In Australia Traditional Knowledge has been affected since European colonisation over 250 years ago. In addition to this Aboriginal people in New South Wales (NSW) have been restricted from being involved in traditional practices like cultural burning. Despite this there is revitalization of traditional fire practices occurring across Australia, something which the Yuwaalaraay custodians and Aboriginal Joint Management Committee (JMC) at the Narran Lake Nature Reserve (NLNR) in North central New South Wales (NSW) also aspire to. NLNR is a Ramsar listed international site and a renowned migratory bird site with great cultural heritage as a gathering and native seed grinding and quarry site. However, the Yuwaalaraay Traditional Owners have limited access and control over what happens in the Nature Reserve, stating that the JMC model does not provide the control they wish to have, not only to protect their traditional lands and biocultural values, but also create new employment and community engagement opportunities.
The aim of this research was to co-design with the Aboriginal JMC to assess the ecological impacts and response from a cultural burn on the soil, regrowth of vegetation, and fauna, particularly culturally important medium to large sized-mammals in a semi-arid woodland of white cypress-pine (Callitris glaucophylla), wilga (Geijera parviflora) and poplar box (Eucalyptus populnea) at NLNR. A seasonal calendar is being co-developed to indicate right time to burn based on plant characteristics (e.g. fruiting, seedlings). From this, key cultural indicators will be monitored using a Before-After-Control-Impact (BACI) design to monitor the outcomes of a cultural burn to inform culturally meaningful fire management strategies at NLNR. The vision is to create a fire account using the emerging Natural Capital Accounting framework to generate income and empower Yuwaalaraay people to have greater involvement in environmental management for this internationally recognised internal freshwater lake system.