The University of Melbourne, Department of Rural Health invite you to their 2020 NAIDOC Event ‘Always Was, Always Will Be’ featuring a panel of speakers on Cultural Burning from 11:00 – 12:00pm Friday 13th November 2020.
The Department of Rural Health is committed to celebrating health expertise with our communities to build their knowledge and resilience. Our keynote speakers will share what we can learn about Aboriginal Cultural Practices and Knowledge’s.
For further information on these presentations or previous webinar recordings check out our website: https://medicine.unimelb.edu.au/school-structure/rural-health
Webinar: Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Traditional Fire Knowledge – Cultural Burning
11:00 – 12:00pm Friday 13th November 2020
Ms Leah Lindrea-Morrison
Partnerships and Community Engagement Officer
Department of Rural Health
The University of Melbourne
Ms Leah Lindrea-Morrison will MC The Department of Rural Health NAIDOC Week Event ‘Always Was, Always Will Be’ with 3 expert panelists Dr Julie Andrews, Mr Victor Steffensen and Mr Michael Bourke.
Australia had a disastrous 2019/20 fire season which was highlighted in the nationwide Bushfire Royal Commission which addressed fuel management and Indigenous land and fire practices. This has made people more receptive to draw on Aboriginal knowledge, including lighting fires, as a better way to avoid fires in the summer.
There will be the opportunity for Q & A.
Register Now
Meet the Panelists
Dr Julie Andrew
Senior Lecturer, Aboriginal Studies – La Trobe University
Dr Julie Andrews is La Trobe University Convenor of Aboriginal Studies and has over thirty years’ experience in Aboriginal higher education as policy maker, lecturer and researcher. She researches on Aboriginal Victoria and teaches on Aboriginal Australia. Dr Andrews teaches an On Country subject titled Encountering Aboriginal Victoria – Parallel Systems of Knowledge at Shepparton La Trobe University that combines Aboriginal knowledges and academic learning. The subject includes the teaching from Aboriginal peoples from the Barmah, Echuca and Shepparton areas. She is a PhD graduate of La Trobe University and her thesis titled “Where’s all the community? Kinship, Mobility and Identity revisited in Aboriginal Melbourne” constructed a social profile of Aboriginal Melbourne over the past 50 years. It compares data using the key themes of resistance, Indigenous ways of knowing, identity, kinship and mobility. The thesis discusses Aboriginal education, employment and housing. Particular to this research is the analysis of the establishment of Melbourne Aboriginal organisations and the moral economy of Aboriginal street people.
Dr Andrews family is connected to the Cummeragunja Aboriginal reserve, is a member of the Dhulunyagan Family clan of Ulupna and is a proud member of the Briggs McCrae family clan of the Yorta Yorta and Wurundjeri Woiwurrung peoples.
Mr Victor Steffensen
Indigenous Fire Practitioner and Author
Victor is a descendant of the Tagalaka people through his mothers connections from the Golf Country of North Queensland.
Victor knows the land he spent his formative years on like it is a family member. He can tell when it’s sick, what it needs in order to heal, how healthy the relationships are between the species that occupy it and he knows the stories that his ancestors have shared for thousands of years.
Victor recently published his book ‘Fire Country,’ How Indigenous Fire Management Could Help Save Australia.
Mr Michael Bourke
Cultural Burn Planner
Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning
Michael Bourke is a Yorta Yorta and Dja Dja Wurrung man, a father of three and active member of a number of community organisations including Dja Dja Wurrung Clans Aboriginal Corporation, Bendigo District Aboriginal Men’s Group, Rumbalarra Aboriginal Co-operative, and Wanyara Woka Men’s Group.
Mick currently works as a Cultural Burn Planner for the Victorian Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning. In this role Mick has re-introduced the work of cultural burning into Victoria’s controlled burning regimes. He works closely with traditional owners in carrying out culturally informed planned burning on their lands. As a Director of the Firesticks Alliance he leads workshops on customary tool making, native flora and fauna.
