Aussie farmer drives 600km to learn 'missing' ancient technique
A 60,000-year-old Indigenous land management skill is being rolled out on farms.
Fourth-generation Aussie farmers have embraced a rethink of how they prepare their pastures for beef cattle. Rather than smashing up the country with excavators, four years ago they decided to embrace an ancient Indigenous technique.
The Dry Tropics station owners have been guided by an expert at creating low-intensity burns, a 60,000-year-old skill that can eliminate invasive plants and improve pasture without destroying the land.
"We're opening the land up to how it used to be," Farmer Elliot Smith said. "And we can begin to graze cattle on this country, and control it in a manner in which is just more controllable for the farmer."
Other graziers from across the country were so intrigued by the practice, they drove hundreds of kilometres to learn from an expert at the North Queensland property. One said he felt cultural understanding had been missing from his cattle enterprise.
Why was the farm choked up with invasive plants?
The method also helps lessen the risk of large bushfires — an increasingly dire problem in Queensland. In 2023, two significant bushfires scorched 753,806 hectares across the state, and the north has been identified as particularly at risk this spring.
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Before the project began, large parts of Jervoise Station, a 2,750 square kilometre property, had become unviable as it was choked with weed-like clusters of wattle. The problem occurred after large trees were felled, the ground was disturbed, and Indigenous cultural practices that shaped the land over tens of thousands of years were abandoned.
Cultural burning expert and Tagalaka man Victor Steffensen said, “We've opened up those areas, brought back grass, and reclaimed the land in a way that makes their livelihood a lot more fruitful.”
He co-founded the company Firesticks Alliance which works to promote Indigenous land management. He described the fire-use collaboration as a "win-win" for pastoralists and Indigenous communities. "The next stage is to develop an indigenous [agriculture] team that could go around and help farmers," he said.
Farmer drives 600km to learn cultural fire skill
Pictures supplied to Yahoo News by World Wide Fund for Nature-Australia (WWF-Australia), which supported the exchange between farmers and Indigenous fire experts, show dozens of blackened wattle trees killed by the fire. They're known to form impenetrable clumps that swamp grass and burn hot during bushfires.
“Our farmers and our graziers right across this continent need to be part of nature-based solutions. That starts with embedding First Nations Knowledge into their farming systems," WWF-Australia's Cliff Cobbo said.
Fourth-generation farmer Ashton Smith confessed that most graziers fear fire, but learning about low-intensity burns has forced a rethink. Previously the only option to get the land back was to bulldoze the invasive small trees which just made everything worse,” he said.
The cultural knowledge was shared at a workshop which was attended by other farmers and Indigenous community members keen to learn the skill. One farmer Barry O’Sullivan drove 600km to attend.
"One thing that stimulated for me to come all the way up here was to have the connection with the cultural side of things," he said.
O'Sullivan believes agriculture in Australia needs to change, and he wants to help lead its new direction. "One thing that's been missing from our grazing enterprises, from my perspective, is the holistic way of thinking that can come from a cultural aspect," he said.
The project was demonstrated on Gugu Badhun country, 250km west of Townsville. It was a collaboration between natural resource management group NQ Dry Tropics, the Firesticks Alliance, WWF-Australia, Gugu Badhun Traditional Owners, and graziers.
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