Buubaan Butherun
From flood story to Aboriginal-led, culturally informed river restoration
In 2022, Jagun Alliance's Executive Director Oli Costello wrote about the floods that reshaped Bundjalung Country. That story became part of the NSW State Government inquiry's recommendations, and it hasn't stopped there. Here's where it has led.
“The floods tell us the river is sick. We should listen to Indigenous knowledge to help Country heal.”
What happened to this story?
In February and March 2022, extreme rain and floods devastated Lismore and the Northern Rivers. In the weeks that followed, the NSW Government asked Oli Costello, a founding Director of Jagun Alliance, to contribute a piece on restoring the environment to its independent Flood Inquiry, led by Professor Mary O'Kane AC and Michael Fuller APM. His contribution became Buubaan Butherun: a personal account of the floods, paired with a series of recommendations grounded in Bundjalung cultural knowledge and land stewardship practice.
Buubaan Butherun was published in Volume Three of the Inquiry's final report, submitted to the NSW Premier on 29 July 2022. An article that summarises the submission reached a wider audience through The Guardian on 18 August 2022.
What does the submission say?
Buubaan Butherun draws on Bundjalung Lore to highlight how people, not the river, are both the problem and the solution, and that after a flood, Country needs healing, not just rebuilding. Oli calls for a First Nations-led cultural landscape restoration strategy for the Northern Rivers, a First Nations Natural Hazards Trust, stronger Indigenous voice in emergency and land use planning, and Jagun Alliance's own Healing our River Country proposal (now known as Heal the Rivers).
From story to recommendation
The Inquiry's final report describes how Oli's contribution presents “Indigenous culture as a keystone to maintaining livelihoods, supporting identity and connection to Country and enabling healthy and regenerative communities to care for Country.”
That contribution became one of the Inquiry's 28 recommendations. It called on Government to ensure Indigenous voices are well heard in land use planning and natural resource management, through:
An Indigenous-led cultural landscape restoration strategy for the Northern Rivers
Support for the Jagun Alliance “Healing our River Country for Community and Landscape Resilience” (now known as Heal the Rivers) proposal, the plan set out in Buubaan Butherun itself
A NSW Indigenous Natural Hazards Trust
Indigenous voices embedded in the NSW Reconstruction Authority's governance
What happened next?
The NSW Government supported Recommendation 27 in principle, committing to “work with First Nations communities to determine the best way to ensure Indigenous voices are embedded in land use planning.”
Read the NSW Government response here.
That commitment set the direction. What Buubaan Butherun asked for has taken different shapes since, some of it moving faster than others, and the next two projects are part of that unfolding story.
The story continues
Following Buubaan Butherun, two more projects have emerged.
Guung Butherun (Water Stories)
Completed in 2024, a cultural assessment of waterway recovery in the Richmond River catchment, delivered through a series of workshops with Bundjalung Elders and community under the NSW EPA's Flood Recovery Program.
Learn more about Guung Butherun here.
Heal the Rivers
The “Healing our River Country for Community and Landscape Resilience” proposal named in Recommendation 27 is now a three-year, Australian Government-funded project for Indigenous-led catchment restoration across the Brunswick, Tweed, Richmond and Clarence catchments.
“To restore the rivers, we need to start with the stories bringing knowledge holders together to share the knowledge of Country to identify important places and values of significance.
We need to start a journey and we need to keep walking, talking and flowing together.”