Aboriginal Cultural Values and Knowledge - Fire and Water

Bradley J. Moggridge

@bradmoggo 22/04/2020

My Mob

Yaama I Acknowledge this Country, I am - Kamilaroi

Australia seems to only respond to a CRISIS

• 1000km of blue green algae (NWI)• Mega drought after Millennium drought (Normal)• Species extinction after extinction (Review EPBC Act)• Coral bleaching after coral bleaching (What bleaching?)• Millions of dead fish (NFRS)• Devastating fire after devastating fire (NBRA + WTSBREP)When will Australia give over? “Give Aboriginal people a go” Victor S. 13/4/20

Facebook MEMEFrom day 1

• Culture for me is: Who I am and my mob Respect Always learning culture – Traditional Knowledge Language Family or Kin (Uncle, Brother, Aunty, Sister) Connection to Country My cultural water (gali) place and My cultural Species

Culture

Traditional Knowledge of water and fire is not myth and legend, folklore or mumbo jumbo

Traditional Knowledge is an ongoing understanding and long observation of the driest inhabited continent on earth.

Time to explore and make it happen #STEMoriginal

First Scientists

My old people were the first scientists (before science was a thing): • Aims - To survive and access all available resources

sustainably • Apparatus - Knowledge of connected landscapes (Country, Fire,

Sky, Species and Water)• Methods - Observation, language, song, dreaming, Lore• Results - Still here, sustainable, adapt and mitigate• Conclusion - Survival and replication

First Scientists

• Bush foods and medicines (tested and retested –macrozamia’s)

• Finding and re-finding water in the driest inhabited continent

• With no surface water, knowing groundwater• When the rivers stopped running – knowledge of deep-

water holes• Wetlands are the supermarkets and the kidneys

First Scientists

A highly conventionalised map of the Western Australian water resources of the Bindibu [=Pintupi], as carved into the back of a spear-thrower. Source: Redrawn from a photograph. Thomson (1962) in Bayly(1999) page 19 in Moggridge (2005).

• Fish traps are the oldest human engineered structures on the planet

• Sea level rise (last ice age), coastal people adapted and moved

• Fire (cool mosaic burns) was a key part of the landscape (toolbox)

• Right fire for country• Navigation and hunting by the stars - Astronomy

First Scientists

12

Something to consider: We

have always been here but,why does

Australia not celebrate our

Water/Fire Knowledge?

Robert Szucs/Grasshopper Geography

Diversity

We are not all the same, every mob is different.That Difference is: Language, Lore, Landscapes, Cultural Practice, Capacity, Status and Governance.

Fire is in the Lore of the land, its in the songs, dances, Dreaming stories and artAboriginal people have watched their Country burn, colonial style. Where is their fire voice?Think of Traditional Fire Knowledge:

• How the old people used fire• Protect and promote species• Replicate fires over the landscape (right time, right

place, right fire) seasonal• Fire is a form of medicine, country needs it

Cultural Value of Fire

• ABC Australian Story - Fighting Fire With Fire Two elders from Cape York entrusted Victor Steffensen with the ancient

knowledge of cultural burning. Could this method of fire management used by generations of Indigenous people be the answer to Australia's bushfire threat? https://iview.abc.net.au/show/australian-story/series/2020/video/NC2002Q009S00

• Firesticks Alliance Indigenous Corporation An Indigenous led network and aims to re-invigorate the use of cultural

burning by facilitating cultural learning pathways to fire and land management. https://www.firesticks.org.au/

Fire Resources

• Williamson. B., F. Markham and JK. Weir (2020) Aboriginal peoples and the response to the 2019–2020 bushfires (CAEPR ANU)

https://caepr.cass.anu.edu.au/research/publications/aboriginal-peoples-and-response-2019-2020-bushfires

• Cavanagh. V. 2020 - Friday essay: This grandmother tree connects me to Country. I cried when I saw her burned.

https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-this-grandmother-tree-connects-me-to-country-i-cried-when-i-saw-her-burned-129782 The Conversation

• Williamson. B., J. Weir and V. Cavanagh (2020) Strength from perpetual grief: how Aboriginal people experience the bushfire crisis.

https://theconversation.com/strength-from-perpetual-grief-how-aboriginal-people-experience-the-bushfire-crisis-129448 The Conversation

Indigenous Responses to 19/20 Fires

Water is protected by Lore, its in the songs, dances, Dreaming stories and art

Think of Traditional Water Knowledge:• how the old people knew water• tell our stories our way about water• Find and re-find water in a dry landscape• Value and protect that water• validate the knowledge

Cultural Value of Water

Where is our water voice?Australia is still the driest inhabited continent on earth and yet one of the oldest surviving cultures, has no water voiceOur voice is absent, due to:

• Being impacted by decisions that exclude us (No Treaty)• Being an after thought or out of scope (beyond the Welcome/RAP)• Hearing of what we don’t have (review after review)• Non-Aboriginal voices telling our stories (no disrespect) (#fishkills)• Not seen as experts only story tellers of myth and legend• Always up the black of reports, policy, plans, legislation• No national strategy (science/water/fire) or centre of excellence• Government cycles deleting our programs

• Special Edition AJEM Indigenous Water Management (Prof Sue Jackson and #me)https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/tjem20/26/3?nav=tocList

Indigenous co-led and authors NSW Case Study, AWA’s, Snowy River, Ngarrindjeri

Values, Fitzroy River, eWater Indigenous Partnerships 1st abstract written in Language#fillingthespace Still to come a Special Edition… AJWR + River as 1st Author

Indigenous Led Water Resources

Cultural Species are Water Dependent

BrolgaBurralgaGrus rubicundus

Wedge Tailed EagleMaliyanAquila audax

My Methodology

• Shift the research paradigm away from Kamilaroi peoples being the researched to becoming the researchers

• My knowledge (still learning) is about how I relate with people and country

• This differs to western thinking – gained and owned individually• Fill the void in water management with Kamilaroi Water

Science• Be a voice for the Mob

(CRI

COS)

#002

12K

2018 ANZ Water Quality Guidelines:

Cultural and Spiritual Values Guidelineshttp://www.waterquality.gov.au/anz-guidelines/guideline-values/derive/cultural-values

Indigenous Principles for Water Qualityhttp://www.waterquality.gov.au/anz-guidelines/guideline-values/derive/cultural-values/principles

Water Quality Resources

Yanaay(I’m outer here)

Bradley J. MoggridgePhD Candidate University of Canberra, Centre for Applied Water Scienceemail: bradley.moggridge@canberra.edu.au