Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Land Management Practices
Ways of knowing, being and doing for the land.
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Sustainable farming can incorporate many different techniques that reduce the impact of farming on the landscape. It can also provide opportunities to mitigate and adapt to climate change and its impact on agricultural production.
Given the deep relationship that First Nations people have with Country, there is a great opportunity to learn from Indigenous farming techniques that have been developed on these lands over the last 60,000 years. First Nations knowledge and practices offer valuable guidance for farmers to understand how to better connect with landscapes, farm sustainably and adapt to the impacts of climate change.
Historical Snapshot
For over 60,000 years, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people were able to sustain significant populations through the development of sustainable farming practices and food systems. This approach built resilience through farming systems, ensuring Indigenous people could always access food across their respective nations. Many of these farming practices were sustainable, informed by the unique qualities of the land, founded on respectful relationships between people and Country. Practices included planting and harvesting crops, storing produce and setting aquatic traps.
These practices were disrupted and displaced through colonisation, often for agricultural production. But through the enduring resilience of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, ecological and agricultural knowledge continues to be passed down through generations.
Indigenous people also used this knowledge to work with non-Indigenous pastoralists in the development of modern farming systems over the last 200+ years, with references of Indigenous people guiding farmers to water, leading cattle to the best grasses in a district and incorporating land use knowledge to muster livestock effectively.
Contemporary Snapshot
Understanding the balance of landscapes
Today, the Indigenous estate, an umbrella term for land either owned or with Indigenous legal interests, spans much of Australia. In fact, there is more land that forms part of the Indigenous estate than what we use for agricultural production in Australia.
Native title forms a large proportion of the Indigenous estate. It provides recognition of Indigenous legal interests and rights to traditional lands and can be determined as either exclusive or non-exclusive possession. Many pastoral leases co-exist with native title, providing the right and opportunity for Indigenous peoples to return to their traditional lands for purposes such as ceremony, teaching or practising lore or hunting.
Despite the large interests in land as captured by the Indigenous estate, a Baseline Study on the Agricultural Capacity of the Indigenous Estate found that almost none of the economic benefit from these lands actually flowed to Indigenous peoples.
When exploring freehold title or exclusive native title, just as farmers often are challenged by the competing priorities of lands, whether it be urban sprawl, or infrastructure, so too are Indigenous peoples challenged by balancing the cultural, social, environmental and economic interests in land.
Workforce
The 2021 Census found that just 1.8% of the agricultural workforce identified as Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander. This is lower than the representation of Indigenous people in the broader population by approximately 2%, suggesting we need to double the number of Indigenous people involved in agriculture.
Building an Indigenous workforce provides agriculture with a substantial opportunity to meet the demand for workers in the sector, while providing a range of workplace benefits. These include better mental health, better employee retention and greater innovation within teams.
Businesses
There is a growing number of Indigenous-owned businesses in the agricultural and food sector, with businesses in a variety of sectors. This includes beef cattle enterprises, horticultural farms and native/traditional foods. Some examples include:
How to respectfully engage with Indigenous people?
Firstly, it is important to note that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to Indigenous engagement. Building a genuine relationship with Indigenous people, like anyone else, requires time, kindness and a commitment to building trust. Equally as important is understanding the reason why you want to engage and ensuring it is mutually beneficial.
Once you understand whose Country you are on, start to understand the history through museums, local history books or local events. This will give you an understanding of Indigenous customs, beliefs, practices and connection to Country. You should also explore whether cultural awareness training, such as Black Card or Growing on Country, could be of benefit to understanding the broader history.
Agriculture played a pivotal role in the colonisation of landscapes, displacing people from land and rejecting the continued connection to Country. Acknowledging the role that agriculture played places an additional layer of understanding as to some of the complexities in engaging with Indigenous people.
To start building relationships with Indigenous communities, explore whether you know someone, either within your local or broader Indigenous community, and seek their advice. You can start by attending Indigenous events, such as Reconciliation Week or NAIDOC Week, to meet people.
Building these relationships is not about trying to tick a box or looking for an answer to a problem. It’s about building deep connections and relationships for learning from one another.
For project-specific work, you must obtain Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) from Indigenous groups and people. This Guide provides an overview of the FPIC process and its importance.
What practices and methods may be of interest?
Below are a few examples of agricultural practices used by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people that promote sustainability and demonstrate climate-adaptation in practice. Resources such as Dark Emu, The Biggest Estate on Earth and Australia’s Agricultural Identity all provide an understanding of Indigenous farming methodologies and their application on Country.
Indigenous Fire Management
Known as “cultural burning”, “firestick farming” or “cool burning”, this practice ensured land could heal and rejuvenate while reducing the fuel load for bushfires to limit their destructive impact and subsequent carbon output.
These methods involve intentionally burning certain areas of bush to promote a strategic regrowth, which also serves to attract more animals, disperse seeds, and encourage particular species. The low flames used in cultural burning change the vegetation structure of an area, reducing the number of highly flammable plants and in turn reducing fuel load for bushfires.
You can find out more by watching this video or reading Fire Country.
Traditional fire management is highly specific to the Country in which it is used. Like many aspects of farming, there is no universal approach, nor was it used in every environment.
We recommend reaching out to your local First Nations groups to learn more about fire management in your region.
Native Crops
Incorporating Australian native plant-based foods into agriculture can help reduce carbon emissions, requiring less maintenance given their high suitability for arid climates. There are over 6,500 native plant species to Australia.
Native Australian plant-based foods have environmental stress tolerance, such as drought tolerance, and can be helpful for carbon sequestration. They are well equipped and adjusted to Australian climates and often require less maintenance, water, pesticides and fertiliser than other crop types.
Some examples of native plant-based foods include the Kakadu plum, macadamia, saltbush, quandong, lemon myrtle, finger limes and wattle seed.
Black Duck Foods is an Aboriginal organisation based in Victoria that grow and sell native food products. More information available here: https://www.blackduckfoods.com.au/about
CASE STUDY: Indigenous Fire Management
The Tathra bushfire of March 2018 devastated the Bega Valley in New South Wales. A small area owned by the Bega Local Aboriginal Land Council, where cultural burns had been recently conducted, saw healthy regrowth just six months after the fire where the surrounding landscape was still scorched. More information available here: ABC Indigenous Burning Before and After Tathra Bushfire
Further Resources
Firesticks Alliance is an Indigenous-led network that works with Indigenous and non-Indigenous people to reinvigorate landscapes through the use of cultural burning. Explore more of their resources and find out more about traditional knowledge in your area, including cultural burning:
There are many popular farming practices that borrow from what First Nations communities have practised for thousands of years.
Cover Cropping
An increasingly popular land management tool across Australian farms, is also practised by First Nations communities.
For example, the Torres Strait Islander community on Erub Island plants native species such as grasses and sand runners on the dunes of the island, which stabilises the sand and prevents erosion.
Fishing and Aquaculture
First Nations fishing practices are typically conducted on a small, local scale with most fishing done on shorelines or in shallow waters. These practices emphasise releasing undersized or pregnant fish, following patterns of fish abundance and migration, and rotating fishing grounds.
Rock Walls
First Nations peoples in Australia have a long history of using rock structures for various agricultural and land management purposes. Rock walls are used for fish traps, water management and temporary windbreaks.
Research by Dr David Chalmers supports rock wall use for herding kangaroos, as well as calendars.
Rock walls also feature in European farming methods, mostly for boundary marking and livestock control.
CASE STUDY
The Gunditjmara people have harvested eels from Lake Condah in South Australia for over 6000 years using complex systems of eel traps and ponds built and maintained using local basaltic rock.
Sea cucumber trawling, was a practice that First Nations People living in Northern Australia used to collect sea cucumbers from the ocean shore, and trade them to countries north of Australia, including Indonesia. The process has many benefits to the local ocean ecosystem.
Further information Watch:
Learning more about traditional land management practices
Visit in person:
Moodji Farm in New South Wales is a hub for people to come together to develop climate resilience, engage in First Nations culture, and learn about sustainably growing food. The farm is managed in partnership with traditional owners, Bermagui preschool, and volunteers. More information available here: https://www.climatechange.environment.nsw.gov.au/stories-and-case-studies/climate-resilient-farming-indigenous-knowledge
The World Wide Fund for Nature – Australia (WWF) has funded the construction of an Indigenous Traditional Knowledge Agriculture Hub near Mallacoota, Victoria, in hopes of promoting a return to First Nations farming methods, like cultural burning. More information available here: https://wwf.org.au/news/2021/return-of-indigenous-farming-foods-fire-could-help-regenerate-australia/
Black Duck Foods is an Aboriginal organisation based in Victoria that promotes sustainable agriculture and the domestication and commercialisation of native food products. More information available here: https://www.blackduckfoods.com.au/about
Read about online:
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander language groups all around Australia have partnered with CSIRO to co-develop seasonal calendars which are enablers for sharing and learning about First Nations knowledge and land management. Many of these calendars have been published with permission and with certain conditions on their use. More information available here: https://www.csiro.au/en/research/indigenous-science/indigenous-knowledge/calendars
COSMOS Australian Bush Food Industry
Landcare Australia Cultural Land and Sea Management
Watch an Online Video
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