Caring for Country Starts with Listening

Before the first seed goes in the ground, before volunteers gather at the edge of a paddock, before we talk about what a healthy landscape looks like, there’s a conversation that has to happen first. And it starts with listening.

This is the foundation of our partnership with Kaurna Kardla on Kaurna Yarta, the Country of the Kaurna Miyurna — the original people of Adelaide and the Adelaide Plains.

For over 60,000 years, Kaurna Miyurna read this Country. They understood its seasonal rhythms, the way water moved through its creek beds and coastal plains, the moment when conditions were right to burn and when they were not. That knowledge did not disappear. But for generations, it was not being applied to the land.

Restoring that connection is not something that begins with an action plan. It begins with sitting down, paying attention, and learning how to listen.

The Knowledge is in the Landscape

Kaurna custodians have long held a sophisticated understanding of this Country, a knowledge system that is living, relational, and fundamentally ecological. Their practice of kardla purtulto purunna (fire stick farming) combined deep knowledge of seasonal systems, wind patterns, the life cycles of animals and plants, and the behaviour of water in the landscape.

Decisions about when to burn, where to burn, and how to burn were guided by what the Country was telling them. The land itself was, and still is, a teacher.

“The knowledge is in the landscape. The Elders have not passed. The land is an Elder too.”

Victor Steffensen, Tagalaka man and Firesticks Co-founder

Reading Country: What Kaurna Knowledge Tells Us About When, Where and How

Seasonal and ecological indicators for Cultural Burning on Kaurna Yarta

On Kaurna Yarta (Country across the Adelaide Plains and surrounding regions), cultural burning is guided through a holistic understanding of Country and its seasonal rhythms rather than fixed schedules.

Decisions around burning are informed by the condition and health of the landscape, including plants, animals, soils, and water systems, with careful attention to how ecosystems are responding at a given time.

This approach reflects a broader and wholistic cultural practice of working with Yarta in a way that supports regeneration, protects biodiversity, and maintains ecological balance. Burning is therefore undertaken when conditions are considered appropriate for sustaining the long-term health and resilience of the environment.

How Kaurna practitioners “read” the land before burning

Reading the land within cultural burning practices involves understanding Yarta as an interconnected system, where decisions are shaped by long-term observation, experience, and cultural knowledge.

Practitioners consider the overall health and condition of the landscape, including vegetation, waterways, landforms, and the broader ecological balance, to determine how fire may support regeneration and care for Yarta.

This knowledge is grounded in teachings passed through generations and reflects a place-based approach to land management. Cultural authority and ecological understanding guide where and how fire is used, recognising that some areas require protection or different forms of care due to their environmental or cultural significance.

What healthy Kaurna Country looks like

Healthy Kaurna Yarta is often described as open, diverse, and balanced. Native grasses, herbs, and shrubs coexist in a mosaic pattern rather than forming dense, uniform stands. There is space to move through the landscape, and a visible layering of plant life supports different species.

Biodiversity is a key indicator, birds, insects, reptiles, and mammals are present and active. Soil is stable and rich, not compacted or eroded, and waterways are functioning with good flow and vegetation along their edges.

Cultural Fire aims to restore and maintain this condition.

Culturally significant sites, species, and landscape features

On Kaurna Yarta, certain sites carry deep cultural meaning and are treated with care. These can include ceremonial places, burial sites, scar trees, and areas associated with Dreaming stories.

Such places may be excluded from burning or managed in very specific ways.

What it means to “listen to Country” in a Kaurna context

Listening to Country is both practical and deeply cultural. It means observing with patience, watching seasonal shifts, noticing subtle changes in plant and animal life, and responding rather than imposing.

It also involves respecting knowledge held by Elders and community, and understanding that Country communicates through patterns, cycles, and relationships. Fire is not used as a blunt tool but as part of an ongoing relationship with the land.

Listening means knowing when not to burn as much as when to burn. It reflects a responsibility to care for Country in a way that sustains its health, honours its cultural significance, and ensures its vitality for future generations.

Bringing Practices Back to Ground

In May 2021, a Cultural Burn took place in the Adelaide Park Lands. It was the first on Kaurna Yarta since colonisation. Carried out in partnership with the City of Adelaide, Green Adelaide, and the Kaurna community under the name Kaurna Kardla Parranthi, it was a landmark moment ecologically, and culturally.

Kaurna Kardla grew from Kaurna community leadership and a long-standing commitment to caring for Kaurna Country through Cultural Fire. Since 2019, Kaurna practitioners have strengthened Cultural Fire practice through workshops and on-Country work led by Kaurna authority, supported by Firesticks. Over time, this support helped build skills, systems, partnerships, and confidence, enabling the Kaurna Fire Team to expand its workforce, deliver Cultural Fire programs, and ultimately establish Kaurna Kardla Ltd as an autonomous Kaurna-led organisation in 2026. Today, Kaurna Kardla continues this work independently, grounded in Country, culture, and Kaurna decision-making.

This is what our partnership with Kaurna Kardla is built on. We’re working with these communities, following the lead of knowledge holders, supporting what they know needs to happen, and being patient enough to let that process take the time it requires.

Workshops, Volunteers, and the Work of Partnership

For more than a decade, Firesticks has walked alongside communities to revitalise Cultural Fire practice and strengthen the knowledge systems that sustain healthy Country and resilient futures. Since 2020, Firesticks has facilitated more than 300 Indigenous Land Management workshops across Australia, supported over 750 Indigenous community members to learn Traditional Land Management practices, and built partnerships with more than 20 councils, ranger groups, land councils, and industry bodies.

The workshops are where knowledge meets practice. Where Elders and young people stand on the same ground together. Where volunteers (Indigenous and non-Indigenous) learn not just a technique, but a way of seeing Country. As Kaurna Ngarrindjeri Cultural Bearer Allan Sumner has said of the fire and smoke that connects Kaurna people back to Country: it’s not just ecological. It activates something in people.

Our volunteers play a real role in this work. But their role is shaped by what knowledge holders determine is appropriate, not the other way around. Before a volunteer holds a tool or sets foot on site, introductions are made, context is given, and the cultural authority guiding the day is established. This is not bureaucracy. It is respect.

Indigenous Communities Speaking to Each Other

One of the most important, and least visible parts of this work is what happens between Indigenous communities themselves.

Firesticks have facilitated international knowledge exchanges and national gatherings that bring Indigenous practitioners together to share methods, observations, and understanding across cultural boundaries. These are practitioner-to-practitioner conversations, on their terms, about what their Country needs.

“This program brought us together as a community to work together. We’re not just caring for Country, but caring for each other.”

Brad Moore, Senior Land Services Officer, Greater Sydney Local Land Services

When communities share knowledge across regions and nations, practices that may have been suppressed or lost in one place can be rekindled through the experience of another. This is cultural continuity as a living, networked process, not a single, isolated act of revival.

Listening → Understanding → Trusting

There is a pattern that shows up consistently in genuine partnerships between Indigenous communities and non-Indigenous organisations. And it doesn’t begin with activity. It begins with listening.

Listening means creating space, not just time on the calendar, but genuine willingness to receive knowledge that may challenge assumptions about how land should be managed, what results should look like, and who gets to determine what “healthy Country” means.

Dadirri is an Indigenous concept, rooted in Ngangiwumirr culture and described by Miriam Rose Ungunmerr as an inner, deep listening, a quiet stillness that is the precondition for real relationship. Elder and academic Judy Atkinson connects it directly to trust:

“We first need to listen quietly, in order to gain trust and respect. I will listen to you, share with you, as you listen to, share with me.”

Judy Atkinson, Aboriginal Elder and academic

This sequencing matters. Understanding doesn’t happen because information was transferred. It happens because a relationship was built patiently enough that knowledge could be shared safely. And trust — real, durable trust — is what grows from that understanding. Not from a signed partnership agreement. Not from a single workshop day. From time, from showing up, from following through, and from accepting that the pace of this work is set by the community, not the project timeline.

This is a long way from how much of conservation has historically operated. And it is exactly where FNPW is committed to doing things differently.

What Listening Has Made Possible on Kaurna Yarta

• A specific moment or observation from a burn or workshop that illustrated the power of following Country’s lead

There was a moment in the afternoon during one of our burns where I was sitting on the hillside with our team and stakeholders while we waited for the burns to settle. In this quiet moment, the conversation shifted towards a topic of immense importance: men’s mental health.

It was profound to witness how the act of coming together on Country, engaging in cultural practices, and sharing our experiences not only provided an environment of support and understanding but also highlighted the healing power of connection to land and community.

As a Kaurna woman, as a daughter, sister, aunt and friend I listened quietly and was deeply proud. In that moment, Country held us, and in being held, people felt free to share.

It was a powerful reminder that cultural practice is never just about land management. The act of caring for Country calls something out of us. It reconnects us to each other, to our responsibilities, and to ourselves.

When we tend to Country, Country tends to us in return and by healing Country, we heal ourselves and the relationships that hold our communities together.

Written by Michele Simpson. Kaurna woman

• How the relationship between Kaurna practitioners and non-Aboriginal partners has changed the quality of the work over time

Over time, the relationship between Kaurna practitioners and non-Aboriginal partners has strengthened through greater trust, respect, and recognition of Kaurna cultural authority on Country. As partnerships have evolved, there has been a growing understanding that cultural burning is not only a land management practice, but also a cultural responsibility connected to identity, knowledge, and ongoing care for Country.

This shift has improved the quality of the work by creating more collaborative and culturally informed approaches. Non-Aboriginal partners have increasingly recognised the importance of listening to and learning from Kaurna Elders and knowledge holders, allowing projects to be guided and led by local cultural values alongside ecological objectives.

As relationships deepen, there is often greater space for shared learning, long-term planning, and mutual accountability. This has supported stronger outcomes for Country, while also contributing to cultural renewal, knowledge sharing, and the rebuilding of practices that were historically disrupted through colonisation.

• What becomes possible when volunteers and land managers genuinely listen, rather than arrive with pre-set expectations

When volunteers and land managers approach Country with openness and a willingness to genuinely listen, different kinds of relationships and outcomes become possible. Listening creates space for Kaurna cultural knowledge, lived experience, and deep connections to Country to guide the work, rather than being treated as secondary to external systems.

This approach encourages collaboration built on respect, reciprocity, and shared responsibility for caring for Country. Instead of imposing predetermined ideas, people become more attentive to what the landscape, community, and cultural knowledge holders are communicating about what is needed in a particular place.

Through this process, partnerships can move beyond transactional engagement toward more meaningful and culturally safe ways of working together. It allows for stronger trust, deeper learning, and more responsive land management practices that recognise Country as living, interconnected, and deserving of care grounded in relationship rather than control.

• Anything Kaurna knowledge holders want to say directly about what listening means in this context

Listening requires a willingness to slow down and learn without assuming authority or immediate understanding. It involves creating space for Kaurna voices to lead conversations about Country and acknowledging that meaningful collaboration comes from trust built over time, not from predetermined outcomes.

Importantly, listening is reflected through actions as much as words. It is demonstrated when people remain open to changing their approaches, respecting cultural protocols, and supporting ways of caring for Country that are guided by Kaurna knowledge, values and ongoing connection to place.

The Land Does Not Wait, But It Does Reward Patience

Allan Sumner, Kaurna Ngarrindjeri Cultural Bearer, said of the first Cultural Burn in Adelaide’s Park Lands: “It’ll awaken those seeds that have been lying in the ground for many years.”

That word: awaken, is the right one. The seeds have been there. The knowledge has been there. The Country has not forgotten what it needs. What has been absent is the practice, and the conditions — cultural, relational, political — that allow that practice to return.

Those conditions are not created quickly. But when they are, when the right listening has happened, when trust has been built between people and between people and Country, the land responds.

This is what FNPW is supporting on Kaurna Yarta, alongside Firesticks and the Kaurna community. Not a program with a fixed endpoint, but a relationship with a long horizon.

We acknowledge the support of Firesticks, who provided wraparound assistance over three years to support Kaurna leadership in reclaiming and strengthening Cultural Fire practice, and in building organisational, enterprise, and governance capability toward autonomy. Today, Kaurna Kardla Ltd stands as an autonomous, Kaurna-led organisation.

FNPW is proud to support Firesticks and the Kaurna community in their work to restore Cultural Fire and land management practices on Kaurna Yarta.