Larnook & the Boorabee songline
On Sunday we welcomed thirty local landholders, community members and mob to the Larnook Rural Fire Service shed for a day of conversation and connection around cultural fire and Indigenous land management. Larnook is situated in a culturally and ecologically interesting area. The boorabee (koala) songline follows the ridgeline and traditional grassy pathway of the MacKellar Range and reaches from Kyogle in the west all the way to Evans Head in the east. The Old People would follow that songline during certain times of year. At this time of the year it is Season of the Mullet where Bundjalung people would travel to the coast to gather to feast on the seasonal abundance and catch up with family.
Uncle AJ inspired us in his Welcome to Country about the large-scale impacts of colonisation on country and moved the audience with his positive vision for the future. This was followed by an introduction to the Connecting to Jagun project by Director Oli Costello. Throughout the day we also hosted some guest presentations from Dr Andy Baker at Southern Cross University and Max Watt from Goanna Bush Regeneration
We can tell its the season of the mullet by certain indicators in the landscape: the spectacular flowering of the broad leaved paperbark (Melaleuca quinquenervia) in coastal areas and the arrival of the Yellow-faced honey eater (Caligavis chrysops) and other nectar feeding birds from other areas to feast on the flowers. Up in the hills near Larnook its the flowering of the forest oak (Allocasuarina torulosa) that signals the change in this season. You find the forest oak up on the ridges and steep country in the open grassy forest that needs cultural fire to stay open and grassy. It’s also the favourite food tree for the threatened Glossy Black Cockatoo (Calyptorychus lathami) seen in the area.
The surrounding landscape holds a variety of vegetation including dry sclerophyll forest, wet sclerophyll forest and rainforest ecosystems. There are certain types of both wet & dry sclerophyll that have evolved to cultural burning over time to keep them open and thriving. Wet sclerohphyll country dominated by tallowwoods and she-oaks combined with a grassy understorey was frequently burned to keep the forest open and cultural pathways clear – if you exclude fire for too long, which has occurred during the process of colonisation, it can transform open forest in to a closed canopy forest with rainforest midstorey which blocks the sunlight and shades out the native grasses and diversity of the forest floor. Cultural burning and traditional grassy pathways kept the forest canopy open with sunlight to support the diversity of the grasses and native plants on the ground layer which are now threatened across the region from a combination of fire exclusion in some areas and severe bushfires in others.
At our Larnook workshop, Dr Andy Baker from Southern Cross University also touched on the ecological values of these fire tolerant systems. He reminded those present that due to fire regimes being disrupted we’re losing open forest Country from an absence of appropriate land management. Max Watt from Goanna Bush Regeneration added to this idea, noting that integrating bush regeneration in combination with cultural burning can achieve better outcomes for the landscape and build resilience back into Country.
Through conversation, connection and custodianship Jagun Alliance hopes to educate and assist landholders in returning good fire to their properties and regenerate landscapes that have suffered from a colonial legacy of neglect.