Caring for Country and sustainability

Caring for Country

For Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, Country means more than land. It includes the waters, sky, plants, animals, people and ancestral beings, all connected by relationships and responsibilities. Over more than 60 000 years, people built up detailed knowledge of how ecosystems work: when animals breed, which plants fruit in which season, how fire changes the landscape, and how much can be taken while leaving enough for the future. This knowledge was passed down through story, song, dance, art and ceremony, and through rules about who could hunt or gather what, and when.

That is sustainability: using resources to meet our needs without stopping future generations from meeting theirs.

The Brewarrina fish traps

The traps, called Baiame's Ngunnhu, are a network of dry-stone walls and pools stretching about half a kilometre along the river. In the Ngemba story, the ancestral being Baiame designed them and gave each family group its own pools to use and maintain. When the river rises, fish such as golden perch and Murray cod swim upstream through gaps in the walls. As the water drops, some are left in the pools where they can be caught by hand or with spears.

The design has sustainability built in. Gaps can be opened so fish can still move upstream to breed, and the rules about which family fished which pool meant no one could take too much. Archaeologists debate how old the traps are; estimates range from a few thousand years to as much as 40 000. They were added to the National Heritage List in 2005. Similar knowledge shaped the Gunditjmara eel traps and channels at Budj Bim in western Victoria, at least 6600 years old and World Heritage listed in 2019.

Anangu habitats and seasons

The Anangu are the traditional owners of Uluru–Kata Tjuta National Park in the Central Australian desert. Anangu knowledge sorts the land into habitats, each with its own plants, animals and foods:

Anangu also recognise five seasons, based on weather, plants and animal behaviour rather than on four fixed calendar blocks. Knowing the seasons tells people where food will be and when animals are breeding, so they can avoid hunting them then.

• Piriyakutu (about August–September): warm, steady winds from the north and west; plants such as honey grevillea flower and animals breed; a good time to hunt kangaroos.
• Mai wiyaringkupai / Kuli (around December): the hottest time, when food is scarce; dry storms bring lightning and bushfires.
• Itjanu / Inuntji (January–March): cloud brings scattered storms and food plants flower.
• Wanitjunkupai (about April–May): cooling weather; reptiles become less active.
• Wari (June–July): the cold season, with frosts and dew; the frosts dry the grasses, which become fuel for fires later.

Introduced species threaten this knowledge and the ecosystems it describes. Buffel grass, planted to stop erosion, has spread across central Australia, crowding out the native grasses whose seeds people eat and fuelling fires so hot they kill desert trees. Camels, rabbits, foxes and feral cats have also done serious damage.

Fire, carbon and ranger jobs

In Year 8 (1I) you learned how cultural burning uses small, cool fires to create a patchy mosaic that protects Country from big wildfires. In the tropical savannas of northern Australia, this knowledge now also helps the carbon cycle (3A).

Savanna grasses grow fast in the wet season and dry out each year, so the savannas burn often. Late dry season wildfires are hot and huge, and they burn more of the fuel, including logs and leaf litter. Fires don't just release carbon dioxide (which the regrowing grass soon takes back up); they also release methane and nitrous oxide (3B), which are much stronger greenhouse gases and are not reabsorbed. Burning early in the dry season, when the fires are cooler and patchier, means less fuel burns overall and less of these gases is released.

The Western Arnhem Land Fire Abatement project, started in 2006 by Aboriginal ranger groups working with scientists, was the first to use this. It greatly reduced the area burnt by late dry season fires and cut fire emissions by around a third. The emission cuts are sold as carbon credits, which pay for ranger jobs on Country. Savanna burning projects now run across tens of millions of hectares of northern Australia, many of them led by Traditional Owners.