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Australian Story: Apr 13

ABC profiles Victor Steffensen and indigenous fire management techniques.

Monday’s Australian Story profiles Victor Steffensen and indigenous fire management techniques.

Victor Steffensen has become known as the face of Australia’s Indigenous cultural burning movement.

But he says he owes it all to two Cape York elders who taught him everything he knows about the fire management techniques that were practiced by Indigenous people for thousands of years.

Victor was in his late teens when he went on a fishing trip to Cape York and met Tommy George and George Musgrave, who were the last speakers of their language among the Kuku Thaypan people.

Eager to pass on their knowledge to young people, they adopted Victor into the local Laura community and began teaching him about flora, fauna and fire management.

“Victor learned from elders who learned from elders. Now he’s starting to share that knowledge and tell that story,” says Inspector Chris Palmer from the NSW Rural Fire Service.

Victor also began filming the two old men to record their “encyclopaedic knowledge” of cultural burning, a system of burning different types of land at particular times of the year with a “cool burn” that leaves the tree canopy intact.

In 2005, the work of the elders was recognized when they were awarded honourary doctorates by James Cook University.

Late last year, Victor Steffensen was just putting the finishing touches to his book “Fire Country” when devastating fires broke out in large parts of Australia.

“It was no surprise to me because I saw it coming,” he told Australian Story. “I feel sorry for the firefighters, they’re thrown into like a warzone, into an inferno.”

Now he is in high demand around the country as people look for a better way to deal with future fires and the bigger question of climate change.

“This summer shows you that fire has to be addressed. The people most skilled at doing that are Aboriginal people,” says Bill Gammage from the Australian National University.

The episode includes experienced firefighters in the Queensland and New South Wales Rural Fire Services, who say aspects of indigenous burning methods could be incorporated into their hazard reduction techniques.

Producer: Ben Cheshire

8pm Monday on ABC.

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