Hunter Valley Operations (HVO) has completed its first ever cultural cool burn, connecting the local Aboriginal community with their land, and rejuvenating the natural environment.  

HVO enlisted the help of the Wonnarua Mine Rehabilitation Services and the Bindelong Corporation to carry out a 2 hectare burn of a significant cultural heritage site. The site, the Carrington Mine – Colluvial Deposit 1 (CM-CD1) is a site of high archaeological and cultural significance.

HVO manages it in consultation with its Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Working Group and associated Registered Aboriginal Parties. Recent studies have confirmed it contains one of only a few deposits relating to the early Holocene and late Pleistocene periods, which was 10,000 – 12,000 years ago.

Laurie Perry, CEO of the Wonnarua Nation Aboriginal Corporation said Aboriginal people have been doing cultural cool burns for thousands of years.

“It’s so good for the environment, the animals have been crying out for it.

“For thousands of years Aboriginal people have been doing cultural cool burns based around those cooler months. It gets rid of all the leaves on the ground and the fire doesn’t go any higher than a metre up the tree.”

The cultural cool burn was contracted out to the Bindelong Corporation. One of the Directors Allan Williams conducted the burn and said it’s something they want to do more and more of.

“We started the Bindelong Corporation to support Aboriginal communities getting back to their country. We subcontract to Laurie; we want to get his team to a point where they can do the burns themselves.

“It’s all about reconnecting to country, culture and community and giving communities an ongoing connection to country.”

Allan, Laurie and their teams went out to HVO in September to conduct the burn, which is the first of more to come in the new year.  

“We’re calling them reset burns, because country is so sick we’re resetting country back to what its meant to be and then the following year is more of a cultural burn. We are trying to remove all the weeds and pests so country can rejuvenate,” Allan explained.

“What I found in this burn was that the weed burnt really well and it uncovered the seed bank, we could see a lot more artefacts too. Next year when we go up to burn it’ll open up a lot more and hopefully over the next two to three years we will get rid of the weeds altogether.

“For us, it is giving the Aboriginal community a sense of ownership and identity because in Singleton, Newcastle and the bigger cities, a lot of Aboriginal people don’t have that continued connection to country or they have displacement from country, so the cultural burning gives that sense of ownership and identity.”

Laurie said he would love to see all mining companies jumping on board to conduct cultural cool burns at their sites, and further than that anywhere there’s conservation land.

“It’s just a matter of getting the mining industry to understand what cultural cool burning is about and how we can manage conservation areas better.

“I’d really love to get on top of the cultural cool burns in all the conservation areas and then start producing native grass seeds for collection so we can start making bush tucker. If we can manage it properly in the future, we’ll be able to.”

HVO Environment and Community Manager Andrew Speechly said the burn was a success.

“The burn is more culturally appropriate and effective than clearing with hand tools,” he said.

“We will be planning more cultural burns in the future.

“Using cultural burns is another way for HVO to respect Aboriginal cultural heritage and to avoid or minimise any impacts on that heritage.”