Bunya People’s Aboriginal Corporation and Burnett Mary Regional Group – QLD

The Bunya Mountains – some 70km north of Toowoomba in Queensland – had historically been the site of Aboriginal gatherings, which unfortunately declined in the 1870s. This led to a decline in the extent and health of the grassland balds and the open Eucalypt forests with grassy understoreys. For this reason, fire management in the Bunya Mountains

has become a highly significant issue for both cultural and ecological reasons. To address this, the Bunya Mountains Murri Rangers have been restoring the grassland habitats through a combination of contemporary management methods and traditional fire management methods. The damage to the grassland habitats has been significant following the time when Aboriginal people were managing country, so the manual removal of woody weeds has been an essential step before being able to implement on-going management through traditional fire practices.