I was talking to mate recently who is a fire expert... he predicts fire behaviours and shit, a crazily smart dude. He’s mob, and is doing his post grad studies on Wiradjuri fire management practices.
One thing he mentioned about all these calls to imbed cultural burning practices really stood out to me. And that is white ppl’s desire to dissect pieces of Indigenous knowledge and incorporate them into Western science, and why that never works well.
Indigenous knowledges are holistic. It works within a series of interconnected relationships. Fire management can’t be extracted from the whole and be expected to work. It only works as part of a complete system, one which values relationships in a way that Aus isn’t ready for...
I’m not explaining it as well as he did, I might get him to write an article about it for us... but the point is that if we’re suddenly serious about embedding cultural practice is can’t be separated from other practices.
It means a serious rethink of humanity as part of the environment, not seperate from it, not above it.
