Old and new views bring fresh insights to land care

A project in regional Victoria is seeking to combine thousands of years of indigenous land management knowledge with modern farm management expertise to better understand and preserve the local landscape.

RMIT University, Gunditj Mirring Traditional Owners Aboriginal Corporation and Glenelg Hopkins Catchment Management Authority are cooperating in south-west Victoria to improve knowledge of wetlands, grasslands and forested areas and protect habitat and cultural heritage sites.

According to project participants, traditional and contemporary practices, some refined over thousands of years, can offer valuable insights for the protection and management of the environment.

Working with farmers, the project team has been taking advantage of this year’s good season for wetland flora and fauna to document local features and conditions more fully.

Project team members Ben Church, Micko Bell and Lenny Cooper, with others, have begun a series of on-farm visits with land managers.

Church said that by combining indigenous ecological knowledge with farmers’ experiences and conventional natural resource management, a more accurate understanding of the landscape could be gained.

“We’re learning a great deal from pooling historical and cultural knowledge together with knowledge of current land management approaches,” Church said.

“In some ways, the total understanding to be gained can be greater than the sum of the parts.”

Minhamite farmer and local historian Phillip Doherty, the first to be visited by the team, agreed that the on-farm visits provided a valuable opportunity to share important local understandings.

During the visit, the project team discussed the farm enterprise, looked at wetland systems and discussed how best to preserve environmental and cultural sites.  

“I enjoyed the discussions and thinking about the landscape and environment,” Doherty said. “It was also good to share my knowledge with others, because I won’t be around forever to protect the sites.”

The project team is working with RMIT to record their activities and will publish a report at the conclusion of the project. The four-year project is funded by an Australian Government program called ‘Caring for our Country’.