“It’s sort of something I’ve been chosen to do.” - Victor Steffenson
Australia is notorious for its bushfires; in recent years they have caused millions of dollars in damage. One man is convinced that going back to Aboriginal burning practice can not only stop the increase in out-of-control fires but can help regenerate the native bush too. By Nathan Scolaro.
Cairns, Australia. April 2020. “I grew up loving the bush, and I always will be a part of the landscape and country,” says Victor Steffenson. And although his work and vocation – a teacher of Aboriginal fire practice – takes him all over the country on practice sessions, he still has a close bond to the land.
“If I had my way I’d be back in the sticks living away from people. My preference is living in the bush,” he says. When he left school Steffenson opted out of the standard progression and ended up with the old people out on country, particularly two elders, George Musgrave and Tommy George. “I thought that was my life forever. I was going to stay in the bush ’cause I was really happy,” he says. “There was no bills, nothing to worry about. Always something to do in terms of getting out on country and getting involved in culture.”
He explains that his mother’s mob, or tribe are Tagalaka people from the Gulf town Croydon, but that he grew up in a rainforest town called Kuranda, where he went to school with no shoes and spent most of his time “just camping and fishing and eating fish off the coals and swimming.”
When he left school he didn’t pass any subjects. “When I left they asked me what I wanted to do. I said I wanted to be a ranger and I wanted to look after country.”So the authorities sent him to university in Canberra.“I was 17. And I didn’t last very long ’cause it wasn’t teaching me what I wanted to learn; they were teaching me English and how to use computers and at the time I just thought that was irrelevant. So I came home and went bush with some friends to go fishing, and that’s where I met George and Tommy. Ten years later I was still there. Fifteen years later I was still there.”
What the two old men taught Victor was to change his life.
Traditional burns revice both flora and fauna. Courtesy Mulong.
“Fire was a big part of that life because every time we got out on country, the old people would complain. They’d say, ‘Oh, we’re looking for this plant. We’re looking for this site. And we can’t find them because it’s not there anymore.’ ” The old men lamented the loss of plants, of the right grass and the rubbish everywhere. “The country’s sick,” they said. “It’s so dry and unbalanced.” The reason they gave was lack of fire.
To look after the country the elders said we need to burn it. “But we couldn’t burn it because those old people grew up in a “yes boss, no boss” time when they weren’t allowed to do anything.” The bosses then – 1995 - were the police, the national parks, the pastoralists, and the Aboriginal people wouldn’t do anything without their permission. As Steffenson says, the bosses didn’t want to see any Aboriginal involvement. Most important, they didn’t want to see any Aboriginal burning happening, as had been happening for the previous tens of thousands of years. This frustrated the old people, but they felt powerless because of that“boss man factor.”But Steffenson had other ideas.
“You can have fire trucks and boots and all the things in the world that protect you from fire, but nothing can protect you more than knowledge.
“I just said ‘How is it possible that we have two old men with thousands of years of knowledge, they know the country, they come from the country, but they’re not allowed to do anything because of some national park officer that doesn’t know anything about the landscape?’ ”says Steffenson. “We had this wealth of knowledge suppressed, just like the land and the people were suppressed. And the old people didn’t have any way of making that better, because they weren’t educated in a modern way to start meetings and ask for permission.”He took matters into his own hands – and although the agencies said no to (Aboriginal) land burning, and his group never did get permission to burn the country, he managed to get the old people to do it. “So our first fire was an illegal fire,” he grins.
Victor works extensively with Aboriginal communities, recording traditional knowledge. Courtesy Mulong.
Steffenson says he was shocked when the old people first agreed to the firing. “I slammed the brakes on in the car when they told me they would,” he says. “I remember watching them jumping out of the car and lighting that fire. We got in big trouble. But it did everything the old fellas said - it went out where it was supposed to go out. It was a really cool and beautiful burn. But the national parks and pastoralists, they hated us.”
Later, he heard that the place they first burnt became a regenerated and fertile area for the pastoralists. “But they didn’t tell us. It was a tough time back then. That was the first time Aboriginal people stood up for themselves and were doing something, getting that first burn going. Getting our cultural practice back on country. That was a big step.”
But that first step, in its own way, lit another fire – the fire of knowledge. “Today there is a shift. Especially from the days when we first started, getting threats and attitudes and the difficulty of just trying to do something right for the landscape,” he explains. “It’s been nearly 27 years now. When I started out it was just me and the two old men, and then we started involving some local indigenous communities.” And the thirst for fire knowledge has grown, all across Australia and into other countries too; thousands of people attend his Mulong workshops on traditional fire practice.
“Now we’ve got real fire brigades, national parks, pastoralists, local land holders, Aboriginal people, Greenies. We’ve got all walks of life coming. All coming to (our fire) workshops. All these different perspectives and opinions. And they all come to the workshop and they listen to the land for the first time,” he smiles.
Traditional burning in Tasmania. Courtesy Mulong.
Steffenson says the most important thing about traditional Aboriginal firing knowledge is safety. “The safest thing you can ever have on country when it comes to fire is knowledge. You can have fire trucks and boots and all the things in the world that protect you from fire, but nothing can protect you more than knowledge.”
That means knowing the land and knowing all the trees and the different ecosystems. “Each system becomes ready for fire, one by one. They are not all ready to go at once. So certain times of the year we burn certain places, and only those places. We only burn one ecosystem and the next system puts the fire out because it’s still green.”
This, he explains, comes from thousands of years of knowledge, of understanding how everything fits in and how all the animals fit in with the fire too. And that knowledge is only valuable if it is passed on. Which he is still doing.
“It’s sort of something I’ve been chosen to do,” he says simply. “It’s not something that I wanted to do.
“I wanted to make films, be on stage. But it’s important to follow this for as long as it needs. Because otherwise, you know, this country’s in big trouble.
"I've done burns all over the country and seen the improvements in landscapes and there are even places where the last wildfire went and didn't burn our cultural burn areas. The fires went out and went around them."
Re-published with thanks from DumboFeather Magazine