ICOMOS Webinar Series | Caring For Country: Webinar 3: "Burning Country"

Join us for the third Webinar in the Caring For Country Webinar Series on 13 October 2021 at 12.00 noon AEDT.

Webinar 3: Burning Country: Aboriginal Fire Practice in caring for Country
Indigenous fire practice is a key aspect of caring for country and very important to maintaining cultural connections to place. In the face of climate change and other threats, caring for country practices, including fire practice, contain answers to the healing of damaged landscapes and managing climate change impacts. Through community engagement and empowerment, burning country can also provide communities with economic opportunities.

The presenters of this webinar, Ricky Archer, CEO Northern Australia Indigenous Land and Sea Management Alliance (NAILSMA) and Victor Steffensen, co-founder of Firesticks Alliance Indigenous Corporation, will share examples that illustrate key aspects of Indigenous fire practice and highlight the issues and opportunities that exist for its implementation across vast areas of Australia. They will also discuss the barriers to its use.

NAILSMA, a major landowner in the Northern Territory, works closely with Indigenous groups and organisations across Australia’s top end and has utilised savannah burning methodologies to provide economic benefits to communities across the region. Ricky Archer will describe how the application of Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) provides solutions and opportunities for communities. He will also discuss the barriers that prevent adoption of traditional burning practices as a land management tool by the broader community. In 2020, the CSIRO partnered with NAILSMA to publish Our Knowledge Our Way Guidelines for Caring for Country. This document focusses on how non-Indigenous researchers should engage with Indigenous communities on projects.

Victor Steffensen, author of Fire Country, an essential reference on the topic of burning country, will talk of his experience of learning about fire from elders in his country in northern Queensland: the importance of ‘reading’ the country, the importance of passing on knowledge to communities and the importance of implementing knowledge via action, and the importance of community being involved and benefitting from that action.

For additional information about this webinar and the speakers, please read Caring For Country Newsletter 3.

Caring For Country Webinar 3:
"Burning Country"
Wednesday 13 October 2021, 12.00 noon AEDT

in the ICOMOS Webinar Series
(Webinar duration approx. 1 hour 30 mins)

Please Register at:
https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_2-4e2KuZQcCpLIpZv87GAg

This Webinar Series has been organized by the Caring For Country Committee, a Working Group of Australia ICOMOS with members from Australia ICOMOS, ICOMOS New Zealand, ICOMOS Pasifika and Non-ICOMOS members from Oceania.

The Videos from our first Caring For Country webinar Oceania Wisdom For a Climate Chance are on the ICOMOS Webinar Series webpage.

See Webinar recording 1 here

A link to Webinar 2: Climate Change Adaptation for Aboriginal Cultural Heritage will be available soon. For additional information about this webinar and the speakers, please read the Newsletter prepared by the Caring For Country Committee.

Contact: caringforcountry.web[at]gmail.com

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ICOMOS Webinar Series | Caring For Country: Webinar 2

Our thanks to Jaye Cook, Australia ICOMOS Associate Member and member of the Caring For Country Committee, for designing the graphics, logo, and templates for newsletter and presentations for the Caring For Country Webinar Series.