Plans are afoot to hold a cultural burn in Bermagui, possibly the first in the area for many, many years.
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The push to hold such a burn in the Salty Lagoon Reserve started when nearby resident Gary McCarthy began discussing the idea with members of the Yuin nation.
“We think cultural burning will help heal the land and promote new growth,” Mr McCarthy said.
He said from an environmental point of view it would assist regrowth in an area that was the habitat of endangered and vulnerable species such as the squirrel glider.
Merrimans Local Aboriginal Land Council (LALC) board member and traditional owner of the Djiringanj people Gary Campbell said before European colonisation cultural burns would have occurred in the winter, not summer to make sure the fires did not get out of control.
He said one thing to prepare for at the Salty Lagoon site was the abundance of fuel on the ground – twigs, leaves and bark – which would “form an oven”.
He said before colonisation there would not have been the dense fuel on the ground, because burns would have taken place regularly.
“The burn is just for regrowth, to bring the animals back,” Mr Campbell said.
“Everyone did it on their boundaries, different clans did their own burns.”
On Tuesday, a meeting was held at the site between the NSW Rural Fire Service, the Far South Coast Landcare Association, Merrimans LALC, Bega Valley Shire Council and the Salty Lagoon Nature Reserve Group to discuss plans for the burn.
District officer for the RFS Garry Cooper said his organisation supported Local Aboriginal Land Councils to undertake cultural burns by assisting with planning and resources.
He said cultural burns were undertaken at a site in small patches, for example 50m by 50m squares, in a mosaic pattern.
One patch of the site would be burnt one year, then the fire brigade and the LALC would return and do another patch the next year.
This gave animals time to leave patches during burnings and over the year the burnt patches would become revegetated so animals could move back in.
In a hazard reduction burn, Mr Cooper said, the whole site would be burnt at once.
A demonstration cultural burn was held at Wallagoot last year. Mr Cooper said in relation to hazard reduction, the style of burning did not achieve all their goals as it did not reduce fuel over a large area. But, he said the cultural burn did create a better environment with less surface fuels.
He estimated the first burn would be done at Salty Lagoon in mid to late autumn.