Victor Steffensen is an Indigenous writer, filmmaker, musician and consultant applying traditional knowledge values in a contemporary context, through workshops and artistic projects. He is a descendant of the Tagalaka people through his mother’s connections from the Gulf Country of north Queensland. Much of Victor's work over the past 30 years has been based on the arts and reviving traditional knowledge values – particularly traditional burning – through mentoring and leadership, as well as on-ground training with Aboriginal communities and many non-Indigenous Australians. He is also the co-founder of the National Indigenous Fire Workshops, which have so far been hosted in Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria. Victor has also connected with First Nations communities in California, Canada and the Sámi people of Scandinavia, sharing cultural knowledge practices related to caring for country.
Victor Steffensen has a strong love of country and an
important way of interpreting it that Australians need to know
about, now more than ever.
*Tim Low*
Fire is one of our major tools for cleaning country, not just for
walking through but also for the animals. Like this book, fire is a
communicator to let people know the right fire for the right place
and the right times of the year. Everyone should know about
Aboriginal fire knowledge, and keeping the land clean to protect
the environment and their homes.
*Uncle Russell Butler, Bandjin and Tagalaka Elder*
Fire Country is without a doubt the most important book I’ve worked
on in my twenty-five-year career as an editor. The knowledge it
contains is astounding – and urgently needed in today’s Australia:
the knowledge of how to heal the land with fire.
*Tricia Dearborn, editor and author of Autobiochemistry, The
Ringing World*
Given the current dire situation of Australia’s bushfires, it is
paramount that now, more than ever, the stories in Fire
Country are heard and enacted upon for the betterment of all
Australians, our wildlife and our sustainable ecosystems. Our
ancient ways must become our new ways.
*Nova Peris, Olympian, former federal senator, 1997 Young
Australian of The Year*
Fire Country is a book about spiritual awakenings and Victor has
captured this from his learnings from all of our Elders past and
present. Biri (fire) holds great spiritual meaning, with many
stories, memories and dance being passed down from countless biri
practitioners. To have clean water, you need a healthy landscape.
To have a healthy landscape, you need biri. In our ceremonies
we were taught that being a fireman is a position of great honour.
Non-Indigenous people have a fireman who puts the fires out —
whereas we light the fires. May the Eternal Flame burn forever with
Fire Country.
*Uncle (Dr) David Dahwurr Hudson, Ewamian and Westen Yalanji
Traditional Owner*
This important book is a story of determination and commitment to
restore the knowledge of cultural responsibilities and practices of
cultural fire in the Australian landscape. Victor Steffensen offers
understandings of Indigenous cultural practices, the relation of
people to country, the healing potential of cultural fire, and the
way the practices have grown over twenty years. This on-ground
Indigenous movement initiated by two Kuku-Thaypan Elders is
supported by a growing network of cultural fire practitioners
reclaiming their cultural rights, and is now garnering serious
recognition from scientists, agencies and land management
organisations. In Fire Story, Victor Steffensen demonstrates the
ecological and social benefits for all Australians when Indigenous
cultural knowledge through Indigenous leadership is given respect
and recognition in contemporary land management.
*Dr Jacqueline Gothe, Associate Professor, School of Design,
University of Technology Sydney*
Victor’s work and wisdom is the knowledge our land needs right now.
An important reminder of our responsibility to country and the need
to respect our Aboriginal knowledge systems, it is essential
reading for all Australians.
*Professor Larissa Behrendt, Jumbunna Institute, University of
Technology Sydney*
For anyone interested in understanding ancient Indigenous fire
knowledge as a transformative practice for survival. Fire Country
is the true voice of the land singing out for healing and action at
a moment when all life on this planet is under threat. A grassroots
visionary, Victor poetically leads with the ‘right fire’ story for
future generations – a profound journey of hope and wisdom for
all.
*Dr Jason De Santolo, Associate Professor, School of Design,
University of Technology Sydney*
This turns the conventional thinking upside down, a must-read for
all of those involved in land management.
*Barry J. Hunter, land management practitioner, Djabugay Aboriginal
Corporation*
In Fire Country, Victor Steffensen has written a detailed and
elegant account of Aboriginal traditional knowledge that he learnt
from the Elders in Cape York. The wisdom of the Elders shines on
every page. Of all the explanations of Aboriginal knowledge systems
as science, this is the one I would turn to. Victor has dedicated
his life to this task of understanding the knowledge of the Elders
and their land management practices. He has rescued a
treasure trove of ancient knowledge that would otherwise be
lost.This book is essential reading for Australians who care about
the future of our country. The catastrophic fires that destroyed
vast Australian ecosystems and more than a billion wild animals,
took human lives, properties and livelihoods in the summer of
2019–2 020 struck me as the tipping point in our postcolonial
history of destructive land management and environmental loss. Many
Indigenous people turned to our own knowledge of fire to understand
this conflagration, as we heard the news during these terrible
months. The fires occurred where Indigenous people had been
prevented from caring for country.Our knowledge about caring for
country has been developed by Aboriginal people over more than six
millennia, and managing fire with fire was a key strategy in a
toolkit of highly complex ecological strategies and profound
understanding of them. Even our best scientists acknowledge that we
must reinstate Aboriginal environmental knowledge and what was once
a continent-wide system of land management, using fire as a friend
not an enemy. Victor’s book will be a fundamental text for all of
us involved in trying to prevent such fire disasters in the
future.
*Professor Marcia Langton AM, Foundation Chair of Australian
Indigenous Studies, University of Melbourne, author of Welcome to
Country*
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