullulleraine in North West Victoria) shareda fire story that spans most of North-West Victoria.
The narrative tells of how fire was used to create afertile and fecund landscape capable of sustaining aconsiderable human population for many thousandsof years without pause.
Although this account was recorded it cannot be sharedpublically due to the significance of the story for thepeoples of that region and the shared ownership ofsuch dreaming stories in Aboriginal societies. It is notwithin the scope of this research to seek permission
from the many people who would rightfully be able toprovide it from the many groups who share the story.
It is, however, mentioned here in order to highlightthe interconnected nature of Aboriginal knowledge ofCountry and the deep insight from which it comes.
This contemporary account demonstrates that,while many aspects of Aboriginal culture have been
suppressed by the colonial experience, the stories andunderstanding of fire throughout Aboriginal Victoria
have continued to be passed on generationally. It isimperative that people continue to tell dreaming stories
about the cultural use of fire. An important outcome ofthis Strategy will be the promotion of opportunities tocontinue to share fire dreaming stories.
These narratives highlight the centrality of fire andpractices relating to fire in the culture of the different
Aboriginal societies in Victoria. In them, fire is life. It isa sacred thing that comes from the sky and must be
carefully nurtured and controlled to manage Country.
Dreaming stories about fire contain knowledge that
forms the bedrock of cultural fire practices for
Aboriginal people throughout Victoria.
Within the Victorian Cultural Fire Strategy Knowledge
Group, these stories are shared and utilised to reinvigorate the practice of cultural burning throughout
the many different Victorian ecological and politicallandscapes. This knowledge and these practices
are now beginning to be pieced together to provide aplatform from which all Victorians may benefit from amore sustainable, healthier and safer environment.

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OBJECTIVESAND PROGRAMCOMPONENTS
The Strategy outlines four objectives
and corresponding program
components with possible actions
that will enable Traditional Owners tolead the practice of cultural burning
according to the six principles
described above and support themto meet their vision of healthy people
restored to healthy Country.
Realising these objectives will requiretime frames that accommodate theneed to pass cultural knowledge
across generations and for the
restoration of Country. Furthermore,monitoring and evaluation of theseobjectives will need to be conductedusing timeframes, methods andprocesses that are culturally
appropriate.

OBJECTIVE 1
Develop operational pathways that enable
Traditional Owners to lead the planning and toundertake cultural burns across all land tenures
and Country types according to their cultural
obligations.

PROGRAM COMPONENT 1
Managing the transition to cultural burningand healthy Country.

RATIONALE
For the successful re-introduction of cultural burning
in Victoria, Traditional Owners acknowledge that aperiod of transition is required to accommodate thecontemporary regulatory framework surrounding
fire management and the changed conditions
in Victoria’s natural landscapes. In many cases,
Traditional Owners will need to adapt the thresholds
and indicators for right fire (as part of Reading
Country) and adopt an adaptive management
approach. Where complementary practices16 can beestablished, this will facilitate a safe environment forCountry, culture, life and property. These practices
will enable cultural burning to heal or restore ‘sick’
Country (cultural landscape systems and processes
currently imbalanced) and work towards creating anenvironment where cultural fire can be applied once
again to manage Country (creation and maintenance of
resilient cultural landscape systems and processes).

16

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Complimentary practises refer to Traditional Owner led Indigenous
and other contemporary practises aiming to create a safe environment
for the reintroduction of cultural fire to the landscape, including water
management, forest gardening (silviculture) and mechanical treatment.

SITUATIONAL ANALYSIS
Within the current regulatory framework in Victoria,
there are a number of mechanisms that recognise theimportance of Aboriginal involvement in fire and land
management. These include:• Safer Together: The Victorian Government’s
approach to reduce the risk of bushfire in Victoria.
The approach has a strong focus on agency
partnerships and community partnerships as well
as stronger relationships with Traditional Owners.
• The Code of Practice for the Management of Fireon Public Land: adopts a risk-based approachto bushfire management and planning. While
the Code offers protection in terms of bushfire
risk to ‘material’ cultural heritage, it does not
acknowledge that Right Fire can heal Aboriginal
people and Country.
• At the federal level, the National Bushfire
Policy Statement for Forests and Rangelands:
promotes Indigenous Australians’ use of fireand recommends, where relevant and possible,that traditional burning practices are integrated
into land management to enhance bushfire
management and risk mitigation in Australianlandscapes.
Despite the existence of supporting statements andmutual objectives in current government policies,
there are numerous policy and regulatory constraints.
This means that Traditional Owners have limited
authority, resources and capacity to develop andapply cultural fire practices on Country according to
the principles described in the strategy. For instance,
the process governing the development of Joint Fire
Management Plans (JFMPs) for planned burning is
still difficult for Traditional Owners to navigate andengage with. The JFMPs do not yet offer an easy
way for Traditional Owners to nominate burns for
cultural reasons e.g. community healing, restorationof culturally significant species. These plans also
primarily adopt a risk-based approach to fire
management; focusing on the protection of life andproperty. This approach offers limited scope formore nuanced reasons for the application of fire.

17

While there has been recent progress towards
reflecting Traditional Owner priorities in JFMPs(e.g. the recent cultural burn at Mt Egbert near
Wedderburn by Dja Dja Wurrung and the appointmentof a Traditional Owner to a senior fire planning role),
there is a need for fire agencies to adapt to thecapacities and interests for a range of cultural firedevelopment pathways of other Traditional Owner
knowledge holders in fire management acrossVictoria. Collaboration with DELWP, including throughappointment as staff, has been effective to meet
Dja DJa Wurrung aspirations and needs. Howeverat this time not all Victorian Traditional Owners want
to appoint their countrymen and women as staff in
DELWP to be able to practice cultural burning.
Land tenure also poses limitations on the abilityof Traditional Owners to practice cultural burning.
Traditional Owners have applied cultural fire overmillennia without regard to tenure boundaries
imposed during the colonial period. This enabled
Traditional Owners to plan cultural burns within acultural landscape context, assessing and managing
Country in such a way that accounted for multiple
values, including spiritual, social and environmental.
Currently, cultural burning in Victoria is undertaken
on Aboriginal freehold land or private land (withpermission of landholders), with CFA involvement.
CFA has also worked with Traditional Owners ona limited number of burns on Council managed
properties17 and there has also been culturally
informed burning in state forest reserves by Dja Dja
Wurrung staff in partnership with DELWP. However,significant institutional and policy barriers still need to
be overcome to enable cultural (Traditional Owner led)burning in all institutional and Country contexts. For
example, where appropriate, Traditional Owners would
like to practice some cultural burns under conditionsof Country which are considered by Traditional Owners
to offer extremely low risk –without the need for
Personal Protective Equipment/uniforms/pre-burn
training etc. and other overt signs of non-Aboriginal
institutions at work.

Wurundjeri elder, Pers. Comm. 2018.

15

Aboriginal communities need to follow cultural
protocols and break down government andstructural barriers to enable communities to
conduct burns as they once did in Victoria, and as
they still do in other parts of the country.18
Ngintait Elder talks about having controlled burns
backed up by the CFA and the fire brigade andthe use of wind breaks and other standard fuelreduction burn techniques. When it is pointed outthat this is not cultural burning, [Ngintait Elder]
responds:
Yeah but it’s still protecting the country.
So you gotta look at it both ways sometimes.
When asked about how country would betransitioned to a state in which regular cultural
burning could occur, he said further:
You’re gunna burn it regularly … nor are you
gunna burn the country that you don’t want toburn, you know what I mean? Just the sites
where the rubbish are. But first up you have to
do something to protect the other ones. I mean
you don’t want those big old gum trees burning
for a month or so.19
When asked if [Ngintait Elder] thought there was aspace in which Traditional Owner fire management
practices and State fire management policy could
work together, he replied:
The government one I feel would control it
because that’s their way on the political side ofit. But the TO’s, if we took it outright and did a
cultural burn off, we’d have better control of thecountry … I know we can’t burn the country on
our own. I know we still need the CFA firetruck
and bla bla bla before we start, but, as for that,I’d rather see the TOs doing it than Government
staff [Here [Ngintait Elder] is talking about TOs
manning the trucks] … If we do it the Government
way, they just burn the country down. It doesn’tmean a thing to them in the cultural sense ofthings. We’re doing it for a reason. We’re looking
after country.

16

18 Dja Dja Wurrung man.
19 Ngintait Elder, key informant interview, Lake Cullulleraine, 20 May 2018.
20 Tagalaka man, in discussion with Victorian Cultural Fire Knowledge
Holders at the South East Aboriginal Fire Forum, 11 May 2018.
21 NRM Committee, 2017.

A Tagalaka man, in discussion with Victorian Fire
Knowledge Holders at the South East AboriginalFire Forum, said:
There is a huge gap in [the] knowledge of the
management of National Parks. They have been
locked up for 50 years .20

The excerpts of research notation below provide
examples of the complexities involved in bringing
country back to health and the depth of understanding
needed to navigate both fire safety management andcultural burning regimes:… any shift from a fuel reduction to a cultural
burning regime needs to be done over the courseof about 10 years because the Country needs tobe prepared for that change. At the moment it is
not ready to respond properly to cultural burning
because fuel reduction burning has affected itso badly. Hence there needs to be a change fromone regime to another.21…..suggested transitional arrangements forhealing Country [as align to existing approaches
e.g. Healthy Parks, Healthy People] are neededover a 10 year period. That after a period of fuelreduction burning (say 3 years), when fuel loads
are down, we can transition into cultural burning(fire stick farming). The community is then not
so nervous. Community safety needs to be at theforefront [of the fuel reduction burning phase].
We can start to take control after.22
We’re gonna need to do some small burns toclean up the years of litter and weeds first,
before we can get back to doing proper cultural
burning. This is a process of decolonising theland.23
With fire, we are not going to get it right every
time and we need to re-learn what to look for
to tell us the right time to burn.24

22 NRM Committee, 2017.
23 Traditional Owner Cultural Fire Knowledge Holder Group,
February 2018.
24 Traditional Owner Cultural Fire Knowledge Holder Group,
February 2018.

POSSIBLE ACTIONSCountry is not the same due to the introduced
species [and changed fuel and fire patterns]
and adapting this knowledge will take time.25
There was [a] discussion about procedures toprotect cultural places as part of Fire Operations
Plans. That we need to put something in theframework [cultural burning strategy] to makesure Traditional Owners are consulted and to say
how cultural sites can be identified and protected(with Right Fire).26
With fire we are not going to get it right every
time and we need to re-learn what to look for totell us the right time to burn. 27
Country is not the same due to the introduced
species [and changed fuel and fire patterns] andadapting this knowledge will take time.28• Identify, establish and grow key partnerships
with fire agencies and land managers• Identify pilots over the next five years to showcase
and test different institutional arrangements thatenable Traditional Owners to lead practice anddevelop proof of concept on different Countries.
• Identify regulatory barriers to practicing cultural
burning and workshop and trial methods ofremoving these barriers in partnership with
relevant agencies and stakeholders.
• Monitor and evaluate the process of resetting
and healing in different types of Country throughcultural burning.

A Wurundjeri elder brought up the fact that acultural burning regime can only be conductedon Country that had been brought back to health.
Until the Country was in a place where a cycleof fire farming practices could be used annually,
it could not be the subject of a cultural burn. In
this, [Wurundjeri Elder] was calling for a raft ofappropriate remedial burns to be taken to firstbring Country back to health.29

SICK COUNTRYHEALTHY COUNTRY

Landscapes with high fuel load.

Creation of firm policy and structural
governance relationships reflecting
partnership, with appropriate bodies(DELWP/CFA/Parks Victoria etc.).

Landscapes with normal fuel load.

Public safety is the first consideration.

Development of complementary
practices and processes.

Public safety is the first consideration.

Management to largely a single
objective (fuel reduction).

Reducing harmful effects on Country
due to ‘hot burns’.30

Management to multiple objectives
and values (healing Country andculture).

The risks of introducing a cultural
burning regime are high.

Development of culturally appropriate
learning (education, training) andresearch relationships.

The risks of introducing a cultural
burning regime are low.

Practices need to be developedin order to reduce fuel load whilelessening the impact on Country.

Development of practices in order totransition to cultural burning whilst
working with fuel reduction regimes.

Authentic cultural burning on aCountry level involving groups of
Traditional Owners as part of a
Community of Practice.

Figure 1. Transitioning to cultural burning in Victoria

25
26
27
28
29

NRM Committee, 31 May 2017.
Traditional Owner Cultural Fire Knowledge Holder Group, November 2017.
Traditional Owner Cultural Fire Knowledge Holder Group, February 2018.
NRM Committee 31 May 2017.
Traditional Owner Cultural Fire Knowledge Holder Group, Cape Otway,
2018.

30 Traditional Owners consider some Government planned burns to be
too hot i.e. Not Right Fire – the fire behaviour may be too intense andcan be damaging to Country. To some extent this is also a consequenceof a changed environment, making initial conditions difficult to effecta cool burn.

17

OBJECTIVE 2
Build Traditional Owner governance and capacity
in cultural fire knowledge and practice.

PROGRAM COMPONENT 2
Restore and protect the knowledge system.

Need a 12-month course on different types ofCountry. To build [a cohort] of 50-100 Indigenous
scholars.31
On the Budj Bim Cultural Landscape, Aborigines(historically) burned 2-3 paddocks with lines oftrees between as a ‘template’ and harvested
the game ).32
Puunyart (Dianella spp.) was burned in Autumn.33
Don’t teach a young person how to fight [a] fire
before they’ve learned how to work with fire.34

RATIONALE
The transitional arrangements developed under
Program Component 1 must be undertaken inparallel with Traditional Owner governed knowledge
development and training. Traditional Owners will
decide how consent to share knowledge is given.
This is important to protect the influence (legitimacy)
and integrity of the Strategy (both in development andas an end product).

SITUATIONAL ANALYSISThe protection and management of Traditional Fire
Knowledge is critical as knowledge has been stolen,
misappropriated and disrespected in the past.
In particular, Traditional Owners express three
types of concerns regarding the misuse of
Traditional Fire Knowledge:• Practice is taught widely, it is incorrectly applied
without authority by non-Aboriginal fire agencies
under the guise of cultural burning;• The protection of Intellectual Property associatedwith fire practice in Victoria is at least partly aboutcommercial value. Some Traditional Owner groups
may wish to generate commercial outcomesthrough contracting of Aboriginal fire crews toundertake cultural burning on private land andalso for emergency management; and• The sacred nature of Intellectual Property
associated with fire.

[We need to] teach and share knowledge throughthe kinship system and throughout [Australia].
[It’s about] Rebuilding their [TOs] knowledge
system.
[Need to] restore (rebuild) the knowledge
system. The land is the boss. [you can see]the evidence in the landscape [and] thehappiness and kinship [that comes frommanaging the land].35
A community of practice to be developed,with ‘regional fire circles’ [as Country levelclusters of practitioners].36….the challenge has been in the last fifteen
years for me was applying actually traditional
knowledge into contemporary landscapes.37
Teaching should be On-Country. Sharing
principles across landscapes. [The] Landscapeis [the scale on which] where our knowledge lies
and comes from. Reading Country [is part of thepractice]. Shared knowledge is not sacred e.g.
[knowledge of how to manage] gum tree Country,
grass Country. It’s OK to share [this knowledge].
[Knowledge includes] parent trees – what should
be in that landscape. Includes the breeding time[and habitat requirements] of animals.38
Fire promotes yam production, [its] like a warm
blanket. 39[But] We cant open all those doors of knowledge
until the land is healthy [we will need to employ
fire differently now as compared to when theland is healthy in 30 plus years time].
Fire indicators of good application of culturalfire practice include fire Scorch height less thana foot [is ideal]. Post fire assessment includes
plants coming back. We never burn the canopy.40

31

18

Wurundjeri Elder at a meeting of the Traditional Owner Cultural Fire
Knowledge Holder Group, Cape Otway, 08 March 2018.
32 Gunditj Mara elder at a meeting of the Traditional Owner Cultural Fire
Knowledge Holder Group, Cape Otway, 08 March 2018.
33 Gunditj Mara elder at a meeting of the Traditional Owner Cultural Fire
Knowledge Holder Group, Cape Otway, 08 March 2018.

34 Wurundjeri Elder at a meeting of the Traditional Owner Cultural Fire
Knowledge Holder Group, Cape Otway, 08 March 2018.
35 Tagalaka man, in discussion with Victorian Cultural Fire Knowledge
Holders at the South East Aboriginal Fire Forum, 11 May 2018.
36 Bundjalung man, in discussion with Victorian Cultural Fire Knowledge
Holders at the South East Aboriginal Fire Forum, 11 May 2018.

The excerpts of research notation below provide
further advice about how to codify practice:Think about keeping knowledge alive through[oral transmission of] practice and in that way
TOs are in control and can’t have knowledge
taken inappropriately.41
One of the key concerns that emerged was thepotential for the state and state-led organisations
to document and codify TO knowledge about
Country and turn that into courses that could betaught to non-Aboriginal people. While everyonein the room recognised that this would not resultin the same level of care, they all understoodthat this might be something attractive togovernments and local agencies that do notnecessarily want to deal or make agreementswith TOs.42

POSSIBLE ACTIONS• Victorian Traditional Owner Cultural Fire
Knowledge Group act as a Victorian Communityof Practice (Victorian Fire Circle) to facilitate theimplementation of the Strategy.
• Develop partnerships with other knowledge holders
and practitioners across jurisdictions (e.g. NationalFiresticks Alliance, Indigenous People’s Learning
Network, The Nature Conservancy (USA).
• Invest in Aboriginal and Traditional Owners fire
practice networks.
• Invest in Traditional Owner led research that seeks
to restore fragmented ‘sleeping’ fire knowledge andthat builds a body of evidence of the environmental,social, economic and cultural benefits of cultural
fire.
• Investigate and understand the timing of burns indifferent types of Country and explore options foradapting to contemporary landscapes.
• Seek opportunities to restore food, medicinal plants
and fibre to Country through cultural burning.
• Align Country fire strategies with Country Plans.
• Work with Traditional Owners to ensure
institutional frameworks enable and facilitate
cultural fire practice across tenures.
• Develop formal training programs at a School or
Academy for upskilling people on topics including
Indigenous Land, Fire and Water.
37 Tagalaka man, in discussion with Victorian Cultural Fire Knowledge
Holders at the South East Aboriginal Fire Forum, 11 May 2018.
38 Tagalaka man, in discussion with Victorian Fire Knowledge Holders
at the South East Aboriginal Fire Forum, 11 May 2018.
39 Yuin Elder, at the South East Aboriginal Fire Forum, 11 May 2018.

40 Tagalaka elder in discussion with Victorian Traditional Owners
at the South East Aboriginal Fire Forum, 11 May 2018.
41 Traditional Owner Cultural Fire Knowledge Holder Group,
February 2018.
42 Traditional Owner Cultural Fire Knowledge Holder Group 2017.

19

OBJECTIVE 3
Improved management of state forest reserves andprivate land though the application of collaborative
management to heal country and build resilience inpeople and landscapes.

PROGRAM COMPONENT 3
Holistic land management for healthy country
and healthy people.

RATIONALE
Collaborative management is an administrativeand cultural process that strives for transparent
and equitable agreement about natural resource
management. This approach incorporates a varietyof partners and roles working towards multiple
environmental, social and cultural goals. Collaborative
management approaches have successfully been
applied in many different contexts around the world.43
In Australia, a key example is in the establishmentof Indigenous Protected Areas.
Traditional Owners approach land management witha holistic set of practices that link the managementof conservation and productive values to theenvironmental and cultural services upon which
they depend.
Partnership arrangements and management
objectives will need to be tailored to each regional andcultural landscape context. This includes analysis of
the tenure, regulatory and operational arrangements
to support cultural fire application, other beneficial
Indigenous management practices, together with aprocess of learning to continuously improve planning,
management and action.

SITUATIONAL ANALYSIS
Institutional arrangements for the management ofpublic land are complex and compartmentalised.
The management objectives for a particular areaor reserve may be too narrow to realise all thenatural and cultural values inherent in that asset
and may result in unintended outcomes whenother Department or agency policies, research andprograms are focused on, for example, threatened20

43 Under many guises, including the Indigenous Protected Area programin Australia. For example, see R.J. Fisher Experiences, challenges
and prospects for collaborative management of protected areas:an international perspective. In Louise B. Buck, Charles C. Geisler,
John Schelhas and Eva Wollenberg (eds) Biological Diversity:
Balancing Interests Through Adaptive Collaborative Management.
CRC Press: Boca Raton, Florida, 2001.

species protection, recreation or commercial timber
production.
Some contemporary fire management practices canalso pose risks to cultural and natural heritage. For
instance, concerns have been raised by Traditional
Owners regarding certain fire suppression activities,
such as the use of mechanical methods to create
fire breaks and the use of high impact machinery insensitive wetlands or areas that may contain artefact
scatters (close to the soil surface). The implementationof the Strategy provides an opportunity to improveland management in this regard and apply holistic
land management principles and practices to protect
cultural heritage.
Just as contemporary fire management practices may
pose risks to cultural and natural heritage, the culturaluse of fire may need to be adapted in areas wherehigh fuel loads exist in close proximity to communities
to reduce the potential risks to life and property.
While cultural burning is an effective management
tool in healthy Country, fire management practice inlandscapes with high fuel loads will need careful twoway capacity building between Traditional Owners andcontemporary fire managers until Country health isrestored and associated risks lowered.
Fire gives us an opportunity for reconciliation.44
We didn’t want big bulldozer tracks [creating
risks to cultural heritage.] 45
Vegetation removal and [cool] burning aroundaboriginal art sites are undertaken to protect
them. Hotter fires can slough off the [granite]rock faces and destroy the art.46..they could’ve kept it [wildfire] under control.
Even now you’ve got … You’re overstocked …
millions of trees around everywhere. There
shouldn’t be. They should be burning off first …
that way you get better growth too. That applies
to this country here too. It should be no different
here. Even down that Linsday way [Linsdsay
Island], you know, the flats and all that. I wouldn’t
mind doing a cultural burn off down there someday. Or we could head out to Lindsay Island,cross Harling Bridge and Brecament Bridge.
Head out on my old stamping roads and all that
there. All that area needs burning, and we cancome back and get it.47

44 Bundjalung man, in discussion with Victorian Cultural Fire Knowledge
Holders at the South East Aboriginal Fire Forum, 11 May 2018.
45 Gunditj Mara Elder at Traditional Owner Cultural Fire Knowledge Holder
Group meeting, Cape Otway 2018.
46 Wiradjuri man at the South East Aboriginal Fire Forum, 11 May 2018
47 Ngtait Elder during a key informant interview at Lake Cullulleraine,
20 May 2018.

At the end of the day, that’s what we’re trying to
do – Heal the country, coz it’s sick, and we’re sickand we gotta heal the country.48

Importantly, [Gunditj Mara Elder] notes that TFMPs[Traditional Fire Management Plans] still have to
be conducted in the contemporary world with therestraints that that imposes:

Can we achieve a landscape burning methodologythat will be conducive to more food and fibre in thelandscape? Need to understand if macropods areencouraged in [by cultural burning or the hybrid
methods used at the moment].49

But then you’ve got all of this infrastructure –we got fences, we got poles, we got houses,
we got everything. We can’t do burns like weused to. So we have to adapt and move forwardwith that adaptation.53[Gunditj Mara man] pointed out that traditionalburning practices are all about food – resetting
the country to the right conditions for it to flourish
with the different varieties of flora and fauna used
by Aboriginal people to survive and thrive. He also
said the country produced signs that could beread that would indicate when it was ready to
be burned:[Ngtait elder] makes the point that, before any
burn, Country has to be walked over by TOs
to ensure that nothing of cultural heritage
significance, particularly human remains, will
be disturbed or destroyed in the burning or in
the creation of fire breaks. This means also that,
where burning is necessary, there needs to bethought given to protecting significant sites,
artefacts and areas while still allowing theburnto go ahead.

“You see it in the country when it’s the right time
to burn.”50[Need to] asses what Country should be likeand heal it with the application of knowledge,
not research.51
Fuel [burning] burns too hot and is too toxic for ahealthy environment. Monitoring is essential inorder to build a body of data that shows cultural
burning is better for the environment and safer
for people generally.52

When asked if walkovers are definitively a TO led
process even now, the [Ngintait elder] responded:
See when we interpret that thing; we get to lookat what’s your criteria and what’s our criteria.
Then we work together in discussing it, youknow what I mean? It can’t be a one-way street.
It has to be a joint adventure. It’s a collective.
That’s the only way we’re going to get throughthis sort of stuff.54

POSSIBLE ACTIONS• Identify and progress a minimum of five pilots ina more collaborative, true partnership approachto both planning, resourcing and management.

• Apply the full suite of Indigenous land and water
management practices to heal and manage
Country.

• Conduct joint walkovers of planned burn sites anddevelop more sensitive measures for fire protection(e.g. creating breaks to protect heritage sites using
a wet line, a small burn or by using rake hoes).

• Ensure institutional objectives and settings capture
the contribution of cultural burning to Aboriginal
health and well-being outcomes through Caring
for Country.

• Investigate the potential impact of cultural firein restoring ecological functions and reducing
fuel loads.

48 Dja Dja Wurrung man at an NRM Committee meeting,
15 November 2017.
49 Dja Dja Wurrung elder at an NRM Committee meeting, 10 May 2017.
50 Gunditj Mara man at a meeting of the Traditional Owner Cultural Fire
Knowledge Holder Group, Cape Otway, 08 March 2018.
51 Tagalaka man in discussion with Victorian Cultural Fire Knowledge
Holders at the South East Aboriginal Fire Forum, 11 May 2018.

52 Dja Dja Wurrung woman elder at a meeting of Victorian Cultural Fire
Knowledge Holder Group, Cape Otway 08 March 2018.
53 Gunditj Mara elder at a cultural burning event, Wurdi Youang Indigenous
Protected Area (Little River), 6 May 2018.
54 Ngintait elder, key informant interview, Lake Cullulleraine, 20 May 2018.

21

OBJECTIVE 4
Facilitate the development and strengthening ofinstitutional frameworks that support culturalfire practice.

PROGRAM COMPONENT 4
Embedding cultural fire practice.

RATIONALE
While it is likely that there are sites where theapplication of cultural fire poses little risk to life andproperty, Traditional Owners will need to be trainedin fire and natural resource management for safety
reasons. Fire and natural resource management
training could also offer opportunities for thecommercial contracting of Indigenous emergency
crews; providing Traditional Owners with a potential
source of employment. This is especially true during
the transitional phase from Sick Country to Healthy
Country where a range of culturally appropriate
Natural Resource Management ‘interventions’ may
need to be applied (e.g., thinning and slashing in very
sick high fuel load Country).
…….. we have people working on Country.
Our problems are not [getting authority andorganising] burning. We need our language
and protocols to be brought back (including in
Department led burns). We need to break down
barriers in the Department and have a say in howthat Country is burned. It’s all on the FOPs (FireOperations Plans) at the moment. We need ourkids, aunts and uncles to be brought back55

In re-constituting fire practice, we need
two main pathways – one is on private land
where restrictions are less. The other is withgovernment agencies on public land, so we can
influence the system from within.58
Incorporate learning into Safer Together; code ofpractice to acknowledge cultural burning. 59…talked about the need for a cultural burning
pro-forma (protocol) to be developed andgazetted. We need to be clear which type ofburn is being undertaken. We need to get
accreditation (accredited training) for each typeof burn: ecological burn, fuel reduction burn andcultural burn. We need to work with membersof the Department so that we can apply ourcultural burns within their guidelines and seek toinfluence and change them (including not to havesuch hot burns).60[it was] explained that the cost to acquire thecapital equipment compliant with these types
of works and to resource a few people over
the weekend with the appropriate insurance,
training, policy and procedures as a businessactivity which centres on cultural obligations is
at a substantial cost. He emphasised the needfor Traditional Owners to be resourced to ensure
a properly integrated approach and support forinvestment in capital purchases is critical.61
We need to be empowered to deliver this[current] legal framework [for fire], including
SMEAQS etc.62[We need to] build frameworks to support thepractice. You [Agencies] need to authorise
employed staff to do things the Right Way.56
That 6-month seasonal appointments were notenough. Field Service Officers (FSOs) should bemade permanent [positions]. The FSOs shouldbe educated on the right time to burn. We needtraining in fire behaviour57

22

55 Dja Dja Wurrung man, Traditional Owner Cultural Fire Knowledge
Holder Group Event, February 2018.
56 Bundjalung man, Traditional Owner Cultural Fire Knowledge Holder
Group Event, February 2018.
57 Yorta Yorta man, Traditional Owner Cultural Fire Knowledge Holder
Group Event, February 2018.
58 Traditional Owner Cultural Fire Knowledge Holder Group,
on-Country Event, February 2018.

59 NRM Committee 31 May 2017.
60 Traditional Owner Cultural Fire Knowledge Holder Group,
November 2017.
61 NRM Committee meeting 31 May 2017.
62 Traditional Owner Cultural Fire Knowledge Holder Group,
on-Country Event, February 2018.

POSSIBLE ACTIONS• Develop partnerships through existing relevant
projects (e.g. Safer Together).
• Support cultural burning practices that meetcultural and ecological objectives while also
reducing the risk of damaging wildfire.
• Integrate and embed cultural burning principles
into fire sector processes (including planning,monitoring, management/response) to driveand enable cultural fire.
• Establish agreed roles and responsibilities for
all partners and a system for review.
• Embed cultural aspects into the existing DELWP
monitoring and evaluation framework for fire
management.
• Build two-way capacity between agencies andTraditional Owner fire managers; providing
opportunities for Traditional Owners to serve asadvisors in all aspects of fire management.
• Provide employment, equipment, accredited
training and career development for Traditional
Owners.
• Establish and embed processes and standards
for a culturally safe working environment.

23

CONCLUSION
ANDNEXT STEPSFor the Aboriginal peoples of thelands now known as Victoria,
the cultural, social, ritual andspiritual significance of fire cannot
be overstated. The Victorian
Traditional Owner Cultural Fire
Strategy offers a way forward
where Traditional Owners canpractice cultural burning within thecontemporary Victorian landscape.

In order to realise the ambitious vision and objectives
in this Strategy, the following next steps have been
identified:• Development of scenarios or examples of different
conditions for undertaking cultural burning,
so procedural pathways and practice can be
developed.
• Development and implementation of a Strategy
Implementation Plan (including resourcing).
• Building two-way capacity through the developmentof more effective ways to link modern fire
management with traditional burning practices.
• Understanding the role of science in supporting there-emergence of a sophisticated and evolving
knowledge base capable of adjusting to climatechange and its many challenges that are beginningto be seen and felt across the country.
The Native Title Act (1993, Cwth) and the Traditional
Owner Settlement Amendment Act (2016, Vic)
provide an enabling legal framework to support
Traditional Owners to fulfil their aspirations in healing
and managing Country, as part of being formallyrecognised in their respected place in regional
communities.
The actions outlined in this Strategy will complement
and support that broader process of reconciliation as
well as leveraging significant environmental, socialand economic benefits in regional Victoria.

24

GLOSSARY OF TERMS
Aboriginal Victorian/s: Aboriginal
person/s residing in Victoria
Country: Country is more than aplace. The Indigenous relationshipbetween people and Country is deep
and intimate. From an Indigenous
perspective, one belongs to Country
and there is a reciprocal relationshipthat exists between people andCountry. Country includes all of thesentient and non-sentient partsof the world and the interactions
between them, according to
Aboriginal lore. Indigenous lore andlife originates in and is governed byCountry. Country must be respected.
Traditional burning: the applicationof fire knowledge and practice prior
to European settlement.
Cultural burning: as cultural fire(verb form).
Cultural Fire: Fire deliberately
put in to the landscape authorized
and led by Traditional Ownersof that Country, for a variety of
purposes, including but not limited
to: ceremony, protection of culturaland natural assets, fuel reduction,
regeneration and managementof food, fibre and medicines,
flora regeneration, fauna habitat
protection and healing Country’s
spirit.

Dreaming stories: According to
Aboriginal belief, all life as it is today- Human, Animal, Bird and Fish ispart of one vast unchanging networkof relationships which can be traced
to the great spirit ancestors of theDreamtime. The Dreamtime is
the Aboriginal understanding of
the world, of it’s creation, and it’s
great stories. The Dreamtime isthe beginning of knowledge, fromwhich came the laws of existence.
For survival these laws must be
observed. Aboriginal Dreaming
stories speak of events from thetime of creation. These stories havebeen passed on from one generation
to the next for thousands of years.
Dreaming stories are also preservedin our songs and dances. Thesestories give us understanding of
the past and have helped us survive
through the laws and morals that lay
within them.
Fire and land management
agencies: includes agencies thatparticipate in fire and/or land
management practices including
but not limited to: Department ofEnvironment, Land, Water andPlanning, Country Fire Authority,
Parks Victoria, Catchment
Management Authorities.

Indigenous knowledge: theunderstandings, skills andphilosophies developed by societies
with long histories of interaction
with their natural surroundings.
For rural and indigenous peoples,
local knowledge informs decisionmaking about fundamental aspectsof day-to-day life. This knowledge
is integral to a cultural complex
that also encompasses language,
systems of classification, resource
use practices, social interactions,ritual and spirituality. These uniqueways of knowing are important
facets of the world’s cultural
diversity, and provide a foundation
for locally-appropriate sustainable
development (UNESCO63).
Self-determination: All Aboriginal
peoples have the right of selfdetermination. By virtue of thatright they freely determine theirpolitical status and freely pursue
their economic, social and culturaldevelopment (article 1 of theInternational Covenant on Civil andPolitical Rights (ICCPR) and article
1 of the International Covenant on
Economic, Social and Cultural
Rights 64).
Traditional Owner: Aboriginal
person claiming Traditional Owner
Status over a particular Country
with cultural authority to act on
their rights.
Traditional Owner Cultural Fire
Knowledge Group: Traditional
Owners who are the custodiansof fire knowledge and practice inVictoria.

63 http://www.unesco.org/new/en/natural-sciences/priority-areas/links/related-information/what-is-local-and-indigenous-knowledge/(accessed 03 November 2018).
64 https://www.humanrights.gov.au/right-self-determination (accessed 03 November 2018).

25

APPENDIX 1: METHODOLOGY
Through true partnership and a co-design process,the Federation and government partners took theopportunity to demonstrate best practice in engaging
Traditional Owners in strategy development tocreate the Victorian Traditional Owner Cultural
Fire Strategy.
A collaborative governance model was created thatoutlined the roles of five groups involved in different
aspects of strategy development (Figure 2).
The five groups were:
1. Traditional Owner Cultural Fire Knowledge Group.
2. A Project Control Group.
3. A Research Advisory Group.
4. The Natural Resource Management Committeeof the Federation.
5. A Strategy Co-ordination Team.
The Victorian Traditional Owner Cultural Fire
Knowledge Group was empowered to operate as theinstitutional custodian of cultural fire knowledge andpractice and as such, were at the centre of strategy
development. This ensured the strategy was informedby the knowledge and practice of those at the forefrontof re-establishing cultural fire in Victoria. At every
meeting of the Knowledge Group notes were taken andlater analysed to capture common themes that would
eventually become parts of the strategy.
This thematic analysis was presented back to thegroup at each successive meeting to check theaccuracy of interpretation and to provide opportunity
to iteratively build on the material with further detailor new ideas. In this way the strategy was built
around identifying the enablers and constraints on
re-establishing cultural fire practice and the firsthandexperiences of Traditional Owners of what helps orhinders their ability to apply cultural fire.
Focus group and key informant interviews with Elders
who are the custodians of dreaming stories thenenriched the Strategy. Connections between Fire Law
and practice in historic and contemporary settings
were revealed and better appreciated through theseinterviews. This strategy and its policy directions
interpreted directly from the voices of Elders andknowledge holders, were confirmed and strengthenedby the sharing of these stories.

26

A Project Control Group (PCG), made up of Traditional
Owners and Agency Representatives provided
oversight to strategy development, strengthened
relationships with partner agencies and evaluatedand attempted to resolve issues that were beyond
the influence and scope of the Knowledge Group.
For example, the PCG took up the matter of how to
enable Elders to attend the fire ground without having
to undergo the rigours of bushfire awareness training,which is currently a requirement.
A Research Advisory Group was newly formed that
included members of the Knowledge Group, Strategy
Co-ordination Group and research partners from
Deakin University’s Institute of Koorie Education.
This Group designed a set of research principles
to be applied in Traditional Owner-led researchlooking at the impacts of cultural fire. The groupextended invitations to researchers across Australia
to engage in research partnerships on the basis ofthese principles and look at the impacts on cultural,environmental and health and wellbeing outcomes.
The Natural Resource Management Committee ofthe Federation hosted many meetings and provided
facilitated forums for strategy discussions. NRM
Committee offered a ready forum, to host events andstrengthened this important network by demonstrating
its value to a wider audience.
The Strategy Working Group provided support to allgroups, organised events, took notes and recorded
stories, wrote drafts of the strategy and integrated
feedback after each discussion, and managed thebudget. Members of the Team came from FVTOC
and DELWP who met many times over the period ofstrategy development, forged stronger appreciationsof the operating environments of both organisations
and opened up extra opportunities, such as additional
funds to support over 30 Victorian Traditional Owners
to attend the National Firesticks Conference in Nowra,
July 2018.
Intellectual property protocols have been tailored
to reflect the custodianship and authority of theKnowledge Group. All intellectual property of fireknowledge and practice is vested upon creation in
the Knowledge Group. New intellectual property
created through Strategy development is vested in
the Federation and shared with the Department,
so it can be presented as a public policy document(The Victorian Cultural Fire Strategy).

GOVERNANCE GROUPS AND PROJECT RESPONSIBILITIESFOR DEVELOPING VICTORIAN CULTURAL BURNING STRATEGY

Project Enablers provide
secretariat support, project
co-ordination and accountability

DELWP & FVTOC
Project Enablers

Traditional Owner
Communities will
host on-Country
events and connect tostrategy through theirknowledge Holders

Project Control Group iswhere representatives ofpartners meet to receive
information from the
Traditional Owner Cultural
Fire Knowledge Holder
Group about what works on
the ground and reviews theinstitutional framework,so that both areas inform
strategy development andlead to strategy success

The Traditional Owner Cultural
Fire Knowledge Holder Groupwill co-ordinate and host a seriesof on-Country events acrossVictoria to share knowledge
and practice, to learn from eachother and fellow Country-men
from elsewhere in Australia. The
Strategy will be shaped by thispractical approach informed by
Aboriginal and Western Science

NRM Committee is a broader
engagement platform thatconnects strategy development
to a wider stakeholder group andprovides a place to discuss how
the strategy is shaping up

FVTOC NRM
Committee

Traditional Owner
Cultural Fire Knowledge
Holder Group – members
self-nominated or by
their communities

Aboriginal andWestern Science –contributors attend
Knowledge Group
events by invitation

Traditional Owner communities
with connection to Country
will host and co-design
strategy events

Project Control Group
Partners are Traditional Owners,
DELWP, Parks Victoria and CFA

Strategy working group

Aboriginal and Western
Science forum is for sharing
and evaluating knowledge
related to fire and is a partof the Traditional Owner
Cultural Fire Knowledge
Holder Group

Strategy Working Group
drafts versions of the strategy
instructed by the Traditional
Owner Cultural Fire Knowledge
Holder Group and informed byother groups

Figure 2. Governance Groups and Project Responsibilities for developing Victorian Cultural Burning Strategy

27

ENDNOTESi

Cameron, A. L. P., ‘Traditions andFolklore of the Aborigines of New
South Wales’, Science of Man and
Journal of the Royal AnthropologicalSociety of Australasia, vol. 6, no. 3,
1903, p. 46.

ii

A. L. P. Cameron, “Notes on some
Tribes of New South Wales,” Journalof the Anthropological Institute,xiv. (1885) p. 368, in, Fraser, J. G.
(1930) Myths of the Origin of Fire: An
essay by Sir James George Fraser.
McMillan & Co: London, p: 8.

iii

A. L. P. Cameron, “Notes on some
Tribes of New South Wales,” Journalof the Anthropological Institute,xiv. (1885) p. 368, in, Fraser, J. G.
(1930) Myths of the Origin of Fire: An
essay by Sir James George Fraser.
McMillan & Co: London, p: 8.

iv

Beveridge, Peter, The Aborigines ofVictoria and Riverina, as seen by Peter
Beveridge, M.L. Hutchinson, Glasgow
Book Warehouse: Melbourne, 1889,
p. 111.

v

Beveridge, Peter, The Aborigines ofVictoria and Riverina, as seen by Peter
Beveridge, M.L. Hutchinson, Glasgow
Book Warehouse: Melbourne, 1889,
p. 111.

vi

Beveridge, Peter, The Aborigines ofVictoria and Riverina, as seen by Peter
Beveridge, M.L. Hutchinson, Glasgow
Book Warehouse: Melbourne, 1889,
p. 111.

vii

Beveridge, Peter, The Aborigines ofVictoria and Riverina, as seen by Peter
Beveridge, M.L. Hutchinson, Glasgow
Book Warehouse: Melbourne, 1889,
p. 111.

viii Beveridge, Peter, The Aborigines ofVictoria and Riverina, as seen by Peter
Beveridge, M.L. Hutchinson, Glasgow
Book Warehouse: Melbourne, 1889,
p. 111.

28

ix

Dawson, J. (1881) The Languages
and Customs of Several Tribes ofAborigines in the Western Districtof Victoria. George Robertson:
Melbourne, p: 54.

xCurr, E. M. (1887) The Australian
Race: Its origins, languages,
customs, places of landing in
australia, and the routes by which it
has spread itself over that continent.
John Ferres, Government Printer:
Melbourne, vol 1, p: 548.

xi

Fraser, J. G. (1930) Myths of theOrigin of Fire: An essay by Sir James
George Fraser. McMillan & Co:
London, p: 5.

xii

Beveridge, Peter, The Aborigines ofVictoria and Riverina, as seen by Peter
Beveridge, M.L. Hutchinson, Glasgow
Book Warehouse, Melbourne,
1889, p. 71, cited in Massola, Aldo,
Bunjil’s Cave: Myths, Legends andSuperstitions of the Aborigines ofSouth-East Australia, Landsdowne
Press, Melbourne, 1968, pp. 462463.

xiii Fraser, J. G. (1930) Myths of theOrigin of Fire: An essay by Sir James
George Fraser. McMillan & Co:
London, p: 10.
xiv Smith, C. (1880) The Booandik Tribesof South Australia: A Sketch of theirHabits, Customs, Legends andLanguage. E. Spiller, Government
Printer: Adelaide, p: 21, in, Fraser,J. G. (1930) Myths of the Origin of
Fire: An essay by Sir James George
Fraser. McMillan & Co: London, p:
10-11.
xv

Smith, C. (1880) The Booandik Tribesof South Australia: A Sketch of theirHabits, Customs, Legends andLanguage. E. Spiller, Government
Printer: Adelaide, p: 21, in, Fraser,J. G. (1930) Myths of the Origin of
Fire: An essay by Sir James George
Fraser. McMillan & Co: London, p:
10-11.

xvi Smith, C. (1880) The Booandik Tribesof South Australia: A Sketch of theirHabits, Customs, Legends andLanguage. E. Spiller, Government
Printer: Adelaide, p: 19-21, in, Fraser,J. G. (1930) Myths of the Origin of
Fire: An essay by Sir James George
Fraser. McMillan & Co: London, p:
13-15.
xvii Smyth, R. B. (1878) The Aboriginesof Victoria with notes relating to thehabits of the natives of other partsof Australia and Tasmania. John
Ferres, Government Printer: London,
p: 458.
xviii Smyth, R. B. (1878) The Aboriginesof Victoria with notes relating to thehabits of the natives of other partsof Australia and Tasmania. John
Ferres, Government Printer: London,
p: 459.

xix Smyth, R. B. (1878) The Aboriginesof Victoria with notes relating to thehabits of the natives of other partsof Australia and Tasmania. John
Ferres, Government Printer: London,
p: 459.
xx

Smyth, R. B. (1878) The Aboriginesof Victoria with notes relating to thehabits of the natives of other partsof Australia and Tasmania. John
Ferres, Government Printer: London,
p: 459-460.

xxi Smyth, R. B. (1878) The Aboriginesof Victoria with notes relating to thehabits of the natives of other partsof Australia and Tasmania. John
Ferres, Government Printer: London,
p: 459-460.
xxii Smyth, R. B. (1878) The Aboriginesof Victoria with notes relating to thehabits of the natives of other partsof Australia and Tasmania. John
Ferres, Government Printer: London,
p: 459-460.
xxiii Smyth, R. B. (1878) The Aboriginesof Victoria with notes relating to thehabits of the natives of other partsof Australia and Tasmania. John
Ferres, Government Printer: London,
p: 459-460.
xxiv Smyth, R. B. (1878) The Aboriginesof Victoria with notes relating to thehabits of the natives of other partsof Australia and Tasmania. John
Ferres, Government Printer: London,
p: 460.
xxv Smyth, R. B. (1878) The Aboriginesof Victoria with notes relating to thehabits of the natives of other partsof Australia and Tasmania. John
Ferres, Government Printer: London,
p: 462.