Returning Fire to Country
Fern
• Illustration by Tai Snaith
Claire G Coleman in conversation with John Clarke.
Illustrations by Tai Snaith
This story is an excerpt from a longer article in Matters Journal issue 4.
As catastrophic fires continue to burn along the east coast of Australia, Noongar writer Claire G Coleman discusses Country and climate change with John Clarke, general manager of cultural landscapes at Eastern Maar Aboriginal Corporation (EMAC).
Claire G Coleman: Can you tell me your name and your Country?
John Clarke: My name is John Clarke, I am a Kirrae Wurrung man of the Durum Gunditj, to be more specific. Our Country is what is now the south-west of Victoria, including the world-famous Twelve Apostles.
My name is Claire Coleman and I am a Noongar woman, so my Ancestral Country is in the south coast of Western Australia, the far south coast. We have the coast in common; the same water.
We as Aboriginal people have survived longer than civilisation has existed – living with fire, rather than against it. To you, how important are our cultural fire management practices?
How important are they? As a tool, significantly important. They’re one component of land and water management that hasn't been applied in the context of Victoria now – or in Australia, since the arrival of Europeans; since they started transgressing into our territories – and it's been noticeable.
I personally believe that the fire activities we are seeing now, particularly with this fire season and fire seasons of the past, have been the result of the lack of fire in the landscape. And not only the lack of fire, but the lack of a technique that's been tested, that's been modified [and] that’s been proven for thousands of years – and effectively shaped the landscape that we are in. And because that's been removed, we have the situation that we have today.
So, what you are saying is that the colonisers’ ways of dealing with Country and dealing with fire is at odds with what the Country actually needs.
My grandfather, he used to tell stories. When the Europeans entered our territory [it] was only in the 1830s. So in the scheme of things, very recent. Obviously the Europeans had different objectives for land, […] but my grandfather always said, “Our obligation to look after Country is to keep that door open, and to keep discussing – to keep having conversations with these people – because if they are going to stay, they need to look after Country.”
Animals Fleeing
• Illustration by Tai Snaith
So really, in order to restore the cultural landscape (Australia is a cultural landscape not a natural one; we've been here a long time), it's important for us to use the language of the colonisers – to assimilate them.
Yes, absolutely, and it's a matter of building that relationship with them. Nobody is going to be going home on boats to Europe – that's never going to happen – so we need them in order for us to save ourselves.
I certainly don't view us as colonised people. I don't wake up in the morning, look at myself in the mirror and think, “You know what, you're colonised”. I never think of myself like that, but I do believe that there is a process of decolonisation: the process of decolonisation is decolonising the coloniser. We know who we are – we know exactly who we are – we know what our role is, [and] we know why we are here.