Yarra Ranges Council’s Firestick program has attracted overseas attention, with a French publication exploring how the unique burning practice can be used in the face of escalating bushfires and climate change challenges
In late 2022, Valentine Sabouraud, the Australian correspondent for French national newspaper Liberation, reached out to Council’s Indigenous Development team to learn more about the practice of cool burning and the firestick program.
Valentine said that there has been more interest in Indigenous Australian controlled burning techniques, driven by a rise in bushfires across Europe.
“In this piece we wanted to delve into the potential of community-driven efforts in addressing climate change and one program, which I’ve felt was doing a lot in that space was the FireStick program,” she said.
“The effects of climate changes are world wide and we’ve seen that bushfires are getting bigger and more frequent, even here in France.
“We have had really large fires, so we are really investigating how other people around the world manage fires to learn something from them.”
Yarra Ranges Council Firestick Co-ordinator Darren Wandin helped Valentine with the article and guided her through the intricacies of the firesticks program.
Valentine was invited to observe a cool burn in September 2023, at dog rock on Waddawurrung country conducted by Waddawurrung fire practitioners, which assisted her with her understanding of the practice.
Darren said it was a great opportunity for the Firestick Program and cultural burning to be recognised overseas.
“This was an exciting opportunity for us to demonstrate our knowledge and expertise on Indigenous fire and land management practices at a global level, and indicates the importance and the significance of what the firesticks project can bring not only in Australia, but globally,” Darren said.
“The Firestick project responds to a lot of things, mainly caring for the country with a more friendly and gentle approach to burning that draws on Indigenous knowledge that has been around for 60,000 years.”
“Seeing the Firestick program garner interest in France also reminds us that taking care of the land is a shared goal across the world and that we can learn from one another.”
In 2015, Council began the Return of the Firestick project aiming to re-establish Indigenous fire-stick land management knowledge and practices, which had been lost due to colonisation, and integrated it into government approaches to land management.
