COMMUNITY X KYLIE
Kylie Kwong celebrates the individuals helping to grow a stronger community. This month we meet Oliver Costello, an expert in cultural fire management with a profound commitment to Country.
Oliver Costello.
I first came to know of Oliver Costello and his amazing work through Groundswell Giving. Oli knows that there is right fire, and there is wrong fire. Firesticks is his life’s work; bringing Indigenous knowledge back onto Country to heal our environment and its people. When Oli leads a burn with Firesticks, it’s about culture, connection and community. All are welcome. Knowing that knowledge holders like Oli are leading the way and shaping the national conversation about fire and land management fills me with hope for the future.
Fire is more than just an element to Oliver Costello, it’s a spiritual responsibility. The proud Bundjalung man has always felt deeply connected to his natural surroundings, spending his formative years exploring, hunting and fishing around his local Byron-Lismore area. It wasn’t until later on in life, however, that Costello was drawn to the practice of cultural fire management.
“After high school I ended up in the Blue Mountains,” says Costello. “That’s where I learned about these big landscape fires and how they were threatening communities, which was new to me because where I grew up we didn’t have fire like that. There was fire in the broader landscape but we were never threatened by fire,” he says. “I always had these aspirations for sustainability. I did handyman and
gardening work, but I was always thinking about sustainability and regeneration.”
Costello’s aspirations flourished after his mother Jenni married Billy Yalawanga, an Arnhem Land Elder with a wealth of cultural knowledge.
“He and mum really wanted me to help get the family back on Country, and I was really inspired by their vision,” says Costello.
After Yalawanga passed away in 2007, and his mother in 2009, Costello felt compelled to carry on their vision and commitment to looking after Country – moving to Sydney to study adult education and community management.
During his time at university, Costello completed the Centre for Sustainability Leadership fellowship program, inspiring him to form Firesticks, an alliance championing the conservation and revival of cultural fire practices.
In Costello’s words, cultural fire management is the practice of people using their own cultural value system to apply fire to Country, ultimately making it a safer and healthier place.
“Different Aboriginal groups have different relationships to Country,” says Costello. “There are seasonal abundances of resources and there are certain land management activities that need to be done,” he says. “In terms of fire management, it’s about burning the right way for Country so you’re protecting species and food resources. It’s about creating mosaics of different fire regimes that are reflective of the values of the landscape, making it a safe and abundant place for plants, animals and people.”
The practice of cultural fire management was thrown into the spotlight after the Black Summer bushfires last year, which burned more than
18.6 million hectares across Australia. “Because of the catastrophic fires, there are all these people asking questions about why it’s going so wrong.”
Costello is passionate about educating the public on the benefits of cultural fire management, including its capacity to reduce the risk and impact of bushfires.
“Fire as an element encourages innovation and can inspire deep connections between people and Country, as it has done in all human cultures since people learnt to gather around it to share food, light and warmth,” he explains.
“The more cultural fire management we can have in the landscape, the safer and healthier it will be. We need to start to better understand the positive and negative impacts of other fire regimes, like hazard reduction burning. The 2019-20 bushfires are evidence that agencies are not getting it right and I think cultural fire management can improve that.”
Moving forward, Costello says, there are two key challenges in applying cultural fire management to Country.
“Through colonisation there’s been a lot of exclusion of Aboriginal people and their practices, leading to mismanagement, so it will be a long journey to rebuild these cultural practices and prevent more damage. The other challenge is the increasing effects of climate change, so we’ve really got to learn to adapt with increasing change and I think cultural land management is our best chance of understanding how to get things right.”
“Fire as an element encourages innovation and can inspire deep connections between people and Country, as it has done in all human cultures since people learnt to gather around it.”