Nharangga dhura (Narungga people) have used sophisticated land management practices for tens of thousands of years.

Knowing where, when and how often to culturally gambadja (burn) their yarda (land) comes from an intimate connection and understanding. It encourages biodiversity through regeneration. It plays an important role in reducing scrub and fuel load, mitigating the effects of extreme bush fires. It is an important cultural practice connecting Nharangga dhura to Nharangga banggara (Narungga Country).

The cultural revival of cool burning is an integral element in Narungga people caring for Country,  and continuing cultural gardla (fire) knowledge practice. This will benefit all people on Nharangga banggara.

To learn more about the importance of cultural burning, please view the short film below.

For more detailed information about the practice of cultural burning, please visit https://firesticks.org.au/

 

Narungga cultural burns for Health Country

Through funding from the Australian Government’s Preparing Australian Communities – Local Stream, Yorke Peninsula Council has been supporting Nharangga dhura (Narungga people) to reinvigorate traditional cultural fire practice on Guuranda (Yorke Peninsula) over 2023 and 2024.

Cultural burns are cool burns; they move slowly, so slow in fact that you can stamp them out safely with shoes and rakes, and can walk amongst the fire with no threat. They are low temperature, where you can touch the ground the instant the fire has passed, as the ground is cool. Insects such as ants continue to scurry around despite the fire, and larger animal species such as lizards can easily evade the fire if needed. Conditions such as wind, rainfall, temperature, substrate, weed presence and others, are carefully assessed by Narungga practitioners before a decision is made to burn, so that it can be conducted with no risk to upper story plants and the surrounding landscape.

Native vegetation has evolved with fire, with cultural fire practice delivered for tens of thousands of years (there are numerous paintings from European settlement of Aboriginal people practicing the tradition). A large amount of native vegetation species need fire and/or associated smoke to trigger reproduction. However, it needs to be the right fire; a cool cultural burn encourages fire resistance of understory species, whereas a hot fire triggers the rapid reproduction of species such as acacia and eucalypts.  Generally, acacia and eucalypts were not the predominant species prior to colonisation (as supported by multiple early settler records) and after a hot fire, grow rapidly and dominate understory species, producing almost a monoculture of highly flammable plants that produce a lot of fuel for wildfires.

Across a five day period in winter 2023, Narungga men and women conducted cultural cool burns, igniting patches of native grasses and similar understorey species across four locations in Ardrossan, Point Pearce and Minlaton. They were led by renowned fire practitioner Victor Steffensen from Firesticks Alliance, who explained the importance of storm burns due to Yorke Peninsula’s stony land and plant species, with the need for cold temperatures and soaking rains to ensure burns are slow-moving and controllable.

Participants learned how Yorke Peninsula’s native grasses cure (dry off and become dormant) mid to late winter, and burning at this time is crucial to protecting the health of the soil. Following a cool cultural burn, native grasses produce fresh, green growth that they sustain through the summer months, which makes them more resistant to wildfire. During wildfires, this fire resistant green growth (by absorbing more of the approaching wildfire without burning), helps to slow the travel of the wildfire.

Then in spring 2024, inclusive workshops were held once again at Ardrossan Grasslands and Minlagawi Gum Flat, with Narungga fire practitioners and the Kaurna Firesticks Team demonstrating to interested members of the public how controllable cool cultural burns are. At these times, a much larger area was burned, and the use of fire as weed control was very apparent.

Additionally, a short film and social media segments have been produced, to allow continued learning about the importance of cultural burns.

This grant-funded project has been delivered with support of a steering committee with representatives from Narungga Nation Aboriginal Corporation, Point Pearce Aboriginal Corporation/Indigenous Protected Areas Rangers, Nharangga Aboriginal Progress Association, Nharangga Aboriginal Cultural Tours, Northern and Yorke Landscape Board, Firesticks, and Narungga community members.

Cultural burning is an important practice as it ensures Healthy Country, and Healthy Country means healthy people, and benefit to all living on Yorke Peninsula.

As such, Yorke Peninsula Council intends to engage Narungga people to deliver cultural burns at Ardrossan Grasslands and Minlagawi Gum Flat as an ongoing practice. This will support Reconciliation and Narungga cultural practice, whilst delivering operational landscape management, controlling weeds, increasing biodiversity and reducing fuel loads.