Ngalan Bitja rangers conduct a briefing prior to undertaking a cultural burn.
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The Warby Range Landcare Group and Bangerang Aboriginal Corporation have received a special award.
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Members got the good news in July at the State and Territory Landcare Awards at Marvel Stadium, as it took out the Landcare Australia First Nations Landcare Collaboration Award for Victoria.
At the opening ceremony, Minister for Environment Steve Dimopoulos made specific mention of a Traditional Owner group that had been working with a Landcare group for 30 years, referring to the two parties mentioned above.
Warby Range Landcare Group has had a long-term working relationship with the Bangerang Aboriginal Corporation for more than 30 years.
WRLG operates in an area surrounding the Warby Ranges and includes parts of the Goulburn Broken and the North-East Catchment Management Authority. It has 85 members.
Both groups have been working together and are committed to a continuing relationship, as referenced by the signing of a memorandum of understanding in 2023, which stated both aim to continue to work together on matters of common interest.
Activities undertaken by Bangerang community members have included:
Hands-on activities such as revegetation;
Supplying traditionally prepared bush tucker for community field days;
Conducting group and individual cultural education programs on public and private land; and
Identifying plants used in traditional medicine and presenting cultural education programs in local schools and farming communities.
The Bangerang has also assisted WRLG in the planning of projects by conducting site assessments for cultural values and developing projects to incorporate the protection of any existing relics or artefacts.
It must be emphasised that most of the works carried out by the Bangerang community has been voluntary without fiscal recompense from WRLG, government organisations or individual landholders.
The Bangerang community was the inaugural Victorian Indigenous Landcare Award winner, having been nominated by WRLG for its voluntary support which has assisted enormously in the promotion of cultural values to the wider north-east landcare and farming communities.
Impacts achieved through the various and diverse programs conducted in partnership between WRLG and the Bangerang community have included the increase in cultural awareness and knowledge by group landholders.
This has flowed further to other organisations within the district and beyond, together with the subsequent gaining of respect for cultural values by this increased awareness of their significance in both traditional and contemporary management practice.
Warby Ranges Landcare Group president Pat Larkin, Bangarang Aboriginal Corporation's Aunty Esme Bamblett and Warby Ranges Landcare Group vice president Ken Gaudion.
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Non-Indigenous program participants have had an opportunity to learn more about Bangerang land and water management methods practised for millennia before recorded history, as handed down by oral tradition.
The north-east Council of the Victorian Farmers Federation entered into a formal agreement to work with Bangerang assisted by WRLG, Ovens Landcare Network and Gecko Clan in 2006.
The agreement resulted in further voluntary cultural inspections carried out on private properties and several sites rich in relics identified and recorded.
The Bangerang community has been extremely generous in voluntarily donating time, particularly through the network of elders, to educate the wider community in traditional lore and cultural history.
Sites of sacred or significant cultural belief, not necessarily rich in identifiable relics but rather traditional lore, have been identified with the relevance explained.
The Bangerang Aboriginal Corporation continues to operate in community partnerships and assisting individual private landholders on a purely voluntary basis.
This has further strengthened their credibility with most non-government organisations and allowed them to further widen their network and develop new partnerships.
There is a current project part funded by a Glenrowan Solar Farm community grant for a water restoration project that includes fencing of an ephemeral wetland area.
It also includes cultural burning by Bangerang’s Ngalan Bitja (Our Fire) Ranger team, which includes introducing Bangerang youth to the long-held practice of cultural burning by Bangerang elders.
The involvement of Uncle Darren ‘Dozer’ Atkinson and his daughter Jiarra on the committee of WRLG further cements the positive ongoing relationship with the Bangerang people.
WRLG and BAC are very proud of their partnership and history of working together on land and water projects.
WRLG and BAC have been walking side by side to care for country for three decades — a truly unique partnership.
A spokesperson for both groups stated that the award belongs to those who have forged and maintained the partnership over many years, including the Bangerang People and Landcare members who are no longer with us.
It was also said that “by working together, we can achieve better outcomes”.
