An innovative project which uses traditional land management and cultural burning practices to improve bushfire resilience on NSW South Coast public land has been recognised at this year’s Nature Conservation Council NSW Environment Awards.
The Walbunja Rangers received the prestigious Marie Byles Award for the most inspiring community action initiative.
Following the 2019/20 bushfires, the Batemans Bay Local Aboriginal Land Council's Walbunja Rangers program received assistance from the Australian and NSW Government’s Bushfire Local Economic Recovery Fund.
The funding has allowed the program to expand into Eurobodalla Shire, Shoalhaven City and Queanbeyan-Palerang Regional local government areas.
In conjunction with local government and several NSW Government agencies, a team of six rangers have implemented cultural burning, pest and weed control, land management, knowledge sharing workshops and advised on fire management plans for local travelling stock reserves (TSRs) and public land.
Four local Aboriginal school-based trainees have also been employed. The trainees have completed their Certificate Cert 3 in Indigenous Land Management (Walan Wiya) and Certificate 1 in Dhurga language through TAFE, alongside training in threatened and vulnerable species survey and extensive on-site cultural burning.
Department of Regional NSW Director Economic and Industry Recovery Megan Cleary said:
“The traditional land management practices used by the Walbunja Rangers is an example of the proactive actions we need to adopt to ensure communities build resilience to future bushfires.
“As natural disasters become more prevalent, the NSW Government is backing projects like the Walbunja Rangers, which take a community led, culturally centred approach to boosting preparedness for bushfires, storms and floods.”
“I congratulate the Walbunja Rangers for their recent award and recognise the positive long-term impacts this work will have on protecting communities on the NSW South Coast.”
Quotes attributable to Walbunja Rangers Project Coordinator Andrew White:
“We are overwhelmed with how funding from the Bushfire Local Economic Recovery Fund, combined with assistance from the Department of Regional NSW, has enabled us to establish an ongoing fee for service model and create new employment opportunities for our local Walbunja community.”
“By expanding our services, we have empowered our rangers through self-determination, built strong relationships with contractors and NSW Government agencies, such as Local Lands Services. Most importantly we have built awareness around the need to adopt traditional land management in mainstream conservation methods.
“By sharing knowledge, we have helped move towards our goals of healing country, healing community and healing ourselves through closing the gap initiative with the indigenous and non-indigenous.”
