Transcript: VANESSA CAVANAGH, RACHAEL CAVANAGH, & DEB SWAN on Ancestral Fire Regimes /205
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Ayana Young Welcome to For The Wild Podcast. I'm Ayana Young. Today I'm speaking with Vanessa Cavanagh, Deborah Kim Swan, and Rachael Cavanagh.
Rachael Cavanagh “Our country responds to our people, and the people respond back to country.”
Ayana Young Vanessa Cavanagh is an Aboriginal woman with Bundjalung and Wonnarua ancestry. The Bundjalung and Wonnarua nations are both located in the state of New South Wales in Australia.
Vanessa is a PhD candidate and Associate Lecturer at the University of Wollongong, Australia. Her research explores and amplifies the experiences and empowerment of Aboriginal women in cultural burning in New South Wales.
Deb is a Ngarrindjeri mimini, with kinship affiliation to Darkinjung and Awaba Country. Deborah currently works for Transport New South Wales as a Culture & Heritage Officer specializing in preservation, traditional land management practices and women’s cultural practices.
Rachael Cavanagh is a Minjungbal woman from the Bundjalung/Yugambeh Nations of South East Queensland and Northern New South Wales. Rachael currently works as an Aboriginal Partnerships Liaison for Forestry Corporation of New South Wales and is the Principle Cultural Heritage Advisor for Currie Country Foundation.
Well, Vanessa, Deb and Rachael, to begin, I wonder if I might ask you each to briefly introduce yourselves as you wish.
Rachael Cavanagh My name is Rachael and I’m from Fingal Head, far north, New South Wales. I am a Minjungbal Yugambeh Bundjalung woman, and I’ve been working in land management for over twenty years now, across different agencies, government, and private property. I have a passion for my culture and country and empowering Indigenous people but also Indigenous women to take their role and leadership in looking after country using culture as their grounding.
Deb Swan Hi, my name's Deborah Swan, and I prefer to be known as Deb. I'm a Ngarrindjeri mimini from South Australia. However, I've always resided in Darkinjung country, which is eastern New South Wales. On my father's side is my aboriginality; Ngarrindjeri, South Australia, and on my mother's side, I have Polynesian, English, Scottish and we have Polish on my grandmother's side of quite a mix of nationalities in my family, but I reside on Darkinjung country, Central Coast, New South Wales, Australia.
Vanessa Cavanagh Thanks, Ayana... So I just said hello to you in my mother's Bundjalung language and acknowledged that my mom is a Bundjalung woman from the north coast of New South Wales. And also that, my father's side of the family is Wonnarua, our Wonnarua heritage. Yes. So as Ayana said, I'm an Aboriginal woman from New South Wales, Australia. I work in the University of Wollongong, I'm Associate Lecturer there teaching first year Indigenous geographies. I'm also a PhD student and looking at Aboriginal women's engagement and cultural burning in New South Wales. So it's something that I've kind of been interested in for a really long time, caring for country, and having Aboriginal women involved in environmental action across New South Wales. You know, it's always kind of been male dominated over the last couple of hundred years. So trying to make sure that there's space for Aboriginal women to engage in caring for country here is something that I'm really passionate about. So thank you for having me here for this interview today.
Ayana Young Well, Rachel, as we know, several months have passed since global attention was focused on the intense Australian bushfires that began in September of 2019….I’m sure many listeners’ memories are imprinted with the vivid imagery of dark orange skies, vast swaths of burning forest, and ash covered beaches...In its aftermath, it is estimated that nearly 30 million acres caught fire and around 1 billion animals perished. Before we delve into the power of cultural burning and fire management, I wonder if you’d be willing to talk about the extent of these recent fires and how they were unlike the traditional fire season? How much of Australia was on fire at once?
Rachael Cavanagh Yeah, look, I'm a firefighter, as well, it's another hat that I wear. And, yeah, this season, it started much earlier than we anticipated. And it went for much longer than, you know, we expected as well, the fires were intense, they were hot, they were raging, they were angry, and they were moving really fast, you know, and there's many different layers that relate to why the fire season was so intense. And, you know, you can look at climate change, and all of that sort of stuff to add to it. But, you know, to get down to the sort of bare bones of it, what's actually going on is the mismanagement of land and country. And that's been going on for quite some time now. So we have all these different people owning land, and putting in different land management practices that aren't specific for the landscape that aren't specific for the species that are here in Australia. You know, all of that added, plus the severe droughts that we've had that's created, you know, the intense fire season.
Ayana Young Long before colonization, Indigenous peoples were caring for, and highly literate in, the landscapes of what would become known as Australia - but this would change in 1788 when the British arrived. Both land and people faced brutal extermination… So what are some of the diverse histories and the cultural importance of traditional burning prior to colonization, and then can you speak to the origin of land mismanagement in Australia? When did cultural burning stop and how did it change the land?
Rachael Cavanagh Across Australia, we've got a very diverse country, we've got hundreds of different Aboriginal communities within the Australian landscape. So we're actually really fortunate that there's mob, or communities, that are still practicing cultural burning, they haven't actually lost their traditions or their practices. And then you've got down in the East Coast or in the in the West Coast, where the highly colonized sort of cities are or communities are, and that's where the culture has been fragmented, and sort of stopped. You know, during the time of colonization or the frontier wars, we were told that, you know, you couldn't speak your language, you couldn't practice your culture, and if you were, you were taken away, or worse cases, you know, you were murdered. So there were lots of different pressures that were put on our people as to why they couldn't manage their country. Why, you know, cultural fire practices were suppressed, and all of that.
So I think we're actually lucky now that we're starting to get some of our lands back. So we're starting to be able to reconnect with our kinship and our cultural obligations to look after country. You know, 250 odd years of not burning creates a whole different type of fuel level in the forest or in the bush, we're getting a whole heap of different invasive species that actually love fire. So they're, they're burning really hot, and they're really enjoying it. So there's lots of things like that. There's also you know, we have our, we have our cultural obligations, we've got our stories, and sort of our ceremony. So we know that, you know, and I can only speak from my mob, but I know that, you know, fire lore comes from lightning, you know, and we know that lightning comes with the big summer storms, and at the end of those big hot summer days, we've got these cracking lightning storms, and they're setting the bush on fire, we shouldn't be suppressing these fires, but we have to in this contemporary day because we do have a monopoly of species or a buildup of invasive weeds so we're not actually able to continue and just watch that fire go or walk with it, because there's so much fuel build up underneath that it can't naturally progress.
But, you know, if you want to look at how to sort of, you know, start managing land properly, in an ideal world, I'd love for, you know, people across Australia to start engaging First Nations mob to come and care for country. You know, we know our own land, we know what's needed, we know what has to be implemented for country to start responding again. And that means fire in our landscape every year, not looking at the Western world or, you know, Eurocentric practices implemented in Australia where it doesn't work, where you can't burn country for 5-10, anywhere up to 20 years, that never was a thing for our people. We were constantly burning, and we were burning for lots of different reasons. It was never just for fuel production, we would burn for ceremony purposes, men and women would burn for different reasons as well, it was for hunting, opening up the forest, getting rid of bad spirits that were stuck in the messy forest. So there's a number of different layers attached to why we would implement fire across our landscape. And, you know, it happened at different times of the year. And we always use their seasonal calendars or, you know, the weather to help us move that, you know, moves that fire through the landscape.
Ayana Young I’m hoping we can transition to a conversation on the tremendous non-human kinship networks across Australia, and I don’t even know where to begin because there are so many threads to be tended to...Australia is home to over 300 native species, with nearly 250 of those not found anywhere else in the world. That being said, many of these relations are being pushed to the margins of existence...During the bushfires, here in the West, we heard stories of hawks intentionally spreading fires further to drive out their prey, wombats strengthening their water holes for others, and of course the possibility that one-third of the world’s koala population perished in these fires…Can you share with us what happened to animals and how are they faring the aftermath, beyond what was reported in the headlines?
Deb Swan That topic is really hard on our heart. Sorry. It’s very heavy on our hearts because it’s like losing our elders. One thing with cool burns, when we do a cool burn our plants and animals know cool burn, they know cold fire, they know the smell of smoke. When you start a cool burn, it’s like one ignition point - there’s no chemicals, no fuels, no contaminations. Our people did traditional burns where they started fire with rubbing sticks, so there was no brought in material; pure, clean, cultural cool burns with white smoke filtering through the landscape, finding its way where it needs to go, cleaning up the areas it needs to do, and sending back invasive weeds where they need to go. Our animals have time too, they know that smoke and they know to get away, climb up a tree, off they go. A cool burn does not enter the canopy. It might go a few meters up a tree and go out, a whole difference between a cool burn and hazard reduction burns and wildfires that take off is the contamination of fuel. There's no time for the animals to get out of their environment to a safe area. Koalas have time to climb to the top of the canopy, they know they’ll be safe, they just wait a minute. The smoke actually regenerates our plants and cleanses our trees. You can see the leaves stretching down and inhaling and taking out the smoke. It's like their singing. If you can just tap in there we do have machines these days that you can tap in and listen to plants and animals and how they are feeling and reacting to the environment and you can hear them literally sing, so plants and animals have time to move. And animals like that, that can't fly, like koalas and things like that, will have to go to the top of the canopy.
But when these fires came through [2019 bushfires], they were stuck, they were burned, they were singed. We have horrific stories of people hearing screams from the forest of animals climbing out to protection, to climbing up people, and to get to water. It was devastating. They are our elders, they are our kinship, they are our mob, they are our family, and we lost thousands and we couldn't help them.
Our landscape will regenerate, our animals will regenerate. We have lost a lot of animals, as we have since colonization. But it'll be a very slow repair. We knew this was coming. We've been fearful of these times of wildfires coming because we're watching our environment slowly dry out. And with all the mining activities here that have total rights over our water and the humans, our continent is drying out even faster. And one thing that made tension this time was, “Where are you getting the water to fight the fire from?” And the other thing that we talked about is the language. We don't fight fire, fire is a spirit that has always been used in Australia, it’s a different language. Hence why we say cultural fire practitioners, not firefighters, you don't fight the spirit, you work with the fire.
Ayana Young Now, Rachael, in my mind, cultural burning exemplifies some of the consensual and caring forms of kinship we can have with the land, as well as the profound ability to be literate in the land and what it needs. Can you talk about the very practical application of cultural burning in terms of the use of strategies like cool burns and patterned burning? How does patterned burning protect topsoil and wildlife alike? How are cultural burns nothing like the roaring images of fire so many of us conjure in our heads?
Rachael Cavanagh Yeah, cultural burning or cultural fire practices are very different to the traditional hazard reduction burning or fire regime that different agencies and people put in. So when you look at an agency, and they're in there, and they have to, they've got to burn, you know, 11,000 hectares this winter. And so, a lot of issues are resources and people and all of the issues that everybody has, and they're putting in massive lines of fire, so they walk in with the drip torch, and they'll walk 100 meters and put a whole solid line of fire in that hundred meter, they'll walk a little bit, and then they'll put another line of continuous fire for another hundred meters. Now, when you do that, that actually starts creating its own atmosphere, and it's drawing in oxygen, and it's moving really fast. And so you know, the outcome of putting in that type of hot fire is that it moves through, burns quicker, burns really hot, so it gets rid of everything. But in the meantime, everything's dying, nothing can get away. And it's just a really hot fire to get rid of all the weight. So there's no real healthy outcome from that.
When it comes to cultural fire practices, the actual fire regime, or the practice of putting in cultural burning is its low intensity, spot ignition, or mosaic burning style fire. So you put one spot of fire in and you let that move. So you know, one ignition spot, which could be you know, the size of a tennis ball, that's your, that's your spot of fire, and it's a slow process, and you just watch it burn, the flame isn't to get you know, any higher than sort of your knee. And then that means when it slowly moves through the forest or the bush, across the grass, wherever you're burning, you're able to walk right behind that flame. And you can actually put your hand in the soil, move the ash off the top of it and move that, you know, just that very fine layer of soils, the top of the ground, and the dirt underneath it is cool, the insects are still moving through straight after that fire has gone on. And so having these cool, low intensity fires, it allows our kin or allows the animals to move through. It's not hurting the plants, it's not killing because it's so hot, it's actually you know, the tufts of grass is still there, you know, like all the leaves might have gone but that healthy tuft of grass is still green and ready to sprout again. We have a lot of our species of trees and stuff that actually need fire and smoke to germinate. So if we're not putting the right healthy good fire in our landscape, then we're not getting our native species to come back.
You know, the animals are fearful so they take off and they're not coming back. You know, whereas the cultural fire allows that natural flow and that natural movement of plants and animals to be able to still do their thing without having to be impacted by it.
Ayana Young I'm noticing that some climatologists suggest that much of Australia will become too hot and dry for human habitation in the next couple of decades, and I can’t help but wonder what increasing drought, high winds, and temperature mean for future bushfire seasons... But at the same time, I’m hearing from you all that Australia needs fire, the land knows fire intimately and ancestrally, and that cannot be denied. What would you say to those who suggest that the fires of the future will be so different than the ones of the past, that cultural burning may not be enough?
Vanessa Cavanagh You know, that is true, the fire season is increasing in its length, like the fire season time throughout the year is getting longer, they're starting earlier and finishing later, you know, the temperatures are getting hotter and temperate and the climate is changing. So yeah, the Australian landscape is changing. But I think in fact, it means that cultural burning is needed now more than ever. And that's kind of, you know, that goes along with the climate change, but also the human expansion, you know, our urban expansion means that there is increased risk with the residential areas, you know, people's homes, our buildings and our assets. There's that increased interaction between, you know, built areas, and the natural world. And so those fringe areas needed to be really effectively managed. So cultural burning can add to that effective management of those areas.
And if you couple, you know, that, that environmental need, with the continuous, like experiences that Indigenous people have around, you know, the social experiences, unacceptable low life expectancy levels, you know, low employment and educational statistics, they're all kind of outcomes and representations of the failures of colonization for Indigenous people.
So if you imagine, you know, if we could do more cultural burning, and this then in turn created more jobs for Indigenous people, like, and that creates economic sustainability, and it creates environmental outcomes, and, you know, positive environmental conservation. And it also creates cultural pride and strength for Indigenous people. So in that way, it's like, it's a win win. But to achieve this, we need to have, you know, there needs to be radical change. So we need to have Indigenous people all over the country, being able to access and care for country, and so that we can maintain our cultural pride and strength and that we are healthy, and you know, our behaviors are sustainable. So, and it's not just Indigenous people, like, there's an opportunity to share it with non-Indigenous people, too, like Indigenous people in Australia only make up 3% of the total population. And there's lots of country that needs to be cared for. So there's a lot of work and opportunities for everyone. And that's, you know, two way knowledge sharing, and environmental management techniques that involve Western science and Indigenous science. So, you know, there's opportunities there for non-Indigenous people as well.
Ayana Young Now, Deb, during the bushfires, many were critical of Australia’s continued aggressive expansion of fossil fuels and coal mining - citing that these events are set to become norm, should government officials and policy makers continue their “no-regrets” strategy. It seems clear that the country is in the death grip of a power-hungry few…So I’m curious to hear what you think it will take to push these leaders out?
Deb Swan It's slowly happening, the communities coming along and together, we need to make our governments accountable. We put them in those places, we need to do something. I often say, why aren’t we standing them down if we're all upset, and we've all put people in the powers to be with other people or put our government there, we need to do something and go “No, we're not happy.”
And water is a big issue here, Australia is the driest continent in the world, yet, the issues that we have here over water, and we have to treat Australia as a whole, like a real country, and like the world. Together, we have to look after each other. We can’t work in silos, Australia can't just work in states. Everything that happens at the top end of Australia affects the bottom end of Australia. The things that happen in the northern territory, effect my people down in the bottom, in the South of Australia, because that water system flows right through our country. And as people are having irrigation licenses and stripping out and contaminating our water, the reports that we just got about the use of water and coal mines in the Hunter Valley was just shocking and over the top...of the amount of liters of water that are wasted to one mine, and take from all the people and agriculture and food. It's serious, and the government needs to do something now. This planet will not last. If we don't do something now this planet will not last our grandchildren.
Ayana Young I do think it's our responsibility. And I'm really glad that you're speaking to that. And now, Vanessa, in an essay titled “For Aboriginal Peoples in Australia, Fires Flame ‘a Sense of Perpetual Grief” you write alongside Jessica Weir and Bhiamie Williamson; “How do you support people forever attached to a landscape after an inferno tears through their homelands, decimating native food sources, burning through ancient scarred trees and destroying ancestral and totemic plants and animals?” Several Indigenous Protected Areas along Victoria and New South Wales were lost to the flames, hundreds of sacred sites, some thousands of years old were burnt, and countless more-than-human companions were lost...And so, I can’t help but think of the power of attachment to land, even after it is beyond recognition and how some of this attachment comes from a certain ancestral, or spiritual familiarity.... How is the present-day mismanagement of land, a direct and violent assault on spiritual connection?
Vanessa Cavanagh Yeah, look, that's right. It's Aboriginal people, you know, experienced that grief in a multitude of ways. But I also want to acknowledge that, you know, I mean, there's two ways to look at answering that question. And that one is that Indigenous people have this ongoing right and responsibility that we were saying, you know, this to maintain our own cultural identities, but that takes agency as well as that responsibility. So the ability to care for country and the destruction that those mega fires caused along the coast, that isn't immediately going to diminish and remove Aboriginal peoples connections to place like that connection will stay there. But there are, like you said, those values and landscapes, you know, things in the, in the forest, those heritage sites, they've been damaged, and many of them have been destroyed. So it's a real wake up call. And I think, you know, Indigenous people have been talking about wanting against that environmental destruction for as long as I can remember, and probably for as long as colonization you know happened here in Australia. But this year, we've kind of seen people a lot more interested in Aboriginal, you know, cultural knowledge and especially around fire, you know, looking at how Aboriginal people cared for country using fire and if there's value to be able to instill some of that knowledge into the mainstream fire regimes.
And another thing is, I think the cute and cuddly koalas, you know, there was a big focus on koalas this season. And that brought out that emotional reaction to the fires and that was something that the whole of you know, Australian population and probably overseas as well, we're aware that the fires were, you know, they say “Australian bush needs fires”, but then you see the koalas that are decimated, or, you know, all those native animals that are killed. It's like, yeah, they need fires, but they don't need that fire. That's a really bad fire. And for Aboriginal people, you know, those animals, so those koalas, for some of them, they've got totemic relationships with those koalas and all other species that exist out there in nature. So, for Aboriginal people, it's not only just the loss of sites, but it's also the loss of those family members, you know, it's that family member grief. So it's very kind of real and personal, as well as losing those Aboriginal sites in the landscape.
So there's that and there's also the disempowerment that Aboriginal people experience from not being able to care for country. And that's been an ongoing thing, think through colonization, and I guess that can be really exhausting too, so wanting to care for and maintain, you know, healthy, healthy country and their own self determining identities. But there's this kind of foreign imposed restrictions and we hear about Ondigenous people who for thousands and thousands of years, have lived in and off the ocean, for example, you know, their salt water people, they live close to the water and that's been their livelihoods. And that's been the way they've been for thousands of years. But they're now being prosecuted for maintaining their cultural practices, because it goes against the mainstream fishing laws that have been imposed against them. So that's a real spiritual assault, you know, that's an attack on who they are as salt water people.
And that, then, you know, those restrictions then manifest into direct negative health outcomes and negative health factors for that community. And then that can, you know, flow on into negative social factors and negative environmental outcomes. So there's multiple layers to those impositions. And then you know, that kind of in terms of fire that ripples out into the wider society too, like fires don't discriminate, they affect, you know, everyone in the community. So the smoke plumes hang across major cities for weeks here, and people couldn't breathe, and there were people who were hospitalized, you know, where the fires were active in towns, and you know, those places that didn't, fires don't care whether you're rich or poor, or middle class or working class, they're just going to affect everybody, you know, it doesn't discriminate. And everybody kind of picks up the bill for those damages done, you know, through the different, you know, insurance premiums, or just, you know, just the effects on places that they care for, you know, wanting to have nice national parks and such. So, fire affects everybody, and we all need to be kind of working together to improve fire management here.
Ayana Young Now, Deb, you shared with us that a significant part of your thesis was around Indigenous epistemology and ideologies, specifically in terms of the importance of reciprocal research methodologies when working with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. You write, “The positioning of the researcher and the participants is vital before the research can take place, because participants are not “something” to be studied, but are themselves active participants/researchers in the process” and I’m thinking about this sentiment in terms of Traditional Ecological Knowledge...how many restoration and conservation efforts seek to extract knowledge...So, I wonder if, in context to fire management, you can speak to the necessity of Indigenous designated roles? Is Australia successfully doing this?
Deb Swan In some areas of Australia, we have really good rangers. So rangers, work on their country, work in their country to manage country, and that is all management underneath that umbrella. So they use cultural burns to manage country, monitoring their landscapes, identifying new plants, writing down the medicinal and the stories that go with the plants. Over the years, there've been a lot of times where a lot of our knowledge has just been written into books, and then we have no knowledge of people delivering our knowledge, and it gets changed, or it's not exactly what our elders were telling in the first place. And then our elders are still sitting out on camps not being acknowledged for the knowledge they've shared. Not getting paid, but we have people out there sharing their knowledge, flying all over the place, writing books, and getting accolades and money and economics and status from Indigenous people’s knowledge.
Over the years we’ve put policies in place to not copyright our Indigenous knowledge systems. And another thing as in right now, with the cultural cool burns, and part of what the National Fire Stick Alliance in Australia are doing, they're trying to make sure that we are respectful to our elders and where this knowledge has come from, and that they’re included in all the papers and policies written. And at this moment, that's our challenge now, is working together, we have to all work together across all land management.
In Australia, we have local land services, and water and agriculture, and then biodiversity and then yeah, bugs and, you know, insects, and all that kind of thing where we all need to work together, understand Aboriginal land management. And it seems over the years, it's not till we have a catastrophe, or something goes terribly wrong, that people then turn around and go hang on a minute, these other people trying to tell us something years ago, maybe we should listen, we shouldn't have to get to a point where something so terrible happens that people will then want to listen to us when being trying to talk the same talk for a long time. And it really devastates our elders, when they have a cultural responsibility and obligation to look after the country and they're not allowed. Or they go to stand aside, it breaks their heart, it's like watching a child go rouge that you're not allowed to look after or take care, and you know what the end consequences are gonna be. A lot of our elders have been frightened about what happened in November, they knew that it was going to come, because we're watching the fuel buildup and the changing environment and the plants that will ignite, very, you know, eucalypts, and things like that, that will ignite, you know, high burn. And it's important that our elders are acknowledged for that.
Ayana Young Collectively, much of your work is dedicated to the empowerment and experiences of Indigenous women in cultural burning and I’m so grateful that you all continue to do this work so passionately. How have women played a part in cultural burning across New South Wales and why does this need to be revitalized? What does a gendered lens reveal about the ancestral tradition of tending to fires?
Vanessa Cavanagh Yeah, look at that, it's a really great question. And I'm coming at this topic from the perspective not only as an Indigenous woman, but also as a researcher. And just looking at the history, you know, Aboriginal women or Indigenous women, were just as present and involved in caring for country and involved in the landscape prior to colonization, as what Indigenous men were, like there was no inside, you know, we were always outside. And that involved tending to country, you know, teaching children of future generations, you know, caring for elders caring for the landscape, so that we had what we needed, and that we, you know, we're maintaining our resources that we needed, just to survive.
So we couldn't have survived in Australia. It's the driest inhabited continent on Earth. So we couldn't have survived here for thousands of generations without that expert knowledge and practice, you know, we wouldn't have survived the ice ages or those dry times without being present and active and for women, you know, Aboriginal women, Indigenous women, we’re a part of that. And for many of us, fire was a big part of that, as you know, caring for country and landscape management technique. So women have wide ranging roles in country and I just find through my work, and through my research, I want to be able to support and maintain that connection into the future. Because I think that that's something that we need as people and that's what's going to sustain us as a culture as well into the future. Yeah, that's what my interest is.
Deb Swan When we explain cultural cool burns, it's like a feminine spirit. It's like a spirit of its own. But um, as far as women and men's burns, there's certain areas in our country, in Australia, and part of our culture, that has men and women areas, gender specific areas, there are community areas. It’s like it has four levels, like four levels of a story - if I can explain it that way, so when you’re a child, the first level of the story is like community, everyone has to learn that story at the beginning of your learnings, and you learn the basics of, of life and being and working with your environment. As you grow and you learn, you're given more information and more knowledge that you're able to cope with. And, then you delve into areas of strictly men's business and women's business, and there are areas that contain strictly women’s sites and women’s plants, and it is our role and our duty to take care of those areas and nature and looks after those areas. We do community burns together with children, but we also do you know, women do their burns and men do theirs in areas that it's for our safety. A question that was asked before about us reinvigorating the burning, there's areas across Australia that never stopped burning. Some communities, the closer you get to Sydney, to the nerve of colonization, New South Wales, is where our culture gets disintegrated and where things have been stopped because we had to for survival. One day, we were very healthy gathering at our natural foods. And the next day, we were confined to missions, we weren't allowed to eat, we were given sugar, flour, tea, we weren't allowed to speak our language, practice our culture, or sing or dance songs. So we had an abrupt change to our livelihood and in health.
Rachael Cavanagh This is a big question. You know, it's really important to have our matriarch back out on our country in managing land through fire. We use fire, women use fire for a lot of different reasons to men. You know, we hold the story in the lore of our people, and our kinship connections. And so when it comes to putting in those fire regimes, or when to burn or, and all of that sort of stuff, it's, it's definitely something that the women would, would start and they would give the knowledge and they would pass that on. We had our stories about our medicine and women's law and women's ceremony. So at those different times, fires were used as well.
But I think it's really important to state that, you know, like, for such a long time, women's voices and practices were suppressed. And I know there are a lot of our women and our matriarchs took a step back, because it is a very patriarchal society. So our women did that, so our people as a whole are First Nations, all of our black mob had a voice, because the patriarch would only listen to the men. So we did take a step back in that to allow our people to have a voice. But now that that's all sort of changing again, the women are starting to take their roles in the matriarch society that we've always sort of lived in and it was never an us and them, we do things equally, and we did things together. But it's now time for that to happen. And you know, where my people are from, the Minjungbal people, it's actually now the time of the grandmother dreaming. The grandfather, he's had to take a big step back. And now it's the time for all our people to sort of nurture and be in that caring space and being around the women and the matriarch to take that lead again. So that's actually written in the stars and in our dreaming, and that's actually happening in a bigger, much bigger space, then then, you know, just looking at cultural fire practices. But, um, you know, just to go back to the importance of women and fire, you know, it's such a, it's always envisioned that it's a, it's a man's job to sort of carry that but, you know, Vanessa, Deb and I are all firefighters. So where we're trying to lead that change and show our women that it's definitely an empowering position to be in and to carry that knowledge into staying strong in your knowledge and your power and being able to implement such things as is really powerful.
Ayana Young Well, thank you so much, Vanessa, Deb and Rachael, for taking the time today. Before we end, is there anything else that you'd like to share?
Deb Swan There are some great programs going out there across Australia. Well, like I said, there's a lot of communities that never stopped cultural burns, that are now out teaching other communities. We have our National Firestick Alliance, which is an Australian National Aboriginal organization that is working with the governments and departments and philanthropists to come together to, we're working on a program where we want to train 100 cultural practitioners across Australia to deploy, to go out and manage country, we want to see more rangers, Aboriginal rangers that are getting paid proper wages, to have a full time job, to look after country. We want to share our knowledge with the community. We want to teach people, what our elders taught us, it's our obligation to teach. We've got a lot of organizations out there that are doing this work, sometimes quietly on their own, you know, sometimes the broader community doesn’t know what we're doing. But we also have a lot of non-Aboriginal people that are interested in coming along to our cultural burns, and cultural events, to sit together and learn together. And they’re beautiful times and days. And I can see that we will get there and things will get better and we will work together. I do have faith and hope that we will come together and we will see Aboriginal people out there in permanent jobs looking at the country, and teaching people about fire and not to be fearful of it. We want to teach children at school, you know, what cultural burns and cultural practices are, they are things to grow up and learn with, and not to be scared of. I think together, all Indigenous nations are sharing cultural knowledge across the planet, and working together as one. We will get there eventually, I just hope to see it in my lifetime. I did want to mention Victor Steffensen, he’s actually been to Canada and working with some nations over there, he’s released his book Fire Country. He’s been writing this for the last three years and it's how Indigenous management could help save Australia. So that’s Fire Country by Victor Steffensen.
Vanessa Cavanagh I think one thing I would add is that everybody has got the opportunity to support and amplify the voices of Indigenous people around whatever issue that you know is is happening or you know, being promoted at that stage like, a couple of days ago, here there was a group of us that are involved in a local running group and we heard about the campaign for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and a running group over in America, and we sent our support to them and took some photos of us, they were asking everyone to wear red in support of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women worldwide, so we wore red while we were running and sent photos to that campaign and you know put it up on our Twitter feeds and supported, and so you know its a way that not just Indigenous people can support, that’s something that all people can get behind and support Indigenous people in the work that we’re doing, so that one shares the load a little bit, but it also shows Indigenous people that there are allies there, that there are people that are willing to listen and kind of boost our momentum and our strength. So in terms of the fires, you know, there's probably the biggest Indigenous led organization in Australia in relation to the cultural burning is the Fire Sticks Alliance, Indigneous Corporation. So if people want to jump on to the Fire Sticks Alliance, I think it’s Firesticks.org.au, jump on to their website, you know take a look at some of the videos, watch some of the videos that talk about cultural burning, and that's from a whole range of Indigenous presenters. They've got resources there that people can use in order to, you know, just read and learn about cultural burning. There's a book that there's a couple of books, actually. So there's some publications that people can purchase, they can come along to cultural burning workshops. So the cultural burning workshops, there's a group of them that are run that are open to all people. So it's not just for Indigenous people to participate in. And that's a way that people can come along and learn. Like I take my kids the last couple of years, myself, and my children have gone and camped for the week and worked with, you know, worked alongside local Aboriginal people learning about how they care for country using fire in that local landscape. So especially the, you know, the non-Indigenous fire managers, people who work in those fire departments and agencies and forestry agencies and national parks, they get a lot out of coming to those workshops, and just listening to Aboriginal people for that weekend, and letting Aboriginal people have that leadership. So yeah, there's ways that people could learn and get involved and, and support local Aboriginal people. And that doesn't matter if it's fire, or if it's water management, or if it's, you know, heritage sites, or even like I said, you know, with Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, just those social campaigns and social justice campaigns. So there's work for everybody to do here, so I just encourage everyone to, you know, to use their power to be able to support indigenous people wherever they can.
Rachael Cavanagh Yeah, look, it's such a, such a vast sort of space to be talking about, and I'm very passionate about it. You know, I suppose I just want to reiterate that it's, you know, the fire regime, and being around that good smoke, and that healthy smoke really just invigorates the soul and the spirit. But it's, it's more than that, as well. Because you're, you're looking after the land, and you're looking after the contrary, and, you know, like, it's a really hard thing to sort of, explain, but when you see mob, and, or when you see, you know, Indigenous people out on country and then looking after country, it's an overall well being that changes in them. And it's nothing that I can explain because it's a visual thing, and you can actually see their spirits come alive. And you can see, you know, the passion and something that even people who've never been out on country before, to look after it or to do anything, can you invite these people along to, to put in fire or to do different things to manage and look after country, and they always walk away going well, I never thought it was like that. And that's because our country responds to our people. And the people respond back to country and it's almost watching that reconnection of kin through country and people ignite again, so you see that spark happen that's been so suppressed for so long, and it only just takes that one day or that one, you know, project or that one event for them to actually walk away going on. And then they feel connected again and belonging again. And it's so big. It's so big. You know, and it's really hard to sort of capture that space, but that's what I enjoy seeing. I really enjoy seeing that healing and country and healing and people because that's really powerful. And that's empowering and that makes me go, you know, I'm doing the right thing and this is where we need to be.
Ayana Young Thank you for listening to another episode of For The Wild Podcast. I'm Ayana Young. The music you heard today was from Santiago Cordoba, and Kaivalya. I'd like to thank our podcast production team, Francesca Glaspell, Erica Ekrem and Melanie Younger.